Official Statement on Eric Fatla's Death

The George Washington University has released the following statement:

"George Washington University law student Eric Fatla died Monday December 27 after a fall Christmas Eve in Chicago. A first-year law student, Eric was a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University and had served as a staff member for former Illinois Congressman Jerry Weller (R-IL).

“Eric’s death saddens the entire GW Law community,” said Interim GW Law School Dean Gregory E. Maggs. “When a student with such wonderful potential is taken from us, we all deeply feel the loss. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to his family, friends, and classmates during this difficult time.”

Professor Jonathan Turley, who taught Eric in his Torts class and Legal Theory class, expressed condolences on his blog, jonathanturley.org(http://jonathanturley.org/ ):

“I cannot express the profound sadness over the loss of Eric, who was a brilliant young man with an extraordinary background and an even brighter future,” Turley wrote.

“Eric had already accomplished more than most people accomplish in a lifetime. He had gone to China on a research project, gone to Honduras as an election monitor and worked in Congress as a staffer. He was currently with a lobbying and law firm while attending class in the evenings.”

The GW community extends sincere sympathies to Eric Fatla’s family and friends."

GW Law Student Dies After Tragic Fall

Eric Fatla, 26, died Monday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. According to the AP, and GW Professor Jonathan Turley's blog, the first year law student died after falling down a flight of stairs at the Union Club in Chicago.

Fatla was home visiting his family when the accident happened Christmas Eve. He passed, surrounded by his family.

Fatla worked with a lobbying and law firm while attending class in the evenings. He had gone to China on a research project, Honduras as an election monitor and worked in Congress as a staffer. He was working as director of operations at New World Group LLC. He was also a congressional staffer for former U.S. Congressman Jerry Weller (R-Ill.). He had survived an earlier trauma, a head injury that almost led to a brain hemorrhage, sustained while playing football in High School.

WRGW has contacted The Office of Media Relations for an official statement from the university. Stay tuned for more information.

The WRGW News and Radio team sends its condolences to the family.

Snow Expected Thursday

An alert sent across district by the city's Emergency Management Agency Wednesday evening cautioned residents to expect 1"-2" of snow Thursday between the hours of beginning around 7am and continuable for much of the day.

The alert, sent out at 7:30pm, warned recipients of well below freezing temperatures overnight and forecast that Thursday's high would be a chilly 28 degrees.

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang blog posted a similar prediction, calling for 1"-3" of snow for DC, with areas south of the city potentially receiving up to 5".

Stay with WRGW for the latest.

Richard Holbrooke Dies at GW Hospital

The veteran American diplomat Richard Holbrooke has died at GW hospital. Holbrooke, who played a major role in every American foreign policy engagement since the Vietnam War, was in hospital due to complications from a collapsed aorta suffered earlier in the week. The diplomat had remained in critical condition after over 20 hours of surgery Saturday, and succumbed to his injuries Sunday evening.

Holbrook, perhaps best known for negotiating the Dayton accords ending the Bosnian conflict in 1995, was in Washington working in his capacity as special envoy to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. He began to experience medial difficulties during a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and as quickly rushed to the hospital.

Ambassador Holbrooke was 69 years old.

Semi-Formals in the Midst of Controversy

Last weekend, December 3-5, and this weekend, December 10-12 marks the season of semi-formals for GW's Greek Fraternities and Sororities.

This year, however, the events are happening amidst investigations into 9 different fraternities and sororities on allegations of hazing, underage drinking, and possession of other illegal substances.

When asked how these investigation and controversies were effecting semi-formal events, and if there were any concrete rule changes this fall due to said investigations, the office of Greek life declined to comment.

Sigma Phi Epsilon, better known as Sig Ep, and Pi Kappa Alpha, better known as Pike, are unable to hold semi-formal events in the time being because each has been put on differed suspension by the university and their national organizations. This means that the two fraternities are not allowed to hold any events or meetings whatsoever.

Beyond these controversies, many other fraternities and sororities held very successful and problem free events last weekend. The same is expected of this up coming weekend.

Finals Stress Is Up, Amsterdam's Elevators Are Down

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein belong to the individuals, and do not reflect the opinions of WRGW News or WRGW.

Residents of Philip Amsterdam Hall faced a familiar problem this week: elevator outages. It seems to happen once every couple of weeks. One of the three elevators breaks down and remains inactive for the rest of the week.

Now, one elevator is understandable. But as of late, the outages have affected two of the three elevators. With nearly 450 occupants, one elevator just isn’t enough.

Residents of the ninth floor may already feel shafted by shorthanded elevator service. Only two of the elevators service the top floor as it is, but since Thanksgiving break those two elevators have been drifting in and out of commission.

The University constructed the building in 1997. That’s almost 70 years after Thurston. It seems strange that one of GW’s newer dorms, which was officially named "New Hall" until last year, has so many elevator problems.

A representative for Residential Property Management did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the situation.

-Joseph Rabinowitz

Dealing with maintenance issues in your residence hall? Shoot us an email at wrgwnewsdirector@gmail.com.

Tim Geithner to undergo surgery at GWU Hospital

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has joined the legions of political "celebrities" who have visited our very own George Washington University Hospital.
According to Treasury Department spokesman Steve Adamske, Geithner is scheduled to undergo surgery for kidney stones this afternoon after being admitted Thursday night with severe pain. Adamske said that Geithner is expected to return to work Monday.


Here's a look back at some other political celebrities who have been treated at the hospital over the years, in some cases leaving a lasting impression:
- Ronald Reagan: The 40th president was brought to GWU's emergency room on March 30, 1981 after he was shot at in an assassination attempt. His visit there led to the renaming of the emergency room area as the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine.
- Dick Cheney: The former VP has been admitted to the hospital most frequently of those on our lists, having been admitted for heart problems twice this year alone. Cheney has had five heart attacks since 1978. He and his wife Lynne helped to start the Richard B. and Lynne V. Cheney Cardiovascular Institute there in 2006.
- Tom Reed, then Congressman-elect from NY: Reed was hospitalized at GWU hospital in mid-November of this year after blood clots were discovered in his lungs. He was both released from the hospital and sworn into office on November 18th, also his 39th birthday. He is currently in office to complete the term of former Representative Eric Massa, though in January he will begin his own two-year term. Massa stepped down from the position in March amid allegations of sexual misconduct and a recurrence of cancer.
- Laura Bush: W's First Lady was treated at the hospital in 2007 for a pinched nerve, which at the time prevented her from joining the president on a trip to Australia.

Metro Buses Late Over 50% of the Time

One of the biggest complaints levied against WMATA is that it fails to adequately communicate delays and other issues to customers, lessening the reliability and usability of its buses and trains.  In response, the transit agency implemented a realtime look into its its bus schedlues Thursday, adding to its existing live tracking of trains.

This realitme information, however, has found a disturbing yet well-known trend:  70% of all busses are late, and nearly a third of those tardy arrivals are late by over 6 minutes.

These delays serve to amplify each other: if one bus is late to one stop, for example, it will arrive at the next stop later, and the next one later still, and so on. On some routes this may lead to wait times approaching thirty minutes, and also contributes to the common (and infuriating) phenomenon of bus-stacking, in which multiple buses on the same route arrive at the same stop simoltaneously, often after a prolonged delay.

Metro is stepping up its communication efforts with the creation of new mobile phone and iPod applications that allow the user to check bus and train arrival times, delays, and escalator outages. WMATA is also holding a competition for software developers, challenging them to develop the most useful application for providing information to handicapped customers.

Stay tuned to WRGW the coming year for all of your Metro news.

DC News Roundup

With Council Chairman Vincent Gray moving ever closer to his installation as mayor of DC, news abounds about the structure and content of his new administration.  Here is a brief collection of the important items of the last week:

Gray names chief of staff and city administrator, gives others walking papers

In the largest set of personnel moves since the departure of Michelle Rhee, Vincent Gray chose Gerri Hall to serve as his Chief of Staff and Allen Lew to stay on as City Administrator.

Gerri Hall is a former executive at Amtrak and is currently a vice preseident for human resources at Sodexho, a food services provider.  GW students will be familiar with the corporation as the manager of the J-Street and Mount Vernon dining halls.

Allen Lew currently serves as the director of the District's Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, an office created in the Fenty administration to oversee school reforms.  In his new role of city administrator he will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of city departments.

Despite a petition drive by some DC residents to keep him on, Department of Transportation  director Gabe Klein submitted his resignation Wednesday.  Klein spearheaded the implementation of smart-growth strategies in the city, and was particularly well-liked by cyclists and public transit advocates.  

Elliott School Warning About Wikileaks

The Elliott School’s Graduate Student Career Development office sent out an email on Monday warning students against using Wikileaks information as citations in academic papers. Wikileaks is a site run by Julian Assange that has become well known for its release of classified intelligence information in documents, videos and more. Due to the still classified nature of the information being released by Wikileaks, the school stated that using the information could complicate any attempt to get a job or internship with security clearance.

The email cited Presidential Executive Order 13526 in saying that the documents, though released “shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure."

The office said that it is not trying to “infringe on rights to access information,” but rather to advise students of a potential risk. Columbia University sent out a similar email on December 2nd, saying they received a call from an alumnus at the State Department. However, Columbia did not warn about citing Wikileaks, but rather posting links to the documents on social networking sites. According to Columbia's email, the belief was that such action would “call into question your ability to deal with confidential information." However, this position was later reversed when Dean Coatsworth sent out an email on Monday stating that “students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena."

Wikileaks has been part of a media firestorm in recent weeks, both due to its controversial nature and the purported illegal activities of its founder. Assange, who turned himself in to London police yesterday on a Swedish arrest warrant related to sex crimes, has also been under intense scrutiny for founding the site in the first place.