Briefly Mentioned

Campus

Law professor becomes dean

After three years teaching at the School of Law, Robert Klonoff has taken a position as dean of the law school at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. Klonoff had a successful career before UMKC as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general and assistant U.S. attorney. The leave will be bittersweet for the professor, who praised UMKC as having a great law school.

"Anytime you leave a situation like that, you'll have some regret, but I'm also extremely excited about the new position," said Klonoff.

He will begin his new job July 1, 2007.

Local

Smoother, safer roads...soon

In light of a $1.1 billion plan, Missouri roads are expected to go through construction for improvement. The plan was approved by highway commissioners last Wednesday and will involve about half of the Missouri Department of Transportation revenue. Kansas City especially will receive many benefits as sections of Interstate 435 in Clay and Platte Counties undergo faster resurfacing.

The initiative for the plan is to put 85 percent of the heavily traveled highways in good condition by 2010. The highway department had started on a similar project by its smooth-roads initiative two years ago.

Courtney seeks reduced sentence

A former Kansas City pharmacist had pleaded to a judge last Thursday to reform his 30-year sentence. Robert Courtney pleaded guilty for illegally keeping profits from diluting drugs for seriously-ill patients. His actions not only resulted in 4,200 patients affected but also 98,000 tampered prescriptions.

At his sentencing in 2002, Courtney was told he was to serve 25 years and six months. But the prisons have calculated he was to serve 26 years and six months instead. Nearly five years after his sentencing, Courtney has made a motion to uphold the original sentencing and be released eight months earlier.

Transamerica cuts 500 jobs

There will be a notable change in downtown Kansas City as more than 500 jobs disappear by the year's end. Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Company will move its headquarter operations out of the metro area to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Only 50 employees will remain in Kansas City.

"We recognize the impact this consolidation will have on each of our Kansas City employees, their families and on Kansas City," the company said in a recent statement. "Other employees in Kansas City that cannot shift with the company are able to apply for jobs in other branches."

Nation

Exploding bus sentence

James Maples was sentenced to five years of probation last Wednesday for an exploding bus that resulted in the deaths of 23 elderly people during the Hurricane Rita evacuation. While the trials were not solely based on the 2005 explosion, it stood out among other allegations of poor maintenance of his fleet. As part of his probation, a judge ruled Maples could no longer work for any bus company.

U.S. Judge Ricardo Hinojosa scolded Maples in court and said that was "no way to run a business, to endanger the trust or endanger the individuals who are putting trust in a carrier."

Scorpion on a plane

In a surprising case of life imitating a bad movie, David Sullivan of Burlington, Vt., said he had been bit several times on his flight on United Airlines from Houston to Chicago. At first he thought part of his leg was asleep, but when he checked his pant leg a one-and-a-half inch scorpion fell out.

Though Samuel L. Jackson wasn't there to save the day, Sullivan suffered minor complications and is fine. Since then, the airline has apologized and is planning an investigation.

World

'Chemical Ali' confesses

Ali Hassan al-Majid currently faces the gallows if he is found guilty for killing 182,000 Kurdish villagers in the 1980s. Saddam Hussein's cousin "Chemical Ali" had already confessed Thursday he ordered troops to execute villagers who refused to leave their homes.

"I'm responsible for the displacement and I took this decision alone, without going back to the high military command or Baath party commander," said al-Majid.

However, the man who owes his nickname to accusations of gassing thousand of Kurdish people denied responsibility for executing 300 other Kurdish fighters.

Woman dies of bird flu

A hospital on Friday reported the death of a 37-year-old Indonesian woman and four other people treated for the symptoms of virus H5N1 - bird flu. Health Ministry official Joko Suyono reported earlier in the week she had slaughtered a live chicken in her home but was unclear whether this was the cause of her infection.

Suyono has become the 59th person in the country to die from the disease. Her husband and son are two of the four people currently being treated at the hospital. Indonesia is the leading country in the world for bird-flu deaths and has 76 confirmed cases.

vmai@unews.com