Abortion opponent admits killing doctor

Abortion opponentadmits killing doctor
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Anti-abortion militant James Kopp admitted killing a doctor who provided abortions, but maintains he intended to only wound him, he said in a jailhouse interview with The Buffalo News.
"The truth is not that I regret shooting Dr. [Barnett] Slepian. I regret that he died," Kopp told the newspaper in an interview published today. "I aimed at his shoulder. The bullet took a crazy ricochet, and that's what killed him. One of my goals was to keep Dr. Slepian alive, and I failed at that goal."
Kopp, 47, said his outrage over abortion prompted him to shoot Slepian on Oct. 23, 1998, as the doctor warmed soup in the kitchen of his suburban Amherst home.
Kopp quickly became one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives and was captured in France in March 2001. He has pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree murder and interfering with the right to an abortion and is scheduled to go on trial in February.
He told the newspaper he decided to make a public confession because he believes his supporters have been misled, and he wants them to know the reasons behind his actions. He also said he feels sorrow for Slepian's wife and four sons.
Desire to succeed
WASHINGTON -- Black and Hispanic students surveyed in diverse, upper-income communities have as much desire to succeed in school as their white and Asian peers, says a study that challenges the idea that some minority groups are less focused on school.
Researchers for the Minority Student Achievement Network study said the findings released Tuesday, based on a survey of 40,000 middle, junior and high school students in 15 school districts across the country, show that black and Hispanic students are actually more likely than white students to report that their friends think it is very important to study hard and get good grades.
But nearly half of the black and Hispanic students surveyed said they understood their teachers' lessons about half the time or less, compared with 27 percent of white students and 32 percent of Asian students.
"As we present these data to teachers, we find that it sort of gets their attention," said Ronald Ferguson, senior research associate at Harvard's Wiener Center for Social Policy.
The survey -- the first major study by the suburban school network -- was conducted in the fall and winter of the 2000-01 school year.
Polar bears movedto new homes in U.S.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Six polar bears seized from a Mexican circus that kept them caged in tropical heat were flown to new homes at three U.S. mainland zoos Tuesday, but one died in transit.
"We have no idea what happened," said animal specialist Diana Weinhardt, who coordinated the move as the bears were tranquilized, loaded into crates and hoisted onto a Federal Express cargo plane. "I went back to check on the bears and found one of them dead."
Weinhardt said she had feared one or more of the bears might die because they had been so mistreated.
"I knew this was a possibility," said Weinhardt, who is based at the Houston Zoo. "The bears have not lived under great conditions, and since we don't have a medical history on them we couldn't know how they would take the flight."
The bears' departure from Puerto Rico ended an 18-month battle by activists to get the arctic animals out of the Caribbean. The Suarez Brothers circus was accused of giving the bears, normally accustomed to subzero temperatures, only occasional access to air conditioning or swimming pools.
Rattlesnake kiss
YACOLT, Wash. -- A man who was showing off for friends by kissing his new rattlesnake was bitten on the lip and nearly died.
Matt George, 21, was hospitalized in critical condition after the incident Sunday. By Tuesday, his condition had been upgraded to serious.
George was showing friends the snake he had caught on a recent trip to Arizona. Holding the 2-foot snake behind the head, he kissed it.
"I said, 'OK, man, you're being stupid, put it away,"' recalled Jim Roban. "He said, 'It's OK, I do it all the time."'
After the second kiss, the snake bit him under his mustache. He dropped the snake on the kitchen floor, and Roban killed it with his cowboy boot.
As they waited for an ambulance to arrive at George's home, his face began to swell.
Sheriff's Deputy Steven Johnson said he watched in the ambulance as George became limp and his eyes rolled back in his head. After George lost consciousness, he was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Portland, Ore.
Associated Press