Cheating system ‘Mississippi’ looks at Tide ranked No. 21 hurts all sports ’70s integration in Directors’ Cup OPINIONS, Page 4 ENTERTAINMENT, Page 6 SPORTS, Page 8 Thursday, July 20, 2006 Serving the University of Alabama since 1894 Vol. 113, Issue 6 Gas blamed in Calvary explosion Wednesday morning. Officials don’t know how long Calvary annex explodes Tuscaloosa Police Chief Ken he had been lying on the side- after trespasser pulls gas Swindle said the police depart- walk, Swindle said. ment received calls from two He had severe 2nd degree line, officials say witnesses at 3:30 a.m. about an burns and was transported to explosion at the annex. DCH Regional Medical Center, BY MARLIN CADDELL The police and Tuscaloosa Horst said. His burns were so Editor Fire and Rescue arrived at the bad that he was transported ■ [email protected] scene to find most of the build- from DCH to UAB, Horst said. Shattered wooden boards, ing destroyed by an explosion. Swindle said Steed was tres- dangling wires and pieces of There was still a small fire passing inside the annex when yellow insulation. burning when the fire depart- the explosion happened. He That’s almost all that’s left ment arrived, Fire and Rescue got into the annex through a of the Calvary Baptist Church battalion chief Ken Horst said. mechanical room door that college annex after a gas explo- They quickly put the fire out, was left unlocked, Swindle sion blew up most of the build- he said. said. ing early Wednesday morning. The explosion severely “We think he pulled a gas The location that housed injured one person, Wade line loose [in the mechanical thousands of church-going Steed, 20. Steed is not a UA room],” Swindle said. “But we college students over the past student. Rescue officials found really haven’t had a chance to 15 years only housed investi- him lying on the street at the talk to him yet since he was gators looking for clues to the intersection of Paul Bryant CW/ Cory Johnson exact cause of the explosion, Drive and 12th Avenue. See CALVARY, Page 3 An explosion early Wednesday morning destroyed most of the Calvary Baptist Church college annex. Fire displaces UA students What I’ve seen at University Downs apts. in a war zone BY KRISTEN TROTTER BY STEPHEN DAWKINS Student Life Editor Senior Staff Reporter ■ [email protected] ■ [email protected] Adrian Harris woke up shortly Editor’s note: Kristen Trotter before 4 a.m. on Friday by the sound has been in Beirut, Lebanon of sirens. for most of the summer work- A blaze had engulfed University ing for the Lebanese paper, The Downs building No. 7, which is adja- Daily Star. This is her first-per- cent to Harris’ apartment building. son account of her experiences ”It looked liked something off in the war-torn region. CNN,” said Harris, a senior majoring in finance. “It was unbelievable.” Yesterday morning I sat No one was injured and under a bush for an hour with Tuscaloosa firefighters would con- a one-legged man, wiping tain the blaze, but not before it had sweat off my face and waving destroyed half of the building — 12 away flies as I drank hot tea. apartments — and damaged the This man had been sleeping other 12 to the point that they are under the bush at night and inhabitable. sitting in its shade during the After the fire grew large enough day for five days after fleeing to make the building’s roof cave in, his home in the southern sub- Harris said she thought the blaze Contributed Photo might spread to her apartment urbs of Beirut. CW student life editor Kristen building. It did not, but Harris had The Israeli shelling had come too close for comfort, Trotter stands in front of an ancient what belongings she could grab building in the city of Byblos, packed in her car anyway. he said, so when a nearby “I got my things and left,” she said. neighborhood was destroyed, Lebanon. Trotter spent the majority “It was just too much to watch.” he left Dahieh for Beirut. The of the summer in Lebanon, working Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue for the English Lebanese newspa- Captain John Brook is investigating See WAR, Page 2 per, The Daily Star. the fire and said a cause has yet to be determined. Investigations include interviews of residents of the burned apart- ments, residents of nearby apart- Auburn whistleblower ments and the firefighters who responded to the call, Brook said. It is too early to say when the investigation might be completed won’t help in football because they are sometimes slowed by difficulties in contacting dis- placed residents and other obsta- cles, Brook said. academic misconduct “With this one it’s hard to say [how long the investigation might BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS a higher-ranking professor take],” he said. “Sometimes it can in the sociology department, take a very long time.” AUBURN, Ala. — The profes- gave high grades to athletes Some UA departments offered sor who blew the whistle on who enrolled in classes that assistance to UA students who were allegations of academic mis- didn’t require them to do affected by the fire. Housing and conduct involving Auburn much work or attend classes. Residential Communities offered football players said he would Gundlach said he made to allow displaced UA students to no longer assist with the uni- his decision not to cooperate live temporarily in Friedman Hall, versity’s investigation of his based on the reported com- which would have been empty for claims, The Huntsville Times ments of an unnamed uni- the rest of the summer, said HRC reported Monday. versity official in a Huntsville spokeswoman Alicia Browne. James Gundlach, director of Times story on Friday. In the Two students have taken advan- story, the official was quoted tage of the offer, Browne said, but sociology at Auburn, also said there probably were no viola- as saying Gundlach’s com- they will have to be out by the time plaints were prompted in part fall housing leases begin on Aug. 4. tions of NCAA rules since the courses under investigation because of dissatisfaction over “I don’t know if they’ll need to missing out on a promotion stay that long,” she said. were available to all students, that went to Petee. About 15 UA students were dis- not just athletes. Gundlach called the claim placed, but Browne said “there were He said he sent an e-mail “a total falsehood.” students who were able to make to university officials saying “The only contested office I other arrangements.” he would not cooperate with CW/ Cory Johnson the review, which centers on See FIRE, Page 3 Investigators look over fire damage at the University Downs apartments Monday afternoon. his claims that Thomas Petee, See AUBURN, Page 7 ■ ■ ■ The Crimson White Box 870170 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 Newsroom — 348-6144 Fax — 348-4116 Advertising — 348-7845 www.cw.ua.edu ■ Classifieds — 348-7355 ■ Letters, op-eds — [email protected] ■ Press releases, announcements — [email protected] online Thursday, July 20, 2006 ■ NEWS 2 This is not the majority of Portions of the country are under attack. When I watched CAMPUS WAR Beirutis. Yes, some people isolated and running out of the Israeli fighter planes fly low Continued from Page 1 — many people — fervently food and medicine because over the city the first night of believe that Hezbollah is justi- the roads are bombed every the conflict, I went to bed won- day. The people are paying the dering what they would bomb, public schools here have been fied in everything it has done; price, and Israel’s response has but didn’t even dream I would opened as shelters for the that it is defending their land not united the country against wake up to find out it was the thousands of others like him and their freedom. But the Tobrief submit a brief, e-mail [email protected] silent majority resents them Hezbollah, as Israel might have airport, stranding me here. IN who are fleeing bombardment wished. It has united the coun- Now, it breaks my heart to of civilian residential districts, and resents the conflict into try against Israel. evacuate on a luxury cruise but there was no room for him which they have been unwill- In church on Sunday my ship, leaving my friends here ANNOUNCEMENTS or the 10 members of his sis- ingly dragged, where they pay pastor was teaching on Psalm to face a war in which they are ter’s family. So they ended up the price for another’s actions. Lebanon is a country 23. helpless sufferers. It also hurts Corolla seeks writer, photographer living on the ground in a pub- “Though I walk through the me to go back to a country lic park in Hamra, a Muslim divided by sects, 17 of them The Corolla yearbook is looking for a staff writer, a staff in all. Which religious sect a valley of the shadow of death,” that is painfully unaware of district in West Beirut, where I he said, and a huge boom their plight, to a people who photographer and other positions. For more information, sat with him and listened to his Lebanese identifies with is e-mail Corolla editor Nick Beadle at [email protected]. more important than politi- shook the walls, rattled the do not understand that the story. Though he had nothing, windows, caused children to realities on the ground here he offered me tea.