Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 10, 1999)
Police: Woman dragged by car ■ After purse snatching, the 52-year-old was dragged about-50 feet, police said. ^—=—--—.—tii——. By Jake Bleed Senior staff writer A woman was dragged about 50 feet Wednesday afternoon after a man leaning out of the window of a mov ing car grabbed her purse in the SouthPointe Pavilion parking lot, 27th Street and Pine Lake Road. The 52-year-old woman was walking to her car with her 15-year old daughter at about 4 p.m., Lincoln Police Ofc. Katherine Finnell said. While walking, she heard tires squealing, then saw a maroon 1980s Oldsmobile approaching with a man leaning out of the passenger side win dow, Finnell said. As the car passed the woman, the man leaning out of the window grabbed the woman’s purse. The purse strap remained stuck on the woman and, as the car pulled away, she was knocked to the ground and dragged across the parking lot, Finnell said. The purse strap finally broke after the woman was dragged about 50 feet. She suffered a fractured bone in her left hand and scratches on her hips and legs, Finnell said. The screams of the woman and her daughter alerted people in the area who were able to get the Oldsmobile’s license plate as the car pulled away, Finnell said. The Kansas license plate was WZY 455, Finnell said. The car was last seen (hiving south on 27th Street from Pine Lake Road, Finnell said. The value of the woman’s purse and wallet totaled $145. F Finnell said the majority of the purse’s contents were recovered on West Saltillo Road two hours after the snatching. The driver of the car was described as a “skinny but well-built” white man wearing a blue fisherman style hat, Finnell said. Witnesses described the passen ger as a black man wearing a black coat with a shaved head, Finnell said. Police are looking for two men but have not made any arrests, Lincoln Police Capt. A1 Soukup said. The purse-snatching was the third to take place in Lincoln this fall. Finnell said police do not think the other two incidents, which happened in September and October and were both in downtown Lincoln, are con nected to Wednesday’s incident. UNL aids U.N. -affiliated site UNESCO from page 1 Complained about the difflculty-the~ headquarters was having maintaining die site. Emal convinced the man - John Smyth - to create a site in Nebraska that would make it faster and more accessi ble to people in the United States and around die world. The two sat in an English pub and hashed out the idea that would eventu ally bring a server for the Web site to Walter Scott Engineering Center on UNDs City Campus. The server has to be functional and able to handle traffic 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Jill Foner, the software engineer maqager for Nebraska Educational Television, records information about who uses the site through UNLs link. Much of the site’s traffic comes traffic from South American countries, as well as from Turkey. “It’s an honor that we’re hosting it instead of someone else,” Foner said. “It’s helping to promote the university and doing a great thing for education.” The site is central to completing the mission the organization is trying to promote, said Francis Method,'director of the UNESCO liaison office in Washington, D.C. “It’s of enormous importance and used intensely by organizations across the country to stay in touch with UNESCO and to draw information from it,” Method said. The site, which keeps the 185 member-countries connected to each other, posts all documents having to do with the organization. It allows it to be one of the most “transparent” organizations in the world, Method said. Before 1998, UNL^^^sponsible portion of the Web site. Starting last year, the university took over the cultural and scientific p?rts of the Web site, as well. UNDs role in the Web site will con tinue to increase. Emal and others involved in the project hope the univer sity will, soon be equipped to make vis itors’ computers automatically down load to the closest site. For many people aropnd the world, that would be the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln’s mirror site. Emal sees big potential for die site in educating people - especially those in developing countries. He talks about a teacher in a remote area of South Africa teaching her chil dren about different geographical aspects of the world. The teacher could communicate through the site with others from around the world “All the teacher would have to say is: ‘Send us a map of the Grand Canyon,’” Emal said “When you take 185 countries and connect them - that’s huge.” Ja as heroes ‘--A.... _ __. ■ - f WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - With six shiny yellow fire helmets placed at the stage of a packed concert arena, six firefighters who died in a warehouse blaze were honored as fallen heroes Thursday by thousands of their brethren from around die world. “Most cities have one hero. The city ofWorcester was blessed with six,” said Frank Raffa, president of the local fire fighters union, quoting a handwritten sign along die procession route. To the mournful sounds of drum taps and bagpipes, a three-mile stream of30,000 firefighters marched solemn ly through the city, past flag-waving crowds and the stations where the six men were assigned, en route to the tw^ hour memorial service. Many mourners couldn’t get past the doors of the 15,000-seatWorcester Centrum. Schools, municipal offices and most businesses in this blue-eellarcity of 170,000 were closed for one of the biggest firefighter memorials the coun try has ever seen. President Clinton and Vice President A1 Gore were among the guests at the ceremony, 30 miles west of Boston. On tables right in front of the stage, the fire helmets were placed next to photographs of die firefighters - Joseph T. McGwrk, 38; James F. Lyons HI, 34; Lt Thomas E. Spencer, 42; Timothy P. Jackson, 51; Paul A. Brotherton, 41; i" 11 —--1 and Jeremiah M. Lucey, 38. ‘Too often we take them for grant ed, our firefighters,” Clinton told the crowd. “In the days ahead, I hope every American will find an occasion to thank those in their communities who stand ready every day to put their lives on the line when the alarm bell rings.” Each of the dead firefighters’ fami lies was presented with a folded American flag and a medal of honor, a tribute reserved for those who died bravely in the line of duty. The men left behind five wives and 17 children. As Sen. John Kerry handed over a flag, Lyons’ father-James F. Lyons Jr. - buried his face in the fabric, heaving with sobs. Later, Denise Brotherton, one of the new widows, gently wiped a tear from ha young son’s face. Clinton and Gore also met privately with the families. “There were a lot more-smiles and remembrances than tears,” Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart said. “As he went around, each of them had a story to tell him to remember their loved ones by.” A homeless couple allegedly start ed the blaze in the abandoned ware house last Friday night by knocking over a candle during an argument They are charged with involuntary manslaughter Two of the firemen were killed after going in to see whether any homeless ■■■ 1,1 ■ _ 1 people were inside. They became engulfed in Mack smoke and radioed a distress call. The four others died com ing to their rescue. It was the worst loss of firefighters’ lives in a building fire in America in 20 years. Six days after the fire, the sharp smell of smoke still hung in the air. Hundreds of firefighters who couldn’t fit into the arena went instead to die site of the blaze, which they now call “sacred ground” Gore also went to the site to pay tribute. Big televisions were set up outside the warehouse to show the service to the fire crews who stayed behind to search for the last four firefighters’ bodies in the ruins. Fires continued to flare up from the bumed-out building. “We’re all hurting,” Raffa said at the ceremony, “But we’re driven by one desire. We will not give up. We will not leave die scene. Wb will not rest until we bring our brothers home.” Thousands of firefighters came from Australia, Ireland, Nova Scotia, Montreal, Seattle, Honolulu, Kansas City, Mo., and all over the Northeast to pay their respects. Gerard Woods arrived from Dublin, Ireland, along with five of his feUow firemen. “Itfc a brotherhood,” he said. <cWe all support each other, and this is such a tragic event The support is uni versal. It goes throughout the world” Researchers find E. coli differences ■ The same strain has different sections, and each affect humans dif ferently, researchers say. By Michelle Starr Staff writer University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers set out two years ago with one question about E. coli, and they might have answered a different one. “The first results kind of blew us away,” said Andy Benson, a UNL assistant professor of food science and technology. “It was one of those situa tions (where) we had our eyes open but didn’t find our initial question.” . Initially die researchers were trying to find out why some populations of E. coli are more prevalent than others - making the assumption that the more prevalent the population in cattle, the more prevalent it would be in humans. Researchers also looked at why the strain would be more prevalent in humans. Instead, they found one of the most common E. coli strains, E. coli 0157:H7, has two populations within die bacteria, Benson said. “I think we found the difference between the catde E. coli 0157:H7 and the E. coli 0157:H7 in humans,” said Jaehyoung Kim, a graduate student working on the research. One of the populations can cause fatal food poisoning to humans, and the other population is either not trans mittable to humans or appears to not make them sick, Benson said. The researchers performed a pre liminary test with a sample size from three counties in Wisconsin and found thewmay be two different populations. ’ .. They decided to conduct the research again to make sure their find ings were accurate, Benson said. Of the 78 cattle from 16 different states tested during the second round, the researchers found about two-thirds of the cattle were infected with the strain that might not affect humans. a The real test is to actually see if it makes humans sick. No one in their right mind would want to do that.” Andy Benson UNL assistant professor of food science and technology The findings could show that even if cattle are infected with Ertoli 0157:H7, it might not be the bacteria population that will affect humans, Benson said. The ongoing research is looking at what genes in one of the E. coli strains make people sick and if a quick and affordable test can be made to deter mine which type of E. coli 0157:H7 strain is in the infected meat to deter mine if humans could be infected Benson also wants to confirm that the E. coli population affecting cattle is not affecting humans, but it would be hard to do, he said. “The real test is to actually see if it makes humans sick,” Benson said “No one in their right mind would want to do that.” The findings were based on a genetic fingerprinting technique, called octamer-based genome scan ning, developed by Benson about two years ago. The method allows researchers to determine the differences in DNA among the E. coli populations and .^determining which pdpulatfett is involved in causing illness, Benson said The research of Benson, Kim and Joseph Nietfeldt, a UNL lab techni cian, was published in die Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, Kim said. Virus creator pleads guilty NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A com puter programmer pleaded guilty Thursday to creating the “Melissa” computer virus and using a sex Web site to spread it through cyberspace, where it did more than $80 million damage. David L. Smith, 31, faces about five years in prison as part of his plea bargain. He admitted Thursday that he had created and sent the virus from his apartment in Aberdeen in northern New Jersey. Smith told a superior court judge Thursday that he didn’t anticipate the amount of damage the virus caused. But state Attorney General John Farmer didn’t buy the claim. “I think he intended to do exactly what was accomplished - a total dis ruption of worldwide communica tion,” Farmer said. The virus began wreaking havoc in computer systems worldwide in late March. According to a computer securi ty firm that provided prosecutors with evidence on Smith, 1.2 million computers were affected at North American businesses alone. I // To Celebrate Jp*LSs r ristorante Vincenzo swill be open Saturday, Dec. 18th for Lunch Come joinus! Reservations accepted 808 ‘P’ Street • 435-t889— < ' - . • ’ 1