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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 2005)
IN BRIEF House Majority Leader indicted for conspiracy WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was in dicted Wednesday by a Texas grand jury on a charge of conspiring to vi olate political fundraising laws, making him the highest-ranking member of Congress ever to face criminal indictment and forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. DeLay said he had done nothing wrong and denounced the Democ ratic prosecutor who pursued the case as a “partisan fanatic.” He said, “This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in Ameri can history. It’s a sham.” Nonetheless, DeLay’s temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Repub licans’ most visible leaders rever berated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already strug gling with ethics questions sur rounding its Senate leader. Republicans quickly moved to fill the void, while voicing polite sup port for DeLay. Speaker Dennis Hastert named Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt to take over most of DeLay’s leadership duties. FEMA doses relief center in Houston, Tex., early HOUSTON — Saying they were caught off-guard by the number of people in need, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials closed a relief center early on Wednesday after some of the hun dreds of hurricane victims in line began fainting from triple-digit heat. The midday closing of the Hous ton disaster relief center came as of ficials in areas hit hardest by Hurri cane Rita criticized FEMA’s response to the storm, with one calling for a commission to examine the emergency response. Across southeastern Texas, FEMA delivered ice, water and packaged meals to residents who rode out last week’s hurricane, which blew ashore at Sabine Pass in East Texas early Saturday. But the agency was not ready for the roughly 1,500 people displaced by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina who sought help at the Houston center when it reopened Wednesday. The center, offering help from a variety government and private or ganizations, initially opened for Ka trina refugees. It closed last week when Houston was evacuated before Rita. Military calls woman suidde bomber new tactic BAGHDAD, Iraq — A woman dis guised in a man’s robes and head dress slipped into a line of army re cruits Wednesday and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 — the first known sui cide attack by a woman in Iraq’s insurgency. The attack in Tal Afar near the Syrian border appeared to be aimed at showing that militants could still strike in a town where U.S. and Iraqi offensives drove out insurgents only two weeks ago. A female sui cide bomber may have been chosen because she could get through checkpoints — at which women are rarely searched — then don her dis guise to join the line of men, Iraqi officials said. Iraq’s most notorious insurgent group, al-Qaida , claimed responsi bility for the attack in an Internet statement, saying it was carried out by a “blessed sister. ” The bombing came a day after U.S. and Iraqi officials announced their forces killed the second-in command of al-Qaida in Iraq, Ab dullah Abu Azzam, in a raid in Baghdad over the weekend. His death has not slowed insurgent vio lence, with at least 84 people — in cluding seven U.S. service members — killed in attacks since Sunday. Doctors develop safer transplants to fight cancer Doctors seem to have found a way to make bone marrow transplants safer and more effective against blood cancers like leukemia, an achievement that offers new hope for people over 50 in particular. The advance by Stanford Univer sity doctors could make such trans plants, which have dramatically im proved cancer survival among children and young adults, more widely available to older people who typically don’t fare as well. It also brings the field closer to its Holy Grail — training a recipient’s body to accept tissue from another person and live a “blended” life without heavy reliance on anti rejection drugs. Scientists already had achieved this in mice; Stanford researchers now have extended it to people. Their study is published in Thurs day’s New England Journal of Medi cine and was funded by the Nation al Institutes of Health. Specialists said the study was small and preliminary, but very promising. Overdue credit charges soar to record highs WASHINGTON, D.C. — Surging energy prices, low personal savings and the higher cost of borrowing have combined to produce a record level of overdue credit card bills. The American Bankers Associa tion reported Wednesday that the percentage of credit card accounts 30 or more days past due climbed to an all-time high of 4.81 percent in the April-to-June period. It could grow in the months ahead, experts said. The previous high of 4.76 percent came during the first three months of the year, in keeping with a gener ally steady rise over the past several years. “The last two quarters have not been pretty,” said Jim Chessen, the association’s chief economist. Chessen and other analysts most ly blamed high prices for gasoline and other energy products, but said that low savings and higher borrow ing costs also played a role. Schwarzenegger vetoes California gay marriage bill SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger followed through Thursday on his promise to veto a bill to legalize same-sex mar riage in California, saying the issue should be decided by voters or the courts. “This bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue,” the Republican governor said in a veto message. Schwarzenegger had announced his intention on Sept. 7, a day after the Legislature became the first in the country to approve a bill allowing gays and lesbians to wed. Schwarzenegger said the bill by De mocrat Mark Leno, an openly gay as semblyman from San Francisco, con tradicted Proposition 22, which was approved by voters in 2000 and said only marriages between a man and woman are valid. While a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that the ban is un constitutional, Schwarzenegger noted that the case is before a state appeals court and will likely be decided by the California Supreme Court. “If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary,” he said. “If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective. ” He said the state constitution bars the Legislature from enacting a law al lowing gay marriage without another vote by the citizenry. Eddie Gutierrez, a spokesman for Equality California, a gay rights group that supported the bill, said Schwarzenegger had delayed the day when gay marriage is legal. “We are extremely disappointed with the governor’s decision,” he said. “By denying us marriage equality, he has turned a back to our community. ” FEMA's Brown was warned about supply problems WASHINGTON D.C. — Former FEMA director Michael Brown was warned weeks before Hurricane Ka trina hit that his agency’s back logged computer systems could de lay supplies and put personnel at risk during an emergency, according to an audit released Wednesday. An internal review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s information-sharing system shows it was overwhelmed during the 2004 hurricane season. The audit was released a day after Brown ve hemently defended FEMA for the government’s dismal response to Katrina, instead blaming state and local officials for poor planning and chaos during the Aug. 29 storm and subsequent flooding. The review by Homeland Security Department Acting Inspector Gen. Richard L. Skinner examined FEMA’s response to four major hurricanes and a tropical storm that hit Florida and the Gulf Coast in August and September 2004. It noted FEMA’s mission during disasters as rapid response and coordi nating efforts among federal, state and local authorities. —The Associated Press i § # # l wmmM* mm m this word is way overpriced tm Wm If you didn’t buy your textbooks at Half.com, you paid too much. Half.com has all the textbooks you need like chemistry, astronomy and history for a lot less. FOR A LIMITED TIME, SAVE AN ADDITIONAL $5 ON PURCHASES OF $50 OR MORE. 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