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Show World&Hiktion Page 14 Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 No water for 145 Tenn. residents ORME, Tenn. (AP) - As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community's towering water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve. With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank's meager water supply, and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run. About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process, cutting off water to the town's 145 residents. The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worstcase scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out. The mighty waterfall that fed the mountain hamlet has been reduced to a trickle, and now the creek running through the center of town is dry. Three days a week, the volunteer fire chief hops in a 1961 fire truck at 5:30 a.m. — before the school bus blocks the narrow road — and drives a few miles to an Alabama fire hydrant. He meets with another truck from nearby New Hope, Ala. The two drivers make about a dozen runs back and forth, hauling about 20,000 gallons of water from the hydrant to Orme's tank. "I'm not God. 1 can't make it rain. But I'll get you the water I can get you," Reames tells residents. Between 6 and 9 every evening, the town scurries. Residents rush home from their jobs at the carpet factories outside town to turn on washing machines. Mothers start cooking supper. Fathers fill up water jugs. Kids line up to take showers. "You never get used to it," says Cheryl Evans, a 55-year-old who has lived in town all her life. "When you're used to having water and you ain't got it, it's strange. I can't tell you how many times I've turned on the faucet before remembering the water's been cut." "You have to be in a rush," she says. "At 6 p.m., I start my supper, turn on my washer, fill all my water jugs, take my shower." During its peak in the 1930s, Orme (rhymes with "storm") boasted a population of thousands, a jail, three schools and a hotel. But those boom times are long gone. After the coal miners went on strike in the 1940s, the company shut down the mine and the town has never been the same. Not a single business is left in Orme. The only reminder of the town's glory days is an aging wooden rail depot that sits three feet above the eerily quiet streets. Although changes are coming — cable TV London police guilty LONDON (AP) - London's police force was found guilty Thursday of endangering the public during a frantic manhunt for four failed suicide bombers that led to the killing of an innocent Brazilian man on a subway train. Police had staked out an address belonging to two of the failed bombers at dawn on July 22, 2005. It was less than 24 hours after the attackers' devices failed to ignite on three subway cars and a doubledecker bus. Police feared they were set on trying to strike again. The manhunt unfolded with the British capital already on edge after four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters two weeks earlier. The officers watching the building trailed Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, out of the apartments, suspecting he was one of the bombers. They followed him onto two buses, into a subway station and finally into a train. There, officers, believing he was a bomber, shot him seven times at close range in front of morning commuters, On Thursday, a jury found police guilty of breaking health and safety laws. Judge Richard Henriques ordered the Metropolitan Police to pay a total of $1.16 million for breakdowns in the operation. "One person died and many others were placed in potential danger," Henriques said after the verdict. The judge acknowledged the manhunt had been "a unique and difficult operation." "This was very much an isolated breach brought about by quite extraordinary circumstances," he said. The force had denied the charge, saying the killing was an error, not a crime. Outside London's Central Criminal Court, police chief Ian Blair expressed "my deep regret" over de Menezes' death. "No police officer set out on that day to shoot an innocent man," he said. "I am certain that this death was the culmination of actions by many hands, all of whom were doing their best to handle a terrible threat facing London on that day — a race against time to find the failed suicide bombers of the day before." Blair said he had no intention of resigning after the verdict. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had "full confidence" in the police chief, despite opposition calls for Blair to step down. Blair did not rule out an appeal. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the government doesn't consider that the decision closes the case. "Although without specifying the individuals responsible for the tragedy, the decision recognizes the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police in the case and opens the way for new initiatives in favor of the family of that innocent Brazilian citizen," the statement said. No individual officers were charged over de Menezes' death. The foreman of the jury told the court that blame should not rest with Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of the operation. Prosecutors claimed "fundamental failures" at all levels led to the death of de Menezes. Police thought the Brazilian might have been Hussain Osman, who dropped his gym membership card at the scene of one of the failed attacks. An officer who was meant to identify him as he came out was away "relieving himself," prosecutor Clare Montgomery told the court. The surveillance officers asked the Scotland Yard control room several times if they should arrest him, but were told to wait for a firearms team to arrive, Montgomery said. She described the chaos at police headquarters, claiming an officer responsible for listening to messages could not hear what was being said because colleagues not involved in the case crammed into the room to listen to events unfold. Despite officers' doubts about his identity, Dick testified she was toldfivetimes that the man police were following was Osman. DE MENEZES An officer calied out on the radio that the man being pursued was "our man" and was acting "nervous and twitchy," a firearms officer testified. The marksmen could be seen running down the subway station's escalator in security video footage shown to jurors. A surveillance officer, identified as "Ivor," described following de Menezes into the subway car, grabbing him and pinning him to his seat when he realized firearms officers were there. He shouted: "Here he is." The armed officers shot de Menezesfivetimes in the head, once in the neck and once in the shoulder. Police lawyer Ronald Thwaites told the jury that de Menezes was shot because he had behaved suspiciously and "because when he was challenged by police he did not comply with them but reacted precisely as they had been briefed a suicide bomber might react at the point of detonating his bomb." GEICO. Ai5-minutecall could save you 15% on car insurance. 1513 N. Hillfield Rd., Suite 3 (8O1) 752-O485 arrived just a few years ago — cell phones still don't work there. The main road into town is barely wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Dogs wander the streets, farm animals can be heard all around town, and kids gather outside the one-room City Hall to ride their bikes. "It's like walking back in time. It's NeverNever Land here," says Ernie Dawson, a 47-yearold gospel singer who grew up in Orme. Water restrictions in Orme are nothing new. But residents say it's never been this bad. Even last summer, as the water supply dwindled, city leaders cut off water only at night. But in August, Reames took the most extreme step yet and restricted use to three hours a day. Elected in December, he has now spent $8,000 of the city's $13,000 annual budget to deal with the crisis. Most of the money went toward trucking water from Alabama. He has tried to fill the gaps with modest fundraisers, but it hasn't been easy. A Halloween carnival last week cleared about $375 and a dog show two weeks ago made $300. The town has received a $377,590 emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that Reames hopes will be Orme's salvation. A utility crew is laying a 20-mile pipe to connect Orme to the Bridgeport, Ala., water supply. The work could be finished by Thanksgiving. "It's not a short-term solution," Reames says. "It is THE solution." He says the crisis in Orme could serve as a warning to other communities to conserve water before it's too late. U I feel for the folks in Atlanta," he says, his T O N Y REAMES releases the water from the water tank to the 145 residents of Orme, Tenn., Wed., Oct. 31. The drought has threatened the water supply of large cities as well as small, but the water in Orme has run out. Water is trucked in from Alabama several days each week, and Reames turns it on for about three hours a day. AP photo gravelly voice barely rising above the sound of rushing water from the town's tank. "We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought." Utah isjust one state voting on school issues SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah voters will decide Tuesday whether to adopt the country's first statewide school voucher program that would be open to anyone. The referendum could influence efforts elsewhere to use tax dollars for private school tuition. Utah's voucher law would grant $500 to $3,000, depending on family income, for each child sent to private school. Unlike other voucher plans geared toward low-income students or those in failing schools, Utah's plan would be available to anyone, even affluent families in well-performing districts. It's one of several noteworthy ballot measures confronting voters in six states in the off-year election. Topics include stem cell research in New Jersey, gambling in Maine and a hefty cigarette tax hike in Oregon to fund health insurance for children. Utah's hotly disputed voucher law won approval by one vote in the Republican-controlled Legislature in February. The law was suspended before taking effect when opponents gathered more than 120,000 signatures to force an up-or-down referendum vote. "It's unusual for someone to say 'As goes Utah, so goes the nation/ But this is a huge national issue," said Kim Campbell, president of the state's teachers union, the Utah Education Association, which opposes the measure. Supporters of vouchers say the program would reduce crowding in public schools and give parents more choices. Children already in private schools would not qualify. Critics say the money would be better spent in public schools. Utah spent less per student, 397-1775 Help wanted Orphanage volunteers needed in Ecuador year-round. Supervised, sale, rewarding. Strict moral/ dress code. Contact Orphanage Support Services Organization (OSSO), www.orphanagesupport.org, (208) 359-1767. Nannies Wanted Excellent salaries, car, paid airfare & vacations, 800-549-2132, www. TSNnannies. com AGSNEEDJOBS. COM Paid Survey Takers $5,257, than any other state in 2005, according to the Census Bureau. And the school system must deal with the state's highest-in-the-nation birth rate. Lawmakers set aside $9 million for the first year of the program, but the tab would grow. Ceola Miller, a single mother with afifth-graderat a suburban Salt Lake City public school, wants vouchers. Her daughter, Ebonee, switched from private. school this year because tuition, became unaffbrtfablerT" 7/\': "I don't necessarily think the • private school is better in any other way, except they have a smaller number of kids in the class. She gets more attention," Miller said. Her daughter is in a class of 33 now. In the private school, her class had 15 students. To promote their positions, both sides have spent millions of dollars, much of it on television ads. Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne and family members gave more than $2.7 million to the pro-voucher campaign. The National Education Association has spent more than $3.1 million to defeat it. Public opinion polls showsupport for vouchers at around 40 percent. Quin Monson, a Brigham Young University political science professor, believes Utah voters would embrace a more limited program targeting lowand middle-income families. "If you're a state that has a referendum, you want to be a little less ambitious," he said. Most voucher programs — such as those in Milwaukee and Cleveland —• are aimed at low-income students in poorly performing schools. Some voucher advocates believe success in Utah will persuade other states to expand their programs or cre- kl ate new ones. "It would certainly make states on the cusp of it, like Arizona and Texas, more likely to do so," said Clint Bolick, director of the Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. "Louisiana just elected a very school-choice governor. I think Utah's program would reverberate in the bayous." Bolick said. Among the noteworthy ballot items elsewhere: ^^Z'— In Oregon, a measure to "raisethe cigarette tax by 84.5 cents a pack — to $2.02 — to fund health insurance for about 100,000 children now lacking coverage. Tobacco companies opposing the measure have outspent supporters by a 4-1 margin, contributing nearly $12 million. The campaign has, in many ways, mirrored the debate in Congress over the Democrats' vetoed proposal to boost spending on children's health care by raising the federal cigarette tax. — In New Jersey, a measure authorizing the state to borrow $450 million over 10 years to finance stem cell research. The Roman Catholic Church and, anti-abortion groups oppose the measure, which was placed on the ballot by the Legislature with strong backing from Gov. Jon Corzine. — In Washington, a measure requiring that any tax increase by the Legislature must win a two-thirds majority. — In Texas, a proposal to create a cancer research institute and authorize up to $3 billion in bonds over 10 years to finance it. — In Maine, a measure that would allow the Passamaquoddy Indians to operate a racetrack casino with up to 1,500 slot machines in the hard-up town of Calais. office@statesman.usu.edu Li i Ads Needed In Logan. 100% FREE To Join! Click on Surveys. [Click to view hitp^/agsneedjobs.com/surveys2008.html) Actors, Extras. Models 4 Films, 8 modeling projects now! Actors, Extras. Models. Earn S75-S1250 Day! No Experience. Not a school.. 801-438-0067 People wanted to supervise mildly disabled, people with their daily living skills and in the community on company-paid activities such as movies, outdoor activities, bowling, fishing, etc. Flex shifts, PT/FT in the Logan area. 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