Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2001)
Nay, August I Jr August 2, 2001 Volume 107 ~ Issue 182 8 pages News in Brief VATw Baitaws along with -heerleader Jesday. nporary emplc ed notice of the Campus Aggie to become Bolivian president Jorge F. Quiroga, a Class of '81 industrial engineering graduate, will be formally in stalled as president of Bolivia and the world's first Aggie chief of state. After graduating from A&M, Quiroga returned to his native country and quickly rose through the political ranks. By 1992, he was named minister of finance, and five years later was elected as Bolivia's youngest vice president at the age of 37. Quirogo was followed to A&M by two younger brothers. State Day-care worker pleads guilty to child molestation DALLAS (AP) — A former Catholic church day-care work er charged with abusing 11 . t girls pleaded guilty Wednesday ling SOOH [ to 17 counts of sexual molesta tion, receiving a life sentence. Julio A. Marcos was accused of molesting girls in his care , rr , mn from 1998 to late 2000 at the A/iii h ^ 1 St. Pius X Catholic Church day- vi 11 be on stof I 7 ™ care program. Some of the children were abused several times, which s adding "Fun! ndiment colors 's success with s Co. sold rw; ketchup, andhelpingtht * ^ ie U.S. ketchup | i 55 I. percen; added to the charges against aimnj ms e nded Glenn, v ays in th i o'. “Coacl coach Hani din a tor Mils l^reat, and. His trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but new evi dence prompted Marcos to ac cept a plea offer, said lead pros ecutor Patricia Hogue. Marcos pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sex ual assault of a child. He re- odMeck aAMeAetm and a 60-year prison term. He also pleaded guilty to seven counts of indecency with acMd by contact, receiving six 19-year sentences and one 1 0- year term. In addition, Marcos plead- guy for the ed guilty to eight counts of in- Babers) is decency with a child by expo- ; sure, receiving eight five-year team, Gleni : P r 'son terms. e’s up hen, ~d, and learn- If we keep! 1 stay healthy; Death row inmate's attorney claims evidence tampering LUBBOCK (AP) — An attor ney for a Lubbock man on death row claims a former dis- a^ainst suet] fhet attorney altered a record ed telephone conversation that was entered as evidence in the inmate's appeal. Attorney Alex Calhoun of Austin, who represents Mack Oran Hill, said the altered evi dence casts doubt on the credibility of former District Attorney Travis Ware. Ware denied the allega tions and said such claims are frivolous and commonplace in llth-hour appeals. Hill was set to die by lethal injection Aug. 8 for killing and robbing 43-year-old Donald F. Johnson of Lubbock in 1987. Hill shot Johnson, then ce mented his body inside a bar- ; rel and dumped it in a lake. c he is lookinp g- in the NFC\ is's good, fp quick- to move f<, or I'm lost in - When tibout ► you to quickly r guys.’ J ason Glenn T>etroit Lions JBay Packer; i^ate, wide re- y uson. special to j? crl) and ph) s and tea® do much tri- une. I can! better k i. en he goes liat he h® ^ggie roof t:o the fans 3ways be® wear blue- but I’ll af -■d white a ! I miss ’en* = down a® j =at the hell INSIDE ■ lAj^gtolife • t o« 31 pH r»TI ci { (hr tanaw* - 4 O p I ii i o ii k * || v only RafiAthoti n R^ulio: 1:57 |>.m. KAIVill 90.9 \\ « f 1.*' om i> vtmi m i i.*i ^ *4 Wright verbally commits to men's basketball team Mark Passwaters The Battalion Head Coach Melvin Watkins and the Texas A&M basketball program netted a ma jor coup on Wednes day, obtaining die ver bal commitment of Antoine Wriglit of Lawrence Prep in Groton, Mass. Wright, a 6-foot 7-inch guard/foward, is cur rently ranked fifth on ESPN.com’s Tbp- 100 rising high school seniors. WRIGHT “I really like Coach Watkins, and I like the confrence,” Wright said. “They’ve got a really good point guard in Michael Gardner, and I think 1 can help them do a lot of things. I may be able to come in and start right away.” This summer, Wright has turned heads with his performance in the ABCD Tournament and last week’s Big Time Tournament, held in Las Vegas. “This’ summer I’ve been working hard, trying to improve my game and going to the ABCD and Big Time,” he said. “I’ve been getting ready to be an Aggie.” Some recuiting Websites had sug- M I just think that (A&tM) is the best place for me this summer.” — Antoine Wright basketball player gested that the University of Arizona and the University of Virginia (UVA) were leading Wright’s list, but he said that A&M had been the place he had wanted to go from the beginning. “I’ve been down there on an unofficial Double dare challenge STUART VILLANUEVA/THf Battalion Cody Wager, a 10-year-old from College Station, is made their way through an obstacle course covered hosed down by Kristin Leonard, a junior interdisi- with shaving cream, chocolate pudding and green plinary studies major, after competing in the Double oatmeal. The event took place at Rock Prairie Dare Challenge, an activity in which participants Elementary School in College Station Wednesday. Outbreak of 'Code Red' visit, and I really liked the college at mosphere,” Wright said. Wright said that UVA had made a strong recruiting push, saying he had “definitely” considered them. The other schools that had attempted to sign Wright included die University of Tennesse, the University of Connecticut and the Uni versity of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Wright said the University of Texas was not among the list of finalists. “I just think that (A&M) is the best place for me this summer,” Wright said. “They need one missing piece, and I think I can be it.” Conseco denies charges Jason Bennyhoff The Battalion In response to a lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general’s office Tuesday, Conseco Execu tive Vice President Mark Lub bers said that any violations took pla<?e before Conseco acquired the offending company. The attorney general’s lawsuit alleges that a company Conseco acquired, ATL Life Insurance Co., engaged in deceptive rate practices. Lubbers said ATL’s rate prac tices were not economical, so rate changes had to be made. “Companies Have to have premiums that will cover the long run,” Lubbers said. “Pre mium prices have to cover claims. If they are not priced correctly, you risk insolvency of the company.” Lubbers said Conseco sympa thizes with the affected policy holders and wants to bring an end to the litigation in a way that will positively affect them. He says Conseco is one of the leading insurance providers in the country, and it intends to live up to the responsibilities that entails. “Many of these customers who were policyholders in this See Conseco on Page 2. not as severe as predicted WASHINGTON (AP) — The virus-like “Code Red” worm infect ed computers around the world Wednesday, although the outbreak was not as severe as predicted. “We're still watchful, but for the first time, we’re hopeful as well,” said Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute, a computer se curity think tank working with the government to monitor the Internet. About 135,000 Internet-con nected computers running Mi crosoft’s NT or Windows 2000 .operating system, were infected by Code Red late Wednesday af ternoon, according to SANS data. Although the rate of infection doubled each hour early on, the rate of increase gradually abated. The Pentagon had to shut down public access to many De fense Department Websites again, a week after it shut down most military sites to protect against Code Red. “These prudent measures are being taken to ensure DOD net works remain protected and available for use,” the Pentagon said in a statement. Unlike a computer virus, which needs a person to help it spread, a worm infects other computers on its own. It does not affect most home computers. Officials worried that the outbreak would be as crippling as Code Red’s first appearance on July 19, in which Worming through the Web The “Code Red” worm — an intecting agent that, unlike a virus, does not need a person to spread - slowed Internet traffic Wednesday, but the feared catastrophic overload did not materialize. Standard procedure A user sends out requests to a Web server. The receiving server transmits the requested file back to the user. User Traffic jam Searching for vulnerable computers, the worm jams the Internet with requests. It can also go on the offensive, sending junk data to a specifc target. Divide and conquer p A worm vyorks by automatically duplicating itself onto other computers. Each duplicate in turn attempts to find more computers to infect. SOURCES: National Infrastntcture Protection Center AP wire reports Hassan Hodges/AP over 250,000 systems were infected in its first nine hours. As a result, there were widespread slowdowns and outages across the Internet. This time, after Code Red launched at 7 p.m. EDT, the worm has had a much lower infection rate. German, Lrench and British offi- _ cials reported that Code Red’s im pact was minimal. “Lears that the worm would have a potentially devastating ef fect on the Internet seem to have been unfounded,” said a state ment from Britain’s Home Office, the country’s top law enforcement institution. But foreign and American computer experts continued to warn that computer users should download a software patch from Microsoft to inoculate their sys tems from the worm. Web ite administrators run ning ATicrosoft Windows NT and 2000 operating systems, along with the Internet Information Services software, are vulnerable unless the patch is installed. Users running Windows 95, 98 or Me See Outbreak on Page 2. Graduation speakers announced Stuart Hutson The Battalion fexas Sen. Todd Staples will be the featured speaker at the Texas A&M commencement cere monies on Lriday, Aug. 10. Staples represents 17 East Texas Counties in the Third Senatorial District. He will address graduates in agriculture and life sciences, ar chitecture, business and gradu ate school of business, veteri nary medicine and the George staples Bush School of Government and Public Service. Dr. Thomas R. Saving, professor of Econom ics at Texas A&M,will be the featured speaker at the Texas A&M commencement cere monies on Saturday, Aug. 11. Saving serves as director of the Private Enterprise Re search Center at Texas A&M and is a member of the Presi dent’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. He will address graduates in education, engineering, geosciences, liberal arts, medicine, and science. SAVING