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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1998)
Support of project delayed by ASUN By Jessica Fargen Assignment Reporter ASUN senators tabled a bill Wednesday night that would have voiced their support for the Antelope Valley Project pending remaining studies of the project. The bill would have voiced sup port only if parking and recreation fields lost in the project would be replaced before construction took them down. Paul Schreier, engineering and technology senator, was concerned about the steady loss of parking on campus, even without the project. “We have to replace whatever is being lost before it’s lost,” Schreier said. “We don’t have a lot of land left to use for surface parking.” John Benson, director of Institutional Research Planning, said the project would benefit stu dents by diverting traffic from campus and making 16th and 17th streets two-way, as well as revital izing neighborhoods surrounding the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Another part of the project aims to create a storm-water drainage system that would remove 20 per cent of City Campus from a 100 year flood plain. After campus is out of the flood plain, the universi ty could develop that land. The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska spent much of the remainder of the meet ing talking about UNL’s recent racial issues. Linda Crump, director of affir mative action and diversity pro grams, explained the findings two weeks ago by the Office for Civil Rights. The visit resulted in recom mendations on how UNL could improve its racial climate and grievance policy and procedures. She said a committee of students, staff and faculty members will be meeting to review policies at UNL. She said officials identified grievance and harassment policy and procedures, the investigations of complaints and training as areas UNL should review. In other ASUN news: ■ About 100 students were approved to be on 30 ASUN com mittees, subcommittees and boards. Positions are still open on eight committees. ■ Senators voted on one bylaw change that combines the Technology Fee Advisory Board with the Information Services committee. Bomber to be added to most-wanted list WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is preparing to add Eric Robert Rudolph, charged with the nation’s first fatal bombing of an abortion clinic, to its 10 most wanted list and offer a $ 1 million reward for his capture, officials said Wednesday. Bureau officials had originally planned to announce that the 31-year old carpenter from Murphy, N.C., was added to the list Wednesday, but post poned that until next week while they obtain the expected approval from the Justice Department to boost the reward from $100,000 to $1 million, accord ing to Justice officials, who requested anonymity. Rudolph has eluded capture since the Jan. 29 bombing at the New Woman All Women Clinic in Birmingham, Ala., which killed a security guard and badly injured a nurse. Within a week of the blast he was sought as a material witness. By Feb. 14, he was formally charged with using an explosive device to damage the building, which carries a possible death sentence. Late last month, Rudolph was the subject of a false alarm in Denver after someone thought he had spotted the license plate for his truck, which actu ally had been found abandoned near his hometown in North Carolina with in days of the bombing. On March 17, the task force inves tigating the Birmingham bombing was formally merged with an older task force assigned to solve three bombings in Atlanta, including one at Centennial Olympic Park in July 1996. Although the merger announce ment made no mention of Rudolph, the now-superseded Atlanta Bomb Task Force had been looking into whether he might also be responsible for the Atlanta attacks. Tainted beef leads to recall WASHINGTON (AP) - The country’s biggest meat-packing company is recalling more than 282,000 pounds of ground beef nationwide following the discovery of contamination with a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria. The tainted sample was found during a routine testing program conducted by the Department of Agriculture on a single package of beef produced April 14 at IBP Inc.’s plant in Joslin, 111. - The recalled amount represents that entire day’s production and was possibly shipped to numerous states, Jacque Knight, spokeswoman for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said Wednesday. “We consider it a nationwide recall,” Knight said. IBP, based in Dakota City, Neb., said in a statement that 50 retail and food service customers have been contacted and asked to return the meat to IBP. The beef is typically processed further by grocers and restaurants, so there are no product codes for consumers to check. “To our knowledge, there has been no illness associated or report ed on the product from this date,” the IBP statement said. “However, in an abundance of caution, IBP is conducting this voluntary recall.” Health departments in all 50 states have been alerted to watch for cases of E. coli, as has the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Agriculture Department has isolated the DNA of the sample in question, which could be used to determine if any illnesses result from the recalled beef. Symptoms of infection include abdominal cramps, diarrhea and fever. E. coli, a microbe that gets in meat mainly through contaminated manure, is particularly dangerous for children, the elderly and people with AIDS. Cooking hamburger to an inter nal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the pathogen. Ground beef should never be eaten rare. The recall is the latest in a series of cases involving E. coli and ground beef, including the record recall of 25 million pounds last sum mer by Hudson Foods Co. People were sickened in that case, and the financial fallout resulted in Hudson’s buyout by Arkansas rival Tyson Foods Inc. Despite its high profile, E. coli contamination still is relatively rare: The sample found by the Agriculture Department was only the 13th out of some 20,100 tests on beef since 1994. The IBP plant in Illinois is among those that have implemented a new government-mandated meat inspection system intended to reduce E. coli and salmonella conta mination through controls at certain spots along the production line. There are 45 employees at the plant dedicated to food safety. The IBP statement said the com pany is reviewing all of its proce dures and is installing new technol ogy in its plants, including steam cabinets that prevent contamination on beef carcasses. “Our company and our industry continue to aggressively research ways to further enhance our food safety efforts,” the company said. The Department of Agriculture later this year will announce rules enabling meat processors to use irradiation on ground beef, which kills E. coli, salmonella and other pathogens. Stories of IRS misconduct mount WASHINGTON (AP) - Stories describing heavy-handed tactics by criminal investigators for the Internal Revenue Service dominated Senate hearings Wednesday, with three busi ness owners contending they were targets of unjustified raids. “My employees heard the agents shout, ‘IRS* This business is under criminal investigation! Remove your hands from the keyboard and back away from the computers. And remember, we arewmedl’” said W.A. Moncrief Jr.,.iiho described a September 1994 raid on his Fort Worth, Texas, oil company. No criminal charges resulted from the case, but Moncrief agreed to pay an unspecified $23 million settlement to the IRS. The testimony came at a second day of Senate Finance Committee hearings on the IRS. Next week, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill to revamp the agency and boost tax payers’ rights. Richard Gardner, a tax preparer in Tulsa, Okla., said his business was raided in March 1995 by more than 20 IRS agents and U.S. marshals. He was named in a 23-count federal indictment that charged he assisted in preparing false tax returns. The case was dismissed in January. Steve Lewis, U.S. attorney in Tulsa, declined to discuss the case, citing a pending motion in court; Gardner wants the government to pay his legal bills. “It was the intent of the IRS to break me emotionally and financial ly” over a 33-month period, Gardner said, “so that I would plead guilty to at least one count each of bankruptcy and tax fraud.” “I think the Criminal Investigative Division is out of con trol,” said Sen. Don^fick^s, R Okla., after hearing the testimony. “The IRS is out of control.” The IRS apparently will not attempt to tell its side of the story in these cases, citing taxpayer privacy laws and pending litigation in at least one of the matters. IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti said that because the com mittee would not identify witnesses until they testified, the agency was unable to seek witnesses’ permission to waive their privacy rights and allow the IRS to respond. However, Rossotti said at a press briefing, “Even if one of these allega tions is true, that would be one too many, and we won’t tolerate it.” “The real objective here is to make fundamental change at the IRS,” he said. Also testifying Wednesday was Leroy Warren, chairman of the NAACP criminal justice committee, who charged the IRS management refused to fairly address complaints of racial discrimination involving employees. Warren said allegations of racial and sexual discrimination are a “severe and increasing prob lem.” Rossotti has appointed former CIA Director William Webster to investigate the criminal division and recommend changes, one of several internal reviews of IRS operations Rossotti has launched. Sen. William V Roth, R-Del., the Finance Committee chairman, said Webster needs to see if IRS criminal investigators trained to deal with vio lent criminals should be placed under another agency such as the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration. The committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, concurred. Questions about the cases went unanswered in the hearing, such as details surrounding Moncrief’s $23 million settlement. He described the payment as “an arbitrary amount that they wanted” and added the settle ment wasn’t for back taxes owed. You’re closer to home than you think. •3 K \ V'. • v
