In brief: Investigation puts focus on national frat
NORMAN, Okla. – An investigation by the University of Oklahoma has found that the racist chant by university members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon was learned during a leadership cruise sponsored by the fraternity’s national headquarters. University President David Boren released the school’s findings Friday.
On March 7, the university’s SAE chapter was heading to a fraternity Founder’s Day event by bus when members were caught on video singing a racist chant directed against blacks. The video went viral and the school launched its own investigation.
“The chant was learned by local chapter members while attending a national leadership cruise sponsored by the national SAE organizations four years ago,” Boren wrote in a letter to the fraternity’s national leadership, released along with the report.
In the four years since that cruise, the racist chant was formalized at the local chapter and taught to pledges, the university report stated. School investigators also found that alcohol was readily available to the fraternity before the bus trip.
The video of the local chapter caused a national uproar. The university said it expelled two students, though a lawyer for the fraternity has insisted the students withdrew before expulsion. The university and the national fraternity leadership disbanded the chapter. Participants have apologized for the chant.
California targets $1B for water projects
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that speeds up $1 billion in water infrastructure spending amid the worst drought in a generation, although much of the plan was drawn with future dry years in mind.
“This funding is just one piece of a much larger effort to help those most impacted by the drought and prepare the state for an uncertain future,” Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The bills he signed, AB 91 and AB 92, will offer some aid to residents hurt by the drought, but the vast majority is expedited spending on water infrastructure. The projects will take months or even years to make a difference in California’s vast water delivery system, which is struggling under a fourth year of little snow and rain in the nation’s most populous state.
Two people still missing after explosion
NEW YORK – Someone may have improperly tapped a gas line before an explosion that leveled three apartment buildings and injured nearly two dozen people, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday as firefighters soaked the still-smoldering buildings and police searched for at least two missing people.
“There is a possibility here that the gas line was inappropriately accessed internally” by people in one of the destroyed buildings, but officials need to get access to its basement to explore it further, de Blasio said.
The number of people injured in Thursday’s blast rose from 19 to 22, with four critically injured. Police were searching for at least two people.