Massachusetts

ACLU criticizes school’s Pledge of Allegiance stand

Civil libertarians are admonishing a school for telling parents when their children don’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

“It seems to me a form of harassment,” Ron Madnick, director of the Worcester chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday.

Madnick said some students at Bellingham’s high school have been taken out of class and sent to the principal’s office for refusing to stand during the pledge as a way of protesting the war in Iraq. He sent a letter to Supt. T.C. Mattocks on Wednesday and is waiting for a response.

Mattocks said students were not called out of class, but he acknowledged that school officials notify parents of students who don’t stand for the pledge.

Michigan

Airport to auction items taken at security checks

Travelers will get a chance to recover that favorite pocket knife or multipurpose tool they surrendered to security checkers at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids — but it will cost them.

Kent County is planning an auction in the “next couple months” to sell off the airport’s growing collection of confiscated sharp objects, said Jon Denhof, county purchasing chief. After covering expenses, the airport would keep any profits.

Most items confiscated at the Ford airport are multipurpose gadgets such as Swiss Army knives and Leatherman all-in-one tools.

Atlanta

Tests for mystery virus due

Health authorities will soon begin testing suspected SARS patients to see if they’re infected with a new strain of coronavirus, the germ thought to cause the disease.

Antibody tests for coronavirus could arrive in state health laboratories as early as next week, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

“We’re not confirming that coronavirus is the cause,” said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding. Other viruses remain candidates. However, if most suspected patients test positive for coronavirus, she and her colleagues will have compelling evidence that their leading hypothesis is correct.

Almost a dozen laboratories worldwide have been searching for the cause of the outbreak. When researchers found coronavirus in the lungs of SARS patients, it became the prime suspect.