OCR Text |
Show Monday, Sept. 14, 2009 Page 2 World&Nation Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.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 statesmaneditor@ aggiemail.usu.edu. Celebs&People LONDON (AP) – Look out, Madonna and Angelina Jolie – pop star Elton John has decided he wants to join the ranks of A-list celebrities with adopted children. But it’s not clear if John, 62, will be able to adopt, and the Rocket Man star has not yet started Elton John formal proceedings, which are often long and complicated. John and longtime partner David Furnish are interested in trying to adopt a Ukrainian toddler named Lev they met during an orphanage tour there. NewsBriefs Adams tapped to fill vacant Senate seat KAYSVILLE, Utah (AP) – Davis County Republicans have nominated former state representative and Utah Transportation Commission Stuart Adams to fill Lt. Gov. Greg Bell’s vacated state Senate seat. Delegates considered eight candidates at a special county convention held Saturday. Adams received about 53 percent of the vote for the District 22 seat. The district includes parts of Centerville, Farmington, Fruit Heights, Kaysville and Layton. Adams’ nomination must be seconded by the state Republican Party and finalized by Gov. Gary Herbert. Adams was a member of Utah’s House of Representatives from 2003 to 2006 and says he looks forward to returning to legislative work. LateNiteHumor David Letterman’s Top 10 Signs You Picked a Bad College. Sept. 11, 2009. 10. Campus is in North Carolina, your dorm is in North Dakota. 9. No application, just be the fifth caller to local FM station. 8. School’s motto is: “Truth, Excellence, Delicious Soup.” 7. Only book in library is George Hamilton’s autobiography. 6. While walking to class, not unusual to see student fending off a gator. 5. ”U.S. News and World Report” ranks it as one of America’s 20,000 colleges. 4. Most popular major: Grifting. 3. Last year’s commencement speaker was Howie Mandel’s cousin, Larry. 2. Grades based on how much you tip. 1. Most famous alumnus? Andy Dick. Following the trash in search of a Yale student HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Investigators sifted through garbage at an incinerator Sunday, looking for clues into the disappearance of a Yale University graduate student who was supposed to be celebrating her wedding day. FBI agent Bill Reiner said Sunday that investigators are “following the trash” that left the university laboratory in New Haven. He declined to comment further on the search at the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority’s trash-to-energy plant in Hartford. Annie Le, 24, was last seen Tuesday morning at the lab. More than 100 state, local and federal law enforcement agencies are looking for her but have not yet determined if Le’s disappearance is a missing person’s case or an act of foul play. Authorities say Le, a pharmacology doctoral student originally from Placerville, Calif., swiped her identification card to enter the lab. But there is no record of her leaving despite some 75 surveillance cameras around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office. Investigators on Saturday said they recovered evidence from the building that houses Le’s laboratory, but would not confirm reports by media outlets that the items included bloody clothing. In a story published Saturday, the Yale Daily News quoted an unnamed New Haven Police Department official as saying the bloody clothes were found in a ceiling at the building. The official spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity so the official would be free to discuss an ongoing investigation. On Sunday morning, a state police Major Crimes Squad van drove down a ramp into the basement area of the building where the lab is located. Officials had no immediate comment. Yale is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Le’s whereabouts. On Sunday, students prayed for Le’s safe return at The University Church. “It has been a week that has tested many people in many different ways,” the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said just before he gave the Sunday morning sermon. “It has brought up a lot of fears for people. It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety.” The student-dominated congregation offered a moment of silence and prayer “for Annie, and her family, who have arrived here in New Haven, for her fiance, on this, what would have been their wedding day. Let’s lift them up in our prayers,” Oliver said. Le’s family arrived in New Haven on Saturday, Oliver said after the service. He said the church doesn’t have any other events or prayer services planned specifically for Le. “There is nothing else at this point because the university and police have said there is no criminal investigation, there is no proof of a crime. So at this point, we are just praying,” Oliver said. Le, who’s of Asian descent, stands 4 feet 11 inches and weighs 90 pounds. She was to marry Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky on A NEWSPAPER MACHINE is seen outside the Yale medical complex where missing graduate stuSunday at the North Ritz dent Annie Le had her lab, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, in New Haven, Conn. As authorities continue their Club in Syosset, N.Y., on the search for the Yale University graduate student and bride-to-be who disappeared several days ago, they north shore of Long Island. said they are now examining potential evidence from a laboratory where she was last seen. Items that Police say Widawsky is could be evidence have been seized and are being analyzed, but none has yet been associated with Le, FBI not a suspect and is assistspokeswoman Kim Mertz said at a news conference Saturday. Mertz would not confirm reports that the ing with the investigation. items found included bloody clothing. AP photo Risk-taking is back for banks a year after crisis NEW YORK (AP) – A year after the financial system nearly collapsed, the nation’s biggest banks are bigger and regaining their appetite for risk. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and others – which have received tens of billions of dollars in federal aid – are once more betting big on bonds, commodities and exotic financial products, trading that nearly stopped during the financial crisis. That Wall Street is making money again in essentially the same ways that thrust the banking system into chaos last fall is reason for concern on several levels, financial analysts and government officials say. – There have been no significant changes to the federal rules governing their behavior. Proposals that have been made to better monitor the financial system and to police the products banks sell to consumers have been held up by lobbyists, lawmakers and turf-protecting regulators. – Through mergers and the failure of Lehman Brothers, the mammoth banks whose near-collapse prompted government rescues have gotten even bigger, increasing the risk they pose to the finan- cial system. And they still make bets that, in the aggregate, are worth far more than the capital they have on hand to cover against potential losses. – The government’s response to last year’s meltdown was to spend whatever it takes to protect the financial system from collapse – a precedent that could encourage even greater risk-taking from the private sector. Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, says an overhaul of financial regulations is needed as soon as possible to keep the financial system safe over the long haul. “You cannot rely on the scars of past crises to ensure against practices that will lead to future crises,” Summers says. No one is predicting another meltdown from risky trading in the near term. Rather, the concern is what happens over time as banks’ confidence grows and the memory of the financial crisis of 2008 fades. Will they pile on bets to the point that a new asset bubble forms and – as happened with mort- gage-backed securities – its undoing endangers banks and the broader economy? “We’re seeing the same kind of behavior from the banks, and that could lead to some huge and scary parallels,” says Simon Johnson, former chief economist with the International Monetary Fund. Some risk-taking is good. When banks are willing to invest in companies or lend to home-buyers, that nurtures economic growth by generating employment and consumer spending, feeding a cycle of expansion. The problem is when banks’ quest for profits leads them to take on too much risk. In the case of the housing bubble, which burst last year, banks lent too freely to consumers with weak credit and wagered too much on complex financial instruments tied to mortgages. As real-estate prices turned south, so did the financial industry’s health. Because the largest banks’ trading divisions make their bets with each other, their fortunes are intertwined. The collapse of one can threaten another – and another – if it is unable to pay off its debts. Italy grapples Utah Gov. Gary Herbert wastes no time conservatizing Utah with abuse by priests VERONA, Italy (AP) – It happened night after night, the deaf man said, sometimes in the priest’s bedroom, sometimes in the bathroom, even in the confessional. When he was a young boy at a Catholic-run institute for the deaf, Alessandro Vantini said, priests sodomized him so relentlessly he came to feel “as if I were dead.” This year, he and dozens of other former students did something highly unusual for Italy: They went public with claims they were forced to perform sex acts with priests. For decades, a culture of silence has surrounded priest abuse in Italy, where surveys show the church is considered one of the country’s most respected institutions. Now, in the Vatican’s backyard, a movement to air and root out abusive priests is slowly and fitfully taking hold. A yearlong Associated Press tally has documented 73 cases with allegations of sexual abuse by priests against minors over the past decade in Italy, with more than 235 victims. The tally was compiled from local - See ABUSE, page 12 IN THIS AUG. 11 PHOTO, UTAH GOV. GARY HERBERTs takes the oath of office from Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham as Herbert’s wife, Jeanette, holds the Bible in Salt Lake City. Herbert has barely been in office for a month, but he’s not wasting any time charting a more conservative course than his predecessor on the very issues former Gov. Jon Huntsman used to vault to national prominence within the GOP and an ambassadorship to China. AP photo |