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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2001)
>rmer regent dies fter cancer battle dent Cente me [Former Texas A&M System Ross C. Watkins died lesday after a year-long bat- ■ with cancer. Watkins, who vas 81, served as regent from ■75 to 1981. ■Funeral Services will be held : riday at the First Baptist Church ■iis hometown, Uvalde. >rum presentation >y Bowen on Web Texas A&M University Pres- dent Dr. Ray M. Bowen's pres- intation Tuesday at a public learing for a proposed in- ;rease in University authorized Iftion can be viewed on the Veb through A&M's depart- nent of University Relation's tggie Daily Website. _ast chance to add jummer classes ifoday is the last day to add leW classes for the first sum- ner term and 10-week classes. ree Friday deadline for applying for degree ’Ondurtwth is the last da y to a P" is an affront• )l I for al1 de g rees to be award- luring the first summer term. I State Me >rris Bro"' antly black sc fs in mg in e: Man kille! for apartme / YORK (AP) as charged M( ling two peoples nove into theirap after authoril him and a vict| i head in one , police said, lard Perez, 20, andj lan, Rahman Will* te found at the vid ittan apartment! iy. Both were cha nurdering the head was found i chen sink and parts were scad i the neighborh said. ez was also cha iurdering Doris I 14, who lived building as the; sered man in a'' partment. Her ;und last week if 1 ] n River and policej d been strangled | Hf £? f F% XT * i w 9 ** E»t-{ i ' THe *.* •>■** Opinion rt>ivi0U pff* 5 * I * aura'll ST \y.m. KAMU 90.0 «tt.com Bin August for students com- i S< ml o )le1in 9 de 9 ree requirements "e of the reques iment. i:™! hands woman mry dedicati two life sentences •ovingeducatw burning her son SetonHalllf ^ ■5ALVESTON (AP) — A eague City woman received n> life terms and 40 years in rrison Wednesday for burning 11-year-old adopted son —D'ith a curling iron and scald- n j f ig him with hot water. Jfhe Galveston jury that con- i jiiiriM ed P 31 ' 11 ' 03 Rhenee Clemens may ■Cin <, Bhree counts of injury to a arl Harbornid causing serious bodily HARBOR Hr an ignored her pleas for The Nav ro 1 ation. She denied hurting a tentative deal er son - ln addition to the profit operator n$on time ' the i ur y imposed Missouri Merrc 15 ' 000 in fines. A judge fol- the battleshipfT d tb e jury's recommenda- ocation in Pearly inSentenC i ng hen it least threeveat Clemens ' a for mer substi- JSS Missouri Mer lte Galveston teacher, was ociation's lease Dn D vlctedTuesda y^ u u , at Ford Island' Prose cutors said the boys cpire july 31. ^t was scalded w.th hot wa- T, r ^bir,.^m 5 r :r f rom the microwave and his burned with a ■ yjrlinq iron. ^* a ^ S at h ' S scb OOl no- ittleship on 1W9 that he was walk- pan surrender ; ’ tran 9 el y and 5h , 0 T Sl 9 n5 ed States in 19ti° sslb ' e P^ 51 ^ 1 abuse - An Missour, ser« t <aminat ' on fo ^ d numerous ii u. [/..urns and cauliflower ear as War II, the Koiff,, ... ^ r~ u as other iniunes. f K| u , 'The kid's got scars and e Wks all over his body,” Assis- it District Attorney Bill Reed id after the verdict was an- ounced. Smoking ban affects B-CS College Station's bowling alley moving By Stuart Hutson The Battalion College Station’s only bowling alley will be moving to Bryan be cause of a decrease in business re sulting from the College Station smoking ban, said Leroy Pren- oveau, manager of Wolf Pen Creek Bowling Alley. “If we stayed as we are in Col lege Station, we would be closing our doors in August,” he ‘said. “We are looking for a place right now, and we expect to be moved by September.” Prenoveau said as much as 54 percent of the alley’s business comes from smokers who, be cause of the ban that only allows smoking between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., now limit the amount of time they spend in the alley. “We used to get groups of people who would come in and play something like 10 games and spend two-and-a-half or three hours here,” he said. “Now, we are lucky if they play two games.” The owners of Wolf Pen Creek submitted requests to the College Station City Council first for the exemption of die ban for bowling alleys and bingo halls, and then for an exemption that would allow a separate room to be built in the alley for smokers. Both requests were denied, but the Bryan City Council has since adopted the exemption for bowl ing alleys and bingo halls. College Station City Council man James Massey said that while he is sorry that College Station is losing a business, he still stands by the council’s decision. “The city council made a pol icy decision in favor of a higher quality of life for the College Sta tion residents,” he said. “To me, that takes higher precedence.” Bowling alleys are not the only businesses affected by the ban. Staff members from several restaurants in College Station havfe reported a drop in their because of lost business number of day customers. For waiters and waitresses who de pend on tips for a substantial amount of their income, this means a significant drop in pay. I Jeremy Barger, a waiter at A a local Kettle Restaurant, re cently moved from a night shift to a day shift, but said he now questions the wisdom of that decision. See Smokk Smoking is banned in public buildings between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. FILE PHOTO/The Battalion Wreckage ANDY HANCOCK/The Battalion Firemen and College Station policemen work to piece which was travelling eastbound on Harvey. The together an accident at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday. Traffic Navigator slid into a Honda Accord that was sitting at was interrupted when a blue pickup traveling west- a red light. The driver of the truck was issued a citation bound on Harvey turned left into a Lincoln Navigator, for failure to yield right of way. Tax-cut checks expected to be mailed in summer WASHINGTON (AP) — Letthe mailbox vigil begin. Mil lions of tax-cut checks should be arriving by the end of summer, if not sooner. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said Wednesday he’ll do everything he can to speed delivery of the checks — up to $300 for individual taxpayers and a maximum $600 for cou ples — in the government’s first mass tax refund in a quarter century. • Congress authorized the re bates in the $1.35 trillion, 10- year tax-cut package approved last weekend. As it now stands, most of the estimated 95 million taxpayers eligible for rebate checks prob ably will see them in their mail boxes in September. But O’Neill said he is pushing officials at Treasury and the Internal Rev enue Service to explore all op tions for getting the checks out before then. “We may not be able to do better than that, but I am not sat isfied that we can’t yet,” O’Neill said during a brief interview ses sion at the Treasury Depart ment. Neither O’Neill nor Trea sury officials elaborated on the possibilities. The hope is that people will spend the money, thus providing a boost to the sagging economy. “Roughly half of the popula tion is struggling and living al most paycheck to paycheck and those folks will use the tax re bate almost immediately,” pre dicted Mark Zandi, chief econ omist at Economy.com. “It will be good timing.” In all, he be lieves roughly half of each re fund check will be spent and half saved. Under the legislative pack age, which Bush is expected to sign into law soon, individuals would get a maximum $300 See Refunds on Page 2. Police look into Bush's daughter Jenna Bush may have used fake ID AUSTIN (AP) — Police said Wednesday they were investi gating whether President Bush’s 19-year-old twin daughters ille gally tried to buy alcohol at a restaurant. One of the twins, Jenna Bush, pleaded no contest to a charge of being a minor in possession of alcohol in an unrelated incident less than a mooth ago. Police responded to a 911 call Tuesday evening from the man ager of Chuy’s restaurant in As no offense was witnessed by APD officers, following routine procedures, further investigation is required to deter mine if any charges will be filed/’ — statement released by the Austin Police Department Austin who said minors were trying to buy alcohol. Police spokesman Kevin Buchman said officers were told Jenna Bush tried to buy drinks using a third person’s identifica tion card. Her sister, Barbara Bush, was present but did not show any identification. “As no offense was witnessed by APD officers, following rou tine procedures, further investi gation is required to determine if any charges will be filed,” a po lice statement said: Police would not give any in formation on the whereabouts of the daughters’ Secret Service agents. The Secret Service also would not comment on the lo cation of the agents. The legal drinking age in Texas is 21. Police and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission are investigating. It is unclear what the punish ment would be since it is un clear what type of ticket, if any, might be issued. Jenna Bush’s attorney, William P. Allison, would not comment on the matter, said an employee in his office. White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined com ment. “If it involves the daugh ters in their private lives, it is a family matter,” he said. When asked whether Presi dent Bush was aware of this lat est incident, McClellan repeat ed the statement. See Alcohol on Page 2. Violent crimes rise slightly WASHINGTON (AP) — After declin ing dramatically over the last several years, violent crimes in America increased mar ginally in 2000, preliminary FBI crime fig ures show. Statistics for murders, rapes and other vi olent crime last year, which were released Wednesday, represented the first indication that a significant series of decreases in crime in the early 1990s have essentially bottomed out, criminologists said. “I cannot imagine any clearer indication that the crime drop is over,” said professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. Preliminary figures released by the FBI for last year show that the total of violent crime increased 0.1 percent, while the overall crime index was unchanged from 1999. Experts in the field had attributed the de clines of the ’90s to a number of factors, in cluding the maturing of a large teen-age population and a strong economy. Republicans regularly acknowledged those trends during the years of the Bill Clinton presidency, but said they believed the trends were not directly the result of Democratic policies. Republicans argued, instead, that the de clines resulted from tougher enforcement of the law, increased prison capacity and stern er sentences for repeat offenders. Murders in 2000 fell 1.1 percent com pared to the previous year, the new FBI fig ures showed, and robberies dropped 0.7 percent. Forcible rape increased 0.7 percent and aggravated assault rose 0.4 percent. Motor vehicle theft rose 2.7 percent and larceny-theft increased 0.1 percent. Though the increases were small, they contrasted sharply with declines recorded m previous years. Last year the FBI said, for instance, that the burglary rate fell 10 percent, the auto theft rate fell 7.7 percent and the larceny- theft rate fell 5.7 percent. Source Murders down Robberies down Fereibie rape iip V ...—_—HBHEl Aggravated essau Meter vehiele tbeft up ——— MHmsa RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion