News briefs

Campus:

Touchstones calls for submissions:
Touchstones Literary Journal wants to publish UVU students’ work. They are looking for fresh, innovative poetry, prose, one-act plays, art and photography from students of all disciplines. Submit and make history by becoming a part of their first publication as a university. Submissions are due by October 3 at 5 p.m. in the English Department. Entry forms are available in LA 114 and online at http://research.uvsc.edu/touchstones/entryform.html.

Interim president wants to hear concerns:
As interim president, Liz Hitch wants to hear about your successes and address your concerns. To do so, she will hold an open office hour once a week on alternating days and times. You may schedule an appointment to meet during these hours by contacting Karen Olsen at 863-8133, or you may simply come in. However, since Interim President Hitch would like to see as many people as possible, appointments will be kept to 10 minutes.

Her open office hours are as follows: The first Tuesday of the month, 10-11 a.m.; the second Wednesday of the month, 3-4 p.m.; the third Monday of the month, 10-11 a.m.; and the fourth Thursday of the month, 4-5 p.m.

Register to vote:
The UVU Justice Committee is asking all UVU students to register to vote for the upcoming elections. Register at www.studentvote.org.

National:

High unemployment rates:
U.S. unemployment rates are at a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August. Employers cut 84,000 jobs, with the economy affecting workers and businesses. The recent Labor Department report shows an increase in housing, credit and financial crises. In this economic situation, speculators worry that consumers will recoil, throwing the economy into a tailspin later this year or early next year.

New 9/11 museum design:
The latest design for the Sept. 11 memorial entrance has a steel fa?ade based on the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Builders hope the memorial will be ready for its opening by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

The memorial will be a three-story, asymmetrical glass and steel building on the eight-acre ground zero plaza. The building will change appearance throughout the day as sunlight hits different materials in the building.

Fewer medical students choose primary care:
A recent report states that only two percent of graduating medical students plan to work in primary care internal medicine. This raises concern about the shortage of the first-stop doctors.

Some medical students are choosing a different medical field because of their large debts, opting for a higher-paid specialty. Others do so because they want to avoid paperwork, the demands of the chronically sick and bringing work home. The report by American Medical Association surveyed approximately 1,200 fourth-year medical students — only two percent of whom have chosen primary care as their career, whereas in 1990 nine percent chose it.

World:

SWITZERLAND: In a tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border, scientists launched an experiment intended to discover evidence of extra-dimensions, invisible “dark matter,” and the “Higgs boson” particle. The experiment will include using a powerful atom-smashing machine to produce proton collisions.

Although leading physicists consider the experiment safe, some skeptics think the proton collisions could cause microscopic black holes. Scientists hope that this $10 billion project will reveal more about creation in the universe. The project was organized by 20 member nations of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

JERUSALEM: Security officers at an Israeli airport allegedly forced Abdur-Rahim Jackson, a member of the New York-based Alvin Ailey traveling dance troupe, to perform dance steps to prove his identity before allowing him into the country. Jackson’s Muslim first name apparently provoked suspicion. Jackson called his experience embarrassing and said that one of the officers suggested changing his name.

Israel, famous for its effective airport security, practices ethnic profiling in its security checks. Such profiling is illegal in the U.S. Israel has a strict entry policy because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the extremist-Islamic rejection of the Jewish state’s existence.

POLAND: A 21-year-old woman in Grodisk, Poland, has accused her father of keeping her prisoner for six years, since 2002, and raping her. She also claims having two sons by her father and being forced to give them up for adoption. Investigators are seeking DNA samples from the two children to determine whether the accused man is their father.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the situation a “tragedy” and said he would push a law providing for the chemical castration of pedophiles.

The case resembles that of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who recently confessed to confining his daughter for 24 years in a cellar and fathering seven children with her.