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NATION
Page 10 THE BATTALION Wednesday. March IJ
Six-year-old killed by first-grade classmat!
MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP,
Mich. (AP) —A6-year-old girl was shot
to death by a 7-year-old classmate at an
elementary school Tuesday morning, au
thorities said.
A single shot was fired during a first-
grade class at Buell Elementary School,
Police Chief Eric King said. It was not
immediately clear if the shooting was ac
cidental or intentional, he said.
The girl died about 10:30 a.m., said
Hurley Medical Center spokesperson
Stephanie Motschenbacher. That was
about a half-hour after the shooting.
The 7-year-old boy was in custody.
King said.
About 22 pupils were inside the class
room when the shot was fired.
“We don’t know if it’s an accident or
what,” Beecher School District Superin
tendent Ira A. Rutherford said. “There is
no evidence of animosity or vengeance or
a motive.”
Third-grader Corey Sutton, 9, said he
heard a bang. “1 thought it was a desk or
something falling,” he said.
“The principal came over the PA sys
tem and told teachers to shut their doors
and lock them.
The teacher told pupils to line up and
get their coats on, Corey said, and then
“she told us what happened. A girl got
shot, and the teacher started crying.”
Police closed offnearby streets and
sent parents across the street to a
church to await the release of children
from the school, which has an enroll
ment of about 500.
Crystal Watson, 8, who was in her
third-grade class, said she did not
know anything had happened until she
heard sirens.
“ We were told to stay in our class and
stay calm,” she told The Flint Journal. “A
couple of boys were crying, but everyone
else was staying calm.”
“We’re interested in how the little
boy came into possession of the
weapon,” Genesee County Prosecutor
Arthur A. Busch said. “We’ve had oth
er schoolchildren take guns to elemen
tary schools before ... but it never went
this far with it. It’s a sign of our times
where we have a fully armed society
that doesn't take its responsibility to se
cure its weapons seriously.”
A fourth-grader, Christopher Burch, 9,
was scared because he has relatives in the
first grade.
“My teacher told me a first-grader
shot another first-grader, and I started cry
ing because I thought it was my cousin or
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Mount Morris Township is sotwl
miles northwest of Detroit
E. coli bacteria infects nation’s cows
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Up to half the cattle in the na
tion’s feedlots, far more than
previously thought, are infect
ed with deadly bacteria, the
government said Tuesday.
Researchers using new
testing methods found E. coli
0157:H7 present in rates
varying from 1 percent in the
winter months to as much as
50 percent in the summer. Pre
viously, government scientists
had thought the infection rate
to be no more than about 5
percent.
Cattle are exposed to the
bacteria from manure in
feedlots.
The new figures were de
veloped by the Agriculture
Department’s Agricultural Re
search Service and presented
at a public session sponsored
by USDA’s Food Safety and
Inspection Service.
The study concluded that
chances of E. coli getting into
ground beef could be reduced
by testing cattle hides and
carcasses before the meat is
processed. Testing now is
done after the beef is ground.
Consumer groups agree
that the government needs to
require more extensive testing
of cattle and beef to prevent
people from being exposed to
the germs.
“The prevalence figures are
much higher than we ever
heard before,” said Caroline
Smith DeWaal of tlie Center for
Science in the Public Interest.
Research done at a dozen
packing plants last fall found
the bacteria on 3.56 percent
of the hides that were sam
pled and 0.44 percent of the
carcasses.
All the bacteria on the
sample carcasses were even
tually removed through steam
pasteurization, hot water or or
ganic acid rinses, the treat
ments typically used in pack
ing plants.
“It is our hope that this
data will encourage USDA to
re-evaluate its ground-beef
sampling program,” said
James H. Hodges, president of
the American Meat Industry
Foundation, which sponsored
the research:
“A carcass testing pro
gram for E. coli
0157:H7...wiII help ensure
that the safest and most
wholesome product possible
enters commerce.”
Samples in the industry
study were taken at a rate of 1
per 300 carcasses.
E. coli 0157 can cause se
rious illness and sometimes
death, especially in children
and the elderly. Symptoms in
clude chills and bloody diar
rhea. The bacteria are de
stroyed by adequately
cooking the meat.
The ground-beef testing
program, which \vas started
after tainted hamburger
killed several children in
Washington state in 1993, “is
not systematic, and provides
inadequate coverage,” De-
Waal said.
The federal government
recently approved the use of
irradiation to treat raw meat,
but it is unclear yet whether
consumers will react to that.
Scientists are working on
additional methods of treat
ment. One of those is an anti
microbial agent, known as
lactoferrin, that is a naturally
occurring protein in the milk
of mammals.
“The prevalence figures are
much higher than we ever
heard before/’'
— Caroline Smith DeWaal
Center for Science in the Public Interest
E. coli contamination
The government said Tuesday thaiij
to half the cattle In the nation's
feedlots are infected with deadly E
coli bacteria Here is a lookathowtti
bacteria can get from cattle to the
dinner table.
From the farm
A cow that it Is
carrying the E. coli
0157:H7 bacteriain
its intestinal tracts
chosen for slaugiile
To the slaughterhouse
To meat plant
To your meal
E. coli can escape)
the intestines of
infected cattle are
opened during
processing.
The contaminated
meat is mixed wit!
other meat and
ground for
hamburger
If the contaminated
meat is undercooked
the bacteria can
cause severe food
poisoning.
Prevention
Cook all ground beef or hamburgert
an internal temperature of 160°. Use!
thermometer to be sure the meal is
thoroughly cooked.
Send back any undercooked mealio
are served in a restaurant for furthe:
cooking.
Consume only pasteurized milk, n*
products and juices.
Wash hands, counters and uteraS
with hot. soapy water after theytwfi
raw meat.
Wednesday,
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PHOTOS
IN ABOUT
AN HOUR
You drink. You drive. You get pulled over. You get arrested.
You get fingerprinted. You get photographed. You go to jail.
And that's if you're lucky enough not to have killed someone first.
Drink, Drive, Go to Jail
' ass
Save a Life
Texas Department of Transportation .
In remembrance
KIMBER HUFF/Thk BatTAUOS
Clayton Bassham, Christopher Young and Nancy Cisneros, sixth graders at Jane Long Middle
School in Bryan display a bonfire memorial quilt. The quilt was made by over 100 sixth grade lan
guage arts students to commemorate the 1999 Aggie Bonfire Collapse.
Clinton considers dipping into nation’s
emergency oil reserves to lower prices
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi
dent Clinton said Tuesday that he may
tap the nation’s supply of emergency
oil if other options fail to reduce the
prices of oil.
“I have not taken the pe
troleum reserve issue off the
table, and I certainly would
n’t do that in the .event that
we don’t seem to have any
other options,” Clinton said
before leaving the White
House for a political trip to
Florida.
Several Northeast law
makers have urged the ad
ministration to release oil
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
but Energy Secretary Bill Richardson
and other administration officials
have repeatedly said they do not in
tend to do that.
The reserve is designed to ease
supply disruptions and not to influ
ence prices, administration officials
have said.
There is also the concern that if the
strategic reserve were tapped it would
“I have not taken
the petroleum re
serve issue off the
table ... we don't
seem to have any
other options"
CLINTON
make it more difficult to convince
OPEC oil producers to increase pro
duction when they meet in March to
consider future production strategies.
If production goes up, “then oil
prices will go down, the gasoline
prices will go down, and that’s really
what is needed here,” Clinton
Tuesday. “We’ll see. I’m enconra?
that that might occur.”
Richardson visited several lead*
oil-producing countries
weekend but tailed to o
any firm promises that Of-
would agree to signified
raise its self-imposed prod 1
tion cuts.
The cuts have caused
prices to soar, from $113
year ago to a nine-yeard 1
around $30 a barrel, andlcd 1
the highest average U.Sf
line prices ever.
Unadjusted for intlal
the price at the pump is $1.47pet:'
Ion, according to industry analyst
by Lundberg.
That is up 6 cents on averageh 1
two weeks ended Friday, the
berg Survey of 10,000 stations
tionwide reported Sunday.
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