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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 2001)
large perci -ed in bars ■sed as mixen, ■>ut me onajj ^ Bartlett, 29i Park. . inker quickp taste of it,” >f Anniston, V litan, a trerc i bar, barten;: served 400 E : in a night Tj blue cans a ae bar along ' rum, and Baa all as “absokci • thing we hard >ugh them !i^ elieve,” he si; > get drunk a his pretty tn.; are so pope ants Coca-C; r-Busch, h • ury Schwepa ut their ow.c ecent month hem soon, rst showed up ew YorkandL rere favored ke to drink; . Theysprea; e and are sole -cry stores..V >r 8 ounces. June 26, 2001 Volume 107 ~ Issue 161 6 pages News In Brief ^um ;es : test ministi lar will yo pull AP) —Japans istcr Junicto ived die first® rity as his feN rs rode his a y in Tokyo’snt- on Sunday, chose public^ land near 90pf jn popular he took office- muses to rid pfr 1 guard and p® would kick-st - ish economy, ral Democrat won 53 seats- Tokyo asseni m its previous! 1 ' xling the part teats, said a p n on condition Vll but two ofd- lidates won sea' ry bodes well a ling LDP goia : nonth’s natioe elections. ; given a fortfj umi’s popularisl lisaka, a profes- ience at Seigakt st north ofTok ure that it’s go:'- chances iti the. xtions.” e added seats') LDP a major? mains the largd in the city a) portantly, it n that public (oizumi would) :o support fori members, "li dfrom ineffeci from Koizui» s. last month inf 1 unichi newspajt support for i t29 percent. If es running otvl : were the fewJ : party, which i t for most off ntury. - Campus Football season ticket sales set new record I The Texas A&M football program has set a record for season ticket sales for the third straight year since the expansion of the north end of Kyle Field. ■'Through the week of June loth, general public season ticket orders reached 34,1 79. I The previous record set last ybar was 30,337 tickets sold. I Wally Groff, Texas A&M athletics director, says 27,581 students purchased' season tickets last year and he ex pects a similar number of siles this year. I Groff says the biggest ex citement for next season seems to be the Notre Dame and Texas home games. |— Community Blinn System to get $40 million in funds I The Blinn College System will receive more than $40 mil lion in state funds over the next Hvo years. I That is an increase of more than 11 % over the last two years. 1 Despite the increase, Blinn officials believe they will have a tight budget because state funding is not keeping pace with enrollment. 8 Blinn's Bryan campus has added more than 1,000 stu dents in the last three years. 1 More than 80% of the state money given to Blinn is allo cated for academic programs. B Blinn College operates three campuses, in Bryan, Brenham and Schulenberg. I The Blinn System is the 1 Oth largest of 50 community col lege districts in Texas. State Jury decides not to indict woman in the death of her child 1 DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas County grand jury decided ■onday not to indict a North Bxas woman over the heat- related death of her 5-month- old son. I Carisa Beth Fletcher, 25, of Plano was arrested May 31 ajid charged with second-de gree injury to a child after her son died when he was left in side a car for nearly six hours while she worked in a nearby building. I An autopsy showed Ethan Fletcher died of hyperthermia March 21 after temperatures inside the car neared 100. Temperatures outside that day reached the 70s. I Fletcher told police she be lieved she had dropped the bjtyy off at day care before go- ini | to work at a shopping cen ter across from NorthPark Cen ter in North Dallas. HIV/AIDS testing free Wednesday Elizabeth Raines The Battalion There are currently 30,600 people living with HTV/AIDS in Texas. Health care officials estimate that as many as 9,000 of those do not know they car ry the incurable disease. “Last year alone, over 5,600 new cases of HIV/AIDS were diagnosed in Texas,” said Trish Langley, volunteer coordinator for the AIDS Services of Bra zos Valley. “It is vitally impor tant that any person who has ever been at risk for contract ing HIV get tested.” To promote HIV testing in the Brazos Valley, the AIDS Services is taking part in the 7th Annual National HIV Testing Day Wednesday, June 27. The AIDS Services will be at four different locations in the B-CS area to give free, anony mous testing to anyone who wants it. To make testing more convenient for the students, faculty and staff at' Fexas A&M, testing will be available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in 141 MSC. “I believe that everybody had done something in their past to make them [susceptible! to HIV,” said Marla McClure, director of the AIDS Services of Brazos Valley. “The scariest part is taking the test, but it is much better than not knowing and affecting and reaffecting others.” See Testing on Page 2. FHEl: IIIV TIcSTINHv Ltiumam A«tt» Noon Health For All | 214 N M.Un Brazos County Health D e p a rt moot | 70 I N f »*x»m Avo Texas A&M Campus Memorial Student < rmtor - I I a tn AIDS Services i,lyiis 17020 S lexas Ave, • 1 p.m I p in “ 1 pm <i to p.m .t p.m if?very Thursday from 2pm to ■l pm. AIDS IServIces and Bout el offet free testimj at Boutef. RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion Breathing easy BERNARDO CARZA/The Battalion John Smith open and closes the air valve on a breathing apparatus at the fire school as part of a training program he and other firefighters from Savannah, Georgia, undertook Tuesday. Mosquito population increasing Stuart Hutson The Battalion Senior psychology major Darcy Moudouni enjoyed a warm summer night with her family on the back porch of her College Station home last week end — for half an hour. “The mosquitoes got so bad that we had to go in right after we went outside,” she said. “I thought maybe it was just our backyard, but there wasn’t any standing water or anything for them to breed in.” A day later, Moudouni, who is slight ly allergic to mosquito bites, counted more than 30 swollen bites on her arms, hands and ankles after the half- hour exposure. Residents of the Bryan-College Sta tion area are being bombarded with high numbers of floodwater mosquitoes trig gered by the downpours brought by tropical storm Allison, said Jim Olson, a medical entomologist and professor of entomology at Texas A&M. “This is the worst I have seen the mosquito population since the early ’80s,” he said. “We have seen a surge in the population. There are eight or nine species of the mosquito in the area j\V *’' the area that are are all blood- hungry.” Floodwater mosqui toes lay their eggs in dry areas and then must receive moisture from floodwaters to hatch. Olson said * many have hatched in * the lowland areas ^ * outside of the cities ||(| and were then at- Q tracted to die urban ar eas by city lights and heat. The mosquitoes are known to be able to travel as far as 3 5 to 40 miles from their hatching site. “They first move into the tree line surrounding the town and then make their way in,” he said. “It’s going to be bad for 10 days to two S weeks, and then they will die off.” As annoying as floodwater mos quitoes may be, Olson said they pose little threat of spreading disease. The threat of dis ease will come in three-to-four weeks, when the population of Stillwater mosqui toes, which lay and hatch eggs in stagnant water, is RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion expected to explode. Wear repellent Stay indoors Ifrom dusk to n p. Cover as much skin as possible Empty containers holding [stagnant water irn off outside Sights “Still water mosquitoes tend to carry viruses like strains of encephalitis be cause they are more likely to feed on birds, which often carry the viruses,” he said. “Floodwater mosquitoes tend to only feed on large mammals, which in cludes us.” Olson said the threat of viruses in creases as the West Nile Virus, which caused thousands of illnesses in New York last year, continues to travel southward. Current flu shots do not of fer protection from this virus, which can be deadly to those with weakened immune systems. “It’s not a question now of whether or not it will reach us,— it is a question of when,” Olson said. “It may be this year, or it may be five years from now.” To protect one’s self from mosquito See Mosquitoes on Page 2. Supreme Court refuses to hear Hopwood case AUSTIN (AP) — University of Texas officials said they were dis appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear their chal lenge to the Hopwood decision, but vowed to continue “vigorous ef forts to enroll students of all races.” “At some point, the court will take a case involving these issues and will resolve them for the na tion as a whole,” said university President Larry Faulkner. “For now, we will keep searching for creative and legal ways to serve all of the populations of Texas.” By declining the school’s re quest to consider their case, the court let stand a 1996 order pro hibiting any consideration of race for admissions to the university’s law school. The case stems from a 1992 law suit in which four white students sued after they were denied admis sion to die UT law school. The case is named after Cheryl Hop- wood, one of the four students. The students said they were de nied because the school gave pref erential treatment to less-qualified Hispanic and black applicants. While parts of their argument a At some point, the court will take o case involving these issues and will resolve them for the nation as a whole.” — Larry Faulkner University of Texas president were rejected, a federal judge found the university had an un- cohstitutional admissions policy. Later, former Attorney Gener al Dan Morales interpreted the rulings to apply to scholarships and financial aid as well. The UT system and most oth er state universities in Texas stopped using affirmative action for scholarships and financial aid. Many blamed that for a subse quent drop in minority enroll ment across the state. Since then, universities have been able to boost minority en rollment through laws that grant automatic admission to the top 10 percent of high school graduates. Law school Dean William Powers said the school will con tinue to push for a diverse stu dent body. The law school now considers a range of factors, including grades, test scores, work experi ence, military service, regional origin and past economic or so cial disadvantage. “We will continue our vigorous attempts to enroll students of all races within the limits imposed by the courts,” Powers said. See Hopwood on Page 2. Bush promises changes to his social program DETROIT (AP) — President George W. Bush and Republican supporters promised changes Monday to his plan to open government social-services programs to re ligious charities, hoping to nudge it through a tangle of critics in Congress. In his visit to a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Bush won a generally worded endorsement from the nation’s mayors and announced that civil rights heroine Rosa Parks also backs his “faith-based initiative.” “Together we’re going to convince the skeptics,” Bush declared. His speech here — coupled with behind the scenes concessions to Democratic mayors — was designed to allay criticism of the legislation, sponsored in the House by Reps. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and Tony Hall, D-Ohio, which is still in committee there and yet to find a Senate sponsor. “We recognize that the funds will be spent on social services, not worship services,” Bush said. “We respect the separation of church and state.” BUSH See Bush on Page 2.