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.