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Page 9 » Thursday. November 18, 1999
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^■AP) — Around the world, as-
ronomers and. amateur stargazers
leaded for fields, beaches, deserts
and mountaintops yesterday to
watch what could be the most spec-
acular meteor shower since 1966
ind for decades to come.
^■’he annual Leonid meteor
shower was expected to reach its
peak overnight yesterday. Howev-
?r, predicting timing and intensi
ty is an inexact science, and the
quarter moon, the lights of civi
lization and cloud cover could ob
scure the view.
■‘It could be spectacular, or it
could be a dud,” Williams College
astronomer Jay Pasachoff, who
picked a beach outside Valencia,
Spain, for his viewing spot, said.
■The best American viewing of
the shooting-star show was ex
pected on the East Coast in today's
wee morning hours. The National
Weather Service forecast showed
thickening clouds across much of
the Northeast, but mostly clear
skies southward.
"[The meteor
shower] could be
spectacular, or it
could be a dud/'
— Jay Pasachoff
Williams College astronomer
However, astronomical calcula
tions put the best spectacle in the
Middle East and Europe.
Up to 20,000 shooting stars per
hour were predicted during the
meteor shower, which occurs
when dust and ice shed by the
comet Tempel-Tuttle streak into
the Earth’s atmosphere at 40
miles a second and burn up.
Since the orbiting comet dumps
extra debris every 33 years when it
races past the sun, the chances for a
meteor storm rise very 33 years. The
last great storm was 1966, with a
peak of 144,000 shooting stars per
hour. A typical year might yield just
20 per hour.
A NASA network of observing
stations tallied the Leonid meteor
count at 20 to 40 per hour early
Wednesday, according to staffer
Steve Roy, at the Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The
number of shooting stars and fire
balls was expected to swell during
the night.
On Tuesday night, fireballs
streaked across the sky and stirred
panicky calls to police across the
Midwest and as far east as New
York state. Some feared plane
crashes or UFOs.
Number of women in prison rising
cb^BwASHINGTON (AP) — The war on drugs has sent
ollUUian increasing number of women to prison, according to
■tudy released yesterday. It also said two-thirds of in-
k from coast to co;? carcerated women have children under age 18.
potingJerryChafini.tegThe drug war has had a “dramatic and dispro-
pda Inn in Greenv portionate impact on women,” the report by The
Chafin s body v Sentencing Project, a private group devoted to find-
>32, by a cleaning ing alternatives to imprisonment, said,
ib was arres tednean jThe number of women in state prisons for drug
ate trooper chaseit. offenses rose from 2,400 in 1986 to 23,700 in 1996,
nvenience store v. nearly 10 times as many, the study said. For non-
k and stole twoc;- drug crimes, the number of imprisoned women more
ne was drivingCh, than doubled, rising from 17,200 to 39,400. In oth-
ginia man’s wallets el words, drug crimes accounted for half of the over
all increase of women in state prisons.
■ The figures for women imprisoned for drug
crimes start from a “relatively low base, but it’s still
an enormous growth,” professor Alfred Blumstein of
Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said.
■ The numbers for women still are far below the
numbers of men in prison.
' he thanked Floritb
fore I killed somebo:
y the type of case (op
ed," Hunt Countyife
who prosecuted Lar-
imeoae who kills so#
1 then tries to kill In 1986, there were 34,400 men in state prisons for
Court rejected Lat drug crimes, a number that rose to 213,900 in 1996,
['fused to hah the eM more than six times as many. For non-drug offenses.
391,400 men were imprisoned in 1986, compared with
767,500, almost twice as many, a decade later. Drug
crimes made up one-third of the total increase.
“It is unclear to what extent our findings reflect
changes in behavior and criminality or changes in
official responses to those behaviors,” the Sentenc
ing Project’s report said.
James Alan Fox, professor of criminal justice at
Boston’s Northeastern University, said the study
shows a strong impact of the drug war on both men
and women.
“This does not suggest that there has been any dif
ferential enforcement on women,” Fox said. “The im
pact on families and children is obviously dispropor
tionate when women are locked up.”
Two-thirds of female state prison inmates had
children under age 18, and half of the women said
their children had never visited them in prison.
Many children of female inmates were placed in fos
ter care.
“Thus, women’s incarceration results in a dis
ruption of children’s living situation as well as cre
ating emotional stress for both women and their chil
dren,” the report said.
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