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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 1981)
-^National THE BATTALION Page 13 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1981 Newsprint costs to press newspapers financially United Press International NEW YORK — Many American news papers, already worried over circulation and advertising prospects in the face of a deepening economic recession, are also bracing for yet another price increase in the cost of newsprint. The shockwave hit the publishing indus try last week when Montreal-based Con- solidated-Bathurst Inc., a major newsprint supplier, announced it will raise newsprint prices by 8 percent, or $40 a metric ton, effective March 1. The increase will bring the cost of its newsprint to $540 a metric ton. A metric ton is 2,204.6 pounds. No other major producers in Canada — which supplies 60 percent of U.S. news print needs — followed immediately, but many were said to be studying Consoli dated’s move. The price increase surprised industry analysts who didn’t expect a hike this soon. They also were expecting a more moderate increase than that Consolidated announced, especially in view of the fact that economic conditions have tempered newsprint demand. "It’s an unwelcome development when there’s a question mark about advertising, ” said Ken Noble, an analyst at Paine Web ber, Mitchell Hutchins Inc. He said the increase comes at a time when newspapers are facing a weakening economy. Although circulation and adver tising lineage generally are up modestly so far this year — with the notable exception of the depressed sections of the Midwest— Noble said there are signs of advertising weakening as the recession deepens. The latest price increase would repre sent a 44 percent boost in the cost of news print since late 1979 when it rose from $375 a metric ton to $440. In late 1980, another round of increases pushed the price to $470. This past summer, a 6.3 percent in crease pushed the price to $500 a metric ton. The 44 percent price increase would far outpace the 22.5 percent rise over the past two years in the producer price index and many other commodities. Lumber prices, for example, have fallen in the face of de pressed homebuilding activity. Consolidated-Bathurst cited higher costs for energy, labor, transportation and wood as the reason for its latest price hike. Although lumber prices have been de pressed, analyst Noble noted that news print mills often use economical “residue chips” — which are basically the scraps left from timber cut for homebuilding. “Timber prices may be down,” Noble said, “but residue chips move inversely in price to the level of homebuilding. ” Noble said publishers have nevertheless been muttering about the newsprint price inreases and bitterly describing the Cana dian suppliers as the “OPEC of the North. ” Newsprint costs can represent more than one-third of a newspaper’s total operating costs. Analysts suggest the tight supplies in re cent years have made price increases easier to pass along. In addition. Noble said, the Canadian suppliers have been “benefiting from unspecified price increases” because of the U.S. dollar’s strength compared with Canada’s. Within the past month, three major western Canadian newsprint producers — MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., British Columbia Forest Products Ltd., and Crown Zeller- bach Ltd. — announced an 8 percent price increase for some Canadian customers, re portedly for foreign exchange reasons. The increase did not apply to U.S. customers. Essays made punishment for trespassing students United Press International EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — Four college students may have thought when they graduated from high school their days of writ ing 500-word essays as punish ment were over. But they learned otherwise when a Municipal Court judge ordered 500-word essays as a re sult of the four trespassing at their old high school. The four students, home from college for a weekend earlier this month, were charged with tres passing after a janitor found them reminiscing — at 3 a.m. — in the auditorium of Shaw High School. The students, Vicki Lee War ren, Salena Butler, Walter Harriel and Alfred Head, had been mem bers of the high school stage crew. They said they went to a football game Nov. 6 and then decided to talk over old times. The four, all 18 and 1981 gradu ates, appeared Thursday before Judge James M. DeVinne, who fined them $25 each and then im posed the additional penalty. “Well, what do you think I should do with these kids, spank them and send them home?” De Vinne asked Head’s mother, who accompanied them to court. Instead, he ordered the writing assignment. “Now hear me very carefully,” the judge said. “You will submit to the court next Friday, the day af ter Thanksgiving, a 500-word essay on the importance of educa tion because it is important.” Businessman arrested in poisoning deaths in Antonio has largest colony Center breeds baboons into bv Rose ft th TCU, A&Mfool reveport 12. its 1 €1 one of the lations pn 1, urged caul onditions ing icn and hying for y United Press International IAN ANTONIO — A wide- d baboon nonchalantly puffs I acigarette, and another calmly ™ cks its own blood pressure ler the careful scrutiny of a up of white-smocked humans. A few yards away, hundreds re baboons cavort in a giant eding corral, and in yet ther comer of the compound, more screeching baboons eg from the bars and rattle ir tall outdoor cages. There are no smiling children oss peanuts to the 2,700 ba ns housed just a few feet from a y northwest San Antonio free- Their home is not a zoo or a ac|j!us, but one of the biggest bio research centers in the iical ait ntry. •eed, se is replaci cal tactics. assoi tdams’ yer, an •ongressmaii to Congres: tors and repi link they o® mbers seni erefore ; stasdepem ither people id the imp® ound to decl another and itrategy is (who) will ws in noun® ngressman. He thi#he animals are the products of world’s largest breeding col- for research baboons — the lyiftheyart thwest Foundation for Re- ch and Education, hey have been taught their Its” — smoking cigarettes, rting their blood pressure — as part of scientists’ efforts to find cures for deadly afflictions like cancer, heart disease and high blood pressure. “Baboons have been used in a fairly wide variety of biomedical research for a very long time, ” said Dr. William Goodwin, director of laboratory animal medicine at the foundation. “They’re a medium sized primate that can be main tained very easily in captivity. They’re tough, and they’re very close to man. “But like other primates, they have become very hard to obtain from native habitats.” When Kenya, the prime source of research primates for years, banned the exportation of baboons last July, the foundation already had anticipated the prohibition and had its breeding program well under way. “In 1979, we built this facility with the idea of producing ba boons for the entire biomedical re search community of the United States,” Goodwin said. In addition to the 2,700 ba boons, the foundation’s menager ie of research animals includes 2,500 rats, 1,600 mice, 425 hams ters, 160 marmosets, 150 chim panzees and 120 opossums. A sprinkling of various other monk eys, guinea pigs, rabbits and chickens also are included. The focal point of the baboon breeding colony is a six-acre, 12- sided corral with an inwardly- slanting, 12-foot high metal fence. There, some 290 adult females and 40 adult males produce 350 young baboons a year. The young primates remain in the corral until they are about 18 months old. Then, they are moved to the large zoo-like outdoor cages where they await shipment to laboratories in all comers of the country. The research foundation itself is one of the breeding colony’s big gest customers. Dr. Henry McGill Jr., the foundation’s scien tific director, said the animals have been invaluable in his re search into atherosclerosis (har dening of the arteries). “It’s a disease that’s responsible for half of all deaths in the United States today,” McGill said. “We’re using the baboon as an ex perimental animal model to study some of the controversial aspects of nutrition and the disease. ” He said baboons have been par ticularly effective in studying the relationship between heart dis ease and cholesterol — “Why Un cle Joe can eat a dozen eggs a day for life and never get a heart attack and why someone else eats one egg a day and dies in his 30s of a massive heart attack,” the scien tist said. Behavioral anthropologists ex amine groups of baboons to see if their behavior can be linked to heart disease. Other experimenters have taught baboons to smoke cigaret tes in studies of lung cancer and heart ailments. Research into genetics, prema ture births, respiratory illness and dozens of other biomedical studies are being done on baboons breeded at the foundation. United Press International MCHENRY, Ill. — Investiga tors say they arrested a prominent businessman in the poisoning deaths of three relatives — includ ing his father — because they feared for the lives of the suspect’s third wife and her mother. Authorities said they arrested Charles Albanese Wednesday, hours before he, his third wife and her mother left for a Jamaican vacation rather than risk losing one or both of the women after they got to the Caribbean. “We Certainly would have had egg on our face if one of them had died,” an investigator said. Linking Albanese to an Elkhorn, Wis., metal finishing firm that uses arsenic broke the seven-month investigation by Lake and McHenry County offi cials, authorities said. Albanese, 44, is charged with the arsenic deaths of his father, Michael Albanese, who died May 16, and his wife’s mother and grandmother, Marion Mueller, 69, and Mary Lambert, 89. They died 12 days apart in August 1980. Albanese, an ex-convict, is being held in lieu of $2.5 million bond on McHenry County charges for the murder of his father and the attempted murder of his brother. The brother is crip pled from the poison and recover ing at home, authorities said. Now You Know A former park ranger in Vir ginia survived being hit by light ning seven times between 1942 and 1977. A Lake County judge ordered Albanese held without bond on charges of murdering his mother- in-law and her mother by dousing their desserts with arsenic while he dined with them to win their favor in a scheme to gain control of the $1.5 million family business, stocks options and insurance poli cies. The McHenry County state’s attorney said Friday he would seek the death penalty if Albanese is convicted. Officials said the killings may have been motivated by an effort to gain control of Allied Die Cast ing Co., the family trophy busi ness. “It can’t be called a crime of passion,” State’s Attorney Theo dore Floro said. “It’s not a case where somebody gets mad and shoots or hits someone on the spur of the moment.” Lake County state’s attorney Fred L. Foreman said he has not decided whether to seek the dead penalty in the cases which fall in his jurisdiction. But Floro said: “It would appear that this would be an appropriate situation (for the death penalty). If he gets convicted, would I ask for it? Yes.” AGGIES! Douglas Jewelry 10% AGGIE DISCOUNT ON ALL MERCHANDISE WITH STUDENT ID (Cash Only Please) We resen/e the right to limit use of this privilege. Downtown Bryan (212 N. Main) and Culpepper Plaza LEBANESE STUDENT ASSOCIATION TEXAS A&M UN1V announces INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION ice to inflm Lebanese took their independence from the french he said, isi government in November 1943. Since then this t in his hoimjvery important event has been remembered by every Lebanese even thousands of miles away from home. This year’s celebration was held in the MSC on Nov. 20. It included movies and slides of our home land, speeches, and a fabulous dinner. Guest num bered about 300, including Lebanese consuls and diplomats, university staff and students, and oth er Lebanese guests. DIETING? Even though we do not prescribe diets, we make it possible for many to enjoy a nutritious meal while they follow their doctor's orders. You will be delighted with the wide selection of low calorie, sugar free and fat free foods in the Souper Salad Area, Sbisa Dining Center Basement. OPEN Monday through Friday 10:45 AM-1:45 PM QUALITY FIRST ERLANGER THE EXCEPTION