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NATIONAL BRIEFS
Former frontrunner Dean
withdraws from race
BURLINGTON, Vt. - Howard
Dean’s quest for the presidency
ended Wednesday as the
Democrat, winless in 17 contests,
bowed to political reality and
abandoned his bid.
Once the little-known former
governor of a small Northeast
state, Dean took a summer ride to
presidential campaign heights,
attracting scores of followers and a
Democratic record s4l million in
campaign dollars largely through
the Internet.
Exactly one month ago, Dean
was the candidate to beat front
runner in national polls and
poised to begin his primary romp
with a win in the lowa caucuses. It
all crashed when the real votes
were counted.
Dean finished a poor third in
lowa, second in New Hampshire
and managed just single digits in
several states through early
February. One of his biggest union
backers, the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal
Employees, bailed out on the day
of the Washington and Michigan
caucuses.
Man charged with trying
to give facts to al-Qaida
FORT LEWIS, Wash. - A
National Guardsman accused of
attempting to pass military intelli
gence to the al-Qaida terrorist net
work has been formally charged,
an Army spokesman said
Wednesday.
Spc. Ryan G. Anderson was
charged Feb. 12, but the Army did
not immediately release that
information, Lt. Col. Stephen
Barger said. A military defense
lawyer has been appointed for
Anderson, but Barger refused to
identify the lawyer.
Anderson was charged with at
least two counts of attempting to
supply intelligence to the enemy,
the Army said.
Speaking on condition of
anonymity, defense officials have
said Anderson signed on to extrem
ist Internet chat rooms and tried to
get in touch with al-Qaida opera
tives. It is unclear how the U.S. gov
ernment got wind of his alleged
offer to supply military information
to the terrorists. It does not appear
he transmitted any information to
al-Qaida, authorities said.
Barger said the soldier’s alleged
attempts to pass information
occurred between Jan. 22 and Feb.
11. Anderson, a Muslim convert,
was arrested Feb. 12 and is being
held at Fort Lewis.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
Students sought to serve on
editor selection committee
The Daily Tar Heel is now
accepting applications for its edi
tor selection committee. All stu
dents are eligible.
Applications are available in the
DTH office, located in the Student
Union. Participants are required
to attend meetings March 18 from
5 to 6 p.m. and March 20 from 9
a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Those selected will be notified
by March 4. Contact DTH Editor
Elyse Ashbum with questions at
eashburn@email.unc.edu or call
962-0750.
STATE BRIEFS
Private information may be
on computers sold to public
RALEIGH Used state gov
ernment computers may have
been sold to the public with Social
Security numbers and other sensi
tive information still on their hard
drives, according to a state audit
released Wednesday.
Bank account numbers and
agency passwords that could be
used to hack into the state com
puter network also were left on
hard drives, officials said.
The state’s Surplus Property
Agency receives about 8,000 com
puters a year, said agency spokes
woman Mary Jo Cashion. Around
1,300 of the best computers are
sent to schools; the remainder are
sold to the public, she said.
The findings raise worries about
identity theft, State Auditor Ralph
Campbell said.
The study looked at a random
sample of computers sent to the
Surplus Property Agency in
October and November last year.
Auditors read information on 62 of
96 computers and gleaned “sensi
tive” information from 35 of them,
including lists of National Guard
members and their Social Security
numbers, loan applications, and
wage garnishment records.
Computers that hadn’t been
properly erased came from the
General Assembly, the courts and
various executive branch agencies.
Auditors informed the offending
agencies about what was found on
the computers and urged them to
be more diligent in erasing
records.
From staff and wire reports.
Council to discuss legislative plans
Will meet with county s delegation
BY SARAH HANCOX
STAFF WRITER
The Chapel Hill Town Council
will meet Friday morning with the
legislative delegation from Orange
County to discuss the town’s pro
posals for development and fund
ing legislation.
This will be the first discussion
between the two groups as they
1
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DTH FILE PHOTO
Dr. Carol Ford (left) and her husband, UNC alumnus Joe Rudek, visit Dance Marathon last February with their daughters, Kate and
Shanon. Both children were born premature and spent time at N.C. Children's Hospital, located on the UNC Hospitals complex.
DANCERS KEEP
TRADITION ALIVE
Former volunteers look hack fondly on 6 years ofDance Marathon v
BY KATIE DIMMERY
STAFF WRITER
Michael Bucy was “looking for something
fun to do” during his senior year in high
school. Some students might answer this
need with an interlude at Myrtle Beach, a
house party or perhaps a few prank calls.
But Bucy decided to organize a school
wide dance marathon, raising about SIO,OOO
for patients at the Duke University Medical
Center. But Bucy found his marathon was
missing something: the presence of families,
the people actually being helped by the
money the dance raised.
In 1998, before his sophomore year at
UNC-Chapel Hill, Bucy set out to create
another dance marathon on a grander scale.
This one would be bigger and would include
patients’ families. Not to mention be a lot
more fun.
His project was a success. Its first year,
1999, the UNC-CH Dance Marathon raised
more than $40,000 for the N.C. Children’s
Hospital; it more than doubled that figure
the following year. Although the initial stu
dent organizers have graduated, the
marathon, in its sixth year, continues to grow.
By now, many of the families aided have
been involved with the marathon longer
than current student-organizers.
Plan urges fix to
school precincts
Aims to increase
student turnout
BY JAMIE MCGEE
STAFF WRITER
UNC-Chapel Hill’s student gov
ernment issued a report
Wednesday that recommends
combining voter precincts at each
of the 16 UNC-system institutions
into single districts to increase
voter turnout.
Combining these precincts,
including the six at UNC-CH, will
make voting easier for students liv
ing on campus, the report states.
The report alternatively suggests
placing a satellite voting site at each
of the schools in the UNC system
for students to vote at on Election
Day, regardless of their precinct.
“When Election Day arrives,
students are confused about where
to vote because their neighboring
dorm votes at one precinct, while
they travel several miles away to
vote in their precinct,” the report
states.
During November’s election,
Top News
prepare for May’s short session of
the N.C. General Assembly.
Town governments do not
always have the legal authority to
implement policies, so the General
Assembly passes bills targeting
specific municipalities. Council
members work with local repre
sentatives to make requests for
necessary legislation.
Mandy Helton, Dance Marathon public
ity chairwoman, recalls visiting UNC
Hospitals to see a patient she had never met
before. “When we came in the first day, (the
patient) was wearing a Dance Marathon T
itf[
2004 DANCE
MARATHON
Today: Glancing
Backward
positions for the next three years. She now
lives in Washington, D.C., working with
marketing and sales for Rubbermaid.
Hux said her involvement with Dance
Marathon helped her gamer her job. As the
marathon’s business management chair
woman during her senior year, she learned
to work with large amounts of money. She
turned the experience into an interesting
anecdote for job interviews.
“(Rubbermaid) told me, ‘You’re so pas
sionate about that. If you have half that
much passion for our company, then you’ll
UNC-CH student government offi
cials made a concerted effort to
register student voters.
Student government registered
2,300 students to vote in Orange
County, but only 329 people 18 to
22 years old voted in the 2003
municipal election.
The report states that college
students are among the least likely
to vote because of apathy and other
factors such as unclear precincts.
UNC-CH Student Body
President Matt Tepper said the
confusion hurts student participa
tion in the democratic process.
“It is a major problem in hurting
students’ ability to participate in
the electoral process,” he said. “The
report does a good job in dis
cussing why and how (to amend
this problem).”
Tepper said he thinks combin
ing voter precincts will be the most
simple resolution to the problem.
The report will be released offi
cially at a national teleconference
at 2 p.m. today in Carroll Hall’s
Freedom Forum Conference
SEE VOTERS, PAGE 10
Although several proposals were
made at the Feb. 9 council meet
ing, the main focus will be on leg
islation dealing with regional
transportation services and town
fire protection services.
“These two (bills) are very
important,” said council member
Jim Ward. “They have a large
impact on community and signifi
cant financial implications.”
The council is seeking to
improve the regional transporta
do great,’” Hux said.
She’s still in touch with many former
marathon organizers and socializes regu
larly with one of them who also works for
Rubbermaid. In years to come, Hux hopes
to recruit her old Dance Marathon friends
to help her with anew charity project.
“My ideal career goal is to start my own
not-for-profit organization,” Hux said. “I
would definitely do it to help sick children.”
Bucy also remains close to Dance
Marathon. Despite working a full-time job
in Atlanta, he returns to UNC-CH each year
to catch up with patients and their families
and, of course, to dance in the marathon.
Upon graduating in 2001, Bucy, a UNC
CH soccer star, won a prestigious Weaver-
James-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship
from the Atlantic Coast Conference for his
excellence in sports and community service.
A consultant for Song, a Delta Air Lines
subsidiary, Bucy plans to use his scholarship
money to attend law school next year.
Much of his current work involves busi
ness start-ups, in which he employs expe
rience with organizational work from
Dance Marathon. He said he hopes to uses
these same lessons to start his own business.
SEE MARATHON, PAGE 10
shirt,” Helton said.
The relationships the
marathon forms with
patients and their families
are ongoing, even if chair
men and committee mem
bers change, Helton said.
Ashley Hux served as
volunteer coordinator
during the marathon’s
first year and occupied
various other leadership
Edwards gets second wind
Gains steam with
Dean withdrawal
BY CHRIS COLETTA
ASSISTANT STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR
As the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination rolls into
its second month, John Edwards is
trying not to run out of gas.
The North Carolina senator
snagged 34 percent of the vote in
Hiesday’s Wisconsin primary, fin
ishing 6 percentage points behind
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in a
showing that vaulted him into the
second-place position he has been
seeking since the campaign’s start.
That spot was solidified
Wednesday when former Vermont
Gov. Howard Dean, the one-time
national front-runner, announced
that he would end his campaign
after a dismal third-place showing
in the make-or-break Badger State.
“It’s clearly now a two-person
race,” said Irwin Morris, professor
of government and politics at the
University of Maryland-College
Park. With Dean’s dropout,
Edwards becomes the last major
competitor to Kerry, who looked to
cruise in Wisconsin until the Tar
Heel lawmaker closed what polls
had said was a gap of almost 30
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2004
tion organization and seek new
revenue sources to pay for the cre
ation of new routes.
Some of the proposed sources are
vehicle registration fees, a gasoline
tax, a real estate transfer tax or a
local option sales tax. “There is a lot
if interest in the Triangle to get a
handle on transportation needs,”
said N.C. Rep. Verla Insko, D-
Orange.
The council also is requesting an
increase in state funding for the
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Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., finished a surprising
second in the Wisconsin primary to front-runner Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
percentage points between the two.
Edwards and Kerry now
advance to Super Tuesday, March
2, when 10 states and one-half of
the delegates needed to win the
nomination enter the field of play.
“Edwards will have to change
the dynamics of this campaign
quickly, and he’ll have to score
some major victories on March the
coverage of UNC properties by the
Chapel Hill Fire Department,
which does not have enough money
to protect the campus sufficiently.
“The fire department proposal is
a very good one. The state should be
able to provide funding,” Insko said.
But N.C. Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-
Orange, said she is skeptical about
the likelihood of Chapel Hill get
ting its requested funds. “About
SEE MEETING, PAGE 10
Voting
proposal
stalls in
Congress
Plan would alter
referendum rules
BY ALICE DOLSON
STAFF WRITER
Student Congress voted Thesday
to send back to committee its pro
posed resolution to change drasti
cally the percentage of students
required to vote on a constitution
al amendment.
If approved, the resolution
would affect future referendums,
changing the required voter
turnout from about 650 students
to 5,200 —a jump from 2.5 per
cent of the student body to 20 per
cent.
Representatives cited concerns
about the amendment’s wording
and the implications of such a sig
nificant change.
“This isn’t something you
should vote on tonight it needs
a lot of work,” said Abby
Youngken, chairwoman of the
Rules and Judiciary Committee.
Wording concerning the process
of getting a referendum passed was
unclear, representatives said.
“I think it should be a first prior
ity to clear up the language before
we change the spirit of it,” said con
gress member Parker Wiseman.
The resolution earlier had faced
much debate. Speaker William
DuPont said that he thought the 2.5
percent figure was a decimal point
error and that the number likely
should have been 25 percent of the
student body voting in the election.
“If they want it passed, it should
be hard,” he said. “Three hundred
people is ridiculous.”
Wiseman said he did not think it
was a clerical error. “It’s a minimum
check. Nowhere do you deal with a
mandated voter turnout,” he said.
At its meeting, Congress also
approved the appropriation of
$17,746.09 to several student
organizations. The money will
fund the costs of bringing speakers
to campus and the costs of the
organizations’ publications.
Groups receiving funds included
Carolina Economics Club, Cellar
Door, Feminist Students United
and Carolina Students For Life.
“This number is high because
it’s the first meeting of the semes
ter,” Student Body Treasurer Alexa
Kleysteuber said. “Usually, they
SEE CONGRESS, PAGE 10
second,” said Ferrel Guillory, direc
tor of UNC’s Program on Southern
Politics, Media and Public Life.
In order to do that, however, the
senator must plow through difficult
roadblocks, the foremost of which
is Kerry’s dominance in the race.
Kerry’s Wisconsin triumph gave
SEE WISCONSIN, PAGE 10
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