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Show Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 Page 2 World&N Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahstatesman.com ClarifyCorrect The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find unfair, please contact the editor at 797-1762 or TSC 105. Nat'/Briefs Prosecution rests case in Brian Mitchell trial SALT LAKE CITY (AP) —Attorneys for the man accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart in 2002 are calling their first witness in his Salt Lake City trial. Federal prosecutors rested their case against Brian David Mitchell on Tuesday morning and defense attorneys called their first witness, a religious leader from when Mitchell was a member of the Mormon church. Mitchell's trial on charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines is in its third week. If convicted, the 57-year-old one-time street preacher could spend the rest of his life in prison. Mitchell's attorneys have not disputed the facts of Smart's abduction and nine months in captivity but contend he is mentally ill. Feds may ban alcoholic energy drinks WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is expected to find that caffeine is an unsafe food additive to alcoholic drinks, essentially banning them, and manufacturers will then be warned that marketing caffeinated alcoholic beverages could be illegal. The FDA ruling, which could come as soon as this week, "should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has pushed the Obama administration to ban the beverages, said Tuesday. Federal regulators would not confirm Schumer's announcement that a ban was imminent. While there is little known medical evidence that the drinks are less safe than other alcoholic drinks, public health advocates say the drinks can make people feel more alert and able to handle tasks like driving. A Wake Forest University study found that students who combine caffeine and alcohol are more likely to suffer alcohol-related injuries than those drinking alcohol without caffeine. College students have been hospitalized after drinking the beverages, including the popular Four Loko. That beverage comes in several varieties, including fruit punch and blue raspberry. A 23.5-ounce can sells for about $2.50 and has an alcohol content of 12 percent, comparable to four beers, according to the company's website. Four states — Washington, Michigan, Utah and Oklahoma — have banned the beverages and other states are considering similar action. Police in Mesa, Ariz., said an "extremely intoxicated" teenager smashed her SUV into a tree Sunday morning after reportedly playing "beer pong" with Four Loko. Last year the FDA notified more than two dozen manufacturers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages that it had never specifically approved the addition of caffeine to alcoholic drinks and began studying whether it is unsafe and should be outlawed. The agency noted the mix's growing popularity among college stu- LateNiteHumor Top 10 New Words of 2010 —November 15, 2010 10. Lohab 9. Obamamess 8. Baba Bookdeal - 7. Foxtitious 6. Sheentoxicated 5. Witchcrap 4. Baconfetti 3. Opraholic 2. Leno'd 1. Palincoherent dents and its potential health and safety issues. The FDA said then it had not reached a conclusion about its safety but cited concerns from state attorneys general from several states who contended the drinks appeal to underage drinkers and encourage reckless behavior. FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey would not confirm any upcoming action but said the agency recognizes "this very important public health issue" and will announce the results of its review when it is complete. Cindy McCain disagrees with her husband on military's gay policy Highest medal given to soldier for heroism WASHINGTON (AP) —Ambushed in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta stepped into a "wall of bullets" and chased down two Taliban fighters who were carrying his mortally wounded friend away. Three years after that act of battlefield bravery, Giunta on Tuesday became the first living service member from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to receive the nation's top military award, the Medal of Honor. Far from the perilous ridge where his unit was attacked on a moonlit night in October 2007, Giunta stood in the glittering East Room, in the company of military brass, past Medal of Honor winners, his surviving comrades and families as President Barack Obama hung the blue ribbon cradling the medal around Giunta's neck. FOUR LOKO ALCOHOLIC energy drinks are seen in the cooler of a convenience store Nov. 10 in Seattle. Following a vote by the state Liquor Control Board Wednesday, Washington state is banning the drinks effective Nov. 18. AP photo CINDY MCCAIN, the wife of the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, is speaking out against the ban on gays serving openly in the military, contrary to her husband. AP photo WASHINGTON (AP) — Cindy McCain appeared to very publicly differ with her husband, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, over the ban on gays serving openly in the military, opposing the policy in a new video while her husband works to maintain it for now Linking a recent spate of gay teens' suicides with politicians who support the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Cindy McCain directly lays blame for the deaths with lawmakers and clergy who oppose gay rights. In a celebrity-filled anti-bullying video, Mrs. McCain says "government treats the (gay) community like second-class citizens" and does not give young people hope. A message to the senator's office was not immediately returned. The video was posted online by NOH8, a gay rights group that began in opposition to Proposition 8. California voters in 2008 passed that ballot measure that bans samesex marriage. Mrs. McCain and daughter Meghan McCain appeared in ads for that cause and have previously split with the Arizona lawmaker on gay marriage. The group's latest video features rockers Slash and Gene Simmons and reality show stars Denise Richards and Drew Pinsky. The celebrities tick through opportunities denied gays, such as donating blood or marrying in most states. Mrs. McCain, the mother of sons in uniform, then adds: "They can't serve our country openly." Late Friday, Mrs. McCain went to Twitter to issue a statement. "I fully support the NOH8 campaign and all it stands for and am proud to be a part of it," she wrote. "But I stand by my husband's stance on DADT," she continued, referring to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Hopes for repealing the 17-yearold policy have dimmed in the last week. The House and a Senate committee have approved the repeal but Sen. McCain has insisted lawmakers wait until he reviews a Pentagon study on the military's attitudes on repeal before voting in the full Senate. That report is due to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Dec. 1 but it is not clear when the results will be released. That 370-page study has concluded the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, The Washington Post reported this week. The newspaper quoted two people familiar with a draft of the study. Gates has ordered an investigation into the leak of details from the draft study. More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repeal would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, the sources told the newspaper. A Gallup poll in May found 70 percent of American favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. War orphans get look at childhood records PHOENIX (AP) — When a humanitarian worker asked Ajak Dau Akech in 1988 why he fled civil war in Sudan and walked 1,000 perilous miles to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, the boy answered with words few 8year-olds would know. "We ran away from massacring and butchering of the people," the boy said. More than 20 years later, Akech had no idea he had spoken those words until he read them from a document he didn't know until recently even existed. Akech and other Sudanese war orphans, known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, are starting to receive eightpage records that include their family histories, the names of people they traveled with on their flight from war, the names of those who died along the way, medical information and observations about their wellbeing and photographs of themselves. For many of the Lost Boys, the roughly 13,000 documents are the only record of their childhood and families, the photos the only ones taken of them as children. The records were a project by Radda Barnen, the Swedish branch of Save the Children International, and were meant to document the histories of the boys who arrived at the refugee camp without parents in hopes they could be reunited later. But the war lasted 21 years, nearly 2 million people were killed and many villages were destroyed, leaving reunions virtually impossible. The civil war between Sudan's Arab and Muslim, northern-dominated central government and rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south ended with a 2005 peace agreement establishing an autonomous southern Sudan. Southerners are scheduled to vote in an independence referendum in January that could split Africa's largest country in two. The Lost Boys' records had been moved repeatedly, were nearly destroyed by another agency intent on throwing them out, and were languishing in a Radda Barnen warehouse in Ethiopia when Kirk Felsman learned of them. Felsman was a senior research scholar at Duke University and was working on a children's rights project with Radda Barnen when he saw the documents in 2004. Felsman obtained a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a team of anthropologists and others scanned more than 100,000 pages over four months before giving them to the Arizona Lost Boys Center in Phoenix, where about 600 Lost Boys have resettled. It took the center and a team of mostly volunteers six more years to sift through the scanned documents, but all are now digitized and searchable online at www.lostboysreunited.org. Of the 30,000 children who began the trek, only about 11,000 survived, according to the Lost Boys Center. In the first month that the database was available, the website got 4,000 hits from 32 countries and orders for 400 personal histories, which started going out in the mail from Phoenix last week. Ann Wheat, founder of the Arizona Lost Boys Center, said the arduous task has been worth it. fol(a(cm/ not just your average AGGIE But Y ersonal ENGAGEM SPECIALIST 14, ry 45 North Main Street Logan Utah Across from the Tabernacle |