Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 1

BASKETBALL STAR MATCHES CHOOSING THE jN.C. RECORD IZEN-TIM Tuesday January 15, 2008 50 cents VOICE OF THE MOUNTAINS i dam TIL HEALTH (Ss3 ASHEVILLE -u, CIT ES atom mk -4 1 TOP PICKS PIECE IT TOGETHER: Artist Martha Peiser has the painstaking task of rebuilding the cafeteria mosaic, part of the larger rehab of downtown's Urban Trail. Page Bl 4 1 a J. A3 Johnson is new schools chief 1 5 I Gary Hilton '111 Hi; By Ashley Wilson ASHEVILLE Asheville school board members announced Monday their choice of Allen Johnson as the city district's new superintendent. Johnson was a unanimous pick, school board members said, after having served for six months as interim superintendent He will oversee a system with almost 3,800 students and a $47.7 million budget.

"I have observed him MERRIMONTALK: Developers of the big mixed-use project on the old Deal MotorCars property have asked that City Council postpone a public hearing. Page Bl Cheryl Hodges Dunlap SPECIAL TO THE CITIZEN-TIMES Rossana Mlllanl holds her niece, Luna Turchi, In March 2000 In Australia. Milianl was last seen on Dec. 7, 2005, In downtown Bryson City. The 26-year-old had told her family she was going hiking.

Fla. woman disappeared in Swain County doing this job in the interim capacity, and he's impressed me," said Jacquelyn Hallum, a school board member. "He has shown 1 5-4 ii Bt? ma the leadership Allen Irene Bryant VV. 1 '4 rt4 HAVE INFORMATION? Contact local law enforcement if you have information about the disappearance of Rossana Miliani on Dec. 7, 2005, in Bryson City or call her father Anibal Miliani at 305-301-0280.

INSIDE Stolen license plate links Gary Hilton with WNC case. Page A3 LIGHTEN UP 4 LIFE: Meet Isaac Dickson Elementary School's Team Pink. Page Bl VIEW FROM THE TOP: Asheville's Charles E. Russell'talks about lifelong learning. Page D6 ANOTHER WIN: The Western Carolina women's basketball team beats Elon.

Page Dl SWING FOR OB AM New poll shows Barack Obama cutting Hillary Clinton's lead. Page A2 Today's forecast i IS 'F Jill Siske said he briefed officials with the Swain County Sheriff's Office and the Bryson City Police Department on Miliani's case Monday. Officers there said they are now helping the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation. SBI agents are "considering the possibility of a connection," agency spokeswoman Noelle Talley said.

She declined to discuss any details. The Bryson City store clerk declined to comment Monday, saying she is waiting to talk to' police first. Anibal Miliani, the missing woman's father, said he hopes the Hilton case will bring new information, even if it means the worst. "It has been an ordeal," he said. "It would be some type of closure." Rossana Miliani had traveled to Western North Carolina from her home in south Florida to go hiking, her father said.

Please see HIKER on A3 By Jon Ostendorff BRYSON CITY State investigators are looking into whether Georgia drifter Gary Michael Hilton may have been involved in a woman's disappearance two years ago in Swain County, authorities said Monday. Rossana Miliani was last seen on Dec. 7, 2005, in Bryson City. The 26-year-old had told her family she was going hiking. Little else was known until a store clerk called a private investigator handling the case after reading about Miliani on the second anniversary of her disappearance.

Private investigator Steve Siske said the clerk told him Miliani came into her store that day with a white man she thought was about 60 years old. They bought a backpack, and Miliani seemed nervous, Siske said the clerk told him on Dec. 13. When Hilton was arrest- Jack Bryant capacity and the Johnson skill set I think is needed to continue to take our students into the 21st century." Johnson, 49, said he wants to reach a 100 percent graduation rate while narrowing an achievement gap between white and minority students. He also wants to help put the school district among the state's top 10 percent.

Improving school safety and getting students ready to enter the work force also top his priorities, Johnson said. His goals mirror those laid out in the school district's five-year strategic plan. "This has a broad base of support within our community," Johnson said. "I want to make sure our focus is on children, classroom and student success. That's the main thing.

If you look at it that way, it's basic." Please see CITY on A3 ed, Siske said he noticed similarities between Miliani's case and that of slain Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson. Hilton has been charged with murder in the 24-year-old's death. He also is suspected in the killing of Irene Bryant and disappearance and presumed death of her husband. John Bryant, 80, and Irene Bryant, 84, disappeared Oct. 21 after leaving for a hike in the Pink Beds area of Pisgah National Forest.

lA Meredith Emerson Times of cloud and sun High 36, Low 19 WEATHER, D8 RESECTIONING: The Mountains section is back as a section front with obituaries and Your News inside. Find Business in the back of Sports. NationWorld and editorial pages are in the A section. Look for puzzles in Classifieds MySpace agrees to boost security Study deflates value of cholesterol drug 1 Index business CLASSIFIED C6-10 CROSSWORD, PUZZLES C7.9 LIVING Cl-5 LOTTERIES BS MOUNTAINS Bl-2 MOVIES C2 NATIONWORLD OBITUARIES BW OPINION A4-5 SPORTS DW YOUR NEWS BJ By Clare Trapasso THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK MySpace, the world's most popular online hangout, plans to put the cyberspace equivalent of a chaperone at the party and to check IDs at the door. The huge social-networking site promised Monday to take steps to protect youngsters from sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to verify users' ages.

Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace promised to create a task force of industry professionals to watch over its operations, and other social-networking sites will be invited to participate. "We must keep telling children that they're not just typing into a computer. They're sharing themselves with the world," said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. The deal comes as sites such as MySpace and Facebook have grown exponentially in recent years, with teenagers making up a large part of their membership. This has created a new venue for sexual predators who By Jeffrey Gold THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWARK, N.J.

Drug developers Merck Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. on Monday said patients with a predisposition to high cholesterol fared no better when taking their combination cholesterol drug Vytorin than with a high dose of the generic form of Zocor. Amid concerns about whether Vytorin posed a risk of liver damage, Wall Street has been anxiously awaiting details on results of the study begun in 2002. Shares of both companies fell on Monday.

Vytorin is a combination of Zetia and Merck's Zocor, which lost patent protection in 2006. In the quarter ended Sept 30, sales of Zetia and Vytorin hit $1.3 billion, up 26 percent from the year-ago period. The companies market the Zetia and Vytorin jointly and split the profits. The study measured the amount of artery-clogging plaque in three areas. It focused on a group of 720 patients with a rare condition predisposing them to high cholesterol.

The patients were given either Vytorin or a high dose of generic Zocor, known as simvastatin. In December, a congressional committee requested more information on the study. The results were delayed, the companies maintained, because of the complexity of the data. The patients in the two-year study had rare condition called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, which the companies said affected about less than 1 percent of the population. Earlier this month, Merck CEO Richard T.

Clark said he expected Vytorin to keep a secure position in the cholesterol drug market and cited several other ongoing studies in addition to this one. Merck and Schering-Plough are conducting three additional studies, involving more than 20,000 high-risk patients. MARK LENNIHANTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hemanshu Nigam, right, chief security officer for MySpace, and N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper participate In a news conference In New York on Monday. MySpace, the huge online social networking Web site, has agreed with more than 45 states to add extensive measures to combat sexual predators.

lie about their age to lure young sites can eliminate the problem because age -verification tech 5 'A GANNETT NEWSPAPER VOL.139 NO. 15 30 pages 2008 victims and for cyber bullies who send threatening and anonymous messages. But Monday's announcement was short on specifics about how improvements would be carried out. Skeptics are doubtful that MySpace and similar nology is difficult to implement and predators are good at circumventing restrictions. Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, a children's Internet safety group, Please see SECURITY on A3 QUESTIONS ABOUT CIRCULATION? Call (800) 672-2472 Airport Road East of 1-26 (828) 681-8811 -Zlf.

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