>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