Michigan State to get $550M research facility

Michigan State to get $550M research facility

LANSING, Mich. — The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday chose Michigan State University for a $550 million cutting-edge nuclear physics research facility that could attract top scientists from around the world and boost the state’s economy.

The facility, which would be built within 10 years, could spark scientific breakthroughs affecting medicine, national defense research and the environment.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the announcement signals a commitment from the U.S. government to the science involved in the new technology. Funding for construction of the new facility still must be secured through Congress.

Michigan State and the Energy Department also must negotiate a cooperative agreement, and the proposed site must pass an environmental review.

Ex-Nasdaq chief arrested

NEW YORK — A former Nasdaq stock market chairman was arrested on a securities-fraud charge Thursday, accused of running a phony investment business that amounted to what prosecutors called a “giant Ponzi scheme.”

Bernard L. Madoff was released on $10 million bail. He declined to comment as he walked out of court. Madoff, 70, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, maintained a separate and secretive investment-advising business that served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management, prosecutors said.

They said he told employees Wednesday that it had been insolvent for years, losing at least $50 billion.

If convicted, Madoff could face up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5 million.

Bush changes the rules

WASHINGTON — Just six weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, the Bush administration issued revised endangered species regulations Thursday to reduce the input of federal scientists and to block the law from being used to fight global warming.

The changes, which will go into effect in about 30 days, were completed in just four months. But they could take Obama much longer to reverse.

They will eliminate some of the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have performed for 35 years on dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects, a step that developers and other federal agencies have blamed for delays and cost increases.

The rules also prohibit federal agencies from evaluating the effect on endangered species and the places they live from a project’s contribution to increased global warming.

Kidnap victim’s body ID’d

MEXICO CITY — Prosecutors said Thursday they have identified remains found in a clandestine grave as those of the kidnapped daughter of Mexico’s former national sports commissioner.

The kidnapping of 19-year-old Silvia Vargas provoked outrage in Mexico, which has suffered a wave of abductions for ransom. Silvia’s father, Nelson Vargas, served as Mexico’s top sports official until 2006.

“Today, we know that Silvia is with God. We ask everyone to pray for her and all those people who have suffered the same pain that we have felt since Sept. 10, 2007,” when Silvia Vargas disappeared, the family said in a written statement.

Vargas was apparently snatched from her vehicle as she drove to school in Mexico City, and it wasn’t until last week that information on her fate began to emerge.

An informant told investigators Vargas had been killed at a home on the southern outskirts of the city. Police raided the home last week and found human remains buried under a patio. The attorney general’s office said that DNA and other tests showed the remains were those of the missing woman.

Killer sentenced to death

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A jury has sentenced an Arkansas man to death for fatally stabbing a college student in March.

Zachariah Scott Marcyniuk was sentenced Thursday, a day after he was convicted of murdering Katie Wood.

Wood was Marcyniuk’s ex-girlfriend. The 24-year-old University of Arkansas student was found fatally stabbed in her Fayetteville apartment in March.

Prosecutors say Marcyniuk broke into Wood’s apartment and waited for her to come home.

The 29-year-old man from West Fork doesn’t deny that he killed Wood, but his lawyers say the slaying didn’t amount to capital murder.

Capital murder convictions are automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court under Arkansas law.

Associated Press