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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 1992)
Wednesday Scattered T-Storms High 84 Low 65 University priorities ? A&M needs more classes instead of a Special Events Center Battalion Editorial Board Page 9 Aggie Players perform an original play by local writers and actors Page 7 Aggies host Stephen F. Austin tonight at 7 Page 3 Ga. (AP). ak; Freddie] les, he of||i(| ias y*g°in&C lanner, conf 'IPs leading 'vo-stroketj lasters. i the strendflol. 91 No. 130 'r-par 70 -J s of grass, 1 ^he sprigs v inches ' -reek, thi ag into the The Battalion College Station, Texas ‘Serving Texsis A&M since 1893’ 10 Pages Tuesday, April 14, 1992 bird victim dies from explosion lofted littlei ?s to savep from that p] 1 sent him ini Augusta Na* vantage. I •ught ithcrj contrast tl s that embarJ il nine holes! pionship atSj finished bv birdie putta dammed the; s and assuiE st Americaai lize in 1967. w 32 and fifing mate ictory oftheij ireer and hiss nvestigators continue search for cause of disaster I BRENHAM (AP) - Investiga tors of last week's gas explosion said Monday they were testing a salt dome storage facility for apy leak that might have prompted the blast, now responsible for three deaths. I A woman severely burned in the explosion became the latest victim of the massive explosion, elores Medve, 27, died Sunday at buston's Hermann Hospital. Her mother, Gloria Diver, 46, lied Friday from burns she also Juffered in the explosion. Diver |was buried Monday afternoon in Brenham, and services were cheduled Tuesday for Medve. Medve's son, Travis, 3, also was injured, but he remained in stable condition Monday at Her mann. The three were in a car that was burned and nearly flattened in the explosion last Tuesday. Authori ties said the vehicle may have ig nited the explosion when it drove into a vapor cloud. Jane Meinen, 31, also was in jured and remained in critical con dition Monday at Hermann, hos pital officials said. Meinen's 5-year-old son. Der rick, was killed instantly when the blast destroyed his family's mo bile home. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Texas Rail road Commission said Monday they were still investigating the cause of the explosion, which oc curred near the Seminole Pipeline Co. salt dome storage facility. "While a final cause is not yet known, our investigation now centers on the injection well used by Seminole to move gas products into and out of the salt dome cav ern itself," Lena Guerrero, com mission chair, said in a statement issued in Austin. Investigators believe there may have been a release of liquefied petroleum gas products from the storage cavern prior to the explo sion that rocked the rural country side, the statement said. Yeltsin's Cabinet members resign to protest parliament Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s Cabinet resigned Monday over efforts by the parliament to change his economic policies MOSCOW (AP) - The Cabinet of President Boris Yeltsin submit ted its resignation en masse Mon day, telling a combative parlia ment that abandoning free market reforms could heighten inflation and block Russia's entry into the world marketplace. Yeltsin asked his ministers to continue working a few days through the end of the parliament session, when he will decide whether to accept their resigna tions, Deputy Premier Yegor Gaidar said. The Cabinet's departure could create the worst governmental cri sis since the Soviet collapse in De cember. The ministers had been threatening to quit to protest par liament's vote Saturday to de mand changes in Yeltsin's eco nomic reforms. Several legislators said they thought the resignations were a bluff, and Parliament Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov addressed the ministers with such derision that they walked out of the 1,046-mem ber Congress of People's Deputies. "Don't try to blackmail us," Khasbulatov told the ministers, drawing cheers from many law makers. "We are not afraid of any one or anything." "If you want to work, dear members of the government, you have everything that is necessary to your work," Khasbulatov added. time,intlsj es began a si duced20fi® in 25 wo riod, hetiasj 5 in worioi he colie gave ly this year| tage of as broke Em ecutivev ny dowr ifted Coupl| hievement expense c Cup temi, 7826 JESDAY, mg DARRIN HILL/The Battalion Blood drive: a pint at a time Wadley Blood Bank attendant Michelle Albritton takes blood science major from Houston. The blood drive will be held this week Monday in the Commons from Kendall Brock, a senior political from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Sbisa, the Commons and the MSC. Report of 10th sexual assault alarms police By Tanya Sasser The Battalion Police are becoming worried about the increase in the number of rapes in College Station as the 10th sexual assault in the city since January was reported to the Col lege Station Police Department at 1 a.m. Monday. The victim in the case reported that she was raped by an acquain tance sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning, said Sgt. Robert Cahill of the CSPD. Cahill said the status of this case is still pending and the de partment also is investigating an other sexual assault that occurred behind Kinko's on University Drive across from Texas A&M ear lier this month. "We've been up to our eyes in this task force stuff," he said. "We are still working on the assault that involved a stranger, the one by Kinko's." Cahill said the number of as saults reported to police officers this year is alarming. "This concerns us very much and we are all worried about the See Acquaintance/Page 6 Rapists attack to gain control, counselor says By Alysia Woods The Battalion When rapists decide to at tack, it has nothing to do with sex, says a local rape crisis counselor. Brazos County Rape Crisis Center Director Linda Castoria says when her staff educates community groups on sexual assault, they are quick to re mind people that rape is noth ing more than a crime of vio lence. "It's their need to dominate and control," says Castoria. "Sex is just the weapon that rapists decide to use." Castoria says 60 to 70 per cent of all sex offenders have normal sexual relationships with other people. "That's one reason why I See Anger/Page 6 TOS , you •tograplif can ile at tin 159 graphs ^ n bulletii Dor in cost fori L0is$5J Bush orders limits on union spending WASHINGTON (AP) - Presi dent Bush's order limiting union U Or yOl political spending — most of which supports Democrats — probably won't have much impact except to create a bookkeeping headache, labor leaders said Mon day. "Through this obsequious pan dering to the ultra-right . . . the president has given hypocrisy a bad name," AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said. He said Bush's action was "en tirely a political gesture" and would have little or no effect on the way the 14.2 million-member Bush labor federa tion and its 90 unions con duct political business. The AFL-CIO is exploring a possible legal challenge to the or der, he said. At issue is an executive order signed Monday by Bush that re quires federal contractors to tell non-union employees "in the clearest possible terms" that their union contributions may not be used against their wishes for polit ical activities. Surgeon general renews attack on teen drinking WASHINGTON (AP) - The surgeon general said Monday that alcohol is leading the nation's youth into emergency rooms and jails, as she cited statistics ranging from date rape to drownings to make her case. It's part of a crusade that Sur geon General Antonia Novello has been on for months, and the alco hol industry was clearly irritated after her news conference. Jeff Becker, a spokesman for the Beer Institute, said the industry has been trying to get Novello to discuss the issue quietly. "I think the answer was shown today," he said. Novello cited figures to show the problems caused by young people abusing alcohol, including "Many of our college students seem to major in alcohol abuse." Surgeon General Novello accidents, deaths, assaults, rapes, bad grades in school and dropouts. She didn't offer much that was new; even the statistics that she re leased were drawn from reports already published in newspapers, magazines and medical journals over the past 10 years. Among the statistics: • About a third of the youths committing serious crimes con sumed alcohol just before the of fense. • More than 70 percent of teen suicides involved frequent use of alcohol or drugs. • Alcohol is a factor in more than half of the rapes among col lege-age students; 55 percent of the alleged rapists and 53 percent of the victims were under the in fluence of alcohol at the time. "For every injury death, there are 16 hospitalizations and 381 in juries requiring medical care," she said. She cited material published in a medical journal, the Journal of Counseling Psychology, in 1987 on alcohol's role in rape. "I was shocked by the data on date rape: Among high school fe male students, 18 percent — al most one in five — said that 'it was OK to force sex if the girl was drunk,'" the surgeon general said. "Many of our college students seem to major in alcohol abuse," she said. DULES ? or the ssions orts Committee By Melody Dunne The Battalion e mill! i-Lites! MEM'S [TES ISA 2. Roc® [NG. The Texas A&M telephone registration system has a new feature this semester. Undergraduates attempting to register by phone for more than 16 hours for fall classes are being interrupted by a voice saying, "The class you have requested will exceed the 16-hour maximum." Dr. Sallie Sheppard, associate provost for undergraduate programs and academ ic services, said a committee comprised limits fall registration to 16 hours for students primarily of associate deans from all col leges recently decided to limit the hours undergraduates could sign up for during pre-registration to prevent abuse of the system. "Students register for their friends' classes and hold them until they can reg ister," she said. "More people get an op portunity to register this way." She said seniors were signing up for entry-level courses — like Math 151 — and then dropping the course so one of their friends could register. Sheppard said the goal of the subcom mittee on pre-registration, a part of the Academic Operations Committee, was to allow more people to register for the classes they need and to make registration a more equitable process. Graduate students have been advised to not register for more than 12 hours, she said, but the Student Information Man agement System (SIMS), or computer reg istration, would not stop them if they at tempted to register for more than 12. Dr. Kenneth R. Poenisch, assistant dean of the College of Science and head of the subcommittee, said one of the reasons they chose 16 hours as the maximum is because the average course load students take is a little over 14 hours. Until open registration begins on May 5, Poenisch said undergraduates who wish to register for more than 16 hours will have to contact the dean of their col lege. If approved, the student can take an add form to the Pavilion and can be regis tered there. "Graduating seniors or students who have demonstrated in the past that they can handle the extra load of 18 or 19 hours will be allowed to register for the classes they need," he said. Jeanette Haynes, a speech communica tions major from Houston, said she will need to take 18 hours next fall in order to graduate on time. "I just heard about this limit yester day," Haynes said. "In order to graduate in December I need an extra class." During open registration, students will be allowed to register for the number of courses allowed by their GPR, she said. Students who have a 3.0 or better can reg- See Committee/Page 6