News Briefs | Oct. 6

International

European countries move to help banks

The German government announced Sunday that it would insure all private savings accounts in the country in an attempt to restore confidence in the financial sector. Private savings in the country amount to roughly 500 billion euros, or approximately $700 billion.

A spokesman for Germany’s finance ministry, Stefan Olbermann, said that the financial crisis had caused ordinary citizens to feel uncertain about the economy, so the decision was made to guarantee personal savings.

European leaders stopped short of the type of bailout being offered in the United States. Since European countries do not have a uniform budget and have different regulations regarding finance, such a move would be nearly impossible given the large number of banks and other institutions that operate in multiple European countries.

Prior to the announcement, a group of banks pulled out of a deal to provide $48.2 billion to bail out Hypo Real Estate, a German mortgage lender. The Belgian government moved to sell their units of the firm to Fortis before trading opened on Monday.  Iceland took control of a bank as it tried to stabilize internal financial troubles. (John Scott)

National

Remains found at Steve Fossett site

Three bone fragments were found in the Mammoth Lakes on Sunday, where police found wreckage of billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane last Wednesday. The three fragments were consistent with the size of another fragment that had been found earlier at the site.

Investigators found the plane, a Bellanca 8KCAB (N240R), after hikers came upon some of Fossett’s belongings.

No trace of Fossett’s plane had been found until last week despite a month-long search. According to the Madera County Police Department, the plane had Fossett’s name on the identification.

Investigators said that the plane appeared to have hit the mountain at high speed in what they called a “non-survivable” crash.

The four fragments will be handed over to the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensics Services Laboratory so they can be analyzed. Weather conditions forced search teams to withdraw from the area.

Fossett had set more than 100 world records and disappeared in September 2007 while on a solo flight from a private airstrip in Nevada. Fossett, who was the first person to circle the globe alone in a hot air balloon, graduated from Washington University’s Olin Business School in 1968 and grew rich in the financial sector.

Officials said that it was not yet clear if the remains were human or not and that the analysis could take weeks to complete. (John Scott and Ben Sales)

Campus

Yoplait raises money to fight cancer

Starting on Wednesday, Dining Services will be helping students with an initiative to collect Yoplait yogurt lids to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. For every lid collected, Yoplait will donate 10 cents to the foundation in honor of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Sophomore Dustin Palmer and freshman John Harrison York are heading up the effort and hope to appeal to Washington University’s appetite for yogurt by tapping into the almost 6,500 yogurts sold per month on campus.

Receptacles to collect the lids will appear in Whispers, Bear’s Den, the Village Café and Dains Dining Hall and the café in the Danforth University Center. The lids will be collected until the end of the semester.

Over 10 years, “Save Lids to Save Lives” has collected nearly $20 million to assist in breast cancer research. (Sophie Adelman)