Thursday, March 23, 2006
College Board discoversmore unchecked SATs
BOSTON -- The College Board disclosed Wednesday that 27,000 SAT college entrance exams missed being re-scanned after the initial discovery of scoring problems, including those of 375 students who were given incorrectly low marks. A College Board spokeswoman said the latest problems came to light Sunday following a request that Pearson Educational Management, which scores most of the exams, confirm all 495,000 October tests had been rescored. That request followed an earlier oversight in which 1,600 exams that had already been set aside for various reasons were overlooked. On Sunday, Pearson told the College Board that 27,000 of the 495,000 tests had not been "completely processed" and would be rescored immediately, College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti said Wednesday.
12 Americans killedin bus accident in Chile
SANTIAGO, Chile -- A bus carrying cruise ship tourists plunged 300 feet down a mountainside in northern Chile Wednesday, killing 12 Americans, U.S. and Chilean officials said. Two other U.S. tourists and two Chileans -- the driver and the tour guide -- were hospitalized in serious condition following the crash along a rugged highway near the Pacific port city of Arica, 1,250 miles north of Santiago, said Juan Carlos Poli, an Arica city hall spokesman. "We have confirmed that all the victims were American citizens," Poli told the Associated Press by telephone from the hospital. The tourists were returning to Celebrity Cruises' ship Millennium, docked in Arica, from an excursion to nearby Lauca National Park. The driver reported that he lost control of the bus while swerving to avoid a truck approaching on a collision course, Poli said. The bus went off the narrow highway and tumbled down a steep mountainside.
Woman who disappearedas a teenager is found
McKEESPORT, Pa. -- A woman who disappeared as a teen 10 years ago had been living with a middle school security guard who didn't allow her to leave his home for several years, police said Wednesday. Tanya Nicole Kach, now 24, was reunited with her family this week. She had been living at the man's home, located about two miles from her father's house in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport, police said. The two met when Thomas Hose, 48, worked as a security guard at a school where Kach was a student. It was not immediately clear how she ended up at the home. She was discovered Tuesday when she approached a convenience store owner and told him that she wasn't Nikki Evans, the name the owner knew her by. She said she was being kept locked in a bedroom, said the owner, Joseph Sparico. When she told him her real name, he said, she was upset and shaking. "I was so scared that nobody would believe me," Kach told WTAE-TV from her father's home Wednesday.
Police reportedly receivenew lead in Holloway case
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Aruban police reportedly have a new witness in the disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway and plan to conduct another search for her body on the Dutch Caribbean island. The witness provided specific information that prompted investigators to organize a search in sand dunes along the northern tip of the island, Gerald Dompig, Aruba's deputy chief of police said in an interview with CBS television's "48 Hours Mystery" program, which released a partial transcript of the interview Wednesday. Dompig said investigators will use cadaver dogs to search near a lighthouse and believe that someone took steps to carefully hide Holloway's body -- perhaps burying her twice. The CBS interview was scheduled for broadcast on Saturday. The witness said "he knew more about the whereabouts of Natalee," Dompig said. "The information that this person gave was too specific to just be a story that was just made up by someone."
U.S. spacewalks halted
SPACE CENTER, Houston -- Officials have halted U.S. spacewalks until they can test the strength of handrails that line the U.S. part of the space station and are used to anchor the spacewalkers. Space station managers said Wednesday they discovered some odd bubbling on the interior of some handrails that are still on the ground. It isn't known whether any of the problematic handrails were installed on the station, but that's a chance officials weren't willing to take, said Kirk Shireman, deputy station program manager. "Because we couldn't be sure, we were being conservative," he said. Shireman said he doesn't believe any of the dozens of handrails at the station will have to be replaced. The news comes at a time when Russian spacewalks also have been put on hold because four canisters needed to rid carbon dioxide from the air spacewalkers breathe can't be located on the station.
Associated Press