Man indicted on 9/11 and Madrid charges: A
Moroccan fugitive sought in connection with the March 11 train bombings in
Madrid was indicted Wednesday on charges of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks in
the United States. He is the first suspect linked to both attacks. Amer Azizi,
36, helped organize a meeting in northeast Spain in July 2001 that key plotters
in the U.S. attacks, including suicide pilot Mohamed Atta, used to finalize
details, Judge Baltasar Garzon said in the indictment. Azizi also was included
in an indictment that was handed down last September against al-Qaida leader
Osama bin Laden and 34 other terror suspects. Azizi was charged then with
belonging to a terrorist organization. Bin Laden and nine others were charged
with planning the Sept. 11 attacks. Azizi had a “direct connection with al-Qaida
leaders in Afghanistan who were responsible for the attacks,” Garzon charged.
Wednesday’s indictment described Azizi as the right-hand man of Imad Yarkas,
jailed in November 2001 on charges of leading a Spain-based al-Qaida cell that
allegedly provided financing and logistics for people who planned the Sept. 11
attacks on the United States.
New technology brings digital interaction to the classroom: Students who
raise their hands to answer a question may soon be a thing of the past thanks to
new technology of a small wireless keypad linked to a computer. Students answer
questions not by raising hands but by punching buttons.Rresults appear on a
screen in the front of the room. Although some skeptics dismiss the devices as
novelties more suited to a TV game show than a lecture hall, educators who use
them say their classrooms come alive as never before. Shy students have no
choice but to participate, the instructors say, and the know-it-alls lose their
monopoly on the classroom dialogue. Melissa Wilde, a sociology professor at
Indiana University, says they help her students feel a connection to the
subject. The devices look and work much like a television remote, sending
infrared signals to a receiver at the front of the classroom. The receiver is
connected to a computer, which tabulates and analyzes the responses. The data
can be displayed by an overhead projector, incorporated into a spreadsheet or
posted on a class Web site. Responses are anonymous for students, but not for
teachers, who can identify students by the serial numbers of their clickers.
Estée Lauder dies at 97: Estée Lauder, the last great independent titan
of the cosmetics industry, who convinced generations of women that her beauty
creams were “jars of hope” in their quest for eternal youth, died on Saturday at
her home in New York. Lauder used to say that “he pursuit of beauty is
honorable,” and she clearly believed that the business of beauty was just as
honorable. Her efforts resulted in the establishment of a company estimated to
be worth about $5 billion when it went public in 1995 and she was given the
title of founding chairwoman. In 2003, it had 21,500 employees and an estimated
worth of about $10 billion. Its products are sold in more than 130 countries
across five continents.
- News compiled by J. Ann Tipton with information from the New York Times