Nation in brief

College president dies during graduation

MACHIAS, Maine - The president of a small university died of an apparent heart attack Saturday in the midst of the school's commencement activities, a university official said.

John H. Joseph, president of the University of Maine at Machias, collapsed shortly before the graduation ceremony, said John Diamond of the University of Maine system.

Joseph, 60, had been scheduled to preside over the graduation of 135 students. Wickham Skinner, a University of Maine system trustee, took his place and told the audience that Joseph had collapsed, Diamond said.

Officials at the school of about 1,000 students learned after the ceremony that Joseph had died.

Joseph had been president of the Machias campus since July 2000.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - The climber who amputated his arm after being pinned by a boulder was released from the hospital Saturday.

Aron Ralston, 27, was in good spirits as he left St. Mary's Hospital with his parents, said Paul Poister, a spokesman for the family.

CLEVELAND - The man accused of a shooting rampage at a Cleveland university had military training with the Indian army and a grudge against an employee, authorities said Saturday.

Biswanath Halder, 62, armed with two handguns, is accused of killing one person and wounding two others while he held police at bay for seven hours Friday in a shiny, swirling building filled with twisting corridors that complicated his capture.

Halder wore a bulletproof vest and a wig glued on "a kind of World War II Army helmet" as he walked the halls of Case Western Reserve University's Peter B. Lewis Building and fired hundreds of rounds, police Chief Edward Lohn said.

"There's a trail of blood throughout," Lohn said. "It was a cat-and-mouse game."

Authorities said 93 people were trapped inside the building for hours.

Norman Wallace, a 30-year-old graduate student, was killed.

The two injured people - a 32-year-old man shot in the buttocks and a 46-year-old woman shot in her collar bone - were released from the hospital Saturday, authorities said.

Halder, who suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder, was released into police custody Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Prosecutors were determining what charges to file.

Halder, who graduated from Case Western in 1999 with a master's degree in business administration, had sued a university computer lab employee who was in the building but escaped during the standoff, university president Edward Hundert said.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Position Available: Interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the Star Trek TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in Multnomah County.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental health clients.

Although created for works of fiction, Klingon has a consistent grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

And now Multnomah County research has found that many people - and not just fans - consider it a complete language.

"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway.

County officials said that obligates them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter, putting the language of starship Enterprise officer Worf on par with languages such as Russian and Vietnamese.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright