Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday April 17 2007 - (813)

Tuesday April 17 2007 edition
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UPDATE: Virginia Tech Shootings Deadliest In American History 2007-04-17 00:43:55 An outburst of gunfire at a Virginia Tech dormitory, followed two hours later by a ruthless string of attacks at a classroom building, killed 32 students, faculty and staff and left about 30 others injured Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in the nation's history. The shooter, whose name was not released Monday night, wore bluejeans, a blue jacket and a vest holding ammunition, said witnesses. He carried a 9mm semiautomatic and a .22-caliber handgun, both with the serial numbers obliterated, said federal law enforcement officials. Witnesses described the shooter as a young man of Asian descent - a silent killer who was calm and showed no expression as he pursued and shot his victims. He killed himself as police closed in. He had left two dead at the dormitory and 30 more at a science and engineering building, where he executed people taking and teaching classes after chaining some doors shut behind him. At one point, he shot at a custodian who was helping a victim. Witnesses described scenes of chaos and grief, with students jumping from second-story windows to escape gunfire and others blocking their classroom doors to keep the gunman away. Even before anyone knew who the gunman was or why he did what he did, the campus community in Southwest Virginia began questioning whether most of the deaths could have been prevented. They wondered why the campus was not shut down after the first shooting. Read The Full Story Virginia Tech Tragedy: A Friend, A 'Good Listener' And A Victim 2007-04-17 00:43:00 Ryan Clark was known as Stack here on the rolling campus of Virginia Tech, an amiable senior memorable for his ready smile and thoughtful ways. He was also among the first victims of the deadliest school rampage in the nation’s history. A student resident adviser at West Ambler Johnston Hall, Mr. Clark was apparently rushing over to investigate what was going on when he came upon the gunman, according to a student who lives on the fourth floor, where the first shootings took place. In the end, as the people here struggled to come to grip with the tragedy, it fell to Vernon W. Collins, the coroner in Mr. Clark’s hometown in Columbia County, Georgia, to deliver the news of his death to his mother. “She was in shock,” said Collins. “It started out in disbelief. She was praying what I was telling her was wrong, and I felt the same way. I wished I didn’t have to tell her that.” Read The Full Story Fierce Nor'easter Leaves A Toll Of Flooding And Hardship 2007-04-17 00:42:17 The storm destined for the books as the northeaster of ’07 continued its assault on the New York region and the Northeast Monday, forcing the evacuation of thousands from flooded homes, disrupting travel, closing schools and trailing a wake of rising rivers, gouged beaches, power failures and widespread damage. The awesome storm, which swamped New York City and other locales on Sunday with record rains, punishing winds and heavy snows that recast northern landscapes, stalled over the Northeast Monday, but forecasters said it had lost its punch and would churn to oblivion over the Atlantic Tuesday. At least nine deaths in five states were attributed to the storm. There were no immediate estimates of its damage, which seemed likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. And it is not over. While coastal flooding was receding in most areas, rivers were still rising, swollen by the runoff of record rains. Public officials warned of continuing and widespread power problems and commuting headaches. Read The Full Story Security Guards Go On Strike At U.S. Nuclear Weapons Plant 2007-04-17 00:41:22 More than 500 security guards at the United States' only nuclear weapons assembly plant walked off the job just after midnight Monday to protest what they said is a steep deterioration in job and retirement security since the government changed fitness standards for weapons-plant guards in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The contractor at the plant, BWXT Pantex in Carson County, Texas, replaced the striking guards with a contingency force that it says will secure the plant's weapons, nuclear materials and explosives as long as necessary. The issue is not confined to Pantex because guard union leaders at other weapons plants also are raising concerns about the new security requirements, which they say will force many older guards out of their jobs. Congressional Democrats criticized the Energy Department for not acting to resolve the guards' concerns in time to avert a strike. "This employment instability not only raises the potential for significant costs to the American taxpayer, but also raises serious nuclear security concerns," said U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Read The Full Story Britain To Raise Climate Talks As A U.N. Security Council Issue 2007-04-17 00:40:24 The British government will make a concerted effort this week to push climate change up the global agenda when it raises the subject for the first time within the U.N. Security Council. Tuesday's security council debate has been achieved by the U.K. despite opposition from the U.S., Russia and China, which made clear they did not see climate change as an appropriate subject for the Security Council, though they have stopped short of killing the debate via a veto. The British position is getting an important boost from unexpected quarters: the U.S. military. Eleven former generals are issuing a 63-page report Monday calling on the Bush administration to do more to counter climate change, warning that otherwise there could be "significant national security challenges" to the U.S. The generals include Anthony Zinni, retired chief of Central Command and a critic of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war, and Gordon Sullivan, formerly the U.S. Army's most senior general. Read The Full Story UPDATE: Student - Virginia Tech Shooter Had 'A Very Serious But Very Calm Look On His Face' 2007-04-16 17:28:43 Thirty-three people were killed and at least 30 injured during a shooting rampage this morning at Virginia Tech University, making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The unidentified shooter was among the dead. Law enforcement authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shooter used two 9mm pistols. They also said that the shooter was not carrying identification and his head wounds were so severe that authorities could not immediately identify him. The shootings, which included both students and staff members, took place at West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory, and Norris Hall, which houses the College of Engineering, at opposite ends of the sprawling campus. Authorities said the first shooting was reported shortly after 7 a.m. at the dorm and the second about two hours later at Norris Hall. Read The Full Story Poll: Most Say Attorney Firings Was Political 2007-04-16 15:44:36 Two thirds of Americans, including a narrow majority of Republicans, see political motivations behind last year's firings of eight chief federal prosecutors; but the nation is deeply divided along partisan lines about whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales should lose his job over the scandal. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Gonzales faces a broadly critical public as well as congressional scrutiny about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. Gonzales wrote a column in the Outlook section of the Washington Post Sunday describing his role in the matter; he testifies tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the poll, 67 percent said they believed the prosecutors were fired by the Justice Department for political reasons, not on the basis of their performance. About eight in 10 Democrats and two-thirds of independents said they saw political motivations behind the firings of the U.S. attorneys, an attitude shared by 53 percent of all Republicans surveyed. Read The Full Story Investor Group To Buy Sallie Mae For $25 Billion 2007-04-16 15:43:39 SLM Corp., the nation's largest student lender and until recently part of an on-going investigation of the student loan industry, will be sold to a group of investors and become a private company under a deal announced this morning by the Reston, Virginia-based firm. Known as Sallie Mae, the company said it had agreed to a $25 billion sale to a team of investors led by J.C. Flowers & Co., and including the private firm of Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. The sale price of $60 per share is nearly 50 percent higher than Sallie's stock price as of late last week, representing the premium investors placed on Sallie's $142 billion student loan portfolio and the cash it generates. Sallie Mae stock closed at $40.66 on Thursday, the day before news of a possible sale of the company was first reported. The price rose above $55 in pre-market trading on Monday. Read The Full Story UPDATE: 32 Killed In Virginia Tech Shootings, At Least 24 Wounded 2007-04-16 13:48:57 Thirty-two people have reportedly been killed and more than two dozen others injured during a shooting rampage this morning at Virginia Tech, making it the deadliest killing spree in U.S. history, according to law enforcement sources. The unidentified shooter was among the dead, according to officials, who also said that several were injured in the shootings, at West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory, and Norris Hall, which houses the College of Engineering. Authorities said the first shooting was reported shortly after 7 a.m. "We have a ballpark figure on fatalities," Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum, said at a news conference broadcast earlier today by CNN. "It's at least 20 fatalities." Flinchum said he did not know whether the shooter was a student. Some of those killed were students in a classroom at Norris Hall, he said. Read The Full Story Powerful Nor'easter Pummels U.S. East Coast, Causes Floods 2007-04-16 01:58:39 A powerful nor'easter pounded the East with wind and pouring rain Sunday, grounding airlines and threatening to create some of the worst coastal flooding in 14 years. Flooding also forced dozens of people from their homes in the middle of the night in five West Virginia counties. Other inland states faced a threat of heavy snow. One person was killed as dozens of mobile homes were destroyed or damaged by wind in South Carolina. The storm system had already been blamed for five deaths in Kansas and Texas. The Coast Guard had warned mariners to head for port because winds up to 55 mph were expected to generate seas up to 20 feet high, Petty Officer Etta Smith said Sunday in Boston, Massachusetts. Read The Full Story U.S. Bolstering Force In Deadly Diyala 2007-04-16 01:57:54 The first thing Spec. Edward Lyall heard was the thin, high pop of the AK-47. From the gunner hatch of the Stryker combat vehicle, he saw the muzzle flashes from a shed on the roof of a brown brick building across a canal. With bullets hissing over his head, he fired his machine gun back at the house until a bolt popped out of the gun's handle and wedged into a crack in the floor. "I need a weapon!" he screamed, his face red and his hands shaking. The gunners in three other Strykers took up the barrage, until a thunderous bomb sent up a plume of dust and smoke around the convoy. After four minutes and nearly 2,000 rounds, the attack abruptly stopped and the American soldiers drove back to their base unharmed. The back hatch opened and Lyall scooped up used shell casings. Read The Full Story Sadr Aides Say Six Allies In Iraqi Cabinet Will Resign 2007-04-16 01:56:53 In a move that could further weaken Iraq's fledgling government, six cabinet members loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will quit their jobs Monday at his behest, officials close to Sadr said Sunday night. The news came as a fresh spate of bombings killed nearly 50 people in Shiite-dominant areas across Baghdad on Sunday, one of the city's deadliest days since a U.S.-led security push to stem violence in the capital began two months ago. Sadr asked the ministers to resign in protest of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's unwillingness to back a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, said Abdul Razaq al-Nadawi, a Sadr spokesman, and Abdul Mahdi al-Mutairy, a Sadr political adviser. Bahaa al-Aaraji, a Shiite lawmaker in the 30-seat legislative bloc loyal to Sadr, said Sadrists also were fed up with sectarian squabbling and would ask Maliki to appoint "independent technocrats" to the posts. With his Mahdi Army militia under orders to stand down, Sadr appeared to be ratcheting up political pressure on Maliki. Read The Full Story Venezuela's Chavez Challenges U.S. With Energy Summit 2007-04-16 01:55:19 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will seek to use oil wealth to consolidate regional support for his anti-U.S. politics as he hosts an energy summit of South American leaders on Monday. But the meeting on the Caribbean tourist island of Margarita comes as rifts have emerged across the continent over ethanol, with Brazil working with Washington to promote the fuel in an effort Chavez says will increase world hunger. Chavez, who governs atop the hemisphere's largest oil reserves and wins political influence with subsidized exports to neighbors, wants the 12-nation conference to focus on regional integration as a counterweight to the United States. "Gradually the U.S. empire will end up a paper tiger and we, the peoples of Latin America, will become true tigers of steel," Chavez said on the eve of the summit. Read The Full Story	Virginia Tech: Drumbeat Of Shots, Broken By Pauses To Reload 2007-04-17 00:43:31 The gunshots were so slow and steady that some students thought they came from a nearby construction site, until they saw the police officers with rifles pointed at Norris Hall, the engineering building at Virginia Tech. Bang. Bang. Bang. They went on and on, for what seemed like 10 or 15 or 20 minutes, an eternity with punctuation. Bang. Bang. On the third floor of Norris Hall, Scott L. Hendricks, a professor, looked out the window of his office and saw students crawling away from the building. Bang. Tiffany Otey’s accounting class crammed into an office and locked themselves in, crying in fright. Every so often, the shots paused for a minute or so. That was the gunman, who was in the midst of the worst shooting rampage in American history, stopping to reload. When it was over, 33 people, including the gunman, were dead and at least 15 more were injured. Read The Full Story Poll: Democrats More Trusted To Set Iraq Policy Than Bush 2007-04-17 00:42:36 Congress and the White House will move this week toward a final showdown over a contested war funding bill, with most Americans trusting Democrats over President Bush to set Iraq policy but with sentiment deeply divided over Congress's push to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Democratic leaders will formally convene House and Senate negotiators Wednesday to hammer out a final version of the bill, hoping to have the compromise on Bush's desk by the end of next week. The president and Democratic leaders again exchanged verbal fire Monday. Bush used a backdrop of military families to declare: "We should not legislate defeat in this vital war." Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada), flanked by retired Army generals, fired back, "The president and the vice president continue to desperately cling to their failed escalation strategy and attack those who disagree with them." Democrats appear to be standing on firm political ground, as they work toward a final bill. A Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,141 adults, conducted April 12-15, found that 58 percent trusted the Democrats in Congress to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, compared with 33 percent who trusted Bush. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Delays Gonzales Testimony On Attorney Firings 2007-04-17 00:41:54 The Senate Judiciary Committee canceled testimony scheduled for Tuesday from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales after concluding that the hearing would be inappropriate in the wake of Monday's mass slaying at Virginia Tech. Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) said he postponed the hearing, which will focus on the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, until Thursday after conferring with Gonzales and the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania). "I'm sure that he will want to be dealing with the matters of the shooting," Leahy said of Gonzales. Read The Full Story Russian Prosecutor Tells U.K. To Hand Over Beresovsky 2007-04-17 00:40:44 The Russian prosecutor general today asked Britain to hand over Boris Berezovsky for prosecution. The move came after the London-based oligarch admitted planning a revolution to overthrow the Russian government. In comments screened on Russian state-run television, prosecutor general Yury Chaika said: "Berezovsky has created a criminal group with the aim of overthrowing by force the lawful powers of the Russian Federation. In any country, that is a criminal deed." Chaika said he had sent an international legal request to Britain's Home Office to request that Berezovsky be stripped of his asylum and extradited to Moscow. Read The Full Story U.S. Failure To Help British Inquest 'Inexcusable' 2007-04-17 00:40:06 The Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Monday launched a fresh attack on the "inexcusable" U.S. failure to cooperate with an inquest into the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq. Andrew Walker hit out as he reopened an inquest into the deaths of eight servicemen who became the first British casualties of the Iraq war when the U.S. helicopter they were travelling in crashed on March 21 2003. Walker said he had asked for permission to use U.S. evidence that would help his inquiry, but had not received it. He said a tape taken by the air mission command aircraft, which he believed held radio transmissions before and after the crash, had not been made available. Footage filmed by an embedded crew from the Fox News TV station was also being withheld, he said. Read The Full Story Nor'easter Leaves Flooding, Travel Disruptions, Power Cut For Thousands 2007-04-16 15:44:56 Rain from a rare spring Northeaster that pelted the New York metropolitan area all day Sunday and into Monday flooded streets and basements, disrupted air travel and commuter railroads and cut power to thousands of homes. The National Weather Service reported that 7.81 inches of rain fell in Central Park through early Monday and warned that more flooding is possible in the region. “The region will be very sensitive to additional rainfall,” the service said, adding that “most area rivers and streams will be slow to recede” and could “experience quick rises with additional heavy rain.” The agency said the flooding was the worst since tropical storm Floyd hit in September 1999. Read The Full Story Ministers Loyal To Al-Sadr Resign Cabinet Posts Because Government Won't Set Deadline For U.S. To Leave Iraq 2007-04-16 15:44:14 The militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew six ministers loyal to him from the Iraqi cabinet Monday, in the first major shake-up of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki'sgovernment since it was installed a year ago. Legislators working for Sadr said that Sadr was withdrawing his ministers from the 38-member cabinet because the Iraqi government had refused to set a timetable for pulling American troops out of the country. The move is the first time Sadr has followed through with a threat to cut some of his ties with the government and with Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose grip on authority largely rests on Sadr’s political support. Read The Full Story Virginia Tech Students Recount Shootings 2007-04-16 14:53:33 Kristen Bensley, 18, a freshman who lives on the third floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, just below the floor where the first shooting at Virginia Tech occurred this morning, learned of the violence when her resident adviser knocked on her door and instructed her and her roommate not to leave their room. Bensley, from Bel Air, Maryland., said police cars lined the road outside her room, and an amplified announcement blared across the campus urging students to remain indoors. She, like many other students locked down in their rooms in Blacksburg, Virginia, spent their morning receiving e-mails, contacting loved ones to let them know she was safe and watching the news about their own campus on national television. They traded rumors and bad news and eventually shared their grief. "I have a few friends on the fourth floor," said Bensley. "They were all evacuated, and they weren't allowed to go back there." Read The Full Story BREAKING NEWS: At Least 22 Virginia Tech Students Killed, More Than 20 Wounded In Shooting Rampage 2007-04-16 13:32:52 A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing at least 21 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman also was killed and some officials expected the death toll to be even higher given that several dozen others were also shot. “Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.” The university reported shootings at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and continuing about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building. Some but not all the dead were students. One student was killed in a dorm and the others were killed in the classroom, said Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum. The name of the gunman was not released. It was not known if he was a student. Read The Full Story Ex-Justice Department Official's Statements Contradict Gonzales On Firings 2007-04-16 01:58:17 The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said Sunday. The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had "lost confidence" in the prosecutors because of performance problems. Battle's statements, relayed to reporters Sunday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), came as Gonzales prepares for a make-or-break appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prepared testimony released Sunday indicates Gonzales will apologize to the fired prosecutors for the way they were treated and will acknowledge that he has been "less than precise" in describing his role in the firings. Read The Full Story Gaza Group Claims BBC Reporter Alan Johnston Murdered 2007-04-16 01:57:23 Concern was mounting Sunday night for the safety of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston after a group in Gaza issued a statement saying he had been killed. It was impossible to verify the claim, which was made in Arabic and sent by email to Palestinian journalists in Gaza from a previously unknown group. The BBC said it too had no independent verification of the claim but said it was "deeply concerned". Mr. Johnston, 44, was kidnapped five weeks ago Monday as he drove home from his office in Gaza City. He was thought to have been seized by a criminal family in Gaza but the BBC has had no direct contact with the kidnappers. Read The Full Story Wolfowitz Defiant As Nations Seek To Push Him Out Over Job Scandal 2007-04-16 01:56:14 A defiant Paul Wolfowitz was clinging to his job as president of the World Bank last night in the face of attempts by European countries to force his resignation over the scandal involving a promotion for his girlfriend. Development ministers delivered a public dressing down to Wolfowitz when they expressed concern and warned that he risked losing the confidence of his staff at a meeting in Washington, D.C. In a strongly-worded statement described as "unprecedented" by one senior G7 source, the bank's development committee piled the pressure on the former number two at the Pentagon to step down from his job running the world's leading development body. Read The Full Story Northwest Airlines Pilot Arrested On Drug And Other Charges 2007-04-16 01:54:53 An off-duty Northwest Airlines pilot was suspected of driving under the influence of cocaine when he headed the wrong way on an interstate to avoid the U.S.-Canada border and led deputies on a chase, authorities said Sunday. Investigators said Walter L. Dinalko, a veteran pilot of 20 years, had flown to Detroit Metropolitan Airport Saturday afternoon and then rented a Hummer that he drove about 70 miles to Port Huron. Dinalko turned around three times on the Blue Water Bridge, apparently changing his mind about heading into Sarnia, Ontario, said St. Clair County sheriff's Lt. A.J. Foster. He then drove on the wrong side of the bridge and Interstate 94, said Foster. Read The Full Story
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