Entries for April 17, 2007

Unexpected tragedies like the one that Virginia Tech experienced Monday pose problems for cellphone companies, which suddenly have to cope with exponentially higher demand as phone calls flood into and out of the system. Companies build enough technical capacity into their systems, technicians say, for only a 2 percent increase over normal levels before calls start getting dropped.

But it might have been worse yesterday but for the lucky fact that Virginia Tech is a perennial football powerhouse. Lane Stadium, where the Hokies play their home games, has a capacity of over 65,000, meaning that at least one major celluar service provider, Nextel, was already used to dealing with the occasional burst in demand when students and other loyal fans all crowd into Lane. (A spokesman for another provider, Cingular, was unwilling to offer similar statistics about how well the company was able to respond to yesterday's demand.)

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told defense writers this morning that there is evidence that weapons from Iran -- in addition to being used in Iraq -- are being intercepted in Afghanistan as well, reports senior editor Anna Mulrine.

"It's not clear which Iranian entity is reponsible," he said, "but we have intercepted weapons headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran."

Courts documents from Montgomery County, Va., where Blacksburg is located, indicated that Cho Seung-Hui had been pulled over for speeding twice in the past three weeks, and had court dates scheduled for May.

• On March 30, he was charged with driving 74 mph in 55 mph speed limit zone (Doc).
• On April 7, he was charged with driving 44 mph in a 25 mph speed limit zone. (Doc).

Both cases are listed as "pre-payable."

In both cases, Cho was pulled over by officers with the Virginia Tech Police Department. Both officers were on patrol today and could not be reached for comment.

U.S. News Senior Editor Kevin Whitelaw reports:

Iraq's neighbors are turning away more and more Iraqi refugees trying to flee the violence there, according to a prominent human rights group. Jordan and Egypt in particular are blasted for turning away refugees, while Saudi Arabia is spending $7 billlion on high-tech measures to keep Iraqis out, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Some refugees are even being deported, the group warns. Syria is one of the only countries still admitting large numbers of Iraqis. The United States, for example, recently agreed to admit up to 7,000 refugees, although Human Rights Watch says that only about 3,000 are likely to arrive.

An estimated 2 million Iraqis have fled Iraq and another 2 million have left their homes but remain in Iraq. U.S. News recently reported on the plight of these refugees. At a United Nations conference in Geneva on the refugee crisis today, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Iraq's neighbors to reopen their borders to Iraqis. Aid agencies are warning that hospitals in Jordan and Syria are being overwhelmed by the needs of the Iraqi refugees.

"I was one of the extremely lucky ones [at Columbine]," Rohde said today in a phone interview from her off-campus home, which she shares with her fiance, Kenneth Elsner, who also attended Columbine. "I was able to exit the school prior to any of the mass casualties that happened."

Most candidates canceled campaign activity today in deference to the national shock over the shootings at Virginia Tech.

In other campaign news, the current front-runners in the polls, Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, are seeing their leads shrink in new polls. Meanwhile, Fred Thompson comes to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to meet with Republican House members ahead of a possible declaration of candidacy.

• As details continue to emerge in the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech Monday, which claimed 33 lives, the university president has confirmed that the gunman in the second of the two shootings was a student.
• An Iraqi insurgency group linked to al Qaeda is claiming that it now has the capability to manufacture its own rockets.
• A powerful Nor'easter continues to torment the East Coast, knocking down power lines and flooding communities.
• Meanwhile, Allstate Corp., the behemoth insurer, lost its $2.8 million case filed against it by a Katrina victim. At issue was whether wind or water--only the former is covered--destroyed the victim's home during the 2005 hurricane.
• The first amphibians to evolve on land initially developed the ability to bite and chew, unlike fish, while the walking came later, biologists have discovered.