AP881218-0003 	X	A 16-year-old student at a private Baptist school who allegedly killed one teacher and wounded another before firing into a filled classroom apparently ``just snapped,'' the school's pastor said. ``I don't know how it could have happened,'' said George Sweet, pastor of Atlantic Shores Baptist Church. ``This is a good, Christian school. We pride ourselves on discipline. Our kids are good kids.'' The Atlantic Shores Christian School sophomore was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, malicious assault and related felony charges for the Friday morning shooting. Police would not release the boy's name because he is a juvenile, but neighbors and relatives identified him as Nicholas Elliott. Police said the student was tackled by a teacher and other students when his semiautomatic pistol jammed as he fired on the classroom as the students cowered on the floor crying ``Jesus save us! God save us!'' Friends and family said the boy apparently was troubled by his grandmother's death and the divorce of his parents and had been tormented by classmates. Nicholas' grandfather, Clarence Elliott Sr., said Saturday that the boy's parents separated about four years ago and his maternal grandmother, Channey Williams, died last year after a long illness. The grandfather also said his grandson was fascinated with guns. ``The boy was always talking about guns,'' he said. ``He knew a lot about them. He knew all the names of them _ none of those little guns like a .32 or a .22 or nothing like that. He liked the big ones.'' The slain teacher was identified as Karen H. Farley, 40. The wounded teacher, 37-year-old Sam Marino, was in serious condition Saturday with gunshot wounds in the shoulder. Police said the boy also shot at a third teacher, Susan Allen, 31, as she fled from the room where Marino was shot. He then shot Marino again before running to a third classroom where a Bible class was meeting. The youngster shot the glass out of a locked door before opening fire, police spokesman Lewis Thurston said. When the youth's pistol jammed, he was tackled by teacher Maurice Matteson, 24, and other students, Thurston said. ``Once you see what went on in there, it's a miracle that we didn't have more people killed,'' Police Chief Charles R. Wall said. Police didn't have a motive, Detective Tom Zucaro said, but believe the boy's primary target was not a teacher but a classmate. Officers found what appeared to be three Molotov cocktails in the boy's locker and confiscated the gun and several spent shell casings. Fourteen rounds were fired before the gun jammed, Thurston said. The gun, which the boy carried to school in his knapsack, was purchased by an adult at the youngster's request, Thurston said, adding that authorities have interviewed the adult, whose name is being withheld pending an investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The shootings occurred in a complex of four portable classrooms for junior and senior high school students outside the main building of the 4-year-old school. The school has 500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Police said they were trying to reconstruct the sequence of events and had not resolved who was shot first. The body of Ms. Farley was found about an hour after the shootings behind a classroom door.
AP880224-0195 	X	The Bechtel Group Inc. offered in 1985 to sell oil to Israel at a discount of at least $650 million for 10 years if it promised not to bomb a proposed Iraqi pipeline, a Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday. But then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the offer from Bruce Rappaport, a partner in the San Francisco-based construction and engineering company, was ``unimportant,'' the senior official told The Associated Press. Peres, now foreign minister, never discussed the offer with other government ministers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The comments marked the first time Israel has acknowledged any offer was made for assurances not to bomb the planned $1 billion pipeline, which was to have run near Israel's border with Jordan. The pipeline was never built. In San Francisco, Tom Flynn, vice president for public relations for the Bechtel Group, said the company did not make any offer to Peres but that Rappaport, a Swiss financier, made it without Bechtel's knowledge or consent. Another Bechtel spokesman, Al Donner, said Bechtel ``at no point'' in development of the pipeline project had anything to do with the handling of the oil. He said proposals submitted by the company ``did not include any specific arrangements for the handling of the oil or for the disposal of the oil once it reached the terminal.'' Asked about Bechtel's disclaimers after they were made in San Francisco, the Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Peres believed Rappaport made the offer for the company. ``Rappaport came to Peres as a representative of Bechtel and said he was speaking on behalf of Bechtel,'' the official said. ``If he was not, he misrepresented himself.'' The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday quoted sources close to Peres as saying that according to Rappaport, Bechtel had said the oil sales would have to be conducted through a third party to keep the sales secret from Iraq and Jordan. The Foreign Ministry official said Peres did not take the offer seriously. ``This is a man who sees 10 people every day,'' he said. ``Thirty percent of them come with crazy ideas. He just says, `Yes, yes. We'll think about it.' That's how things work in Israel.'' The offer appeared to be the one mentioned in a September 1985 memo to Attorney General Edwin Meese III. The memo referred to an arrangement between Peres and Rappaport ``to the effect that Israel will receive somewhere between $65 million and $70 million a year for 10 years.'' The memo from Meese friend E. Robert Wallach, Rappaport's attorney, also states, ``What was also indicated to me, and which would be denied everywhere, is that a portion of those funds will go directly to Labor,'' a reference to the political party Peres leads. The Wallach memo has become the focus of an investigation into whether Meese knew of a possibly improper payment. Peres has denied any wrongdoing and has denounced the memo as ``complete nonsense.'' The Israeli official said Rappaport, a native of Israel and a close friend of Peres, relayed the offer to Peres earlier in September. ``Peres thought the offer was unimportant. For him, the most important thing was to have an Iraqi oil port near Israel's border,'' the official said. ``The thinking was that this would put Iraq in a position where it would not be able to wage war with Israel, out of concern for its pipeline.'' A person answering the telephone at Rappaport's Swiss residence said he was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
AP881017-0144 	X	A gunman took a 74-year-old woman hostage after he was foiled in an attempt to steal $1 million in jewelry belonging to the late Liberace, but police shot and killed the man outside the entertainer's museum. ``I just tried to stay cool,'' said hostage Margaret Bloomberg, who sat down to give police a clear shot at the man and escaped unharmed in Sunday evening's incident at the Liberace Museum. ``The man had a bag of tools, including a crowbar, and was going to smash into the jewelry case,'' said Dora Liberace, administrator of the museum and sister-in-law of the late entertainer. ``He wanted the jewelry and he came prepared to take it.'' Mrs. Bloomberg, who has worked at the museum 10 years, was closing the office when the man appeared, saying he wanted to deliver a plant, Mrs. Liberace said. The man produced a gun, forced his way inside and refused offers of money, Mrs. Bloomberg said. ``Margaret offered him the day's receipts, even offered him the money in her purse, but he wasn't interested,'' Mrs. Liberace said. ``He said `I don't want the cash. I want the jewelry.' He obviously had been in there before and checked out the place. He seemed to know where everything was.'' Mrs. Bloomberg was able to warn a cleaning woman, who slipped out a back door and called police. The gunman tied Mrs. Bloomberg's hands and feet, taped her mouth, then untied her, moved her to another part of the museum and tied her again. ``He was getting ready to pop the jewelry case when he heard a noise outside,'' Mrs. Bloomberg said. ``He went and saw the police. I told him I'd get him out the back door. When we tried that, police were there, too.'' The gunman walked out the front door with a gun pointed at the bound hostage. ``He told police he would shoot me if they didn't let him get to his car,'' she recalled. ``I just tried to stay cool.'' ``She just sat down on the sidewalk, pretending her legs had collapsed under her,'' Mrs. Liberace said. ``He tried to lift her in the car but couldn't. He leaned back for a minute and the police shot him.'' ``When I sat down I figured the police would pick him off, maybe,'' Mrs. Bloomberg said. Mrs. Bloomberg, somewhat shaken and her hands still bearing marks from the ropes, was back at work Monday. ``I thought I was better off working than staying at home and dwelling on it,'' she said. The gunman, identified as Hugh Perry, 47, of Las Vegas, had a lengthy arrest record dating back to the 1960s, said Metro Police Lt. Kyle Edwards. The museum is one of the city's top tourist attractions, featuring memorabilia of the entertainer who gained fame here and retained a home not far away. Mrs. Liberace said the museum has one of the most sophisticated security systems in the city but will now add guards. Liberace, who died in February 1987 of complications due to AIDS, founded the museum 10 years ago to fund the Liberace Foundation for the Performing Arts, which provides scholarships for music and art students at 27 colleges and universities across the United States.
AP881017-0219 	X	Today is Saturday, Oct. 29, the 303rd day of 1988. There are 63 days left in the year. A reminder: daylight-saving time ends tomorrow at 2 a.m. local time. Clocks ``fall back'' one hour. Today's highlight in history: In 1929, ``Black Tuesday'' descended upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapsed amid panic selling, thousands of investors were wiped out, and America's Great Depression began. On this date: In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier, military adventurer and poet, was executed in London. In 1682, Pennsylvania founder William Penn landed at what is now Chester, Pa. In 1901, President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted. In 1911, American newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer died in Charleston, S.C. In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. In 1940, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number _ 158 _ in the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history. In 1947, former first lady Frances Cleveland Preston died in Baltimore at age 83. In 1956, Israel launched an invasion of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. In 1956, ``The Huntley-Brinkley Report'' premiered as NBC's nightly television newscast, replacing ``The Camel News Caravan.'' In 1964, thieves made off with the Star of India and several other priceless gems from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The Star and most of the other gems were recovered the following year; three men were convicted of stealing them. In 1966, the National Organization for Women was founded. In 1986, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia's oil minister since 1962 and one of the best-known figures of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was dismissed. Ten years ago: Responding to a rebuke from President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin reaffirmed his country's right to expand existing Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Five years ago: The coffins of 16 U.S. servicemen who had been killed in the Beirut truck-bombing on Oct. 23 and the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. One year ago: Following the confirmation defeat of Robert H. Bork to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Reagan announced his choice of Douglas H. Ginsburg, a nomination that would run into trouble over revelations of Ginsburg's past marijuana use. Today's birthdays: Singer Melba Moore is 43. Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 41. Actress Kate Jackson is 40. Thought for today: ``What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print.'' _ Isadora Duncan, modern dance pioneer (1878-1927).
AP900117-0022 	X	Cupid has a new message for lovers this Valentine's Day and volunteers are lining up to spread the word from Loveland. People around the world send their Valentines through the Loveland post office each year to get the special postmark and cachet verse. Ted Thompson, 85, has been coming up with verses since he and his wife, Mabel, started the remailing program in 1947. An estimated 300,000 people will get Thompson's latest Valentine's verse: ``It might just be a song bird, ``Or perhaps some sparkling dew, ``That brings fond recollections, ``And a timeless cupid too.'' Thompson said recently he's not sure where he got the inspiration. ``It takes the whole year for me to get something I'm satisfied with. It's a hard thing for me. Some people are born to write a verse for you, but that's far away from me.'' Since it stamped 300 pieces of mail its first year, more than 7 million Valentines have passed through the program. The mail is hand-stamped by about 50 senior-citizen volunteers. There's no charge for the extra touch, which begins Monday and continues through Feb. 14.
AP880405-0167 	X	The Reagan administration is weighing whether to invoke a law authorizing the seizure of tax payments made by U.S. businesses operating in Panama, national security adviser Colin Powell said today. Saying that economic sanctions applied so far ``have not yet created enough pressure'' to force the ouster of strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, Powell said ``we are examining additional pressure that might be brought to bear.'' He briefed reporters not long after giving the vacationing President Reagan an update on the Panamanian problem. A senior administration official, disussing Panama on grounds he not be publicly identified, said the United States would encourage any move within the Panamanian Defense Forces to oust Noriega. ``He still is firmly in control, but not as in control as he was, perhaps, a month ago, and every effort we can take to foster that discontent in the PDF, I can assure you we are taking,'' he said. ``If the PDF, after examining the situation, think it would be useful to remove General Noriega, I think that would be a very sound decision for them to take,'' the official said. Powell acknowledged that some corporations operating in Panama have balked at having their tax payments placed in an escrow account because of a concern that it could hamper their operations. For this reason, he said, White House advisers and other administration officials are studying the implications of invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act _ which would authorize the government to seize these payments. ``We have to be cautious before you invoke ... because it is a very powerful tool, and the staff back in Washington is examining the pros and cons'' of invoking the act, Powell said. ``And if it is a sensible thing to do, to continue to apply pressure on General Noriega, we will provide that for the president for his consideration.'' Powell refused to discuss any military options being weighed, except he indicated there would be no immediate dispatch of troops beyond the 1,300 deployed to the Central American country early this week. Powell, an Army lieutenant general, said he believes there now is ``a reasonable degree of security'' for Americans living in Panama and the U.S. installations there. Meanwhile, the administration was taking a dim view of Jesse Jackson's contacts with Noriega, despite Jackson's diplomatic coups in the past during visits to Cuba and Syria. Following Jackson's disclosure that he had sent a letter to Noriega two weeks ago asking him to resign, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said Monday that such communications could prolong Noriega's grip on power. ``The proliferation of channels is a tactic Noriega uses to buy time,'' Ms. Oakley said. ``We have available channels of communication with Noriega if and when they are needed. We think it would be best to continue to use these channels exclusively.'' White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, traveling with Reagan in California, also criticized the Democratic presidential candidate's involvement in Panama. ``We have a bipartisan coordinated plan for dealing with Noriega,'' he said. ``That's why it's important to Congress and the public, and we believe it's been working.'' Jackson has dealt successfully in the past with other U.S. adversaries. In 1984, he traveled to Cuba and persuaded President Fidel Castro to release 26 political prisoners. He later went to Syria and, during talks with President Hafez Assad, won freedom for an American military pilot detained there. His efforts earned him an enthusiastic White House welcome. Jackson said he has no plans to travel to Panama to try to help resolve the 6-week-old crisis in that country. About 1,300 Army soldiers and Marines were headed to Panama today, joining the 10,000 troops stationed at the U.S. Southern Command in Panama. The Pentagon said the soldiers are being sent to increase security for Americans and U.S. facilities in Panama. In a related development, a former Panamanian official told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday that Noriega probably has evidence of complicity by U.S. officials in Central American drug trafficking. Jose I. Blandon produced a document Noriega sent to the country's U.S. diplomatic offices in February saying he has proof that American officials knowingly established policies that supported people in the drug business. Blandon, a former intelligence official and consul general who defected last year, mentioned Panama, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Jackson says he agrees with the Reagan administration that Noriega should step down, but he has accused U.S. officials of overkill in trying to achieve that goal through economic sanctions that have contributed to economic paralysis in Panama. Jackson, appearing Monday in Milwaukee, renewed his call for Noriega to leave Panama and released a letter in which Noriega rejected ``any political and economic program that will be dictated from Washington, D.C.'' ``My duration as commander and chief of the defense forces is governed by the Panamanian constitution and law of the defense forces,'' Noriega's letter said. While releasing the letter, Jackson renewed his call for Noriega to go into exile. ``I remain convinced that it is in the best interests of the Panamanian people for General Noriega to leave,'' Jackson said. ``Today I reiterate my public moral appeal for him to depart.''
AP880825-0239 	X	More than 120,000 skins of a protected species of alligator were smuggled into Japan during the past seven months using stolen or falsified export documents, a wildlife protection organization said Thursday. Traffic Japan, the wildlife trade monitoring group of the World Wide Fund for Nature, said the South American caiman skins were shipped by a complex route involving at least seven South American and Asian countries before they arrived in Japan. At least 46 tons of the skins, from more than 120,000 alligators, entered Japan in the first seven months of this year through Thailand alone, the group said. It said it believed the skins were part of a larger shipment that was loaded onto Asia-bound ships off the coast of Uruguay at the end of last year. The declared customs value of the skins was about 427 million yen (about $3.2 million), ``but retail value would be four to five times more,'' spokeswoman Cecila Song said. The skins are used in Japan mainly for belts and watchbands. Permits are required for the export of South American caiman skins under the regulations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international treaty regulating trade in protected plants and animals, Song said. Japanese officials allowed the shipments to enter the country without proper verification of the export documents, the group said in a statement. ``Traffic's 8-month investigation has revealed a serious lapse of CITES administration in Thailand and Japan, and has uncovered a long paper trail of illegal CITES documents and other ploys involving Thailand, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela and Singapore to mask the illegal origins of the poached skins,'' the statement said. It said Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry had responded to evidence of illegal caiman trade by instituting a new voluntary check system on all imports of the skins. ``But unless they come up with a system involving legal penalties, we don't think there will be any improvement, especially with the high profits involved,'' Song said. Ministry officials were not available Thursday night for comment.
AP880325-0232 	X	There will be no organized union boost behind a single candidate in Saturday's Democratic caucuses in Michigan, a state where union members can wield more clout than almost anywhere else. While national labor leaders are assuming Michael Dukakis will be the eventual nominee, they are prevented from endorsing him by what appears to be growing rank-and-file support for Jesse Jackson, who has gotten more union votes than any of the other candidates in primaries so far. Richard Gephardt also has considerable union support. None of the Democratic candidates appears to have won the hearts _ or votes _ of a majority of the state's 750,000 rank-and-file union workers, nearly half of them members of the United Auto Workers.
AP880908-0056 	X	Here is a summary of developments in forest and brush fires in Western states:
AP881105-0097 	X	Jean-Pierre Stirbois, the No. 2 man in the extreme-right National Front after party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, died Saturday in an automobile accident, police said. He was 43. Stirbois attended a political meeting Friday in the city of Dreux, about 60 miles west of Paris, and was traveling toward the capital when his car ran off the road and smashed into a tree at about 2:40 a.m, police said. Stirbois was secretary-general of the National Front and a member of the party leadership since 1981. He was born Jan. 30, 1945 in Paris, held degrees in law and marketing and headed his own printing business. Stirbois was active in several extreme-right political movements before joining the National Front in 1977. In 1982, he won 12.6 percent of the vote in local elections in the district of Eure-et-Loir, west of Paris _ the highest vote percentage in France for a right-wing candidate. A year and a half later, he won the election for deputy mayor of Dreux. Stirbois was elected a deputy in the National Assembly in 1986. He lost his seat in legislative elections last summer. The National Front, founded by Le Pen in 1972, is strongly opposed to France's highly centralized and bureaucratic government and is against personal taxes. It favors the death penalty, priority to French citizens for jobs, and stopping immigration. In the first round of this year's presidential elections, Le Pen won a surprising 14.4 percent of the vote, worrying many who feared the National Front could awaken racist sentiments.
AP880716-0112 	X	At least 15 people died and 25,000 residents of Surat town were evacuated after torrential rains flooded the west Indian town, United News of India reported Friday. UNI said the victims lived in slum localities which were the worst affected in the deluge Thursday night. It said 25,000 slum residents lost their homes in the floods and were moved to relief camps. Surat in Gujarat state is 560 miles southwest of New Delhi. At least 50 people have drowned or died in collapsed houses across India since the monsoon broke this month, newspapers reported. Worst affected are northeastern Assam state and eastern Bihar state.
AP880608-0142 	X	Actress Betty Buckley sang ``They Can't Take That Away from Me'' at a Shubert Theater service Wednesday for George Rose, an actor killed May 4 at his vacation home in the Dominican Republic. ``George Rose was a teacher of mine. He was the epitome of elegance and high standards. I can only aspire to his standards,'' said Miss Buckley, who was a star with Rose in ``The Mystery of Edwin Drood.'' Rose, 68, was born in England but lived since 1961 in New York, nearly always working on Broadway. He won Tony Awards as the chairman in ``Drood'' and as Doolittle in a revival of ``My Fair Lady.'' Rupert Holmes, who composed ``Drood,'' said, ``His presence was a beam that lifts the ceiling of theater.'' Maureen McGovern, who played Rose's daughter for a year in ``The Pirates of Penzance,'' sang a vocalise by Faure which was a particular favorite of the actor. Actor Jack Gilford said, ``I never failed to marvel at Rose's honesty, depth, humor, skill and charm.'' Judy Kaye, who won a Tony on Sunday for ``The Phantom of the Opera,'' called Rose ``one of the best actors who ever walked the planet.'' Howard McGillan, who was in ``Drood'' and now is in ``Anything Goes,'' sang ``It's De-Lovely.'' Larry Kert, who said he and Rose walked their dogs together for 17 years, sang ``Anyone Can Whistle.''
AP881110-0228 	X	For three years, Charles S. Robb was out of the spotlight that had become so familiar, first as the son-in-law of President Lyndon Johnson and then as Democratic governor of this conservative state. But on Tuesday, the 49-year-old lawyer re-entered the national arena in decisive style, fashioning a huge victory over Republican long-shot Maurice Dawkins, a retired black minister and Washington lobbyist. Robb said today he won because ``we attempted to identify with mainstream values that are crucial to success at the national level,'' such as strong defense and fiscal responsibility. With 99 percent of the precincts counted, Robb had 1,448,389 votes or 71 percent, to Dawkins' 587,887 votes or 29 percent. The former Marine combat officer has built a career by making Democrats electable in conservative Virginia. Once known only as the former White House military social aide who married LBJ's daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson, he won the lieutenant governor's race in 1977 in his first bid for elective office. Four years later, he ran for governor in the first sweep by Democrats of the state's top three offices since 1965. Robb was a popular governor who was credited with overhauling the state bureaucracy and making major gains in education funding. He also opened positions of authority in state government to blacks and women and appointed Virginia's first black Supreme Court member. The former governor was also one of the architects of last spring's Super Tuesday presidential primary, intended in part to give the Southern vote collective strength. But Robb's tenure was shaken by prison troubles that drew national attention when six death row inmates escaped in May 1984. Robb, who could not succeed himself under Virginia's constitution, had been out of office for three years and practicing law until his bid for the Senate. ``I've been unemployed for a long time, and it looks like I just got a job,'' he said.
AP900802-0166 	X	An article in the August issue of the glossy Washington society magazine Dossier profiling the capital's ambassadors wound up its column on Iraq's Mohamed Sadiq Al-Mashat with the note that Congress had been considering sanctions against Iraq. It concluded: ``Amid all this, Iraq's man in Washington says his priority is reversing a tide of unflattering press reports about his country.''
AP881214-0257 	X	The operating rate at U.S. factories, mines and utilities in November rose to the highest level in nine years, the government said today in a report likely to heighten concern about inflation. The Federal Reserve Board said the use of industrial capacity rose 0.2 percentage points to 84.2 percent last month, the highest since 84.3 percent in November 1979. It was the seventh increase in eight months. As capacity use edges toward 85 percent, economists fear factories will have trouble producing enough goods to meet demand, leading to shortages and price increases. In an accompanying report, the Federal Reserve said industrial production climbed a brisk 0.5 percent in November following an identical 0.5 percent rise in October. The Fed's industrial production index now stands at 139.9 percent of its 1977 base, reflecting gains in light truck manufacturing and production of equipment for businesses. The jumps in capacity use and the production index were in line with economists' expectations. Most government statistics have portrayed a robust economy in October and November, particularly in the manufacturing sector, which has been bolstered by strong export sales caused by the lower value of the dollar, which makes U.S. goods more affordable on overseas markets. At manufacturing plants, the operating rate climbed to 84.5 percent last month, up from 84.3 percent in October. Producers of both durable goods _ ``big ticket'' items ranging from bicycles to battleships _ and non-durable goods reported higher rates. The rate at durable goods plants was 83.1 percent in November, up from 82.9 percent. Non-durable goods producers recorded a 0.1 percentage point gain to 86.5 percent. The Fed said the operating rate for primary metals industries jumped to 92.4 percent, the highest since December 1978. Most of the increase was attributed to increases at steel mills. Use of motor vehicle and parts manufacturing capacity rose for the fourth consecutive month to 85.4 percent, reflecting gains in light truck production. Automobile plants, a subcategory, slipped to 76.7 percent, down from 77.0 percent. The operating rate at utilities was 81.0 percent in November, up from 80.8 percent. It had hit a peak for the year in August of 83.9 percent because of a surge in electricity use for air conditioning. In the mining sector, which includes oil and gas drilling, the operating rate increased to 82.2 percent last month. It was 81.6 percent in October. The Federal Reserve's production index has not declined since September 1987, a reflection of the export-driven manufacturing boom. A related surge in spending for capital equipment to expand and modernize factories has accompanied the boom. Production in the manufacturing sector rose 0.5 percent in November, following an even stronger 0.6 percent gain in October. The Fed said automobiles were assembled at an annual rate of 7.6 million units, down slightly from October. But production of business equipment rose 0.4 percent following a flat month in October and stood 8.8 percent higher than a year ago. Output at mines, which includes oil and gas drilling, rose 0.6 percent in November after three consecutive declines. Production at utilities increased 0.4 percent, on top of a 0.6 percent jump in October. Total output at factories, mines and utilities was 5.1 percent higher than a year ago.
AP880401-0081 	X	Ferrets are increasingly popular as pets, but the weasel-like animals can be dangerous to young children, two doctors say. In three unprovoked attacks, two babies had their ears bitten off by ferrets and required constructive surgery and a third infant suffered scratches and bites requiring 39 stitches, John W. Paisley and Brian A. Lauer write in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. ``Two of the children were asleep in their cribs when they were bitten,'' the two University of Colorado School of Medicine doctors said. ``Although ferrets are increasingly popular pets, we believe that they are not suitable pets for families with small children,'' said the doctors, who claim Americans own more than a million ferrets and are buying them at the rate of 50,000 a year. All the babies recovered, the doctors said, adding that reports of severe injuries caused by ferrets are few. But ``a ferret may bite so tenaciously that it has to be pried off or killed to loosen its hold,'' the doctors said. One of the animals in the attacks described had to be killed before it would release the child, they said. The incidence of ferret bites is unknown because most states do not require bites to be reported to health officials, the doctors said. During an 11-month period in Arizona, the ratio of reported bites to the estimated pet population was 0.3 percent for ferrets, compared with 0.4 percent for cats and 2.2 percent for dogs, they said. Sale or ownership of pet ferrets is prohibited in California, Georgia, New Hampshire, New York City and Washington, D.C., the doctors said. A ban also has been proposed in North Carolina.
AP901009-0094 	X	George Strait's path is clear. From Entertainer of the Year, to North Dakota, to Kansas and then back to the ranch. That's where music business success is leading the soft-speaking, hard-singing Texan. Backstage Monday night at the Country Music Association's awards ceremony, Strait smiled from under his black hat and talked about how it's been. ``It's hard not to be affected by this stuff. It's great,'' said Strait, who won the CMA's top award the second consecutive year. Strait, like most country acts, will tour small towns and cities across the naton this winter. But Strait will stop after 80 or so appearances and return to his ranch in early November. ``I made up my mind I wasn't going to tour as much,'' said Strait, known outside the country industry for his TV beer commercials. Members of the fast-rising group Kentucky HeadHunters figure two awards means they won't have to cut their hair. Their locks were longer than anyone's at the awards ceremony - except for Crystal Gayle's. ``Does this mean we get to keep our hair?'' asked Greg Martin, one of five HeadHunters taking home crystal trophies for Album of the Year, ``Pickin' on Nashville,'' and for Vocal Group of the Year. The only other double winner was Garth Brooks, with the Horizon Award (for career development) and Music Video of the Year for ``The Dance.'' Tennessee Ernie Ford was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, an honor that made the 71-year-old singer consider the youth of some other winners. ``These people who performed tonight, I've got neckties older than they are,'' Ford said on the nationally televised awards presentation. Clint Black won Male Vocalist of the Year and Kathy Mattea won top female vocalist honors. The Judds, Wynonna and mother Naomi, picked up Vocal Duo of the Year award. Single of the Year went to Vince Gill for ``When I Call Your Name.'' Vocal Event of the Year, for performers who do not normally sing together, went to Lorrie Morgan and her late husband, Keith Whitley. Song of the Year, a songwriter's award, was given to Jon Vezner and Don Henry for ``Where've You Been.'' Johnny Gimble received Musician of the Year award.
AP881108-0081 	X	Republican nominee George Bush said he felt nervous as he voted today in his adopted home state of Texas, where he ended his presidential campaign telling voters the election is a referendum on a ``philosophy, a way of life.'' The vice president and his wife, Barbara, voted in a hotel conference room which had been set up as a polling place. The couple then visited a local Republican headquarters to talk to people working to get out the vote. Emerging from the voting booth, Bush was asked how he felt. ``Nervous ... everytime I vote here, I feel nervous,'' he said. Asked about the outcome, he replied, ``No predictions.'' At the GOP headquarters, Bush personally made a half-dozen telephone calls. ``No, I'm not kidding,'' he told one person who apparently expressed skepticism that Bush was on the line. ``Having done all the hard work, now the key is to get the vote out,'' he said. The vice president also showed off his French to a reporter from France. ``Je peux parler un peu de francais,'' he said, explaining he could speak the language a little. He added he felt ``tres heureux, aujourd'hui,'' or ``very happy, today.'' Bush told reporters he was ``very glad'' the campaign was over. He planned a ``relaxed family day'' with ``a lot of exercise.'' He planned to watch election returns on television with family members and friends at his home in a Houston condominium-hotel complex. Bush wrapped up his campaign Monday with a final swing through Michigan, Ohio and Missouri. He attended a raucus rally Monday evening at the Galleria shopping mall where country stars Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle and Mo Bandy entertained several thousand fans. Today's election is ``more than just a referendum on peace and prosperity,'' Bush told the crowd. ``It's a referendum on a philosophy, a way of life that's well and alive right here deep in the heart of Texas,'' he said. In a half-hour paid TV advertisment Monday night, the Republican presidential nominee summed up the themes of his campaign and said rival Michael Dukakis ``has no experience in national security affairs.'' ``I don't believe we can take a risk on an issue as important as our national security,'' he said on the ad broadcast on the three major networks right after Dukakis aired a half-hour spot of his own. Later, a soft-speaking Bush talked to viewers for a few minutes at the end of the half-hour commercial that featured biographical and campaign scenes set to music and narration, as well as an endorsement by President Reagan and various Bush family members. ``I respect my opponent, I admire his devotion to family, and I appreciate his decision to enter public service,'' Bush said. ``But I do believe we are guided by fundamentally different philosophies, a great divide, an honest difference of opinion on which approach will lead America in the '90s stronger and more secure than ever.'' Bush also echoed President Reagan's 1980 campaign line by saying, ``If you elect me president you will be better off four years from now than you are today.'' The ad made no mention of Bush's running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, whose qualifications have been an issue in the campaign. Bush appeared in a jovial mood Monday as nationwide polls showed him holding his lead over Dukakis. Accompanied by his top campaign advisers, Bush spent the final campaign day addressing rallies in a suburb of Detroit, in rural Ashland, Ohio, and in St. Louis. While calling on voters to reject the ``failed liberal policies of the past,'' Bush also seemed in a reflective mood as he talked about what the campaign meant to him and what he sees ahead. ``Sometimes there's ups,'' he said. ``Sometimes there's downs. Sometimes you get written off by all the great experts and sometimes you bounce back. ``But I'll tell you where you get your strength, you get your strength from travelling around the United States of America and meeting and visiting with and listening to the heartbeat that comes from the American people themselves.'' Bush said he was confident that the negativism of the campaign would soon be behind him. ``What I will do is trust the good judgment of the American people who immediately shift gears and start looking to the future,'' he said in an interview with radio reporters.
AP880428-0304 	X	Enron Corp., the nation's largest natural gas transmission company, said Thursday it was considering the sale of its oil and gas subsidiary, one of the biggest U.S. independent oil and gas concerns. ``Based upon prices paid in recent transactions for oil and gas reserves, the sale of all or part of EOG (Enron Oil & Gas Co.) would strengthen substantially Enron's financial position and provide the flexibility to pursue very attractive opportunities we see in the energy business,'' said Kenneth L. Lay, Enron chairman. Enron Oil & Gas had reserves of 1.42 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 42.3 million barrels of oil as of the end of 1987. For the entire year, it sold an average of 343 million cubic feet of natural gas and 12,000 barrels of oil per day. For the first three months of 1988, that rate has risen to 399 million cubic feet of gas and 13,000 barrels of oil, the company said. ``Assuming completion of a sale, we will be realizing for our shareholders the tremendous value inherent in these assets under current favorable market conditions,'' Lay said. He said proceeds from a sale would be used to reduce Enron's indebtedness and interest expense and enhance near-term earnings and future cash flow. Lay, speaking at Enron's annual meeting Thursday, said debt reduction was a major goal for 1988. Debt as a percentage of capitalization stood at 75.6 at the end of 1987 and was reduced to 67 percent by the end of the first quarter. Enron earlier Thursday reported first-quarter earnings of $69.4 million, or $1.20 per share, compared with $62.7 million, or $1.06 per share, for the year-earlier period. ``Among the primary causes was a return to more normal winter temperature patterns than the relatively warm heating seasons of the last three years,'' Lay said. ``The colder weather, resulting in increased natural gas use, was coupled with higher average prices for gas, which also proved beneficial to earnings.'' In releasing the financial figures, the company restated earnings for 1987 to reflect adoption of changed accounting rules, reducing 1987's reported first quarter earnings by $3.9 million, reflecting a lower federal income tax benefit due to a tax rate change relative to depreciation and amortization expenses.
AP900817-0118 	X	NASA scientists rejoiced at ``pretty damn good'' test photos from the Magellan probe today but also grappled with communications difficulties as the spacecraft circled Venus. Fifteen hours after the spacecraft lost contact with Earth on Thursday evening, the signal was re-established. But the signal failed again at midday and was expected to continue to be a problem until scientists could send Magellan new instructions on how to properly aim at Earth, officials said. Meanwhile, project manager Tony Spear said the test pictures collected from the spacecraft's radar mapper before the problems developed had produced ``some raw images that looked pretty damn good.'' He said NASA will release the first pictures on Monday instead of waiting until September. Thursday's test returned far more pictures than expected, including several so-called ``noodles,'' or areas of the planet about 1,000 miles long by 15 miles wide, project scientist Steve Saunders said. The pictures show ``lava flows and faults and fractures and cinder cones with craters in the top,'' Saunders said. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were concerned when they did not hear from Magellan as expected at 8:32 p.m. Thursday. But they stressed that the spacecraft is loaded with computer programs that automatically help it find Earth if contact is lost. Originally, scientists had expected that the outage would continue until this evening. But late this morning, as scientists were were conducting a news conference about the problem, Magellan manager Steve Wall rushed in with word that NASA's Deep Space Network station at Goldstone, Calif., had re-established contact with the spacecraft and locked onto its signal. ``It is Magellan,'' Wall said. ``The spacecraft looks healthy.'' The second loss of contact a short time afterward was not entirely unexpected, Spear said. Scientists now expect the spacecraft to be in and out of touch until controllers can send it new instructions on how to properly aim at Earth, he said. However, the second signal loss blunted some of the sense of relief at hearing from Magellan after the overnight silence. Wall said engineers had been out of contact with the spacecraft Thursday night as it fixed on two stars, a procedure Magellan routinely performs to make sure it is pointed properly. NASA should have heard from Magellan at 8:32 p.m. PDT Thursday when this ``star calibration'' was completed, but ``we did not re-establish contact,'' JPL spokesman Jim Doyle said. The last previous radio contact with the craft had been at Deep Space Network stations at Goldstone and in Australia. ``The assumption is that after it made a star calibration, it looked at the wrong star and then couldn't point back to Earth accurately,'' Doyle said. ``Then, the contact was lost.'' Project officials believe the spacecraft detected an unknown onboard problem and entered a protective ``safing mode'' in which it orients itself toward the sun so its solar array will continue to receive power and find a guide star, said Doyle. From that position, it was programmed to automatically start a routine of locating the sun, then searching for Earth, Wall said. The problem with Magellan comes in the wake of NASA's troubles with the flawed Hubble Space Telescope and with hydrogen fuel leaks that temporarily grounded the space shuttle fleet. Magellan's formal mission to map the surface of Venus is supposed to start Aug. 29. Contact was lost after Magellan started a two-day test meant to make sure the spaceship's radar can make pictures of Venus and to adjust the radar waves so the pictures are focused, said lab official Ed Sherry. Venus, the second planet from the sun, is covered by thick clouds that prevent optical cameras from seeing its rugged landscape. Magellan's $744 million mission will use radar to penetrate the clouds, then collect the reflected waves to make the best maps and pictures yet of Earth's nearest planetary neighbor. The spacecraft was launched from the shuttle Atlantis 15 months ago and went into orbit around Venus a week ago after a roundabout 948-million-mile journey. At least 20 U.S. and Soviet spacecraft have visited Venus, including some that landed and photographed a small area of landscape. Magellan will yield a global map. Its radar was designed to distinguish surface features as small as two football fields, a level of detail 10 times better than in pictures made by radar on two Soviet spacecraft that were launched in 1983.
AP880802-0073 	X	A suspect bit the ear of a 4-year-old police dog and injured the animal's neck during a chase and arrest, police said today. The dog, Rex, was on patrol with Constable Philip Rajah in the Natal provincial capital during the weekend when they came across two ``suspicious individuals,'' police said. While Rajah searched one man, Rex chased the other _ and got the worst of it when his quarry turned on the animal and bit him. Rajah had to yank the man off the dog, police said. They said the dog was being treated for a serious neck injury at a veterinary clinic. The man who bit the dog may face a charge of malicious injury to state property.
AP880712-0030 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 28,099.84 points, up 113.85 points, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Tuesday.
AP880909-0059 	X	Here is a brief summary of forest and grassland fires active Thursday in the West:
AP900422-0033 	X	A biography of the elusive Greta Garbo will finally be published after being locked in a vault for 14 years. ``Garbo'' was written by the late novelist and poet Antoni Gronowicz. Publisher Simon & Schuster said the company acquired the book in 1976 on the understanding that it would not be published while the actress was alive. Garbo died April 15 at the age of 84. Much of the book is told in Garbo's own words as she talked to Gronowicz, with whom she became friends in 1938. The book ``tells of her relationship with her discoverer, mentor and lover Mauritz Stiller; and deals with her long and not always happy years as the greatest and most reluctant of movie queens,'' the publisher said in a statement. It also deals with the men in her life, John Gilbert, Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, Charles Boyer, Melvyn Douglas and others. ``In the book, Gronowicz also recalls Miss Garbo talking about the often rumored fact that `women pursued (her) more often and more persistently' than did men,'' the statement said.
AP900405-0243 	X	Bank of New England Corp. is cutting 5,600 workers and slashing $300 million in costs, but the troubled company admits that even with the cuts its future is in doubt. The bank, operating under government orders for more than a month, announced the cost-cutting plan Wednesday. But the institution also filed federal documents this week saying it expects to see an increase in troubled loans. Furthermore, the bank acknowledged its future may hinge on whether the slumping New England economy continues to decline. ``Continued deterioration in the New England economy and the real estate market could adversely impact the corporation's recovery efforts,'' the bank said. The job reductions, which will lower the workforce by about one-third, will come through a combination of layoffs, attrition and asset sales. The bank also has frozen hiring, eliminated financial bonuses and suspended raises for bank officers. Analysts said that although the moves should strengthen the bank, its footing remains extremely shaky. The bank gave a similar assessment in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. ``If the corporation is unsuccessful in addressing the corporation's current difficulties, it is likely that external assistance from third parties and@or regulatory authorities will be required,'' the bank said. Bank of New England lost more than $1 billion last year, due largely to bad real estate loans. The bank said that in addition to $2.2 billion in non-performing assets reported at the end of 1989, it had $1 billion in loans that were still performing but where borrowers were experiencing some financial difficulty. The bank said it expects non-performing assets will increase in the first quarter. That could be a sign that problems could be spreading outside the bank's real estate portfolio into other business loans, said Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with Tucker Anthony Inc. ``The key is the economy,'' he said. ``The New England economy is not cooperating.'' The bank said it would lay off about 1,700 employees and would notify them over the next several days. ``These decisions were difficult and they are painful for all of us,'' bank Chairman Lawrence K. Fish said in a letter to employees. ``But difficult as these steps are, it is essential that we take them now to assure our future viability and our ability to rebuild as a stronger, though smaller, Bank of New England,'' he said. ``At the same time, our primary concern as we rebuild is customer service and maintenance of the highest possible credit quality,'' Fish said. An earlier staff reduction plan was canceled by Fish after he was named chairman on March 9. At the time, he ordered a thorough review of the organization's direction, structure, and personnel needs. Personnel cuts, asset sales and other measures are expected to reduce annual operating expenses by approximately $300 million, the bank said. Bank officials said the action was being taken as part of a strategic plan outlining new directions for the corporation. Details of the plan are expected next week. The bank last month announced it had signed federal orders that set tight guidelines for lending practices and other operations. James Moynihan, senior vice president of Advest Inc. in Boston, predicted the bank eventually will sell off all its subsidiaries in Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island. ``In order to survive, they will have to become a Massachusetts-only bank,'' he said. The results, if successful, would be a ``very competitive bank'' with assets below $20 billion, compared with a $32 billion level last year. The bank said its new strategic plan will try to concentrate on primary banking and lending businesses. Other operations will be eliminated, including processing services, large corporate banking outside of New England, leasing and discount brokerage services. The bank also disclosed that it was being sued in federal court in Pennsylvania by the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., which has a $10 million, 14 percent Bank of New England bank note due in 1996. Penn Mutual maintains the bank's asset sales breached covenants in the note. The insurance company asked the court to order the bank to speed up its principal payments. The bank also faces a lawsuit from shareholders who claim company executives misrepresented the bank's financial status by not disclosing the mounting troubles sooner last year.
AP900828-0055 	X	The U.S. Army's heaviest ground firepower reached Saudi soil today for deployment behind Arab forces manning the front line in the monthlong standoff with Iraq. Dozens of M1-1P tanks and M2 Bradley armored infantry fighting vehicles, and scores more heavy support vehicles, rolled off two huge transport ships at a port in northeastern Saudi Arabia and were readied for the trip north into the desert. The M1s are by the far the biggest ground weapon in the burgeoning U.S. arsenal in Saudi Arabia, weighing an imposing 60 tons and carrying a 105 mm cannon said to be accurate at 6,600 feet or more. The huge but speedy tanks _ which can travel about 45 mph _ left the 24th Infantry (Mechanized) Division's home in Georgia two weeks ago. The 24th's heavy firepower will be deployed in front of most other U.S ground forces in Saudi Arabia but still a good distance behind the Saudi-led Arab forces, which are just miles from the border with occupied Kuwait. The U.S. buildup _ which could reach 200,000-250,000 ground forces _ is not expected to be completed until October. Transport planes are arriving around the clock, but the M1s and the 24th's other heavy weaponry have been long awaited by U.S. military commanders. Until now, the U.S.-led multinational Saudi defense force has been short on heavy ground firepower. ``This is boss,'' Sgt. Ronald Ruff said as he showed off his M1 to a group of reporters. ``This is the Cadillac model. This is the top of the line.'' Up to now, the only U.S. tanks in Saudi Arabia have been Vietnam era M60s, brought by the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and even smaller M551 Sheridans. Iraq has a formidable force of Soviet-made tanks, primarily the export versions of its T64 and T72 models. The T64 is comparable in armament and armor to the M1s that arrived today; the T72 is equivalent to the more modern M1, the M1-A1. The U.S. tanks are considered to have superior weapons sighting and guidance systems, and the strategy for any tank war with Iraq is to use the air superiority of the American, Saudi and British forces to inflict heavy early damage on Iraqi tanks. ``There's no doubt in my mind that we'll succeed here if we have to,'' said Lt. Col. Barry Willey. ``Bring them (the Iraqis) on,'' Ruff said. ``We've the training and technology; they've got the numbers. We'll take them out.'' Several M1 crews said they will have to clean and change the M1's filters more often because of the talcum-like sand of the Saudi desert.
AP880428-0225 	X	The Sandinista government proposed on Thursday that the two-month cease-fire be extended by 30 days to allow negotiators to work out an enduring peace with rebels, but the rebels immediately said no. Azucena Ferrey, spokeswoman for the rebels, known as the Contras, said the Sandinista proposal ``shows they lack good will.'' She noted in a telephone interview that the current cease-fire expires at the end of May, and said that ``if they want to extend it (the cease-fire) they can propose it then.'' Gen. Humberto Ortega, the defense minister and the leader of the leftist government's delegation to the peace talks, told reporters such an extension ``will help improve the conditions under which the negotiations are taking place so that an overall agreement can be discussed to reach a final accord.'' The 60-day provisional truce, which started April 1, is part of an agreement reached by the U.S.-backed rebels and the Sandinistas at the southern border post of Sapoa on March 23. During the truce the two sides are to attempt to negotiate an end to the 6{-year-old conflict that has cost more than 26,000 lives, by government estimates. Ortega, the brother of President Daniel Ortega, announced the offer shortly before the delegations resumed high-level political talks. The government also offered Thursday to let the International Red Cross administer humanitarian aid immediately to the Contras even before rebel combatants gather inside safe zones established during previous talks. The Sandinista proposal was read by Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, who said the offer was ``an attempt to facilitate the pacification process.'' Sandinista and Contra negotiators previously agreed upon seven safe zones in which the Contra fighters are to collect. The two sides differed over operational conditions inside the zones, however, and the rebels have yet to gather inside them. The three-day negotiating session marks only the second time the two sides have met in Managua since the war began in 1981. Recent reports have said that the Contra leadership is divided, with the rebel military commanders opposing any immediate agreement with the Sandinistas. President Ortega on Wednesday predicted an agreement can be reached if both sides bargain in good faith. However, the Sandinistas and the Contras remain far apart on essential issues. Humberto Ortega accused the rebel commanders of taking part in the talks ``not with the purpose of reaching agreement'' but to buy time. American and other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rebel leader Adolfo Calero tried unsuccessfully to oust the top rebel military commander, Enrique Bermudez, a week ago. A U.S. official said the Contra directors split 2-2 with one abstention on whether to remove Bermudez. He ostensibly takes orders from the five-member civilian directorate but believes he should have more influence over rebel decisions, the sources said. Calero argues that civilian control over the movement is essential and sees Bermudez as a threat to that objective. In an effort to dispel rumors of disunity, Bermudez and other Contra leaders issued a statement in Miami on Wednesday declaring support for the talks. Calero, in a telephone interview Thursday, denied there was any split in rebel ranks. ``There are obviously sectors who would be interested in there being such a split,'' he said.
AP881016-0046 	X	Cuban authorities have broken up a black market ring that operated out of a major Havana food store, a government news report said Sunday. Police officers arrested ``numerous hoarders and resellers of basic necessities,'' Prensa Latina, the official Cuban news agency, said in a report monitored in Mexico City. Employees of Mercado Amistad, Havana's largest grocery, were believed to have been involved in a scheme that allowed the illegal resale of large quantities of basic goods at inflated prices, Prensa Latina said. Also, some of those arrested allegedly ``sold places in (the grocery store) line to the highest bidder and in this way earned more than a worker,'' the report said. ``The scarcity of various products caused by distribution, organization, inefficiency and bureaucratic problems, plus the lack of foreign exchange, encourages the proliferation of speculators,'' Prensa Latina said. The market, where consumers often wait in long lines for scarce goods, is in the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. building that was nationalized after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Private enterprise has been all but eliminated on the communist island. Two years ago, the government ended experimental farmers' markets that had allowed growers to sell surpluses.
AP900413-0159 	X	The Soviet Union apologized Friday for one of the grisliest crimes of the Stalin era: the murder of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers shot during World War II and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest. The confession ended nearly 50 years of official Soviet denial and had been almost a prerequisite for improved Polish-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union previously insisted that Nazi Germany was responsible for the massacre. Polish and Western historians long have blamed the NKVD, Josef Stalin's secret police, for killing more than 4,000 officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. They were captured by the Soviets at the beginning of World War II. More than 10,000 other Polish officers were killed in camps elsewhere. Their bodies have never been found, but in its statement Friday the Soviet Union clearly tied together the fates of all 15,000 officers, some of the cream of prewar Polish society. The admission came 47 years to the day when the Nazis announced the discovery of the Katyn graves. And it came one day after East Germany's new Parliament apologized for the Holocaust and for the deaths of millions of Soviets in World War II. The statement carried by the official news agency Tass was issued as President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski. Poland had urged the Soviet Union to admit responsibility for the mass slayings, saying such ``blank spots'' in history were a barrier to better Polish-Soviet relations. Gorbachev gave Jaruzelski copies of the material from Soviet archives pertaining to the Poles imprisoned in the NKVD camps, Tass reported. In a speech at a dinner Friday night honoring Jaruzelski, Gorbachev referred to the massacre, Tass reported. He said the two leaders talked about ``those historical `knots' that even many years later cast shadows on our relations. Many of them are undone already.'' ``Recently, documents have been discovered which indirectly but convincingly testify that thousands of Polish officers who died in the Smolensk woods half a century ago became victims of (Stalin's secret police chief Lavrenti) Beria and his henchmen,'' Tass quoted Gorbachev as saying. ``The graves of the Polish officers are near Soviet people's graves, who fell from the same evil hand,'' he said. ``It is not easy to speak about this tragedy but we must speak about it for only through the truth there lies the way to genuine renewal and to genuine mutual understanding.'' The earlier statement said the ``Soviet side, expressing its deep regret in connection with the Katyn tragedy, states that it is one of the most horrifying Stalinist crimes,'' Tass said. ``It's good that criminals admit their crimes,'' Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said in Gdansk. But other problems remain, including war reparations, he said. The massacre has caused bitterness among Poles for years despite the previous Communist government's loyal statements supporting the Soviet Union. Jaruzelski is scheduled to visit a memorial at Katyn on Saturday, following pilgrimages of Poles whose relatives and friends died in the massacre. The officers were captured by the Soviet Union when it invaded eastern Poland at the beginning of World War II, shortly after Hitler sent his soldiers across Poland's western border to start the war. They were shot in the back of the head and stacked in layers in mass graves. The bodies were found in April 1943 by German soldiers who captured the area during World War II. They were immediately used for propaganda purposes. Stalin blamed the Nazis for the deaths. Soviet historians recently began questioning that version, but it stood until the Soviet Union admitted responsibility Friday. A U.S. congressional committee in the early 1950s blamed the Soviets. Under Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, the Soviet Union has brought to light many of the deeds of Stalin and his henchmen, but Katyn was one of the final affairs to be touched by the greater openness. Records indicate that only 394 of the 15,000 captured Polish prisoners were transferred to the Gryazovetsky prison camp. The rest were turned over to the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB, in Smolensk; Voroshilovgrad in the Ukraine; and Kalinin northwest of Moscow. All the officers disappeared from NKVD records, Tass said. Beria and others were executed after Stalin died in 1953. Historian Natalia Lebedeva, writing in the weekly Moscow News on March 25, said the officers apparently were killed in a single operation as the NKVD evacuated three camps. The Soviets might have considered the Polish officers a threat as potential future leaders of Poland. Ms. Lebedeva, who used Soviet central archives and Soviet army records, called it a ``well-thought-through and carefully planned operation.'' In Warsaw, Polish relatives of the victims were pleased the truth finally had come out, but expressed regret it took so long. ``I awfully regret that my mother could not live until this day,'' said Wanda Zadrozna, crying as she recalled her father's murder. ``There is a great regret that it took 50 years and the wives of those people didn't live until this day.'' ``But whatever happens now, it is good that the truth will be finally written in history,'' she said.
AP900707-0118 	X	The ARCO Chemical Co.'s inquiry into the plant explosion that killed 17 people has been stymied by a court order issued Saturday for the wife of a deceased worker. In response to her negligence lawsuit against the company, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing Atlantic Richfield Co. and ARCO Chemical from making any changes to the accident scene. Atlantic Richfield, based in Los Angeles, owns 83 percent of ARCO Chemical. ``We can't remove anything until OSHA releases the area to us,'' said Jack Johnson, president of ARCO Chemical Americas. He refused to comment further on the lawsuit, filed Friday by Sandra Lucas Davis. Her husband, Gregory Scott Davis, 27, was one of the names on a partial list of victims released by the company Saturday. State District Judge Shearn Smith issued the temporary restraining order, but it did not prohibit OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, from conducting its investigation. OSHA officials, who were sifting through the damaged area, expect to complete their investigation in about a week, Johnson said. Assistant Secretary of Labor Gerard F. Scannell said Friday his agency was focusing on maintenance reports and complaints that employees had to work especially long hours at the plant. Plant manager Earl McCaleb said workers normally work 12-hour shifts for four days, then are off four days. Harold Sorgenti, president of ARCO Chemical, said the company was concentrating on helping families and employees deal with the deaths, while making sure the plant is stabilized. The explosion at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday ripped through the plant's utility area on the extreme southern end of the complex where employees were doing maintenance work, officials said. What the employees actually were doing ``will be determined by the investigation,'' Sorgenti said. ``Initially, they were beginning to fix a compressor.'' Initial speculation was that the five ARCO workers and 11 Austin Industrial Inc. contract workers killed were cleaning the 900,000-gallon tank that exploded. The other worker killed was the driver of a vacuum truck that was in the area to remove rainwater from a sump, McCaleb said. Sorgenti also said the investigation will focus on why so many people were in the area when normally five people are assigned there. ``I think it's difficult to understand why there was that concentration of employees in that area at that time,'' said Sorgenti, who flew to Houston from Europe where he was on business. McCaleb said it would be several months before the plant begins operating again. The 350 ARCO employees at the plant, about 15 miles east of Houston, are working to restore the plant and will not lose any pay, he said. The ARCO plant annually produces 560 million pounds of propylene oxide, used to make flexible foam for seat cushions and bedding. It also produces 1.3 billion pounds of styrene monomer, used for insulation, foam drinking cups, packaging materials and automotive parts; and 1.7 billion pounds of methyl tertiary butyl ether, a high-octane blending component used as a replacement for lead in gasoline. The explosion was the second major loss of life at a Houston area petrochemical facility in nine months. On Oct. 23, a series of explosions ripped through a Phillips Petroleum Co. plant in Pasadena, claiming 23 lives and injuring 130 people.
AP901018-0260 	X	Americans' spendin power sank again in September as the Persian Gulf crisis pushed prices up a sharp 0.8 percent for the second straight month, the government said Thursday. Still, inflation not tied to oil prices remained relatively mild. If the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index continued increasing at the September pace for a year, it would produce an annual inflation rate of 9.5 percent. Most economists believe price increases - absent the outbreak of a shooting war - will return to a more normal level by the end of the year. The oil shock nevertheless has added a new burden for an economy that was already on the brink of recession. ``You take out energy and the numbers aren't that bad. But on the other hand, people have to buy the energy and it gives you an annual inflation rate roughly double the rate of wage growth,'' said economist Donald Ratajczak of Georgia State University. ``It means that people won't have a lot of money to spend on Christmas,'' he said. The ``core'' inflation rate - prices excluding food and energy - was 0.3 percent in September, down from 0.5 percent in August. For the first nine months of 1990, prices increased at an annual rate of 6.6 percent, well above the 4.6 percent increase for all of last year. The rate for all of 1990, if it comes in close to 7 percent as now expected, will be the worst since 1981, when prices shot up 8.9 percent. The pickup in inflation so far this year helped bring about the biggest boost in Social Security benefits in 8{ years. Based on Thursday's report, the government announced a 5.4 percent rise in benefits beginning in January for the 40 million Social Security recipients. In addition to boosting consumer inflation based on oil and various energy products, the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion and its aftermath hurt the U.S. merchandise trade deficit. It rose 2.4 percent to a seven-month high of $9.3 billion in August. Increasing oil prices pushed imports to a record high, more than offsetting a modest rise in exports. The stock market shrugged off the news, with the Dow Jones average of industrial stocks advancing. Analysts said traders were doing some cautious buying in the belief that worries about the economy had gone to unjustified extremes. In a separate report, the Labor Department said Americans' average weekly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, increased 0.4 percent in September. Still, they were down 1.5 percent from a year ago. In the inflation report, energy prices in September jumped 5.6 percent, the worst rise on record since the department began tracking the sector in 1957. Gasoline soared 9.5 percent, the largest increase in 17 months, and fuel oil rose 15.9 percent. For August and September together, gasoline rose 17.9 percent and fuel oil was up 33.7 percent. Electricity and natural gas charges also rose, but less steeply. Analysts expect the bad news to continue through November or December, even if oil prices stabilize near where they are now - around $40 a barrel, double the July price. In the next few months, the oil shock probably will begin feeding through to chemicals, airline tickets and other energy-related products and services. But it probably will not produce a permanent increase in the inflation rate, said economist David Jones of Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a government securities dealer in New York. ``We simply don't suffer this time around from the same kind of inflationary psychology as we did during earlier oil shocks in 1973 and 1979. In the `70s, consumers were buying in anticipation of price increases. Now, consumers are waiting for a bargain,'' he said. Jones said recent increases in consumer prices are great enough to cause the Federal Reserve to be cautious about stimulating the economy with lower interest rates but not so great as to prevent a quarter-point cut in short-term rates if Congress and President Bush agree on a plan to cut the federal budget deficit. In other details, the Labor Department said: -Food and beverage prices rose a moderate 0.3 percent last month, the same as August. -Medical care was up 0.7 percent, bringing prices 9.3 percent higher than a year earlier. -Clothing costs also were up 0.7 percent in September. Men's and boys' clothing prices fell, but women's, girls' and infants' clothing costs rose, as did the price of shoes. -New car prices edged up only 0.1 percent after remaining unchanged in August. Car dealers beset with lagging sales have been unable to wean the public from rebate programs and discounted financing. -Housing costs were up 0.4 percent, held back by a decline in hotel and motel costs, which had been rising steeply earlier in the year. The various changes put the index for all consumer items at 132.7 in September. That means a hypothetical selection of goods and services costing $100 in the 1982-84 base period, cost $132.70 last month, up $7.70 from a year earlier.
AP880425-0032 	X	Michael Dukakis was getting his early morning exercise walking down a Pittsburgh street, when someone gave a cry of recognition: ``Hey, isn't that Caliguiri?'' No, it wasn't Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri: It was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. ``I guess the mayor and I look alike,'' Dukakis said as he described the Sunday morning greeting. ``There's an old saying in Italian: `One face _ one race.' We're all part of the same family.'' Far ahead in the polls here for Tuesday's primary, Dukakis said the incident shows ``we need to do a lot of work to make sure people know who Dukakis is on the ballot.'' The Massachusetts governor himself is working hard _ taking a whistle-stop train tour across western Pennsylvania on Sunday and making a six-city flying tour of the state today. Dukakis is looking for a fourth straight big-state win here over his surviving competitor _ Jesse Jackson _ to tighten his grip on the front-runner's crown and widen his margin in the delegate count. ``If we can win big here Tuesday, it will give us a tremendous boost,'' Dukakis told a big crowd of students on the Pennsylvania State University campus, who were welcoming back his wife, Kitty, a Penn State graduate. Through the cold, cloudy day in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Johnstown and Altoona, Dukakis hit over and over again on his message of good jobs and economic development in a region devastated by changes in the steel and coal industries. ``If we can't bring good jobs and economic opportunity back to the Johnstowns of this country, then there is something the matter with us,'' he told a crowd there. ``I believe we can. I believe we're going to.'' Dukakis drew the parallels between New England's economic troubles of the past and Pennsylvania's troubles of the present. ``As a New Englander, we went through the same kind of pain and economic distress as you have,'' he said in Greensburg. ``Our communities have come back and these communities are going to come back.'' Drawing on the two weekend debates between the Democrats, Dukakis talked of how he and Jackson agree on many issues. ``Instead of investing in a lot of exotic weapon systems of very marginal value, we've got to take these resources and put them _ as both Rev. Jackson and I said Saturday _ into our infrastructure.'' But on Sunday, Dukakis brushed off suggestions from Jackson that he should put out a budget. ``You can't prepare a budget now for next year _ that's absurd,'' he told reporters on the chartered Amtrak train, nicknamed the ``Pennsylvania Presidential Unlimited.'' And Dukakis resisted pressure from a new Jackson tactic, urging massive new spending on education, drug control efforts and other programs. The front-runner went down his own list of education programs _ which he says involve only modest spending increases _ while Jackson said the federal government should double its spending on education. ``We're not going to run the nation's school system from Washington,'' Dukakis said. ``The thing a president has to do is to set some priorities and get after them.'' The Democratic candidate also took a couple of swipes at George Bush, saying that the Republican nominee-to-be seems more interested in building aircraft carriers than in rebuilding the nation's railroads and highways. ``Mr. Bush was critical of me ... because I oppose spending $36 billion on two supercarrier task forces that we don't need and we can't afford,'' Dukakis said. ``If he thinks that's where we ought to put our scarce resources, then so be it. But it's going to be a fundamental issue in this campaign. ``I think I know where the American people are _ they are tired of crumbling bridges, congested airports, jammed highways, homeless people on streets and in doorways ... and they want a change.'' If Dukakis is the Democratic nominee, perhaps he will get a wish expressed wistfully in Pittsburgh. ``All of you know me. I suppose we'd all like to suppose that I'm a household word,'' he told the small crowd. ``I'd like one of these days to come to Pittsburgh and hear, `Hey, isn't that Dukakis?'''
AP901017-0032 	X	The last group of communist guerrillas in Sarawak state signed a peace accord Wednesday and laid down their arms, the national news agency Bernama reported. Some of the 51 guerrillas brought their children, including a month-old infant, to the ceremony in Kuching, 540 miles southeast of Kuala Lumpur, Bernama reported. Guerrilla leaders Ang Chu Ting and Wong Lian Kui and Sarawak State Secretary Bujang Mohamed Nor and other government officials signed the agreement, the agency said. The North Kalimantan Communist Party operated in Sarawak state, on Borneo Island, for 30 years. A first group of 569 guerrillas made peace in 1973. Last December, 1,100 more communist guerrillas laid down their arms. Government officials said the guerrillas agreed to stop fighting because the people no longer support them. The officials said the collapse of communism in Europe may have disheartened the guerrillas.
AP880923-0023 	X	_Require that many federal benefits be denied for five years from those convicted of two or more drug-related offenses within a 10-year period; and denial for 10 years for those convicted of drug distribution. Included would be public housing, licenses, contracts and student loans, and veterans' assistance in cases of distribution convictions. Excepted would be retirement, welfare, health and disability assistance. _Provide grants to states for enforcement of anti-drug programs that take away a convicted drug offender's right to drive. Suspension would have to last six months for a first conviction and at least one year for repeat convictions within a five-year period. _Provide grants to states to help implement drunken driving enforcement programs, provided the programs include immediate suspension of licenses of those found driving under the influence of alcohol. _Allow the Federal Aviation Administration to modify aircraft registration and pilot certificate programs to ensure positive, verifiable and timely identification of aircraft owners and pilots. _Establish an Office of Drug Enforcement Coordination under the president to establish policies, objectives and priorities for federal drug enforcement.
AP880613-0215 	X	Diminishing winds helped firefighters battle a 9,800-acre brush fire on steep, rocky terrain in southern Arizona Monday, and in Montana most fire crews returned home after controlling a 17,000-acre grass fire that killed cattle and destroyed three homes. A small fire in southern California's Angeles National Forest may have been started by a killer disposing of a woman's body. Firefighters elsewhere in the same forest Monday evening contained a 710-acre brush fire that may have been the work of an arsonist. And in southwest New Mexico, firefighters struggled with at least five lightning-caused wildfires that charred more than 500 acres of grassland and trees. Authorities said the largest fire burned at least 400 acres of grass, brush, juniper trees and pockets of ponderosa pine trees on federal lands. Twenty-four fires were reported in New Mexico from the lightning of a Friday afternoon storm, authorities said. ``Things are looking very good down along the border,'' said Jim Payne, a spokesman with the U.S. Forest Service in Phoenix. Payne said winds died down Monday to 15 to 20 mph, allowing firefighters to work towards consolidating fire lines that have been cut along the flanks of the blaze. Payne said the fire, which started Friday in Mexico, has consumed 2,500 acres in northwest Sonora and 7,300 acres in Arizona. He said firefighters hope to have the blaze contained by Wednesday evening. The blaze was named the Peaks fire because it was on Coronado National Forest slopes so steep that the fire-line elevation ranged from 5,200 feet to 7,200 feet. In southern California, the charred body of a woman was found early Monday in a small brush fire was an apparent homicide victim, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said. Investigators believe the woman was killed elsewhere, dumped and set ablaze, said Deputy Gabe Ramirez. That fire was fanned Sunday night by northeasterly winds gusting to 35 mph, but during the day Monday the wind shifted to the southwest, bringing in moist ocean air, said Forest Service spokesman Mike Wickman. The only reported loss was an apiary, but firefighters managed to save another set of beehives, Mike Wickman said. No injuries were reported. A fire that raced across 17,000 acres of parched Montana grassland, destroying three homes and killing cows, was declared under control Monday. An Amtrak train apparently sparked the fire Friday in eastern Montana, said Roosevelt County Fire Chief Lyle Knudsen. The flames quickly spread into North Dakota's Williams County. No serious injuries were reported. Most firefighters were withdrawn Monday. ``We've just got a few guys keeping an eye out, spot checks, but all the (fire) departments have returned in,'' Knudsen said. Officials were unsure how many head of cattle were lost in the fire. Cattle displaced by the fire were widely scattered, Knudsen said, adding: ``We definitely need hay or pasture, because we've got hundreds of head of cattle without anything to eat.''
AP900204-0048 	X	El Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani attracted dozens of protesters Sunday when he went to Harvard University, apparently to watch his son play in a squash match, officials said. Harvard spokesman Peter Costa said Cristiani was in town for ``a private, family visit.'' Costa said he was told Cristiani's son was a member of Princeton University's squash team, which was playing Harvard. Dozens of protesters opposed to El Salvadoran military policies demonstrated outside the Harvard gymnasium, banging pots and pans. Earlier in the day, protesters gathered outside the Cambridge hotel where Cristiani was staying. The demonstrators brought letters from Cambridge Mayor Alice Wolf and from the Cambridge, Belmont and Arlington sister city projects. The letters described how recent delegations that visited sister cities in El Salvador reported continuing human rights abuses by the military. In her letter, Wolf said children often have been the victims of military raids in Cambridge's sister city of San Jose Las Flores. ``Our president, George Bush, frequently justifies the military aid that our country sends your government on the grounds that you have at long last brought the armed forces of El Salvador under democratic civilian control,'' the letter said. ``Judging from their behavior towards San Jose Las Flores, this does not seem to be the case.''
AP901009-0150 	X	Gov. Kay Orr said Tuesday she won't campaign for re-election in a county bitterly divided over a proposed radioactive waste warehouse because her life has been threatened. Boyd County, a sparsely populated ranching area on the state's northern edge, has been in turmoil since officials began considering it as a possible home for low-level radioactive waste from five states. A rancher who opposes the plan is on a hunger strike. The Nebraska State Patrol said a letter was received in early August ``that contained some implied threats.'' Patrol spokesman Jeff Hanson declined to release any further details, saying the matter was under investigation. Hanson said the letter lacked some elements needed before authorities could charge anyone with making terroristic threats. Orr spokesman Doug Parrott said he understands that the threat is related to the nuclear waste dispute. Mrs. Orr said she knows who made the threat but wouldn't disclose the name. She said she had hoped the situation in Boyd County wouldn't deteriorate to the point of threats. ``There are a lot of things that you consider when you step into a public office,'' Mrs. Orr said. ``I think most of it was pretty well understood by Bill (her husband) and me. ``It's dismaying to think that we have gotten to this point that people lose faith and confidence in their government.'' The proposed waste site lies about two miles outside Butte, a village of about 500 people. Supporters have welcomed the money the dump may bring. Opponents have said they fear accidents and long-term effects of the radioactive waste. US Ecology, a waste site developer chosen by the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission, has applied to the state for permits to build the waste warehouse. The reinforced concrete warehouse near the South Dakota border would hold waste from the five states that make up the commission: Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Kansas. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Nelson's campaign manager, Sonny Foster, said it was the first he had heard of any threat against Mrs. Orr. He said it had ``absolutely nothing'' to do with the Nelson campaign. ``I think that I can say on the behalf of Ben Nelson that we don't feel that threatening people is part of the political process and there's no way that Ben Nelson would ever condone that kind of activity,'' Foster said. Nelson has visited Boyd County and has said that he is concerned about the diisions in the community, Foster said. One rancher who opposes the waste site has been on a hunger strike for more than three weeks. Lowell Fisher of Spencer, who said Tuesday he had lost 29 pounds since his fast began on Sept. 17, said he didn't believe the threat against Mrs. Orr was a serious one. ``I think it's stupid but if you have enough people who are emotionally upset, they say something,'' Fisher said. Fisher said he intends to continue his water-only diet until the governor tells the waste compact commission that the community objects to the waste site or holds a special election to see if there is. An aide to the governor has said Mrs. Orr lacks the power to call such an election and noted that the village board has supported the waste site plans.
AP901218-0136 	X	The Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington will stop representing Cuban diplomatic interests in the United States by March, the state CTK news agency reported Tuesday. CTK quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the grace period should permit Havana ``to cope with the new situation, without jeopardizing its interests in the U.S.A.'' The Czechoslovak Embassy has represented Cuban interests in Washington since 1977. Diplomatic and consular ties between Cuba and the United States were severed in January 1961. Interests sections enable countries to maintain diplomatic contact without having to have full-fledged embassies. A senior Cuban diplomatic official in Washington, speaking on condition he not be identified, said the Cuban government has no alternate plan in mind at present to replace the current arrangement with the Czechoslovak government. He said he assumes both the Cuban and U.S. governments wish to maintain a diplomatic presence in each other's capital and that Cuba will seek a new arrangement. The official said he had seen news reports about Prague's decision but had heard nothing officially. U.S. diplomatic activities in Havana have been carried out under the auspices of the Swiss embassy. One diplomatic source suggested that Cuba may ask the Swiss to perform that function for Cuba in Washington. The source spoke on condition of anonymity. The news agency quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry source as saying that ``the different opinions of the two countries on the exercising of human rights'' and other fundamental differences prompted the Czechoslovak decision. Czechoslovakia has become a democracy following the revolution that toppled the Communist leadership one year ago; Cuba remains Communist-ruled. The ministry source suggested that deteriorating relations after Czechoslovakia embraced democracy contributed to Prague's decision, CTK said. He singled out the storming of Czechoslovak embassy premises in Havana in July by Cubans who claimed they were dissidents but who the Czechoslovaks believe were in the pay of the Cuban government. The invasion of the embassy ``can be rightfully presumed to have been intended to discredit the new Czechoslovak regime in the eyes of the Cuban public,'' CTK quoted the source as saying. Efforts to contact the Czechoslovak embassy in Washington by telephone were unavailing.
AP900808-0156 	X	The United States turned to two of its long-time Middle East adversaries, Syria and Iran, seeking potential partners to counter Iraq's aggression in the Persian Gulf. The dramatic moves were announced by Secretary of State James A. Baker III as he flew to Turkey with assurances to that nation of financial and military support for its ``forthright closing'' of two Iraqi oil pipelines and for freezing Iraqi assets. U.S. government sources said Turkey was seeking $2 billion to compensate it for revenue it will lose by closing the pipelines. Before stopping at a Portugese air base in the Azores for refueling, Baker also said he had received new assurances of Soviet support in enforcing an economic boycott of Iraq ordered by the United Nations Security Council. Baker told reporters traveling with him he would send John H. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for the Near East, to Damascus from Ankara ``to see if we can coordinate with the Syrians'' on collective efforts against Iraq. At the same time, Baker verified reports that the United States also has been in touch with Iran through ``third party contacts.'' The enmity between the Syrian and Iraqi governments is intense, with the only possible greater enmity being that between Iran and Iraq. Syria helped Iran in Iran's long and bloody eight-year war started by another invasion of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 1980. Syrian President Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussein are longtime rivals within the Arab world. The two nations are ruled by rival Arab socialist parties, each considering the other an outcast. Apart from that conflict, Syria's relationship with the United States has been as bad as U.S. reations with Iraq. In fact, Syria is one of six countries listed by the State Department as sponsoring terrorists acts. Iraq was removed from that list several years ago. Terrorist groups believed to be under the influence of Iran are holding six Americans hostage in Lebanon, the longest since 1985. Baker declined to say what `` collective efforts'' Syria and the United States might undertake against Iraq. ``I really don't want to get into the specifics of that,'' he said. Baker talked for about a half hour by telephone with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, their third conversation in two days. The secretary then said, ``They continue to support enforcement of the U.N. resolution. We can look toward continued Soviet cooperation to carry out the resolution.'' Baker said Moscow had dispatched naval forces to the Persian Gulf for use in any international blockade to enforce the sanctions approved unanimously Monday by the U.N. Security Council. Kelly, who was flying to Turkey with Baker, will go on to Saudi Arabia, whose oil fields the U.S is protecting with thousands of troops dispatched Wednesday. Kelly will meet with ousted leaders of the Kuwaiti government who were given sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, and with Saudi officials. A senior U.S. official who demanded anonymity said was up to Saudi Arabia to decide whether Syria and Iran could participate in defense of the kingdon against Iraq. Iran has mounted terrorist operations against Saudi Arabia in the past, according to Saudi officials.
AP880627-0050 	X	Gasoline prices bucked a summer trend and dipped a quarter of a cent a gallon during the last two weeks, according to a nationwide survey of more than 12,000 stations. The Lundberg Survey said the average price of all grades of gasoline offered at all types of service stations was 99.98 cents as of Friday, down from the June 10 average price of $1.0023 per gallon. The average price was down nearly a full cent from comparable June 1987 prices, according to the survey released Sunday. ``It is untypical for retail prices to be falling at this time of year,'' when the demand from vacationing motorists usually pulls up the price, said survey director Trilby Lundberg. She blamed the dip on competition between dealers and price instablity on the global oil market. The survey found that average prices at self-serve pumps as of Friday were: regular unleaded, 90.84 cents a gallon; premium unleaded, $1.056 a gallon; and regular leaded, 88.09 cents a gallon. Self-service pumps account for eight of every 10 gallons of gasoline sold. At full service pumps, the average prices were: regular unleaded, $1.1964; premium unleaded $1.2978; and regular leaded $1.1592.
AP880424-0031 	X	Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's economic reform program ran into problems last year and things aren't likely to improve in the near future, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report released Sunday. Unless Gorbachev can do something to turn the economy around, he may find himself in trouble, said the bleak review which was conducted jointly by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. ``Tension within society and the leadership will increase,'' it said. ``Bureaucrats will become increasingly frustrated by loss of privileges and status and by demands that they show greater initiative. Military leaders are likely to become more and more uneasy if benefits from the industrial modernization fail to materialize.'' ``Soviet citizens will need to see some improvement in living standards if the regime is to achieve necessary gains in worker productivity and avoid widespread discontent,'' the study said. The report concluded that ``failure to head off these tensions would, at a minimum, make it more difficult to pursue his economic program vigorously and could, ultimately call into question his strong political position at home.'' Gorbachev and supporters of his reforms have acknowledged resistance at the highest levels, and there have been reports in Moscow of conflict over reform measures between Gorbachev and No. 2 Kremlin leader Yegor K. Ligachev. Criticism of the slow pace of Gorbachev's reforms earlier led to the firing of Boris N. Yeltsin as Moscow Communist Party boss. The U.S. intelligence study was presented April 13 to the congressional Joint Economic Committee, and a declassified version was released by the panel. The study is the annual review of the Soviet economy, three years after Gorbachev came to power. He inherited an aging, extremely inefficient economy and made its modernization one of his top priorities, the study noted. After some early success, ``Gorbachev's ambitious program to create a modern, more dynamic Soviet economy ran into trouble in 1987,'' the study said. ``Familiar problems with poor weather and transportation bottlenecks were compounded by the disruptions caused by the introduction of economic reforms,'' it said. The Soviet gross national product, the total value of all goods and services produced, grew only .5 percent last year, the study noted. That rate was ``reminiscent of the late Brezhnev period,'' it said, referring to Leonid Brezhnev, a Gorbachev predecessor who prevailed over a largely stagnant economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The study noted that the Soviet GNP grew by 3.9 percent in 1986, the first full year of Gorbachev's term, compared with .6 percent in 1985. By contrast, the U.S. gross national product grew 2.9 percent, both in 1986 and 1987. However, the American economy measures a much larger base and comparisons are difficult. The Soviet economy was hampered by bad weather last year, particularly in agriculture, where output fell three percent, the study said. But industrial quality control measures also ``proved to be particularly disruptive, especially early in the year.'' Thus, industry only grew 1.5 percent and the civilian machine-building sector didn't grow at all. ``The real loser in 1987 appeared to be the consumer, who _ now three years into Gorbachev's economic program _ has seen almost no increase in his standard of living,'' the study said. It also said that for a variety of reasons, ``the short-term outlook for Gorbachev's economic program is not good.'' Among those reasons are confusion about guidelines for self-financing reforms, deficiencies in 1987 machine-building that will slow the speed of modernization, transportation problems, and poor prospects for improved worker productivity. Gorbachev also needs to be better organized, the study concluded. ``Although Gorbachev's program is comprehensive, it is in some respects inconsistent, particularly with regard to timing. For example, his goals for an immediate acceleration in the growth of national income and a pronounced improvement in the quality of output are, in our view, fundamentally incompatible.'' In addition, ``his plan to change traditional economic planning and administrative procedures dramatically has been thrust upon a largely unprepared bureaucracy,'' the study said.
AP900911-0288 	X	Black-owned businesses increased more than twice as fast as overall business growth over five years, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. But the money earned by black firms went up at only the same rate as business overall, reflecting that the minority-owned companies were relatively smaller than businesses overall. The bureau reported that black-owned businesses increased from 308,000 in 1982 to 424,000 in 1987, the most recent year for which detailed information is available. That was an increase of 38 percent, compared with a rise of just 14 percent in the total number of businesses in the country. During the same period, receipts of black-owned firms rose 105 percent to $19.8 billion. Total business income increased 106 percent to more than $1.9 trillion in the same period. According to the Census report, based on the 1987 Economic Census, 94 percent of black-owned businesses were sole proprietorships. Receipts per company averaged $47,000 for black-owned companies compared to $146,000 for all businesses. And 54 percent of black-owned firms had receipts of under $10,000. About half of all black-owned businesses were service companies, while 16 percent were in retail trade. By income, automobile dealers and service stations were the top black-owned business, followed by business services, health service, contractors and miscellaneous retail firms. New York, with 28,063 businesses, has the most black-owned firms, the report said. Los Angeles was second at 23,932, followed by Washington, 23,046; Chicago, 15,374 and Houston, 12,989.
AP900916-0005 	X	People stare at the scars on his throat as he waits in grocery store check-out lines. Sometimes they ask if he has a cold. Sometimes they ask if he fought in Vietnam. He never served in Vietnam, but he tells people he did, because he knows from experience that they won't want the truth. The truth is, eight years ago a stranger jammed a knife into his gut, spilling the intestines out of his slight frame, then slit his throat as he lay calling for help. It's those details people don't want to hear - details that still rattle him, causing his hands to shake uncontrollably, calling attention to nails bitten down to nothing. The sandy-haired young father is just one of several million people victimized by aggravated assault in the past decade. The attack swept away his optimism and trust, his devil-may-care fearlessness. Taking its place is fear - fear so real that after telling his story, he asked that his real name and hometown be kept secret. ``We live with the realization that it doesn't happen to somebody else,'' said the boyish, 33-year-old we'll call Larry Roberts. ``We know that people will hurt you.'' Murders may steal the headlines, but the number of serious assaults dwarfs the number of killings. Assault victims survive, but often are changed forever. ``The trauma of having looked at the jaws of death is something that is very rough to deal with,'' said John Stein, deputy director of the National Organization for Victims Assistance. Some 559,270 people - roughly the population of Columbus, Ohio, - were injured in aggravated assaults last year alone, according to the National Crime Survey, which annually interviews members of some 49,000 households and extrapolates from that to the entire nation. The survey found that 1.1 million others were victims of an attempted aggravated assault with a weapon - a gunshot flew by them, for example. On the night of June 6, 1982, Roberts was on leave from the Navy and interested mainly in getting in a last day of scuba diving before his aircraft carrier departed in two days. He was pitching a tent in a park when two strangers struck up a conversation. They seemed friendly enough. Then without warning, one of them stabbed Roberts in the abdomen and ran off with his scuba gear, wedding ring and $4 in cash. ``When I thought he was gone, I started to holler for help,'' Roberts said, a catch in his now-raspy voice. ``He came back through the woods and he tilted my head back and slit my throat twice. And then he tied my feet together and my hands back to two trees.'' Roberts eventually worked free, dragged himself 250 feet to a dirt road, holding in his intestines and pressing his chin toward his chest to keep the blood from spurting out. Help finally arrived the next morning. He spent 10 months in the hospital, undergoing at least 10 operations. The fear took over when he emerged from the hospital April 18, 1983. ``I used to take a gun with me wherever I went,'' he said. ``I was scared to death.'' In the next two years, Roberts moved his family six times. ``Something would happen, something would trigger me and we'd be gone,'' he said. They stopped running five years ago in rural Maryland so their elder daughter could start school and enjoy a semblance of a normal life. Four years ago, Roberts and his wife had a second daughter. In the meantime, his attacker pleaded guilty to attempted murder and served six years of a 10-year sentence before being freed as a model prisoner. Roberts still fears him - even though he believes his fear is irrational. He also insisted that the assailant's name not be used, in part because he doesn't want to antagonize him. Even now, Roberts' home is guarded by a large, loud dog nicknamed Norad, after the nation's early warning system for nuclear attacks. At night, their home is awash in light. Two sheriff's deputies live across the street. Roberts and his wife never employ baby-sitters because they don't trust strangers. The attack destroyed Roberts' career plans. The Navy discharged him involuntarily because he could no longer perform his job. Desperate to catch up for time lost, Roberts pushed himself too far. He has had a drinking problem. He spent two months in a psychiatric hospital last year. Today, he takes things more slowly, teaching scuba diving only part time while attending college. And after years of shying away from the world, he now tells his story to police groups, hoping to sensitize officers to victims' needs. ``The victim is a piece of evidence,'' said Andrew Turner, a criminal justice instructor at Wor Wic Tech Community College and a former Maryland police officer who has arranged some of Roberts' talks. ``If the guy survived, you had a good case. He could come and testify against the perpetrator.'' Turner said. ``Police don't see a guy healed up'' but still needing emotional support. Roberts finds the speeches therapeutic, despite the toll they take, and he has established a network of people who will help him when he cracks from the strain. It is important to Roberts that he controls the impact of the attack and not the other way around, but he conceded, ``It has given my life a different direction.'' Now there's yet another fear: AIDS. Roberts had numerous blood transfusions in 1982, before blood was tested for the deadly disease, and he refuses to be tested now. ``If I'm going to die of it,'' he said with a grimace, ``I don't want to know about it.''
AP881003-0094 	X	A zoo advocacy group is calling for an investigation into the cause of a half-dozen puncture wounds on the head and face of an elephant that injured a veterinarian who was trying to treat the wounds. ``What we're talking about here is abuse,'' Sandra Keller, spokeswoman for Citizens for a Better Zoo, said Sunday. ``We have been receiving complaints about the way these elephants are being mistreated for several months.'' Veterinarian Gail Hedberg was treating an abscess on the head of a 3{-ton Asian elephant named Tinkerbelle when the animal attacked her Saturday, fracturing her pelvis. Zookeepers said Tinkerbelle did a ``handstand'' on the woman. Hedberg was listed in stable condition today at San Francisco General Hospital. Some officials defended practices at the San Francisco Zoo. ``We have to use elephant hooks and other methods that may appear abusive because we're not talking about puppy dogs and pussy cats here,'' said zoo director Saul Kitchener. ``How do you get a 10,000-pound elephant's attention?'' Elephant keeper Michele Radovsky said beating an elephant is no different from ``people taking rolled newspapers and hitting their dog.'' But Paul Hunter, a keeper at the zoo for nine years, said the abscess on Tinkerbell's head was caused by someone hitting her too hard with a hooked instrument called an ankuf or elephant hook. ``The elephants get beaten up real bad, and I'm getting tired of it,'' said Hunter.
AP881019-0052 	X	Two car bombs apparently set off by leftist guerrillas exploded in an affluent neighborhood of this capital. Rescue workers said six people were injured. Although there was no claim of responsibility, the bombings Tuesday night appeared to mark an escalation in the employment of the car-bomb tactic by urban commandos. The previous three car bombs this year were primarily incendiary devices. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front claimed responsibility for those bombings. A nine-year civil war pits the Marxist-led guerrillas against forces of the U.S.-backed centrist government. The latest bombs were powerful, blowing one vehicle to bits and throwing parts of another onto a 20-foot-high roof. The bombs exploded about two minutes apart. One went off in the parking lot of the ``Biggest'' fast-food hamburger chain, which is Salvadoran-owned but imitates American restaurants. It shattered windows and destroyed part of the roof. The other exploded 200 yards away in front of a complex of boutiques and stores catering primarily to the wealthy in the Escalon neighborhood on San Salvador's western edge. The rebels' clandestine radio indicated in an Oct. 7 broadcast that urban commandos would increase activity in such areas. ``There is no more tranquil rear-guard for the exploiters,'' the broadcast said. ``Because it is not fair that bombs and explosions are heard only in the countryside, in the hamlets of the poor. .. . It is not fair that only the oppressed hear the noise of the war and suffer its consequences. ``The rich are in this war too.'' Rescue worker Miguel Angel Torres said five employees were injured by flying glass at the ``Biggest.'' Another rescue worker said one person was slightly injured by flying glass at the other bombing site. Torres said two of the injured might lose their eyesight. Nicolas Salume, owner of the ``Biggest,'' said about 40 people were inside the building when the bomb went off. He estimated damage at $100,000. A man outside the Biggest said, ``This is a great injustice. It is terrorism.'' He declined to be named, saying he was an industrialist and could become a guerrilla target if publicly identified.
AP880823-0169 	X	The FBI has no quota system to ensure Hispanics are included in a program to train agents for top positions, one of the FBI's highest-ranking officials testified Tuesday. ``We're trying to recruit the best people we can for the program,'' said John Otto, executive assistant FBI director. ``There are no quotas at this time. But we want our very best people to include minorities and women.'' Otto, one of three men who share the bureau's No. 2 rank under director William Sessions, testified in a discrimination lawsuit against the FBI. Attorneys for the 311 Hispanic agents joined in the class-action suit contend the FBI routinely keeps Hispanics out of a fast-track promotion path that includes the four-day Management Assessment Program. The plaintiffs contend the FBI discriminates against Hispanics in hiring, promotion, assignments and discipline. They seek unspecified damages and changes in FBI policies. About 400 of the bureau's 9,400 agents _ or 4.3 percent _ are Hispanic, compared with 8 percent of the general U.S. population. During the first week of testimony, about 40 agents _ Hispanic and non-Hispanic _ testified that Hispanic agents are transferred more often to undesirable locations, are given less glamorous or more dangerous assignments and receive less recognition for their successes. Otto said the FBI's Career Board, which supervises the fast-track promotion program, holds an annual retreat in Quantico, Va., to discuss the problems of minorities. No Hispanics sit on the Career Board, he testified. In other testimony, Melvin Jeter, head of the FBI's equal employment opportunity office, said all 25 discrimination complaints brought in the past by agents in the class-action suit were determined to be unfounded. Asked by defense attorney Felix Baxter whether he considered himself anti-Hispanic, Jeter said: ``I certainly do not. I personally look forward to going to conventions and recruiting Hispanic agents.'' Margaret Gulotta, head of the FBI's linguist program, said any agent who speaks a foreign language can be required to use that skill throughout the agent's career. Agents can serve as language specialists for three years, then ask not to be requested to use the language again. But a loophole in the rule allows supervisors to ask those agents to do undercover work, listen to wiretaps and do other assignments in the language based upon the needs of the FBI. The plaintiffs contend the FBI abuses that loophole, keeping Hispanic agents doing routine tasks, such as listening to wiretaps, that do not lead to management jobs. The non-jury trial is scheduled to end Friday, and U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton is expected to render a decision within six months. Federal employees are not entitled to jury trials when suing the government in discrimination cases.
AP880929-0259 	X	Societe Generale de Belgique SA said Thursday it is ready to continue talks with Robert Maxwell that could result in the British publisher gaining a stake in Belgium's largest holding company. Maxwell and Societe Generale agreed in June to cooperate in creating a joint venture in communications, and the two sides had broached the possibility of Maxwell acquiring shares in Societe Generale. But the negotiations were interrupted when Maxwell turned his attention to Macmillan Inc., the New York-based publishing and information services company he has offered to acquire for $2.47 billion in cash. This week Macmillan agreed to a $2.5 billion cash-and-securities buyout by the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., but Maxwell said he was mulling his options. On Wednesday, Maxwell said he remained interested in acquiring a stake in Societe Generale and that talks may resume soon. A spokesman for Societe Generale said, ``We continue to be interested in having more international shareholders.'' Maxwell appears primarily drawn to Societe Generale's media interests, which are concentrated in Tractebel SA.
AP900720-0174 	X	Many of the nation's leading filmmakers _ including Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Levinson and Paul Mazursky _ will ask the Motion Picture Association of America to change its movie rating system. In a petition to be delivered to the MPAA offices here Tuesday, more than a dozen top directors ask that a new rating be established for adult-oriented films that are not pornographic, according to a copy of the letter. ``The taint of an X rating clearly results in massive and arbitrary corporate censorship,'' the petition says. ``Failure to address this problem will help foster a new era of `McCarthyism' in the arts as during the 50's, when the networks claimed it was not they who blacklisted artists, but the sponsors.'' The letter says the X rating ``has come to be universally recognized as pertaining simply to pornography. ... We therefore strongly suggest that a new rating of A (for adult) or M (for mature) be incorporated into the system to indicate a film contains strong adult themes or images and that minors are not to view them.'' A number of critically acclaimed films _ included ``Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,'' ``Portrait of a Serial Killer,'' ``Scandal'' and ``The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' _ have been rated X in recent months. The petition also was signed by Spike Lee, Rob Reiner, Jonathan Demme, Jim Jarmusch, Ron Howard, John Sayles, Penny Marshall, John Waters, Edward Zwick and John Landis, among others. It follows a similar request made this week by the National Society of Film Critics to the MPAA asking they create a new rating for mature films. Mark Lipsky, the president of film distributor Silverlight Entertainment, said he organized the directors' petition because films with X ratings are denied newspaper and television advertisements and are refused by many theaters. Films carrying the X rating, he said, often are ignored by adult viewers who might enjoy them because the rating has such negative connotations. ``And that's censorship,'' Lipsky said. ``The MPAA is being irresponsible if they don't face the issue.'' A spokeswoman for the MPAA in Washington said the organization would not be able to comment on the letter until next week. Earlier in the day, Jack Valenti, the MPAA president, said the rating system works. A New York judge ruled Thursday that the MPAA's X rating unfairly brands films for mature audiences as pornographic, and called for the organization to devise a new rating system. Judge Charles Ramos, while saying he did not have the authority to change an X rating given to the acclaimed Spanish film ``Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,'' called the MPAA ratings system ``an effective form of censorship.'' In a scathing 15-page opinion, Ramos wrote that unless the MPAA reforms the rating system, it might find itself subject to legal challenge. He called on the organization ``to consider the proposals for a revised rating system that provides a professional basis for rating films or to cease the practice altogether.'' He said the problem ``is the need to avoid stigmatizing films of an adult nature, which ought not to be seen by children, but which are clearly not pornographic.'' ``Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!'' features one sex scene and a brief masturbation scene, and was given an X rating. Many newspapers and movie theaters prohibit advertising and exhibition of X-rated movies.
AP881126-0088 	X	The latest appointee to the city's Emergency Shelter Commission has plenty of experience dealing with the problems of people who have no place to go _ he's been homeless himself for the past two years. Michael McGuire, 71, who immigrated from Northern Ireland to the United States 37 years ago and worked as a house painter for much of his life, was appointed to the commission by Mayor Raymond Flynn. The mayor announced the appointment at a Thanksgiving dinner at the Long Island Hospital Shelter, where McGuire has lived for the past year. City officials had decided to appoint a homeless person to the panel and McGuire impressed the mayor with his ability to get along with people and his concern on the issue of homelessness, said commission director Ann Maguire. ``He is someone who had been working his whole life and, all of a sudden, he became homeless. That is a perspective that is a little different than other people we're dealing with,'' she said. McGuire said he hopes to make the most of his new position. ``I'll try to do what I can,'' he told The Boston Globe in a story published Saturday. ``I'm not a politician. ... I'm a nice guy and I'm not trouble. Maybe I can help people.'' McGuire said he is content at the shelter: ``Everybody is friendly, the nurses are lovely and they don't holler at you.'' However, he said the menu could use a little revision. ``You get a lot of macaroni here,'' he said. ``Let's see a hamburger once in a while.'' He also would like to see things like a pool table, table tennis, shuffleboard and card tables at the shelter. And he would like to move into an apartment of his own. McGuire, who was divorced about 25 years ago and has four children living in Florida, said in a telephone interview Saturday that he moved from Florida to New Jersey in the 1970s, and retired in 1977. He wouldn't say where he lived in New Jersey. He said trouble began two years ago when he came to Boston by train with a casual acquaintance he met in Penn Station in New York City. After he got off the train, his friend disappeared and he found himself stranded in a city where he knew no one. He said he started drinking and hanging out in the street. Police referred him to Boston City Hospital where he was directed to the Long Island Hospital shelter. The other commission members are a minister and representatives of the city Department of Health and Hospitals, the city Public Facilities Department and the Pine Street Inn shelter.
AP881208-0043 	X	Legislators praised Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's announcement of a unilateral troop cut but said they want to see the words backed up with action and renewed East-West talks to reduce troop levels in Europe. With Congress out of session, few legislators were in the Capitol and most reacted cautiously, saying they wanted to see more details of how the Soviets will carry out the plan made public Wednesday by Gorbachev at the United Nations. They also noted that the Soviets now have a large numerical edge in troops and various categories of weapons in Europe. Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, the incoming Senate majority leader, said he welcomed Gorbachev's statement but added, ``while these proposals are commendable, they must be considered in view of overall levels of forces in Europe and the offensive structure of Soviet forces.'' Mitchell said he hopes the announcement will lead to ``the reinvigoration'' of long-stalled efforts to negotiate cuts in military strength in Europe. House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, called the speech ``certainly the most positive signal from Moscow in 70 years, much more positive because words at last are being accompanied by deeds.'' ``We must not abandon caution, but neither should we slam the door in the face of opportunity,'' Wright said in a statement. Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said, ``Mr. Gorbachev has promised a lot, but can he deliver? Only his actions _ not just words _ will tell the world whether his U.N. speech becomes a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift or just another stocking stuffer. ``If we really see such cutbacks in Eastern Europe, then we might indeed be seeing a good-faith first step toward real conventional force parity; our negotiators in Vienna will be insisting on no less,'' said Dole. Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, ``we need to bear in mind that we in the West have heard about a number of interesting proposals from Gorbachev and other top Soviet officials. ``But what we haven't seen is any real change in Soviet military forces,'' said Wirth. ``What we have seen is largely improvements in Soviet forces.'' Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, was the most euphoric. ``Gorbachev's speech could be the end of the Cold War, the end of the arms race (and) the end of the danger of nuclear war,'' he said. ``Of course, we need deeds, not words. We have to see what the Soviets actually do.'' The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said, ``I would urge a note of caution.'' Even if the Soviets go ahead with the promised 10 percent troop reduction, Warner said, they will have ``two and one-half times as many tanks, three and one-half times as many artillery pieces.'' ``It's too early to tell exactly the impact of these dramatic announcements,'' he said. They may simply eliminate older, less capable weapons. ``The Soviet Union has quite a collection of antiquated military equipment.'' Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Gorbachev has ``done more than anyone thought he could do politically. ``His cuts are dramatic and significant _ especially that he will make them unilaterally.'' But Aspin warned: ``Don't be distracted by all the dramatic numbers you're hearing. We don't fight wars by the numbers.'' Gorbachev promised to reorganize the Soviet military, Aspin noted, explaining that ``a reorganization that removes the Soviet offensive capability declaws the Russian bear and is far more important than numbers on a chart.'' Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Gorbachev's statements ``profoundly welcome.'' ``If the Soviet government follows through on Gorbachev's pledge, this will challenge the United States and its allies to act imaginatively to start a similar process of arms reduction,'' said Pell. Pell said the administration should ``take advantage of the openings created by Gorbachev's speech to accelerate the momentum of arms control negotiations on conventional, as well as nuclear, weapons.''
AP880929-0063 	X	The country's highest court today upheld the death sentence of a white man convicted of killing a black policeman and trying to make the slaying look like the work of black radicals. Henry Burt, 35, faces hanging unless President P.W. Botha commutes the sentence. No execution date was announced. Burt was convicted last year of beating Sgt. Johannes Ndimande into unconsciousness in June 1986, placing a gasoline-soaked tire around his neck, and setting it on fire. No clear motive was established in the trial. That method of killing is called ``necklacing.'' The government says scores of blacks were ``necklaced'' from 1984 through 1987 by black radicals who suspected them of collaborating with white authorities. Burt, a former soldier who worked for the state-run Nuclear Development Corp., pleaded innocent at his trial, though he said he gave the policeman a lift that night. Part of Burt's defense was that he attended a meeting before the killing at which white residents complained about rising black crime. But the Appeal Court rejected that defense in today's ruling.
AP901220-0221 	X	Share prices ended lower on London's Stock Exchange Thursday, as the resignation of Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze created uncertainty in the financial markets. The resignation ``does add to the general economic uncertainty which makes markets nervous,'' said John Reynolds, equity strategist at the London brokerage firm County Natwest Woodmac. Wall Street also was having its share of jitters over the news. Throughout most of the European afternoon, the Dow Jones industrial average was under pressure, although by the close of the session in London, Wall Street appeared to be reversing its losses. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was down 19.9 points, or 0.9 percent, at 2,158.8 at the close. The Financial Times 30-share index fell 19.9 points to close at 1,687.2. The Financial Times 500-share index fell 9.79 points to close a 1,143.22. Volume was 590.2 million shares compared with 509.3 million shares Wednesday.
AP900131-0042 	X	Gov. Jim Florio accused Exxon Corp. of lax handling of a 570,000-gallon oil spill in a bird and fish sanctuary, and said the state had learned from the Exxon Valdez spill not to trust the company. Exxon, responding to Florio's comments Tuesday, defended its response to the Jan. 2 spill _ and to the Valdez disaster _ and said it would fulfill its responsibilities for the cleanup. Florio said the state Department of Environmental Protection has determined that a pipeline operator and supervisor on duty at the time of the spill in the Arthur Kill lacked the certification required by New York authorities, which shares jurisdiction for the waterway. A portion of pipe will be pulled out of the waterway, which lies between New Jersey and the New York City borough of Staten Island, and transported to Ohio for lab tests that could help determine the cause of the spill, Florio said. Exxon confirmed it was removing the pipe today for tests at its expense. Florio, the Democrat elected governor last year after a strong pro-environment campaign, said New York and New Jersey authorities had mapped out a strategy to restore the important East Coast spawning ground for birds and fish, which scientists say absorbed serious damage from the spilled heating oil. No dollar figure has been assigned to the damage, nor have cleanup costs been established. ``I want to make it clear to everyone in New Jersey that this will not be another Valdez,'' Florio said, referring to the March 28 wreck that spilled more than 10 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. ``Exxon will not be allowed to hit and run. ... ``My impression of what's happening in Valdez is that Exxon seems to be inclined to wipe its hands sooner rather than later,'' Florio said. ``We're not going to allow that approach to be duplicated here.'' Exxon spokesman Leo McLean defended Exxon's cleanup in Alaska and said the company was cooperating with authorities to ``assess potential impacts ... and work toward agreement'' on the Arthur Kill cleanup. Florio reiterated claims that pipeline operators ignored warnings of a possible leak. Exxon has attributed the slow detection of the pipeline's problems to equipment failure, rather than human error. Florio said James Fitzgerald, a console operator at Exxon's Bayway refinery, had not obtained the certification required of pipeline operators by the New York Fire Department. George Leth, the shift supervisor who trained Fitzgerald, also was not certified to operate the equipment, Florio said. The lack of certification ``was another piece of information we will factor into the on-going investigation the attorney general is conducting,'' Florio said. McLean said he could not confirm or deny the certification claim until the company completed its own investigation.
AP880517-0214 	X	Clusters of olive-green parachutes drifted down to a Mediterranean beach Tuesday in a group jump by 120 paratroop veterans, most of them Americans, to mark Israel's 40th anniversary. Three U.S.-built C-130 Hercules transports circled the dunes of Palmachim Beach, about 15 miles south of Tel Aviv, to drop the members of the International Association of Airborne Veterans. ``This is my show of support for Israel,'' said Jim Costa, 58, of Charlestown, N.H., who said he lost his left leg in the Korean War and has jumped five times since with an artifical one. ``I also wanted to make this my last jump and I thought there's no better place to do it than the place where Christ walked,'' said Costa, wiping sweat from his face as he moved toward a table laden with cakes and fruits. Some paratroopers came to express solidarity with Israel, but others said a sense of adventure attracted them. Cleo Crouch of Boca Raton, Fla., at age 72 the oldest jumper, said: ``I landed on my butt and my back hurts a little, but I'm fine.'' Crouch, a retired trucking company owner, said Tuesday's jump was his third. He said he first parachuted over the Rhine River on a combat mission in March 1945, then tried a freefall on a dare in 1985. ``Everybody thinks I'm crazy,'' said Crouch. ``Where I live, the guys my age are just sitting around smoking, drinking beer and eating too much. I feel I can do everything I want to.'' In addition to 80 Americans, the group included 30 West Germans, a few Britons and Canadians, a jumper from Denmark and one from Singapore. It was the Chicago-based association's second jump over Israel since its founding five years ago. The last jump it organized was in Taiwan in November. Karl Houy, 43, a physician from Neuenkirchen, West Germany, said he participated to overcome fear that began when he broke his leg jumping in 1983. ``I was scared and I wanted to prove to myself that I can still do it,'' he said. ``I have to tell you, though, that I didn't see much of the view. I just wanted to get down safely.''
AP900303-0159 	X	The company that prepares most of the nation's bar exams filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing a preparation service of stealing questions and undermining the integrity of the tests. The lawsuit was filed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, or NCBE, a Chicago company that prepares the Multistate Bar Examination _ 200 multiple-choice questions administered to law graduates in 46 states. The suit accuses Multistate Legal Studies Inc. of Philadelphia and Santa Monica, Calif., of sending agents to purposely fail the bar exam, giving them the right to review the tests. While reviewing the exams, the agents memorized, photographed, hand copied or tape recorded the questions, according to the lawsuit. The suit names Multistate president Robert Feinberg as an agent. Feinberg, an attorney living in California, denied the allegations and noted that his company won a similar suit filed in 1978. The NCBE claims the ``integrity and quality of the process by which applicants are admitted to the practice of law'' was tainted by Multistate, which also operates under the name of Preliminary Multistate Bar Review. The suit seeks unspecified damages as well as injunctions against further copyright infringement. According to the suit, about 100,000 students in 40 states have enrolled in the courses with Preliminary Multistate Bar Review since 1977. The three- and six-day seminars cost $295 to $495 with an additional $395 for written materials, $100 for cassette tapes and about $50 for flashcards. The Multistate Bar Exam, used since 1972, is given twice a year on six subjects. About 58,000 applicants took the exam last year. Questions are prepared by committees of practitioners, judges and law professors and reviewed by others at a cost of about $250,000 per test form. The NCBE releases 50 questions to the public every other year, but does not reuse released questions. The NCBE also prepares other portions of the test, including a essay section and a section on professional responsibility. The Multistate Bar Examination is used in all states but Indiana, Iowa, Lousiana and Washington.
AP900529-0095 	X	President Bush and his advisers went over final preparations today for a U.S.-Soviet summit that a top aide said will tackle ``bare bone essentials'' rather than tallying up agreements to sign. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will likely issue a statement of progress on nuclear arms reductio as sign various cultural and economic agreements when they meet this week, said a senior admin talks, as wellnistration official who briefed White House reporters. But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, cast doubt on prospects for a U.S.-Soviet trade agreement before Gorbachev leaves. ``We're in a rather uncertain state about what exactly will happen on the trade agreement,'' the official said, citing U.S. unhappiness over Soviet actions in Lithuania and the Soviets' failure to enact legislation allowing free emigration. Still, the official said, ``This is not a summit devoted to the celebration of agreements that we can sign. It is a summit designed to do the hard work of trying to overcome the remaining obstacles that stand in the way of transforming East-West relations.'' ``We are now dow: Education Program.
AP900507-0107 	X	World Jewish Congress officials said Monday economic hardship has fueled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and they planned a solemn ceremony at the site where Nazis plotted the extermination of the Jews. On the second day of the congress' annual meeting, a U.S. Justice Department official said Washington has rejected Austrian President Kurt Waldheim's repeated requests for a lifting of the ban that keeps him out of the country. The official said the ban remains in effect because of Waldheim's role ``Nazi-sponsored persecution.'' The three-day meeting in Berlin is the Congress' first in Germany since the organization was founded in Switzerland in 1936 amid the horrors of the Third Reich. Some delegates declined to attend, saying a visit to Berlin, the former Nazi capital, would be too traumatic. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis between January 1933 and May 1945. On Tuesday, Congress officials will visit Berlin's Wannsee Villa, where on Jan. 20, 1942 leading Nazi officials plotted the Third Reich's so-called Final Solution to exterminate Jews worldwide. A solemn ceremony at the villa will coincide with the 45th anniversary of the Nazis' unconditional surrender in World War II. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir used the anniversary to speak out against arms sales to the Jewish state's Arab enemies. He told Israel's Parliament that a united Germany should ``learn the lessons of the past'' and not sell weapons to Arab nations. At a news conference Monday in the heavily guarded West Berlin Jewish Community headquarters, World Jewish Congress leaders warned about present dangers and emphasized the need to recall past tragedies. ``The Jewish people have something to say to the new Germany that is going to be created in a short time,'' said Congress President Edgar M. Bronfman. He opened the meeting Sunday by saying a united Germany must ``forever teach'' about the Holocaust, ``the lowest point ever reached in man's inhumanity to man.'' Congress leaders said that in Eastern Europe there were indications of growing anti-Semitism, fueled in large part by economic hardship. Decades of Communist mismanagement have driven the economies of East European countries to the brink. Many jobless youths have turned to right-wing extremism, often blaming Jews and foreigners for economic ills. ``Unfortunately, as the economic situation worsens ... and the search for scapegoats goes on, the age-old scapegoat _ the Jew _ again takes his place in the forefront of those to be kicked around,'' Bronfman said. ``When you see tens of thousands of Jews leaving the Soviet Union and going to Israel, one of the main reasons they're going is because of the rise of anti-Semitism,'' he said. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are expected to emigrate to Israel over the next years, in part because of looser Soviet emigration policy but also in response to what they say is increasing religious persecution at home. There are up to 2 million Soviet Jews. Bronfman said that when he visited Poland a few months ago, government leaders and Solidarity chief Lech Walesa issued ``strong statements'' against anti-Semitism. ``The only way to fight it is to expose it,'' Bronfman said of anti-Jewish feeling. Lionel Kopelowitz, head of the European Jewish Congress, said there were indications of growing anti-Jewish feeling in Romania. ``The people are hungry. They look for a scapegoat,'' he said of Romania, home to about 25,000 Jews. Heinz Galinksi, leader of West Germany's 35,000-member Jewish community, said he also sees increased neo-Nazi activities and anti-Semitism in East Germany. Neo-Nazis and other rightists recently went on a rampage in East Berlin, shouting insults against Jews and foreigners. Galinski, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, said the Congress meeting in Berlin was ``perhaps one of the most important events'' since the downfall of Nazi Germany. The World Jewish Congress executive director, Elan Steinberg, said 10 percent of delegates from outside East and West Germany declined to participate. About 80 of the 600 delegates were from countries other than East and West Germany. ``There are people who will not come to Berlin, and they have a right not to come to Berlin,'' Bronfman said. ``We're dealing with huge, huge emotions here.'' Neal M. Sher, head of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, said in a speech to delegates that ``Kurt Waldheim had engaged in Nazi-sponsored persecution.'' The U.S. government in April 1987 put Waldheim, an officer in the German army during World War II, on a ``watch list'' of people denied entry into the country. The ban followed allegations Waldheim was involved in Nazi atrocities during the war. Waldheim has denied wrongdoing. ``It is also well-known that Waldheim has tried hard and often to be a removed from the list,'' Sher said. ``But all such approaches to our government have been rebuffed. He will remain persona non grata.''
AP900416-0150 	X	ABC's ``Roseanne'' edged NBC's ``The Cosby Show'' as prime-time ratings champ in the just-concluded 1989-1980 season, NBC announced Monday. ABC's Tuesday comedy starring Roseanne Barr averaged a 23.3 rating, two-tenths of a ratings point more than the Bill Cosby family comedy which has been first in the Nielson ratings for the last four seasons. ``The Cosby Show,'' wound up in second place for the season. Cosby's series has been on the air for six seasons, and Barr's series for two. Each ratings point represents 921,000 homes. Final figures for the 30-week season, which ended Sunday, won't be available until Tuesday. But network research analysts say that NBC will easily win its fifth consecutive season, with ABC coming in second, and once-dominant CBS in third place for the third straight season. Still awaiting final figures for the last three days of the season, Preston Beckman, NBC vice-president for research, said that NBC thus far had a 14.6 ratings average, ABC a 12.9 and CBS a 12.2 during the season. NBC's ratings are down by nine percent, ABC's are flat, and those of CBS are down by three percent, he said. He cited competition from cable, the fledgling Fox network, and independent stations as factors in the overall ratings drop. However, he attributed 25 percent of NBC's decline to the absence of three sports events it had in prime time during the previous season _ the Summer Olypmics, the World Series and pro football's Superbowl.
AP880915-0056 	X	Honduran security forces early Thursday arrested 16 Americans who demonstrated in front of the U.S. Embassy and at a U.S. air base to protest Washington's policy in Central America. Maj. Manuel Urbina, spokesman for the Public Security Forces, said four Americans who protested in front of the embassy were being held at the Casamata prison in the capital. Another 12 who staged a one-hour protest at the U.S. air base in Palmerola, about 40 miles northwest of the capital were being held at a police jail in Comayagua, four miles away, Urbina said. He said the arrests were made without resistance and the Americans would probably be expelled. U.S. officials in Honduras could not be reached immediately for comment. Urbina said none of the demonstrators carried passports or identification. In Guatemala City, four Americans threw blood on the steps of the U.S. Embassy Wednesday and chained themselves to the gates of the compound in a protest against U.S. policy in Central America. The protests were organized by a group called Project Independence and held one day before Central American countries celebrate the anniversary of their independence from Spain in 1821. John Mateyko, a spokesman for the group in Washington, said the protest was ``religious-based and non-violent'' against what he called ``the immoral and dangerous policy'' of the Reagan administration in Central America. Mateyko identified the four demonstrators in Tegucigalpa as John Bach, 41, of Hartford, Conn.; Teri Allen, 30, of Hartford; Patricia McCallum, 47, of Cambridge, Mass., and Mark Fryer, 31, of West Creek, Pa. The names of those being held in Camayagua were not immediately available. Mateyko identified the demonstrators in Guatemala City as Charley Litky, 57, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner for his service as a Roman Catholic priest in Vietnam, and Sara Story, 26, both of Washington, D.C.; Dale Ashera-Davis, 34, of Baltimore, Md.; and John Schuchardt, 49, of Leverett, Mass. ``At this time of remembering Central American independence from Spain we've come to join with Central Americans in declaring its independence from U.S. domination,'' a declaration read by the group said. ``In eight years neither (President) Reagan or (Vice President George) Bush seems to have figured out that that's all these people want,'' it said. The demonstrators, who threw blood on the embassy steps before chaining themselves to the gates, were demanding an audience with the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, James Michel. By Wednesday evening, the four were still chained to the embassy gates as Guatemalan National Police officers looked on.
AP900412-0036 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 29,623.20, up 182.92 points, or 0.62 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday.
AP880505-0342 	X	Kraft Inc. said Thursday it was selling its fast-growing Duracell battery division to a group led by management and the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in a cash deal worth $1.8 billion. Kraft said it agreed to sell Duracell Inc., the world's leading maker of alkaline consumer batteries, to concentrate on its core food business. Proceeds from the sale would be used to buy back up to 12 million Kraft shares, to reduce debt and for possible food-related acquisition, the company said. ``... We are excited about the many opportunities available to Kraft in the food industry, and the sale of Duracell will enable us to focus our total management and financial resources on those opportunities,'' said Kraft Chairman John M. Richman. Kraft informed its shareholders of the definitive agreement at its annual meeting Thursday in Chicago. Kraft, which acquired Bethel, Conn.-based Duracell in 1980, had announced in December that it planned to sell the unit. Henry R. Kravis, a partner in New York-based Kohlberg Kravis, called the agreement ``the first step in the creation of a great new independent consumer-products company.'' ``We are very excited about the future growth prospects of the company and our future association with the management and employees of Duracell,'' he said. Some analysts expressed surprise at the price Kohlberg Kravis agreed to pay for Duracell, which had been widely expected to fetch between $1 billion and $1.2 billion. ``It never ceases to amaze me what a good brand is worth in today's marketplace,'' said John W. McMillin of Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. ``This was pleasant news for Kraft shareholders.'' In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Kraft rose $1.50 a share to close at $53.50. McMillin said Kohlberg Kravis probably was attracted by Duracell's strong growth potential. Duracell, which has about 9,000 employees, had an operating income of $140 million and sales of $1.1 billion last year. Kraft's 1987 sales, excluding Duracell, were $9.9 billion. Duracell's copper-top alkaline batteries account for about 28 percent of all U.S. consumer battery sales. The company is tied with Ralston Purina Co.'s Eveready unit for the lead in domestic sales of alkaline batteries, the fastest-growing segment of the battery market. Together, Eveready and Duracell have more than 80 percent of the domestic alkaline-battery market, McMillin said. Duracell does not compete in the carbon-zinc battery market, which is dominated by Eveready. ``With all these Walkmans and portable tape recorders that have to use batteries, the alkaline segment has been exhibiting strong volume growth and that is what had to attract these investors,'' McMillin said. Analysts said they did not expect Duracell to diversify as a stand-alone company. ``It could happen in time, but certainly not immediately,'' said Lawrence Adelman, an analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. in New York. ``When you do a leveraged buyout you've got to use the cash generated internally to reduce debt, so you've got to pretty much stick to your own business.'' Duracell is being sold to Duracell Holdings Corp., the new company formed by Kohlberg Kravis and Duracell's management. Kohlberg Kravis specializes in leveraged buyouts, in which a company is acquired mainly through borrowed funds repaid from the target company's profits or asset sales.
AP900711-0132 	X	The United States and its partners at the economic summit sidestepped differences on global warming Wednesday, but issued an environmental declaration that emphasized forestry protection. The seven leaders pledged to negotiate an international agreement to curb deforestation as expeditiously as possible. The environmental declaration contained mostly general language on global warming and called for an international convention on the subject to be completed by 1992. The United Nations is already working on the issue. The Bush administration prevailed in blocking European wishes to specify exactly how much the industrialized nations should reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. Carbon dioxide has been estimated to account for about 55 percent of global warming, but the timing and the degree to which the earth is expected to become hotter are uncertain. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said Germany had wanted tougher commitments in the area of emissions, but added, ``We can live with'' the communique. Environmental groups immediately lambasted the summit as having failed to produce substantive progress on environmental concerns. President Bush fired back, saying he wasn't out to ``get some brownie points'' from the environmental groups. He told a news conference that the summit had produced ``a reasoned position, not a radical position that's going to throw a lot of American men and women out of jobs.'' The summit declaration emphasized forestry planks. It called for immediate negotiations to forge a worldwide forestation program; a World Bank plan to stop destruction of Brazil's tropical rain forests, and a toughening of the World Bank's current Tropical Forestry Action Plan to emphasize ``conservation and biological diversity.'' ``The destruction of forests has reached alarming proportions,'' the summit communique said. A forestry program could end up helping combat global warming eventually because trees absorb the carbon dioxide emissions that are contributing to the earth's warming. Scientists say 20 percent of global warming is due to deforestation. Kohl said he was pleased about the summit leaders' commitment on Brazilian rain forests. ``The continuing destruction of tropical forests must be stopped through an immediate program,'' he said. The leaders said the forestry agreement should be ready for signing by 1992. The general language of the summit communique stated: ``We as industrialized countries have an obligation to be leaders in meeting these challenges'' on climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation, marine pollution, and the loss of biological diversity. But environmentalists said the seven leaders had abandoned their promise at their Paris summit a year ago to take decisive, urgent action on environmental problems. ``Despite their green rhetoric, the G-7 leaders leave Houston in the red on the environment,'' the Envirosummit coalition of prominent environmental groups said. The group welcomed the promise of a forestry protection plan, however. ``The summit is a failure on the environment because they did nothing on global warming,'' said Dan Becker of the Sierra Club. ``In order to cover over their inaction on global warming, they've added a fig leaf on rain forests.'' On the contentious issue of global warming, the communique included vague compromise language calling for ``appropriate implementing protocols'' to stem global warming ``as expeditiously as possible'' but it was unclear whether such protocols would have to wait until after a 1992 convention on global warming. The Bush administration says more research is needed on climate change before dramatic steps are taken to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
AP900801-0265 	X	In another sign of sluggishness in the nation's economy, businesses in July slashed orders for manufactured goods and reduced inventories, the National Association of Purchasing Management said Wednesday. It was the first drop in the group's measurement of the manufacturing sector in three months and gave further weight to a belief the nation's economy may be slipping into a recession. A measurement of activity by chief purchasing executives at more than 300 industrial companies tumbled in July to its lowest rate since January, in its sharpest monthly decline since January 1984. ``It reflects a weakening manufacturing sector, so the cutting edge is getting dull,'' said Robert Brusca, chief economist for Nikko Securities International Inc. ``Businessmen are going to become even more cautious.'' The association's Purchasing Managers Index fell to 47.4 percent in July from 51.1 percent the previous month, ending three months of increases. A reading below 50 indicates the manufacturing economy generally is declining. The index, a composite of survey results on order levels, prices, inventory and other areas, had been below 50 for 11 straight months. It averaged 48.8 percent in the first seven months of 1990. July's reading was the lowest since 45.2 percent in January. The decline was the sharpest since the index fell about nine percentage points in early 1984, economists said. Orders from manufacturers tumbled to 46.2 percent from 54.9 percent in June. The rate was the lowest since January ``and will undoubtedly weaken, if not decrease the recent modest growth in production,'' the association said. The group's production index was above 50 for the sixth straight month, but fell to 52.1 percent from 53.9 percent. It was the lowest level in five months. Inventories declined for the 20th straight month, at a pace sharper than the previous month. The group's inventories index fell to 39.3 percent from 42.9 percent in June as purchasers cut the volume of July orders and used existing inventories. ``The sharp decline in new orders apparently caused purchasers to reduce the quantity of purchases and work off existing inventories,'' said Robert J. Bretz, chairman of the association's business survey committee. ``The weakness of new orders in July now casts a shadow over the previous expectations for continued growth in the economy in the third quarter,'' he said. Bond prices, which improve on news of economic softening, surged after the report was issued. The bellwether 30-year Treasury bond finished up more than $6.50 per $1,000 in face value, with its yield tumbling to 8.35 percent from 8.41 percent late Tuesday. Some economists play down the significance of the purchasing managers report because manufacturing accounts for only about 20 percent of economic activity. But others said manufacturing is a leading indicator of overall business activity, and that even the service sector has shown signs of weakness. ``I think it's telling us the economy is weak again and businesses are making an effort to reduce inventories,'' said Robert Chandross, chief economist with Lloyds Bank PLC in New York. In other segments, the report said export orders increased while imports declined for the third consecutive month. Prices for manufacturing products, which include metals, textiles, sulfur, lumber and fuels, held steady, indicating no movement in inflation. Employment decreased for the 17th straight month, at a slightly lesser rate than in June.
AP900405-0011 	X	Modern dance pioneer Alwin Nikolais is accustomed to worldwide acclaim, but he confesses he was terrified by the squirming second-graders who attended the world premiere of his new ``space fantasy'' for children. ``Children frighten me,'' said Nikolais, a 79-year-old bachelor. ``You never can know what their reaction might be, unless you're around them a lot. I'm not around children very much, so it was doubly terrifying.'' Nikolais needn't have worried. Moments after the curtain rose Tuesday on ``The Crystal and the Sphere,'' his stage voyage through the galaxy of a child's imagination, Nikolais clearly had won the hearts of 500 local school children who packed the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater. The kids squealed as the house lights dimmed and the rumble of thunder shook their seats. They oohed and aahed as the rising curtain revealed a 20-foot balloon rocking gently on the stage, like a strange new planet, and a 12-foot shard of crystal bathed in celestial lights. They giggled at the wondrous aliens that cavorted across the stage _ a mermaid who teasingly tied her kelp tresses to an angler's hook, a pair of fat, web-footed birds that splashed in musical mud puddles, herky-jerky androids ablaze in ultraviolet hues who disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. Nikolais did it all _ choreography, synthesizer musical score, scenery and costumes _ in creating the $20,000 centerpiece for this year's ``Imagination Celebration,'' the Kennedy Center's annual arts festival for children. His new work, performed by five hand-picked dancers from New York, is being presented nine times this week at the Kennedy Center before it travels to children's festivals at the El Centro Theater in Dallas, April 18-20, and the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., April 25-26. ``The first show is a terror,'' said Nikolais, sighing happily after the curtain fell on his latest premiere. He hadn't created a dance work for youngsters since he was director of the Henry Street Playhouse in New York in the late 1940s, when his company staged a dozen popular ``dance plays'' for children. Since then, he has been cheered by audiences and critics around the world _ and received the coveted National Medal of Arts from President Reagan in 1987 _ as a modern dance visionary. In a way, Nikolais said, his work on ``The Crystal and the Sphere'' meant returning to the world of children after a 40-year absence. ``They haven't changed,'' he said. ``They're made the same way and they behave the same way. It's that I'm rediscovering them again.'' Nikolais tried to envision the unearthly creatures a child might encounter on an imaginary exploration of the planets. ``Like most artists, I have a childlike mind with a certain innocence that allows me to do things that others don't dare to do,'' he said. ``I do know that children love color, and they like motions that they don't see all the time. I thought they'd like these curious, angular body shapes, and dancers who suddenly appeared and disappeared. ``Children also like strange sounds. You don't hear them humming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. They like the big bang, like the world's coming to an end. And what really scares them is the lights going out, and being left in the dark. That always makes them yelp.'' Nikolais' vision scored a hit with at least one member of the audience Tuesday. When the lights went up after the 45-minute show, a little girl turned to a schoolmate and asked, ``It's over already?''
AP900105-0211 	X	Many of the nation's big retailers reported that they got what they expected but not necessarily what they wanted for Christmas: conservative sales growth. General merchandise chains, department stores and discounters on Thursday posted December results that mostly met their expectations for a moderate holiday season. Analysts said the industry was saved from a lackluster sales performance by price discounts, aggressive advertising and special promotions.
AP880307-0233 	X	China's Communist Party has proposed amending the national constitution to protect the rights of private businesses and permit the transfer of land-use rights, the official China Daily said Monday. The report said the amendments would ensure privately owned entities, an increasingly important sector in the Chinese economy, the right to exist and develop as a complement to China's socialist system. Private businesses, defined as individually owned enterprises with eight or more workers, have existed since 1981, two years after China launched economic reform programs based on encouraging personal initiative and a market-oriented economy. The newspaper said there are now about 225,000 such enterprises. China also has what it calls an individual economy, about 18 million people who run street stalls and other one-man or family operations. The newspaper said the party has submitted the proposals to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, which opened a meeting Saturday, and asked the committee to put them on the agenda of the annual full session of the NPC, convening later this month.
AP880330-0197 	X	A fast-moving storm brewing in the southwestern United States dumped up to a half a foot of snow on parts of Utah on Wednesday and threatened Wyoming and Colorado with heavy snow. Utah's higher elevations got 6 inches of snow before skies cleared Wednesday afternoon. Salt Lake City received 3 inches of snow in six hours; in Utah's western desert, Tooele got 5 inches. Snow advisories were issued through Thursday morning for southwest Utah and the northern and central mountains of Colorado, where up to 8 inches was expected. A winter storm watch also was posted for south-central and southeastern Wyoming, where up to 10 inches of snow was forecast. Farther south, showers and thunderstorms developed along a stationary front extending from Texas' lower Rio Grande Valley across Louisiana into Mississippi. The eastern United States continued to enjoy unseasonably warm weather, with highs in the 70s from the central and eastern Gulf Coast to the Middle Atlantic States. Heavier rainfall totals for the six-hour period ending at 1 p.m. EST included 1.56 inches at Alexandria, La., and 1.29 inches at Baton Rouge, La. Temperatures around the nation at 2 p.m. EST ranged from 24 degrees at Yellowstone Park, Wyo., to 87 at the Southwest Regional Airport in Fort Myers, Fla. The early morning low for the nation was 3 degrees above zero at International Falls, Minn. Thursday's forecast called for showers and thunderstorms extending from the southern and central Appalachians through the mid-Mississippi Valley and across much of the southern and central Plains. Rain was expected from Kentucky and Tennessee into Kansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas. Snow was forecast for the central Rockies and the central high Plains, eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. Fair skies should prevail over the rest of the nation. High temperatures should be below 50 degrees from much of the Rockies to the upper Great Lakes, including highs only in the 30s and upper 20s from northern Arizona across much of Colorado and Wyoming to western South Dakota. Highs should reach in the 60s and 70s from the southern and central Pacific Coast through southern Arizona and the southern high Plains to the southern and mid-Atlantic Coast, and in the 50s in most of the rest of the nation.
AP881014-0193 	X	The number of illegal aliens apprehended on the southern U.S. border has reached a six-year low, but the numbers of non-Mexican aliens arrested increased over fiscal 1987, immigration officials said Friday. ``The decline in apprehensions confirms the downward trend that began immediately after passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act and shows that the law is working as it was intended,'' said Alan C. Nelson, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Apprehensions totaled more than 940,000 in the fiscal year ending Oct. 1, while there were 1.12 million apprehensions in fiscal 1987 and a record 1.62 million in 1986. At a news conference, Nelson acknowledged that temporary reassignment of some border control agents during the fiscal year may account for some of the decline. He said other factors are the decreased number of illegal aliens in the United States because of mass legalizations under the 1986 immigration act and the fact that drought conditions contributed to less demand for farm laborers. The number of non-Mexican immigrants apprehended increased last fiscal year to 39,000 from 37,000 in 1987, other officials said, with about a fourth of those each year from El Salvador and the rest from more than 100 other countries. Nelson said the fact that the trend has not been the same for non-Mexicans is probably ``a function of distance.'' He said people who have to travel greater distances from other countries to the border are more likely not to be deterred by aggressive enforcement or changes in immigration laws. Nelson said the INS increased its Border Patrol forces to record numbers during the year, with plans to have 1,400 new agents on duty by next June, bringing the total along the southern border to 4,300. Investigation staff has increased 75 percent since last fiscal year, he said. This has resulted in apprehension of 50,000 criminal aliens, up from 33,500 a year earlier, Nelson said. ``These figures show we are making more effective use of our enforcement resources by concentrating them on the most serious problems of illegal immigration _ that is, we go after the aliens who are causing the most harm to society,'' he said. Border Patrol seizures of narcotics along the southern border increased from 2,751 cases to more than 3,000 last year, increasing in value by $100 million to $681.1 million for the fiscal year, Nelson said. He said the INS has received 2.65 million applications for temporary resident status under the immigration law, including nearly twice as many as expected under the less restrictive program for special agricultural workers _ more than 890,000. Nelson said 97.5 percent of regular applications and 92 percent of those under the agricultural program are approved. Farm-worker applicants have to show only that they worked on a U.S. farm for 90 days during the previous year to get legal status. Officials say there are some cases of obvious fraud in the program, including applicants who obviously are too well manicured to be farm workers and some who claim such things as having picked strawberries from trees. Of pending cases, 168,000 are suspected to be fraudulent applicants, including 136,000 for the agricultural program, said Nelson. He said fewer than 51,000 applications have been denied under the immigration act, with 2,844 involving fraud.
AP900212-0137 	X	Sudan and the Central African Republic announced Monday the resumption of diplomatic ties broken last May. The official Sudan News Agency said the announcement came during an unexpected visit to the Central African Republic capital Bangui by Lt. Gen. Omar el-Bashir, Sudan's military strongman. He met with Andre Kolingba, president of Central African Republic, and they later issued a joint communique saying the two neighbors were restoring diplomatic relations, reopening their borders and resuming air service. The two countries severed links May 30 after Sudan, then under civilian Prime Minister Sadek el-Mahdi, refused to allow a Central African plane to cross Sudanese airspace en route to Israel. Kolingba was aboard the plane, but Sudan said it had not known it at the time. It said it was merely following a general Arab ban on flights heading for Israel. A junta led by el-Bashir overthrew el-Mahdi's civilian administration June 30.
AP880413-0088 	X	Demolitions experts disarmed three powerful homemade bombs at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area and arrested a man for possession of explosives, police said. Lt. Barry Roberson, a state police spokesman, said the bombs and some leftover explosive materials were discovered in the car of a man attempting to flee a trooper Tuesday morning. Trooper Robert Cieplinsky told his superiors he had noticed the man acting suspiciously near a parked car at turnpike rest area less than 10 miles west of New York City, Roberson said. Cieplinsky stopped the car and noticed a black gym bag filled with gunpowder canisters and small pellets, which Roberson described as objects used to make homemade bombs. The trooper discovered the three bombs in the trunk of the car, Roberson said, and arrested the man for possession of an explosive device. Roberson declined to give the man's name and said an investigation was continuing. Cieplinsky closed off a portion of the rest area and called for assistance from the state police bomb and explosives investigative team, who used a water cannon to saturate the devices and render them inoperable, Roberson said. In Tokyo, a Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the ministry had received information through the Japanese Embassy in Washington that the man detained in New Jersey for possession of explosives was carrying a Japanese passport. He said the ministry would seek more details about the man and provide information to U.S. investigators, but declined to give further details. Japan's Kyodo News Service reported that Japanese authorities believe the man held in the United States may have a forged passport or may have obtained it illegally. Kyodo said Japanese investigators would ask the United States to send the fingerprints of the man detained for identification.
AP880212-0078 	X	The U.S. Embassy will provide $25,000 to help victims of floods and mudslides that killed at least 196 people and left more than 10,000 homeless in Rio de Janeiro state, it was announced Friday. U.S. Consul-General Louis Schwartz will give a check for that amount to Gov. Wellington Moreira Franco on Saturday, the consulate's press office reported. It said the money is the total amount in the embassy's emergency fund. Such funds are provided by the U.S. government to its embassies around the world. In addition to the embassy fund, the United States has offered to provide Brazil with emergency supplies. Most of the money is expected to go to Petropolis, a mountain resort 40 miles north of Rio de Janeiro city. Civil defense officials said Friday that 12 days of rains caused flooding and landslides that killed 163 people in Petropolis and left 3,947 people homeless. U.S. consular officials visited Petropolis to check on the families of two U.S. citizens living there and found they were not seriously affected, the press office said. Other countries that have offered Brazil aid supplies include Britain, France, Italy and Nicaragua.
AP880611-0045 	X	A county prosecutor said he would investigate the fatal shooting of a Hispanic man by an off-duty police officer, and for the first time in three nights this industrial city was relatively quiet. Some people drove by police and yelled insults at them Friday night, witnesses said, adding that police yelled insults back. However, unlike Wednesday and Thursday nights, there were no incidents of violence reported. Mayor George J. Otlowski and Hispanic leaders hammered out an agreement in a three-hour meeting with Middlesex County Prosecutor Alan Rockoff, less than 24 hours after about 1,000 rioters clashed with police following the funeral for the slain man. Rockoff said after Friday's meeting that his office will investigate the shooting and present the case to a county grand jury. The two sides also agreed to form a commission to investigate bias in the city of about 39,000 and to form a community council to hear grievances about police conduct, he said. ``Most of the people here really want justice,'' said the Rev. Richard Todd of Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, where the funeral for the slain man was held Thursday. ``But they also want peace in our town. ``A lot of what happened last night was because when crowds get big there is not a lot of control,'' Todd said Friday. Terms of the agreement were printed and distributed in the city's Hispanic community Friday. The population of Perth Amboy, about 15 miles south of Newark, is evenly divided between whites and Hispanics. The earlier violence was touched off when off-duty narcotics officer Allen C. Fuller shot and killed Carmen Coria and critically wounded Coria's brother, Matteo, outside a bar early Monday. Fuller said he fired at the men because he believed his life was threatened by Carmen Coria, who he said approached him holding a bottle. Fuller was suspended with pay pending the outcome of the investigation.
AP880309-0374 	X	A major Japanese trading firm and an agricultural group that imports about 40 percent of the nation's feed grain will jointly purchase a U.S. grain company, a spokesman said Wednesday. The National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, or Zennoh, and C. Itoh Co., one of Japan's three largest trading houses, are completing an agreement to buy Consolidated Grain and Barge of St. Louis, Missouri, said a C. Itoh official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said final details, including the purchase price and the share of investment by each party, would be worked out by the end of April. A Zennoh official said his organization planned to link its New Orleans-based export arm, the Zennoh Grain Center, with Consolidated Grain, which handles 3.3 million tons of corn and 750,000 tons of soybeans a year. Consolidated Grain, which operates primarily in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, controls 30 grain silos and 650 barges used to transport grain. The Zennoh official, who also insisted on anonymity, denied a report in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun that Zennoh would use the company to apply pressure on grain-growing regions where farmers are pushing for an end to Japan's restrictions on beef and citrus fruit imports. Zennoh, which handles almost 40 percent of the 1.5 million tons of feed grain imported annually into Japan, has condemned U.S. demands for an end to the quotas.
AP900723-0051 	X	Sacha Pitoeff, an actor and director best known for his stage productions of Chekhov and Pirandello, has died of a heart ailment, associates said today. He was 70. Pitoeff, who died in a Paris hospital Saturday, was the last survivor of a theatrical dynasty founded by his Russian-born parents, Georges and Ludmilla Pitoeff. Born in Geneva on March 11, 1920, Pitoeff joined his father's company in 1938. His father died in 1939, and his mother took over the company and kept it functioning in Switzerland during World War II. Pitoeff formed his own company in France in 1949, and become renowned for productions of Chekhov classics such as ``The Sea Gull,'' ``The Cherry Orchard'' and ``Uncle Vanya.'' He also produced on several occasions, most recently in 1977, one the plays favored by his parents, Luigi Pirandello's ``Six Characters in Search of an Author.'' He acted in several films, including ``Last Year At Marienbad.'' Funeral arrangements were pending.
AP900108-0203 	X	The daughter of former Campbell Soup Co. Chairman John T. Dorrance Jr. has reaffirmed her vow to fight any attempt by rival family shareholder groups to sell the food industry giant. In a statement released Sunday by their New York law firm, Mary Alice Malone and her husband, Stuart, owners of about 10 percent of the company's outstanding stock, confirmed their ``commitment to the continued independence of Campbell Soup Company.'' ``We have always considered our investment in Campbell to be long-term,'' said the statement attributed to Ms. Malone. Signs of a possible rift in the Dorrance family, which has controlled the Camden, N.J.-based company for nearly a century, has fueled speculation that major stockholders are split on the issue of whether to sell the company. Ms. Malone, a company director, and her two brothers, John T. Dorrance III and Bennett Dorrance, together hold about 31 percent of the company's outstanding shares. In recent weeks, a group comprised of Dorrance cousins has announced its intention in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to press for a sale of the company. Last week, Campbell filled its long-vacant top spot by hiring David W. Johnson, former head of Gerber Products Co., as its new chief executive officer. ``We are extremely excited about David W. Johnson's immense managerial talents and his contagious enthusiasm,'' Ms. Malone's statement continued. ``In particular, we are inspired by his proven track record of dealing successfully with the myriad of complex intangibles that arise in very large family-held companies.''
AP881005-0240 	X	Moderator: Jon Margolis, question for Sen. Quayle. Q: Sen. Quayle, in recent years the Reagan administration has scaled back the activities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, prompted in part by Vice President Bush's task force on regulatory relief. The budget for the agency has been cut by 20 percent, and the number of inspections at manufacturing plants have been reduced by 33 percent. This has had a special effect in this area where many people work in the meat-packing industry, which has a far higher rate of serious injuries than almost any other injury, a rate which appears to have been rising, although we're not really sure because some of the largest companies have allegedly been falsifying their reports. Would you acknowledge to the hundreds of injured and maimed people in Nebraska, Iowa, and elsewhere in the Midwest that, in this case, deregulation may have gone too far and the government should reassert itself in protecting workers' rights? Quayle: The premise of your question, Jon, is that somehow this administration has been lax in enforcement of the OSHA regulations, and I disagree with that, and I'll tell you why. If you want to ask some business people that I've talked to periodically, they complain about the tough enforcement of this administration. And furthermore, let me tell you this for the record, when we have found violations in this administration there has not only been tough enforcement, but there have been the most severe penalties _ the largest penalties in the history of the Department of Labor _ have been levied when these violations have been found. There is a commitment, and there will always be a commitment, to the safety of our working men and women. They deserve it, and we're committed to them. Now, the broader question goes to the whole issue of deregulation, and has deregulation worked or has deregulation not worked? In my judgment, deregulation has worked. We have a deregulated economy and we have produced through low taxes, not high taxes, through deregulation, the spirit of entrepreneurship, the individual going out and starting a business, the businessman or woman willing to go out and risk their investment and start up a business and hire people _ we have produced 17 million jobs in this country since 1982. Deregulation as a form of political philosophy is a good philosophy. It's one that our opponents disagree with. They want a centralized government. But we believe in the market; we believe in the people. And yes, there's a role of government and the role of government is to make sure that those safety and health and welfare of the people is taken care of. And we'll continue to do that. Moderator: Sen. Bentsen? Bentsen: I think you see once again a piece of Democratic legislation that's been passed to try to protect the working men and women of America. And then you've seen an administration that came in and really didn't have its heart in that kind of an enforcement. A good example of that is the environmental protection laws that we were talking about a moment ago. This administration came in and put in a James Watt and Anne Gorsuch. Now that's the Bonnie and Clyde, really, of environmental protection. And that's why it's important that you have people that truly believe, and trying to represent the working men and women of America. Most employers do a good job of that, but some of them put their profits before people. And that's why you have to have OSHA, and that's why you have to have tough and good and fair enforcement of it. And that's what a Democratic administration would do to help make this working place a safer and a better place to be employed. Moderator: Jon Margolis, another question for Senator Bentsen. Q: Sen. Bentsen, since you have been in the Senate, the government has spent increasing amounts of money in an effort to protect the family farmer. But most of the subsidies seem to go, do go, to the largest and richest farmers, who presumably need it least, while it's the smaller farmers who are often forced to sell out, sometimes to their large farmer neighbor who's gotten more subsidies to begin with. Despite the fact that I believe you, sir, are rather a large farmer yourself, do you believe it's time to uncouple the subsidy formula from the amount of land a farmer has and target federal money to the small- and medium-size farmer? Bentsen: Well, I've supported that. I voted for the 50,000 limitation to get away from the million dollar contributions to farmers. You know, of the four that are on this ticket, I'm the only one that was born and reared on a farm, and still involved in farming. So I think I understand their concerns and their problems. Now, I feel very strongly that we ought to be doing more for the American farmer, and what we've seen under this administration is neglect of that farmer. We've seen them drive 220,000 farmers off the farm. They seem to think the answer is, ``Move 'em to town.'' But we ought not to be doing that. What you have seen them do is cut farm assistance for the rural areas by over 50 percent. We're seeing rural hospitals close all over the country because of this kind of an administration. We've seen an administration that has lost much of our market abroad because they have not had a trade policy. We saw our market lost by some 40 percent. And that's one of the reasons that we've seen the cost of the farm program, which was only about $2.5 billion when they took office, now go to about $25 billion. Now we can bring that kind of a cost down and get more to market prices if we'll have a good trade policy. I was, in January, visiting with Mr. Takeshita, the new prime minister of Japan. I said, ``You're paying five times as much for beef as we pay for in our country -- pay for it in our country -- six times as much for rice. You have a $60 billion trade surplus with us. You could improve the standard of living of your people. You're spending 27 percent of your disposable income on food. We spend 14 or 15 percent. When you have that kind of a barrier up against us, that's not free and fair trade, and we don't believe that should continue. We would be pushing very hard to open up those markets, and stand up for the American farmer. And see that we recapture those foreign markets, and I think we can do it with a Dukakis-Bentsen administration. Moderator: Sen. Quayle. Quayle: Sen. Bentsen talks about recapturing the foreign markets. Well, I'll tell you one way that we're not going to recapture the foreign markets, and that is if, in fact, we have another Jimmy Carter grain embargo. Jimmy --Jimmy Carter grain embargo -- Jimmy Carter grain embargo set the American farmer back. You know what the farmer is interested in? Net farm income. Every 1 percent of increase in interest rates -- a billion dollars out of the farmer's pocket. Net farm income -- increase inflation another billion dollars. Another thing that a farmer's not interested in and that's supply management the Democratic platform talks about. But, the governor of Massachusetts, he had the farm program. He went to the farmers in the Midwest, and told them not to grow corn, not to grow soy beans, but to grow Belgium endive. That's what his -- that's what he and his Harvard buddies think of the American farmer. Grow Belgium endive. To come in and to tell our farmers not to grow corn, not to grow soy beans, that's the kind of farm policy you'll get under a Dukakis administration, and one I think the American farmer rightfully will reject.
AP881028-0106 	X	Republican George Bush said today Americans should think about the words peace and prosperity as they vote for president Nov. 8 and ask themselves whether ``dark clouds of pessimism'' would be cast if Democrat Michael Dukakis wins the White House. ``Now that we have peace and prosperity, we can't afford to put them at risk,'' Bush told a group of business leaders. Comfortably ahead of Dukakis in the polls nationwide, Bush is locked in a pitched battle in California for the big prize of 47 electoral votes. He told the businessmen that the Reagan-Bush administration has dramatically cut interest rates and inflation and he recited a long list of economic statistics to show that Americans are better off now than they were eight years ago. In his remarks, Bush seemed to shelve his promise of a night earlier that ``we're not going to be talking on the negative side'' in the closing days of the race. The vice president said Dukakis ``wants to torpedo the prosperity we've worked so hard to achieve.'' Bush said that when American go into the voting booth he hoped they remember the words peace and prosperity: ``peace means you can sleep at night knowing the world will still be there in the morning; prosperity means you can sleep at night knowing that opportunity will still be there in the morning. ``You know about our mornings,'' Bush said. ``But I ask you to consider: What kind of morning would electing the liberal governor of Massachusetts bring? Will it be gloomy? ``Will the dark clouds of pessimism and limited possibility obscure our vision?'' Bush asked. ``Will we be able to hope for a brighter day?'' Saying that the nation cannot afford to put peace and prosperity at risk, Bush added, ``The stakes for the cause of freedom around the world are too high.'' Addressing a crowd of celebrities Thursday night at the home of entertainer Bob Hope, Bush said, ``I'm sorry Clint Eastwood isn't here. Remember how he'd say, `Make my day.' Now my opponent says, `Have a nice vacation' as the prisoners come out of the jail.'' The audience laughed and applauded. Some of the best-known stars of an earlier generation were on hand, including Gene Autry, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Danny Thomas, Esther Williams and others, along with younger celebrities such as Jaclyn Smith. Bush was campaigning today in Los Angeles and Sacramento and then stopping im Omaha, Neb., for a rally before a flight to Chicago. On Saturday, Bush will take a bus tour around the outskirts of Chicago. Bush is being attacked by Dukakis, as well as by other critics, for running a negative campaign _ a charge that now is being leveled at Dukakis. ``We're coming down to the wire, Tuesday, 12 days from today,'' the vice president said Thursday night. ``Things have come along well. We are not letting up. ``We're not going to be talking on the negative side anymore,'' he added, immediately launching into his criticism of Dukakis and the furlough program for Massachusetts prison inmates. Bush concluded by saying, ``Now it's going to be a kinder and quieter finish to this campaign.'' Earlier in the day, Bush also voiced some reservations about the way the campaign had been waged. In a white, circus-sized tent at Applied Materials Co., in California's Silicon Valley, Bush said that ``some of the modern campaigning with TV and spinning and sound bites might have gotten out of hand.'' Spinning is the term applied to efforts by campaign lieutenants to shape the perception of their candidate's performance. Sound bites are the 15 to 30-second snatches of a speech that wind up in a television or radio broadcast. Bush, in his Santa Clara speech, accused Dukakis of ``trying to scare the American people by putting Japanese flags'' in his television commercials, and said the right way to gain world markets for U.S. exports is by opening them, not shrinking from competition. He said Dukakis should explain ``why his thinly veiled comments about foreign investment only mention Japan,'' which he said ranks only third as a source of foreign investment in the United States. Footage of the Japanese flag appears in a Dukakis ad challenging Bush's record as head of a commission that examined U.S.-Japanese trade relations. The ad is running in Ohio. Bush said he would promote U.S. trade, but not with protectionist measures. ``It doesn't make sense to stick our heads in the sand, as some in the other party have suggested, and try to build walls around America,'' the vice president said. ``It doesn't make sense to launch a trade war and plunge America and the world into a recession. ``And it is beneath the dignity of the presidency, and of the voters, to try to incite fear of foreigners as a cheap means of winning a few votes,'' Bush said. Later, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Bush toured a Holocaust museum with his wife, Barbara, and then told a courtyard audience, ``We have no room in our communities for hidden Nazi fugitives or war criminals. Every last one of them must be found and brought to justice.''
AP880801-0074 	X	The Republican war for Virginia's gubernatorial nomination has heated up with U.S. Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr.'s announcement of his candidacy, with opponents attacking his fund-raising, reasons and timing. U.S. Rep. Stan Parris, an announced candidate for the nomination, charged Saturday that Trible's fund-raising for next year's election is taking money away from this year's GOP candidates for the U.S. House, Senate and presidency. ``There is only a finite amount of money you can look for in any one year,'' Parris said Saturday after Trible supporters announced they already had raised $527,400 in cash and pledges for his campaign. Parris said he would not raise money for his campaign until after the November elections. Former state Attorney General Marshall Coleman is an all-but-declared candidate. Democrats are expected to nominate Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the state's highest elected black official. Trible, who announced his candidacy Saturday, had announced last year that he would not seek a second term in the Senate because it took him away from his family too much, and because he was frustrated with the slow pace of the Senate. Coleman said Trible should not look upon the governor's job simply as better working conditions. ``My interest in the governorship is not in better working conditions. What is needed is to change the course of the state. What the Republicans in Virginia are going to want to know is what a candidate for governor is going to do to make the state better. I don't look at the governorship as a seat to warm,'' Coleman said. Parris and Coleman have charged that Trible is giving up his Senate seat to avoid a tough campaign against former Gov. Charles S. Robb, the Democratic nominee for the Senate. The GOP nominee, Maurice Dawkins, is given little chance of beating Robb. Mark Rozell, a political scientist from Mary Washington College, said Trible faces problems with the party's conservative wing, which is unhappy with his performance on the Senate committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair. They charge that Trible, who criticized the administration's handling of the matter, unfairly attacked President Reagan.
AP881222-0045 	X	A gene found to be key to schizophrenia medication will trigger ``an avalanche of research'' that could improve treatment for psychosis, Parkinson's disease and other brain ailments, a scientist says. Scientists worldwide ``have really been poised to take advantage of this development,'' which could provide insights into the body's potential role in mental illness, said Kenneth L. Davis, chairman of the psychiatry department at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. The results could include improved treatments for diseases that include psychosis, which is a loss of touch with reality seen in schizophrenia and sometimes in depression, manic-depression and other disorders, he said. It also could lead to better treatment of Parkinson's disease, which is often characterized by tremors and rigidity, Huntington's disease, which hinders movement and intellectual abilities, and Tourette syndrome, which includes jerky movements and vocal mannerisms, Davis and other researchers said. Davis was responding to a report in today's issue of the British journal Nature. In the article, researchers said they had isolated the gene that acts as a blueprint for a protein called the D-2 dopamine receptor, which is made by brain cells. The receptor, which sits on the surface of the cells, is where anti-psychosis drugs exert their effects on the brain. Normally, the receptor's role is to respond when adjacent brain cells secrete a substance called dopamine, allowing brain cells to communicate. The defining of one receptor in the past has led to discovery of a related family of them, Davis said. If a family of dopamine receptors is found, scientists may be able to design drugs that affect only the receptors linked to disease and avoid side effects of current medications, he said. Side effects of current anti-psychosis medications, for example, include tardive dyskinesia, a syndrome of involuntary movements of the mouth, tongue, limbs or trunk. In the study, researchers said they identified the receptor gene in rats, defined its chemical makeup and made functioning copies of it. Since then, they also have isolated and partially defined the human receptor gene, Olivier Civelli said in a telephone interview. The researcher reports the work in Nature with James Bunzow and others at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, and with researchers at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Portland and the Oregon Regional Primate Center in Beaverton. Other scientists called the discovery an important boost for research into the dopamine receptor. Davis predicted ``an avalanche of research'' by investigators. ``We've all been waiting for it,'' he said. ``This is an important and essentially fundamental step'' in helping scientists understand how anti-psychotic drugs work, ``and thereby indirectly understand what may be the biological mechanism underlying psychotic disorders.'' Scientists also may be able to learn about the mechanisms that turn the receptor gene on and off, which may shed light on schizophrenia, he said. In addition, focusing on the receptor gene may help scientists study the inheritance of a tendency toward schizophrenia and perhaps other diseases, said Arnold Friedhoff, psychiatry professor at the New York University Medical Center. That in turn could lead to better matching of patients to proper medications, he said. He said other follow-up studies could help scientists understand the overall dopamine communication network among brain cells, which is ``undoubtedly going to provide extremely important new insights into its role ... in regulating mental processes.'' Since it is the target of drugs that ease psychosis caused by a wide range of conditions, it ``must have a regulatory role in keeping things on track,'' he said. ``The more we understand about its function, the more likely it is we'll be able to not only treat mental illness, but in the long run prevent it,'' Friedhoff said.
AP880816-0002 	X	The big summer heat wave rolled on Tuesday with temperatures boiling past 100 to record highs from the eastern Plains to the Ohio Valley, but the steamy Northeast finally got a break with a surge of cooler, drier air from Canada. Utilities posted more records for demand for electricity as air conditioners and fans were turned on full blast. Some school districts in Illinois plan to open schools early and reduce class periods by almost half when school opens next week to avoid the hottest part of the day. ``By noon during summer school, it was very uncomfortable. If it was 90 outside, it was 95 to 100 in the classrooms. That's not a good atmosphere for learning,'' said associate principal Don Tokarski of Rantoul Township (Ill.) High School. ``I think this will be the hottest weather of the summer, taking both temperature and humidity into account,'' said Norm Reitmeyer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Louisville, Ky. ``We've had an oppressively hot and humid summer without a doubt,'' Reitmeyer said. ``But particular days such as this or tomorrow are rare.'' The temperature at Paducah, Ky., reached 102 degrees and Reitmeyer said that and the humidity would push the heat index, a measure of how hot it feels, the opposite of winter's wind chill factor, to 115. He said that is near life-threatening for some people. Kentucky has had a total of 48 days of above-90 degrees this summer. Milwaukee reached a record high of 100 degrees, and that made it a record five times the city has hit 100 or higher this year. The old record was four times in 1936. Some other records included 90 at Duluth, Minn.; 104 at Fargo, N.D.; 103 at Fort Dodge, Iowa; 103 at Huron, S.D.; 102 at Indianapolis; 102 at Madison, Wis.; 101 at Peoria, Ill., and Sioux Falls, S.D.; and 102 at Springfield, Ill., the National Weather Service said. The 103 degrees at Rockford, Ill., was the hottest reading since July 27, 1955. La Crosse, Wis., marked the 44th day that the temperature achieved the 90 degree mark, another record. The 102-degree heat wilted about 10,000 competitors wearing heavy uniforms and carrying musical instruments at the Drum Corps International World Championships on the artificial turf at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. ``You can feel it right through your tennis shoes,'' said Donald MacDougall, a member of the Edmonton Strutters of Canada. ``One of our melophone players almost passed out.'' The 136th Indiana State Fair opened Tuesday with livestock exhibitors taking extra precautions, like putting ice in front of large fans to keep animals cool. Four chickens that were to be entered died when their owners left them in cars with the windows rolled up, fair officials said. The official high in the 48 contiguous states at 3 p.m. EDT was 105 degrees, not in Texas, Arizona or southern California but at Chamberlin, S.D. But nature's own air-conditioning _ in the form of a cool front from Canada _ settled over the Northeast. Unfortunately, forecasts said the heat would soon return. After 32 days of 90-degree temperatures and swamp-like humidity, including a high of 97 Monday, New York City had a high Tuesday of merely 86 degrees. And the humidity was only around 39 to 42 percent, making it feel almost like early autumn compared to preceding weeks. ``The downturn in temperatures is certainly going to help not only Con Ed but all New York utilities,'' said Bill Murphy, spokesman for the utility that supplies New York City's power. Con Edison had a record demand Monday of 10,160 megawatts of electricity. The failure of several feeder cables on Staten Island knocked out service to more than 13,000 customers. And earlier Monday, the utility cut off power to 16 large apartment buildings on Manhattan's Upper East Side to prevent a wider blackout after several feeder cables failed, blacking out some 10,000 residents. The cooler air also brought relief for utilities in Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia Electric Co. was forced to impose a 5 percent voltage reduction Monday. But the clash of the hot and cool air also touched off thunderstorms, which knocked out power to thousands of customers across the state Monday. Farther south, utilities across Kentucky reported record electrical demand Monday and expected to exceed those amounts Tuesday, but no problems were reported. ``We've been going wild this summer,'' said Dick Lovegrove, a spokesman for Ashland-based Kentucky Power, which had records for power use almost every day during the past week. Louisville Gas & Electric has set all-time peaks 13 times this summer, said spokesman Calvin Anderson. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the big federal utility, hit another record peak summer demand Tuesday of 21,304 megawatts. A record Monday of 20,618 megawatts forced the utility to buy about 2,500 megawatts from neighboring utilities, said Robert C. Steffy Jr., senior vice president of power for TVA. TVA's all-time power peak was in the winter of 1983 at 22,478 megawatts.
AP900512-0087 	X	Pope John Paul II, sure of his direction, strong in his faith, has thrust the church into moral and political controversy in countries as diverse as the United States and Nicaragua. He could do no different on his eight-day tour of Mexico, Roman Catholicism's largest Spanish-speaking nation. For starters, the visit outlined in flashing neon one of Mexico's most delicious contradictions _ a country 90 percent Catholic, a constitution that forbids the church to own property, educate children or peep about politics. The pope violated the constitution just by appearing in public in clerical garb, not to mention saying Mass for 500,000 people dressed in a golden chasuble on national television. The church was quick to say the vast crowds served as a virtual plebiscite on the binding element, the notorious article 130. ``Only Albania has a constitution like that,'' said Javier Navarro, in charge of the Vatican office for Latin America and Spain. But the dance between church and state in Mexico is more complicated than the lambada. The church bet on conservatives in the Mexican Revolution of 1910; when liberals won, they took revenge on their reactionary foe. Although its public role was circumscribed, the church retained much of its strength. The motto of the papal visit is: ``Mexico _ Always Faithful.'' Breaches of the constitution have been winked at for decades. Politicians send their children to Catholic-run schools, even universities, because they are better than public schools. ``The pope's visit proves that the problem with article 130 of the constitution is not how to change it, but how impossible it is to enforce,'' columnist Gaston Garcia Cantu wrote in Excelsior, an influential newspaper. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has been winking hard. He took office on Dec. 1, 1988, with the weakest mandate an Institutional Revolutionary Party president ever had. His party was accused of fraud. There was violence in the streets on Inauguration Day. But Salinas surprised his opponents by locating a new constituency. He invited Roman Catholic prelates to his inauguration and hinted that the relationship between church and state should be brought in line with reality. He sent a personal envoy to the Vatican, establishing diplomatic relations of a kind for the first time since 1926. Salinas greeted John Paul when he arrived and had the pope to morning coffee. The president's office provided security and press arrangements for the visit, including an extra plane. The church, sniffing the carrot of increased recognition, has been grateful. ``I pray every day for President Salinas,'' said Monsignor Genaro Alamilla, spokesman for the Mexican church. Salinas' opponents know it doesn't pay to attack the pope, and the government has ruled out real constitutional change. So they pick around the edges: the pope is talking politics, they say. The government of a poor nation is spending too much on showtime for the pope. ``We welcome this distinguished visitor, the spiritual guide to millions of Mexicans,'' said Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, runner-up to Salinas in 1988. ``But the government made it into politics.'' But if the pope allowed himself to be used politically, he got plenty back. Again and again he addressed controversial issues, always pleading the church's cause. He demanded the freedom to provide education to the faithful _ a role that would expand greatly if it were free of restrictions. He attacked contraception in a country with a rising population of 85 million that suffers all the Third World problems of poverty and malnutrition and where family planning is government policy. He attacked materialism and greed before Mexico's richest businessmen, but in Monterrey found himself giving a homily flanked by enormous Carta Blanca beer signs. He linked capitalist culture with contraception and abortion, saying material lust makes people want to limit their families. He visited the Indian communities of southeastern Mexico in an effort to fend off Protestant evangelicals who are learning the native languages and converting the poor, the homeless and those who lost their native culture to encroaching ``progress.'' ``I think his visit could help revitalize the faith here,'' said Benjamin Cruz, a 51-year-old psychiatrist among a throng of 200,000 at Villahermosa. ``Catholics here are disoriented. It's sad to see.'' It was almost forgotten amid the political wavelets, but to most in the crowd, the pope's role was to focus shared faith. Hundreds of thousands gathered to sing, to listen, to catch a glimpse. When he leaped off an isolated podium and charged through a fence to mix with murderers and drug traffickers in a prison yard, a prison chorus broke into Beethoven's ``Ode to Joy.'' Municipal officials engaged in a game of one-upmanship over who gave the best reception. Some Mexico City authorities claimed a questionable 8 million to 10 million people lined the nine-mile parade to the Basilica of Guadalupe; there were more like 250,000. In Aguascalientes, the city fathers were told the pope would stop at the airport but wouldn't come into town. So they built giant replicas of their finest buildings on the tarmac. They claimed a crowd of 700,000; more mathematical minds calculated 50,000, tops. But whatever the crowd, the pope gave something back. In a thousand ways, John Paul provided an experience people will recount for years. In Tuxtla Gutierrez, he sparkled with jokes about his trouble pronouncing Indian languages. In Durango, squads of bicyclists chased a waving, bemused figure in the popemobile for miles. In Mexico City, 1,500 people outside his bedroom fell suddenly silent when he told them he loved their singing but wanted to sleep. ``For us it is the ultimate to come here,'' said Aurora Hinojosa Casillas, who rode 225 miles by bus from Ciudad Juarez to Chihuahua. ``Since I was born, I've been a Catholic and it's important. He is closer to God.''
AP880311-0100 	X	The government kicked off the Wedtech racketeering trial today by accusing Rep. Mario Biaggi and his six co-defendants of theft from the defunct Bronx defense contractor. ``This is a case about corruption and greed,'' Howard Wilson, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the 12-person jury in U.S. District Court. ``It is a case about public officials who want to get paid twice.'' Wilson pointed to Biaggi and former Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon at the defense table and said they and the others stole from Wedtech. Some had been promised more money, he said. At the trial's opening, Judge Constance Baker Motley told the jury: ``An indictment is simply a series of charges. ... A defendant on trial is presumed innocent and this presumption of innocence is presumed throughout the trial.'' The case involving the defense contractor includes charges that the seven defendants looted millions of dollars in cash and stocks from the company. The trial is expected to last several months. In addition to Biaggi, 70, and Simon, 57, the defendants are: Bernard G. Ehrlich, 59, Biaggi's former law partner and a former major general in the New York National Guard; Biaggi's eldest son, Richard, 38; Peter Neglia, 39, the former regional administrator of the Small Business Administration; former Wedtech chairman John Mariotta, 57; and Ronald Betso, 39, a former city police officer and close friend of Neglia's. They are charged with racketeering and conspiracy, which each carry maximum 20-year penalties upon conviction, as well as various other alleged crimes. Biaggi is also accused of extortion, bribe-receiving, wire fraud, perjury and filing false tax returns.
AP880303-0280 	X	A coach from communist Romania's Olympic team met with immigration officers at a secret location Wednesday after appealing for asylum in Canada, an Immigration Department spokesman said. ``He's in a secluded place, a safe place with security,'' spokesman Gerry Maffre said in Ottawa. The coach was not identified, but Olympic sources and Canadian news media said he was Dumitru Focseneanu, the Romanian bobsled coach whose team had 27th and 30th place finishes at the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary last week. ``We're trying to find out what he really wants to do,'' Maffre said. The bobsled coach reportedly refused to board a bus taking the 22-member Romanian team to Calgary airport Monday night and sought refugee status. The federal Immigration Department was handling the case. The Soviet Union filed an angry protest over an immigration hotline set up in Calgary to handle emergencies and possible defection cases. The Romanian was the only known defector among more than 1,800 Olympic athletes and 1,000 coaches and officials from 57 countries. But three Romanian speed skaters and their coach left Calgary abruptly the day before the Games began amid speculation the athletes planned to defect. City Police Superintendent Len Esler said the defector approached two police officers at the athletes' village at the University of Calgary about 9:30 p.m. Monday and ``requested political asylum.'' Esler said the man was taken to a police station where immigration officers picked him up. He refused to give the man's name ``for his safety and the safety of his family.'' Focseneanu was in Calgary last December during a bobsled World Cup competition. The Romanian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment. Wilf Lindner, manager of the Calgary immigration center, said the man would be allowed to stay only after a medical examination, a security check into his background and an Immigration Department hearing. ``All decisions are made on a case-to-case basis,'' he said.
AP901028-0039 	X	BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) Hundreds of mice, rats and hamsters used for research were released from their cages at the state University of New York at Buffalo Medical School, but no animal rights group claimed responsibility. The animals were found scampering around five rooms Saturday morning by a technician arriving for work, said school spokeswoman Linda Grace-Kobas. ``They opened the cages, and the mice and the rats (and hamsters) got out of the cages, but they did not escape from the rooms,'' she said. There were no signs of a break-in or indication why the animals were released. ``Usually animal rights people leave a message,'' she said. ``There were no notes. No `Save the Animals.' This was strange. It seemed random. It seemed pointless.'' University officials were trying to determine what effect the animals' release will have on research projects in which they were used, she said. ``By letting them out, it disrupts the experiments,'' she said, adding that some of the experiments are based on the animals being in a closed enviroment. Also, since not all the animals were tagged, researchers may not be able to determine which animals belonged to what experiments.
AP880418-0040 	X	U.S. officials remain skeptical of Soviet explanations for a mysterious anthrax outbreak in 1979 despite a recent public relations blitz by the Soviet government. The Carter administration demanded a full accounting from the Soviets in 1980, saying it had ``disturbing indications'' that the epidemic was caused by ``some sort of lethal biological agent.'' But according to a lecture and slide show presented by Soviet health officials over the last week in Washington, Baltimore and Cambridge, Mass., the outbreak stemmed from a batch of contaminated bone meal fed to livestock, whose meat, in turn, caused the deaths of 66 people in Sverdlovsk, a city of 1.2 million in the Ural Mountains. The long-awaited Soviet explanation ``leaves many questions unanswered,'' said Gary B. Crocker, a State Department analyst specializing in questions relating to Soviet military use of biological and chemical weapons. ``It does not fit with the evidence and facts we have collected on the issue,'' he said. In 1986, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency released a report alleging that the anthrax came from the Microbiology and Virology Institute, a top-secret military research facility in Sverdlovsk. The Pentagon report said ``a pressurized system probably exploded'' at the institute, spewing as much as 22 pounds of anthrax spores into the air, and that ``hundreds'' of Soviet citizens died. Anthrax, an infectious disease which occurs naturally, is considered a deadly candidate for use in biological weapons. A 1975 treaty signed by both superpowers bars possession of biological weapons and significant quantities of biological agents, but allows research ostensibly aimed at biowarfare defenses. James Oberg, author of the recent book ``Uncovering Soviet Disasters,'' said he believes the Soviet health officials ``are telling the truth'' in blaming the outbreak on a batch of contaminated meat rather than germ-warfare experiments. ``But they are not telling the whole truth,'' said Oberg. ``They should have said this eight or nine years ago,'' said Oberg, who urged the Soviets to open the Sverdlovsk research facility to Western observers. ``The damage has been done,'' he said. ``It will take a lot more of this kind of disclosure to undo the damage that Soviet paranoid secrecy has inflicted on international relations.'' The Soviets had long denied the U.S. allegations, but had offered little evidence to refute them. The more detailed rebuttal last week came from Dr. Pyotr N. Burgasov, former deputy Soviet health minister, Dr. Vladimir N. Nikiforov, chief infectious disease specialist at the Moscow Institute for the Advanced Training of Physicians, and Dr. Vladimir P. Sergiyev, of the Soviet health ministry. The heart of their argument, bolstered by gory autopsy slides, was that the victims suffered severe damage to their intestines, indicating they ate rather than inhaled the anthrax. The DIA report had said ``hundreds of Soviet citizens died from inhalation of anthrax,'' and that others suffered after eating the meat of animals who had inhaled the deadly spores. The Soviet officials declined to answer questions about the work performed at the Sverdlovsk research lab. But, in circumstantial refutation of the U.S. allegations, they said no one at the lab became ill during the outbreak.
AP900630-0012 	X	Marion Barry's lawyer is portraying Rasheeda Moore as a vengeful ex-lover who trapped the mayor in an FBI sting operation because he had abandoned her for another woman. Moore, a former model, denied the suggestion Friday at the mayor's cocaine and perjury trial, insisting, ``I was not out to get Mr. Barry.'' But she acknowledged that she had repeatedly steered the conversation around to drugs during the secretly videotaped encounter with Barry in a Washington hotel room last Jan. 18. She conceded that Barry was primarily interested that evening in having sex with her. In her second day of cross-examination by Barry's chief lawyer, R. Kenneth Mundy, Moore also acknowledged that she broke the FBI's instructions and tried to persuade the mayor to use drugs. Midway through the FBI videotape in which Barry ultimately smoked crack cocaine, Moore asked the mayor if he wants to use drugs. ``No, not tonight,'' Barry replied in the tape, which was played in court Thursday. ``You felt you were going beyond your mandate not to persuade, influence, coerce or beguile'' Barry into using drugs, Mundy asked Moore. ``I did,'' she replied. ``Why did you do that?'' the lawyer asked. ``Just in the gist of the evening,'' said Moore, who said she got ``overcarried'' in performing her duties for the FBI. ``In your zeal to get Mr. Barry,'' Mundy said accusingly. ``For all you knew, he had been off drugs since May'' 1989 when Moore moved to California. ``Not in my zeal,'' the witness insisted. ``I was not out to get Mr. Barry.'' ``What was your intent?'' Mundy asked Moore. ``Working this operation'' with the FBI, she replied. The defense lawyer suggested that Moore had been badly treated by the mayor and motivated by revenge. ``Were you mad at Mr. Barry because he didn't return your calls'' throughout an eight-month span in 1989, Mundy asked. ``No, I wasn't,'' Moore replied. She also denied that she was angry because the married mayor was involved with another woman, Maria McCarthy, or because he had slapped her when they broke up their romantic relationship. Had Moore been scorned? a reporter asked Mundy after the day's court session. ``A woman scorned,'' Mundy agreed immediately. ``Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'' McCarthy was jailed for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury looking into the mayor's alleged drug use. She later relented and is now listed as a possible witness at Barry's trial. Barry is charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of cocaine possession charges, one misdemeanor cocaine conspiracy count and three felony counts of lying to a grand jury about drug use. One of the possession charges stems from his arrest in the sting operation. Meanwhile Friday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, presiding in the Barry case, barred black activist clergyman George Augustus Stallings, a Barry supporter, from attending the trial. Stallings, a former Roman Catholic priest, broke with the Vatican by starting his own African-American church. Mundy and the American Civil Liberties Union said they were asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn Jackson's decision regarding Stallings as well as his order Thursday barring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Jackson said Stallings' and Farrakhan's presence in the courtroom would be potentially disruptive. Barry told reporters he could ``not understand why any citizen'' who wanted to use one of the four courtroom passes provided to the defense cannot do so. ``So I think that we are in a totalitarian situation where Bishop Stallings or Minister Farrakhan (cannot attend.),'' Barry said. ``It's like in Nazi Germany.''
AP881018-0232 	X	The stock market has gotten a modest boost from new government reports pointing to an economic slowdown. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 7.29 points Monday to 2,140.47. The Commerce Department reported that goods held on shelves and backlots in August rose 0.8 percent to $733.7 billion, following a 0.7 percent gain in July. It was the 20th consecutive monthly increase. Rising inventories can be a sign of economic sluggishness as manufacturers order production cuts and layoffs while goods in reserve are sold off. In another government report, the Federal Reserve Board said the overall operating rate last month at U.S. factories, mines and utilities fell to 83.6 percent of capacity, down 0.2 percentage point from August. The strain on the nation's industrial capacity eased for the first time in seven months as utilities scaled back after the summer heat wave, the Fed said. The latest government reports also supported bond prices, driving interest rates lower. The yield on the Treasury's closely watched 30-year bond fell to 8.86 percent from 8.90 percent late Friday. In foreign-exchange trading, the dollar rose against most major currencies after reports of intervention by the Bank of Japan lifted it from its lows of the day. The U.S. currency finished in New York at around 127.07 Japanese yen, up from 126.70 yen late Friday. As part of its business inventories report, the Commerce Department said August sales totaled $487.7 billion, up a brisk 1.1 percent from July, when the gain was a slight 0.1 percent. It was the ninth increase in a row. In other economic developments Monday: _A Harvard Business Review report concluded that an entrenched budget deficit and fundamental policy flaws have destabilized the nation's economy, and the next president will have to take major steps to turn it around. _The oil ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said they supported an increase in OPEC's output quotas as a way to try to stabilize prices. Analysts said stock traders took a generally upbeat view of the current state of the economy, believing that growth has slowed of late to a steady, sustainable pace. But inflation worries haven't been entirely snuffed out on Wall Street, and brokers said investors were looking ahead warily to Friday's scheduled report on the consumer price index for September. Furthermore, just about all market-watchers agree, investors are likely to be leery of stocks all week with the anniversary Wednesday of last fall's crash, and all the attendant publicity.
AP881012-0073 	X	The 10th tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season gradually strengthened as it followed a course that could threaten the Lesser Antilles in two or three days. At 6 a.m. EDT today, Tropical Storm Joan was centered near 12.2 north latitude and 50.8 west longitude, or about 575 miles east of Barbados, moving west-northwest at 15 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The system has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph with some stronger gusts, according to the center. Little change in strength was expected today, and Joan was expected to maintain the same speed and direction for the next 24 hours, the center said. Joan, first spotted by satellite late last week in the mid-Atlantic, was upgraded from a depression to a tropical storm Tuesday. Tropical storms are named when sustained winds reach 39 mph and hurricanes when winds hit 74 mph. Four hurricanes have formed this season, including Hurricane Gilbert, which killed more than 300 people and caused billions of dollars damage as it ravaged Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Mexico. The hurricane season runs from June to November.
AP900418-0246 	X	The stock market posted a broad loss today, registering little enthusiasm over the latest news on the nation's international trade balance. The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit in February shrank to its narrowest reading in more than six years. Imports exceeded exports by $6.49 billion, down from $9.32 billion in January. Analysts said that held out the prospect of stronger-than-expected growth in economic output, and improved profits at many companies with a substantial international business. At the same time, however, the figures touched off fresh worries about the outlook for interest rates. In the credit markets prices of long-term government bonds fell more than $10 for each $1,000 in face value, increasing their yields to the 8.84 percent-8.90 percent range.
AP880906-0106 	X	Testimony about a near-drowning last year involving a Navy swimming instructor will be allowed in the instructor's court-martial for his role in the death of a recruit in March, a judge ruled Tuesday. Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Combe, 28, of Tempe, Ariz., is charged with involuntary manslaughter, battery and conspiracy to commit battery in the March 2 drowing of Airman Recruit Lee Mirecki, 19, of Appleton, Wis. Combe is accused of holding Mirecki's head under water after Pensacola Naval Air Station instructors forced the panic-stricken recruit back into a swimming pool when he climbed out and shouted he wanted to quit the voluntary training. Opening arguments in the court-martial were scheduled to begin later Tuesday. In pre-trial motions, the military judge, Cmdr. Newell D. Krogmann, rejected a defense motion to bar testimony and prohibit the introduction of an accident report about the Sept. 30 near-drowning of Christopher Coccitti, a Navy reservist from Jacksonville. Coccitti testified last week in the court-martial of the former officer in charge of the swimming school that he blacked out under water while Combe had him in a head hold. Coccitti had been participating in the ``sharks and daisies'' drill, the same exercise being conducted when Mirecki died. An attorney for Combe, Robert Heath Jr., argued that Coccitti's testimony was irrelevant because the earlier emergency was unrelated to Mirecki's death. The lead prosecutor, Lt. Cmdr. Larry Wynne, contended the information is pertinent because it showed Combe had a ``cavalier attitude'' toward students who passed out in the swimming pool. It was an occurrence known as ``smurfing'' because the skin of victims would turn blue like that of ``Smurf'' cartoon characters, former students have said. Mirecki, who had a phobia about being dragged under water, drowned after suffering a fear-induced heart attack, a pathologist testified last week in the court-martial of Lt. Thomas A. Torchia, former officer in charge of the Navy Rescue Swimmer School. Torchia, 32, of Princeton, Ill., was acquitted Thursday on both of two dereliction-of-duty charges. He is not scheduled to testify in Combe's court-martial, but four other instructors who received non-judicial punishment are listed as defense witnesses. The prosecution granted them immunity after defense lawyers said their testimony was vital to Combe's case.
AP900219-0100 	X	Question: How many Board of Education bureaucrats does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Fill this out in triplicate and check back in a month. That's the level of absurdity facing new schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez as he delves into bureaucracy and red tape at the New York education headquarters. According to the Daily News, hundreds of teachers received a memo last year titled, ``Proper Handwashing.'' In seven easy steps, the teachers were reminded that ``running water is necessary to carry away dirt and debris,'' advised to use ``a circular motion and friction, for 15 to 30 seconds,'' and told to ``discard paper towels in receptacle.'' Fernandez, faced with a system of 950,000 students, 1,000 buildings and a backlog of 33,000 repair requests, asked departments what their urgent needs were. The director of the Office of Professional Development and Leadership Training said her top priority was a ``Concretizing Mission.'' A what? ``Capacity building of personnel resources,'' the director wrote, ``and personal abilities of central board of education, districts and school (sic) to facilitate generating vehicles to assist schools in nurturing student achievement ...'' Oh. The official, who was not identified in the News story, showed off her abilities as an empire builder when she proposed the creation of a Coalition of Professional Developers to provide help to the schools. The coalition, she said, would be assisted by District Support Teams. Eventually, the school board could create an Academy of Learning, Teaching, Supervising and Management that would consist of four institutes, including an Institute for Intellectual and Creative Development. The bottom line: a modest $2 million would pay for the entire lot _ the CPD, the DSTs, the ALTSM and the IICD, as they might eventually be known. Another priceless piece of paperwork came from Public School 140 in the Bronx, whose principal decided to ease congestion in the school office. Her solution: ``Request Form for Permission to Come Behind the Counter in the Main Office.'' That form was discontinued last year after being ridiculed by the teachers union.
AP880827-0040 	X	Carlos Batalla Cordero believes in ticket scalping _ believes in it so strongly that he's founded a union and gone on a hunger strike to promote honest, legal scalping. Batalla Cordero has been keeping a vigil at the doors of the Metropolitan Cathedral here since Tuesday without eating. He has asked for a meeting with President Miguel de la Madrid to press his case for legalization. Ticket scalping is illegal, but it is much more common here than in the United States. At almost any popular movie, scalpers called ``resellers'' buy tickets and sell them for a premium to latecomers or to those who don't want to stand in line at the box office. Batalla Cordero, looking thin and unshaven during a Friday interview, said he thought legalization might reduce some abuses. ``There are three people in Mexico City who have about 70 people working for them who resell tickets for as much as 1,000 percent more than they paid,'' said Batalla Cordero. He said they will sometimes try to buy up all the tickets to an event to push up the resale price. ``They mistreat and cheat their customers,'' said Batalla Cordero. He said he believes scalpers should be limited to a 20 percent premium on the face value of the ticket. Nowadays, a ticket to a popular play can cost $19 and be resold for as much as $86. Batalla has founded a union that claims about 80 members. The union, called the Authentic Union of Independent Ticket Resellers in the Service of the Public for Theater, Cinema and Spectacles, has an office in Mexico City. ``The authorities have told me they won't answer my request for an interview with the president until Monday,'' said Batalla Cordero. Scalping was legalized in Mexico in 1952 but was outlawed again in 1961. Telephone calls to the press offices at the National Palace on Friday afternoon were not answered. Police at the cathedral said they had not seen Batalla Cordero eat anything, although he has been taking liquids.
AP880512-0032 	X	A South Carolina legislator had a suggestion to end discussion on bills designating ``official'' state animals, vegetables and minerals: Designate an official everything. ``We ought ... to have everyone fill out the darn list with everything they can think of and we would never have this come before us again,'' said Rep. Woody Aydlette. ``We could have a state cat, a state snake, even a state disease. After that, we would be finished with it. Why do them one at a time? Just go ahead and get them on a list and let's go.'' The reaction of fellow House members to Aydlette's proposal was less than enthusiastic. They ignored it. The Republican lawmaker was trying to block a bill to make the loggerhead sea turtle the state reptile, but the measure raced through the House anyway Wednesday. The Senate recently approved the bill, along with a measure to make the praying mantis South Carolina's state insect. The state already has a state fish, deer, bird, wild game bird and dog, not the mention a state flower, tree, flag, stone, shell, fruit, beverage, stone, two state songs and a dance. Aydlette says its a waste of time and money to pass legislation adding state symbols. But, he said, ``it's beginning to take up too much time to even fight the thing now.''
AP900522-0144 	X	Parliament's Finance Committee said Tuesday it approved spending $20.5 million to improve Jewish settlements in the occupied territories at the request of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The decision came Monday after a plea from Shamir, who asked the committee in a letter to allocate the funds to the Housing Ministry. A copy of Shamir's letter was obtained by The Associated Press. Shamir asked that the money be used to develop settlements and roads beyond the Green Line, which divides Israel from the territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East War. A Shamir spokesman insisted the money would be used only to improve existing settlements, not build new ones. Two new settlements established by Shamir's caretaker government have sparked protests from the United States, which says settlements in the occupied areas are an obstacle to peacemaking. Shulamit Aloni, a Finance Committee member and left-wing legislator, condemned the decision to allocate the money. ``This decision was passed by a completely insane system at a time of political unrest,'' Aloni said. He said it could hurt U.S. aid to Israel and endanger Soviet Jewish emigration. Thousands of Soviet Jews are expected to immigrate to Israel this year, and there is concern in the Soviet Union and among Arab countries that some could settle in the occupied lands. Israel denies it has a policy of steering immigrants to the occupied territories. A report by an Israeli diplomat in Washington released Tuesday in the daily Haaretz supported Aloni's claims. Yoram Ettinger, aide to deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Natanyahu, said the U.S. Congress appeared to be less motivated to maintain strategic cooperation with Israel and more inclined to support Palestinians in their struggle for statehood, Haaretz reported. The Arab states see any settlement move as an attempt to push out Palestinians from the occupied territories. Government officials insisted that the money approved by the Finance Committee would not be used to form a new Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip. ``We are talking about already existing settlements, not forming new ones,'' Shamir's spokesman Avi Pazner said. The allocated money included $2.5 million to ``strengthen'' new settlements and $3 million for developing and expanding existing settlements. A separate sum of $2.5 million was allocated to purchase prefabricated houses and strengthen settlements in the West Bank. Ariel Weinstein, who represents Shamir's Likud bloc on the Finance Committee, said the government decided on a policy of settling the occupied territories and they should be treated as any other Israeli town. ``They need new roads, schools. Nobody thinks the government can decide not to fulfill these needs,'' Weinstein said. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak warned Tuesday that settlement of Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israeli-occupied lands threatens ``new bloody confrontation'' in the Middle East. He spoke at the opening session of Socialist International, a non-governmental grouping of 89 socialist parties from 47 countries.
AP881010-0125 	X	Officials in eight Northeastern states are working to adopt California's strict air pollution standards for cars and trucks in an effort to reduce smog. Fifteen cities or rural areas in the region have been named by the Environmental Protection Agency as failing to meet its ozone standard. Eleven cities violate the standard for carbon monoxide, most of which comes from motor vehicles. Metropolitan New York is the nation's worst offender for carbon monoxide and third worst for ozone. The eight states _ New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont _ already are implementing regulations to reduce gasoline volatility in the summertime, starting next year, in an attempt to lower smog levels. Air pollution directors of those states are slated to discuss the ``California plan'' again this week before formally proposing regional adoption, according to Michael Bradley, executive director of the Boston-based Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. Environmental officials in Vermont, Massachusetts and New York have authority to proceed without legislative approval, he said. Experts agree that much of the ozone at any point on the northeastern seaboard originates with pollution upwind in the Boston-Washington megapolis, and it is practically impossible for any state to control the problem by itself. An EPA gasoline regulation, expected to be issued later this year, would not lower volatility to the new NESCAUM level until 1992. Gasoline vapors help form ozone, the major component of smog. The more volatile the fuel, the more vapor that escapes and the more smog that is formed. Few states have been willing to get out in front of the federal government on initiatives against air pollution, with California the most notable exception. California pioneered auto air pollution controls in the 1960s and the Clean Air Act of 1970 gave the state the right to impose stricter requirements than the federal standards for the rest of the country. To avoid the confusion of 50 potentially different standards, Congress said no other state could develop its own plan _ but any state, with EPA's permission, may adopt the entire set of California regulations. So far, none has. According to NESCAUM, the regional adoption of the California standards would cut emissions of the three principal auto pollutants _ carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and gasoline vapor _ by 50 percent within 15 years, as the car and truck fleets are replaced with models with superior pollution controls. ``One of the questions we're researching is, are we buying into future revisions of the California standards?'' Bradley said. The assessment, though, is ``extremely favorable to air quality,'' and ``My directors have said, `Let's go forward.''' The move likely means the elimination of the entire fleet of light-duty diesel vehicles, and the emission requirements could mean a slightly higher pricetag for gasoline-powered cars and trucks. California models look the same, except for required dashboard indicators tied to pollution control components. California exhausts may contain only 40 percent of the nitrogen oxides and 64 percent of the unburned gasoline permitted elsewhere. California permits twice as much carbon monoxide as the federal standard, but is planning to bring that limit down to the federal level. The auto industry has built cars to the California standards since the mid-1970s, although they don't like building two versions of the same car. California accounts for 11 percent of the national auto market. The eight Northeastern states account for 13 percent of the market. For some makes of cars, only the California version is built and it is marketed nationwide. All basic models are offered in California, but some engine-transmission combinations may not be available there. Bradley said NESCAUM had discussed its intention with the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association and MVMA had not raised any concerns. Ann Carlson of MVMA's Washington office said, ``I don't know that we've taken a position.'' Bill Noack of General Motors Corp. said he was unable to locate any executives who were aware of NESCAUM's plans. According to the EPA, the cities or areas in the eight states which have violated the carbon monoxide standard are, in descending order of severity, New York City; Hartford, Conn.; Manchester, N.H.; Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Nashua, New Hampshire, Newark, N.J.; Springfield, Mass; Bergen-Passaic, N.J.; Jersey City, N.J.; and Boston. Those identified as failing to meet the ozone standard are New York City and suburbs, a Connecticut-Massachusetts area including the cities of Springfield, Mass., and Bristol, Hartford, Middletown, New Britain, New Haven and New London in Connecticut; Providence, R.I.; Knox County, Maine; York County, Maine; Atlantic City, N.J.; Boston; New Bedford, Mass.; Portland, Maine; Hancock County, Maine; Jefferson County, New York; Lincoln County, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Worcester, Mass.; and Kennebunk County, Maine.
AP900319-0237 	X	Greyhound and its striking drivers exchanged barbs after negotiations broke down when company officials charged that union leaders failed to negotiate and were ``stepping up the violence.'' Union leaders presented a new contract proposal in talks held in Tucson on Saturday, but the company said it was unacceptable. Negotiations broke off Sunday after only about an hour. A federal mediator said he is disappointed but not surprised that the first negotiations in the 18-day-old Greyhound bus drivers' strike quickly broke off. ``The issues remaining are serious and they are many, and it's not unusual at this stage of negotiations for both sides to remain very firm in their position,'' said Paul F. Stuckenschneider. Greyhound and union officials were less diplomatic. ``There is no way to reach an agreement with people who are trying to break down the company through intimidation, violence and terrorism,'' the company's executive vice president, Anthony Lannie, said in a statement Sunday. ``They had nothing new for us today or yesterday while stepping up the violence,'' Lannie said. ``There were a half-dozen new acts of terrorism yesterday while we were in the meeting.'' In Washington, Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions, said Lannie's statement ``sounds to me like the desperate words of a desperate man. ``We clearly condemn violence and anything we can do to discourage our members we are doing so,'' Nelson said. Unions representing 6,300 drivers and an estimated 3,000 other Greyhound workers walked out March 2 over wages, job security and grievance procedures. Greyhound operates the only nationwide intercity bus service, and the strike has stranded many smaller communities for which buses are the only public transportation. The company said it has been operating roughly one-third of its buses with replacement and non-striking drivers, with about 400 union drivers joining 1,000 permanent replacements on the job. The union says fewer than 100 of its drivers have crossed the picket lines. Greyhound officials said there have been at least 14 shooting attacks on Greyhound buses, 46 bomb threats and numerous other incidents of vandalism or threats during the walkout. One new report of strike-related violence involved a union vice president accused of striking a driver in Fayetteville, N.C. Cumberland County, N.C., Magistrate Sam Mathis issued a warrant Saturday for the arrest of Fred Ingram of Charlotte, N.C., accusing him of assaulting Greyhound driver Stanley Harvey, 57, of Jacksonville, Fla. Ingram, who is also president of a local in Charlotte, denied striking anyone. Steve Scarpino, a Greyhound spokesman in Dallas, said other new complaints involved harassment by pickets in Mobile, Ala., an assault on a driver in Tulsa, Okla. and damaged buses in Tucson and Phoenix. In an earlier incident, driver Edwin J. Ludwigsen, 46, of Spring Lake, N.C., said he was struck on the he!e by a man. o -Bgistratwissmou$a criminalp`ummo(s for William DaniYs,fghom Greyhound said was a union member. In Florida on Sunday, the State Patbol arrested the drivers of tree vehicles that surrounded a New York-to-Miami Greyhound bus on Interstate 95 near Fort Pierce and forced it to slow down. No one on the bus was hurt, Scarpino said. Union officials said their proposal involved a $40 million three-year package that included modest pay increases of 4 percent to 5 percent and the addition of new drivers to the pension plan. A union spokesman said the company has offered a plan that included no guarantee of `ny pay hikes, but would have made raises contingent on$increased profits and ridership. Lannie said the union is ``stonewalling'' on contract talks. But union President Edward M. Strait said Greyhound never came to the bargaining table in good faith, and ``refused to make an} compromises, any concessions, from their previous unacceptable proposals.'' Stuckenschneider said he was not giving up on the negotiations. ``We hoped to have stayed longer, but we're not discouraged,'' he said. ``We hope to be back very soon.''
AP900112-0131 	X	The country's top opposition leader said Friday he may visit North Korea to discuss reunification and ways to ease tension on the divided peninsula. If Kim Dae-jung makes the visit, he would be the first South Korean political leader to visit the Communist country since the 1950-53 Korean War. ``The visit will be by myself or a party delegation,'' Kim said. Kim, head of the largest opposition political group, the Party for Peace and Democracy, said the visit would be arranged with government approval. An unauthorized visit would violate National Security Laws. Kim declined to elaborate on his plans and said he would announce further details next week. The opposition leader said he raised the possibility of a trip in talks with President Roh Tae-woo on Thursday and said Roh responded favorably. There was no comment Friday from Roh's office. If Kim visits the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, party officials said he would expect to contact Communist officials. Officials of Kim's party said the visit may take place in the first half of the year. Aides to Kim said the primary purpose would be to meet North Korean President Kim Il Sung and help create a good atmosphere for an inter-Korea summit. Roh has proposed a meeting with the North Korean president several times in the past two years, but his proposal has not been addressed specifically by the North Koreans. Two days ago, Roh told a nationally televised news conference that he wanted to meet Kim Il Sung to discuss possible free travel between the two nations. In a New Year's speech, the North Korean leader invited Roh and South Korean opposition leaders to the North for unification talks. Government officials said the invitation was a ploy to lump Roh and opposition leaders in the same category, thus undermining Roh's leadership. Government officials said the opposition leader's indictment on charges related to the other lawmaker's secret trip to North Korea would not pose a problem for his own trip. The 64-year-old opposition leader was indicted last summer for allegedly failing to report to authorities the 1988 secret trip to North Korea of one of his party's lawmakers. Kim has denied the charge. Several dissident leaders are in jail for making unauthorized trips to North Korea. Vice Unification Minister Song Han-ho said South Korea would propose creating a hot line with Pyongyang so military leaders can communicate in an emergency. Song also said his government plans to propose peaceful uses for the demilitarized zone between the two countries, exchanges of military personnel, prior notification of major military exercises and invitations for delegates to observe such maneuvers. The two nations have opened several channels of talks on personnel, economic, parliamentary and political exchanges since the early 1970s but have made little progress. Reunification is a frequent demand of anti-government protesters.
AP900321-0133 	X	Here is the text of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's decree banning firearms sales in Lithuania and ordering residents to turn in their guns. The text, transmitted in Russian by the official news agency Tass, was translated by The Associated Press.
AP881123-0201 	X	Snow and heavy rain was on the menu Wednesday in the West, threatening to hamper Thanksgiving travel. Snow fell at 2 to 3 inches per hour Wednesday over parts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Yellowstone National Park received 2 to 5 inches of snow overnight, with as much as a foot in higher elevations. Rainfall was heavy over the Sierra Nevada foothills and valleys of northern California with street flooding early Wednesday in Sacramento. In Colorado, winds gusted to 80 mph west of Fort Collins. A 70 mph wind gust was reported southeast of Casper, Wyo. Heavy snow warnings remained in effect Wednesday over the Cascade Range in Washington state and Oregon, for the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon and the Sierra Nevada in California and for high elevations of parts of Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Tropical storm warnings were discontinued along the Florida and Georgia coasts as tropical storm Keith, with 50 mph winds, moved east-northeast into the Atlantic Ocean on a track that could bring it near Bermuda in 36 hours. Much of the central and southern Plains had fair weather and temperatures in the 50s and low 60s. North Platte, Neb., reached 69 degrees Wednesday, a record high for the date. The previous high was 67 degrees set in 1902. Temperatures from the northern Plains to New England were in the 30s and 40s. Readings over much of the Intermountain region and Pacific Coast were in the 40s and 50s. Temperatures around the nation at 2 pm EST ranged from 28 degrees at Limestone, Maine, to 80 degrees at Key West, Fla. The low in the nation Wednesday morning was 3 degrees at Alamosa Colo. The forecast for Thanksgiving Day called for snow over the northern and central Intermountain region and the northern and central Rockies. Rain was expected across most of California and the Pacific Northwest. Much of the eastern half of the nation was expected to have mostly sunny skies. High temperatures were expected in the 20s and 30s over northern New England; in the 30s for the northern and central Rockies, North Dakota and eastern Montana; the 40s and 50s from the northern and central Pacific Coast across much of Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, the upper Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley, the central Appalachians, southern New England and the middle Atlantic Coast; in the 80s over south central and southeast Texas and southern parts of the Florida peninsula. Much of the remainder of the nation was expected to have high temperatures in the 60s or 70s.
AP880428-0077 	X	Andy Warhol's plastic wristwatches of Fred Flintstone, Judy Jetson and Gumby reached $2,640 in a ``wild'' bidding war _ $2,590 more than the timepieces cost the late artist in a department store, Sotheby's said. Kitschy collectibles were only some of the objects on sale Wednesday during the fifth day of the 10-day auction of Warhol's possessions. There was also serious jewelry on the block. American Indian art, including ``no end of turquoise jewelry'' was to be sold at today's auction, said Diana Brooks, president of Sotheby's North America. So far, Warhol's collection has fetched $9,072,000, more than twice Sotheby's high estimate of $3,951,000. Only 37 out of some 1,400 lots have not sold, she said. The highest bid Wednesday was $55,000 for a pair of surrealist ear clips by artist Salvador Dali, according to Ms. Brooks. The buyer, a private collector, was not identified. The ear clips, asymmetrical ruby-studded hearts with a honeycomb center set with round diamonds, had a pre-sale estimated value of $10,000 to $15,000. An 18-karat gold, garnet and diamond circular pendant, also by Dali, brought $47,300, Ms. Brooks said. The pendant, estimated at $7,500 to $10,000, depicted the profiles of Tristan and Isolde separated by a chalice. The brightly-colored cartoon watches, made by Lewco, were decorated with raised, full-length figures of Fred and Dino, his pet dinosaur; Judy Jetson standing with hands on hips; and a smiling Gumby. Warhol bought them in 1985 and 1986 at Bloomingdale's, Ms. Brooks said. In their original plastic packaging, the watches bore the original price tags of $20 and $10, she said. ``People were so wild to have the three plastic watches in the sale. They sort of symbolize the sale of the whole collection _ something people will remember,'' she said. The pre-sale estimate was $60 to $80 for all three. But in ``wild bidding'' that came down to a telephone contest between four people, the price climbed to $2,640, Ms. Brooks said. A private collector, who was not identified, won the bidding. Bloomingdale's still sells the watches in some stores, said Miraed Smith, a store spokeswoman. Another wristwatch that did well at the auction was a stainless steel piece, dated 1948, with a photo image of Gene Autry and signed ``always your pal Gene Autry.'' Sotheby's estimated it would sell for $50 to $100 but it went for $1,870, Ms. Brooks said. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which will award grants to cultural institutions in the United States and abroad. Warhol died at age 58 last year.
AP900803-0181 	X	Alfred Checchi is trying to make Northwest Airlines bigger and friendlier, but he has been battling a sluggish industry and some isolated turbulence in his first year as chairman. On the Aug. 3 anniversary of the day Checchi's group finalized a $3.65 billion buyout of the nation's fourth-largest carrier, Northwest is eyeing growth despite an industry-wide slump. With eyes on Eastern Airline's Atlanta hub and possibly other Eastern jewels, Checchi has discussed the idea of buying the carrier's assets out of bankruptcy court proceedings. ``They barely had the Northwest deal done before they started looking at the landscape (for acquisitions),'' said Duane Woerth, head of the union representing Northwest's 5,600 pilots. ``He's changed the focus from top to bottom.'' In the past 18 months, Northwest has gone from being a conservatively managed takeover target with a fat balance sheet to a highly leveraged aggressor headed by industry novices. Racked with labor strife and performance problems under former chairman Steven Rothmeier, Northwest under Checchi is at peace with its unions and winning back customers who had come to know it as ``Northworst.'' But along the way there have been distractions. Three Northwest pilots were arrested March 8 and accused of flying a passenger jet while under the influence of alcohol. Northwest also has said it is one of many airlines being investigated by the Justice Department for possible industry price fixing. Checchi and other top executives at the airline have been declining interviews for weeks. But he repeatedly has said he intends to double the carrier's size in five years and make it America's most preferred airline. ``They've improved the morale and the spirit of the people, but I don't think they've made any money,'' said Mort Beyer, an aviation consultant in Arlington, Va. ``My impression is that their costs will be increasing faster than their revenues. I continue to watch it with concern.'' Since the takeover, Checchi has filled eight of the top 10 posts at Northwest and has lost a lead fleet manager to United Airlines. Former chief financial officer William Trubeck also has resigned, but will act indefinitely as a consultant. Five new executives had no airline management experience: Checchi, director Gary L. Wilson, chief executive officer Fred Rentschler, president Frederic Malek, and chief financial officer John Dasburg. Rentschler had been chief executive at Beatrice Cos. and Dasburg, Malek, Wilson and Checchi had worked together at Marriott Corp., where Wilson was Checchi's boss. ``They are primarily deal makers,'' Cliff Ehrlich, senior vice president of human resources at Marriott, said of Checchi and Wilson. ``I think they wake up in the morning thinking about deals and go to bed thinking about deals.'' Checchi has said the airline is healthy despite a $7.2 million operating loss in the final quarter of last year and a $90 million operating loss in the first quarter of this year. Nevertheless, the $3.35 billion takeover debt has been slashed to about $2 billion, putting the airline three years ahead of its seven-year repayment schedule, spokesman Doug Miller said. But most of the payments have been made from cash reserves, by selling and leasing back some planes and restructuring real estate, Beyer said. ``That can't go on forever,'' he said. ``They need better cash flows and the outlook for the year is down. The industry has had $2.5 billion in operating losses in the past nine months, but nobody pays attention to that.'' Mike Hamilton, an analyst for The Leuthhold Group of Minneapolis, said Northwest could afford an acquisition, but only at the right price. ``I don't think he'll get them (Eastern's assets) at bargain prices,'' Hamilton said, ``but there is nothing lost in trying.'' Eastern assets would fit Northwest by adding passenger loads, expanding maintenance space and feeding Northwest's Pacific Rim routes. But labor trouble could break out if Checchi hires from the non-union ranks at Eastern, said Guy Cook, president of International Association of Machinists District Lodge 143. ``We will war with them if they come up with stupid ideas,'' Cook said. ``But at this point I have no reason to war with them.'' Checchi hasn't been tested by contract talks, but Woerth and Cook say relations are vastly improved. For 40 years, Northwest workers considered themselves pawns of draconian managers, Cook said. Now they sense some cooperation. In the old days, for example, a collision of ground vehicles triggered automatic three-day suspensions, Cook said. A new disciplinary program instead emphasizes good performances, he said. ``What I notice is the people throughout the company are more proud of the airline,'' Woerth said. Meanwhile, travelers have observed a more punctual and reliable airline. Northwest recently completed six months of on-time performance, even with or ahead of comparable carriers, according to U.S. Transportation Department reports. In addition, fewer bags have been lost. The improvements dovetail with a five-year plan to invest $422 million to improve food service, seat space, cabin decor and speed of maintenance. ``When it was Northwest Orient it was a class airline,'' said Jim Maggio, whose New York firm is a travel agent for General Motors Acceptance Corp. ``They're getting back to that.'' Hamilton said the pilots' arrests and other incidents could have left bigger stains on the company. But Checchi's management team moved swiftly, including firing the pilots. Trial of the pilots began this week in federal court. ``The one thing they have is a lot of common sense,'' Hamilton said. ``They'll make a mistake, but they don't make the same mistake twice.''
AP900209-0214 	X	Criminologists and other experts tell them otherwise, but many Norwegians are convinced their country is overrun by thugs, hooligans and ``the mob.'' The experts say the public concern verges on ``national hysteria.'' They argue that Norway still has one of the world's lowest crime rates, and is nowhere near being in a league with the United States or other countries with serious crime problems. ``Our biggest crime problem is the unfounded anxiety people feel about it,'' said Nils Christie, a University of Oslo criminology professor. Muggings are rare and city parks generally are safe. Some cafeterias leave it up to the customers to leave what they owe in a till and even make their own change. Few of Norway's 4.2 million people have actually witnessed criminal violence, according to an informal poll by one newspaper. Police, who usually are unarmed, used or threatened to use weapons just 28 times last year, according to Justice Ministry figures. ``Norway is at the bottom of the list of violent crimes per capita,'' said Christie. The risk of being murdered in the United States is nine times greater than in Norway, according to a local study. Sociologist Cecilie Hoigaard listed Norway's murder rate in 1988 as 0.9 killings per 100,000 residents, compared to 1.4 in Sweden and 5.1 in France. The World Almanac said the U.S. figure was 8.3 the same year. Yet crime in Norway has increased by about 15 percent a year since 1986, according to official figures, and that's what has brought all the repercussions. ``We aren't interested in comparing ourselves to other countries,'' said Tor Aksel Busch, deputy director general of public prosecutions. ``We must compare ourselves to the way things were. It is the increase that is disturbing.'' Crimes for monetary or material gain, such as theft and fraud, represent 81 percent of the offenses. ``There is simply much more to steal because Norway's standard of living has increased enormously,'' criminologist Christie said. Norway had an economic boom when it discovered oil off its coast. From 1986 to 1988, drug arrests doubled and violent crime rose 29 percent, partly because alcohol is more accepted by ``traditionally reserved and pious Norwegians,'' Christie said. ``We Norwegians are very worried about crime,'' said Kjell Solem of the Justice Ministry. ``It is a frequent topic of debate. We started with very little and don't like the increase,'' ``Norway has an old-fashioned crime rate,'' he added. ``You have to go back 25 years to find such a low rate in Sweden. It is safe almost anywhere, any time in Norway.'' In December, robbers rammed a large truck into an armored car and escaped with about $1 million, leaving a trail of burning getaway cars. Norwegians could perhaps understand the greed but were appalled that the thieves were prepared to harm the security guards by ramming the armored car with the truck. ``People speak of moral decay, the fraying of society's fabric,'' Solem said. Crime was a major issue in last autumn's national election; everything from drugs and alcohol to video tapes and foreigners came in for the blame. The right-wing Party of Progress increased its standing in Parliament tenfold, partly on the basis of a law-and-order campaign. ``Crime has become a matter of national hysterics,'' said sociologist Thomas Mathiesen. ``There is a much greater fear of crime than there is any grounds for.'' Many Norwegians are responding by fortifying their homes. Lock sales soared 60 percent from 1987 to 1989 and burglar alarm sales are said to be on the rise. Mathiesen said fear was being spread unwittingly by the news media, politicians and even police who seek larger budgets. Tabloid newspapers routinely brand any group of criminals ``the Mafia.'' They devote sensational and lengthy coverage to murders and pursue the cases for weeks. The respected Aftenposten newspaper, in a review of the 1980s, said more crime produced more crime reporting. In the 1970s, ``trivial crimes were reported,'' it wrote. ``Now it's hard to find space for all the corruption, theft and violence.''
AP900705-0029 	X	Highlights of Wednesday's session of the 28th Communist Party congress, in its third day:
AP880705-0172 	X	Thousands of people went on strike in the capital of Armenia, apparently unhappy over the Armenian leadership's presentation of an ethnic dispute at the national Communist Party conference, a newspaper said Tuesday. The Soviet government daily Izvestia said the strike began Monday, one day after ``many thousands'' of people met in the Theater Square of Yerevan, the capital of the southern republic. Most flights in and out of Yerevan were canceled, it said. In a Tuesday edition, Izvestia said: ``Like yesterday a series of the city's industrial concerns aren't working, or are working with less than a full work force.'' It said food stores and industries, as well as restaurants and medical services had been working Monday. The newspaper said farm work was going on in Stepanakert, the largest city of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, but that many other industries and institutions there also were shut down. Nagorno-Karabakh is at the center of a territorial dispute between Armenia and the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, but the mountain enclave's predominantly Armenian population has been agitating since February to be annexed to Armenia. Armenia supports the demand. Azerbaijan is against it. At least 32 people were killed in riots over annexation which broke out in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, at the end of February. Izvestia said the thousands of people who gathered on the Yerevan city square Sunday listened to a television broadcast by delegates to the four-day party conference in Moscow, which closed last Friday. Armenian party leader Suren Arutyunyan said in remarks broadcast on Soviet TV during the conference that authorities could not normalize the situation in Armenia, where large demonstrations frequently have occurred in support of Nagorno-Karabakh's demand. He proposed that the conference take up unspecified amendments to the Soviet constitution. The disagreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan has sent the issue to national authorities, and the constitution specifies no way to solve the dispute. Delegates who spoke on television supported Arutyunyan's call for restraint and went directly to the square to talk to the crowd. But Izvestia said that after a ``stormy debate'' on the square, a committee was formed that called for a general strike after laying down a series of demands, including a quick, favorable resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. The committee demanded that the Soviet Supreme Court take over the trials of those charged in the Sumgait violence and demanded full information about the alleged poisoning of workers at a factory in the town of Masis. Izvestia provided no more information about the Masis incident, except to say an investigation was under way. The party conference called for greater attention to republics' calls for economic autonomy, but said authorities would not tolerate efforts to whip up ethnic tensions. Besides Azerbaijan and Armenia, delegates from the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia also brought up ethnic questions at the conference. About a dozen protesters demanding freedom for three Estonian political prisoners had gathered more than 6,000 signatures by Tuesday during a five-day demonstration in Tallinn, Estonia. ``We will continue the demonstration until they are freed or until the authorities give us an exact date for their release,'' Eve Parnaste said as she carried a poster at the protest outside the Estonian Supreme Court building. She said the three prisoners had been demanding publication of a secret 1939 pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that placed the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia under Moscow's control. All three were arrested this year, charged with spreading anti-Soviet propaganda or slandering the Soviet state. Miss Parnaste's poster said, ``KGB is an evil empire,'' using the initials for the Soviet secret police.
AP900725-0055 	X	Morty Nevins, the accordion-playing member of The Three Suns group of the 1940s and '50s, has died. He was 73. Nevins, the last surviving member of the original group, died of cancer Friday at his Beverly Hills home, his daughter, Ferielle Faine said Tuesday. The Three Suns sold several million records over a 20-year span, including ``Peg o' My Heart'' and the trio's signature tune, ``Twilight Time.'' Nevins' brother, Al, played guitar while his cousin, Artie Dunn, sang and played the organ. The Three Suns performed for radio, played club and hotel dates across the nation and were regulars on singer Kate Smith's television show in the early 1950s. The original members disbanded when Al's health began to deteriorate, but Dunn recruited other musicians for several years. Nevins continued to compose music, producing such hit tunes as ``These Things I Offer You for a Lifetime,'' ``Lovers' Gold,'' ``You Are My Destiny'' and ``Midnight for Two.'' Al Nevins died in 1965, and Dunn in 1989.
AP901101-0165 	X	High pressure Thursday over the mid-Atlantic states produced warm winds from Texas to the plains and the Mississippi Valley to the Great Lakes region. Afternoon temperatures in the Midwest and East were in the 60s and 70s. A low pressure system that could grow into a winter storm developed in the Southwest and the West's central mountain ranges. A cold front moved southeast across Utah. About six inches of new snow was expected in the state's northern and southern mountains by Friday. Alta, Utah reported two inches of snow by Thursday morning. Lighter snow fell across parts of western and southern Wyoming, with 1 to 3 inches reported at Yellowstone Park. Windy conditions were reported in the Arizona and Southern California deserts and scattered showers fell across sections of Arizona. Record high temperatures reported Thursday include 75 degrees in Aberdeen, S.D., and Alpena, Mich., 85 in Dodge City, Kan., 83 in Concordia, Kan., and 79 in Kansas City, Mo. Heavier rainfall during the six hours ending at 1 p.m. EST included nearly a quarter inch at Glasgow, Mont., and more than a tenth of an inch at Malad, Idaho. The nation's low Thursday was 20 degrees in Saranac Lake, N.Y. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EST ranged from 32 degrees in Ely, Nev., to 89 degrees at Gage, Okla.
AP880611-0151 	X	The Justice Department is evaluating the case against a group of CIA employees who took 86 rare misprinted stamps from their office and sold them for thousands of dollars, a department spokesman said Saturday. Justice Department spokesman Tom Stewart said the agency's public integrity section had received the case and that ``they deal in bringing criminal charges, if necessary.'' ``I would not want you to think that something is imminent,'' he said. The Washington Post reported in Sunday's editions that the Justice Department was considering bringing criminal charges against the nine CIA employees, who discovered the rare stamps in the agency's supplies and sold them. The Post quoted unidentified intelligence and Justice Department sources as saying the CIA completed an internal review of what stamp collectors call the discovery of ``the CIA invert'' and turned the case over to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. The public integrity section is debating whether to bring charges of theft or misappropriation of government supplies against the employees, who replaced a sheet of 95 $1 stamps bearing an upside-down candlestick with a sheet of stamps that did not have the rare error, the newspaper said. Each member of the group kept one of the stamps and they sold the 86 remaining stamps in 1986 to a New Jersey dealer for thousands of dollars. Their identities were never made public. A CIA spokesman did not immediately return a telephone call Saturday about the case.
AP900427-0058 	X	A Red Cross delegation arrived in this southern provincial capital today, seeking word on the possible release of two kidnapped Swiss Red Cross workers. The delegation's four members made no statement upon arriving at the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut. However, a committee source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the four planned to maintain ``daily presence in Sidon this week, waiting for a contact concerning our two kidnapped colleagues.'' The team was led by the Red Cross chief delegate in Lebanon, Michel Dufour, and the committee's spokeswoman for the Middle East, Marjolaine Martin, who flew into Beirut from Geneva on Wednesday. ``We remain optimistic after our talks here about the release of our two officials,'' Dufour said, without elaborating. The delegation is seeking the release of Red Cross orthopedic technicians Emanuel Christen, 33, and Elio Erriquez, 24. They were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Sidon on Oct. 6. No group claims responsibility for their seizure. However, Lebanese and foreign security sources blame the Fatah-Revolutionary Council group of Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. The group has denied involvement and urged the captors to release Christen and Erriquez. The Red Cross team held talks on Thursday with Mustafa Saad, who heads the Sunni Moslem independent Nasserite organization whose 1,000-strong Popular Liberation Army militia dominates Sidon. Saad renewed his appeal for the release of the two Red Cross workers, saying failure to free them ``will be considered a hostile act against us.'' Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, as well as Palestinian and Lebanese groups, have appealed for the pair's release. In addition to the two Swiss, the Western hostages believed to be held mainly by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon are seven Americans, four Britons, two West Germans, an Irishman and an Italian. American journalist Terry Anderson, 43, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, is the longest-held foreign captive in Lebanon. He was kidnapped March 16, 1985.
AP900727-0049 	X	Brent Mydland, keyboard player, singer and songwriter since 1979 for the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead, was found dead in his home. He was 37. Friends discovered Mydland's body Thursday in the bedroom of his home in Lafayette, a suburb 25 miles east of San Francisco, said Sgt. Richard Terry of the Contra Costa County Coroner's office. It was not clear when or how Mydland died, but there was no sign of foul play, Terry said. An autopsy was scheduled for today. Mydland had returned Tuesday from a three week national tour with the band, Terry said. ``We lost a brother, and we are very devastated,'' Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally said. Surviving band members met Thursday night ``to talk, to grieve and to figure out what to do next,'' McNally said. Tickets already have been sold for Grateful Dead shows in August and September in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York City and in October in Sweden, West Germany, France and England. The Grateful Dead formed in 1965 and were at the forefront of the psychedelic counterculture movement in San Francisco. Among their better known songs are ``Truckin','' ``Casey Jones'' and ``Touch of Grey.'' Known for their diverse live sets and spontaneous ``jams,'' the Grateful Dead today retain a strong following of fans known as ``Deadheads.'' Many fans follow the band from show to show and trade tapes of concerts, which the band lets them record. Mydland joined the band in April 1979, replacing keyboardist Keith Godchaux, who died a year later in an auto accident. Godchaux had replaced keyboardist Ron ``Pig Pen'' McKernan, who died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 27 in 1973. Mydland was born in Germany to American parents stationed there with the military and grew up in the San Francisco area. As a teen-ager, he played with small local rock 'n' roll bands. He worked with the group Batdorf and Rodney in the early 1970s, then joined the Los Angeles-based rock band Silver. He joined the Grateful Dead after a stint with rhythm guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir's side band Bobby and the Midnites. At first Mydland had played in the shadow of the other more famous band members, including lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia. But he developed a greater presence in recent years, writing more songs and helping the band's harmonies with what McNally called his ``rough, bluesy textured voice.'' John Barlow, who had collaborated with Mydland on most of his songs, said, ``Brent could pick his way through anything immediately, which meant he had the special requirement it was going to take to walk into the Dead overnight. ``He was musically central to the band, but he was so good at what he did that he was able to become fundamental to everything that the band was doing musically without it being immediately apparent to the audience,'' Barlow said. Tunes Mydland wrote include ``Far From Me'' and the environmental ballad ``We Can Run (But We Can't Hide),'' used recently in an Audubon Society video. Most recently, Mydland frequently performed his ``I Will Take You Home,'' a lullaby written for his two young daughters. He is survived by his wife, Lisa, his daughters and his parents, who live in the Sacramento area.
AP901030-0150 	X	A woman who locked her 5-year-old daughter in a car while she worked part-time went to court Tuesday to regain custody of the girl from the county, but court officials said the judge didn't rule. Police and court officials said the case was continued. They spoke on condition of anonymity because Family Court rules require that cases be kept confidential. The mother, Chante Fernandez, canceled a news conference she had planned after the hearing and refused to speak to reporters as she dashed from the Union County Courthouse to a limousine. Her attorney and police officers shielded Ms. Fernandez from the nearly reporters who waited in the courthouse garage. Ms. Fernandez' daughter, Anjuli, is under the care of the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services pending resolution of the case. The girl wasn't present at the hearing, a welfare official said. Ms. Fernandez, 24, of Elizabeth, was jailed after police found her pajama-clad daughter, Anjuli, in the trunk of a car on Oct. 20 at the Woodbridge Center mall, where Mrs. Fernandez worked part-time on weekends. The back seat was folded down so the girl could move about inside the car, and the mother said she checked on her daughter during work breaks. The mother said her combined income of nearly $500 a week from two jobs disqualified her from local or state child care services. During the week, she was a secretary at a lumber company; the weekend job was at a department store in the mall. The case has drawn an outpouring of support from New Jersey residents, who have offered her money, child care help and jobs. Ms. Fernandez pleaded guilty Friday to a disorderly persons offense and received a $100 suspended fine. The mother, who is divorced, said she left her daughter in the car while she worked at the mall because she was unable to find a reliable and affordable baby sitter. She also said she couldn't get local or state child care services. Ms. Fernandez initially was charged with criminal restraint, a felony, and spent two days in jail before posting $5,000 bail. The prosecutor reduced the charge to a disorderly persons offense after reviewing the case and concluding that the girl wasn't neglected or abused. Only Ms. Fernandez, her attorney, state welfare officials and court officers were allowed inside the hearing before Union County Judge John Callahan on Tuesday. Some relatives of Ms. Fernandez were allowed to stand outside the second- floor courtroom, but were stopped at the lobby.
AP901219-0117 	X	The Army said Wednesday it has alerted three National Guard and Reserve MASH units to prepare for mobilization and deployment to the Persian Gulf. Also put on alert were two Army Reserve combat support hospitals and one general hospital, plus a variety of medical specialists from Army Hospitals nationwide. The mobilizations are part of a broad Pentagon push to strengthen medical support and supplies in the gulf as the pace of U.S. troop deployments increases. The three Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH, units put on alert are: the 159th Medical Hospital of the Louisiana National Guard at Jackson Barracks in New Orleans; the 300th Medical Hospital of the Tennessee National Guard at Smyrna; and the 807th Medical Hospital of the Army Reserve at Paducah, Ky. Maj. Hooper Penuel, a spokesman for the Tennessee Guard, said the 300th Medical Hospital reported for active duty Dec. 9 and its 230 members are at Fort Campbell, Ky., awaiting further orders. The Army announcement said the unit had been placed on alert but not yet activated. At least three other MASH units from the Guard and Reserve had been called up earlier in Operation Desert Shield. The units, made famous by the television series ``MASH,'' provide surgical and other emergency treatment of battle casualties at the rear of the combat zone. Also put on alert were Guard and Reserve units in a variety of medical-related specialties, including general medical service, dentistry, preventive medicine, blood distribution, air evacuation and veterinary services. Veterinarians inspect meat used for troops. Last week, the Navy said it was adding two 500-bed combat-zone field hospitals in Saudi Arabia and calling up thousands more reserve medical specialists.
AP900326-0199 	X	Today is Friday, April 6, the 96th day of 1990. There are 269 days left in the year. Today's highlight in history: On April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Edwin Peary became the first person to lead an expedition to the North Pole. On this date: In 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith at Fayette, N.Y. In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Shiloh began as the Confederates attacked Union forces in Tennessee. In 1892, author and newscaster Lowell Thomas was born in Woodington, Ohio. In 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were formally opened in Athens, Greece. In 1917, Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany. In 1963, the United States and Britain signed an agreement under which the Americans would sell Polaris A-3 missiles to the British. In 1965, the United States launched the Early Bird communications satellite. In 1971, the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky died in New York City. In 1984, the space shuttle Challenger blasted off for the fifth time on a weeklong mission. In 1987, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,400 for the first time. In 1988, Tirza Porat, a 15-year-old Israeli girl, was killed in a West Bank melee. (Although Arabs were initially blamed for her death, the Israeli army concluded that Tirza had been accidentally shot by a Jewish settler.) Ten years ago: Easter services were held for the American hostages in Iran, on their 155th day of captivity. Visiting clergymen reported the captives were in good condition. Five years ago: William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital when he moved into an apartment in Louisville, Ky. Gaafar Nimeiri, the president of Sudan, was overthrown in a coup. One year ago: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London, holding daylong talks that were characterized as argumentative, but friendly. Today's birthdays: Composer-conductor Andre Previn is 61. Actor Ivan Dixon is 59. Country singer Merle Haggard is 53. Actor Billy Dee Williams is 53. Actor Roy Thinnes is 52. Singer Michelle Phillips is 46. Actor John Ratzenberger is 43. Actress Marilu Henner is 38. Figure skater Janet Lynn is 37. Thought for today: ``Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.'' _ Gene Fowler, American journalist and author (1890-1960).
AP901001-0226 	X	Backers of legislation to re-regulate cable television prices and services say they'll be back next year with an even tougher bill following a defeat in the Senate. On Sept. 28, Sen. Timothy Wirth, D-Colo., objected to bringing the bill to the floor for debate or a vote, where it was expected to pass easily. Faced with a possible filibuster, a sponsor of the bill, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, declared the measure ``dead and buried'' for the 101st Congress. Congress is expected to adjourn as early as the middle of October. Backers of the bill said that the cable industry's victory might be short-lived and that it would only strengthen the hand of would-be competitors. Home satellite companies are itching to compete with cable and are expected to push provisions of the Senate bill that would guarantee them access to cable programming. Broadcasters also want cable to pay for the programming it now takes virtually for free. ``There may come a time when the cable industry will devoutly wish they had taken today's deal,'' said Edward O. Fritts, president of the National Association of Broadcasters. The Office of Management and Budget had issued a veto warning on the bill, which would have restored some of the government oversight of cable that Congress lifted in 1984. OMB said that the bill imposed too many restrictions on cable and that increased competition - perhaps from the telephone industry - was the answer to any problems in the cable industry. Basic cable prices on average have risen 43 percent in the past three years.
AP900809-0188 	X	Struggling with weak sales, Volkswagen United States Inc. is offering a 30-day money back guarantee on its mid-size Passat automobiles. Anyone unsatisfied with a Passat car or station wagon in the first 30 days or 3,000 miles of ownership may return it and get their money back, Bill Young, vice president in charge of Volkswagen United States, said Wednesday. Other automakers have offered or are offering similar guarantees, although none allow a buyer to walk away with their money. Oldsmobile, for example, is offering to let buyers of its 1990 models who are not satisfied after the first 30 days or 1,500 miles of ownership return a car for credit toward the purchase of another Oldsmobile. At VW, Gelgota said, ``You get the full refund, sales tax, title and license fees and everything. It's your cash back.'' VW doesn't think it is risking its money, Gelgota said. ``It's based on our research. Ninety-seven percent of our customers are so satisfied they would recommend the Passat to a friend or relative.'' VW will purchase any returned cars from dealers, Gelgota said.
AP880811-0004 	X	IVRY-SUR-SEINE, France (AP) _ A stone's throw from the Seine River, the bit of a drill under a towering white derrick bores a hole under suburban Paris in search of oil that might one day be dubbed Paris Crude. ``Normally, I do the North Sea,'' drilling superviser Lars Froybu said Wednesday during a tour of the site. ``This is quite different. ``There, you are in the sea and live on a rig for 24 hours a day. Here, 10 minutes away you can find lots of good restaurants. You're drilling in civilization.'' Societe Nationale Elf Aquitaine, a state-owned oil company, started sinking the exploratory well at Ivry, on the southern edge of Paris, Tuesday. It is the first of several such wells planned under the Paris-Ile de France permit, which covers Paris and its northern, eastern and southern suburbs. The permit was awarded in December 1985 to Elf, Total Compagnie Francaises des Petroles, and British Petroleum after competition reached a pinnacle in the search for oil in the Paris Basin, 50,000 square miles stretching east from Paris to the West German border. For years there have been rumblings that the City of Light itself might be sitting on crude, a theory that provoked smiles, cute headlines and gags about industrializing the Eiffel Tower. Oil companies are less fanciful. The Elf-Total-BP association already has spent $11.6 million on its permit, most of it for seismic tests, according to the chief of Elf's French operations, Bruno Weymuller. The Paris Basin contains 40 million tons of known oil reserves, 48 operating wells and about 600 exploratory wells. With a discovery rate of 1 in 12 wells, compared to the 1 in 20 average, the Basin is increasingly drawing foreign oil companies, although oil executives concede it will never be Houston. But ``no one dared go into this area before,'' Louis Prudhomme, Elf's assistant director of French operations, said of the region. About 10 million people live in the 587 square miles covered by the permit, and Elf is making a special effort to be discreet, at least as discreet as one can be with a 165-foot oil derrick operating round-the-clock. Motors powering the drill are kept in sheds beside the derrick. A wall to cut noise was erected to help shield residents of an apartment block across the street. A special phone line was installed to receive complaints. ``We've tried to protect the environment to a maximum,'' said Prudhomme. Ivry, on the left bank of the Seine, is one of several sites considered promising on the basis of seismic tests. The objective of the Ivry drilling is in fact about a half-mile from the derrick, on the right bank of the Seine. That means the bit grinding its way 2,000 yards into the earth must follow a deviated course, complicating drilling, officials said. By Wednesday morning, a hole 2,067 foot deep had been bored, the drilling superviser said. The operation is to be completed in about three weeks. A positive find would mean boring ``appreciation'' wells nearby to determine the size of the oil deposit, according to Elf officials. Total has said it plans to start drilling before the end of the year. Limited seismic tests of the capital, made two years ago, revealed that the center of Paris was ``not a geological priority,'' Elf officials said. ``Is there oil under Paris? We will only know when we've drilled. That is the moment of truth.'' Prudhomme said. ``We've already staked out forage sites if one day we have to work in Paris.'' A derrick could be erected at a stadium or in an unused train station or abandoned apartment buildings, according to officials who do not rule out rigging a derrick on a boat on the Seine. No one in France stands to get rich overnight by owning land on a drilling site. The property owner receives a modest ``rent'' from the oil company, but the state controls mineral rights. Parisians, easily moved to protest, remain placid in the face of the Ivry drilling. ``If they put a gas pump on my route and lower the price, that's all I care about,'' said Jean-Louis Ribolla, a waiter near the Champs Elysees. ``Finding oil in the Place de la Concorde would be quite refined,'' he added, winking.
AP900501-0033 	X	Fighting mounting political and labor turmoil, President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is promising to replace the longtime Sandinista military chief soon and open talks to disarm Contra rebels. The leader of the new U.S.-backed government also said Monday she is disbanding the secret police, which the leftist Sandinistas had controlled. Mrs. Chamorro, speaking at her first news conference since she took office last week, also gave an idea of the economic difficulties she faces. She said the Sandinistas had left just $3 million in the treasury and an $11 billion foreign debt. ``That is why it is urgent that we apply severe measures that will allow us in the short term to stabilize the currency and prices, to guarantee investment and the productive effort now that this year's agricultural cycle is starting,'' she said. Last week, Mrs. Chamorro devalued Nicaragua's cordoba by about half. The devaluation sharply increased prices, causing more hardship in an already poor country. Mrs. Chamorro on Wednesday succeeded Daniel Ortega after a decade of Sandinista rule and nine years of war with U.S.-backed Contras rebels. On Monday, she said she would pursue reform as soon as possible and appealed for support from both friends and foes. Her shaky new government faced new challenges today, with two labor groups planning separate protests to mark International Labor Day. A Sandinista union has organized a protest to back demands for 100 percent pay raises for all workers and the disbanding of Contra rebels. Four anti-Sandinista unions were to rally to demand the removal of Gen. Humberto Ortega as the armed forces chief. At her news conference Monday, the president promised that Ortega, the brother of the former president, will remain only temporarily as chief of the armed forces. She also said she would hold talks Wednesday with Contra military chief Israel Galeano to ask him to disarm his forces. Mrs. Chamorro's decision to serve as her own defense minister and keep Ortega as commander split her own 14-party United National Opposition, which she led to a landslide victory in elections Feb. 25. The Contras promised to surrender their weapons and disband by June 10, then balked after Mrs. Chamorro announced that Gen. Ortega would remain military chief. They say they want an end to Sandinista control of the military and police. At her news conference, Mrs. Chamorro said she understood how her supporters ``would like a drastic and immediate change'' in the armed forces. But she added: ``We need to do things well, even if it means resuming temporary sacrifices to guarantee the tranquility and stability of the country.'' She repeated that she had told Gen. Ortega several times his job was temporary, and she explained she kept him on ``to ensure the unity and discipline of the army'' while the Contras disarm. She announced that the powerful secret police force, which was run by the Sandinista Interior Ministry, is being disbanded. But she did not go into details. She also said she was ending the use of exit visas, which the Sandinistas required that both Nicaraguans and foreigners obtain to leave the country. Mrs. Chamorro further appealed to her vice president, Virgilio Godoy, to remain loyal. He is engaged in a bitter power struggle with some of her close advisers. On Monday, he was on an unexplained trip out of the country. ``I trust that the vice president ... will accompany and support me with the total loyalty in the making of the great decisions and in the fulfillment of the complex tasks with which the people of Nicaragua have entrusted us,'' she said.
AP900807-0170 	X	People awaiting compensation from the Manville trust fund for asbestos victims will have to wait at least another month. U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn on Monday extended for 30 days a freeze on payments for asbestos-related diseases to allow completion of a plan to restructure the financially ailing trust. Weinstein said the extension would allow completion of a court-appointed reorganization plan for the trust, which has run out of money to pay new claims by thousands of workers made sick from inhaling asbestos fibers. But Leon Silverman, the bankruptcy court-appointed adviser supervising the reorganization, said ``it is almost impossible to conclude'' that the more than 130,000 pending claimants would receive the full value of their claims. The reorganization is designed to speed payments and alter the compensation scheme to process claims based on victims' health and financial need rather than when they file a claim. Weinstein last month set Monday as a deadline for the overhaul plan and froze spending during the process to prevent a further cash drain. The trust was created in 1988 as part of Manville Corp.'s bankruptcy court reorganization, a result of rising liability from lung cancer and other serious and fatal diseases caused by asbestos. The trust has paid $974 million to settle more than 22,000 cases, but still has 130,000 claims pending. A cash shortfall led the trust recently to say it would not be able to pay new claims until well into the 21st century. U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Lambros in Cleveland on Monday proposed consolidating pending Manville trust claims with a private consortium that has been negotiating settlements for other asbestos-makers. Under the proposal, the Center for Claims Resolution in Princeton, N.J., would be annexed to the legal system and directed by a board of judges with input from plaintiffs and defense lawyers and other parties involved. The center, which is funded by 20 asbestos defendants and insurance companies, has settled 36,000 claims in 18 months. Lambros said a court-affiliated center could minimize transaction costs and resolve pending claims until a long-term national settlement scheme is reached. Silverman said progress had been made toward providing ``meaningful funds in the near term to victims without sacrificing the long-term value of the Manville stock.'' The trust effectively owns 80 percent of Denver-based Manville, which must make annual payments to the trust beginning next year and is shielded from further legal liability for asbestos claims. Weinstein and Silverman supported continuing an injunction barring lawsuits against Manville, which would hurt the trust by depleting the value of Manville assets. But the judge criticized Manville, saying the company was unrealistic about its role in refinancing the trust. Weinstein in the past has suggested that the company should make new direct payments of more than $200 million to the trust. Manville has said its financial commitment ended with large contributions when the trust was created and its role is to strengthen Manville to bolster the trust's value. Manville Chief Executive Thomas Stephens said he was disappointed with Weinstein's comments. He said the company had offered to inject $500 million last November through a stock repurchase plan. In an interview, Stephens said the company last week recommended a plan to inject some cash into the trust, which in return would sell some Manville stock into the marketplace. ``We're fully aware and sympathetic of the needs of the claimants and are doing everything we can to optimize today's dollar and tomorrow's dollar,'' he said. The trust, based in Washington, is named in more than 100,000 lawsuits on the dockets of every federal district court and more than 500 state courts nationwide. The cash shortage at the trust had been anticipated, but made worse by more cases, larger payouts and quicker settlements than expected. Victims had received an average of $43,000 per claim, compared with estimates of $25,000. According to court documents, the trust has $93.2 million to pay $112.8 million in claims already settled. That money is frozen by the judge's order. Asbestos, a white mineral used for heat resistance and insulation, was widely used in shipbuilding, construction and other industries. Six federal judges are scheduled to meet later this week in Washington to discuss prospects for consolidating the asbestos litigation docket into a class action to speed resolution.
AP901213-0056 	X	Five U.S. diplomats from Kuwait today abandoned their besieged embassy and flew to Baghdad to join a last batch of Americans leaving Iraq and the occupied emirate aboard a U.S.-chartered Iraqi jet. Officials said the diplomats and 25 other Americans aboard the Boeing 707 that landed in Baghdad would be among 94 foreigners leaving in the afternoon on an Iraqi Airways flight to Frankfurt, Germany, in what was said to be the last charter plane carrying out foreign nationals. U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Howell, Barbara Bodine, the deputy chief of mission in Kuwait, and three other American diplomats from Kuwait were whisked through the departure lounge and made no comment in Baghdad. ``They are in good spirits and good shape and ready to get back to the States,'' and American embassy official said on condition of anonymity. But while Iraq was allowing the completion of a blanket hostage release announced one week ago, it remained at odds with Washington over when Secretary of State James A. Baker III can visit Baghdad for talks on preventing war. On Wednesday, the Bush administration accused President Saddam Hussein of blocking any agreement. The administration says Iraq's insistence on a Jan. 12 date for the visit is too close to the Jan. 15 deadline a U.N. resolution has set for Iraq to relinquish Kuwait or face possible attack. There is no disagreement over Iraq's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, meeting with President Bush in Washington on Monday, but the United States says it will not receive him unless a date has been set for Baker's visit. The Bush administration has suggested any time between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3. Also today, Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid left Baghdad for Iran after beginning a new Arab peace mission the day before during talks with Saddam. Among those waiting at the Baghdad airport for today's flight to Frankfurt were three families who missed a Tuesday flight because the Kuwaiti wives of Americans had to obtain Iraqi passports, officials said. The embassy had no estimate on the number of Americans or other passengers who would fly out of the country today on the Frankfurt-bound charter. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington on Wednesday that 15 Americans would be aboard the flight. Officials in Baghdad said that all others who wished to leave Kuwait and Iraq would do so by regular flights or by ground transportation. In other last-stage charter flights, 78 Japanese arrived in Tokyo Wednesday and 313 mostly British passengers landed in London on a chartered Iraqi Airways jet from Baghdad. Iraq had barred thousands of foreigners from travel after its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. It held hundreds of them - mostly Americans, Britons and Japanese - at strategic sites to deter a feared attack by U.S.-led forces sent to the region in response to the invasion. About 188 Americans have been evacuated from Iraq and Kuwait over the last week. They include 70 people who were in hiding, 86 men kept as ``human shields'' and 32 private citizens who had found refuge in U.S. compounds. U.S. officials estimate that about 500 Americans - most of them children with dual citizenship - are remaining. Howell and his colleagues at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait defied Iraqi orders to close in August. Gradually, all but the British and Americans removed their diplomats as Iraq cut off utilities and posted soldiers outside the compounds. Britain has joined the United States in deciding to remove its remaining diplomats now that the last of both countries' citizens are leaving Kuwait. Britain says its embassy staff will leave in the next week. On Nov. 30, a day after the U.N. Security Council passed the use-of-force resolution, Bush proposed the diplomatic exchange as a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Iraq accepted the idea, but Boucher complained Wednesday that Baghdad ``continued to block agreement on dates.'' Said the State Department spokesman: `We have offered 15 dates and Iraq has offered none.'' He said Baker is ``willing to go to Baghdad for a meeting on any one of the 15 days between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3 because we think these meetings are important and because we are serious about them.''
AP900425-0140 	X	Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel on Wednesday briefed Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on a meeting he had with the leader of the PLO and offered his help in mediating between Israel and the Palestinians. Shamir, who opposes any dealings with the PLO, did not appear to take Havel up on his offer. Havel, who on his arrival earlier Wednesday became the first Eastern European leader to visit the Jewish state, met with PLO chief Yasser Arafat in Prague this month. ``(Havel) said he has a great interest in this conflict and would like to help. But he knows it is complicated. We did not discuss any specific steps that could be taken by Czechoslovakia in this respect,'' Shamir told reporters. Havel ``told me briefly about his meeting with Arafat,'' Shamir said. He refused to elaborate. Havel, 54, a playwright and former dissident, was quoted by the Hebrew daily Haaretz as saying Arafat assured him that the Palestine Liberation Organization wants Israel to adopt U.S. proposals for starting a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue. Arafat ``stressed repeatedly that he attaches great hopes to my peace mission,'' Havel said, but added he could not vouch for Arafat's sincerity. Shamir's spokesman, Avi Pazner, said no dialogue was possible with Arafat, either directly or through intermediarie. ``What Arafat wants is the disappearance of Israel. Therefore, we don't want to have any dialogue with Mr. Arafat, not direct or indirect,'' Pazner told The Associated Press. Referring to Havel, he added, ``Even if our friend has the best of intentions, we will not take him up on that.'' Havel also met with Foreign Minister Moshe Arens and Shimon Peres, head of the center-left Labor Party. Labor, which supports the U.S. peace proposals, is trying to form a new government. Shamir indicated he asked the Czechoslovak leader to allow Prague to serve as a transit point for flights of Soviet Jewish immigrants bound for Israel. ``We discussed our interest in the help from Czechoslovakia in the efforts to resolve the questions ... of the immigration of Jewish people from the Soviet Union to Israel,'' Shamir said without elaboration. Yosef Govrin, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official, said talks are under way on air connections and that flights could start by summer. Czechoslovakia has said it has been unable to serve as a transit point because it was unable to provide the necessary security. Arab militants have threatened to disrupt flights through East Europe to block the influx of Soviet Jews to Israel. Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European states, with the exception of Romania, followed the Kremlin's lead in cutting ties with Israel after the 1967 Middle East war, in which Israel seized land from Moscow's Arab allies. But Israel now has full diplomatic ties with Romania, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia as well as low-level ties with the Soviet Union. Negotiations are under way with East Germany and Bulgaria.
AP880714-0242 	X	Britain's unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 8.4 percent in June from 8.6 percent in the previous month, while industrial production rose 0.6 percent in May, the government said Thursday. The unemployment rate also was down from 10.4 percent in June 1987, the Department of Employment said. However, the department said half the decline in the latest month was the result of a new definition of employment. People employed by government job training programs now are being counted as employed. The new practice brings Britain more in line with other European countries' methods of defining employment and adds about 334,000 persons to the ranks of the employed, the department said. Total seasonally adjusted British unemployment came to 2.38 million people in June, down from a revised 2.41 million people in May and 2.92 million people in June 1987, the department said. Meanwhile, industrial production was up 3.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Central Statistical Office. The latest figures compare with April's revised 1 percent month-to-month rise and 4 percent year-to-year rise. The office said the index of industrial production, which uses a 1980 base of 100, rose to 116.7 in May from a revised 116 in April and was up from 112.4 in May 1987.
AP881004-0275 	X	The executive director of the National Center for Health Promotion issued a warning against smokeless cigarettes Tuesday, saying the smoking alternative is as dangerous as low-tar cigarettes. ``Anyone who suggests that smokeless cigarettes are a healthy smoking option is perpetrating a cruel fraud on the American public,'' Michael Samuelson said. Smokeless cigarettes recently were introduced by RJR Nabisco Inc. The Ann Arbor-based center said many smokers may try the cigarettes as a way to quit smoking, but Samuelson said people who use smokeless cigarettes continue their physical and psychological addiction to nicotine. Samuelson also warned that non-smokers who inhale carbon monoxide produced by smokeless cigarettes also endanger their health.
AP880708-0298 	X	The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 16.54 to 2,106.15, bringing its loss for the week to 25.43 points. Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 551 up, 854 down and 530 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 136.07 million shares, against 156.10 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index fell .81 to 152.81.
AP900514-0084 	X	A U.S. military transport helicopter crashed in eastern Panama, injuring 15 American servicemen, a U.S. Southern Command spokesman said Monday. Spokesman William Ormsbee said in a telephone interview that the Black Hawk aircraft crashed at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the eastern province of Darien. The injured were taken to Gorgas Military Hospital in Panama City. Ormsbee refused to disclose their identities or the extent of their injuries until next of kin were notified. He also gave no details about the crash and did not say if the helicopter was involved at the time in military exercises.
AP880425-0222 	X	For William Broyles Jr., Vietnam veteran, author and former magazine editor, the juxtaposition of an evacuation hospital and an R-and-R center near Da Nang seemed the perfect TV setting to capture not just the war's horror but also its black humor. ``China Beach,'' the show Broyles co-created with writer-producer John Sacret Young, premieres tonight as a two-hour movie on ABC, then will run for six Wednesdays. It tells the story of Vietnam from a different perspective, that of three women in Vietnam in late 1967, a nurse, a Red Cross volunteer and an entertainer. ``China Beach is the name of a real area,'' said Broyles. ``I was there during the war. It's south of Da Nang on the ocean. It's like an in-country rest-and-recreation area. Right next to it was the 95th Evacuation Hospital. Those two worlds are what the show's all about. It had a strange Club Med atmosphere and the very intense reality of the hospital. ``If there's any word I'd use, it's the contrast between the R-and-R area and the hospital. This is not a war story, but the war setting does give us the opportunity for great drama and great comedy because of the intense activity.'' ``The deepest humor is when you laugh in the presence of death. When I was in Vietnam some of my friends were killed, but we still laughed. That's how you survived. We're going for that kind of humor.'' The series stars Dana Delany as nurse Colleen McMurphy, Chloe Webb as singer Laurette Barber and Nan Woods as Red Cross worker Cherry White. Few series have looked at women at war. ``Broadside'' in 1964-65 was more or less the distaff side of ``McHale's Navy.'' ``Operation Petticoat'' was a brief show in 1977-78 about Army nurses aboard a pink submarine in World War II. There was ``M-A-S-H,'' of course, with famous nurse Margaret Houlihan, but the viewpoint on the nurses in Korea was strictly male. ``You meet these women and you get enthusiastic about them,'' said Broyles. ``They went there to serve, not to kill. They went there to help their fellow man. I don't want to sound too pretentious, but that's what these women did. We've got a wealth of stories about them. One of our writers, Susan Rhinehart, was in the Army in Vietnam.'' Broyles and Young worked with women who had served in Vietnam, who helped not only with the scripts but with the sets. The movie was filmed in Hawaii and Indian Dunes, an area north of Los Angeles, where the sets for the R-and-R area and hospital were built. Broyles, 43, was a combat Marine lieutenant in Vietnam in 1969 and returned in 1984 as a writer looking for material for his book ``Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace.'' He was one of the first combat veterans to return. ``I wanted to meet the people I had fought against,'' he said. Broyles founded Texas Monthly magazine in 1972 with Michael Levy. Later, they bought New West magazine and changed the name to California. From there Broyles went to Newsweek as editor-in-chief in 1982. He stayed with the magazine for two years. Broyles had suggested the concept of the television series to Scott Kaufer, vice president of development at Warner Bros. Television. Kaufer had worked with Broyles as an editor on California magazine. ``Then John came in as executive producer,'' said Broyles. ``He has an extensive knowledge of Vietnam _ and he's never been there. We worked together on the pilot and he wrote the script.''
AP881117-0188 	X	Jason Epstein, the editorial director at Random House, was named the winner Thursday of the National Book Awards Medal, a new honor ``for distinguished contribution to American letters.'' Epstein has been an editor at Random House for 30 years, working with such authors as W.H Auden, Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and E.L. Doctorow. The award was conceived to honor ``someone long connected with books who has had an extraordinary and permanent impact on American letters,'' said Roger Stevens, chairman of the board of the National Book Awards Inc. Epstein, 60, founded Anchor Books, the first American quality paperback line, when he was a 24-year-old editor at Doubleday. During a 1963 newspaper strike, he founded the New York Review of Books, which now has a circulation of 150,000. In 1982, he started The Library of America _ a series of uniform editions of books by America's greatest writers. Epstein was chosen by the board of directors of the National Book Awards Inc. The award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, will be presented at the Nov. 29 National Book Awards dinner, when winners of the fiction and non-fiction awards will be announced.
AP900323-0247 	X	Gold futures prices tumbled to 4{-month lows Friday on New York's Commodity Exchange amid heavy European selling as the dollar resumed its advance against most other major currencies. On other commodity markets, silver also retreated; grains and soybeans fell; energy future advanced; and livestock and meat futures were mixed. Gold futures settled $5.30 to $5.60 lower with the contract for delivery in April at $389.40 a troy ounce, the lowest settlement for a near-month gold contract since Nov. 10. Silver futures ended 4.1 cents to 4.7 cents lower in New York with March at $5.043 a troy ounce. Analysts said buying interest in gold has faded as prices have skidded from near $430 an ounce over the past six weeks. April gold fell by $11.50 in this week alone. Gold is traded in dollars on the world market, so a stronger dollar makes the metal more expensive in terms of other currencies, discouraging foreign buying. But analysts said gold's decline in the face of global political and economic uncertainty suggests other factors are also at play. Gold traditionally has been viewed as a safe haven for investors during times of inflation and political crises such as the current showdown between the Soviet Union and the breakaway Lithuanian republic. But instead of buying gold, international investors have shunned the metal, preferring to buy U.S. dollars. ``The dollar is becoming the safe haven,'' said John Jonat, a precious-metals trader with Deak International Inc. William O'Neill, research director with Elders Futures Inc., said the gold market ignored a bevy of traditionally bullish developments during the week, including rising U.S. retail prices, predictions for high inflation in Britain, a sharp drop Thursday in the stock market and the increasingly tense Lithuanian situation. At the same time, the dollar has surged in value. ``You can see that the focus here is on the dollar more than anything else,'' O'Neill said. Soybean futures prices fell substantially on the Chicago Board of Trade on profit-taking prompted in part by beliefs that Brazilian soy exports may resume soon. Grain futures prices fell modestly. Exports of Brazilian soybean meal and oil have been on hold this week while the government implements economic reforms aimed at halting runaway inflation in the South American nation. Wheat futures settled 1 cent to 4{ cents lower with May at $3.56} a bushel; corn futures were \ cent to 1{ cents lower with May at $2.58{ a bushel; oats were 1\ cents to 2 cents lower with May at $1.47} a bushel; and soybeans were 5 cents to 7 cents lower with May at $5.98 a bushel. Petroleum futures advanced in technically inspired trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. West Texas Intermediate crude oil settled 7 cents to 39 cents higher with May at $20.39 a barrel; heating oil was .45 cent to .70 cent higher with April at 55.46 cents a gallon; unleaded gasoline was .15 cent to 1.56 cents higher with April at 57.66 cents a gallon. Expectations for stronger cash markets next week prompted buying of livestock futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Pork bellies ended mixed ahead of the Agriculture Department's monthly cold-storage report, which showed a lower-than-expected amount of pork bellies in commercial freezers as of Feb. 28. Belly prices are expected to rise in reaction to the report when trading resumes Monday. Live cattle futures settled .20 cent lower to .38 cent higher with April at 77.20 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .08 cent lower to .22 cent higher with March at 82.65 cents a pound; live hogs were .05 cent to .73 cent higher with April at 53.75 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .58 cent lower to .50 cent higher with March at 50.87 cents a pound.
AP900305-0026 	X	Atlantis' astronauts marveled at the joys of spaceflight after swooping safely to Earth and ending a classified but not-so-secret shuttle mission that put a $500 million spy satellite in orbit. ``As one of the rookies on board, I just say, `Wow! What a fantastic experience,''' the pilot, Air Force Col. John Casper, said after the shuttle touched down Sunday on a dry lake bed runway in the Mojave Desert. NASA crews today were to prepare Atlantis for a piggyback jet ride home to Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Saturday. Preliminary inspection showed 62 of the shuttle's heat-shield tiles sustained ``dings,'' NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said. The shuttle made a fiery descent through the atmosphere, touching down at 10:08 a.m. PST in a landing closed to the public but open to invited guests and journalists. The five astronauts made it to California just ahead of winds and bad weather that could have delayed the landing. Their launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday was delayed five times by weather, a computer glitch and a sore throat suffered by the shuttle commander, Navy Capt. John O. Creighton. ``I probably had the world's most famous cold,'' he said. Ground-to-shuttle communications were blacked out during the flight, the 34th by a shuttle and the sixth dedicated to the Pentagon. About 4{ hours after landing, Casper, Creighton, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Pierre Thuot, Air Force. Col. Richard Mullane and Marine Lt. Col. David Hilmers said goodbye to 100 NASA employees and friends at Edwards Air Force Base. Then the astronauts rode two jets home to Houston, where they were greeted by 200 cheering spectators. Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said the astronauts Thursday deployed a satellite to snoop on much of the world, including the Soviet Union, by taking highly detailed photographs and eavesdropping electronically. A network of amateur astronomers reported seeing both the shuttle and the satellite speeding overhead. The shuttle triggered characteristic twin sonic booms close to its landing strip, but police over a wide area of Southern California reported a lack of the usual calls from citizens who mistake the noise for earthquakes. That suggests the shuttle flew an unusual route as it crossed the coast at a point NASA would only say was somewhere north of Los Angeles. ``We did something that was important for the country,'' Creighton said. ``Everything went very well. We enjoyed doing it.'' He also joked about the secrecy, telling the Houston crowd: ``Here I'd thought we'd sneak in in the middle of the night and nobody would know we were back.'' Unable to discuss mission details, the astronauts gushed about traveling in space. ``All the preparations, all the discussions with the guys and girls that have gone before me just couldn't quite prepare me for what ascent is like,'' Thuot said. ``I was in awe.'' Mullane, who previously announced he would retire after this flight, said wistfully: ``I will be sitting there and watch space shuttles fly into space, and I'll envy that.'' The next shuttle flight is set for April 12, when Discovery is to begin a five-day mission to deploy the $1.55 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
AP900403-0078 	X	A military training plane crashed into a reservoir Tuesday during an exercise, and both the instructor and pilot were killed, the air force reported. The B-34 trainer crashed into the Tsengwen reservoir in Tainan, southern Taiwan, at about 11:30 a.m., the air force said in a brief statement. An air force official said an instructor and the pilot were the only people on board. Tainan is 185 miles south of Taipei. The cause of the accident was being investigated.
AP880316-0168 	X	It was ``an act of God'' that brought two love-struck bulls together with the cows next door, says a man accused of negligence for failing to keep them apart. The bulls were unexpectedly freed from their pen when a tree limb felled by a storm crushed the fence enclosing them. They headed for Maggie and Blackbird, two pure-bred cows awaiting artificial insemination by a $770,000, prize-winning Angus bull named Broadway. Since the bulls, aged 9 and 13 months, may have beaten Broadway's time with the cows, the cows' owners were advised to wait 60 to 90 days before artificial insemination, to make sure Broadway was the father. Though this was done, the owners are suing Kirk Hardin, caretaker of the bulls and cows, for $39,000, accusing him of negligence in not keeping the guys and gals apart. Lonnie Pembrook, owner of Pembrook Cattle Co. near Fairview, and Tom Young, a New Jersey businessman, each owned a half-interest in Blackbird. Pembrook owns Maggie. Hardin, a specialist in artificial insemination and embryo transfer techniques, contends the fence mishap, in the fall of 1986, was an ``act of God'' that could not have been prevented or foreseen. The trial began Monday before a Payne County jury, and testimony ended Tuesday. Closing arguments are scheduled Friday. After the artificial insemination took place, the embryos were frozen, according to testimony. Pembrook picked up the frozen embryos in October, but there was no testimony on whether the embryos had since been placed in host cows.
AP881005-0107 	X	A woman who was hospitalized after she took an overdose of pills during a break in a foreclosure hearing on her family's farm also was troubled by death and illness in her family, authorities said. Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg declined to release a condition report on Ida Depta, 48, of Alverton, but the family's attorney said she was in stable condition. Mrs. Depta was admitted Tuesday after swallowing unidentified pills from two prescription bottles in a courthouse hallway while foreclosure negotiations broke for lunch, said paramedic Harley Gray. The proceedings were then postponed. ``She stated to us that all she wants to do is to join her mom at the cemetery,'' said Deputy Sheriff Eric Sinclair. ``She's just upset over her mom, her brother is dying of cancer and the possible loss of the farm.'' Witnesses said Mrs. Depta's 18-year-old daughter, Julie, was able to remove some of the pills from her mother's mouth. The foreclosure, filed in 1985 by ITT Financial Services of Greensburg, involves a $111,251 debt by Mrs. Depta and her husband, Joseph Depta Jr., on a family dairy farm in Westmoreland County. The fact that she took the pills in front of other people ``tells me she wasn't so much trying to kill herself as she was asking for help,'' Ned Nakles Jr., the family's attorney, said today. According to Nakles and court documents, the foreclosure hearing was the latest in a series of woes for the family. Mrs. Depta's mother died on Aug. 24. Depta was injured in a 1984 traffic accident and has since been unable to work, which cut into the farm's income. The family also lost 18 cows when a cow bought from a supplier had a contagious disease that spread through the herd. The Deptas have taken legal action against the supplier.
AP880730-0054 	X	Nine Kurdish guerrillas and a police officer were killed Saturday in a clash in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, the semi-official Anatolia News Agency reported. The guerrillas were believed to be members of the outlawed Kurdish Labor Party, which wants to set up a Marxist state in parts of eastern and southeastern Turkey, Anatolia reported. It did not elaborate on the clash. More than 900 civilians and security personnel and about the same number of insurgents have been killed since the rebels started hit-and-run attacks in 1984, official reports say. Ethnic Kurds make up about one-fifth of Turkey's population of 52 million.
AP900714-0088 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev has succeeded in reshaping the Communist Party in his own centrist image to brace for a challenge from workers and radicals who are quitting the party to organize an opposition. The 28th congress of the Communist Party, billed in advance as a bastion of hard-liners, closed Friday after dumping most of the Old Guard. The delegates also accepted much of Gorbachev's plan to transfer decision-making from the party to the government _ which he also heads. But the government faces increasing discontent, especially among workers, as well as ethnic unrest that is shredding the country at the edges. The struggle intensified Wednesday, when coal miners across the country staged a one-day protest strike and urged workers to leave the party. The miners also are organizing an independent trade union to press demands that the government resign and that all Communist Party assets be nationalized and distributed to rival political groups. Disgruntled workers might flock to the banner of Boris N. Yeltsin, who sent a shock through the Kremlin Thursday by walking out of the Communist congress, quitting the party. He said his first loyalty was to his new job, president of Russia, by far the largest of the 15 Soviet republics. Other leading reformers followed Yeltsin out of the party, including the new mayors of Moscow and Leningrad, the biggest Soviet cities. Despite the split in the party, the first since 1921, Gorbachev was jovial Friday as he closed the two-week Communist congress, which many had predicted would be dominated by hard-liners. Instead, Gorbachev scored a sweeping victory, removing his leading hard-line critic, Yegor K. Ligachev, from the Politburo. He also won approval of a restructuring of top party bodies to transfer power to the government. The danger for Gorbachev is that central authorities could lose touch with the people. The people, in turn, are using Gorbachev's democratic reforms to win control of legislatures throughout the country and challenge central government and party bodies. The atmosphere was tense in Moscow before the national party congress because it followed harsh criticism of Gorbachev's performance by traditionalists at a congress of party members in the Russian republic. Ligachev led the attack, urging Gorbachev to relinquish the top party job if he retained the national presidency. Ligachev complained that the party Politburo, the body that traditionally has ruled the Soviet Union, had been excluded from discussions of economic reform. Gorbachev had instead steered the program through the newly created Presidential Council. The mood was so foreboding that Yeltsin and other reformers recommended postponing the national congress. But the workers and reformers took the offensive. Nine minutes into the first session, miner Vladimir I. Bludov demanded that Gorbachev and other leaders resign. Gorbachev brushed aside the suggestion, noting that the congress was due to elect the general secretary, the Politburo and the Central Committee. He also told delegates that senior party leaders opposed his proposal to expand the Politburo from 12 to 30 members and to create a new deputy party leader's post to direct day-day-affairs. The congress was the stormiest since 1921, when the party faced armed uprisings from angry workers and sailors, and the most momentous since 1956, when Nikita S. Khrushchev denounced the late dictator Josef V. Stalin. The warmest applause was for Ligachev's warning that anti-Communist forces were gaining strength. But his tone was milder than at the Russian Communist Party congress, and he did not repeat his call for Gorbachev to relinquish the party leadership. Other hard-liners tempered their rhetoric and, together with moderates, drew together under Gorbachev. Many said that although they objected to one man heading the party and the government simultaneously, he was the only person capable of holding the party together. Gorbachev engineered his election as chairman of the committee drafting new party rules. Working behind the scenes, he revived his plans to restructure the party leadership. The congress voted to expand the Central Committee from 249 to 412 members, most of them centrists like Gorbachev. The delegates also approved a Gorbachev plan that drastically cut the Politburo's power, doubling its size and including the party heads of the 15 republics _ a move designed to ease ethnic tension. Moreover, he eliminated the Old Guard. Of the 24 Politburo members, only Gorbachev and his newly elected deputy Vladimir Ivashko remain from the former group. Only Gorbachev has been a member of the body more than eight months.
AP881207-0100 	X	Nov. 30 Asbury Park (N.J.) Press on the rise in air fares: The nation's major airlines almost in unison decided ... to charge more for their services. Out went most discounted ... fares and in came ticket price increases of up to 30 percent. Since deregulation, competition has led to major mergers and the demise of more than 100 small airlines. Uncle Sam has done little to stand in the way of acquisitions that have placed control of two-thirds of all domestic flights in the hands of eight carriers, several of which also control airports and reservation systems. The round of fare increases and rising prices in other industries may be just the beginning _ unless the government more vigorously enforces antitrust laws.
AP900110-0242 	X	Two major newspapers are fighting a request for a gag order by Eastern Airlines' creditors, who seek to stop press leaks in the beleaguered airline's 10-month-old bankruptcy proceeding. The latest tangle in the Eastern saga pits the creditors committee against The New York Times and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and centers on unauthorized disclosure of creditor opinions. If U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton R. Lifland grants the creditor committee request, violators could be held in contempt of court. The Times and Dow Jones say a gag order would violate First Amendment guarantees and prevent reporting on a story in which much of the information has been derived from tips and leaks. Attorneys for the Times and Dow Jones have sent letters to Lifland, who is scheduled to hear the case Jan. 30. The Times has filed legal briefs. Dow Jones expects to do so by the Jan. 15 deadline, spokesman Roger May said Tuesday. Eastern workers struck last March in an emotional walkout that almost immediately sent the moneylosing airline into bankruptcy court. Pilots and flight attendants quit the strike in November but Machinists union members remain out. The pilots, Machinists and flight attendants unions, who are represented on the creditors' committee, plan to support the panel's position, union attorneys said. Eastern also will support the creditors' request to the court, Eastern spokesman Robin Matell said from the airline's headquarters in Miami. All creditors committee members agreed last spring to keep information discussed by the panel confidential. In their documents, the Times and Dow Jones said courts must follow specific guidelines before restraining media access in a case. Their attorneys argue that the creditors' request doesn't meet those guidelines. ``The proposed order would, without any showing of need, judicially silence hundreds of potential speakers and would undoubtedly deprive the public of informed views perhaps at odds with the `party line' of the (creditors) committee itself,'' the Times says in its brief. ``It crosses all of the established barriers to prior restraint.'' The Times also argues that the creditors' request would be ineffective and unenforceable, and suggests the news leaks haven't come from the creditors committee. In addition to the Air Line Pilots Association, the Machinists and the Transport Workers Union, other members of the creditors' committee include: Airbus Industrie, the European aircraft consortium; General Electric Co.; Boeing Co.; United Technologies Credit Corp.; Rolls-Royce Credit Corp.; Marriott Corp.; and AT&T Communications.
AP901008-0004 	X	Secretary of State James A. Baker III is switching back to Cold War-era language in an effort to defeat a House move to cut off U.S. aid to anti-communist rebels in Angola. In a private memo he sent recently to House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., Baker said ending aid to the Angolan rebels would derail peace negotiations ``and would be a vote for more killing, more stalemate and more suffering.'' This is ``the absolutely worst time'' to halt the aid, Baker said. The United States has been providing covert aid to the UNITA rebels in the southwest African country since 1986, but congressional sentiment against continued assistance seems to be increasing. At stake is a reported $60 million for the rebels in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The issue could go to the House floor this week. Critics of administration policy contend that more aid to the rebels will only prolong a conflict that has lasted 15 years and caused immense human suffering. They also point out that well over half the 50,000 Cuban troops in Angola have gone home. The rest will be out in less than nine months. One amendment before the House would cut off all U.S. aid to UNITA unless President Bush declares that vital national security interests are at stake. Another would require an aid cutoff unless Bush certifies that the Soviet Union or third parties are continuing to send weapons to the leftist government in Luanda. U.S. aid also could be restored if Angola refused to continue peace negotiations with UNITA in good faith. Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has said his government will halt all weapons imports if UNITA does the same. He also has said he is committed to instituting a multi-party democratic system in Angola. The Angola issue features a curious mixture of Soviet-American competition and cooperation. On one hand, Moscow and Washington have been arming opposite sides. On the other, Soviet and American representatives were present for the first time at the most recent negotiating session between Angolan officials and UNITA envoys. Four rounds of peace talks have been held in Lisbon and a fifth is scheduled there for later this month. Another anomaly is that the United States, although it does not recognize the Angolan government, is that country's largest trading partner because of oil purchases. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was in Washington last week, making his case for continued U.S. aid. He agrees with the administration that U.S. aid has forced the Angolan government to the bargaining table and that a cutoff could put his goal of a cease-fire and free elections beyond reach. Baker concurs. In his memo to Michel, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press, Baker said an aid suspension would undercut those in the Angolan government who want to negotiate and ``strengthen the hand of hardliners who want to continue the bloodshed.'' Angola's United Nations ambassador, Manuel Pedro Pacavira, counters by saying that continued aid to UNITA can no longer be justified because of the toll of 15 years of warfare. ``Our people have suffered enough,'' Pacavira has said. ``More than 50,000 people are amputees, most of them women and children, and more than 800,000 civilians face starvation resulting from the combination of war and drought. This is the legacy of war, a legacy we can change now.''
AP900528-0106 	X	The independent-minded Swedes are softening their opposition to joining the European Community, but the question of political union remains a stumbling block, politicians and analysts said. Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, in an article published Sunday, said neutral Sweden must remain outside the EC's ranks if the trading bloc forms a political union. Carlsson said control over foreign policy was the only major question barring Sweden from EC membership. Even the dissolution of the European power blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, would not persuade Sweden to relinquish its neutrality, he wrote in the Dagens Nyheter daily. Sweden has relaxed many of the restrictions of its tightly controlled economy in the last two years to adapt to European conditions. Major Swedish companies also have merged or signed cooperation deals with European companies to protect themselves when the EC dismantles its internal commercial barriers in 1992. Sweden belongs to the six-nation European Free Trade Association, which is negotiating for commercial links with the 12-nation EC. The package would unite the two into an 18-member European Economic Space accord. But Swedish businessmen and the political opposition complain that the idea would bind the EFTA countries to the EC as a junior partner with no decision-making voice. An opinion poll conducted by the respected SIFO organization showed 51 percent of those asked were in favor of seeking EC membership, compared with 48 percent a year ago. The poll had a three percent margin of error, meaning that the change was insignificant. But the number of respondents who opposed asking for EC membership fell to 21 from 25 percent, perhaps indicating a trend, said SIFO analyst Alf Sjostrom. The rest were undecided. ``We have seen from other polls which we have done that opinion in Sweden is more positive to the EC,'' said Sjostrom. But the polls also showed that most Swedes don't know how EC membership would affect them, he said. Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, speaking in a Stockholm news conference, said Sweden should not consider neutrality an obstacle to seeking EC membership. Denmark, once an EFTA member, is the only Scandinavian country in the EC. ``I see a common foreign policy where there is consensus,'' Ellemann-Jensen said. ``We can work to improve the preconditions for reaching consensus.'' He cautioned that Sweden could not influence EC policy unless it were a full member of the trading bloc. ``We do not want non-members to take part in the decision-making process. It is unthinkable to have far-reaching agreemens that undermine the (EC) integrity and process of decisions,'' he said. Swedish opposition leader Carl Bildt, of the Moderate party, also said the policy of neutrality should not be allowed to exclude Sweden from the EC. ``It is impossible to conduct our neutrality policy as if the Cold War still existed,'' Bildt said. ``It is obvious that we would participate in the cooperation among Europe's democracies.''
AP900601-0111 	X	Barbara Bush, in a commencement speech clouded by controversy over women's roles in modern American life, exhorted Wellesley College graduates today to put friends and family first in their lives, whatever careers they pursue. She was joined at the women's college graduation by Raisa Gorbachev, who delivered her own words of advice to the 575 graduates and nearly 5,000 other guests gathered inside a white tent on this sylvan campus. Even as the first ladies arrived, some of the seniors who protested the choice of President Bush's homemaker wife as their commencement speaker fired off a new letter urging Mrs. Bush to ``take a definitive and vocal stand'' on abortion rights and other issues. Copies were placed on each of the chairs inside the tent. Mrs. Bush sounded the same themes she usually discusses at commencements, but acknowledged with a joke the controversy over her appearance. ``I know your first choice for today was Alice Walker, known for `The Color Purple,''' she said. ``Instead you got me, known for the color of my hair,'' said the woman George Bush affectionately calls the Silver Fox. Mrs. Gorbachev, dressed in a gray suit rather than the traditional gown worn by commencement speakers, told the graduates that women ``have our special mission.'' ``Always, even in the most cruel and troubled times, women have had the mission of peacemaking, humanism, mercy and kindness,'' she said. ``And if people in the world today are more confident of a peaceful future we have to give a great deal of credit for that to women.'' The lone note of discord came during the playing of the Soviet national anthem when a handful of protesters held up a banner that read, ``Free the Baltics.'' Mrs. Bush urged the women to ``cherish your human connections, your relationships with friends and family.'' ``You will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent,'' she said. Closing with a device she has used before, Mrs. Bush said, ``Somewhere out in this audence may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!'' ``The controversy ends here, but our conversation is only beginning,'' she said. Prior to the speech, Peggy B. Reid and Susana R. Cardenas had their new broadside waiting on each of the chairs. Cardenas was one of the main organizer's of the petition drive in April protesting the choice of Mrs. Bush as commencement speaker. ``We ask you, Barbara Bush, as a concerned mother and as a symbol of service to others, to take a definitive and vocal stand on the following critical issues that shape the lives of women in the United States,'' they said. The issues include the ``deterioration of women's reproductive rights''; passage of a family and medical leave act that President Bush has threatened to veto, and affordable day care. Some 150 students signed a petition in April questioning whether the president's homemaker wife was a suitable model of female accomplishment. Mrs. Bush, a college dropout, tendered her invitation to Raisa Gorbachev _ a philosophy Ph.D. and former university lecturer _ before the Wellesley students mounted their protest. Mrs. Bush, who turns 65 on June 12, dropped out of Smith College in 1944 in her sophomore year to marry her teenage sweetheart, George Bush, then a torpedo-bomber pilot for the Navy. Before returning to Washington in mid-afternoon, the first ladies were expected to take a driving tour of downtown Boston with a stop at the Boston Public Gardens and a meeting with about 30 students from the Mathers School, the oldest public school.
AP900901-0049 	X	A motorist who was stopped early today on suspicion of drunken driving grabbed an officer's gun, wounding the officer and a second policeman before shooting himself to death, authorities said. Pembina County Sheriff's Deputy Miles Nelson stopped the suspect on a possible charge of driving under the influence shortly after 1 a.m., according to Deputy Cal Cluchie. An ``altercation'' occurred in which the man took Nelson's service handgun and shot him, Cluchie said. Nelson managed to call for assistance as the man fled. Cavalier Police Chief James Johnson, responding to the call, was also wounded as he attempted to stop the man, Cluchie said. The suspect was later found nearby with a fatal gunshot wound, apparently self-inflicted, he said. Nelson was listed in critical condition at the United Hospital in Grand Forks, and Johnson is listed in stable condition at Pembina County Memorial Hospital. No other details were immediately available. Cavalier is located about 15 miles south of the Canadian border in northeastern North Dakota.
AP901017-0109 	X	The Judds, an award-winning mother-daughter country music duo, will call it quits at the end of their current concert tour, they announced Wednesday. Naomi, 44, will retire from performing due to hepatitis, which was diagnosed 10 months ago. Wynonna, 26, will start a solo career with an album tentatively slated for a spring 1992 release. ``I have always told Wy and our fans the only thing that could stop me from this career that I so desperately love would be my health,'' Naomi said. ``Unfortunately, that has happened.'' Their current tour is booked through Nov. 4 at Philadelphia, but RCA spokesman Greg McCarn said additional dates were certain to be set. ``I will miss touring and the daily interplay with our fans,'' said Naomi, who said she will continue writing songs. The mother and daughter announced their decision in a tearful news conference at an empty Music Row building that formerly housed RCA Records and where the duo auditioned seven years ago. The Judds were voted duo of the year for the third straight year Oct. 8 by the Country Music Association. In their acceptance remarks, both fought back tears as they credited each other. Their hit records over their six-year career include ``Grandpa,'' ``Mama He's Crazy,'' ``Why Not Me,'' ``Rockin' With the Rhythm'' and their current ``Born to Be Blue.'' Four of their eight albums have sold 1 million copies: ``Why Not Me,'' ``Rockin' With the Rhythm,'' ``Heartland'' and ``The Judds' Greatest Hits.'' Wynonna said her first solo recording sessions would be after the current tour winds up. ``The decision to begin a solo career has all happened so fast because of Mom's health that I have not put a lot of thought into it,'' she said. ``My main concern right now is Mom's welfare. However, I have the complete support of my manager, my mother and others around me. I certainly will give it my best shot.'' Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. Symptoms include weakness, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and jaundice. Wynonna announced in July that she is engaged to songwriter Tony King of Nashville. Naomi, a former nurse, married gospel music singer Larry Strickland in May 1989. She was divorced in 1977 from her first husband.
AP900212-0149 	X	A leadership meeting of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud bloc broke down in chaos and shouts of anger Monday after Shamir called for a vote of confidence in his plan for Palestinian elections. Shamir stormed out of the session of the Likud Central Committee after getting into a shouting match with his hard-line party rival, Trade Minister Ariel Sharon, who said he would resign to protest Shamir's policies. Shamir later claimed in a radio interview that he had received a large show of support. The chaotic results left the already stalled Middle East peace process in even worse shape and raised doubts about the future of Shamir's fragile coalition Cabinet. Leaders of Likud's coalition partner, the center-left Labor party, met Monday night and decided not to make any moves that would likely break up the government as long as there is a chance for peace. But a senior Labor official said the party would demand a new Cabinet vote on the peace initiative and could leave the government unless it got backing. Some Labor members demanded that the party quit the coalition immediately because Israel's peace initiative has been compromised. ``I don't think we can continue to live in this marriage,'' Yossi Beilin, a top aide to Labor leader Shimon Peres, told The Associated Press. In Washington, President Bush said Sharon's resignation could suit U.S. policy if it led to progress in the stalled peace process. ``Mr. Shamir was a proponent of these talks, and if this clears the way for the talks to go forward, that would (be) in keeping with U.S. policy,'' Bush said at a White House news conference. Monday's meeting of Likud's Central Committee contained two surprises. The first was Sharon announcing his resignation. The second was the chaotic ending, which came after polls predicted a victory for the prime minister over his hard-line rivals. The meeting broke down when Shamir called for a vote of confidence at the end of a speech in which he essentially bent to the political demands of Sharon and his supporters. ``Do you accept my proposal? Let us vote,'' Shamir shouted. But Sharon, who later claimed Shamir had broken an agreement to delay the vote until the end of the debate, began shouting into a microphone for a vote on his own stands. Hundreds of delegates raised their hands amid the chaos, and both sides claimed they won. ``I received a decisive, massive majority,'' Shamir said moments after leaving the meeting of Likud's 3,085-member Central Committee in a circle of security guards. ``It was very clear that our proposals were accepted,'' Sharon argued later in a radio interview. Sharon convened the meeting as a challenge to Shamir's leadership and his peace plan, which envisages a limited Palestinian autonomy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Likud hawks say the plan gives the Palestinians too many concessions. Opening the session, Sharon surprised even his close supporters with his offer to resign from the Cabinet. ``My decision to resign from the government is in order to continue the difficult struggle for our national goals ... endangered as a result of policies of the present government,'' he said. As he spoke, most delegates rose to their feet, and several hundred began chanting ``Arik, Arik'' _ Sharon's nickname. Shamir tried to seize the initiative with an emotional speech that embraced most of his rivals' stands: refusing to allow Arab residents of annexed east Jerusalem to vote in the proposed elections, and demanding an end to the 26-month Palestinian uprising before peace could be negotiated. ``We cannot imagine real political negotiations and autonomy as long as attacks and violence continue,'' Shamir said. Speaking later on army radio, Shamir indicated he would accept the trade minister's resignation, saying: ``It seems natural that Sharon resigns from a government whose policies he opposes in all its aspects.'' However, the prime minister and his chief supporters said the chaotic meeting would not lead to a split in the party. ``This is not the end of Likud but the end of those who wanted to break Likud down,'' said Environment Minister Ronnie Milo. But Moshe Zorenstein, a delegate, described the meeting as ``being at our own funeral.''
AP900812-0010 	X	All week long the authorities of this town of 7,000 have struggled to contain an ocean of roaring motorcycles and tattooed bikers wrapped in enough leather to outfit the women of Chicago with purses. On Friday, when the crowd had swelled to around 300,000, Police Chief Jim Bush faced one of his most serious challenges _ a showdown on Main Street between two motorcycle gangs. Luckily, the conflict broke off before knives were drawn. And Bush said the police involvement in cooling tempers was, shall we say, discreet. ``We didn't break anything up. We just kind of stood back,'' he said. The 50th Black Hills Motor Classic, with bikers from every state and dozens of countries, rattled toward its official close Sunday, and police in this Black Hills town near the Wyoming border were breathing many sighs of relief. Thursday night, a lead biker of the Outlaws motorcycle gang smiled at a police officer, cocked his finger like a pistol and gave him a little ``pow!'' It was a small gesture, more playful than menacing, but it signified some of the problems that Sturgis has had to cope with in putting on the world's largest motorcycle gathering. Sturgis, which normally has 10 officers, in 10 days has provided a year's worth of mayhem. Since Aug. 1, hundreds of law enforcement agents have issued 976 traffic tickets, given out 1,918 warnings, arrested 180 people for drunken driving and 61 others on drug charges. They also have handled 116 reported accidents, 65 involving injuries. The rally has been the scene of nine traffic-related deaths. Police shot to death an Australian man, and a North Dakota woman died of carbon monoxide poisoning. There have been a few non-fatal stabbings. Law officers interviewed members of the Outlaws and Hells' Angels Saturday night after one person was wounded in a shooting at a downtown bar and two people were stabbed after what witnesses described as a dispute between two motorcycle groups, Meade County State's Attorney Mike Jackley said.. The wounded were alive after the shooting at Gunner's Lounge and Casino and the stabbings near the Sooper Dooper grocery, but their conditions at a nearby hospital were not immediately available, he said. Bush said he was not surprised by the number of fatalities. ``I thought there would probably be more, I really did, with this many people,'' he said. The annual biker festival draws gangs such as the Hells' Angels, The Bandidos, and the Sons of Silence, as well as clubs sponsored by Christian groups and Alcoholics Anonymous. The late Malcolm Forbes was at last year's fest. A coroner's jury Friday ruled that three officers acted in the ``scope of their duty'' when they shot Trevor John Hansen, of Liverpool, Australia. Hansen allegedly lunged at them with a knife Tuesday. Police were responding to a report he had driven his 2-foot-long knife through the door of a house, broke in and held the knife under the nose of a resident. ``Aside from (the shooting), we have not seen anything really outside of what we ordinarily have seen,'' said state Attorney General Roger Tellinghuisen. ``Except it's on a larger scale. And that's to be expected. There are three times as many people here,'' Tellinghuisen said.
AP900919-0160 	X	NEW YORK - Seveny-nine New York Post workers decided to resign and take a buyout offered as part of a labor settlement to save the tabloid, union and newspaper officials said Wednesday. The paper had sought only 43 resignations from the 350-member Newspaper Guild as part of $19 million in union concessions owner Peter S. Kalikow said he needed to make the paper profitable. The 505,000-circulation paper has been losing $27 million a year. The Guild resignations mean the Post will lose close to 200 of its 960 workers. Agreements reached last week call for 100 forced resignations from the 263-member drivers union and five from the Post's 17 paper handlers. Guild members resigning include employees from editorial, advertising, circulation, and accounting. Post Editor Jerry Nachman said about 40 of the 79 resignations were from the editorial department. ``It's not a number I like, or I'm happy with,'' said Nachman. Members of the union had until 5 p.m. Wednesday to resign and collect full severance plus eight weeks shut down pay. Kalikow had improved the buyout offer before guild members voted Monday on concessions slashing their pay 20 percent as part of a four-day work week. The Guild had been the holdout among 11 unions that gave job and wage cuts sought by Kalikow. Kalikow had said he would shut down the 189-year-old paper if any one union refused the grant concessions. Kalikow said Tuesday that the concessions from unions and cuts in overhead and among the managerial staff will allow the paper to be profitable by Oct. 1. That would be the first profit since the 1970s. Among the 79 staffers to resign was sports columnist Peter Vecsey, who had previously told the newspaper he was leaving when his contract expired in November. He will write a twice-weekly sports column for USA Today. He also recently signed to be a reporter on NBC's NBA pre-game show, ``The Insiders.'' Peter Faris, Post vice president for editorial and administration, said Vecsey's resignation was ``divorced from the buyout scenario although as a Guild member he is availing himself of the opportunity.''
AP880512-0110 	X	The Senate today voted down an effort to ban most U.S. underground nuclear testing, rejecting claims by supporters of the ban that it would help stem the atomic arms race. The chamber voted 57-39 to kill the proposed ban as it worked through a Pentagon budget bill. ``We must maintain unquestionable confidence in our nuclear deterrent and our experts tell us that this requires continued testing,'' said Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-N.C., a chief opponent. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., the sponsor of the ban, said, ``no other issue addresses so clearly the runaway technology which is the lifeblood of the arms race.'' The House has approved an underground test ban in its version of the defense bill, meaning the issue will have to be resolved by a House-Senate conference committee that will resolve differences between the two measures. The House passed its defense bill Wednesday and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said the U.S. military is ``stronger and more capable'' now than when President Reagan took office, despite Reagan's recurring complaints about not getting enough money for the Pentagon. ``By almost any measure, our armed services are better than they were in 1981,'' said Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis. ``The most dramatic increase is the quality of people, which is much, much better.'' Aspin commented shortly after the House voted 252-172 for a Pentagon budget, which will be the last defense budget of Reagan's eight-year presidency. House approval split along party lines, with majority Democrats supporting the bill and Republicans opposing it. Reagan didn't like it either, joining complaints by House Republicans that the bill unfairly restricts his arms control policies and Star Wars program. The House measure bans Star Wars tests that violate the so-called ``narrow'' interpretation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, and bars the purchase of any nuclear weapons that violate the numerical limits in the unratified 1979 SALT II nuclear arms treaty. The Senate, by a 51-45 margin, rejected an attempt Wednesday to add the SALT II restriction to its defense bill. Reagan opposes both restrictions and is also unhappy with the $3.5 billion approved by the House for the Strategic Defense Initiative, as Star Wars is formally known. The Senate voted Wednesday for $4.6 billion. Reagan wanted $4.8 billion for Star Wars next year, compared with the current SDI budget of $3.9 billion. Aspin said he couldn't understand the presidential complaints. ``I don't believe the president has any reason to be upset. I think it's a good bill. We gave the president a lot of what he wanted.'' Both the House and Senate bills authorize $299.5 billion worth of defense spending in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, a slight reduction from the current $300 billion Pentagon budget. The measures would essentially freeze defense spending for a fourth straight year, following four large annual increases in Reagan's first term. No increases are likely in the future, Aspin predicted. ``I would guess that you're looking at perhaps a freeze, or maybe a decline of 1 or 2 percent, for the foreseeable future, which is the next three or four years, no matter who is elected president.'' Several factors will contribute to the reluctance to increase defense budgets, said Aspin. ``First, there are the worries about the federal budget deficit. Then second, you have the fact that the Soviets appear to the American public to be less threatening under Mikhail Gorbachev, so there's less a push because of fear. ``You also have the fact that there are other fears, like drugs,'' he said, noting that the House bill orders Reagan to use the U.S. military in the fight against illegal drug smuggling. ``In addition, there is a growing perception that national security depends on other things than simply military might, that it needs to include economic strength,'' he said. While the House measure restricts Reagan's arms control policies and Star Wars, it granted his proposals for a vast variety of weapons. That total includes 180 F-16 jet fighter planes, 84 F-A-18 jets, 42 F-15 jets, a dozen F-14 jets, three new Navy destroyers, two more attack submarines, one Trident missile-firing sub, the first of the new ``Seawolf'' class subs and 611 M-1 tanks. The Senate decision on Star Wars came as the chamber voted 50-48 against a deep reduction in the 5-year-old program. That vote defeated a proposal by Sen. Bennett Johnston, D-La., to reduce the SDI budget to about $3.8 billion and devote the extra $750 million to the space shuttle and a space station.
AP880926-0051 	X	Concern over the health of ailing Emperor Hirohito dampened trading today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while the dollar firmed against the Japanese yen. The 225-share Nikkei Stock Average gyrated through the day over concern for Hirohito, whose condition appeared to stabilize today after setbacks over the weekend. The Nikkei lost 59.17 points, or 0.22 percent, to close at 27,330.95 in dull trading. Volume on the first section was a light 550 million shares. Traders said investors were reluctant to take large positions because of fears the market might close temporarily upon Hirohito's passing, leaving them unable to respond to financial markets overseas. In addition, many traders cited the psychological impact of uncertainty over the health of any major world figure. Hirohito has reigned for nearly 62 years. Monday was also the last day Japanese brokerages could trade on their accounts for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, when most companies close their books. On the Tokyo foreign exchange market, the dollar closed at 134.73 yen, up 0.26 yen from Thursday's close, the last day of trading. It opened at 134.80 yen and moved in a narrow range of 134.66-134.85 yen. Dealers attributed the dollar's strength to a reaffirmation over the weekend among monetary authorities from seven major countries. The Group of Seven met in West Berlin and decided to continue to coordinate economic policies targeting stable exchange rates and containing inflation. ``Following the outcome of the G-7 meeting, the market took it as an indication there will be no market intervention by the nation's central bank at the current exchange rate level,'' said a dealer at a major commercial bank in Tokyo, speaking anonymously.
AP881011-0283 	X	Consolidated Gold Fields PLC and Newmont Mining Corp. said they filed a federal suit Tuesday to block a $3.5 billion hostile buyout bid by a South African conglomerate, on grounds the offer violates federal securities and antitrust laws. The U.S. District Court suit was the latest action the companies have taken to thwart the overture by South African-controlled Minorco SA, which has offered $3.5 billion for the 70.6 percent of Consolidated Gold Fields it does not already own. London-based Gold Fields owns a 49.3 percent stake in Newmont. Gold Fields and New York-based Newmont last week asked President Reagan to block the takeover on national security grounds, contending a buyout would endanger U.S. access to strategic metals such as gold, platinum and zirconium. Gold Fields has asked the British government to review the bid because of the South African connection, and the South African government also is investigating the proposed acquisition. Named as defendants in the suit filed Tuesday were Anglo American Corp. of South Africa Ltd., De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., and Minorco. Luxembourg-based Minorco, which owns 29.4 percent of Gold Fields, is controlled by Anglo American and De Beers Consolidated Mines, the gold and diamond mining interests of the wealthy Oppenheimer family of South Africa. Anglo American and De Beers have said they would relinquish control of Minorco if the bid succeeds. Minorco has said it plans to sell Gold Fields' South African interests and Gold Fields' stake in Newmont if it acquires the company. The Gold Fields-Newmont suit contended the defendants had conspired to monopolize the gold market and that a successful acquisition likely would substantially lessen competition in that market. Gold Fields controls 8 percent of the world's gold production. It also produces rutile and zircon, which are raw materials for metals used in military aircraft and submarines. The suit claimed a takeover of Gold Fields by Minorco would give the South African syndicate control over a third of the world's gold market. The suit stated the Oppenheimer syndicate has major investments in companies that control more than 20 percent of the West's gold production, has interests controlling more than 50 percent of the free world's platinum production and has what it claimed the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation consider ``an absolute monopoly'' over the diamond business.
AP880414-0066 	X	The Honduran Congress began hearings on the deportation of a reputed drug baron to the United States that caused violent protests and forced the government to impose a state of emergency. The emergency decree was issued for Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on April 8 after 2,000 demonstrators, enraged over the forced extradition of Juan Ramon Matta, burned the U.S. Consulate and U.S. Information Service office in the capital. The decree was lifted Wednesday after tension subsided. Police and soldiers arrested Matta in a pre-dawn raid on his Tegucigalpa home April 5 and deported him to the United States by way of the Dominican Republic the following day without a passport. The Honduran Constitution forbids the extradition of Honduran citizens. Matta, 43, a Honduran citizen, is being held at a maximum security federal prison in Marion, Ill., on drug trafficking charges. He also was wanted for questioning by U.S. authorities in connection with the 1985 torture-slaying in Mexico of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. Col. Leonel Riera Lunatti, commander of the public security forces, testified behind closed doors for over two hours on Wednesday before a congressional commission investigating the deportation. Riera Lunatti arrived at the legislative chambers surrounded by security guards and declined to comment to reporters. But Ramon Rufino Mejia, chairman of the hearing, said Riera Lunatti testified he had broken into Matta's home at the orders of superiors. Riera Lunatti stated the armed forces were responsible for the operation, Rufino Mejia said. Judge Saul Suazo, who issued the search warrant authorizing the break-in, also testified before the panel on Wednesday. Rufino Mejia said the commission planned to hear testimony from Ramualdo Bueso, interior and justice minister; Maj. Efrain Gutierrez, head of the government immigration department; Maj. Santiago Perdomo, director of aviation; and Col. Marco Antonio Chavez, chief of a local police district. The chairman refused to rule out the possibility the panel could summon President Jose Azcona Hoyo to testify. ``We have begun a serious investigation into the affair because we consider that no functionary, be he military or civilian, is above Honduran laws,'' Rufino Mejia said. The government lifted the emergency decree and restored full constitutional guarantees at 6 a.m. Wednesday in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, 125 miles to the north. Business, commerce and transportation operated normally. Five Hondurans died in the rioting last week. The U.S. Embassy, located in the same complex as the burned offices, was not damaged. Police detained at least 70 people believed involved in the attack, said Maj. Manuel Antonio Urbina, chief police spokesman. Honduras is a staunch U.S. ally, but some Hondurans protested the presence of U.S. soldiers in their country and joint U.S.-Honduran military exercises. Honduras was used as a base by U.S.-supported Contra rebels who fought the leftist Nicaraguan government until last month's signing of a cease-fire pact. Just before that agreement, the United States sent 3,200 soldiers to Honduras after Nicaraguan troops reportedly pursued Contras into Honduran territory.
AP901228-0069 	X	Vice President Dan Quayle cancelled a second round of golf at a California course today after being criticized for playing at the country club with an all-white membership. His office said he had been unaware of the controversy surrounding the Cypress Point Club. Quayle shot more than 18 holes Thursday at the course in Pebble Beach. Beach. The Professional Golfers Association in September ruled the club ineligible for the 1991 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. ``I have a great concern about the vice president of the United States playing at Cypress Point and not being aware of the sensitivity of the issue that revolves around it,'' Monterrey County Supervisor Sam Karas said. Quayle couldn't be questioned for reaction because Secret Service agents kept reporters and photographers off the club's private grounds. But his office in Washington released a statement from Press Secretary David Beckwith, stating Quayle was ``unaware of the controversy surrounding the Cypress Point golf course. He has been assured the club does not discriminate and has never had a policy of discrimination.'' However, the statement said, ``The vice president is unwilling to leave any impression that he condones any form of discrimination. He has therefore canceled his round of golf today.'' Quayle is a member of the Burning Tree country club outside Washington, which has an all-male membership. He was returning to his skiing vacation in Colorado before returning to Washington on Saturday. Quayle will leave Saturday night for a New Year's visit to the troops in the Persian Gulf. Asked how Quayle could be unaware of the highly publicized controversy involving the club's banning from the national tournament, his chief of staff Bill Kristol said in a telephone interview: ``It proves he's not spending time reading the golf pages.'' An official who answered the telephone at the club's hotel, where Quayle was staying, said the staff had been instructed not to try to contact Quayle's party. Golfing with Quayle on Thursday were two Cypress Point Club members who are prominent officials in the Bush administration - Donald B. Rice, the Air Force secretary, and Ebersole Gaines, U.S. Ambasador to the Bahamas.
AP901113-0038 	X	The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year swept across central islands today with 125 mph winds, killing at least one person, sinking numerous ships and forcing thousands to flee their homes. The navy said a merchant ship with 16 crew members was missing off Mindanao island and that 16 boats had sunk off Cebu island. Three sailors were reported missing in the Cebu sinkings. At least 17 people, including six Americans, were trapped on an oil rig off Palawan island after 68 other workers were evacuated, said Maj. Antonio Babijes, chief of the Manila Rescue Coordinating Center. He said officials asked U.S. Air Force and Navy authorities to assist in evacuating the rig after a rescue boat was forced back by rough seas. The rig is operated by Alcorn Production-Philippines Inc. The confirmed death occurred in the Panay island province of Capiz when a tree fell on a 10-year-old boy, a spokeswoman for the governor said. Typhoon Mike made landfall on Leyte island eary today and was by midday centered over Iloilo City on Panay island, about 290 miles southeast of Manila, the capital's weather bureau said. Senior forecaster Daniel Dimagiba said the storm's maximum sustained winds had weakened to 103 mph and that it was moving at 19 mph west-northwest after crossing Leyte, Cebu and Negros and hitting Panay islands. Cmdr. Ruben Lista, spokesman of the Philippine navy, said a distress call was received from the cargo ship Dona Roberta early today. The call said the ship was taking in water about 500 miles south of Manila, Lista said. It was the last radio contact with the ship, which was presumed to have sank, he added. In Cebu, Lista said, 16 vessels sank off the Cebu docks and six others ran aground. He said huge waves pushed a passenger ship into a navy patrol craft and another domestic ferry, sinking the three vessels. He said there were no reports if the vessels were had passengers at the time. Three navy utility crafts also sank nearby and three sailors were reported missing in two of the vessels, he added. On Negros island, a spokeswoman from the office of the governor of Negros Occidental province said about 9,500 people were forced to flee their homes in six towns. Officials said nearly 200 houses had been destroyed or damaged. The seas were dangerous to all types of vessels. Philippine Airlines canceled 59 domestic flights, but international flights were unaffected. The typhoon is the 14th to hit the Philippines this year. About 20 typhoons hit the country yearly. It was the strongest typhoon to come ashore here this year and the strongest to enter the country's waters since December, Dimagiba said. Mike struck Palau island over the weekend, toppling trees, devastating crops and battering buildings.
AP900710-0100 	X	Here is a look at the accomplishments of the 28th Communist Party congress after eight days, as well as what remains to be done: ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Mikhail S. Gorbachev was re-elected as party leader Tuesday in a one-sided race against Siberian strike leader Teimuraz Avaliani after seven others who were nominated backed out.
AP900330-0150 	X	A mental patient who walked away from a state hospital and randomly stabbed a 9-year-old girl to death at a street fair was found innocent by reason of insanity Friday. David R. Peterson, 38, lacked the capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, a three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously concluded in acquitting him of murder and escape charges. However, Dr. Donald R. Grayson, a state-commissioned psychiatrist who examined Peterson, said it would be ``a dreadful mistake in judgment'' ever to release him from a high-security psychiatric facility. At Peterson's arraignment last summer, an angry crowd yelled ``Kill him, kill him!'' when he was brought to court. But there were no such demonstrations Friday. The girl's parents, Catherine and Robert Short, and a handful of their closest friends were present for the brief reading of the verdict. They showed no emotion as the decision was announced, and declined to comment when they left the courthouse. The Shorts are planning to sue the state. Peterson walked off the grounds of Connecticut Valley Hospital last July 28. He took a bus three miles downtown, bought a hunting knife at a Main Street sporting goods shop and walked only about 100 yards before pouncing on 9-year-old Jessica Short. He picked his victim at random from a crowd of hundreds attending a sidewalk sale and fair. He stabbed her 34 times before stunned and horrified bystanders and police could pull him away. Judges James Higgins, Barry Schaller and Salvatore Arena, who began deliberations Wednesday afternoon, ordered Peterson committed to the custody of the state mental health commissioner for evaluation. He will be held at the Whiting Forensic Institute, the state's only maximum-security institution, at least until another court hearing to determine whether he should be confined or released. His attorney, public defender Christopher James, said Peterson is happy to be at Whiting because he feels safer there. Psychiatrists hired by both the prosecution and the defense testified during the trial that Peterson represents a chronic danger to society and is as dangerous as a mentally ill person can be to others. Peterson, a chronic paranoid schizophrenic with a history of mental illness and violence, has spent 15 of his past 20 years in mental institutions. In 1971 and again in 1988, he was found innocent by reason of insanity in stabbing attacks and ordered committed to state hospitals. In 1988, he was moved from Whiting to Connecticut Valley Hospital after doctors at both places said they believed he could be adequately supervised in a minimum-security setting, said the state Psychiatric Security Review Board. Peterson's attorney said the case shows that the board, which by law has the primary duty of protecting society, should seek the recommendations of outside experts rather than relying solely on information coming from the hospitals. About two hours before he killed the girl, Peterson had been screaming about pain in his legs and arms that he blamed on the medication he was taking. The psychiatrist hired by the defense said the patient should have been confined to his ward after the outburst because he had a history of psychotic delusions being accompanied by violence. Instead, Peterson was allowed to follow his normal routine and go out onto the hospital grounds without supervison, according to court testimony. Peterson told police he killed Miss Short to take revenge on his doctors because they wouldn't change his medication. He told psychiatrists he went downtown to take revenge on his ``enemies'' _ whites of European descent _ and had pictured himself as a soldier marching into battle.
AP900528-0077 	X	Kilauea Volcano destroyed the 153rd home of its seven-year eruption Monday and threatened at least two others in this lava-ravaged Hawaii Island community, authorities said. A house located north of the Kalapana Store and Drive-In and Mauna Kea Congregational Church burned at 6 a.m., Hawaii County civil defense spokesman Bruce Butts said. He said the half-mile-wide flow continued to move erratically. It was filling low spots in what remains of Kalapana and was not moving toward the ocean. At last report, lava was within 25 yards of the closest home.
AP880610-0206 	X	A panic-stricken 8-year-old girl concocted a story about two intruders after she accidentally killed her sister while playing with a gun, police said. The girl initially told police two men broke into a mobile home the family used as storage and shot her 10-year-old sister when the sister tried to call police, authorities said. Police launched a search Thursday for the intruders. Four hours later, the 8-year-old confessed she had found the .22-caliber revolver, and was playing with it when it discharged, Police Chief Richard Ausenbaugh said Thursday. The girl made up the story in panic and hid the weapon in the mobile home, he said. ``It's just an unfortunate, very, very tragic thing,'' Ausenbaugh said. ``She's just going to have to live with it for the rest of her life.'' He said no charges would be filed.
AP881230-0055 	X	A college lecturer was cleared of charges he made a bomb threat on an American Airlines flight after an 11-year-old boy admitted he wrote the note and left it on the aircraft, says an apologetic FBI. Charges against Peter W. Canning, a lecturer in literature at the University of California-Berkeley, were dropped Thursday after the boy told the FBI he wrote the note. Canning, 40, found the note on an American Airlines jetliner Tuesday, gave it to a flight attendant and was arrested by the FBI. The FBI's top New Mexico agent, Jim Nelson, said he ``regrets any inconvenience and embarassment suffered by Mr. Canning.'' ``However, the investigation fully warranted the arrest of Canning, which occurred after consulting with the U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque,'' Nelson said. Canning, a Harvard doctoral candidate, could not be reached for comment because he was driving home to Berkeley when the charges were dropped by U.S. Magistrate Sumner G. Buell in Albuquerque. He had been released on his own recognizance the previous day. Canning had insisted all along that the note fell into his lap from his seat tray while lunch was being served on the flight from San Francisco to Dallas. He handed the note to a flight attendant, who notified the pilot. The plane was diverted to Albuquerque and was searched for about four hours with bomb-sniffing dogs. The boy came forward with his parents Thursday, and admitted writing the note during a flight to San Francisco earlier Tuesday, said FBI spokesman Douglas Beldon. The note was put on the pullout tray before it was stowed away, he said. The note said: ``Read this. There are guns pointed at you. If you want to live, read the letter underneath and do what it says. This is a bomb scare. Read this. PS If you do what the letter says, and have everyone else do it, you will live. PS If you don't, you are history!! There are bombs planted all over this airplane and there is a gun pointed at your head. Take your wallet and throw it in the aisle now.'' At the time of the arrest, federal agents said there were similarities between Canning's handwriting and the note. Agents determined that the boy sat in the seat later occupied by Canning, Beldon said. He said the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco declined to prosecute the boy. Canning's attorney, Ray Twohig, had said the arrest resulted from FBI confusion. ``I'm glad they've cleared up their confusion,'' he said Thursday. Asked if the crash of a Pan Am jumbo jet in Scotland last week might have affected the way this case was handled, Twohig said: ``Sure, everybody was jumpy. ``I just hope that people who read about this and hear about this aren't discouraged from reporting things,'' Twohig said. Canning has said he almost withheld the note.
AP900509-0243 	X	SmithKline Beecham PLC, the newly merged health, household products and pharmaceuticals company, said Wednesday its first quarter profit jumped 42 percent because of the sale of certain businesses. SmithKline said that during the three months ended March 31 it netted $371 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with earnings of $261 million, or 20 cents, a year ago. Sales rose 19 percent to $2.15 billion from $1.8 billion. The results were the first the company reported on a quarterly basis since the merger of SmithKline Beckman Corp. and Beecham PLC in July 1989. Year-earlier figures were made available as if the merger had taken place at the beginning of 1989. SmithKline Beecham attributed the higher quarterly income largely to aset sales. It sold branded businesses such as Ambrosia, Bovril and Marmite food products as well as the Yardley-Lentheric cosmetics, raising around $493 million. The company said that it reduced its debt by $455 million during the first quarter. Its total debt stands at $2.5 billion, down from $4 billion a year ago. SmithKline Beecham Chairman Henry Wendt said that ``interest expense will decline significantly during the year, and the balance sheet will improve as we generate a high level of cash from operations and aggressively pursue debt reduction.'' The pound figures were converted at a rate of $1.65, which was provided by the company.
AP880430-0089 	X	President Reagan said today he would issue a fast veto of the trade bill and urged Congress to pass one that ``will assist, not impede, our dynamic economy.'' In a weekly radio address delivered from the Oval Office, Reagan said his objections to the bill ``range from rules on plant closing notifications to restrictions on exports.'' ``You can be sure that this bill is going to get a veto, but fast,'' the president said, adding that he would then propose an alternative measure. The president said the trade bill originally proposed in Congress contained many provisions to which the administration objected. ``Working with members of Congress, we managed to remove almost all of these bad provisions,'' he said. ``Unfortunately, however when it comes to safeguarding property, almost can never be good enough.'' ``The current legislation, despite all the hard work, still has provisions that threaten economic growth,'' the president said. ``These provisions are comprised mainly of demands for unnecessary, burdensome and costly regulation of private industry.'' He said all Congress ``has to do is drop the ruffles, frills and flourishes put there for the special interests, and we can have a trade bill, and have it soon.'' ``I urge the congressional leadership to schedule prompt action on a bill immediately after my veto is sustained,'' the president said. ``It is time to set aside the special interests and advance America's interests by passing trade legislation that will assist, not impede, our dynamic economy.'' @Following grafs embargoed for 1:06 p.m. EDT
AP880922-0126 	X	Voters' doubts about George Bush and Michael Dukakis are such that, despite Bush's recent strength in the presidential race, the debates between the two men will prove critical, analysts of a new poll suggested Thursday. ``We consider this contest still a very close one,'' said Andrew Kohut, president of the Gallup Organization, which conducted the poll for the Times Mirror Corp. The poll suggested that Bush has gained in the presidential race more by solidifying his support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents than by siphoning off Democrats from Dukakis. ``He has performed in a way that has caused Republicans to come home,'' analyst Norman Ornstein said at a news conference where the poll results were released. Kohut said Bush ``has won the first round of this campaign and seized the momentum,'' but that support for both men was ``soft,'' with many people who expressed a preference saying they might switch to the opponent. Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, said Bush was vulnerable on the Iran-Contra affair and on the administration's handling of drug charges against Panamanian leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, with the Noriega question ``more significant to people'' than any other issue. Bush's criticism of Dukakis' prison furlough program ``resounds with more voters than any other charges'' against the Massachusetts governor, Ornstein said. Voters are also sensitive to Dukakis' veto of a bill that would have required the Pledge of Allegiance in Massachusetts schools, not because it raises questions about Dukakis' patriotism, but because the public thinks his judgment was wrong, Kohut said. The poll analysis called Bush's running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, ``the achilles heel of the Republicans'' because of doubts about his qualifications. While Quayle did not appear to be an issue on which votes were swinging directly, Ornstein said Quayle would be ``more of an issue than the overall numbers suggest'' as ``a symbol of George Bush's judgment combined with Noriega and Iran-Contra.'' ``Given the doubts ... whether either candidate has the judgment to be a good president ... these debates are either going to reinforce doubts or erase doubts about their judgment,'' Ornstein said. ``I think the debates are critical.'' Bush and Dukakis have their first debate Sunday in Winston-Salem, N.C., their second on Oct. 13 or 14 in Los Angeles. The poll suggested that Bush has advanced his cause by painting Dukakis as ideologically out of step, and he has benefited from increased voter satisfaction with the nation's course and confidence in the economy. But while Bush has drawn some conservative Democrats to his side, he has lost ground among other Democratic-oriented groups, said Gallup's analysis. It said the more significant movement was Bush's greater support from Republicans in general, and particularly from Republican-leaning, blue-collar conservatives identified in the survey as ``disaffected'' voters. ``For all the talk of the importance of the Reagan Democrats, this analysis suggests that the most significant dynamic in recent weeks has been the return of Republicans to the fold _ with disaffecteds showing the largest proportionate swing,'' Gallup's analysis said. The ``disaffecteds,'' set apart by their suspicion of government, made up about a tenth of the registered voters in the poll. They went from a nearly even division on Bush and Dukakis in May to backing Bush by 61 percent to 27 percent this month, Gallup said. The poll defines the electorate by grouping voters with shared values, rather than through the more traditional measures of political party identification or ideology. Bush has made inroads only in the most conservative Democratic groups, Kohut said, and he lost ground among another Democratic group, ``seculars,'' who are non-religious and put an emphasis on personal freedom. A pro-Dukakis group, the liberal ``'60s Democrats,'' supports Dukakis more strongly now, apparently in reaction to Bush's ideologically based attacks. At the same time, core Republican groups support Bush almost unanimously, and in each ``there has been a dramatic increase in the proportion who say they support Bush strongly,'' Gallup's analysis said. As a result, it said, ``It is clear that the main effect of the Bush efforts has been to solidify his base among Republican-oriented groups.'' Overall, Bush was supported by 50 percent in the poll of 2,001 registered voters to 44 percent for Dukakis. The survey, done Sept. 9-14, had a margin of error of three percentage points, so Bush's lead was not statistically meaningful. But, in this as in other polls, Bush had trailed badly before the Republican convention in August.
AP880519-0239 	X	A Libyan Foreign Ministry official on Thursday denied Australian charges that Libya was responsible for a riot in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, JANA news agency reported. The Libyan agency, monitored in Rome, quoted the unidentified official as dismissing allegations of Libyan involvement as ``baseless and not true.'' Prime Minister Bob Hawke of Australia had charged ``there is no doubt about a Libyan connection in Vanuatu'' following reports in the Australian news media that Libyan-trained activists were involved in Monday's violence. JANA quoted the Libyan source as saying such a statement represented ``a plain attempt to justify the open Australian interference in the internal affairs of an indepedent state _ Vanuatu.'' Riots in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, killed one person was killed and injured nine Monday. Police said 30 people were arrested after a march by 2,000 villagers over land-leasing rights turned violent, with protesters looting shops and smashing store windows. Australia and New Zealand airlifted riot control gear there at the request of the government. Vanuatu lies about 1,200 miles east of Brisbane, Australia. Vanuatu sent shockwaves through the generally pro-Western South Pacific in 1986 when it decided to establish diplomatic ties with Libya and the Soviet Union. Formerly the Anglo-French New Hebrides, Vanuatu was administered jointly by Britain and France from 1906 until 1980, when it achieved independence. It has a population of about 130,000.
AP880509-0018 	X	A top aide to Attorney General Edwin Meese III says a recent congressional report accusing his boss of violating White House ethics rules should top a ``list of sleaze.'' Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, who last year was given additional responsibilities as counselor to Meese, said the bipartisan Senate report is harmful to ongoing inquiries into the attorney general's actions. ``We've got a process that's in place, people who are investigating and it seems to me that we do not contribute to an integrity of that process when we have that kind of report that comes out that so disserves and so misstates what the facts are,'' Reynolds said on CBS-TV's ``Face the Nation'' program. ``If that is the best case that one comes up with against this attorney general for ethical conduct, I would have to say that this man is as clean as he can possibly be in every respect.'' Reynolds, the top enforcer of the Reagan administration's civil rights policies, added: ``If I were making a list of sleaze, I'd put that (the report) at the top.'' The report, issued Wednesday by the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, concluded that Meese's violation of the rules resulted in ``improper favoritism'' for the scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp. The report said E. Robert Wallach sent Meese, then counselor to President Reagan, 16 memos in 1981 and 1982 detailing Wedtech's efforts to get a contract to build small engines for the Army and government officials' opposition to those efforts. Meese has acknowledged interceding on behalf of Wedtech, but says he only wanted to assure that its contract proposal got a fair hearing. Wallach, a longtime friend of Meese, is now under indictment in the Wedtech scandal. He was paid $1.3 million by the Bronx, N.Y.-company, which subsequently won the no-bid, $32 million contract. ``Former Counselor to the President Edwin Meese III and former Deputy Counselor Jim Jenkins failed to observe the White House policy on contracts with procurement officials, which failure resulted in improper favoritism toward a specific contractor,'' the report said. The White House procurement policy in effect since October 1981 says that ``obviously, no member of the White House staff should contact any procurement officer about a contract in which he has a personal financial interest or in which a relative, friend or business associate has a financial interest.'' Reynolds said the report ``made reference to a policy or rule in the White House that wasn't in existence at the time the Wedtech thing was referred over to the attorney general.'' Independent Counsel James McKay has been investigating Meese's ties to Wedtech, a $1 billion Iraqi pipeline project promoted by Wallach, and other matters. In addition, the Office of Government Ethics is conducting an inquiry into why Meese solicited 30,000 lawyers and businessman to pay more than $3,000 apiece to a profit-making organization to attend a conference. Reynolds maintained that despite the investigations, morale at the Justice Department remains good. ``Actually, it's very good,'' he said. ``We have a lot of professionals. Everybody in the department is very professional. ``Most of the people in the department take the attitude that is much the same as George Bush's attitude. These are investigations that are ongoing. They'll play themselves out, the process ought to be allowed to work,'' Reynolds said. ``So far,'' he added, ``nobody has suggested that the attorney general has done anything that comes close to unlawful activity or activity that is going to result in an indictment of any kind.''
AP880409-0130 	X	Police renewed an unprecedented 1,000-officer blitz on street gangs Saturday, redeploying a special task force that made nearly 600 arrests in an anti-gang dragnet the night before. ``All day long, we have been lifting the hammer,'' said police spokesman Bill Frio. ``The chief called at 3 p.m. and said to drop it.'' The force made 592 arrests during the citywide sweep Friday night and early Saturday for a variety of felonies and misdemeanors, and also impounded at least 10 guns and 96 vehicles. Police said 224 of those arrested were believed to be gang members. Police had earlier reported 634 arrests, but later corrected the figure, which was caused by confusion during booking, Frio said. Officials were unsure how many of those arrested were held and how many released on bail, he said. The huge show of force began Friday evening with Mayor Tom Bradley's pledge to ``take back the streets,'' and continued through the night, with even Police Chief Daryl Gates and an assistant chief making arrests. Gangs were blamed for 205 killings in the city of Los Angeles in 1987. Countywide, the death toll from gang violence last year was 387, many of the victims bystanders caught in the gangs' trademark ``drive-by'' shootings. Only one violent gang-related incident was reported in the city during the sweep Friday night, police said. Shots were fired at an officer serving a search warrant at a house. A special weapons and tactics team was summoned but there was no further violence, Frio said. Six people were arrested for investigation of narcotics possession. Cocaine, cash and several guns were seized. In a gang-related incident outside the city, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in nearby Lynwood arrested a young man after a two-hour standoff that began when he was spotted with a gun, which he allegedly pointed at a deputy. The sweep was the city Police Department's biggest attack ever on drug dealing and street violence. Over the past month, smaller task forces have arrested a total of 1,400 suspected gang members, Frio said. The police chief made a collar of his own when he stopped a man in gang dress, frisked him and discovered a bottle of prescription drugs in somebody else's name. The man was held for investigation of possession of a controlled substance, said Lt. Mark Leap. Assistant Police Chief Robert Vernon, who was on patrol on the southside, also made an arrest. His collar was wanted for a parole violation, Frio said. About half the special force went to augment regular patrols in the south-central area. The rest of the officers spread out in gang areas throughout the city. The task force was assembled by putting officers on overtime at a cost of $150,000 a day. Bradley has vowed to spend whatever it takes to intimidate the gangs. Drug dealing and gang violence have long been a fact of life in the poor, minority neighborhoods of south-central Los Angeles. But wider community attention _ and political will _ focused on the violence in February when a woman was shot to death during a gang confrontation in the affluent, mostly white Westwood entertainment district near the University of California, Los Angeles. More recently, after a Good Friday attack killed one man and injured a dozen others, none of them gang members, Gates announced plans for the new task force. Bradley has budgeted funds for 400 new police officers next year, and political opposition to law-and-order measures aimed at gangs is virtually non-existent. City Councilman Robert Farrell, a longtime southside representative, said as the task force formed Friday evening that there was strong support for the police effort and no opposition over potential civil rights violations. ``The expansion of the police force ... is what is necessary to maintain a sense of order, decency and civility, and the police deployment is appropriate,'' he said. The Police Department's use of a ``suspect profile,'' intelligence work and preliminary planning is ``why you've not heard anyone raise the issue of civil rights concern,'' he said.
AP880407-0039 	X	A woman who dropped out of the 1988 Miss USA pageant after being charged with shoplifting pleaded guilty Wednesday. During her appearance in Hennepin County District Court, former Miss Minnesota-USA Sue Bolich, 24, of Mound admitted stealing several items from the Dayton's store at the Southdale shopping mall. She was arrested Jan. 22. Police said she had taken $370 worth of items, including a swimsuit, silk scarves and hairpieces. In exchange for her guilty plea, she will be placed in a program while she receives counseling. ``It's fair for a first-time alleged offender like Susie, and I think things will turn out fine for her,'' said Bolich's attorney, Peter Timmons. Bolich's successor to the Miss Minnesota-USA title also withdrew before the Miss USA pageant, after it was reported that she had pleaded guilty to shoplifting in 1986.
AP901104-0070 	X	Lewis du Pont Smith isn't as greedy as voters might think looking at a sample ballot. The chemical heir wants only one legislative job, not four. A sample ballot published in the Delaware County Daily Times correctly identified Smith as an independent candidate in the 5th Congressional District. It also listed him as a candidate in the state House races in the 159th, 160th and 168th districts. ``It was my fault,'' said R. Bruce Downing, director of the county election board. A sample ballot his office supplied to the paper was wrong, he said, adding that a corrected version was supplied the paper to publish Monday. Downing said only the ballot published in the paper was incorrect; a sample distributed around the county were correct. Smith, a follower of imprisoned political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., had asked the District Attorney's Office to investigate the mix-up. But District Attorney William H. Ryan Jr. said he determined the mix-up was only an error. Smith, 33, is running against Republican Rep. Richard Schulze, an eight-term incumbent, and Democrat Sam Stretton, a West Chester attorney, in the Tuesday election.
AP880828-0069 	X	Japanese Ambassador Nobuo Matsunaga says a free trade agreement between his country and the United States is being considered more seriously because recent successes in resolving trade disputes have improved relations between the two nations. It is time to ``build our partnership on the basis of our interlocking strengths instead of constantly warring over our separate weaknesses,'' Matsunaga told the Washington Council on International Trade last week. The ambassador said that the much-discussed U.S. trade deficit and the corresponding Japanese trade surplus ``simply do not comprehend'' the scope and complexity of the economic and political relationships between the two countries. ``It is quite understandable, therefore, that thoughtful people on both sides of the Pacific are now considering the possible benefits of some form of free trade arrangement between the United States and Japan, the two largest and most dynamic economies in the world, whose two-way trade is exceeded in value only by America's trade with Canada...'' Matsunaga said in his Thursday address. A U.S.-Japan free trade agreement _ which essentially would remove trade barriers between the two nations _ was proposed first in 1981 by Mike Mansfield, U.S. ambassador to Japan. The initial reaction was widespread skepticism that two countries with such different cultures and legal systems could fashion a workable agreement. But earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd raised the issue with Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. And Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and now Democratic vice presidential nominee, asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to prepare a report listing the pros and cons of such an agreement. The interest is driven not only by the increasingly complex trade relationship between the two countries, but by concerns by both about their trade relations with other nations. Japan has concerns about how the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement may affect its own trade with the United States and Canada. And both countries are concerned that the lowering of trade barriers among European Community nations, scheduled for 1992, could lead to increased difficulty in gaining access to that market. David Rohr, a member of the federal International Trade Commission who recently visited Japan to gather opinions for the study requested by Bentsen, said the Japanese are ``really scared'' of the sweeping U.S. trade bill _ signed into law last week and criticized by Matsunaga as ``disproportionately protectionist'' _ because of its sanctions for unfair trade practices.
AP880624-0189 	X	Police kept guard around Burma's holiest Buddhist shrine Friday after student protesters had abandoned the hilltop pagoda. Pilgrims who entered the spawling Shwedagon Pagoda after it was reopened Friday said they found no trace of the demonstrators. Traffic increased in Rangoon, and all markets were open, although fewer shoppers were seen. Police also kept tight security around other temples in the capital. Nine people were killed in the week of student-led street violence, officials said. The government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, closed institutions of higher learning and prohibited all public meetings. Buddhist pilgrims reported Thursday that students had moved into the shrine, a centuries-old marvel of golden spires and stupas, to set up a ``strike center'' that would coordinate anti-government protests. Pagoda trustees who spoke on condition of anonymity said university students arrived in groups at the shrine Wednesday afternoon and probably mingled with worshippers before the 6 p.m. government curfew. The students were also said to have left later that day, though it was not clear whether they too were observing the curfew or departed for some other reason. The trustees said security officials searched the temple grounds Wednesday night and barred public access Thursday. The week's protests also forced the suspension of classes at schools in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city. Anti-government protests also have been reported in Pegu, north of Rangoon, and in Moulmein, on the southeastern seacoast. Since October, the 26-year-old regime of strongman U Ne Win has been rocked by three violent protests in Rangoon and smaller ones in other parts of the country. Diplomatic and other sources says lack of personal freedoms and a downward spiraling economy are fueling unrest. Buddhist pagodas in Burma have traditionally been centers of political protest. In 1920, Rangoon students moved into the Shwedagon grounds to launch agitation against the British, then Burma's colonial rulers. The posting of guards at Sule, Botataung and other shrines was viewed as a measure to prevent activists from entering the Buddhist holy places, where violence of any kind is forbidden. Last week, students at several institutions had peacefully demonstrated for release of detained students and legalization of student unions. Violence broke out after the government responded by closing the schools. On Tuesday, about 5,000 students and other protesters fought police with stones. Last March, police and military units brutally suppressed a similar demonstration, arresting hundreds and killing what Western diplomats put at possibly up to 100 protesters.
AP900131-0256 	X	The author of the biggest U.S. restrictions to trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe said today that those restrictions should be waived immediately but not repealed. ``The principles of Jackson-Vanik should be solidly retained ... as a back-up insurance that we will not abandon world leadership on the issue of human rights,'' former Rep. Charles A. Vanik, D-Ohio, told the House Ways and Means Committee. Vanik, however, disagreed with the Bush administration's insistence that Moscow make law its recently adopted free emigration policies before the United States lifts the high tariffs imposed on Soviet imports. President Bush promised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Malta summit in December that if the emigration policies are made law, Bush would seek a one-year waiver of the Jackson-Vanik restrictions as part of a new U.S.-Soviet trade agreement the two leaders hope to sign in June. ``I judge the Soviet Union by the deed more than the statute,'' Vanik said of recent Soviet emigration policies. ``The process appears to be a well-established, non-reversible course.'' He said U.S. slowness in normalizing trade relations with Moscow and the newly reincarnated governments of Eastern Europe risks losing those fledgling free markets to other Western powers such as Japan, West Germany and Italy. House Democrats expressed frustration that the administration has not moved faster to lower the barriers to expanded trade with countries behind the crumbling Iron Curtain _ a region one businessman described as the biggest new market since the opening of the Americas in the 18th and 19th centuries. ``We're worried, we don't see any actual planning for this,'' said Rep. Sam Gibbons, D-Fla. ``We don't spot the administration doing a lot.'' Business people have favored outright repeal of Jackson-Vanik, saying they are unwilling to make the type of investments Bush has called for to rebuild the economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe without better assurance that policies will not be changed suddenly. ``If you think we're going to make investments on the basis of an 18-month waiver, we're not,'' said John Murphy, chairman of Dresser Industries in Dallas. Vanik, however, predicted that repeal of the 1974 law that he co-wrote with the late Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Wash., would have ``a tough time in Congress'' because of 45 years of Cold War conditioning to distrust the Soviet Union. ``It's a matter of political reality,'' he said. ``I think the rest of America is not yet prepared to consider anything more for the Soviet Union than a waiver.'' The law was enacted largely to stop the last proposed U.S.-Soviet trade agreement initiated by former President Nixon in 1972 and to pressure Moscow to remove restrictions that prevented Soviet Jews from emigrating to non-communist countries. Basically, it prohibits all export credits or credit guarantees to Soviet bloc countries that restrict emigration. The law also subjects Soviet bloc exports to the United States to stiffer tariffs than those applied to other countries. Soviet emigration has climbed from just under 2,000 in 1986 to approximately 195,000 in 1989. American officials acknowledge the biggest barrier now is limits the United States and other countries are putting on the number of Soviet immigrants they will accept. ``The reasons for Jackson-Vanik no longer exist, but people find a reason to keep it alive,'' said Rep. Thomas J. Downey, D-N.Y. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats on Tuesday proposed a new half-billion dollar aid package _ $200 million more than Bush wants _ to foster emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. The bill, introduced by Sen. Claiborne Pell, R-R.I., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would augment $738 million in aid already approved for Poland and Hungary with $511 million targeted for Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Pell said he would not be surprised if his proposal is increased during the legislative process ``in view of the profound interest of the United States in supporting positive developments in Eastern Europe.'' Bush, as part of the fiscal 1991 budget he proposed Monday, asked for $300 million as a ``special assistance initiative'' for Soviet bloc nations, including Poland and Hungary.
AP880826-0260 	X	The $4.2 billion Safeway buyout was partially financed by the sale of several divisions. Vons Cos. Inc. bought 172 Safeway stores in Southern California and Nevada, and Supermarket Development Corp., which operates Furrs supermarkets, acquired 59 Safeways in Texas and New Mexico.
AP880510-0036 	X	The United States plans to send cash payments to Contra rebels inside Nicaragua that will enable them to buy food locally while a dispute over resettlement keeps them from receiving food and other supplies, an administration official says. The payments will range between 50 cents and $1 a day for thousands of Contra fighters _ ``enough to keep body and soul together,'' according to the official, who spoke Monday on the condition that he not be identified. A final decision will be made later in the week by Alan Woods, administrator of the Agency for International Development, the official said. After the Contras and Nicaragua's leftist government signed a temporary truce on March 23, Congress approved a $47.9 million humanitarian aid package for the rebels, consistent with a provision in the truce agreement. The legislation permits deliveries of food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies and medical care for children who are war victims. The agreement specified that the rebels receive the aid after resettling in seven mutually agreed cease-fire zones. However, no food or other supplies have been sent inside Nicaragua because a dispute over ground rules within the zones has prevented the resettlement from taking place. This has left some Contra units with acute food shortages. Air drops have been ruled out because of fear that Sandinista fighters might shoot down the planes used to transport the food. At the time of the truce, there were an estimated 12,000 Contras inside Nicaragua but many have fled into Honduras in search of food. The monthly cost of the payments is expected to be between $60,000 to $450,000, depending on availability of Contra couriers based in Honduras to deliver the cash and the number of rebels inside Nicaragua that can be reached at any given time. Most of the payments will be in cordobas, Nicaragua's currency. In addition, AID has earmarked more than $300,000 per month in family assistance payments to rebels with technical skills. Part of the funds are being assigned to resistance personnel who work at Contra offices in Miami. Nicaraguan authorities maintain that any humanitarian assistance sent to the Contras without prior inspection by an officially designated verification commission would be illegal under the truce agreement. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has objected vigorously to an interim program under which U.S.-sponsored aid is being sent by truck or air drop from Tegucigalpa to Contra camps on the Honduran side of the border. The bulk of this aid _ 262 metric tons _ has been sent by truck, the official said. The administration has denied Ortega's claims that the shipments have contained lethal equipment, insisting that the deliveries have received prior inspection from Honduran church officials. The cease-fire began on April 1 and is schedued to last for 60 days. During this period, the Sandinistas and the Contras are to negotiate terms for a permanent cease-fire. But little progress has been made in the talks.
AP881126-0112 	X	The Canadian earthquake felt over a wide area of the northeastern United States should get people to pay more attention to making essential buildings in the region earthquake-proof, a geologist said Saturday. ``Earthquakes in New England are relatively infrequent but they do occur,'' said Dr. John Ebel, a seismologist at the Weston Observatory at Boston College in Newton. ``With that in mind, we need to be sure that critical facilities are made to stand up to earthquakes. Ebel said Massachusetts is one of the few states in New England that have a seismic provision required in the construction of major structures like tall buildings and hospitals. New York state recently required that some structures meet earthquake codes, Ebel said. Nuclear power plants in the region are constructed to withstand earthquakes, Ebel said. Friday's quake, centered 95 miles north of Quebec City, registered 6.0 on the Richter scale, according to U.S. and Canadian seismic monitors. Less than 12 hours later, two aftershocks had been recorded and more were expected, although no damage was reported, state officials said Saturday. Geophysicist Dick Holt at the Weston Geophysical Laboratory said aftershocks could register up to 5.0 on the Richter scale. The main tremor was felt in the northeastern United States from Michigan to Washington, D.C. ``One lady called us and said she had whitecaps in her fish tank and her chandelier was shaking,'' said Pennsylvania state police Cpl. Clifford Williams, near Erie, Pa. There was no structural damage reported, although authorities were told of broken windows in Maine, shelves and dishes falling in Rhode Island, and several intravenous bottles knocked over and broken at a Wilkes-Barre, Pa., hospital. Police in some areas were swamped with calls while other people never felt a thing. In Ohio, as an example, police in Columbus, about in the center of the state, said several people called to report feeling the tremor, but officials in Youngstown, closer to the quake epicenter, were not aware of the quake. People in Cleveland reported feeling buildings move. But a few miles away, seismic monitoring equipment at the Perry nuclear power plant did not detect the quake, said Todd Schneider, a spokesman for Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. In New York City, firefighters were sent to 40 separate locations in Manhattan where tremors were reported but no damage was found, said fire Lt. Kenneth Murphy. People in other buildings on the granite island didn't notice the quake. In Massachusetts, several people felt the tremor Friday night. ``We ran out of our house. Our lampshade was shaking. We were shaking,'' said Carol Dalessandro, 40, of Wakefield. At the Top of the Hub restaurant on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Center in Boston, about 120 people were dining when the earthquake struck. ``It was enough to make you feel queasy,'' said maitre d' Stephen Brown. ``The entire dining room felt it. Everyone felt they were becoming dizzy or faint. They all sort of smiled and looked at each other. No one felt panicked or anything.'' The Richter scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one number means a tenfold increase in magnitude. An earthquake measuring 5 on the Richter scale can cause considerable damage, a 6 reading severe damage, and a 7 is a major earthquake. The strongest earthquake in Canada this century was recorded off the coast of British Columbia in 1949 and measured 8 on the Richter scale.
AP881208-0250 	X	Now THIS is a record collection: Jerry Lee Lewis' original Sun Records singles. The Rolling Stones' first album, autographed by Mick, Keith, Charlie, Bill and Brian. A Beatles licorice disc signed by Paul McCartney. But Bob George, curator of this musical menagerie, speaks with obvious pride about another LP, ``Calypso Is Like So ...'' by Robert Mitchum. On this record, Mitchum does something he does not do in ``War and Remembrance'': he performs ``Mama, Looka Boo Boo'' with a psuedo-Caribbean lilt. ``Can you believe this? We just got it in the mail the other day,'' said George, who (with a little help from his friends) is trying to locate every record made since 1950 for the burgeoning ARChive of Contemporary Music. ``We forbid ourselves to refuse records. The stuff the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) would try to get out of libraries? Bring it in!'' said George, who estimates the collection _ begun in late 1985 _ now numbers almost 250,000 sound recordings. That attitude explains why the Butthole Surfers (a punk group) sit beside Count Basie, and how the Beatles' classic ``Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' shares space with Telly ``Kojak'' Savalas' creepy ``You've Lost That Loving Feeling.'' The eclectic ARChive is the brainchild of George and David Wheeler, who initially hoped to create a collection of rock 'n' roll but soon expanded their vision to include any and all types of popular music. George, producer of the breakthrough Laurie Anderson record ``O Superman,'' brought his music-business ties and a 25,000-record collection; Wheeler's contributions were 10,000 records and a master's degree in library science. The idea (and the albums) soon found a home: above the Blarney Castle bar in downtown Manhattan, up two rickety flights of stairs, in a cramped loft now filled with records from acid rock to zydeco _ 47,000 in all. The rest of the collection is somewhat far-flung, as George _ a 37-year-old Youngstown, Ohio, native _ explains in the excited voice he affects when discussing the collection. ``We have one location in Chicago, one location in my parents' basement. There's about 30,000 in Boston, 100,000 in upstate New York, and depending on whether these two (a pair of ARChive employees) give us their records, two other locations,'' he said. They also have a lot of support: every major record company currently ships the ARChive free copies of their new releases, and the non-profit organization's Board of Advisers includes musicians Nile Rodgers, Paul Simon, Lou Reed and Todd Rundgren. ``They have a real vision of where they want to go,'' Reed said shortly after the project first started. ``They're in it for the long haul.'' The singer of ``Walk on the Wild Side'' proved prophetic: George now talks about a day five years down the road when the ARChive will be part-library, part-museum, open to the public and available for researchers. ``It's like archaeology. You're digging,'' said Thomas Cvikota, who is handling ARChive fund-raising. ``You're going down into the tomb, into the ruins, and finding the essence of the culture.'' While 250,000 sound recordings sounds like an incredible collection, the ARChive falls well short of the Library of Congress' 1.7 million records dating back to 1888. But George feels that his system will soon make his assembly the final word in contemporary record research. ``It might be arrogant, but we think we really have usurped the function of the Library of Congress in terms of keeping track of this material,'' he said. ``We certainly have a better hands-on approach.'' That approach allowed the group to help director Martin Scorcese find the right music for ``The Last Temptation of Christ''; George was able to hook him up with a Moroccan vocalist who did the wailing at Lazarus' tomb in the film. Scorcese has since joined the Board of Advisers, a testament to the ARChive's digging ability and its growing fame. The search is already under way to find expanded quarters in Manhattan; once that's accomplished, George and company plan to close down and take eight months to a year just cataloging records and preparing for the grand re-opening. Once all that's finished, there remains at least one more problem. ``We read once that once a year you have to give every record a quarter-turn, because plastic precipitates down,'' said George, breaking into a loud laugh. ``I can imagine someone saying it now: `OK, today your job at the ARChive is ...''
AP880815-0230 	X	The Sandinista government is attempting to push ahead with ambitious health care programs that suffered severe setbacks because of seven years of civil war. ``We are just beginning to move ahead a bit. But we have a long way to go,'' Dr. Milton Valdez, deputy health minister, said in an interview. The Sandinistas promised improved health care as part of a package of social pledges made after they ousted the rightist Somoza dynasty in July 1979. Shortly after coming to power, the Sandinistas set out to build clinics and install a socialistic medical system. ``Our policies were based on health being a right for the people and an obligation of the state,'' Valdez said. But the promises of the leftist government gave way to the realities of the war started by Contra rebels 1{ years after the Sandinistas took control. The battles destroyed more than 100 rural clinics by the end of last year, helped bring back such diseases as malaria and created combat-related mental problems. The situation was further complicated in 1985 when a U.S. trade embargo cut off many supplies and spare parts for medical equipment. Health officials acknowlege that not all of the problems can be blamed on the war. A lack of hygiene education and basic unsanitary conditions in the capital as well as the isolated rural farmlands are blamed for a current epidemic of dengue, an infectious disease carried by mosquitos. During six days in July, the Health Ministry reported, almost 3,000 children were treated for diarrhea, the No. 1 killer of children in Nicaragua. The government recently called on residents in Managua to clean-up the trash and cut the grass in their neighborhoods. Valdez said health programs suffered serious deterioration by 1983 with the loss of clinics and personnel and doctors who fled the country. ``We had constructed a health system for peace. It clashed with the war,'' Valdez added. ``We had malaria under control along the Pacific Coast. But then we began large troop mobilizations to the mountains, where malaria still existed, and they brought it back to the cities.'' Doctors and medical volunteers couldn't get into remote combat regions or those controlled by the Contras. Barricada International, a Sandinista publication, said in a recent edition that 600 students, health workers and teachers had been killed, wounded or kidnapped while working in war zones. Mental problems stemming from combat surfaced. ``It's difficult to confront. The ones who spend two years fighting have the most problems,'' Valdez said. ``We have seen an increase in violent deaths _ homicides and suicides _ and more aggressiveness in general.'' One woman told a reporter her son returned from almost two years in combat with serious emotional problems. ``He would scream in his sleep that the Contras were coming,'' she said. ``He would become nervous when he was awake.'' Valdez said mental problems also are found among the numerous ex-soldiers who suffered losses of limbs in the war. ``It's not the actual loss of limb that causes the problems but the psychological part,'' he said. ``The combatants are No. 2 on our priority list. No. 1 are the children.'' The Health Ministry this year outlined a three-year plan and designated 1988 the year ``for defense and protection of children's lives.'' Infant mortality, halved since July 1979, stands at 64.5 per 1,000 births. It is the highest in Central America. Health workers have been taking advantage of a fragile truce since March to vaccinate rural children against polio, measles, diptheria and tuberculosis. Valdez said it was too soon to rebuild the lost clinics because fighting continues and the economy still is suffering. Medical care is free but medicine is not, Valdez said. Only about 10 percent of Nicaragua's doctors work with the state system. The others are private practitioners. Medicines are among a long list of basics that are in need. Black marketeers make large profits selling medications at outdoor markets. The largest single cause of death to adults up to age 49 last year was related to the war, Health Ministry statistics indicated. The ministry said it has detected only 26 cases of AIDS in Nicaragua and that only five of those were Nicaraguans.
AP900511-0006 	X	Adam Gotner, badly wounded, survived that bloody day when police opened fire on people in the street. Twenty years later, Solidarity runs the government and he leads a search for secretly buried bodies. Dec. 17, 1970 is etched in Polish memory as a day of slaughter. At 6 a.m., Gotner and many others were walking to their jobs at the Paris Commune shipyard. Tanks and police were posted at the shipyard gates. Suddenly, the police began shooting. Gotner, then 25, felt something hit his shoulder and saw his jacket turning red. He thought of running at the tanks, ``but I realized it would be instant suicide,'' and retreated. ``All this time, for several minutes, I could hear the shooting continuing, and then it seemed I was stepping on people,'' he said. ``I had the impression I was stepping on bodies. The whole street had been covered with people going to work. In my mind, there were at least 500 dead.'' Long afterward, Gotner realized most were not dead, but either wounded or sprawling for cover. The communist authorities had declared the port and shipyard closed because of unrest over government-imposed increases in food prices, but had not told the workers. Police may have thought the men intended to occupy the shipyard. Official accounts said 45 Baltic port and shipyard workers were killed that day, 28 of them in Gdynia and Gdansk. Many Poles believe the number was much higher. A committee led by Gotner is trying to determine how many died in Gdynia, which means digging for bodies. Two excavations have yielded no conclusive results. A macabre legend grew around the ``December events'' and the authorities contributed to it by collecting bodies and burying them hastily at night, often with no relatives present. Tombstones erected later were allowed to say only that the person honored had died a ``tragic death.'' No mention of the Gdynia killings was permitted in the state-controlled press. Attempts to investigate were blocked even in 1980-81, Solidarity's first brief experience of legal existence. Censorship was eased enough to allow Andrzej Wajda to make the acclaimed movie ``Man of Iron,'' in which the 1970 Gdynia killings are portrayed as central to the rise of Solidarity a decade later. Gotner survived five bullet wounds in the chest, eventually became a Solidarity activist in Gdynia and organized a civic committee this year to build a new monument to the victims in front of City Hall. Soon after it was formed, his committee came under public pressure to investigate the killings. With the Communist Party out of power, city officials agreed. On a sunny April day at the Witominski Cemetery, gravediggers lifted the coffin of Jadwiga Sikorska from a sandy hillside and probed a little deeper. They found two sets of bones wrapped in cloth. One was too old to be from 1970; the other did not appear old enough. A representative of the prosecutor's office was present and the remains were taken to a forensic laboratory for analysis. Mrs. Sikorska's son, Jerzy, had noticed bones in the earth when he buried his mother in March and told the committee. Earlier, 70 volunteers dug up a 60-foot stretch of path in another part of the cemetery where witnesses had reported signs of newly dug graves immediately after the 1970 shootings. No bodies were found. Experts confirmed part of the path had been dug up about 20 years ago, but only to a depth of about four feet. They said there was no evidence the soil had been disturbed below that depth for hundreds of years. ``There were several hypotheses, and mine is that they were preparing to bury bodies there and then decided not to because of personnel changes in the government,'' Gotner said in an interview at his modest apartment overlooking the shipyard. He is a slender, articulate man with dark, curly hair salted with gray, and is cautious in expressing opinions about the outcome of his search. When pressed, Gotner said: ``I think it may turn out to be true that five or 10 more people were killed than has been reported.'' That conclusion would not be popular. ``Already, I have heard gossip that the fact that we have not found anything proves we are on the side of the authorities,'' he said. Several people claimed to have seen secret burials. Three witnesses who appeared reliable, including a militiaman, claim to have seen about 200 bodies. Gortner noted, however, that ``no one is coming to us and asking us to find somebody,'' despite public appeals for information. Whether the victims were more or fewer, Gotner said, ``we want to find the truth. We cannot let half-truths continue to exist if we want to build the future.'' He removed his shirt, revealing scars on the upper chest and a very deep exit wound in his back. ``If I had known I had five bullets in me, I would have died of fright,'' he said, and laughed. The laughter gone, Gotner said: ``Doing this is my responsibility to those who died at that time. I remember when I was walking and I saw someone falling down. I wanted to to help him then, but I could not.''
AP880319-0132 	X	A resolution before the American Jewish Congress repeating its call for Israel to withdraw from the riot-torn West Bank and Gaza Strip sharply underlines its difference with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The United States has long endorsed the principle of exchanging territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War in return for a peace settlement with neighboring Arab states and Palestinians. But Shamir, who is visiting the United States through Monday, has strongly rejected the idea, saying it would endanger the security of the Jewish state because it would put Arabs who dream of Israel's destruction in a better position to carry out their threats. ``The position taken by our organization obviously is not in accord with that taken by Mr. Shamir this past week,'' said Andrea Binder, a spokeswoman for the American Jewish Congress, which opens a meeting here Sunday. ``We issued a statement in September which called for territorial compromise and endorsed an international peace conference. The resolution that will be voted on next week will reaffirm (the earlier) resolution,'' she said prior to the gathering. Another resolution will specifically endorse the complex peace plan proposed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz in the face of Arab rioting in the territories and measures by Israeli security forces to suppress the uprising. A third resolution will ``discuss Arab and specifically Palestinian intransigence in coming to the negotiating table,'' she said. Shamir's visit is expected to be discussed throughout the four-day convention, which will be attended by about 400 to 500 delegates. The American Jewish Congress, which has 50,000 members, was the first major American Jewish organization to favor a compromise in the Israeli-occupied territories, Ms. Binder said. The group's statement last year underscored divisions among America's Jews about the issue. Last Monday, Shamir preceded his meeting with President Reagan by saying he was outraged by the United States' suggestions of a withdrawal from the occupied territories. He said a withdrawal ``inevitably'' would invite new Arab attempts to destroy Israel and that he was ``astounded'' at the short memories of withdrawal proponents. Four days later, Shamir flatly rejected a U.S. proposal for a full-scale Mideast conference, saying that such a conference would give the Soviet Union and its Arab allies too much influence, and might force Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. His Labor Party counterpart in Israel's coalition government, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, is agreeable to such a conference, without which Jordan's King Hussein won't come to the table. Reflecting sharp disagreement with Shamir, Reagan said: ``Those who will say no to the U.S. plan _ and the prime minister has not used this word _ need not answer to us. They'll need to answer to themselves and their people as to why they turned down a realistic plan to achieve negotiations.''
AP901027-0024 	X	The ``Jewish lobby'' and provocative commercials for perfume and lingerie are among the subjects American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia are being advised not to discuss with their hosts. In a pamphlet written by the U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon is advising U.S. troops that those and other topics ``should be avoided or handled carefully. The pamphlet was printed for distribution to some of the estimated 200,000 American service men and women in and around Saudi Arabia. Topping the list of 15 ``sensitive'' items is ``articles and stories showing U.S.-Israeli ties and friendship.'' The pamphlet also suggests restraint in discussion of ``anti-Arab demonstrations or sentiments in the United States'' and of ``U.S. involvement in supporting Israel and Israel's current presence in Lebanon.'' The Pentagon, which advises troops to carry the booklet at all times, also suggests that the Americans avoid discussing or showing ``sensual advertisements for perfume, blue jeans, women's lingerie, gambling, alcohol, etc.; ads for pork or shellfish (which are forbidden by Islam).'' Other out-of-bounds topics include: -``Discussing the `Jewish lobby' and U.S. intelligence given to Israel.'' -``Referring to the Arab blacklisting of U.S. companies that do business with Israel or the Arab boycotting of companies that have strong Zionist representation in executive positions.'' Jewish groups have protested the list, first published in the November issue of Harper's Magazine. The World Jewish Congress said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney that it wanted to convey ``our sense of distress at what appears to be a capitulation to bigotry and a surrender of our democratic values ....'' The letter, from WJC Vice President Kalman Sultanik, urges withdrawal of the material from circulation. The American Jewish Committee, expressing to Cheney its ``deep sense of hurt and anger,'' said U.S. troops should not be asked to ``submerge entirely those values of tolerance, pluralism, and open-mindedness that have made the U.S. a unique democratic society.'' The Pentagon and State Department, mindful of the vast cultural and religious differences between Saudis and Americans, have issued a number of booklets setting out ``dos and don'ts'' since the troops began arriving in the Persian Gulf in August. Most of the pamphlets include a brief history of Saudi Arabia and its monarchy, and explanations of the strict Moslem code which governs Saudis' behavior. Alcohol is out for Moslems and for foreign troops; so is socializing with Saudi women. Other guidelines for Americans found in the pamphlets are: women should cover their legs and arms when out in public; women and men should not show affection in public; Americans should not show the soles of their feet to a Saudi (by sitting with their legs propped on a table, for example) because the gesture is considered an insult; Americans shouldn't ask Saudi men about their wives; Americans shouldn't offer their rations to Saudis because they might contain pork, which is forbidden by Islam. But the Central Command pamphlet goes beyond the social and cultural mores to include political topics. In forging the international anti-Iraq coalition of Western and Arab nations, the United States has been careful to avoid emphasis on its strategic and historic relationship with Israel, the largest recipient of American foreign aid. Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Arab world, who have fought five wars with Israel since it gained independence in 1948, have traditionally accused the United States of being biased toward the Jewish state. The Central Command pamphlet was originally written several years ago for American troops taking part in the biannual ``Bright Star'' maneuvers with Egypt, said Pentagon officials. That version contained several additional guidelines which have been removed from the booklets distributed for Operation ``Desert Shield,'' said the officials. The omitted material includes discussing ``films or newsclips featuring pro-Zionist actors and actresses (e.g. Barbara Streisand, Liz Taylor).'' But Pentagon spokesman Lt. Commander Ken Satterfield said that material was not included in the new booklet.
AP880918-0045 	X	A 32-year-old West German man died from severe burns suffered in the Ramstein air show disaster, raising the death toll from the Aug. 28 tragedy to 65, officials said Sunday. A statement by the Rheinland-Palatinate state government said the victim died on Saturday at a clinic in Ludwigshafen. The man, who was not identified, was from North Rhine-Westphalia state. The report said 152 people remained hospitalized with injuries from the disaster at the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein. The accident occurred when three Italian stunt jets collided during the air show and one crashed into a large crowd of specatators and exploded.
AP881005-0129 	X	Federal investigators said today some food prices have risen faster than warranted by the drought but a Senate chairman said there's no proof so far of significant price gouging. ``Some price increases do appear higher than warranted by the drought alone,'' Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., told a hearing of his Senate Agriculture Committee. He said the higher levels were ``most notably in wheat-based food products, such as pasta and bread, and in some meats.'' ``But in general there do not seem to have been excessive price increases across a broad range of products that use the drought as an excuse,'' he said. The hearing was held to unveil a report from the General Accounting Office on food price increases between July and August. The report was requested by Leahy and Rep. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., in July amid speculation that the food industry would seize on the drought to hike prices. A General Accounting Office official, John Harman, told the committee some price increases found by the congressional investigative agency could not be explained by the drought. He pointed to a 6 percent jump in pasta prices between the July and August checks that the agency made. A rise of 3.4 percent would be warranted by the impact of the drought on durham wheat used to make pasta, he said. He added that cattle prices dropped as a result of the drought but that was not reflected by the cost of beef. Just why there were some unexplained increases was unclear, he said. It may have been because ``prices of packaging of food products went up significantly this year,'' GAO aide Mary Kenney told the panel. ``There could have been some labor cost increases ... we don't know if there were,'' Harman said. ``Conclusive evidence of price gouging has not been found but there are some indications out there'' that suggest it could materialize in the future, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told the hearing packed with lobbyists from the nation's multi-billion-dollar food industry. ``My advice to consumers is to be comparative shoppers,'' he said. ``Food processors and retailers need to know that we are all watching and they must be held accountable for any food price increases not directly attributable to higher costs,'' Leahy and Dorgan said in a statement released Tueslday night. The study showed that the price of ground beef has increased 3 percent, while the price that livestock producers get for cattle actually has dropped 11 percent since April. Rising feed prices have accelerated the sale of cattle and thus created a buyers' market. Fruit prices rose an average of 12 percent, while bread prices increased 4 percent, according to the GAO. The lawmakers stressed that the GAO figures represented national averages and that there could be differences from one region to another. Two consumer organizations issued a report on Monday saying there had been no ``price gouging'' in July and August but ``substantial'' increases in beef and some other agricultural goods in June. The report was issued jointly by the Consumer Federation of America and Washington-based advocacy group, Public Voice on Food, Health and Policy.
AP880415-0032 	X	Sen. Lowell P. Weicker wants Hall of Famer Babe Ruth to be honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, nearly 40 years after the baseball slugger's death. Ruth was a ``true American hero'' who ``epitomized the very best of our national pastime,'' Weicker, R-Conn., said Thursday. The medal, the nation's highest civilian award, is given by the president for contributions to national security, world peace or ``significant private or public endeavors.'' Seventy-one Medals of Freedom have been awarded by President Reagan. Weicker, in a letter to Reagan nominating Ruth for the award, noted the athlete's off-the-field contributions. ``He had great compassion for the sick and dying,'' the senator said. ``Against the advice of many, Babe Ruth visited those afflicted with Hansen's Disease in Kalappapa, Hawaii, and offered those condemned to the `leper' colony his love and kindness.'' Well known for his visits to sick children, Ruth also established the Babe Ruth Foundation for underprivileged children shortly before his death and left it a large part of his estate. Born in 1895 in Baltimore, George Herman Ruth hit 714 home runs in 22 major league seasons with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Boston Braves. A star pitcher early in his career, Ruth's career home run total stood as the major league record until Hank Aaron broke it in 1974. Ruth died Aug. 16, 1948, at the age of 53. Other baseball players who have received the award include former Yankee great Joe DiMaggio and the late Jackie Robinson, who became the first black in the major leagues in the modern era when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
AP900626-0122 	X	Minorities for the first time make up more than half the city's resident labor force, a milestone that raises stark challenges for New York's social and economic future, researchers said Tuesday. ``It's a historic moment in the life of the city: Minorities have become the majority of New Yorkers in the labor market,'' said Samuel Ehrenhalt, regional chief of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ehrenhalt, who reported the trend, said it will increase pressure on the city to better educate black and Hispanic youths. Other researchers said it will gradually force employers to open management jobs to minorities. ``It's a signpost on a difficult path of necessary change,'' said John Mollenkopf, a political scientist at the Graduate Center of City University. ``It points to a future that we all have to recognize and embrace.'' The labor bureau reached its conclusion after analyzing its monthly employment surveys for 1989. It found that non-Hispanic whites made up 49.7 percent of the resident labor force, under half for the first time. Out-of-town residents who work in the city _ mainly whites _ were not included in the analysis. Demographers say the city's population has been less than half white since the early or mid-1980s; it now is estimated at about 47 percent. But never before has the labor force _ residents ages 16 or older who are working or looking for work _ reached that point. Ehrenhalt said the arrival of black, Hispanic and Asian immigrants is the prime reason for the trend. The white population is about stable, and the number of native-born blacks and Hispanics has grown only slowly. ``Immigrants are playing a bigger role in New York City than they have at any time in the past three-quarters of a century,'' Ehrenhalt said. He said the trend will continue as the white population ages and leaves the workforce. ``That underscores the need to encourage a more rapid and purposeful move of minorities into the educational and occupational mainstream,'' Ehrenhalt said. ``The city economy will need them as never before.'' Lack of a high-school education is higher among minorities than among white residents, Ehrenhalt noted. And minority unemployment remains far higher _ 9.6 percent in 1989, compared with 4.1 percent for whites. Education is not the only issue. Mollenkopf said the trend increases the demands on employers to open fuller job opportunities to minority workers. Now minorities often hold lower-paying clerical jobs while senior management is virtually all white, he said. The labor bureau's figures supported the point: While 36 percent of working whites held managerial, professional and technical jobs, that fell to 24 percent of blacks and 15 percent of Hispanics. And Hispanic workers were concentrated in the declining manufacturing sector, largely in semiskilled and unskilled jobs. The city's strength is in service jobs, said Mollenkopf, ``and the higher echelons of these service firms are still basically all white. They have to come to grips with the fact that the city's labor force is multiracial. They put themselves at a disadvantage if they resist that.''
AP901014-0026 	X	The first black ever to make a runoff for mayor in Shreveport says he thinks racial hatred may have been the motive of whomever festooned his front yard with toilet paper. ``This makes me more determined to be mayor of this town,'' said C.O. Simpkins, looking at the yards of toilet paper draped through trees and bushes Saturday. ``I think that this speaks for just a small number of people in Shreveport,'' said Simpkins, a Democrat. ``In my talking to people, especially white people, I feel that they would be appalled by this.'' Simpkins said anonymous callers have threatened to kill him or his wife, Elaine, unless he dropped out of the race for mayor. Some have identified themselves as Ku Klux Klan members, he said. An anonymous woman caller woke the couple Saturday, telling them to look at their yard, then called again a few momemts later, spewing obscenities, said Mrs. Simpkins, who has fielded most of the threatening calls. Simpkins, a dentist, led the civil rights movement in Shreveport in the 1950s and early 1960s. He led the Oct. 6 primary, in which all candidates competed regardless of party, with 32 percent of the vote, and faces Republican City Council member Hazel Beard in the Nov. 6 runoff. Beard said she was worried the incident would foment racial tension in the city. Her family also has received threatening phone calls and letters during the campaign, she said, adding, ``It's no secret that I've long ago disavowed hatred in any form.''
AP881209-0181 	X	A massive worldwide outpouring of sympathy brought London firefighters, French search dogs, tons of tents and blankets and medicine to the Soviet Union on Friday to help in the Armenian earthquake. Western countries, the Soviet Union's East bloc allies and even groups not recognized by the Kremlin pledged millions of dollars of aid in a relief effort that crossed political boundaries and cut quickly through Soviet red tape. ``We are awaiting more planes from foreign countries. We badly need them and are grateful for what they are bringing us,'' said Robert Gastoryan, an assistant to the director of the Yerevan's Zvarnots airport. About 80,000 people were killed in Tuesday's earthquake, Leonid Zamyatin, the Soviet ambassador to Britain, said in London. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
AP900823-0210 	X	David Burke, president of the CBS News division, will be leaving this week, sources at the network said Wednesday night. Burke, 54, a former ABC News executive vice president who joined CBS in August 1988, didn't return phone calls Wednesday night, nor did Tom Goodman, Burke's chief spokesman. It was unclear if Burke was being forced out or was resigning of his own accord. One CBS source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, quoted network executives as saying the reclusive Burke had told them he was leaving, but gave no reason. ``Nobody seems to know why he's going,'' the source said. Another source, speaking of Burke's imminent departure, said Burke has had philosophical differences with CBS Inc. President Laurence A. Tisch. Pressure from Tisch to cut costs at CBS News led to the firing of more than 200 staffers in 1987. Tisch didn't return phone calls. Burke's departure may be announced Thursday, sources said. Speculation on his likely successor includes Eric Ober, a former CBS News executive who now heads the company's stations division. CBS News, after more than five years of well-publicized internal turmoil, recently had been scoring successes with its coverage of the Persian Gulf crisis, highlighted by anchorman Dan Rather's reports from Iraq. While the revamped ``CBS Morning News'' has remained third in morning news show ratings, Rather's ``CBS Evening News'' has been a respectable second to ABC's ``World News Tonight'' for several months. Burke, a former top aide to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., came into the news business late in his career when hired by ABC News President Roone Arledge. At CBS News, Burke succeeded Howard Stringer, who now is president of the CBS Broadcast Group and headed CBS news after the ouster of Van Gordon Sauter, now a TV producer in Los Angeles. There had been rumors for several weeks within CBS News that Burke was leaving. But when asked about them earlier Wednesday, Goodman, his spokesman, said that as far as he knew there was nothing to them. Burke's exit would mark the second high-level change in network news this summer. Earlier this month, former Los Angeles Times Publisher Tom Johnson succeeded Burt Reinhardt, 70, as president of Ted Turner's Atlanta-based Cable News Network.
AP880510-0107 	X	Soviet dissidents today accused police of breaking into the office of an unofficial journal and arresting editor Sergei Grigoryants without arrest or search warrants. They demanded his immediate release. Grigoryants' wife, Tamara, told a news conference in Moscow police still were guarding the small country house outside the city where Grigoryants was arrested Monday. Andrei Babitsky, an editor of Grigoryants' Glasnost magazine, said almost 400 copies of the journal and a new publication for young people had been taken from the house. Grigoryants, a former political prisoner, had agreed to allow a group seeking to found a political party called the Democratic Union to challenge the Communist Party to hold its final organizing session at his editorial office Monday afternoon. `He is not a member of the group,'' Mrs. Grigoryants said of her husband. ``He intended to be there as an observer, nothing more.'' The house is in the village of Kratkovo, about 25 miles southeast of Moscow, in an area closed to foreigners. Correspondents could not travel there to get first-hand information. After the arrest of Grigoryants and several others, about 70 people gathered at a nearby club to form the political party, which calls for multi-party parliamentary democracy, independent trade unions, a new constitution and withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe and areas of the Soviet Union seized in World War II. During the weekend, 60 of the group's supporters were reported arrested in Moscow and one of its founders, Yuri Mityunov, said Monday that 14 remained in jail. Communist Party chief Mikhail S. Gorbachev has called for more democratic election procedures, including multiple-candidate elections. Grigoryants' magazine is named for Gorbachev's policy of glasnost _ openness on some social issues. Lawyer Valentin Yelisyenko said police had no arrest warrant for Grigoryants or any of the others, and no search warrant to enter the building. He said he was allowed to talk to Grigoryants at the local police station about five hours after the arrest, and even then police had no documents that would have permitted them to make the arrest. The Independent Union of Journalists of the USSR, a group publishers of unofficial journalist which Grigoryants heads, issued a statement saying, ``the repressive measures against the chief editor of the journal Glasnost we regard as one of the main signals that governing organs of the country are undermining those hopes they sowed in the spirits of the people.'' It demanded that Grigoryants be freed at once, that impounded copies of Glasnost be returned, court action be started against police who arrested Grigoryants. The statement also said that if there is a legal basis for action against Grigoryants, the reason should be stated publicly. Babitsky said police first arrested Grigoryants outside the house. Twenty minutes later they returned, broke down five doors and arrested four other people, he said. He said Grigoryants did not resist. Grigoryants later was found guilty of disobeying a police officer and given a seven-day jail sentence, but Yeliseyenko told reporters that dissidents had not been able to determine the charges against the other men. Dissidents said they were told police acted on a complaint by the daughter of a 96-year-old woman who rented the country house to Grigoryants that he had no right to be there. Mrs. Grigoryants said her husband had reached a valid agreement with the woman in January to rent the house.
AP900320-0143 	X	Highlights in the history of Namibia, which became the world's newest nation Wednesday: 1884 _ Declared a German protectorate. 1915 _ Occupied by South Africa on behalf of the Allies during World War I. 1920 _ League of Nations gives South Africa administrative mandate. 1966 _ United Nations cancels mandate. South Africa rejects the resolution. The South-West Africa People's Organization begins guerrilla war against South African rule. 1975 _ SWAPO acquires bases in Angola after that country's independence from Portugal. 1978 _ U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 435, calling for cease-fire, elections under U.N. supervision, and independence. 1982 _ South Africa agrees to grant independence if Cuban troops leave Angola, where they are support the Marxist government in a civil war against guerrillas aided by the United States and South Africa. 1988 _ The United States, the Soviet Union, Angola, Cuba and South Africa sign an agreement on Namibian independence, withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, and an end to South African aid to Angolan anti-government guerrillas. February 1989 _ U.N. forces begin arriving. April 1, 1989 _ Independence process begins, but fighting breaks out between South African police forces and hundreds of SWAPO guerrillas crossing the border. More than 330 men die before a cease-fire is reimposed. July, 1989 _ More than 40,000 exiles begin returning home. November 1989 _ SWAPO wins the most votes in a U.N.-supervised election, but not enough to avoid compromising with other parties on a constitution which establishes a Western-style democracy. The last South African troops leave. Wednesday _ Namibia gains independence.
AP900503-0047 	X	A judge issued an arrest warrant for ``Cheers'' actor Kelsey Grammer after he failed to appear in court to give a progress report on a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program he was ordered to attend. Van Nuys Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb on Wednesday issued the warrant for Grammer, 35, who plays the brainy psychiatrist Frasier Crane in NBC's television series ``Cheers.'' A police officer at the Van Nuys station jail said early today that Grammer was not in custody. Grammer's attorney, Robert L. Diamond, had said Wednesday his client was out of town and could not be reached. On Oct. 25, Bobb had ordered Grammer to enter the drug program after he was charged with one felony count of cocaine possession. Deputy District Attorney Andrew W. Diamond said Grammer, 35, of Van Nuys, never attended the rehabilitation program. ``He failed to comply, he didn't show up in court and now there is a bench warrant out for his arrest,'' Diamond said. ``Anybody can get busy, but you can't be that busy that you can't sign up for a program for seven months.'' Grammer was arrested on April 14, 1988, after police pulled him over for driving with expired license plates, according to court documents. He was arrested after a packet containing about a quarter of a gram of cocaine worth about $25 allegedly fell from his pocket as he sat in a patrol car on the way to the police station, the documents state. An earlier arrest warrant was issued after Grammer missed a Van Nuys Municipal Court appearance on Feb. 6. He had been scheduled to prove that he had completed an alcohol rehabilitation program and 10 days of community service. According to court documents, Grammer pleaded guilty on July 13, 1988, to a charge of driving under the influence.
AP900502-0166 	X	Plans for soul singer James Brown to perform in a benefit concert this month while he serves time in a work-release program were nixed twice Wednesday by the state Corrections Department. On Monday, a Los Angeles promoter said Brown would hold a concert May 16 the King Street Palace in Charleston with Gladys Knight, Little Richard, Jermaine Jackson and others. The Corrections Department said no go. A New York concert organizer then said Wednesday that the benefit concert had been moved from Charleston to Aikin. Nope, the Corrections Department said again. Proceeds from the ``James Brown and Friends'' concert were to have gone to the non-profit Aiken-Barnwell Counties Community Action Commission, where Brown works as a counselor, said Peter Paul of the Stephen Cooper Entertainment Corp. in Los Angeles. Brown, serving a six-year sentence for aggravated assault, has been working for the commission since shortly after his April 14 transfer from prison to a work-release program. Corrections Department spokesman Francis X. Archibald said Wednesday the concert ``is not going to happen.'' ``This is inconsistent with his employment with the Aiken-Barnwell community agency. We didn't allow him to perform while he was in prison and we can't let him perform down there just because he's been sent to a work center,'' he said. Archibald said the concert was a commercial venture and not all proceeds would go to the commission. The event was to have been filmed as part of a television special on Brown's life, according to Paul. ``As part of being in prison, your liberties are restricted and you're taken away from your commercial life,'' Archibald said. ``That applies to entertainers, stockbrokers, bankers and anyone else who goes to prison.'' Officials with the King Street Palace and community action center did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. Brown will only respond to written inquiries, center officials said. Later Wednesday, Larry Myers of the Universal Attractions booking agency in New York said concert organizers were now going ahead with plans for a May 16 benefit performance in Aiken instead of Charleston _ despite the department's stance. The concert is to be held at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, said Myers, whose agency has booked concerts for Brown for more than 25 years. The change in location notwithstanding, Archibald said the department was firm in its position. ``Any entertainment Mr. Brown does has to be related directly and solely to his job,'' he said. ``We cannot allow some small benefit (for the commission) ... to be used as a cover for a larger, commercial exploitation.'' Brown, who turns 57 Thursday, was imprisoned in December 1988 to serve concurrent six-year sentences in Georgia and South Carolina for failing to stop for police, aggravated assault and weapons violations stemming from a two-state car chase in 1988. He becomes eligible for parole in South Carolina in May 1991 and in Georgia in March 1992. Brown is known for such hits as ``Papa's Got A Brand New Bag,'' ``I Got You (I Feel Good),'' and more recently ``I'm Real'' and ``Living in America.''
AP881125-0221 	X	Boeing Co.'s future probably holds one and possibly two larger widebody jets and a supersonic transport, company executives say. But not the 7J7. When first proposed three years ago, the 7J7 _ ``J'' for the consortium of Japanese manufacturers interested in the plane _ was to be one of the most innovative planes Boeing ever built. It was to make extensive use of composites and other high-tech materials, ``fly by wire'' electronic controls, computerized instruments and a new ``unducted fan'' engine that would have external propellers. Trouble was, Boeing said after postponing the program last year, ``market indicators continued to present different requirements on airplane size and configuration.'' Translation: Nobody wants to buy one. Asked recently whether the 7J7 would ever be built, Philip Condit, executive vice president for production and engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said: ``As described at that point, probably not.'' He said manufacturers have to try to guess market demands 10 years into the future. ``Our best guess is there is going to be a fair amount of pressure, due to (airport) gate constraints, congestions, on the bigger sizes,'' Condit said. ``That's why the effort now on 767-X.'' The 767-X is a new, larger version of the 767 widebody, which comes in two sizes _ the model 200, which holds 216 passengers in two classes, and the 300, which carries 261. Condit said Boeing is considering a version that would seat 300 people and possibly a version for 350 passengers. The 767 is becoming more attractive to airlines thanks to a Federal Aviation Administration rule change earlier this year allowing the two-engine planes to fly routes 120 minutes away from usable airports. That qualifies it for use on many over-water routes. Richard Albrecht, executive vice president for sales and marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the company expects the FAA to extend the authorization to 180 minutes soon, which would allow 767s to fly trans-Atlantic routes. Boeing also has plans for a supersonic airliner, but executives doubt it will fly in the next 20 years. ``The economics of the supersonic transport have to be roughly comparable to that of the subsonic transport in order for it to make sense commercially,'' Albrecht said. A supersonic flight between Los Angeles and Australia might take five hours instead of 15 aboard a 747, but Albrecht says he doubts too many passengers would pay double the fare to save that time. While the Concorde supersonic airliner has been successfully marketed as a premium trans-Atlantic service, ``I don't believe anybody will build the next generation of the supersonic transport to serve a niche market, which is what the Concorde is serving now,'' he said.
AP881220-0219 	X	The signs say ``Always Open,'' but for the first time in 35 years, most of the 1,200 Denny's restaurants across the United States will close their doors for Christmas Day. Locking those doors is a different story. Some buildings have been without locks for decades because of the always-open policy. At others, the locks have never been used and the keys can't be found. The company is having to install locks at about 700 restaurants, said Joe Herrera, director of marketing at the company's southern California headquarters. The company decided to close this year so employees could have the day off. ``It will cost us about $5 million in sales,'' Herrera said. The chain's 60,000 employees were so grateful for the holiday that many sent cards and letters of appreciation to the offices, Herrera said. Employees received normal pay for Christmas Day. ``We just feel we spend 364 days a year taking care of other people's families; for one day a year we want to take care of our own,'' he said. Nobody wants to work on Christmas, he said, and it has been the top turnover day of the year, with some managers losing four or five employees. In Hollywood, the companywide closing solved manager Almaz Legesse's problem of choosing which employees of a Sunset Boulevard restaurant to give the day off. ``I had a big list. ... I was having a hard time,'' she said. The restaurant, which serves more than 1,700 Christmas customers, was awaiting a visit from a locksmith. ``We never had locks,'' Ms. Legesse said. ``After so many years of working Christmas every year it's real nice,'' said Lee Sevene, a manager at a Denny's near a turnpike in Portland, Me. ``People have always thanked us a lot for staying open,'' said Frances Bushman, manager of a Pismo Beach, Calif., Denny's. ``On the other hand they always felt sorry for our waitresses and cooks,'' she said. Ms. Bushman's Denny's has locks but she had to check to see if the keys fit. Christmases in the past have been about twice as busy as average days at Denny's, Herrera said. ``We have up to an hour wait sometimes on Christmas, and that's all day _ not just at midday,'' Herrera said. ``It actually starts on Christmas Eve, and just keeps going.'' The Christmas closing applied to 1,221 restaurants. The operators of 174 franchise restaurants were allowed to make their own decisions. Winifred Gibson, a manager at two Denny's franchise restaurants in Fresno, Calif., said they would remain open for the biggest day of the year. But she sympathized with the trouble of locking up a Denny's. ``Once I needed to lock the doors on my store. It was a major fiasco. It took us a day to find the keys,'' Ms. Gibson said. Christmas Day used to bring in mostly single people, couples with no children or elderly people with no family, she said. ``But not anymore. You have so many one-parent families.'' The three franchise Denny's in Anchorage, Alaska, and one in Fairbanks will be open, said Donna Flanagan, manager of an Anchorage restaurant. Ms. Flanagan expects to serve about 1,500 people on Christmas, which is second only to Mother's Day in bringing in customers.
AP901221-0204 	X	The Boeing Co. said a $1.8 billion order from Delta Air Lines helped it set a company record of $47.7 billion worth of airplane orders this year. Boeing's 1990 tally tops by $1.1 billion its previous high mark of $46.6 billion set last year even though the number of planes ordered fell from 1989. Boeing said Thursday that 543 planes were ordered this year, down from 883 last year. The biggest drop came in orders for the short-haul 737-series - 162 planes this year from 463 last year. But the overall dollar amount of the orders increased because of a sharp rise in orders for Boeing's most expensive jet, the 747-400 jumbo. This year, airlines ordered 172 of the 747-400s, which cost between $125 million and $147 million each. Boeing received orders for 68 of its 747-400s in 1989. Delta's order announced Thursday includes six new 767-300 twinjets, which sell for between $78 million and $86 million each. Boeing also disclosed that Delta placed orders earlier this year for three more extended-range 767-300s, an additional standard 767-300, nine 757-200s and seven 737-300s. Boeing spokesman T. Craig Martin said the previous orders included options Delta converted to firm purchases this year and several jets added to earlier orders during the final contract negotiations for those orders.
AP901114-0225 	X	Shares closed lower on London's Stock Exchange Wednesday as investors assessed the news that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is being challenged as leader of the governing Conservative Party. Former Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine said he will challenge Mrs. Thatcher in a ballot among Conservative legislators Tuesday. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index fell 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 2,046.0. The Financial Times 300-share index was down 10.4 points at 1,583.2. The Financial Times 500-share index fell 5.88 points to close at 1,086.64. Volume was 356.5 million shares, off from 422.9 million shares Tuesday.
AP881209-0240 	X	The dollar was mixed against the major foreign currencies Friday as investors turned their sights toward trade deficit figures to be released next week. Gold prices were also mixed. Republic National Bank of New York quoted a late bid of $422.50 for a troy ounce of gold, up from $421.30 late Thursday, but the metal declined in overseas trading. Dollar trading was lackluster as investors squared their positions in advance of the weekend and Wednesday's scheduled release of balance of trade figures for October. Jack Barbanel, a market analyst for Gruntal & Co., predicted the dollar would remain stable until the report is released. Overseas, dealers said the dollar was pressured lower by strength in the West German mark. They said the mark rose amid speculation that the Bundesbank would raise its Lombard rate by a half percentage point to 5.5 percent. The Lombard rate is the interest the central bank charges commercial banks for supplemental borrowings in which securities are used as collateral. In Frankfurt, the dollar slipped to 1.7330 marks from 1.7420 late Thursday. In New York, it fell to 1.73525 marks from 1.73865. In Tokyo, where trading ends before Europe's business day begins, the dollar fell 0.59 yen to a closing 122.43 yen. Later, in London, it was quoted higher at 122.30 yen, and in New York, the dollar rose to 122.49 yen from 122.30 late Thursday. In London, the dollar gained against the British pound. It cost $1.8490 to buy one pound, cheaper than $1.8510 Thursday. In New York, the pound was worth $1.8495, compared with late Thursday's $1.85505. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Thursday's prices, included: 1.4620 Swiss francs, down from 1.4633; 5.9290 French francs, down from 5.9350; 1,282.75 Italian lire, down from 1,283.00; and 1.19665 Canadian dollars, up from 1.19275. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Thursday's rates, included: 1.4605 Swiss francs, down from 1.4665; 5.9240 French francs, down from 5.9450; 1.9560 Dutch guilders, down from 1.9645; 1,280.25 Italian lire, down from 1,285.00; 1.1970 Canadian dollars, up from 1.1933. Gold closed at $422.90 a troy ounce on the Commodity Exchange in New York, up from 421.30 late Thursday. But gold fell earlier in London to a late bid price of $420.75 a troy ounce, compared with $423.50 late Thursday, and in Zurich, it closed at a bid $420.30, compared with $423 bid late Thursday. In Hong Kong, gold fell $1.24 to close at a bid $423.64. Silver bullion prices held steady on the London market where the metal was trading at a late bid price of $6.16 a troy ounce, unchanged from Thursday. On the Commodity Exchange in New York, silver rose to $6.175 a troy ounce from late Thursday's $6.128.
AP880626-0063 	X	Garri Kasparov of the Soviet Union moved into first place Sunday in the World Cup Chess Championship with a 10th round victory over Ulf Andersson of Sweden. He took over the lead from Joan Ehlvest of the Soviet Union, who lost to Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union. Ehlvest is in second place and Karpov in third. There were draws between Nigel Short of Britain and Alexandre Beliavski of Sweden, Arthur Youssoupov of the Soviet Union and Johan Hjartarson of Iceland and Jesus Nogueiras of Cuba and Boris Spassky of France. The three-week tournament, the second of six in the World Cup, will reward a total of $1.2 million in prize money to the winners. Sixteen grandmasters are competing in the tournament. Standings after Sunday's 10th round: 1. Garri Kasparov, USSR, 7.5 2. Joan Elvest, USSR, 7 3. Anatoly Karpov, USSR, 6 ( l adjounred) 4. Andrei Sokolov, USSR, 6 Boris Spassky, France 6 6. Robert Hubner, West Germany 5.5 ( l adjounred) 7. Zolan Ribli, Hungary, 5.5 8. Nigel Short, Britain, 5 9. Ulf Andersson, Sweden,4 Alexander Beliavski, Sweden, 4 Jonathan Speelman, Britain, 4 Arthur Yoiussoupov, USSR, 4 Johan Hjartson, Iceland, 4 14.Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Yugoslavia, 3.5 Jesus Nogueiras, Cuba, 4 Jan Timman, Netherlands, 4
AP880729-0107 	X	A royal snafu has erupted over a dry cleaner's insistence on using the nickname she has had since childhood: Lady Di. The British government frowns on anyone taking the royal family's names in vain, including Diana, wife of Prince Charles, and twice has asked Diane Storoni to rename her establishment in Vista, about 45 miles north of San Diego. ``It's my name and I'm not going to change it for anybody,'' said Storoni, who says her family has called her Lady Di since she was a baby. ``That's that. I, personally, don't think she (the Princess of Wales) cares about this.'' Angus Mackay, spokesman at the British consulate in Los Angeles, said the names of members of the royal family are ``never used in commercial solicitation either in Britain or anywhere in the world.'' He also doesn't like the way Storoni advertises her company as ``Cleaners to the Royal Family.'' The radio commercial features an impersonation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The advertisement ``cheapens not only the royal family themselves, but also the humanitarian values with which they are so closely associated around the world,'' Mackay wrote in a June 14 letter. Mackay said the consulate has received several letters from local residents offended by the ads. He said a British company can advertise that it provides goods or services to the royal family only if designated ``by appointment to the royal family.'' ``We simply wanted to make the company aware of all of that,'' he said, ``and it's really up to the company to decide what they want to do. We certainly don't intend to take it any further.'' But Storoni does. She wants to open a Lady Di plant in London next year. And for anyone who is offended, her business partner, Gennaro Marinelli, said, ``Perhaps you might suggest a little less starch in their laundry.''
AP900215-0137 	X	A U.S. presidential panel urged closer Western cooperation Thursday to prevent airliner bombings and called for a tough response to nations sponsoring such attacks. Ann McLaughlin, former U.S. labor secretary and head of the commission, said at a news conference that a ``common purpose exists to combat terrorism'' and called for more sharing of information to protect travelers. President Bush created the commission on Aviation, Security and Terrorism in August as a result of the Dec. 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The seven-member panel is traveling through Europe to sound out anti-terrorism policies. At the news conference, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, urged Western governments to strike back at any state proved to be involved in terrorist attacks on aviation. ``We have to let these states know we mean business,'' he said. Investigators have suggested there might be an Iranian connection to the Lockerbie bombing, which killed all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. The jet was bound for New York. In the Sept. 19 bombing of a French UTA jumbo jet over Niger, investigators say they are convinced a Middle Eastern state was involved. French press reports have said it could be Libya. Members of the commission said they did not go into specifics of the UTA crash with French officials. But they said the fact that both nations shared a similar tragedy made their conversations more intensive. Another commission member, Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato, a New York Republican, said U.S. and French officials agreed that security at African airports was a ``gaping hole'' that must fixed. France has announced a $20 million program to improve security at African airports. The UTA flight, in which 170 people died, originated in Brazzaville, Congo and stopped in N'Djamena, Chad. McLaughlin said it was too early to give any indication of what recommendations the group would make to Bush. Their report is due in mid-May. ``We'll come up with something or we will have failed,'' she said. ``We can't leave the impression the terrorists are winning.'' The group visited Charles De Gaulle airport to look at French security measures, baggage handling and passenger check-in procedures. They said they also discussed new technology aimed at examining baggage to search for explosives.
AP901210-0249 	X	When 79-year-old Eishiro Saito steps down this week as chairman of Japan's most powerful business lobby, his successor will inherit a legendary organization, but one that's losing its luster. The Federation of Economic Organizations, better known as Keidanren, has gained widespread international recognition for the huge role it played in bringing Japan to its current heights of prosperity and economic development. However, its influence has waned in recent years because of aging leadership, business scandals and a decline in the importance of heavy industry that traditionally has dominated the federation. Most observers believe Friday's leadership change may mark the beginning of a transitional period for the federation, although they expect no immediate switch in the policies of Japan's economic giants. The 44-year-old Keidanren was first regarded as the voice of ``Japan Inc.'' in the 1950s. As one of four large industrial federations, Keidanren helped direct business development and ensured support from the government by controlling business donations to political parties. The federation became the ``overall coordinator and fund-raiser'' for the Liberal Democratic Party that has governed for 35 years, journalist Karel Van Wolferen wrote in his book ``The Enigma of Japanese Power.'' Keidanren has 938 corporate members, including nearly all the nation's major companies, and 121 business associations. Steel makers, ship builders, and power companies traditionally have dominated the leadership. Saito and his successor, Gaishi Hiraiwa, are both from this old guard. Saito is honorary chairman of Nippon Steel Corp., the world's largest steel maker, while Hiraiwa is chairman of Tokyo Electric Co., the world's largest private electric power producer. Keidanren still is very close to the governing party. Its opinions on everything from trade to U.S. relations to foreign aid carry enough clout to draw most foreign business and political leaders to the federation's somber building on a side street in the Otemachi business district. But Keidanren has lost some pull in political circles as the ``base of expertise,'' which policy makers depend on for information, has broadened to include parliamentary committees and independent research institutes, said Kermit L. Schoenholtz, an analyst for Salomon Brothers Asia Ltd. A symptom of this loss of influence was seen last spring, when Liberal Democratic Party officials bypassed the federation and collected political donations from companies directly. Japan also has lost the national consensus of the immediate postwar years when government, industry and most private individuals believed all Japanese should work together to rebuild. ``The business community as a single community is breaking down,'' said Seichiro Yonekura, an associate professor of business history at Hitotsubashi University. As the main symbol of the tight relations between big business and government, Keidanren has been tarred by recent business scandals involving its members, some observers say. Keidanren also lost esteem among the public earlier this year when Saito issued a report opposing proposed land taxes on corporations designed to reduce Japan's outrageously high real estate prices, a problem that many people have blamed on corporate greed. ``The image of Saito (came) down'' as a result, Yonekura said. But his image already was hurting. During Saito's first two-year term, which began in 1986, he had been considered a lucky optimist exemplified by his philosophy: ``Seek for brightness and do not look at darkness.'' In photographs, he resembled a balding, bespectacled leprechaun. But several articles in the local press in the last two years criticized him for weakness and lacking a philosophy. Hiraiwa, 76, has a reputation for relatively progressive thinking, although he has not yet articulated a philosophy for Keidanren. A seemingly cheerful man, he also is known as self-effacing and patient, in part due to his 13-year service as a federation vice chairman. Compared to Saito, the new chairman is seen as someone ``more in tune with popular opinion,'' said Gregory Clark, a professor at Sophia University who studies Japan's economy. Shijuro Ogata, deputy governor of the Japan Development Bank, believes Hiraiwa may be ``in the long run, the beginning of a transition'' to younger leadership. The next leader probably will come from among the federation's 12 vice chairmen, who are scheduled for a reshuffling next month after selection rules were changed to bring in men younger than 70. The new officers reportedly will represent industries such as services and distribution.
AP880818-0169 	X	Residents said Thursday they will ban further excavations around the gold-filled tomb of the father of Alexander the Great until plans for a museum are approved. ``The finds from Vergina should be displayed in a museum here, where they come from. People are protesting because they're tired of government promises that it will be built one day,'' said Mayor Andreas Vlazakis. Artifacts from the tomb _ including priceless gold-decorated armor, gold wreaths and jewelery _ are displayed in the Salonica Museum, 44 miles away. Vergina first made headlines in 1977 when Professor Manolis Andronikos of Salonica University unearthed the tomb of King Philip of Macedon beneath a mound in the village. Andronikos, who has excavated at Vergina for 50 years, said he wouldn't challenge the digging ban, but added: ``I feel very bitter and I hope reason will prevail.'' Alexander the Great became ruler of Macedon when his father was assassinated at a wedding feast in 336 B.C.
AP900719-0022 	X	The House Ways and Means Committee is demanding that the Beijing government improve its human rights policies before the United States renews special trade privileges for another year. However, the committee, which originates all trade legislation in Congress, rejected an effort to withdraw the most-favored-nation trade benefits that President Bush extended to China last month. Those benefits guarantee the lowest tariffs available on goods imported into the United States. ``Our object ought to be to improve human rights in China, not to cut off trade,'' Rep. Donald Pease, D-Ohio, said Wednesday in arguing successfully for his bill, which the committee approved by voice vote. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., chairman of the committee, supported Pease's bill. ``We are all outraged by human rights atrocities taking place in China,'' but revoking trade benefits would be counterproductive, he said. Rep. Richard Schulze, R-Pa., made several unsuccessful attempts to toughen the bill. Despite the massacre of protesters in Beijing's Tianamen Square in June 1989 and other human rights violations, ``the resolution says `you get one more year to do a little better,''' Schulze said. ``We have said we are going to turn our backs on it, that the almighty dollar ... is much more important.'' Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., described Pease's bill as ``an attempt to create enough common ground that the president and Congress can stand on it together.'' Anything tougher almost certainly would be vetoed, he said. In granting the trade benefit this year, Bush had to consider only China's emigration policy and was allowed by law to waive any concerns about it in the national interest. The bill would not affect the designation for the next 12 months. Before renewing most-favored-nation status next year, the bill would require the president to consider whether the Beijing government has made significant progress in several areas. They include: _Terminating martial law. _Accounting for citizens who were arrested as a result of nonviolent expression of political beliefs during the uprising that led to the Tianamen Square massacre. _Easing restrictions on freedom of the press. _Ceasing harassment of Chinese citizens in the United States. The president also would have to consider how denial of the trade benefit would affect Hong Kong, the British crown colony that borders China. Some members quarreled with the ``significant progress'' phrase in the bill. ``If you shoot 1,000 people instead of 5,000, have you made progress?'' asked Rep. Marty Russo, D-Ill. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate would withdraw most-favored-nation status outright on grounds the Beijing government continues to engage in torture, use of forced labor, denial of emigration and suppression of domestic dissent, as well as support of Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia. Almost all nations, except developing countries, whose exports are allowed tariff-free treatment, have been given most-favored-nation status. Exceptions include Cuba and Vietnam.
AP880816-0078 	X	Universal Pictures may have won a temporary financial victory with ``The Last Temptation of Christ,'' but the film could be costly to the studio in the long-run, some fundamentalist religious leaders say. The movie played to sold-out crowds last week in seven U.S. cities and two in Canada, taking in $44,579 per screen for a three-day total of $401,211, Universal said. ``We're gratified at the response of the American people. Every show sold out. We're pleased,'' Universal President Tom Pollock said. John Krier of Exhibitor Relations Co., which surveys box office performance, described the film's debut as phenomenal. ``This is a tremendous showing,'' he said. A movie in general release _ for example, one shown on 1,300 to 1,400 screens, ``is really something'' if it takes in $7,000 to $8,000 a screen, Krier said. ``With all this free publicity, of course they were full. But the more the Christian community sees this thing, the angrier they will get,'' the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association said Monday. The preacher is among several religious leaders who have labeled the film blasphemous and have urged urged a boycott of MCA Inc., Universal's parent company. ``There's no question that in Round 1, the publicity that we generated created a lot of curiosity,'' said Tim Penland, who served as a religious consultant to Universal but later resigned to protest the film. ``It certainly appears we helped Universal,'' he said. But he predicted the adverse publicity will ``ultimately burn Universal.'' ``There comes a point where the publicity becomes damaging,'' Wildmon agreed. Wildmon said the demonstrations, which climaxed Thursday with a march on Universal Studios by 25,000 Christians, are over. The next tactic will go beyond the boycott of Universal films, Universal Tours and appeals to MCA shareholders, he said, adding he may disclose the next strategy later in the week. ``Christians are angry,'' Wildmon said. ``They (Universal) may realize short-term profits, but in the long-term they will hurt economically from this. The anger is building and this isn't going to be forgotten in two weeks.'' Some conservative Christians have denounced the movie for what they said was a blasphemous depiction of Jesus, who is portrayed as fantasizing about abandoning death on the cross to live as a man and raise a family with Mary Magdalene. Director Martin Scorsese, a Roman Catholic, has said the movie is a work of fiction and was not made with blasphemous intent.
AP881002-0019 	X	Democrats who hope Sen. Lloyd Bentsen will help the ticket win his home state of Texas and perhaps the presidential election could do well to regard the fate of Henry Gassaway Davis. In case anyone doesn't remember, Davis was Democrat Alton B. Parker's running mate when Parker ran for president against Republican Teddy Roosevelt in 1904. The voters chose between Roosevelt and Parker, and their choice was Roosevelt by a 3-2 margin. Experts concede that the vice presidential debate in Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday between Bentsen and Republican Dan Quayle may make a difference, but they say the voters' final decision will come down to a choice between the top of the tickets, Democrat Michael Dukakis and Vice President George Bush. ``Unless Quayle is absolutely destroyed in the debate with Bentsen, I don't think it will hurt Bush,'' said Leo Ribuffo, a specialist in political history at George Washington University in Washington. ``People will be looking for Quayle to blow it,'' said Samuel H. Kernell, professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego. ``If he can get through the debate in a competent fashion where he looks unexceptional, it will be a real success for him.'' Eddie Mahe Jr., a Republican political consultant, said, ``I think it is reasonable to suggest that George Bush would have won Indiana (Quayle's home state) without Mr. Quayle, and with Mr. Bentsen, Mike Dukakis is still not going to carry Texas. So you wash that out.'' ``I think the odds are that Quayle will have little or no effect on the ultimate choice,'' said Thomas Mann, program director for governmental studies at the Brookings Institution here. Elspeth Rostow, a political scholar at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin, said Bush's choice of Quayle ``doesn't seem to have too much effect on the voters, at least so far.'' ``I don't think, if indeed Bush was disposed to choose Quayle to appeal to women, that so far it has had that effect,'' Ms. Rostow said. ``I think the conventional wisdom that the selection of a running mate is rarely decisive one way or another is absolutely true,'' said Ribuffo. A survey conducted this year by the Hearst Corp. supports this view. Eighteen percent of the 1,001 voters surveyed said they had changed their minds about a presidential candidate at one time or another because of their opinion of his running mate. Of those, 70 percent said they voted against that ticket. Political experts agree that if a running mate has any effect, he is more likely to hurt than help. Examples cited include President Ford's selection of Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas, who was criticized for his slashing debating style in 1976, and Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro, who suffered from examination of her family's finances in 1984. ``Clearly in my opinion Bob Dole in 1976 in that debate (with Mondale, Jimmy Carter's running mate) cost Jerry Ford votes,'' Mahe said. ``Clearly in 1984 in my opinion, Geraldine Ferraro cost Walter Mondale votes probably.'' In Richard Nixon's unsuccessful campaign of 1960, some thought that Republican vice presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge hurt the ticket's chances by pledging that Nixon would appoint a black to the Cabinet _ a statement Nixon disavowed. Lodge, a former ambassador to the United Nations, also was criticized for taking naps and not campaigning hard enough. ``Some have thought that if he had used his prestige from the U.N. more effectively, Nixon might have edged out Kennedy,'' Ms. Rostow said. There are exceptions to the rule that running mates don't help much, the experts said. While there is disagreement over whether Lodge hurt Nixon in 1960, almost everybody agrees that Lyndon B. Johnson helped Kennedy by enabling him to carry Texas. ``I don't think Kennedy would have won without Johnson,'' Ribuffo said. Also, Ribuffo said, Mondale may have helped Carter win election in 1976 by imparting legitimacy to the former Georgia governor in the eyes of skeptical liberals. Then there was the running mate that Republicans chose in 1900 to help the colorless William McKinley win a second term against the dynamic Democrat, William Jennings Bryan. The ticket of McKinley and Roosevelt became known as ``the kangaroo ticket because it had a kick in the tail,'' Ms. Rostow said. There haven't been many tickets in any other year, including 1988, with that much of a kick in the tail, the experts agree.
AP900907-0072 	X	Israel's phone-tapping scandal widened today amid reports that private investigators illegally tapped phones of more than 20 journalists and possible witnesses in an investigation of a Cabinet official. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri is being questioned on suspicion of illegally funneling public funds to religious institutions that he controls. He is a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party. Israel army radio said today that police would complete their investigation in about two weeks and were expected to recommend charges against Deri. The report did not name the possible charges. If Deri stands trial, it could rattle the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. A coalition, led by Shamir's right-wing Likud bloc, has a 62-seat majority in the 120-seat Parliament and needs the five seats of Shas to govern. Police believe three private investigating firms tapped phone lines in municipal officials in Jerusalem and newspaper offices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, according to today's media reports. But a Tel Aviv police official denied the stories, saying they were ``nonsense.'' She spoke on condition of anonymity. The bugging scandal surfaced last week with reports that five people had been arrested on suspicion of tapping the phone of Mordechai Gilat, an investigative reporter for the Yediot Ahronot newspaper. Gilat had written a series of exposes on Deri in June. A tape allegedly containing a recording of a conversation between Gilat and Police Commissioner Yaacov Turner was discovered earlier this week. Reports said Turner's phone may have been bugged as well. Deri, meanwhile, suggested the left-of-center Labor Party was responsible for the investigation. He indicated it could have started as an attempt to prevent the formation of Shamir's coalition on June 11. ``Somebody decided to torpedo the formation of a right-wing government,'' Deri told the weekly newspaper Kol Hair. ``Only six days before the formation of the new right-wing government did police start to investigate accusations against me. Only one day before the new government was presented, investigators confiscated material from the Interior Ministry,'' Deri said. Shas was responsible for toppling the previous Likud-Labor coalition on March 15. During the subsequent wrangling for power, both Labor and Likud tried to lure Shas onto their sides.
AP880512-0122 	X	Girl Scout cookies bound for sailors aboard the USS Midway were shipped off to Japan today after a persistent Brownie troop squeezed their shipment past Japanese tariffs through diplomatic means. The cookies, which had been sitting in an airline ticket office since they were returned from an April 26 shipment to Tokyo, left this morning, said Jean Titus, general manager for American Airlines in Corpus Christi. Troop 807 in Beeville had sold 402 boxes of cookies to the crew of the USS Midway, stationed in Atsugi, Japan, with free shipment provided by the airline. But Japanese customs officials said they would have to levy a duty on the cookies, and they were returned to Corpus Christi International Airport. Japanese officials have denied that they said the duty would be $2,000. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, went through diplomatic channels to clear the matter up and sent a telegram to the Brownie troop on Wednesday. ``An officer on the USS Midway tells me that he is ready to go pick up your shipment of Girl Scout cookies when they arrive in Japan this Friday,'' the telegram said. ``Everybody who was supposed to be getting the cookies was really upset when they didn't get them,'' said Petty Officer 3rd Class Sig Woolford, who was in Beeville on Wednesday while on leave from the aircraft carrier. Woolford, son-in-law of Brownie troop leader Marchetta White, said sailors have been waiting for the cookies from home for more than two months. The cookies were scheduled to connect with a flight in Dallas, then catch a flight to Narita Airport near Tokyo, where representatives of the U.S. Navy will be allowed to take the shipment duty-free. ``I think it's great and I'll tell the girls this afternoon at our regular meeting,'' said Ms. White. ``I'm sure you'll hear a cheer go up.'' Japanese officials issued a statement Tuesday denying that the tariff ever was as high as originally reported. The Japanese Consulate in Houston reported that the airline made an inquiry in Tokyo about the cookies, but did not say that they were intended for U.S. servicemen stationed on a ship.
AP880613-0078 	X	Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski today opened a two-day meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee with a plea for national reconciliation and a promise that more independent groups will be legalized. But he appeared to rule out talking to the outlawed Solidarity trade union, which Polish authorities have maintained accepts money from the U.S. government. ``We can talk to anyone, as long as he is not a client, especially a paid one, of a foreign court,'' Jaruzelski said. The plenum was the first meeting of the 230-member Central Committee since Poland was shaken by strikes in April and May, and it was expected to give important signals of the authorities' future moves to prevent more unrest. Jaruzelski, first secretary of the Polish United Workers Party, said upcoming nationwide elections for municipal and provincial councils offer Poles an opportunity to chose active candidates who could represent their needs. The elections Sunday are structured in a way that assures in advance that the Communist Party and its allies will dominate the councils. But Jaruzelski said more seats have been set aside for non-party members. He said those independent people who refused to join the councils were ``another case of missing the train of history.'' The party leader, who also is president of the Council of State, said a government-social commission should be established to monitor price increases in Poland and said across-the-board price increases such as were introduced earlier this year should be avoided in the future. Jaruzelski confirmed that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will visit Poland next month and said the trip will be important for Poland's future. And the Polish leader spoke at length about the disenchantment of youth with the Communist Party and called for redoubled efforts to win the allegiance of the younger generation. Referring to the strikes between April 25 and May 10, Jaruzelski said they increased the chance for national understanding because they showed the majority of Poles displayed ``a front of realism.'' Strikes took place in five factories, with brief stoppages or strike threats in 25 others. But the labor unrest did not spread out of control to factories around Poland as it did in 1980, when Solidarity was born. A new law on associations is awaiting enactment, said Jaruzelski, but that should not stop new groups from being legalized in the meantime. He mentioned no specifics, but there have been official hints that at least three independent groups _ a Warsaw-based pro-private enterprise Economic Society, the dormant Polish chapter of the PEN writers' club and the Dziekania political discussion club in Warsaw _ may soon be legally registered. Jaruzelski also suggested a ``round table'' meeting of representatives of existing and proposed associations to discuss solutions to Poland's problems. He gave no details on who would convene the meeting, who could be invited or when it might take place. ``National reconciliation and one of the goals of the socialist renewal,'' Jaruzelski said. ``It is broader today than in past years.''
AP880901-0302 	X	Stock prices recovered slightly and the U.S. dollar edged lower against the Japanese yen in Friday morning trading. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues, which plunged 431.69 points Thursday, the third largest single-day decline this year, was up by 30.74 points at 26,965.00 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Dealers said share prices started to recover as the foreign exchange market stabilized. The dollar, which rose 1.73 yen on Thursday, opened at 136.25 yen, down from the previous day's close of 136.70 yen. The dollar's decline on Friday morning was due partly to a 0.20-yen loss overnight in the United States, according to a foreign exchange dealer at the Bank of Tokyo. ``The dollar-buying drive in the market is still strong, but the rate is not moving that quickly,'' he said on condition of anonymity. ``Until the scheduled report of U.S. unemployment figures later today, there is a wait-and-see mood among investors, which slows down dollar-buying,'' he added.
AP900512-0110 	X	The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led a court-ordered race relations seminar Saturday for four former Ku Klux Klansmen, and said the response was better than he'd expected. ``I didn't anticipate the tremendous experience we had,'' the Rev. Joseph Lowery of Atlanta said after he and other SCLC representatives met for two hours with the ex-Klansmen in a hotel. However, one of the ex-Klansmen, Roger Handley of Steele, called the session ``a wasted two hours.'' ``He didn't change my feelings,'' said Handley. ``I told Lowery he ought to take his message of brotherly love into the projects where there are drugs, rapes and murders.'' Another former Klansman, Terry Tucker of Cullman, called the session ``a learning experience.'' ``We've got a lot more common ground than people would think,'' he said. ``I never have hated blacks and I don't think they hate us.'' The session was ordered last year by U.S. District Judge E.B. Haltom Jr. as part of a settlement of a lawsuit stemming from Klan violence against black marchers in Decatur on May 26, 1979, in which gunfire wounded two whites and two blacks. Black marchers were protesting the conviction of Tommy Lee Hines, a retarded black man found guilty of raping a white woman. Klansmen attacked the marchers and shots were fired, wounding four people. As part of the court settlement, the men were ordered to leave the Klan, perform community service and pay varying fines. Lowery said he talked to the four ``about the oneness of the human family, self-respect, the economics of race _ how all poor people are taken advantage of, about the futility of violence and violent resistance to racial progress, how darkness can't hold back the dawn.'' Cross-burnings have been a dreaded symbol of the KKK over the years, but Lowery said he told them ``the cross is a symbol of our faith, and we hope it would be used for that.'' Tucker finished serving a two-month prison sentence for the violence in March 1989 and said he's had no contact with the Klan since. ``I feel there are different ways of going about things,'' he said. As for his role in the Decatur melee, Tucker said: ``I probably was just a young person sowing bad oats, that's all.'' Another of the four attending the seminar, Doug Berryhill of Huntsville, said it was ``a productive meeting and I learned quite a bit.'' Herbert Campbell of Tuscumbia, using a newspaper to shield his face from news cameras, was asked if he learned anything. ``I learned to keep a newspaper with me,'' he said. Handley said he would have no reservations about rejoining the Klan. A fifth Klansman, Derane Godfrey of Wylam, was ordered to attend the session but didn't show up. Elizabeth Johnson, a lawyer from the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which brought the lawsuit against the Klan, said she wasn't sure what would be done about Godfrey's absence. Lowery said that at the end of the two-hour course, all but one of those present held hands while prayers were offered. He declined to say which one. Among the blacks at the session were Lowery and his wife, Evelyn; an SCLC aide, Ralph Worrell of Atlanta; the Rev. John Nettles of Gadsden, Alabama SCLC president, and the Rev. Abraham Woods, president of the Birmingham SCLC chapter.
AP901004-0194 	X	A proposal to give $11.1 billion in new tax breaks to small corporations is being criticized as opening the door for wealthy investors to duck their share of federal taxes. The Bush administration is pushing the new incentives as a substitute for the capital gains tax cut that congressional leaders refused to accept. Some of those leaders are suspicious of the substitute, which actually includes a small capital gains reduction. The proposal is attached to the $500 billion, five-year deficit-reduction agreement that President Bush and congressional leaders reached this week. The tax break proposal ``has very serious flaws,'' Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday. ``I think it will lead to a substantial increase in tax shelters and great abuse.'' Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also has reservations. If the proposals ``are growth incentives, he thinks they promise only to help tax shelters grow,'' an aide said. Public outrage about tax sheltering was a major factor in the sweeping income tax overhaul in 1986. Before then, many wealthy individuals and profitable corporations were able to cut their taxes to almost zero by making investments - many with no chance of success - that offered huge up-front deductions. A Chamber of Commerce official said the new provisions could be drawn tightly enough to avoid reviving such tax shelters. Bush said the plan would provide ``powerful new incentives for productive investment in the kinds of companies that account for much of America's job growth.'' The key part would allow a person to deduct 25 percent of the first $50,000 invested in a year in a ``small corporation.'' Such a corporation would be defined as one with non-borrowed capital of $50 million or less. Critics said the definition is so broad it could cover some giant companies so heavily in debt that stockholder equity falls below the $50 million threshold. Others noted the possibility a big company could split into smaller divisions in an effort to attract investors looking for tax breaks. ``It's an outrage and probably stands a shot at being knocked out of the budget package,'' said Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor-financed group. ``We don't see the need to encourage people to invest their money in ways that don't make sense for them in the absence of a tax incentive.'' The special deduction and several other small-corporation incentives were written into the budget agreement at the administration's insistence. That occurred after congressional leaders refused to accept Bush's proposal to cut the capital gains tax, on grounds that nearly 80 percent of the benefit would go to those with incomes over $100,000 a year. Capital gains, the profits from the sale of investments, are fully taxed at the same rates as other income. One of the proposed incentives is a new capital gains tax cut - albeit a narrow one. It would allow an investor in a small corporation to avoid tax on up to half the price for which the stock was sold, as long as it was held at least five years. Steve Entin, an analyst with the conservative Institute for Research Into Economics of Taxation, who wants a broad capital gains cut, said the incentive package is so narrowly drawn that it would benefit ``only a handful of well-to-do people who could afford to sink a substantial portion of their money into risky small companies.'' Ordinary investors have to diversify to reduce risks, Entin said, and there is little in the package for them.
AP880817-0295 	X	Farmers Insurance Group Inc. agreed to discuss a $4.9 billion buyout offer from Batus Inc., but warned it still has reservations about the proposed friendly merger. On a separate front in the eight-month takeover battle, the insurer vowed to appeal a ruling by regulators in Illinois Tuesday giving a tentative green light to a Farmers-Batus merger in that state. Farmers' offer to negotiate was the first significant easing of the company's opposition to a buyout by Batus, a Louisville, Ky.-based tobacco and retailing company. Despite the offer of negotiations, Farmers has a number of objections to a merger, said Leo E. Denlea Jr., Farmers' chairman and chief executive. ``Farmers' board of directors has made no decision concerning a sale of the company,'' Denlea said in a news release. ``...We will have to address the issues being raised in the insurance regulatory hearings, and the concerns of our insurance exchanges, in a comprehensive fashion if there is to be any prospect for a transaction.'' A Batus spokesman said the company had no immediate comment but was preparing a statement. Batus, a subisidiary of BAT Industries PLC of Britain, is seeking to acquire Farmers to gain a foothold in the American financial services business. Farmers is the nation's third biggest auto and home insurer and seventh biggest property and casualty insurer. Top management of Farmers declined to negotiate after Batus announced its initial proposal early this year, and Batus took its offer directly to shareholders with a cash tender offer. That offer now stands at $63 a share, or about $4.4 billion. Last week, Batus announced it would be willing to pay $72 a share for the company if Farmers' management agreed to back the bid. It was the latter proposal, which values the company at approximately $4.9 billion, that won Farmers' agreement to negotiate. Farmers has contested Batus' overtures in mailings to shareholders, in court, and in hearings before insurance regulators in nine states where authorities must approve such a merger. On Tuesday, the Illinois Department of Insurance approved a takeover by Batus as long as the company agreed to maintain Farmers' fees and various lines of insurance, and to continue non-smoker discounts. Batus spokesman Wilson Wyatt said the company has already agreed to meet those conditions. A Farmers spokesman said the company intended to appeal the decision. In the various insurance hearings, Farmers, noting Batus owns the company that makes Kool and Viceroy cigarettes, has suggested a buyout could bring an end to the company's insurance discounts for non-smokers. Though Batus officials have maintained they would do no such thing, Farmers' representatives have suggested an insurer owned by Batus would de-emphasize anti-smoking policies and advertisements. Ohio regulators have approved the merger with conditions similar to those made by Illinois, and Arizona regulators also approved the deal. Idaho, Washington and Oregon have rejected it and decisions or hearings are pending in Texas and Kansas. California regulators rejected the merger, but that decision was overturned by a state court. Most of the decisions are in various stages of appeal. Farmers has 68.4 million shares outstanding, and employees hold options to buy an additional 1.5 million new shares, bringing the total of shares likely to be bought in an unfriendly takeover to 69.9 million.
AP880213-0055 	X	A five-alarm fire today consumed the landmark high school that inspired the hit movie and TV show ``Fame,'' injuring 30 of the 200 firefighters battling the blaze in freezing temperatures and high winds. The third, fourth and fifth floors and a section of the roof of the six-story former High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan collapsed, forcing officials to pull all firefighters out of the building, said spokesman Efrain Parrilla. Some firefighters were sent back into the building about two hours later because there was no other way to get to the blaze, Parilla said. The fire was declared under control by 5:30 a.m., nearly five hours after it was reported, Parrilla said. Pockets of flame were expected to continue burning through the morning, but firefighters were expected to be able to keep it from spreading. Four firefighters were sent to hospitals with minor injuries, Parrilla said. Twenty-six others were treated at the scene for sprain, cuts, and other minor injuries. The fire at what is now Liberty High School near Times Square was reported at 12:38 a.m. The blaze started on the third floor and burned up to the roof, Parrilla said. High winds and slippery conditions due to recent snow and rain hampered firefighters, the spokesman said. The National Weather Service reported winds gusting to 28 mph and wind chills of minus 7. The high school was designated a city landmark in 1982. The performing arts school, part of the public school system, combined with the High School of Music and Art about three years ago and moved to a new home. Although the Board of Education did not permit film crews to shoot scenes for ``Fame'' inside the high school building, the facade was seen in the 1980 film and the TV series.
AP900906-0204 	X	The stock market took a tumble today, faced with revived upward pressure on world oil prices. The price of oil climbed as pessimism spread about chances for any early resolution of the crisis in the Persian Gulf. Crude oil futures for October delivery jumped about $1.70 a barrel, to well above $31 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In addition, analysts said buyers were holding back awaiting the Labor Department's report Friday morning on the employment situation for August. The figures are expected to show continued weakness in the economy. Speculation has begun to spread on Wall Street that the data might encourage the Federal Reserve to adopt a more stimulative credit policy in an effort to ease strains on the economy and the banking system. But Wall Streeters are not entirely convinced that long-term interest rates would automatically fall in response to such a move. In fact, some say, rates could rise in that setting if fears increased that the Fed was softening its stand against inflation. That, in turn, would stand to leave the central bank in an even worse policy bind than it has to contend with now.
AP880928-0192 	X	The Senate on Wednesday wished the crew of the space shuttle Discovery ``Godspeed, good luck and a safe journey home'' on their mission scheduled to take off Thursday morning. In a resolution introduced by the body's leadership and passed by voice vote, the Senate congratulated the men and women of the U.S. space program for the work they had done on the mission and wished good luck to shuttle commander Rick Hauck and rest of the Discovery crew. The measure was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan. Co-sponsors included former astronaut, Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, the first American to orbit the Earth, and Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, first congressional observer to fly in space. The flight will be the first since the explosion of the shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986. Dole said that since the Challenger crash, ``Our space program has been under intense scrutiny. Tomorrow will be no different. The successful launch of the Discovery will be the beginning of a new era in America's exploration in space.''
AP880618-0127 	X	For 20 years, Barth Green struggled with his frustration, doctoring crushed and twisted spinal cords while knowing paralysis was permanent and irreversible. Spinal cord injuries doomed active, healthy people to spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs. In the worst cases, they can't out of bed, pull on socks or underwear, brush their teeth, comb their hair, lift a forkful of food to their mouths or scratch an itch. But Green made a lousy fatalist. In 1985, he founded the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, dedicated to reversing one of the most catastrophic conditions in medicine by solving the mystery of one of the most complex structures in biology. Today it is the country's largest and most comprehensive spinal cord research unit. ``No one's ever had the guts to say we want to cure paralysis, (but) I'm committed to eliminating wheelchairs. It's a world war against paralysis,'' said Green, a neurosurgeon. ``Our philosophy is to approach it like the Manhattan Project to split atoms to stop Hitler, or the Apollo Project to put a man on the moon in the space race.'' In an era when miracle drugs, transplant surgery, laser beams and artificial body parts have made medicine seem capable of solving almost anything, paralysis remains stubbornly unconquered. Researchers have made progress toward regenerating nerves in animals' spinal cords with transplants of cells from fetuses, electrical pulses and genetic engineering. But some say the challenge may be tougher than building atomic bombs or space ships. ``Those were engineering problems with a general consensus it could be done. Those guys had blueprints. We don't have any blueprints,'' said Dr. Walter Levy, a researcher at the Miami Project. ``We're in the Wright brothers stage. What's required is a space shuttle,'' said Dr. Michael Kliot, a neurosurgeon at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. ``There's a ray of hope. But we're very, very far away from curing spinal cord injuries.'' An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people in the United States are paralyzed as a result of injuries, according to the Department of Health and Human Services; an additional 10,000 to 15,000 people are hurt each year. No agency keeps precise count. Auto accidents account for about half the paralysis cases. Other causes are dives, falls, and accidents with guns and knives or while playing sports. The average age of victims is 19. Marc Buoniconti, son of former All-Pro football linebacker Nick Buoniconti of the Miami Dolphins, was 19 when his neck broke and crushed his spinal cord as he made a head-first tackle, paralyzing him from the neck down Oct. 26, 1985. ``I knew I broke my neck right away,'' said Buoniconti, who had played football since he was a 75-pound 7-year-old. ``My right arm flopped to the turf. I couldn't move. I couldn't get my breath back. I couldn't talk. ``In one second, I went from the best shape of my life to the worst,'' Buoniconti said. ``I was taking my last steps doing my favorite thing. It was on a football field, the place I love the most.'' Now, from his wheelchair at home in this Miami suburb, the 21-year-old Buoniconti is tackling paralysis as national spokesman for the Miami Project. The project's logo is a four-frame sequence of a stick figure standing up out of a wheelchair, matching the can-do grit of Buoniconti's personalized license plate that reads ``I'LL WALK.'' ``It's not a question of `if.' That's not in our vocabulary. It's a question of when,'' said Steve Towle, the project's executive director and a former Dolphins linebacker. ``I've seen what it takes to win. It can be done. It will be done.'' The spinal cord, encased in the bony armor of the spinal column, is as wide as a thumb and has the consistency of jellied candy.
AP881224-0090 	X	The Polisario Front announced Saturday it is sending a top-level delegation to meet Morocco's King Hassan II. It would be the first such encounter since Polisario guerrillas went to war with Morocco 13 years ago. No date for the meeting or names of delegates were given. The statement issued here by the Polisario Front said the initiative follows a declaration by the Moroccan monarch to the French press that he was ready to meet Polisario officials. The group called Hassan's statement ``a constructive position taken in response to repeated calls by the Polisario for dialogue.'' The talks would be the first direct contacts between Morocco and the Polisario or its political structure, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, since the guerrilla group began fighting Morocco for independence for the Western Sahara, annexed by Morocco in 1975. The Polisario statement said the group would cooperate fully with the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations, which have been seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict. Both Morocco and the Polisario have agreed in principle to a referendum on the future of the Western Sahara. However, the statement reiterated Polisario's stance that Moroccan troops and administration in the disputed territory remain an obstacle to the process and should be removed. Polisario declared the Western Sahara a republic in February 1976. It has since been recognized by 45 countries, 27 of them Organization of African Unity members. Morocco quit the group in 1980 when the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic became a member.
AP900608-0080 	X	Gang members returning from a friend's funeral allegedly used two rented limousines in a drive-by shooting that wounded one man, police said. The unidentified man was treated for a gunshot wound to the foot at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City after the 2:30 p.m. Thursday shooting, Sgt. Bob James said. James said no arrests were made immediately, but the limousines were impounded and the drivers questioned and released. ``These drivers don't know what these people are doing,'' James said. ``These people are in the back partying. The drivers don't know what's going on.'' On Tuesday, gang members opened fire from a limousine and killed 19-year-old Robert Lewis Riley Jr., police said. Both shootings were under investigation.
AP900126-0004 	X	Hubert de Givenchy wound up an exciting week of summer haute couture with a parade of his gala couture clothes for women who want to look on the sexy side. Spanish-born Paco Rabanne won the Golden Thimble Award for his amusing, lively collection that made full use of ``new'' materials like fringed raffia, crystal-globe embroideries and sequined leather. Two-time winner Christian Lacroix finished a close second in the semiannual prize awarded by an international jury of fashion journalists. Givenchy's show, on Thursday, was magnificent. From caramel leather shorts topped by fresh and airy white linen blouses to the most extravagantly opulent evening wear, the show ranked as one of best this master of the fine art of couture has ever produced. His narrow rustic linen suits or belted knee-revealing dresses in shades of bright blue, rust, peach, and golden sand with their bold silver buttons couldn't be faulted for daytime. Givenchy brought out plenty of trouser suits, tailored in soft gabardines or shiny linen tweeds. He solved the dilemma of see-through chiffon blouses with a white-dotted transparent black number sporting a big floppy bow to hide bosom details. The sharp Givenchy silhouette with padded shoulders in suits was softened up with considerable sexiness for late-day wear. Even the bridal number was barely more than a sprig of pastel silk flowers on a prancing nude. But the main elements of style were there. Almost every evening outfit was a show-stopper. His enormous-flowered gazar and organza evening gowns were breathtaking. The fabrics featured bold poppies, daisies, lilies of the valley or daffodils on hot-colored backgrounds of kelly green, citron, tomato, purple or fuchsia. Some white faille bustier gowns with black-lace embroidery glowing with siren-red chiffon or affeta wraps were dynamite, guaranteeing a grand entrance. Valentino, who has shown luxury ready-to-wear for 10 years in Paris, has finally abandoned Italy as a showcase, choosing a Trocadero museum auditorium for his second Paris couture show. On Wednesday night, he brought out a dazzling show of glamorous clothes for rich women, the outfits looking particularly light and young. He led off and ended with swingy, short clothes in his original signature color of white, suits cut with longer jackets and short skirts, waves of accordion pleats around for dancing skirts. Otherwise, Valentino spiced the show with lots of his favorite hot reds and soft tones like celdadon, wisteria, peach and silvery gray in the softest of fabrics like cashmere, silk crepe and acres of flounced chiffon _ a Paris must for couture. Valentino used a lot of tricky latticework in his late-day toppers and the sumptuous evening wear included all kinds of elaborate draping, pleated transparent capes, sequined pastille embroideries on chiffon, and tiers of lace. Per Spook as usual went his own way in a simplified, sporty view of couture that has nothing to do with pretension or grandiose entrances. Except for a few charming buttoned jersey short shift dresses, he seemed allergic to leggy looks. His trouser outfits were cut a bit baggy around the ankle and he often topped these with cute layered styles from a bustier top to a blouse-jacket. But if the 1990s are going to be full of color and feminine clothes as most couturiers seem to think, Spook's best contributions are in some of his bright print sporty toppers and adorable evening wear.
AP900814-0021 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has acted to restore the rights of victims of Josef Stalin, under whose rule millions of peasants died of starvation, were shot or sent to labor camps as ``enemies of the people.'' In his toughest condemnation yet of Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture, which began in the late 1920s, Gorbachev said Monday that thousands of innocent people still bore a ``stain of injustice.'' In a sweeping decree, Gorbachev said the ``repressions conducted ... during the period of collectivization'' were ``unlawful and contradictory to the main civilian and economic rights of human beings.'' He condemned repressions against ``all citizens on political, social, ethnic, religious and other motives in the 1920s through the 1950s,'' and moved ``to completely reinstate the rights of these citizens.'' Gorbachev said the Soviet Union was taking this action now, because ``our society ... has chosen the path of moral revival, democracy and legality.'' The decree orders the government of the Soviet Union and its republics to submit, before Oct. 1, proposals to legislatures on restoring the rights of repressed citizens. Gorbachev also empowered his top advisory group, the Presidential Council, to supervise the actions. The decree, however, excludes those ``lawfully sentenced for crimes against the motherland and against the Soviet people'' during World War II and in the prewar and postwar years. It orders the Soviet government to draft legislation defining the crimes that are not subject to rehabilitation. The decree also does not consider what compensation, if any, victims should receive. An informal political group, called Memorial, has demanded compensation and restoration of rights for Stalin's victims. A special commission to study the victims of Stalinist repression has already rehabilitated thousands. ``But even now, thousands of cases haven't been considered,'' Gorbachev said in his decree. ``A stain of injustice hasn't been removed from the innocent Soviet people who suffered during forced collectivization, who were sentenced, deported with their families to remote regions without means of existence, without a right of appeal, and without even being aware of the term of their sentence.'' The decree urges specifically that clergymen and citizens persecuted for religious motives should be rehabilitated. Under Stalin, thousands of priests were shot and religious worship was sharply curtailed. In a landmark speech in November 1987, Gorbachev accused Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1924-53, of ``enormous and unforgivable'' crimes. But in that speech, he also called Stalin's collectivization ``a transformation of great importance.'' In Monday's decree, there was no such equivocation. ``Thousands of people were subject to moral and physical torture,'' it said. ``Many of them were annihilated. The lives of their families and next of kin were turned into one of humiliation and suffering without any hope.'' Western historians say as many as 20 million people were shot, starved to death in famines the Kremlin did everything to encourage, or simply vanished into the gulag during Stalin's reign of terror. Thousands of Stalin's victims were released from labor camps and rehabilitated after Nikita S. Khrushchev denounced the dictator in a secret speech to the party in 1956, three years after Stalin died.
AP880331-0164 	X	Two crosses made from lilies for separate Easter flower shows were rearranged into pillars after the American Civil Liberties Union objected that the displays promoted religion on public property. The crosses, part of the annual Spring and Easter Flower Show at the Garfield Park Conservatory and the Lincoln Park Conservatory, were altered Wednesday, said Nancy Kaszak, general attorney for the Chicago Park District. Ms. Kaszak said she was contacted Tuesday by an ACLU attorney who contended the crosses were a display of religious symbols on public property. Because of the protest, park workers converted the crosses at both conservatories into pillars of flowers, she said. Jane Whicher, staff counsel for the ACLU in Illinois, said the diplays were brought to her attention by a staff member who visited the Lincoln Park Conservatory. ``My concern is that the cross put up by a public body on public property was a violation of the First Amendment,'' Whicher said. ``It shouldn't have been erected in the first place, but I commend the park district on removing it so quickly.''
AP901203-0077 	X	Two seamen were executed Monday on charges of killing their captain and three other crewmen in a mutiny aboard a Taiwanese trawler last year, prison officials reported. Hsu Guohsin, 29, from the Chinese province of Fujian, and Taiwanese Yu Tien-shou, 36, were executed after the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty imposed by the Taipei District court last year, the officials said. The men were shot in the back. The seamen were convicted of killing crewmen of the trawler Tung Chung in June last year while it was fishing near Indonesian waters. The two said they mutinied because the captain abused them and gave them too much work to do.
AP900804-0112 	X	Do all things get cheaper by the dozen _ even children? Things are starting out that way for Vicki and Stephen Kesler. Valley View Hospital, where Mrs. Kesler had delivered six of her most recent children, provided its services free when she went there for her 12th. The child, Breanne Marie, was born in July. ``I thought it would be nice to do something for them because they had supported us so much over the years by having their children here,'' said John Johnson, the hospital administrator. Betty Mahan, a hospital spokeswoman, said Saturday she did not know how much the free services were worth. The couple have lived in Rifle, in western Colorado, for 10 years. He is an engineer and she is a homemaker. Mrs. Kesler said that anytime she has to fill out a form that asks about her employment, she writes, ``The Kesler home, as mother of 12. That should be sufficient.'' The children range to age 19.
AP900125-0197 	X	The night he was arrested on a cocaine possession charge, Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. made repeated sexual advances to the woman reported to have helped the FBI lure him to the room, law enforcement sources said Thursday. Barry, who the FBI says was videotaped buying and smoking crack cocaine, kissed and touched Rasheeda Moore during his visit to her hotel room, the law enforcement sources said. She rebuffed him, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the misdemeanor drug possession charge, agents used a surveillance camera located in an adjacent room during Barry's 45-minute visit to Ms. Moore's room at the hotel Thursday night. During the visit, the mayor spoke in a decisive voice while conducting city business on the telephone, said one source. The account of sexual advances was first published Thursday in The Washington Post. Barry on Monday checked into a rehabilitation center in West Palm Beach, Fla., after turning over his duties to city administrator Carol Thompson. In developments Thursday: _ Prosecutors delayed the appearance of two of Barry's bodyguards before a grand jury. A scheduling conflict with federal prosecutors investigating Barry's ties to a convicted drug dealer forced the postponement, a source familiar with the probe said. Four members of the mayor's security detail, who are assigned to the mayor on a round-the-clock basis, have been subpoenaed to testify about whether they have knowledge of any Barry drug use, said law enforcement and city government sources. _ Business, labor and community leaders were meeting Thursday night to discuss plans to encourage Jesse Jackson to become a candidate in the November mayoralty election. Meanwhile, however, Jackson complained in comments in The New York Times that the mayor's position had ``zero political leverage.'' _ Former comedian Dick Gregory, who spent several days immediately following Barry's arrest at the mayor's residence, said in Las Vegas that Barry's closest friends were ``tickled to death'' to see that he was seeking help. However, Gregory said at a Las Vegas meeting that he was angry that the federal government has spent so much time and effort in arresting the mayor. _ Bush administration drug policy coordinator William J. Bennett said Barry's arrest ``might be one of these watershed kind of events that changes peoples' attitudes and makes people really realize they have to do something.'' Law enforcement and other sources say Ms. Moore, 38, had a longstanding romantic relationship with the mayor but began cooperating with the FBI's investigation several weeks ago following her arrest on a drunken driving charge near her home in Burbank, Calif. She had been told by the FBI not to have sexual relations with Barry during Thursday night's sting operation, law enforcement sources said. She also was instructed not to smoke any crack or to make any suggestion about using illegal drugs, to avoid any subsequent defense claim of entrapment, the sources said. Barry himself raised the subject of drugs, and purchased a small quantity of crack cocaine from an FBI undercover agent posing as a friend of Ms. Moore, according to a court affidavit and sources. Ms. Moore began cooperating with the FBI after her arrest in North Hollywood, Calif. Jan. 1. The FBI, which had lodged a ``material witness warrant,'' was put in touch with her, authorities in California said. She agreed to cooperate in the sting operation after being confronted with grand jury testimony she gave last spring during which she denied using cocaine with the mayor, sources said. They said she told investigators that she and Barry used drugs on repeated occasions over a number of years, including a March 1988 weekend trip to the Virgin Islands. Her story corroborates testimony by convicted drug dealer Charles Lewis, who said he used cocaine with Barry during the Virgin Islands trip and at a downtown hotel in the nation's capital. Law enforcement sources say prosecutors are trying to build a perjury case against the mayor, who denied in sworn grand jury testimony that he ever used illegal drugs. The grand jury has called additional witnesses, including members of the mayor's security detail. A native of Washington, Ms. Moore graduated from modeling school here and has posed in the past for such national magazines as Essence. She was employed by the city government as a social worker in 1987 and 1988, according to a statement this week by the mayor's office.
AP880326-0129 	X	The case of a 23-year-old American photographer, tried Saturday on charges of drug smuggling, has hightlighted differences between the legal systems and national customs of Spain and the United States. Conan Owen, a 1986 graduate of Syracuse University, was charged with smuggling more than four pounds of cocaine from Chile to Spain in a false-bottomed suitcase. He received the suitcase from a travel agent near his home in Annandale, Va. Both prosecuting attorney Teresa Calvo, who asked for a 10-year jail sentence, and presiding Judge Jose Presencia Rubio expressed incredulity that a university graduate would accept a job from a passing acquaintance and agree to carry a suitcase halfway around the world for someone he hardly knew. In Spain, the custom is only to do business with people you know. During his year in Barcelona's 85-year-old Model Prison, Owen said he didn't understand why he had not been freed on bail pending trial. Bail was denied because Owen was a foreigner caught with a substantial amount of relatively pure cocaine. When U.S. law enforcement agents testified Saturday that Owen had provided them with information leading to a half dozen indictments of members of a suspected cocaine smuggling ring, the judge called it all ``very interesting'' but said he was only interested in Owen's case. Attorney General Edwin Meese III even delivered copies to Spanish judicial authorities of a statement made by George Barahona, the man who hired Owen, and who early last month received a two-year suspended sentence for narcotics violations from a federal court in Virginia. In the statement made in a plea bargain agreement, Barahona said Owen knew nothing about the drugs and had been used as a carrier. But plea bargaining does not exist in Spain. In her summary, Calvo implied that plea bargaining was a less-than-honorable institution. U.S. officials faced a similar problem several years ago when a Spanish court was considering U.S. and Spanish requests for extradition of Colombian cocaine baron Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez. The U.S. indictment of Ochoa, who was arrested in Madrid in November 1984, was based on extensive testimony obtained through a plea bargin. The Spanish court instead sent Ochoa back to Colombia in July 1986. He went free a week later.
AP880309-0339 	X	Customs agents detained a plane chartered by Air Panama to search for any U.S. currency being taken illegally out of the country Wednesday but found none and sent the aircraft on its way, a spokesman said. ``U.S. Customs had some information that there might possibly be an outbound currency violation connected with the flight,'' spokesman Michael Sheehan said. The chartered Boeing 707 was scheduled to carry military and police-type uniforms, small machinery and other merchandise to Panama City, Sheehan said. It was detained for four hours Panama's national currency is the U.S. dollar, and the cash supply has been drying up because of a dispute over control of the Panamanian government. Panama keeps an estimated $50 million on deposit in American banks, but U.S. judges froze assets in banks in Miami and New York to prevent the government of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega from withdrawing funds.
AP900327-0094 	X	The Census Bureau is increasing the number of telephone help lines, after receiving nearly 50,000 calls over the weekend, the agency said Tuesday. The toll-free service for people with questions about the census opened Friday with 390 lines available. The total is now being increased to 460 lines. Lines for Spanish-speaking callers were a particular problem, officials said, and they are being increased from 88 to 160. ``The volume of calls we're receiving means there is a high degree of awareness and support for the census. But obviously we don't want people to get a busy signal when they call and we're taking steps to make sure that they don't,'' said census director Barbara Everitt Bryant. The assistance lines are staffed from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., local time, seven days a week. The numbers are: English: 1-800-999-1990. Spanish: 1-800-283-6826. Cambodian: 1-800-289-1960. Chinese: 1-800-365-2101. Korean: 1-800-444-6205. Laotian: 1-800-888-3208. Vietnamese: 1-800-937-1953. Thai: 1-800-288-1984. Hearing Impaired: 1-800-777-0978.
AP881220-0227 	X	Inflation slowed last month to an annual rate of just 3 percent, the government said today, as clothing prices fell for the first time since August and food prices stabilized for the first time since last February. The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index, after seasonal adjustments, rose just 0.3 percent in November, compared with a 0.4 percent gain a month earlier. Before the seasonal adjustments, prices rose just 0.1 percent, the department said. The monthly inflation figure, rounded off in the announcement to 0.3, was actually 0.25, adding up to 3 percent annually. The new figures slowed the annual inflation rate from 4.6 per cent for the first 10 months of the year to 4.4 percent for the first 11 months. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater commented, ``Consumer price inflation appears to be moderating.'' He noted that inflation has been lower in the second half of the year than the first half. With only December left, another month similar to November could enable the Reagan Administration to finish its last year in office meeting its inflation target of 4.3 percent for 1988. The Commerce Department said today that the gross national product, the broadest measure of economic health, expanded at a moderate annual rate of 2.5 percent in the third quarter, held back by the summer drought. For the same period, the department reported that after-tax corporate profits rose 3.9 percent, down from a robust 8.9 percent increase the previous quarter. Food prices, which had risen at an annual rate of 10.9 percent from April through September because of the summer drought, were unchanged in November after rising only 0.2 percent in October, the Labor Department reported. Clothing prices that had jumped a total of 4 percent in September and October with the introduction of new back-to-school and fall fashions fell 0.3 percent last month. `Widespread promotional sales for footwear and women's and girl's clothing were largely responsible for the November decrease,'' the Labor Department said. Housing and shelter costs, including residential rents, rose another 0.3 percent, the same pace they have maintained over the past nine months. Natural gas and electric rates were up 1.8 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, from October, more than offsetting a 2 percent drop in prices for more heavily purchased home heating oil, the government said. The November decrease was the sixth in a row for heating oil. Its price is now 10.8 percent below what it was last spring. Seasonally adjusted gasoline prices were unchanged from October but remain 0.2 percent less than they were at the end of last year and 28.1 percent below their peak level of March 1981. Excluding food, energy and shelter, consumer prices for other items rose an average 0.2 percent in November compared with a jump of 0.7 percent the previous month. The November increase raised the CPI to 120.3 from 120.2 in October, meaning that a marketbasket of goods costing $100 in a 1982-84 base period would have cost $120.30 last month. In November 1987, that same marketbasket would have cost $115.40. New car prices declined by 0.2 percent, reflecting the introduction of rebates on some of the new 1989 models after rising by more than a full percentage point in September and October. However, auto financing and insurance costs continued to advance dramatically, with the former up 1.5 percent and the latter 0.9 percent above October. Airline fares also jumped a dramatic 1.1 percent. Medical costs, meanwhile, rose 0.4 percent last month and are up at an annual rate of 7 percent so far this year. Other goods and services also rose 0.4 percent and are 7.1 percent higher than they were a year ago, the government said. Food buyers last month found seasonally adjusted meat, poultry, fish, egg and fresh fruit and vegetable prices lower than they were in October. However, prices were higher for canned and dried fruits and vegetables, restaurant meals and alcoholic beverages.
AP901212-0170 	X	A judge Wednesday ordered the man charged in the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane to be removed from Bellevue Hospital and returned to Rikers Island jail. The judge, Ira Gammerman, ruled that El Sayyid Nosair's wounds and other ailments were not serious enough to keep him at Bellevue, as his lawyer, Michael Warren, had requested. ``You don't have to keep a patient in a hospital because he has wax in his ears and stiffness in his neck,'' Gammerman said. He said Nosair could be treated at the hospital as an out-patient. Nosair, 35, an Egyptian immigrant who lives in Cliffside Park, N.J., was shot in the neck by a federal officer Nov. 5 as he fled the Manhattan hotel where he allegedly shot Kahane to death after the Zionist rabbi had given a speech. The judge ordered an examination of Nosair by a private doctor after Warren disputed a Bellevue report that his client could return to the jail's general population. Warren charged that the city doctor was biased. Bail of $300,000 for Nosair was suspended and a hearing to set a new bail scheduled for Dec. 18.
AP880929-0003 	X	British Columbia gave an art contest, but nobody won. Jurors decided the entries just weren't good enough. ``It was a difficult situation but it wasn't a difficult decision,'' said Willard Holmes, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Holmes was among the jurors who decided that none of the 380 entries deserved any of the $10,000 in prize money. But the show will go on. Even though prize money has not been awarded, the 20-odd finalists will be displayed at an exhibition opening Oct. 11. The contest was organized by the Federation of Canadian Artists and sponsored by Canadian Forest Products Ltd. The theme of the competition, for which only British Columbia artists were eligible, was ``water and its usefulness to industry.'' About 380 entries by 300 artists were submitted. ``We didn't see any work which we felt we could support for the prizes,'' Holmes said Tuesday. ``I had reservations about taking part in this event and those reservations have been confirmed.'' He said the jurors first looked at color slides of all the entries and couldn't reach a decision. They then looked at the originals of about 20 potential winners without success. Canada Forest spokesman Gordon Armstrong said his company was disappointed with the jury decision but has told the artist federation to keep the prize money and use it as it sees fit.
AP880607-0077 	X	Soviet troops are delaying their pullout from Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, Western diplomats said today. Kandahar, population about 200,000, has been under siege for several weeks and Moslem guerrillas are reportedly preparing for another major offensive against Soviet-Afghan troops stationed there. Reports reaching Islamabad say Afghan insurgents have pushed government troops to defensive positions around the outskirts of the city. The Soviet Union in 1979 sent troops to Afghanistan to support the Marxist regime. On May 15, the Soviets began a withdrawal, which has been slowed by attacks from guerrillas. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Soviet regiment was told to cancel plans to leave Kandahar, reflecting Soviet fears over the city's vulnerability. Soviet forces reportedly have left Ghazni, on the road from Kandahar to the Afghan capital of Kabul, but some soldiers remain in Jalalabad, where the Soviet withdrawal was launched in May. There have been reports of heavy fighting in the northeastern province of Baghland. The Salang highway, stretching 200 miles north of Kabul to the Soviet border, is becoming increasingly dangerous, sources said. It was closed to civilian traffic for five days ending Sunday to allow departing Soviet troops to move north. Diplomatic sources say the convoys have been attacked by guerrillas and that up to 100 Soviet soldiers were reported killed in recent clashes. The official Kabul radio, monitored in Islamabad, continues to broadcast a list of guerrilla defeats and atrocities. It claimed Monday that 93 guerrillas were killed and as many injured in recent clashes in seven of Afghanistan's 28 provinces. The various reports cannot be independently confirmed.
AP901116-0143 	X	President Bush on Friday signed into law measures to upgrade airport security and to encourage volunteerism and community service. Bush signed the bills as he hurried to finish domestic business before an eight-day foreign trip. The Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990 directs the government to develop guidelines to warn passengers of terrorist threats. It implements safety recommendations of the Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism appointed by Bush after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bill sets regulations on airport use of metal detection devices. It requires airlines, airports and travel agents to relay any security threat immediately to government officials. Airline and airport employees with access to security areas will have to undergo background checks and new training. In signing the bill, Bush said he had reservations about a provision requiring the State Department to negotiate agreements with other nations to achieve the enhanced security measures at foreign airports. Bush said he believed that provision intruded on his presidential authority to conduct foreign policy and said he would direct officials to interpret it so as not to conflict with that authority. The National Community Service Act of 1990 provides $287 million for community service programs, including $5 million to begin a Thousand Points of Light Foundation to encourage volunteerism, taking its name from Bush's phrase for volunteers. It provides money for programs encouraging youth community service through schools or community organizations; grants to state education agencies; expansion of youth corps teams for such projects as environmental cleanup and helping the poor; and a test program for a civilian national service corps that would provide $5,000 in education assistance in return for a year's full-time service at a subsistence wage. Bush signed the measure despite attacks by Republicans that it included wasteful spending at a time when the government was raising taxes, and budget constraints prevented full funding existing programs for children and the poor. Bush also on Friday signed the Excellence in Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education Act to establish a variety of fellowships, training programs and grants to foster and improve education in those fields. The bill authorizes $150 million for such programs in 1991. The president vetoed the Indian Preference Act of 1990, which would have established a program to direct contracts and grants to Indian enterprises. Bush said the bill ``would impose new, expensive, and often duplicative program responsibilities'' on the Interior Department, which administers Indian reservations. Bush said in a statement that he supports the bill's goals and is ``committed to helping alleviate the widespread unemployment and underemployment on Indian reservations.'' He said the bill's issues ``deserve a full airing in both Houses of Congress. He said he would direct Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan to take steps to address problems with contracting programs involving Indian enterprises. Bush took the action before departing Friday night for Prague, the first stop of an eight-day trip that will also take him to Paris, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
AP901117-0053 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev today proposed a government overhaul that would give republics more influence and could force out Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, who has resisted swift reform. The move appeared to be a concession to Gorbachev's main rival and frequent critic, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, who had demanded a coalition government and Ryzhkov's resignation. Speaking to the Supreme Soviet legislature, Gorbachev also said an emergency program will be drafted within two weeks to deal with growing food shortages. He did not give details. In today's 12-minute speech, Gorbachev elaborated on some of the ideas he introduced in a speech Friday. That speech came at the demand of lawmakers, who insisted the president give an emergency report on the state of the union. Gorbachev's proposals aim to calm growing discontent over the country's collapsing economy and the increasing rebelliousness among the republics, all but one of which have made declarations of sovereignty. ``I appeal to citizens of all 15 republics to support these undelayable measures,'' Gorbachev said today. The separatist movement must be stopped, he said. ``We cannot break up (the union). We cannot go down this path.'' Gorbachev did not make it clear whether he could implement the proposals on his own or if they needed ratification by Soviet lawmakers. But Anatoly Lukyanov, chairman of the Supreme Soviet, told legislators that the 2,250-member Congress of People's Deputies, which meets next month, would have to approve any constitutional amendments for government restructuring. Under Gorbachev's proposals, the Council of Ministers headed by Ryzhkov would be replaced by several bodies under direct presidential control. The principal ruling body would be the Federation Council, which would include representatives of the republics. Legislators generally welcomed the proposed elimination of Ryzhkov's job, but unless the republics agree to join the Federation Council, the restructuring is unlikely to solve the paralysis of power in the country. Initial reaction from some republics was negative. An Estonia lawmaker said her republic and the two other Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania would not join the council. ``We will not take part in any old or new institution which is an institution of federation,'' Marju Lauristin, deputy speaker of Estonia's parliament, told reporters. She suggested the restructuring was an attempt to establish a dictatorship. ``It is concentrating all power in the economy in politics in military affairs in one (person's) hands,'' she said. The Baltics have said that their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 was illegal and have launched independence drives. Gorbachev said the Federation Council, formed in March, would be strengthened and would meet more regularly. ``Out of a consultative body it should be transformed into an effective structure to coordinate the efforts of the center and the republics,'' he said. Many republics have nullified national legislation and presidential decrees and have declared their laws supreme. The new structure was designed to end such conflicts. Ryzhkov told reporters he had no idea what new role he might have in the new structure, and said he learned of it only 20 minutes before Gorbachev's speech. But he said his job was being eliminated. ``I understood that the position of chairman of the Council of Ministers won't exist. There will be presidential rule, a presidential Cabinet,'' Ryzhkov said. Politicians, demonstrators and commentators have demanded Ryzhkov's resignation for at least a year. Yeltsin has said the country cannot solve its economic crisis as long as Ryzhkov and his Cabinet were in place. Asked if he were willing to remain in a government job, Ryzhkov told reporters, ``I will work as long as the people need me.'' Ryzhkov, 61, was appoined head of the Council of Ministers in September 1985. Previously, he was director of the Uralmash machine building complex in the Ural Mountains city of Sverdlovsk. The Federation Council, comprised of the leaders of the 15 republics and headed by Gorbachev, has been meeting only sporadically and has not taken a major role in policy-making. Gorbachev said that with the strengthening of the Federation Council, the 18-member Presidential Council, created last March to implement domestic and foreign policy, would be eliminated. To strengthen law and order, which many Soviets have complained is breaking down, Gorbachev said that presidential representatives will be appointed and sent to regions of the country. Under recent constitutional amendments, Gorbachev has the power to impose direct presidential rule in restive areas of the country. The Soviet leader appeared to be moving closer to this step with the announcement of the stationing of his representatives in those areas.
AP900119-0150 	X	The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said his showcase of communal living in Oregon would set an example for the world, but at his death Friday his commune was vacant and unwanted, his followers scattered, his memory reviled. Rajneesh came to Oregon in 1981. By the time he was thrown out of the country in 1985, authorities were calling him the most notorious figure in Oregon history. ``He was both a charlatan and a very evil person,'' said Vic Atiyeh, the governor during the guru's years in Oregon. ``Evil in the sense of the kind of people he gathered around him and what he allowed them to do, and his own personal arrogance. He was above everything.'' U.S. Attorney Charles Turner, who prosecuted the guru on immigration fraud charges, said the 400 sham marriages among Rajneesh's disciples that led to the immigration charges, the poisoning of 750 people at restaurant salad bars and the commune's vast electronic eavesdropping network were the largest cases of their kind in American history. ``The legacy of crime that this man left here is unparalleled in American jurisprudence,'' Turner said. The bejeweled guru brought his gospel of meditation and free love to the United States on the pretense of obtaining treatment for a bad back. He never underwent that surgery, but moved to a 64,000-acre ranch his followers had purchased in the remote high desert of central Oregon. Their stated intent was to farm the land on Rancho Rajneesh, but they built homes, a hotel, restaurants, shops, an airport and a meditation hall, and then incorporated as the town of Rajneeshpuram. After it all fell apart, an insurance company foreclosed on Rancho Rajneesh, but has been unable to find a buyer. At its height, some 4,000 red-clad disciples lived at the commune. The gathering swelled to 15,000 when followers from around the world came for summer festivals. Between morning and evening meditation sessions with Rajneesh, disciples toiled 12 hours a day. In the early afternoon, they would stop work and line the dusty roads for the guru's daily ``drive-by'' in one of his more than 90 Rolls-Royces. Singing and swaying, the disciples tossed roses onto the car's hood while armed guards hovered overhead in a helicopter. Sect members won political control of the nearby community of Antelope, renaming it City of Rajneesh, and attempted to control voting in Wasco County by busing thousands of homeless people to the commune in 1984. After state officials ordered eligibility hearings for all new voter registration applicants in the county, the Rajneeshees and their transient guests boycotted the election. ``At the time we were going through it, we didn't realize how extraordinary it was,'' said Norma Paulus, who was secretary of state at the time. ``I can't think of any comparable incidents in American history.'' Rajneesh's acid-tongued secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, was a fixture in the state's media as she accused anyone who opposed the commune of bigotry. Lawsuits were filed by and against the Rajneeshees on issues ranging from slander to the constitutionality of Rajneeshpuram's incorporation. Rajneeshee-loathing spread throughout the state. Caps bearing the guru's likeness inside a rifle target were hot items. In September 1985, Sheela and about a dozen disciples left the commune abruptly. Rajneesh made accusations against her that triggered federal, state and local criminal investigations. Rajneesh was arrested the next month during a stopover at Charlotte, N.C., on a flight to Bermuda. He pleaded guilty to two counts of immigration fraud and returned to India under an agreement with federal officials. Sheela, now 39, was arrested in West Germany and returned to Oregon, where she pleaded guilty to charges that included the attempted murder of the guru's physician with a poison-filled syringe. She also admitted poisoning several county officials and masterminding the salad poisonings at restaurants in The Dalles, the county seat. She pleaded guilty to creating an electronic eavesdropping system at the commune and to setting fire to the county planning office. A guilty plea to immigration fraud stemmed from charges that she helped arrange sham marriages to allow Rajneesh's foreign disciples to remain in the United States. Sheela, a native of India, was deported in December 1988 after serving 2{ years in federal prison. Rajneeshees say about 200 of the guru's followers remain in Oregon, but keep a low profile. Attorney General Frohnmayer says the Rajneeshee episode resulted in the clarification of state laws in several areas. ``We learned from it,'' he said. ``It would be harder for a group bent on breaking the laws of civil government to move in to Oregon now.''
AP900607-0015 	X	The $2.6 million spent by a Toyota auto plant in Kentucky to train 545 workers who did not qualify as needy is just one of many questionable expenses within federal job training programs, Labor Department investigators say. Many of the workers at the Scott County, Ky., plant were working fulltime and therefore ineligible for the Job Training Partnership Act program, the department's inspector general's office said in documents submitted to Congress on Wednesday. But Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, testifying before the documents were addressed, said the $3 billion-a-year program has been ``remarkably free'' of fraud and abuse. Loopholes in federal law resulted in such examples as officials in Portage, Wis., spending $22,000 of federal job training money on dinner cruises and Christmas parties, Mrs. Dole told the House Education and Labor Committee. In that case, officials put job-training advance funds in the bank and then spent the interest, she said. The Senate has already passed a measure to clarify that interest earned on federal job training funds must be spent on job training, she said. Other questionable expenses outlined by the inspector general's office included: _$718,768 spent by the Houston Job Training Partnership Council for enrolling and training security guards at a cost of $3,000 each. The contractor billed for nearly 400 hours of training for each participant, even though Texas only requires 26 hours of training for registration as an armed security guard, auditors said. _$33,801 paid to a subcontractor in Michigan for placing college students in jobs they had found themselves, or with employers for whom they had previously worked or in jobs in which the employers would have hired them without federal assistance. _$640,000 spent in Louisiana to install a high-tech training center at Northwestern State University. Purchases included television cameras, satellite disks and computers. No dislocated workers were served, the auditors found. _$90,155 for inflated placement claims at the Full Employment Council of Kansas City, Mo. Another $90,000 was questioned because employers could not or would not provide payroll records to support on-the-job-training claims. Mrs. Dole said that of the thousands of private businessmen who have helped administer JTPA funds, there have been only 24 allegations of conflicts of interest. ``We believe this is an impressive record,'' she said. The overall operation of the program has been ``remarkably free of instances of fraud, abuse or other wrongdoing,'' the labor secretary said. However, she said misuse of funds was ``inevitable'' in a program as large as JTPA, which has received $21 billion since it was created seven years ago. Mrs. Dole, who supports tougher record-keeping requirements, also called on Congress to tighten eligibility requirements so the neediest cases would benefit from the program. She said she backed narrowing the requirements so the program would be more focused on people who lacked basic skills, those who are high school dropouts or those with disabilities. ``We must target ... the tougher cases, the ones who are not going to make it without our intervention,'' Mrs. Dole said.
AP900821-0065 	X	``There's recognition of the fact that now demands are being made for the release of people, and that, I think, is the definition of hostages.'' _ President Bush, explaining why he finally started referring to the thousands of Westerners trapped in Iraq and Kuwait as ``hostages.''
AP880617-0233 	X	Gen. Cesar Barrientos, minister of the treasury since Gen. Alfredo Stroessner siezed power in a 1954 coup, died Friday, the government announced. He was 82. The cause of death was not reported but Barrientos had not appeared in public since late last year and had received medical treatment in recent months in Argentina. Barrientos was an army administrative officer when Stroessner came to power and appointed him to the treasury post. Stroessner, 75, recently was elected to an 8th consecutive term in balloting that his critics claim was rigged.
AP880413-0271 	X	Seeking greater operating efficiency, Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the Swiss firm ABB Asea Brown Boveri plan joint ventures in their multibillion-dollar electric generation, transmission and distribution businesses. ``With the entrenched fixed costs and relative slow rate of growth in those industries, a partnership is the way to go,'' said Julian Manear, an analyst in Chicago for Pershing & Co. ``There's a sharing of resources, so you don't have a duplication.'' The two companies announced Tuesday that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to proceed. Westinghouse will have a 55 percent interest and ABB a 45 percent interest in each of two partnerships. ABB also will pay Westinghouse about $500 million. One partnership will make, sell and service steam turbines and generators for U.S. and Canadian utilities. The businesses have current annual sales of about $700 million and employ about 5,000 people. ``Generally, joint venturing is considered an alternative to divesting,'' said H.P. Smith of Smith Barney in New York. ``They take a business, cut it back as far as they can, then if it's still not meeting the goals, they consider'' selling it or finding a partner. Westinghouse's turbine business ``hasn't earned a lot of money for quite a number of years now. The market is depressed and will stay depressed,'' Smith said. The other partnership will involve transmission and distribution products, including transformers, meters, controls, and switchgear, now sold in the United States and Canada. The businesses have annual sales of about $1.4 billion and employ about 11,000 people. The partnership allows ABB to buy the transmission and distribution joint venture or Westinghouse to force the sale in 1990. Smith said Westinghouse improved its transmission and distribution equipment business ``to a point where it was making OK money, but still well below the corporate goals.'' In both cases, the partners will combine plants and engineering and marketing organizations in fully developed industries that show reduced growth potential. Manear said he does not expect wholesale employee layoffs or plant closings, but foresees delays in capital spending. John C. Marous, who became chairman and chief executive of Westinghouse in January, recently told securities analysts the company's goals for 1988 include sales growth of 8.5 percent and operating profit margins of at least 10 percent. Westinghouse recently announced joint ventures in factory automation with the West German electrical equipment giant Siemens A.G. Smith said the joint ventures under Marous ``are showing this new administration is not going to sit back and rest on the laurels'' of Westinghouse. ABB, headquartered in Zurich, was created Jan. 1 with the merger of Asea AB of Sweden and BBC Brown Boveri Ltd. of Switzerland. With sales of $18 billion and 180,000 employees worldwide, the company is one of the world leaders in electrical engineering. Westinghouse, based in Pittsburgh, had 1987 sales of $10.7 billion in electrical equipment, defense electronics, broadcasting and other businesses. The company employs about 110,000 workers.
AP900113-0109 	X	Donald Trump said Saturday he and partners will raze the landmark Ambassador Hotel, site of Robert Kennedy's murder and a faded glamor palace, to build a major office, hotel and residence complex. The New York billionaire's plan and endorsements by Mayor Tom Bradley and two key city councilmen seemed to spell doom for the once-grand edifice, which closed a year ago. Residents concerned about vanishing cultural heritage had urged preservation of the hotel and school district officials wanted to buy the 23-acre site on Wilshire Boulevard for a badly needed new high school. The project, which was portrayed as in the earliest stages of planning, will probably include a hotel, office space, shopping areas and residential buildings, Trump said. The New York City-based real estate magnate revealed his investment in the project at a news conference in the East Garden room of the 494-room hotel, which opened in 1921. It was in an Ambassador kitchen on June 5, 1968, that Kennedy, a New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate, was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan moments after claiming victory in the California primary. Though it once counted U.S. presidents among its guests, and its famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub was a watering hole for Hollywood legends, the lobby area was now the only place fit for people to gather, Trump said. The hotel site was purchased last September for $64 million by Wilshire Center Partners, who include Irish real estate developer Robin Power and New York developer and investor Scott Malkin. Trump, whose involvement was rumored a month ago, was announced as the new managing partner of what is now Trump Wilshire Associates. He would not estimate the project's cost but anticipated no problem in financing it. ``I'll be investing a substantial amount of money in the project over a period of years,'' he said. ``I think we're going to have a very, very easy time getting the financing.'' The only specific structure envisioned by Trump is a 50,000-square-foot ``Cocoanut Grove Ballroom'' to fill what he said was the need for a really big ballroom in Los Angeles. It would be twice the size of the biggest ballroom here. The plan was firmly backed by Mayor Bradley, Councilman Nate Holden, whose district includes the Ambassador, and Council President John Ferraro. The officials characterized the plan as a way to revitalize the declining neighborhood a few miles west of downtown and link the downtown business district with the Century City complex on the city's west side. ``I believe it has great potential. This stretch of Wilshire Boulevard needs to be reborn,'' said Bradley. He noted he had asked the developers to help find an alternate site for a school in the area. ``Why did it take you so long to find L.A.?'' Ferraro asked Trump. Trump and Holden said the land was too expensive for a school, even if the Los Angeles Unified School District sought to acquire it through eminent domain. ``You would have the world's most expensive school,'' Trump said. Trump said it was ``very unlikely'' that any portion of the original structure would be preserved, and soundly bashed what remained of the Ambassador's character. ``This is not a good building to be in if there was an earthquake. It is an old structure and from the safety standpoint ... you wouldn't be allowed to build a building like this today,'' he said. ``Second of all it's not, according to most, the aesthetic building that really we should have at this site. It's so old and so dilapidated and so run down, and ... it's been leaking. ... It's really in very bad shape.'' He said virtually every world class architect was vying for the job of designing the new project and he expected cultural heritage buffs would ``love'' the result.
AP880628-0161 	X	A group of property owners filed a damage lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the thousands forced to evacuate their homes after a train derailment and phosphorus fire. Named as defendants in the Christian County Circuit Court lawsuit were CSX Corp. and a subsidiary, CSX Transportation Inc. The complaint alleges negligence on the part of both companies, said Tim Futrell, attorney for the nine plaintiffs, residents of the Crofton and Nortonville areas. ``We are talking in terms of hundreds of millons of dollars in damages,'' Futrell said. ``Under the rules of civil procedure, you are not permitted to specify a specific amount in the complaint.'' Futrell said he believed at least 15,000 people could be affected by the case, noting that the accident on June 22 drove about that many people from their homes in seven western Kentucky counties. Lloyd Lewis, spokesman for CSX Transportation, said Tuesday he had no comment. A CXS Transportation tanker carrying phosphorus was among 34 that left the tracks in a ravine near Crofton. The phosphorus spilled from the ruptured tanker and burned more than 12 hours after the crash. There was no fatalities. Futrell said one of the ``reasons we are filing so quickly is because CSX has dispatched representatives to the area to get people to sign releases for a pittance of what they are due.'' Futrell said some people complained about scratching and itching and difficulty in breathing, and he said there was damage to tobacco and hay crops ``and perhaps to the soil itself.'' ``Virtually all of the plaintiffs were displaced for at least three days. They lost wages and will be seeking compensation for that.''
AP880714-0161 	X	A federal judge apologized Thursday to an attorney he had scolded and threatened with jail when she insisted on using her maiden name and the courtesy title ``Ms.'' in court. ``I have always referred to married women by their married name. This is the way my generation was taught,'' said Senior U.S. District Judge Hubert Teitelbaum, 73. ``I recognize your right to be addressed in any manner in which you see fit, and I apologize for my comments and the resulting situation,'' the judge told Barbara Wolvovitz and three other attorneys involved in the trial of a race discrimination suit against PPG Industries Inc. On July 8, Teitelbaum told Ms. Wolvovitz, whose husband is University of Pittsburgh law professor Jules Lobel: ``From here on, in this courtroom you will use Mrs. Lobel. That's your name.'' The judge originally threatened her with jail when she resisted his instruction, and when her co-counsel, Jon Pushinsky, protested, Teitelbaum found him in contempt for ``officious intermeddling'' and gave him a suspended 30-day jail sentence. Ms. Wolvovitz, representing two black men suing PPG, moved Monday for a mistrial, which Teitelbaum rejected. When she again stated her preference, he said: ``What if I call you sweetie?'' The judge said he would settle for calling her ``counselor.'' He also vacated his contempt order for Pushinsky. The jury began deliberations Wednesday afternoon and was still out when the judge made his apology, which was officially entered into court records. Teitelbaum said that if Ms. Wolvovitz still wanted to press for a mistrial, he would grant it before the jury returned with a verdict. Teitelbaum said the parties would be ``stuck with that verdict'' if they declined his offer. The attorneys agreed to not seek a mistrial. Hours later, the jury decided against Ms. Wolvovitz's clients, who had charged they were harassed at work because of their race. Ms. Wolvovitz, 36, who has practiced law for 10 years, and Pushinsky did not want to comment further after the judge's apology, Pushinsky said Thursday. ``I think that he did what he had to do, and thank God he did it,'' said National Organization for Women President Molly Yard, a Pittsburgh resident who is familiar with Teitelbaum. ``I think it's raised everybody's consciousness and that's fine.'' Tom Hollander, president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, said: ``I think it was big of him to apologize.'' JoAnn Dempler, Teitelbaum's law clerk for eight years, said the judge ``is not sexist ... does not discriminate against woman ... does not demean women.'' ``He's a tease,'' she said Thursday. ``His sense of humor is such that he likes to tease and joke and kid around, and if people do not know that, they could easily misconstrue what he's doing or saying. ``Even in court, because we're dealing with very serious matters, every once in a while to just sort of inject a little levity or reduce tension he will make a lighthearted remark, and people who know him realize he doesn't mean to offend anyone,'' Mrs. Dempler said. Teitelbaum said he wasn't teasing when he told Ms. Wolvovitz she would ``sleep in the county jail tonight'' if she refused to be addressed as Mrs. Lobel. ``I unfortunately lost my temper and the matter then got out of hand,'' he said. The judge also said he misstated Pennsylvania law when he told Ms. Wolvovitz she was legally required to use her husband's last name unless she had court permission to do otherwise. ``I was wrong,'' Teitelbaum said. ``I made a mistake.''
AP900503-0024 	X	``Good evening. Tonight's forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of rain and a 10 percent chance of a big earthquake.'' Californians may be tuning into such bulletins soon as seismologists put their computer models to work to issue warnings after ominous rattles of the Earth. The seismologists have gathered enough data on major fault systems in California to be able to predict, to some degree, the probability of a quake of 6.5 or more on the Richter scale within certain brief periods. After a foreshock of magnitude of 4.0 or greater is registered, the model will go into work, determining whether there is, say, a 5, 10 or 25 percent chance of a quake within the next three days. The developers of the model are ready to put it into use but are discussing with the state how the predictions will be used _ whether they will be released publicly as earthquake warnings or provided to state agencies so they can prepare. The model is a mathematical formula that uses data on fault activity and the probability of major shocks, Lucile M. Jones of the U.S. Geological Survey said at a meeting Wednesday of the Seismological Society of America. Seismologists long have known that big quakes generally are preceded by less powerful shocks, but the new system is more precise, Jones said. Jones said a study of the major faults in California indicates, for example, that in the relatively quiet Carrizo Plain southwest of Fresno the chance that a 5-magnitude quake will be a foreshock to an 8-magnitude quake is 24 percent. Jones, who developed the formula with Duncan C. Agnew of the University of California-San Diego, said scientists will probably never be able to predict with absolute certainty. But the percentages she can deliver are enough to let people take action to prevent damage or injury, Jones said. ``As scientists we feel that sharing information is always better than withholding information,'' she said. The state could use the information to cancel vacations for disaster personnel, Jones said. Fire stations could move trucks outside. Daycare centers could leave gates unlocked in case they need to evacuate quickly. Residents could fill bathtubs with water for drinking, put away dishes and prepare emergency supplies. ``Each individual group can start making those sorts of decisions,'' she said. ``We aren't at a really high level (of accuracy), but people have been trying to get us to make these statements because there are useful things to do. And as we get better, the probabilities are going to head up.'' Geologist Jim Davis of the California Division of Mines and Geology said he is talking with the Office of Emergency Services about whether the agency should announce earthquake warnings. Davis said he didn't think quake forecasts would unduly alarm people or otherwise cause harm. The prediction system has been worked out so far only for California, whose seismic activity has been closely studied by scientists.
AP900930-0006 	X	Michael Owen Perry's medicine could restore his sanity, but it has one enormous side effect: It could speed his death. Perry is a prisoner on Death Row, and his fate will be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court. The state of Louisiana wants to force him to take psychiatric medication; if he is legally sane, he can be executed. Perry's lawyers argue that forcible medicating would be a cruel and unusual punishment that ignores Perry's rights to avoid unwanted medication. The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association say treating Perry to aid in his execution would turn the healing art on its head. Perry's sentence should be commuted to life in prison, they suggest. ``We're saying the cost here, which is really a fundamental realignment of the role of medicine, is a very high cost, and the state's interest in the difference between capital punishment and life imprisonment without parole doesn't justify that cost,'' said attorney Joel Klein. The state says giving him the drug is simply a necessary step for carrying out a death sentence, a justifiable limitation on a condemned man's liberties much like strapping him into the electric chair. Besides, the state is required to provide medical care, and the medicine is good for him, Louisiana says. Perry, 35, suffers from schizoaffective disorder, causing him delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking. He was sentenced in 1985 for shooting his parents and three other family members to death. Louisiana's supreme court affirmed the conviction and the sentence but suggested a review of Perry's mental competence to be executed. There is a tradition in Anglo-American law that people should not be executed while insane. This doctrine, which dates back to medieval times, was adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1986 decision. ``Insanity'' is a legal term, not a medical one. In this case it refers to mental illness so severe that the prisoner is not aware of the impending punishment and why he is to suffer it. The Louisiana court ruled Perry was sane, but only while on medication. It also ordered that Perry be medicated even over his objection. After the state supreme court refused to hear a challenge to that decision, Perry's lawyers appealed to the federal high court. Lawyers for both sides declined to be interviewed on the record, but their Supreme Court briefs lay out their arguments in detail. Lawyers for Louisiana say the death sentence wiped out any legal power Perry would have to refuse the medication. Forced medication would not be a ``cruel and unusual'' punishment because Perry would benefit medically from it, the state says. ``Common sense dictates that the State does not violate the Eighth Amendment by doing something good for a prisoner.'' In fact, Louisiana is required to medicate Perry because the Supreme Court has declared that deliberately ignoring a prisoner's serious medical need itself constitues cruel and unusual punishment, the brief says. Perry's attorneys say the forced medication would be unconstitutional punishment rather than treatment. The court order gives no consideration to Perry's medical needs nor physician judgment, they say. The order also ignores the ``very real'' prospect of serious side effects, raising the prospect of taking a ``drooling, incontinent and tremulus'' man to the execution chamber, they wrote. In any case, Perry's lawyers say, Perry's response to medication is sporadic and unpredictable, making it impossible to say whether he would be competent on the day of his execution. ``With this instability and unpredictability, how is Michael's execution to be carried out?'' the lawyers asked. ``Can the state wait until a `good day' and execute Michael? Can Michael be executed if his `good days' outnumber his `bad days' by some amount? What amount? And what happens if the date set in the death warrant is a `bad day?' '' The AMA and psychiatric association, meanwhile, say the death sentence does not outweigh Perry's interest in avoiding unwanted medication, an interest especially great ``when the injection sets the prisoner directly on the road to execution.'' Involuntary medication was not part of Perry's sentence, nor is it generally authorized by confinement, the associations argue. Prior court decision support the idea that involuntary medical treatment is not permitted if it runs against a person's medical interests and is not necessary to treat a condition that may harm other people, they say. As for the argument that the medication would help Perry, any benefit ``would be both fleeting and purchased at the cost of his life,'' the associations said in a brief. Outside observers are split on their reaction to the case. Dr. Gary Glass, an associate psychiatry professor at Temple University and lecturer in law at Villanova University, said he personally hopes that the court would not allow execution of a person who is incompetent when not treated. But his ``utilitarian, practical'' answer is that nobody should be allowed to make a competent decision to avoid execution by becoming legally incompetent, he said. If a death sentence is imposed, ``people ought not to be able to use their mental health and illness to manipulate that decision,'' he said. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota, calls it ``fundamentally wrong for any health care professional to give anybody psychiatric medication against their will for a non-therapeutic purpose.'' If authorities are intent on executing a man while he is sane in such cases, they should specify medication as part of the sentence and not pretend it is medical treatment, he said.
AP900906-0222 	X	American textile and fiber makers are talking tougher. They have dumped the celebrities who grinned as they flashed the ``Made in U.S.A.'' labels for the cameras in those old buy-American commercials. In a new round of ads that debut this weekend on NBC's telecast of the Miss America Pageant, they show shoppers making excuses for buying imports while workers cart their belongings outside a plant closing for good. In another commercial, a mother explains to her bewildered young son that they are moving because his father's plant shut down. Why did the plant close, the boy asks. ``Because a lot of people are buying clothes made in other countries, not ours,'' Mom replies. Welcome to the sober new world as seen by the Crafted With Pride in U.S.A. Council, a non-profit organization set up in 1984 to encourage sales of U.S.-made clothes and home furnishings, and its ad agency, Warwick Baker & Fiore. Robert E. Swift, executive director of the council, said the group decided on the new approach in reponse to surveys that indicate consumers are growing more concerned about their reduced standard of living. Imported clothing, for instance, accounts for nearly 60 percent of all clothing sales in the United States, he said. But when Americans are asked about imports, he said they usually cite the car market, where foreigners have captured only a one-third share. Swift said he hopes the ads get American consumers to think about what impact imports are having in apparel and furnishings as well. The council estimates that nearly 500,000 jobs have been lost in the U.S. apparel and textile industries since 1980. Swift said the new ads should make consumers aware that job losses and plant shutdowns not only hurt American workers, but hurt the community tax base and their own standard of living. Swift declined to say how much the council would spend over the next year to run the ads on television. But he said the new campaign will start off with more support than the council has spent in launching any earlier campaign. The celebrity campaign that kicked off the council's ``Made in U.S.A.'' campaign in 1985 was useful in calling attention to the quality and value of American-made products, Swift said. While imports' share of the clothes market rose to 59 percent last year from 47 percent in 1985, he said the pace at which the imports' share was rising has slowed considerably.
AP880527-0006 	X	Mathias Rust, the West German aviator who a year ago slipped across one of the world's most secure borders and landed a plane at Red Square, remains jailed at Lefortovo Prison with hopes fading for an early release. The dramatic May 28, 1987, flight shook the foundation of Soviet security and oiled the way for the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov and Air Defense chief Alexander Koldunov, but Soviet citizens still grin at the audacity of the young pilot and his success in putting one over on the mighty Kremlin. Soviet jets scrambled when Rust crossed into restricted airspace over the republic of Estonia, but the Soviet Air Defense forces took no action to halt the flight. Then, with apparently no warning to security forces in the nation's capital, the single-engine Cessna swept toward the heart of Soviet power and buzzed Kremlin landmarks such as Lenin's tomb and Spassky Tower. Rust, now 20, was sentenced Sept. 4 to four years at a general-regime labor camp on charges of malicious mischief. By mutual consent with the Soviet government, he is serving his time at the infamous Lefortovo Prison in eastern Moscow, which in the past contained American journalist Nicholas Daniloff and U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. A source close to the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Rust asked to remain at Lefortovo rather than transfer to a less restrictive penal institution because the little-used KGB facility is more easily accessible to his parents and West German diplomats who are allowed to make regular visits. At Lefortovo, Rust has been allowed more visits than he is officially entitled to. His parents, Karl-Heinz and Monika Rust, and his 16-year-old brother Ingo, have visited Lefortovo at least five times since June. Under Soviet corrections regulations, prisoners are allowed one visit every three months. A representative of the West German Embassy is allowed to visit once each month to bring mail, books and special foods to augment the prison diet. Rust's appeal of his four-year sentence was turned down late last year. The young amateur pilot from suburban Hamburg has issued a personal request for clemency that does not require a formal reply. To date, there has been no reply. Soviet officials have commented privately that Rust will likely serve at least half of his term, to show that the Kremlin does not take such stunts lightly and to discourage any similar incidents in the future. Rust was accused during his two-day trial of endangering the lives of thousands of airline passengers when he piloted his borrowed Cessna 172-B from Helsinki, Finland through the flight paths of foreign airliners headed for Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. Witnesses testified that he could have injured some of the hundreds of pedestrians at Red Square on the cool, sunny evening when he landed. Rust told the court he felt ``remorse and deep repentance'' and never intended to endanger or insult anyone. Before landing in the square, Rust piloted his blue and white craft at a low altitude through more than 500 miles of closely guarded Soviet territory. The dramatic stunt was followed by a short-lived moment of glory for Rust as tourists and Muscovites crowded around the plane that came to a rest between St. Basil's Cathedral and the red-brick wall surrounding the Kremlin. They asked for the pilot's autograph and took his picture as he reclined against the fuselage before his arrest. Less than 48 hours later, the ruling Politburo met in special session and sent Sokolov into retirement and fired Koldunov for negligence.
AP880714-0118 	X	Sen. John H. Chafee has become the third Rhode Island politician in danger of losing his ballot position because of a minor problem on his candidacy papers. John J. Staradumsky, an independent candidate for Chafee's seat, has filed a formal objection to Chafee's candidacy, meaning the state Board of Elections must decide whether to throw Chafee off the ballot, board Chairman Joseph R. DiStefano said Wednesday. The two-term Republican senator listed his Warwick address on his filing form as 1128 Ives Road, while his voter registration card omits the house number. State law requires the two forms to match exactly. Similar discrepancies already have jeopardized the candidacies of Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bruce G. Sundlun. Gov. Edward D. DiPrete said at the time he would call a special session of the General Assembly if necessary to get them back on the ballot. Michael Ryan, a Chafee aide, said Wednesday homes on Ives Road were not numbered when Chafee registered to vote in 1953. ``We expect common sense to prevail, hopefully in all cases, but certainly in this one,'' Ryan said. The elections board will hear Chafee's case July 26. It has scheduled a July 25 hearing on the Schneider and Sundlun cases. If the board rules against Chafee, he would hae to run a write-in campaign against Democrat Richard A. Licht in the Nov. 8 general election. Chafee is unopposed for renomination. DiStefano has refused to predict what his board will do, but said it has ruled ``time and time again'' against lesser-known candidates who made similar mistakes. ``Everybody knows what the precedents are,'' he said. ``We've indicated that quite clearly.''
AP881230-0225 	X	One of the nation's longest and most bitter takeover battles formally ended Friday _ the last business day of the year _ with the $1.48 billion merger of Irving Bank Corp. with Bank of New York Co. Inc. The merger was approved by Irving's shareholders at a special meeting, the Bank of New York said. Bank of New York said it expected that the principal banking subsidiaries of the two holding companies, the Bank of New York and Irving Trust Co., will be merged in the first half of 1989. ``All our efforts will now be directed to forging both institutions into a major force in U.S. and worldwide banking,'' J. Carter Bacot, chairman of the merged company, said in a statement. The two banks ended a year-long feud Oct. 7, when Irving's board of directors voted to end its resistance and drop all lawsuits and anti-takeover measures. In return, Bank of New York sweetened its offer by about $200 million by slightly increasing the stock portion of its bid and adding stock warrants. The Federal Reserve Board removed the last formal obstacle to the merger Nov. 28 by approving the deal. The board originally gave conditional approval in February, extending it four times as Irving battled the takeover. The merger will nearly double Bank of New York's size, vaulting it close to the top 10 of the nation's largest banking companies. The two banks had a combined $47.8 billion in assets as of June 30. Bank of New York's bid, launched Sept. 25, 1987, was the first hostile takeover attempt among American banks.
AP880302-0113 	X	The doctor for three AIDS-exposed brothers who were ostracized in their hometown has retracted his diagnosis of AIDS-related complex for the oldest boy. Jerry Barbosa testified at a hearing Tuesday that he earlier made the diagnosis for 11-year-old Ricky Ray because he felt compelled to under a judge's order. AIDS-related complex, or ARC, often is a precursor to acquired immune deficiency syndrome. There is no known cure for AIDS. ``The way I interpreted the order, I had no choice but to label this patient as having ARC against my clinical judgment,'' Barbosa told U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth A. Jenkins. The purpose of Tuesday's hearing was to clarify earlier reports that the physician had diagnosed ARC in the youth weeks before reporting it to the court. On Jan. 29, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich modified an earlier order and required Barbosa to report the progress of ``any AIDS, AIDS symptomology, or other AIDS-related syndrome.'' Her wording prompted him to say in his Feb. 2 report that Ricky had developed ARC, Barbosa said. But Ricky has not exhibited physical symptoms necessary for such a finding, although the boy's blood tests might support an ARC diagnosis, the doctor said. He also cited April 1987 guidelines issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta that prohibit labeling any child under age 13 as having ARC. ``It doesn't mean much to the court that somebody has or doesn't have ARC,'' Ms. Jenkins said. ``When material changes in the boys' health occurs, it is not up to the court to try to look behind the medical reports to see what is there.'' When Ms. Kovachevich ruled Aug. 5, 1987, that the DeSoto County School system had to readmit the Ray brothers to regular classes, she ordered AIDS testing of the boys every six months and said any changes in their condition had to be reported to her. Ms. Jenkins told attorneys for the Rays and the school board to devise an improved way to keep the court informed about the hemophiliac brothers' medical conditions. The attorneys must submit the plan by Monday. Ricky, Robert, 10, and Randy, 8, were banned from regular classes after they tested positive for the AIDS antibody in August 1986. Doctors say the children were apparently exposed to the AIDS virus through infusions of blood products that aim to promote clotting. Soon after the boys began school in Arcadia last fall, amid a boycott and protests by other students' parents, an arsonist torched the Ray home. Since then, the family has moved to Sarasota, where the Ray children have attended public school without incident.
AP880816-0342 	X	Grain and soybean futures closed mostly lower Tuesday on the Chicago Board of Trade amid slack export demand and forecasts for showers and cooler temperatures in the Corn Belt later this week. Corn futures prices fell nearly 10 cents a bushel, the permitted daily limit. The corn market was the leader in a session that featured relatively light trading and wide price swings in the soybean pit. Soybean futures, which are limited to moves of 30 cents a bushel, have recently provided direction to the grain markets. But soybeans lost traders Tuesday to the lower-risk corn pit, said Steve Freed, a grain analyst in Chicago with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. Despite a record-melting heat wave that threatens further damage to the drought-stressed soybean crop, Freed said speculators shied away from the soybean market when prices for near-month delivery approached $9 a bushel Tuesday morning. Meteorologists predicted cooler temperatures would begin moving into the Midwest on Thursday. The forecasts, plus a lack of substantial export business, left the markets with little bullish news. ``It's still a bullish market, but it's a market that has trouble finding itself on days like today,'' Freed said. At the close, wheat was 1{ cents to 3} cents lower with the contract for delivery in September at $3.90{ a bushel; corn was 4} cents to 9} cents lower with September at $2.87{ a bushel; oats were 4{ cents to 9} cents lower with September at $2.78{ a bushel; soybeans were 21 cents lower to 20 cents higher with August at $8.66 a bushel.
AP900912-0032 	X	Police today detained about 10,000 Hindu students on their way to a protest rally in the Kashmir Valley, where a day earlier 21 Moslems were killed in a reported shootout. The caravan of buses and trucks that was stopped in Udhampur, 45 miles north of Jammu, was headed toward Srinagar, where the Hindu activists of the All India Students' Federation had planned to hoist Indian flags. The government, fearing violence, had appealed to the Hindu activists not to hold their procession to Srinagar, a Moslem stronghold in Kashmir, the northern sector of Jammu-Kashmir state. The students, based in Jammu in a predominantly Hindu sector, had ignored the official pleas. The Hindu students are opposed to a Moslem secessionist movement that is attempting to get independence for Jammu-Kashmir state, the only Indian state in which the majority of the population is Moslem. The students were arrested without resistance, one official said, speaking under condition of anonymity. They were expected to be released after a few hours without charges being pressed. In Srinagar, shops were closed and traffic stayed off the roads today in response to a general strike call given by Moslem militants. The strike was to protest the deaths of 21 Kashmiris Tuesday during a shoot-out with paramiltary troops near Srinagar. The government claimed all the victims, including 17 people in a bus which exploded and caught fire, were militants. A government statement said the bus exploded when a stray bullet hit a pile of ammunition inside it. At least 1,175 people have ben killed in Kashmir since January, when the government started a crackdown on the secessionists. About 64 percent of Jammu-Kashmir's 6 million people are Moslems. About 82 percent of India's 880 million people are Hindus while Moslems account for 12 percent.
AP880829-0277 	X	Florida investor Paul Bilzerian has acquired 2 million shares of the Hadson Corp. as part of Hadson's agreement to purchase HRB Holdings Inc., a Singer Co. division, company officials said Monday. Stephen Houghton, president and chief executive officer of the Hadson Corp., said an agreement for the purchase of HRB Holdings Inc. from Bilzerian was announced in February and a final agreement was completed earlier this month. He said Hadson acquired the company for $137 million in cash and 2 million shares of common stock. Houghton said Bilzerian's acquisition of the stock was for investment purposes only. Bilzerian took Singer private earlier this year and has been selling off a number of its assets.
AP900317-0058 	X	Less than a year after Namibia was ablaze with a war and wracked by seemingly insurmountable ethnic differences, the territory is ready for a peaceful transition to independence from South Africa this week. The diverse people of this vast, arid land have set aside their weapons and begun working together to transform Africa's last colony into one of the continent's few democracies. Independence officially begins Wednesday. ``We confounded the doubters,'' said Sam Nujoma, the territory's designated president, who led the South-West Africa People's Organization during its 23-year guerrilla war against South African rule. Black nationalist guerrillas and right-wing whites who once fought each other have been preaching reconciliation in what has been a remarkably smooth approach to independence for Namibia, formerly known as South-West Africa. ``We have accepted that South-West Africa as we knew it will be replaced by an independent Namibia,'' said Jan de Wet, leader of the right-wing National Party. ``We are glad to offer our skills and resources to this country if we are welcome.'' SWAPO often was depicted by whites as a ``Marxist-terrorist'' organization during the war. But since winning U.N.-supervised elections in November, the leftist organization has made numerous compromises in an attempt to accommodate the 11 distinct ethnic groups that make up Namibia's 1.3 million people. SWAPO's support comes predominantly from the northern Ovambo tribe, but Nujoma also has named blacks who are not Ovambos to key positions to allay fears that SWAPO will be a tribal-based government. He also has appointed whites and businessmen from opposition parties to his Cabinet. ``The future government wants to ensure that ... policies and laws will be supported by the widest possible cross-section of the population,'' said Otto Herrigel, a German-descended Namibian who will serve as Nujoma's finance secretary. Opposition groups also have been in a conciliatory mood. Seven parties won seats in the elections, and they have sharp ideological differences. But within weeks, the 72-member constitutional assembly unanimously agreed on a democratic constitution that guarantees fundamental rights and regular elections. It also limits the president to two five-year terms, rare on a continent where most leaders serve for life. SWAPO, which was committed to socialism while in exile, now speaks more often of working with the white business community that controls the mining, farming and fishing industries. Those industries, along with South African aid, have made Namibia one of the few African countries to achieve an annual per capita income of $1,000. However, the wealth is in the hands of the 75,000 whites, who make up only 6 percent of the population. Meeting black expectations without alienating whites will be one of the biggest challenges facing the government. There have been no signs of a mass exodus by whites, who easily could go to white-ruled South Africa as thousands did when the United Nations announced Namibia's independence plan in 1978. The U.N. plan sat on the shelf for a decade as South Africa refused to relinquish control of the territory, which it captured from Germany during World War I. But in December 1988, South Africa agreed to grant independence to Namibia under a regional peace treaty. At the ceremony when the new Namibian constitution was adopted in November, several speakers said South Africa should take inspiration from Namibia's harmonious independence process. Many South Africans were relieved at the Western-style democratic constitution adopted by a constituent assembly in Namibia. But others said they would withhold judgment, since neighboring Zimbabwe also began its black majority rule with a democracy and British-inspired constitution. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is now in the process of turning the government into a one-party state. The long-delayed independence plan in Namibia almost collapsed the day it began _ last April 1. Hundreds of SWAPO guerrillas crossed into northern Namibia in violation of the U.N. plan, igniting three weeks of fighting. More than 300 guerrillas died, and 27 members of the South African-led security forces were killed. Since peace was restored, there has been sporadic violence. In September, Anton Lubowski, SWAPO's highest-ranking white member, was assassinated. But there have been no wide-scale outbreaks of violence, and the more than 6,000 U.N. civilian and military personnel in Namibia are scheduled to leave in early April. That will end the $450 million U.N. operation, the most extensive ever conducted by the United Nations.
AP880320-0101 	X	American soldiers practiced military maneuvers Sunday on a Honduran airstrip just 21 miles from the Nicaraguan border, but U.S. officials said the threat from Sandinista troops had subsided and combat appeared unlikely. Nicaragua formally protested a Honduran bombing raid on Sandinista positions Saturday as an unwarranted act of aggression. It has denied that its troops crossed the jungle-choked border dividing the nations.
AP880902-0201 	X	The archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, on Friday announced his his support of Roman Catholic calls for Christians to boycott a new American film about Jesus Christ. But a conservative London newspaper praised a ruling by a senior government law officer that the film, ``The Last Temptation of Christ,'' does not violate Britain's blasphemy law. ``Christians have been under attack for almost 2,000 years,'' the Daily Telegraph said in an editorial Friday. ``It is not emphatically a faith so shallow as to be put at risk by the frivolity of Hollywood.'' The film, which has raised angry protests in Britain, the United States, and other places, includes a scene in which Christ hallucinates about marrying prostitute Mary Magdalene . The movie by Martin Scorsese has been playing to packed theaters in the United States. It is due to be screened in British movie theaters starting Sept. 9. Runcie, the spiritual head of the Church of England and 70 million Anglicans worldwide, said Friday that parts of the movie cause ``great offense and distress.'' He said there were ``sensible arguments for wishing the film wasn't shown in this country.'' Asked about a call last month by Cardinal Basil Hume, the eader of 5.2 million Catholics in England and Wales, for Christians to avoid the movie, Runcie said: ``I think that is a reasonable position, and I would support him.'' Runcie spoke at London's Heathrow airport on his return with his wife Rosalind from a vacation in the United States. He told reporters he had not seen the film while in the United States but said, ``I have been reading the newspapers sometimes on holiday, and obviously there is much debate about it. ``I don't think that I shall see it (in Britain) .... It's not something that I want to see on the basis of what I've read and heard about it.'' A senior government official, Director of Public Prosecutions Allan Green, ruled Thursday that the movie does not violate Britain's blasphemy law. Activists opposed to the movie have said they will continue trying to get it banned in Britain. Mary Whitehouse, president of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, has said she would try to persuade local authorities to block screening of the movie. Theaters around the country operate under a system of local licencing.
AP880929-0219 	X	Up to 3,000 Olympics slides which were to make up the bulk of photographs in the next issue of Sports Illustrated magazine were stolen Thursday, officials said. ``It's the biggest athletic event of the year and this is our picture record of it. They're our life's blood,'' said Joe Marshall, director of photography for the magazine. The pictures were stolen from the front seat of a locked, parked van enroute Thursday to the magazine's offices in midtown Manhattan, said Louis Slovinsky, director of public affairs for Time Inc. Marshall said pictures often are hand delivered by staff members but were sent via an air freight company as the games continued in South Korea. The stolen slides, chosen from 50,000 pictures shot by nine magazine photographers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, included pictures of shamed 100-meter sprinter Ben Johnson, Greg Louganis's second gold medal in diving and the U.S.-Soviet basketball game, Marshall said. Slovinsky said the magazine would pay an unspecified reward and ask no questions if the pictures were returned. ``These are extremely valuable pictures for Sports Illustrated, but they are of no value to anybody else,'' Slovinsky said. The slides are each clearly marked as belonging to Sports Illustrated and being from the 1988 Summer Olympics, he said. Slovinsky said photographs belonging to the Black Star Publishing Co. Inc., a photo agency, also were stolen from the truck.
AP880516-0048 	X	Here is a list of the political stories that have moved for this cycle:
AP900629-0220 	X	A policeman in the Medellin cartel's hometown goes to work each day with an assault rifle, a bulletproof vest and a prayer. The drug lords will pay $4,300 to anyone who kills him. So far this year, more than 130 have been slain. Policemen say they live on nerve and in fear of being the next victim. Some routinely arrive home with pistol drawn in case an assassin lurks in the shadows. Dozens of of the victims were murdered while off duty. Police in Medellin are part of a national force of 80,000 men, which is part of the military and under Defense Ministry jurisdiction. The government, which declared war on drug traffickers last year, has sent 1,800 reinforcements in recent weeks to augment the normal force of 2,600. The killings continue at an average of one a day in this city of 3 million, Colombia's second-largest. If the same percentage of police officers was killed in New York City, which has a force of 26,000, the total would surpass 1,000. An Associated Press reporter talked with 30 Medellin policemen and accompanied seven on a patrol of a dangerous part of Medellin. An officer pointed out the spots where six comrades had been killed in the past two months. ``I get scared out here,'' one said. ``I see a movement in the shadows or hear a motorcycle moving toward me and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I wonder if this is it. I wonder if I'm the next victim.'' None wanted his name used, figuring it would be a death warrant. High-ranking Medellin police officials refused to be interviewed about the dangers their men face. The patrolmen said the drug cartel's tactics had caused 300 police resignations in three months and recruiting was difficult. ``I'm ready to quit if I don't get a transfer out of here soon,'' a 20-year-old policeman said. ``We're just statistics.'' He and the others said they were frightened, and exhausted by working up to 18 hours six days a week, but most said they would not quit. ``You can die of hunger, too,'' a 12-year veteran commented. Their families are destroyed along with the policemen. An officer's widow gets only half his $95 monthly salary as a pension, said a spokesman for the national police in Bogota. Three widows said they could not support their children on that. ``My children don't get milk, they don't get meat, they don't know what eggs taste like,'' Ruth Duque said. ``When they get sick, we just pray. There isn't any money for medicine.'' Mrs. Duque's situation is even worse because she gets no pension at all. Her husband was killed March 23, 1988, before the pension law was passed. She said she makes the equivalent of about $102 a month working in a drugstore. She feeds her son and daughter, aged 4 and 3, one meal a day of rice and beans. Colombia's minimum wage equals about $100 a month. A quart of milk costs 75 cents and a one-pound loaf of bread $1. Unemployment is over 30 percent in Medellin, according to sociologists at the local university. The government says the rate is 10 percent, but doesn't count thousands of people who mow lawns, work as sidewalk peddlers or have other part-time jobs. ``I've been looking for a job ever since my husband was killed,'' said Socorro Rua. Her husband was killed May 19 by a man who stuck a gun in his ribs on a crowded bus. Her 15-year-old daughter, Liliana, turned her head away and tears coursed down her cheeks. Mrs. Rua also has a 6-year-old son, Carlos. They live in an apartment complex built by the government for policemen. The shabby three-room apartment costs only $20 a month, but even that may be out of reach because officials have told her the pension paperwork will take a year. Another widow, Carmen Montoya, said she had high hopes for their children when her husband was alive, but ``now we just try to get by day to day. My little boy wanted a toy car for his birthday. I cried when he asked me, because I knew I couldn't afford it. They don't get anything at Christmas.'' ``My little girl used to chatter and sing all the time before her daddy was killed,'' she said. ``Now she just stares and hardly says a word. ``I asked the police department to pay for a psychologist to see her, but they told me there is no money for that.'' Mrs. Montoya has two children _ Lina, 5, and Alexander, 3. She receives about $80 a month because her husband had 20 years on the force.
AP881013-0333 	X	Air Wis Services Inc. rejected as inadequate a $121 million takeover bid from a Connecticut investment firm, but left the door open for a higher offer. The offer of $16.365 a share from Cove Capital Associates Inc. of Greenwich, Conn., is the fourth takeover bid for the airline holding company since last November. Cove represents Transmark USA Inc., an insurance holding company based in Jacksonville, Fla. The offer rejected Wednesday includes $14 a share in cash and $2.36{ in preferred stock. The Air Wis board of directors said it would reconsider its stance if a higher, all-cash offer were made. Air Wis officials questioned how much cash Cove and Transmark could bring to the table without borrowing against assets of Air Wis, whose Air Wisconsin subsidiary operates United Express airline. ``Your proposal to utilize a form of preferred stock to finance a significant part of your acquisition costs suggests to our board that Cove Capital and Transmark USA may not have sufficient resources to effect an acquisition of the company at a reasonable price without borrowing significantly against the company's assets,'' Air Wis President Preston Wilbourne told Cove. Wilbourne said an acquisition that involved heavy borrowing could impair Air Wis' plans to expand and to acquire new equipment, bring route cutbacks and cause defaults on existing financial agreements. Last November, a group headed by Citicorp Venture Capital and two former executives of United Airlines offered $11.50 a share for Air Wis. That was followed by a bid from former Air Wis chairman Arthur Hailand and John J. Louis Jr., a director, for $14 a share. Hailand and Louis later raised their bid to $17 a share, comprised of $14 in cash and $3 in debt. All three bids were rejected by the Air Wis board. Hailand was removed as chairman when the board turned down his first offer.
AP880910-0162 	X	President Reagan on Friday signed into law a measure that for the first time requires commercial fishing vessels to carry life rafts and other emergency equipment. The signing caps a three-year campaign for approval of safety regulations for an industry whose safety record is the worst in the United States. Rep. John Miller, R-Wash., who attended the private signing ceremony and was one of the original sponsors of the measure, said Reagan called it a ``good bill that will save lives.'' The measure requires that commercial fishing vessels carry life rafts, survival suits, emergency transmitters and medical supplies. Among the leading proponents of the legislation were Robert and Peggy Barry, whose son Peter drowned when a 70-year-old fishing vessel from Seattle sank off Alaska in the summer of 1985. The vessel did not carry life rafts, radio equipment or survival suits, and investigators concluded the ship should not have been at sea. ``The fact the bill was finally signed into law is a great relief to all of us who have lost relatives or friends in the fishing industry,'' said Robert Barry. He said more needs to be done, including manadatory inspections on a regular basis, licensing of operators and training of crews. An average of about 80 fishermen die annually in accidents involving commercial fishing vessels, according to Coast Guard statistics. Rep. Mike Lowry, D-Wash., said the rate of accidental deaths for commercial fishermen is twice that of miners, whose occupation is the second most hazardous.
AP880424-0069 	X	Sexual harassment of women in the Marine Corps remains a problem that can be remedied by emphasizing that the practice will not be tolerated, according to a Marine Corps report released Sunday. The Task Force on Women in the Marine Corps said existing directives and the corps' primary grievance system are ``appropriate tools to implement Marine Corps policy on this issue.'' However, the commandant of the corps must convey that sexual harassment will not be tolerated in the service, according to the executive summary of the final report. ``The (commandant) will improve sexual harassment awareness training in formal schools and at the recruit depots,'' said the report, which will be released Monday. The task force, formed in September 1987 at the request of then-Secretary of Navy James Webb, said the corps did not have a ``significant problem'' with fraternization. ``Fraternization is not a gender-specific issue,'' the report said. ``No corrective action was recommended.'' In February, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci responded to a Pentagon report by ordering expanded job opportunities for women in the Marine Corps and the Air Force, including the assignment of female Marines to embassy guard duty. Women account for about 10 percent of the nation's 2.1 million military personnel. By law, they are excluded from combat. The content of the Pentagon report provided the basis of the Marine Corps report released Sunday. The report also recommended certain steps to improve the quality of life for female Marines, including solving the problem of shortage in uniform items and lengthy delays in filling special orders, ensuring full investigation when homosexual conduct is suspected and allowing a pregnant Marine to request a 30-day delay in the notification of her commander by the medical officer. The task force also recommended that the Navy surgeon general review the policy regarding the assignment of obstetricians and gynecologists to combat service units, and the commandant review the number of women medical and dental personnel assigned to various units. The Navy surgeon general also should publish information regarding oral contraceptives for men, recreational programs should be expanded and additional child care centers be built, the report said. The commandant approved all the recommendations with the exception of pregnancy notification and oral contraceptives for men.
AP880725-0011 	X	Comic Phyllis Diller says she's had a habit of dressing as a nun in public for the past decade to avoid being recognized, especially when she's out shopping. ``People tend to leave nuns alone, so I'm able to do my shopping dressed that way. It prevents people from asking me for my autograph,'' Diller said in this week's People magazine. ``I'm able to buy all the crazy things I like to wear because I pretend to be the nun in charge of the drama department at Marymount College, so they think it's for our little play,'' said the 71-year-old Diller, who is appearing in the musical ``Nunsense'' at San Francisco's Marines Memorial Theater.
AP901115-0147 	X	Federal authorities said Thursday they had smashed a 30-member cocaine-smuggling ring whose leader buried $43 million in drug money on a farm in Puerto Rico. The case caused a sensation last spring when it was disclosed that residents of the Vega Baja coastal area had unearthed barrels filled with $10, $20 and $100 bills and kept their windfall secret for weeks. In all, residents made off with $11 million, which they put in their bank accounts and bought everything from VCRs to luxury homes before the authorities stepped in, according to the FBI. In a statement Thursday, the FBI said it had arrested or issued warrants for 30 alleged members of the drug ring that amassed the buried treasure in drug-running operations from Colombia since 1985. Fifteen suspects were charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Juan and four others were already in jails in Puerto Rico and New York, said FBI spokeswoman Juana Arriazola. Another suspect arrested Thursday in New York was awaiting extradition, and two others were charged in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, she said. Among the eight suspects still at large were reputed drug kingpin Ramon Torres Gonzalez, on whose farm the cash-filled barrels were hidden, and Iris Janet Concepcion Perez, alleged co-leader of the drug ring, the FBI said. All 30 are accused under a 27-count federal indictment with criminal enterprise and conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances. The indictment was returned Nov. 1 by a federal grand jury in Puerto Rico. If convicted, the suspects face a minimum penalty of 60 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison, as well as a fine of up to $10 million. U.S. Magistrate Jesus Castellano released seven of the defendants who came into court Thursday on bail totaling $625,000 and jailed the others without bail. He set a court hearing for Nov. 21. The indictment alleges that Torres and his drug organization had imported and distributed more than 4.5 tons of Colombian cocaine into Puerto Rico and the United States since 1985. William Mitchell, head of the San Juan office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said most of the cocaine was shipped to Puerto Rico by way of neighboring Dominican Republic. ``Some (cocaine) was for the local market, but the majority went to the states, principally New York and Philadelphia,'' he said. The drug ring amassed a fortune, of which $43 million in cash was buried in 22 plastic drums on Torres' 9.7-acre farm in Vega Baja, about 35 miles east of San Juan, authorities said. The FBI got involved in the case in April after authorities learned that local residents had been using large amounts of cash to buy houses, cars, VCRs, motorcycles, boats and jewelry. Residents took $11 million of the money before Torres allegedly removed and hid the remaining $32 million, which has not been found, the FBI said. The FBI said it had confiscated $4.5 million in cash and property purchased with the stolen money. None of the residents were arrested.
AP901019-0112 	X	The family of Gen. Michel Aoun drove to Beirut's airport today to board a flight for Paris, but France and Lebanon remained locked in a dispute over the fate of the defeated rebel commander. Witnesses said a convoy of six French Embassy cars accompanied by four Lebanese military police jeeps left the embassy compound in the eastern suburb of Hazmiyeh and drove to the airport in Syrian-controlled south Beirut. Two Air France executive jets had flown in earlier to evacuate Aoun's wife, Nadia, and their three daughters - Mireille, 22, Claudine, 19, and Chantal, 17 -and transport them to France, where they will live in exile. Aoun remained in the French Embassy, where he has been granted asylum. The Lebanese government has refused to allow Aoun to leave the country, insisting that he face trial for a variety of crimes and the alleged theft of at least $75 million from the ailing state treasury. Earlier today, President Elias Hrawi accused Aoun - who took refuge in the French Embassy with his family on Saturday - of ordering his troops to continue fighting even after he broadcast his message of surrender. ``I'm in the French Embassy. The outcome (of the battle) will be favorable to us. Go on. Go on fighting,'' Hrawi quoted Aoun as telling his forces last week in a radio message. ``These were the orders Aoun radioed to his forces, even after his message of surrender was broadcast,'' Hrawi said in remarks released by his office. Hrawi's government also denied press reports that scores of Aoun's defeated soldiers were massacred after surrendering to the Lebanese and Syrian forces who ended Aoun's 11-month mutiny on Saturday. Prime Minister Salim Hoss said France's call for a United Nations investigation of reports of such killings was based on ``biased rumors.'' The Defense Ministry said in a communique that reports that Aoun's troops were massacred after surrendering were ``absolutely baseless.'' The communique said Aoun's troops who died ``fell in the military operation.'' The eight-hour, air-and-ground assault killed 350 people and wounded 1,200 by police count. Police said the fatalities included at least 100 Syrian soldiers. But The New York Times, citing doctors at East Beirut hospitals and Syrian officers, said in today's editions that the death toll was at least 750. Military sources speaking on condition of anonymity described ``ferocious hand-to-hand fighting'' between the advancing Syrian troops and Aoun's forces on the eastern edge of his 80-square-mile enclave in the Christian heartland. One source said that after Aoun's address was broadcast, one of his officers told the Syrians he was surrendering, but then opened fire when the Syrians came forward. The Syrians responsed by pounding the Aoun forces' position with rocket launchers and tank cannons, then stormed it with tank-led forces, according to the source. The Defense Ministry's communique came a few hours after France urged U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar to investigate reports of summary executions of Aoun's vanquished troops in the enclave northeast of Beirut. French and British press reports said about 100 of Aoun's 15,000 troops were killed after surrendering. The French Foreign Ministry said France was trying to obtain information about the reports but also wanted a U.N. probe. French opposition leaders today demanded tougher French action in response to the allegations. One of them - Alain Juppe, secretary-general of the conservative Rally for the Republic party - said the government should demand an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in order to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. A police spokesman in Lebanon said on Thursday that by the time police examined the bodies of the slain troops they found ``no solid evidence that the soldiers were liquidated.'' ``None of the corpses we examined had hands tied behind the back and very few of the dead soldiers were hit in the skulls with bullets,'' said the spokesman, who could be named in line with regulations. Associated Press photographer Ahmed Azakir, who visited the government hospital in suburuban Baabda on Tuesday, reported seeing more than 50 bodies of Aoun's troops in the morgue. He said none had their hands tied. Most of Aoun's troops declared allegiance to Hrawi's army under Gen. Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Catholic like both the president and the defeated general. The leftist newspaper As-Safir - in a front-page, eight-column headline - said the call for a U.N. investigation was part of a French effort to ``distort the operation of unifying Beirut.''
AP901128-0100 	X	House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt said today he opposes the use of military force in the near future to oust Iraq from Kuwait, urging President Bush to follow a policy of ``patient strength.'' ``Stay the course. Stick with the sanctions. Do not try to mount an offensive military action in the near future,'' the Missouri Democrat said in a speech. Gephardt's opposition to any congressional resolution authorizing use of force is the first public break among the Democratic leadership, who said last week that Bush would have a better chance of winning congressional approval for the use of force in the Persian Gulf if the United Nations first backed such a move. His remarks came as the Senate Armed Services Committee began its second day of hearings on the prospects of U.S. military action against Iraq. Democrats on Tuesday demanded that Bush give Congress the same opportunity as the United Nations to debate a resolution authorizing military force. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the panel today he did not believe the United States could sustain nearly 430,000 troops in the gulf for an extended period of time. ``The issue in Arabia is not American staying power but the host country's domestic stability. Conditions in the gulf are not even remotely comparable to Europe or Northeast Asia,'' Kissinger said. The former Nixon administration official contended that the sanctions and the possible use of military force are not successive phases of the same policy. ``They will prove mutually exclusive because by the time it is evident that sanctions alone cannot succeed, a credible military option will probably no longer exist,'' Kissinger said. Gephardt, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said, ``Before we resort to offensive military action, Congress and the American people will need to be convinced that the policy of pressure, isolation and sanctions has failed. President Bush has yet to make such an argument,'' ``The policy of patient strength is, I think, our best hope,'' Gephardt said. Gephardt made his comments while two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff bolstered the Democratic challenge to Bush to give United Nations sanctions time to work. ``My main concern with this latest scheduled reinforcement isn't that we might choose to fight, but rather that the deployment might cause us to fight - perhaps prematurely and perhaps unnecessarily,'' David C. Jones told the Armed Services Committee. Both Jones and retired Adm. William Crowe said the sanctions are the best option at this time and expressed concern about the long-term effect of military action in the Middle East. ``I counsel patience. War is not neat, it's not tidy. It's a mess,'' Crowe said at the hearing. President Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, declined to respond directly to the statements by Gephardt and the former chairmen of the joint chiefs. ``Obviously there are going to be different opinions,'' Fitzwater told reporters. Fitzwater said Bush does not plan to ask Congress for authority to launch hostilities under the War Powers Act. The president maintains he has the authority to take such action with or without congressional approval. In later testimony today, Crowe said he saw no ``significant breaks'' in the international sanctions and urged the administration and Congress to give them a year to 18 months to take effect. ``The issue is not whether an embargo will work, but whether we have the patience to let it take effect,'' Crowe said. The retired admiral said he believed the American people, who waited out 40 years of the Cold War, have the patience for the sanctions. ``It would be a sad commentary if Saddam Hussein, a two-bit tyrant who sits on 17 million people and possesses a gross national product of $40 billion, proved to be more patient than the United States, the world's most affluent and powerful nation,'' Crowe said. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the president pro tem of the Senate, agreed that the American people have the patience. ``When we view grandmothers and grandfathers who lost not one but two, three grandchildren and they feel we took the action too hastily, I think we'll all have the time to be sorry,'' Byrd said. ``The American people are willing to sacrifice,'' he added. On Tuesday, committee chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., told the hearing that an expected U.N. resolution authorizing the use of military force to eject Iraq from Kuwait ``is not a substitute for fully informing the American people of our own nation's objectives and strategy.'' Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the No. 2 Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters he believed Bush should send an emissary to Baghdad to make sure Saddam isn't ``confused'' about the U.S. position. While agreeing that no talk of compromise can be made until Iraq withdraws from Kuwait, Hamilton said ``a strong argument can be made to talk to him directly or indirectly. I don't see we have a lot to lose.''
AP900110-0094 	X	Lt. Gen. Basilio Olara Okello, a Ugandan rebel leader who had been living in exile in Khartoum for four years, has died from diabetes complicated by malaria. He was 61. His family did not say when he died. Okello participated in the five-year civil war in Uganda that was ended by President Yoweri Museveni in 1986. After Okello fled to Sudan, Museveni accused him of human rights abuses in the Luwero triangle area near the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where thousands of civilians were reported to have been massacred in the early 1980s. Some Ugandan rebels said as many as 300,000 had been massacred during the civil war. Okello was the general commander of the Ugandan People's Democratic Army, the military wing of the Ugandan People's Democratic Movement, which has been fighting Museveni since he took over power. Okello's family said he would be buried in Khartoum, at a time to be determined. They said they feared that Kampala authorities would treat him as a criminal and not give him a proper burial.
AP881219-0097 	X	A fire department medical truck hit an 8-year-old boy who darted between parked cars, but the driver saved the boy's life by resuscitating him, officials said. Thomas Adkins, 8, was injured so severely in Saturday's accident that he went into cardiac arrest, police said. The driver, Gary E. Warren, 36, the second in command of the Baltimore County Fire Department's medical division, administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and saved the child's life, police said. The boy was reported in stable condition Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He sustained two broken legs, a broken collarbone, head and stomach trauma and bruised lungs. Warren was ticketed for driving 43 mph in a 25 mph zone. ``He had been through a lot in the emergency medical technician field,'' said Officer John Emerick of the police traffic investigation unit. ``But actually hitting that child accidentally really tore him up.''
AP880321-0134 	X	Here are the latest, unofficial results in the Democratic presidential primary in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
AP880812-0198 	X	Actress Anne Ramsey, whose grotesque character in ``Throw Momma From the Train'' won her an Oscar nomination and a following in the twilight of her career, died of throat cancer. She was 59. Her husband of 34 years, actor Logan Ramsey, was at her side when she died Thursday evening at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been for about a week, hospital spokeswoman Peggy Shaff said Friday. The actress often appeared with her husband in projects, including Clint Eastwood's ``Any Which Way You Can,'' scheduled to air Friday night on CBS-TV. She appeared in two Barbra Streisand films, ``Up the Sandbox'' and ``For Pete's Sake'' and played Nick Nolte's addled mother in ``Weeds.'' In ``Goonies,'' she uttered the line, ``Put that kid's hand in the blender and hit puree.'' Mrs. Ramsey's television credits included roles in ``The Young and the Restless,'' guest appearances on ``Hill Street Blues,'' ``Night Court'' and ``Knight Rider,'' and movies-of-the-week roles in ``White Mama,'' ``The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,'' ``Blind Ambition'' and ``Marilyn.'' However, it was her role opposite actor-director Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal in the dark comedy about matricide, ``Throw Momma From the Train,'' that put her on the fast track. After 37 years in show business, she became famous as the actress with the face of a mother no one could love. ``Some people say I'm not a very pretty woman, but I'm a very beautiful woman inside,'' she said when asked about her appearance. As the murder-provoking harridan of ``Throw Momma,'' the diminutive hunch-shouldered actress played her most tormented and tormenting role. DeVito, as brow-beaten son Owen Lift, tries to arrange a swap of murder victims: He will kill his writing teacher's ex-wife if the teacher (Crystal) kills his mother. ``She became such a cult hero to young people after `Throw Momma' that the kids wouldn't leave her alone. But she loved kids. She enjoyed it all,'' said her publicist, Stan Rosenfield. ``I loved that woman. I loved everything about her,'' DeVito said. ``I was so delighted over the success she achieved over the past year. She was a woman of courage and should be admired by all.'' Mrs. Ramsey was nominated for an Academy Award for ``Throw Momma,'' but lost to Olympia Dukakis of ``Moonstruck.'' She will be seen in four still-to-be-released films: ``Dr. Hackenstein,'' ``Scrooge,'' ``Good Ole Boy'' and ``Homer and Eddie.'' It was the removal of part of her tongue during throat cancer surgery three years ago that gave her the speech impediment evident in ``Throw Momma From the Train.'' She began chemotherapy treatments when the cancer recurred in April. During filming of ``Throw Momma,'' Mrs. Ramsey was undergoing oral surgery and was enduring intense pain, said DeVito. He said the actress never asked to be excused from work. In addition to her husband, Mrs. Ramsey is survived by a brother and sister, Rosenfield said. A private burial was planned in Omaha, Neb., but the family kept the date and location secret, Rosenfield said. A public memorial service will be held Aug. 20 at St. Michael & All Angels' Episcopal Church in Studio City, he said.
AP880902-0198 	X	A television station Friday accidentally broadcast an emergency bulletin, prompting immediate calls from viewers, an official of the station said. Oran Gough, director of operations for Fox Broadcasting Co. affiliate WTTE, said the bulletin telling viewers to stand by for emergency information ran for about 30 seconds before it was disovered. ``A guy put the wrong tape in the machine,'' Gough said. ``Obviously, we didn't do it on purpose.'' Gough said the message, broadcast during the movie ``Send Me No Flowers,'' is a standard emergency announcement that television stations are required to have as part of the Emergency Broadcast System. The message includes the phrase ``Stand by for emergency information.'' Gough said the announcement was interrupted when the mistake was discovered, and the station resumed the movie with a superimposed message that the bulletin was broadcast in error. He said he did not know how many people called the station. ``We got calls from people right after it happened. They wanted to know for sure that it wasn't for real,'' he said.
AP880826-0212 	X	A defendant in what is believed to be the longest federal criminal trial in American history wanted special consideration because of his sleep disorder, so he asked the judge about his ``sleeping motion.'' ``I thought we had put that to bed,'' U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman replied to the laughter and groans of the defendants and attorneys in his Newark courtroom. On another day, Ackerman angered some when he called one motion ``creative nonsense at best.'' Ackerman, 60, spent nearly two years with the Herculean task of handling the U.S. v. Accetturo, et al. case. The trial ended Friday when the jury, after 21 months of proceedings but only 14 hours of deliberations, acquitted all 20 defendants of racketeering charges. The defendants, alleged to be members of the Lucchese crime family, had been charged with organized crime activities in New Jersey. During the trial, 20 litigators, including some of New Jersey's most highly regarded lawyers, and two defendants representing themselves filled Ackerman's courtroom. He acted as referee to a throng of egos, and sometimes one of his toughest tasks was just keeping the courtroom quiet. He made more than 100 rulings on legal motions. Legal papers from the case fill 15 feet of file drawers. Ackerman's judicial record includes a landmark decision in a civil racketeering case brought by the government against Teamsters Local 560. In 1984, Ackerman ruled that the Union City local had been dominated by organized crime for a quarter century and placed it under a trustee's control, the first such action in the nation. Earlier this year, because of comments he had made in news reports in his typically outspoken fashion, ousted union officials sought to have Ackerman removed from the case. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused. At about the same time, the appellate court was considering another Ackerman matter. The judge had ordered a lawyer and his firm back into the Lucchese trial after a key defendant's attorney contracted cancer. The lawyer fought his appointment in appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost. Along the way, though, the 3rd Circuit mildly chided Ackerman for the ``leisurely pace'' of the trial. The judge then lengthened trial days and reduced delays. Ackerman attended Seton Hall University and Rutgers University, where he received his law degree in 1951. The former sportswriter served as a judge in the state Division of Workmen's Compensation and was a state judge in Union County before President Carter nominated him for U.S. District Court in 1980.
AP901015-0028 	X	Guy Hunt became Alabama's first Republican governor of this century in a 1986 landslide that his critics viewed as a fluke. In a bid for re-election, Hunt is locked in a close race against Democratic challenger Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the 67,000-member state teachers' union. Hunt is trying to put his name in the history books alongside George Wallace as the only Alabama governors elected to two straight terms. Hubbert is trying to become the first National Education Association member elected governor of a state, according to NEA records. Hubbert has tapped the state teachers' union's political war chest and its state-wide volunteer network. Several top aides to former governor Wallace also are working in the Hubbert campaign. Hunt has warned business interests that Hubbert is a pro-union candidate who would carry out a liberal agenda. Former President Reagan visited Alabama to attend a Hunt fundraiser and rally. Hubbert says the governor of Alabama is elected by the white, middle-class, working male and that by watching what pickup trucks carry ``as far as bumper stickers are concerned, you'll see what direction the race is going.'' But ``the guy in the pickup truck ... I think he's more of a Hunt voter than a Hubbert voter,'' says Margaret Latimer, a political science professor at Auburn University. Hunt, a north Alabama fruit farmer and a Primitive Baptist preacher, was Reagan's campaign chairman in Alabama in 1976 and 1980. He never went to college and sold Amway products while struggling with a six-figure debt left from a losing 1978 campaign for governor. A bitter Democratic primary four years ago alienated many traditional Democratic voters and propelled Hunt from GOP obscurity to victor. Like Wallace of the 1960s, Hunt bristles at criticism of the state. In June, he seethed at a national magazine article that depicted Alabama as chained to a political history preventing it from enjoying New South prosperity, tax reform and educational advancement. In contrast, Hubbert says Alabama must recognize it rivals many Third World countries in its pockets of poverty, infant mortality rates and dismal health care in backwater communities. Hubbert, also from rural Alabama, holds a doctorate in education. He became known as ``governor'' in the 1970s by building the biracial teachers' union into a major political force. Despite his ties to liberal and progressive wings in the Alabama Democratic Party, Hubbert has billed himself as fiscally conservative and tough on crime. The ethics of both candidates are a campaign issue. Democrats produced a check showing that Hunt's campaign organization paid a personal mortgage note held by Hunt and his wife. Hunt said the mortgage was tied to debts left over from his losing 1978 campaign. Hubbert said the Hunt camp pilfered a document from Hubbert's headquarters. The document says the Democratic nominee should focus on the question: ``Is Guy Hunt a crook?'' Hubbert is running a ``dirty tricks'' campaign, Hunt asserts. Hunt ran an attack ad showing Hubbert sitting in a car with his top associate, a black political organizer from the Alabama Education Association. The ad ``reminded me of the campaigns of the early'' Wallace years, said political science professor Latimer. Deliberately or not, she believes the Hunt ad ``will play racist.'' The governor's campaign press secretary says the ad is simply an attempt to point out Hubbert's base of support, the state teachers' union. Hubbert's campaign is his first race for statewide political office and it comes one year after he received the liver of a 15-year-old boy in a transplant operation. A Hunt supporter has injected the issue of Hubbert's health into the campaign. ``I've had doctors tell me that anybody who has a liver transplant can become very sick, very quickly,'' said former state attorney general Charlie Graddick. Hubbert, 54, is ``healthy as a horse,'' retorted Hubbert spokesman Michael Tucker. ``We're seeing an attack by a thoroughly discredited hatchet man.'' Graddick switched to the Republican Party after unsuccessfully seeking to become the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the bitterly contested 1986 primary.
AP900516-0249 	X	Ames Department Stores officials, struggling to revive the ailing discount retail chain, say a new $250 million loan agreement is the first step toward restoring confidence in the company. ``This is what it's going to take to start this company on the road to recovery,'' said Michael Cook, the lead attorney representing Ames in hearings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, where the credit was approved Tuesday. Ames also said it had cut the number of store closings planned immediately from 74 to 33, but said it still is reviewing its operations and could close more stores later. The nation's fourth-largest retailer filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on April 25 after many suppliers who had not been paid for earlier deliveries stopped shipping merchandise. The company also was unable to get a new credit agreement from its lenders to ease a cash flow crunch. Officials said the new $250 million line of credit will allow the company to pay vendors on time and keep merchandise coming into its 680 stores. ``I believe it was what we needed to hear to give the trade (vendors) the security to feel free to ship us the goods we need,'' said Ames President George Granoff. The agreement approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Howard C. Buschman III allows Ames to borrow up to $250 million from Chemical Bank. Buschman authorized the financing after a group of 33 banks withdrew its objection to the plan. In his order, the judge said Ames did not have sufficient working capital to finance its operations. ``Absent such availability, the debtors cannot supply their retail stores with the inventory they need in order to ensure adequate sales levels and continued customer loyalty,'' Buschman said. Stephen L. Pistner, Ames' new chief executive officer, confidently predicted the company would make a comeback with the new financing. ``If we want to save this company, it takes money and competent business. I know how to do the rest,'' Pistner said. Buschman postponed a final hearing on Pistner's appointment as CEO until May 24. Creditors had asked for more time to review terms of his contract, which could pay him up to $8 million in salary, bonuses and benefits over three years. A bank group headed by New York's Citibank withdrew its objection to the $250 million loan after reaching an agreement with Ames early Tuesday. Ronald DeKoven, an attorney for the banks, said the agreement allows the banks to split with the company $91 million in cash collateral Ames has in its account. He said the agreement also resolves a dispute between Ames and the bankers over outstanding letters of credit totaling $65 million. Ames owes the Citibank group about $450 million. The banks had objected to Ames' request to borrow the further $250 million because Chemical's loan would have a higher repayment priority than the Citibank group's debt. Antonio Alvarez, a principal in a New York consulting firm that helped Ames negotiate the loan with Chemical, told the judge that the company has been unable to convince vendors to ship goods. He said if the trend continued, the company could see sales drop 40 percent or more. The court earlier had approved $25 million in credit from Chemical Bank. Ames, which claims it has been losing more than $10 million a week, said it needed the additional $225 million to pay vendors and assure the company of merchandise for the critical back-to-school and Christmas sale seasons. ``The company has literally been bleeding to death,'' said Cook. An attorney representing a committee of Ames creditors said the group was satisfied with the new financing arrangement. ``Our committee did want this approved, because the company needs the money to keep operating,'' said the attorney, John M. Friedman Jr. ``I think this will be a big help in getting back to a sense of normalcy with the vendors.'' Also Tuesday, Ames said it lost $228 million, or $6.41 a share, in the year that ended Jan. 27. The loss, which the company predicted last month, compared with earnings of $42 million, or $1.07 a share, in 1989.
AP900115-0130 	X	Jesse Jackson, declaring that statehood for the District of Columbia was a ``mainstream'' issue, launched a new effort Monday to gain the district's admittance to the union. ``D.C. statehood is a mainstream issue,'' Jackson said. ``We need to go to work ... mobilizing people all over the country. We want democracy and not tyranny.'' Jackson said the campaign, which began on the national holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, ``would give substance to the dream'' that King espoused. Jackson, who moved to the district last year, was joined at the opening of the Rainbow Coalition's D.C. Statehood office by local and national politicans, local labor leaders and mayoral hopeful Sharon Pratt Dixon. The campaign will focus on persuading those who voted for Jackson in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries to rally behind the statehood effort, the two-time presidential hopeful said. Roughly 7 million voters backed Jackson in the primaries. The civil rights leader said he has already met with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Thomas S. Foley to push the statehood issue. He said statehood supporters will write to each member of Congress and senator by Feb. 1 to determine who supports the idea. The Republican and Democratic parties will also be asked to help, and Jackson expressed confidence that he will be able to meet with President Bush to discuss the statehood issue. ``Surely, if he can send our men and women to fight and die for democracy in Panama, he will not deny democracy where he lives,'' Jackson said. ``If Mr. Bush can stand for Puerto Rican statehood, surely he can stand for D.C. statehood, too.'' In his State of the Union address last January, Bush promised to have party officials explore the possibility of making Puerto Rico a state. Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown, a former Jackson aide and D.C. resident, noted that statehood for the nation's capital was a plank in the 1988 Democratic platform. ``We'll be behind it,'' said Brown. ``We will be putting our resources behind this _ mostly organizational help.'' Jackson has been rumored as a possible mayoral candidate, but has publicly said he would not oppose Mayor Marion Barry in the upcoming election. Barry indicated he may include funds for two ``shadow'' senators and a ``shadow'' representative in the budget he will send to the city council next month. Those elected to the largely ceremonial, non-voting positions would lobby for statehood in Congress. The district currently has one, non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.
AP900729-0064 	X	PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) _ Looters hauled away carloads of television sets and other appliances while vigilante squads guarded some homes Sunday during the chaos of an armed uprising by Moslem extremists. Fires broke out in several parts of the capital, Port-of-Spain, and a thick cloud of acrid smoke hung over the city. A government-imposed curfew took effect in mid-afternoon, and the streets were deserted _ except for looters. ``Everybody is trying to secure themselves because people don't know what's going to happen,'' said Trinidanian Ian Mckenzie, who was watching looters on the outskirts of Port-of-Spain. ``We don't want our country this way. We are a democratic country.'' In middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods, residents banded together to stave off attacks. Several homes in the Westmoorings suburb, about six miles northwest of the capital, were ransacked, and residents fenced off the area to keep intruders away. A witness said he said two men _ armed with 12-gauge shotguns and a .38-caliber revolver _ trying to shoot open a large safe by the side of a road. Widespread looting broke out along the Churchill-Roosevelt highway, the main artery between the airport and the capital. People pulled their cars up to warehouses and filled them with refrigerators, televisions and radios. Supermarkets, pharmacies, clothing, hardware and appliance stores were systematically stripped by convoys of vehicles. Looting also spread outside the capital to the villages of Barataria, San Juan, Mount Hope and El Socorro. Anglican Bishop Clive Abdullah broadcast an appeal over government-run radio for looters to stop. ``My heart goes out to those who are hungry and have to enter places to take foodstuffs. I can perhaps ask God's forgiveness for this,'' he said. ``But when you line up a convoy of vehicles to take away items like refrigerators, television sets and videos, that is not right.'' Army and police patrolled downtown Port-of-Spain around the Parliament building, known as Red House, where Prime Minister Arthur Robinson was being held hostage by black Moslem rebels. But in many parts of the city, no police were visible. Some people kept an eye out for police while friends looted stores. On Saturday, a witness in the Picadilly area of eastern Port-of-Spain said about 50 policemen fired shots into the air to stop the looters. But people ignored them and continued to plunder stores.
AP900709-0124 	X	The Environmental Protection Agency outlined hazardous waste cleanup procedures and standards on Monday that it said could cost private industry as much as $42 billion to carry out. EPA administrator William K. Reilly called the plan ``a pragmatic approach for correcting existing problems'' and said it will ensure ``to the extent practical'' prevention of releases that might threaten human health and the environment. The proposed standards and procedures, affecting a wide range of industries and federal facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, will be published later this month in the Federal Register. The public will have 60 days from publication date to comment on them. Public hearings have been scheduled in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. in October. EPA said the new regulations would affect 3,000 to 4,000 facilities, including several hundred owned by the federal government. The agency estimated it could cost privately owned facilities between $7 billion and $42 billion to meet the requirements. The price tag for federal facilities would total $3 billion to $18 billion, EPA said in a statement. ``The scope of the work that needs to be done under this program underscores the value of preventing, rather than having to clean up, pollution,'' Reilly said. The wide range of the cost estimates is due to markedly varied conditions from site to site involving uncertain levels of ground water monitoring and cleanup, the agency said. EPA said its plan allows corrective actions to be tailored to site-specific conditions and sets health-based standards for the cleanup of pollutants. The plan also contains requirements on how wastes must be stored, treated or disposed of during cleanups. Remedies would have to be consistent with those required under the agency's Superfund cleanup program. Industries affected would include petroleum refiners, wood preservers, metal finishers and auto manufacturers. Further information on the proposal can be obtained from EPA by calling 1-800-424-9346.
AP900212-0148 	X	Several unions went on strike Monday, including teachers and miners, and students marched into downtown Niamey to protest the killing of three students by police last week. President Ali Saibou's military Cabinet, continuing an emergency meeting begun over the weekend, praised ``the valor of the forces of law and order'' who opened fire Friday to disperse a rally of about 3,000 high school and university students. The government says police killed three people and wounded 33. Students put the death toll at 12. A government statement said the Cabinet ordered all secondary schools and Niamey University closed. Police did not interfere with Monday's march. The students also denounced the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and government for an unpopular austerity program that was a causes of Friday's demonstration. Saibou's government said in its statement the Cabinet ordered an investigation ``to unmask agitators and trouble-makers.'' It claimed students were being manipulated by ``traitors to the national cause pursuing personal ambitions.'' Striking teachers said they also were protesting the arrests of two colleagues detained on suspicion of encouraging student unrest. Leading politicians invited to the Cabinet meeting said the government had agreed to meet with student representatives. No date was given. In the past, the government has accused students of being greedy in demands for larger grants, better-equipped libraries and laboratories and guarantees of government jobs. The government has put a freeze on public jobs. Government officials say the demands are excessive in one of the world's poorest nations. The unrest is the worst in Niger since Saibou won a new seven-year term Dec. 10.
AP901120-0122 	X	Overweight children have greater long-term success controlling their weight if their parents provide early support for exercising and eating right, researchers said. Ten years after participating in a weight-loss program as 6- to 12-year-olds, children whose parents got similar weight-control training were significantly less obese than those whose parents received less training, according to a study published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. ``We think the important finding is in the modeling,'' said psychologist Leonard H. Epstein, head of the University of Pittsburgh's Childhood Obesity Clinic and leader of the research team. ``If you have children who you don't want to eat potato chips, you can't sit in front of them eating Ho-Hos.'' Epstein's group also concluded that pre-adolescent weight loss had no effect on height development, contrary to the findings of several shorter-term studies. Two other childhood obesity experts called Epstein's results surprisin because previous research has shown that fat children will grow into fat adults and that weight lost in treatment programs is quickly regained. Those experts said further study was needed on whether treatment of obesity in childhood can produce effects that persist into young adulthood. In Epstein's project, an initial group of 75 obese children and their parents were randomly assigned to three groups. Study criteria required the children be more than 20 percent over ideal weight for their age, height and sex; both parents living at home, one of whom had to be obese; and one parent willing to attend treatment meetings with their child. All subjects were to attend eight weekly treatment meetings followed by six monthly meetings, then by 21-month, five-year and 10-year meetings. All were instructed to follow a regimen that included a 1,200-to-1,500-calorie-per-day diet and an aerobic exercise program. In the first group, both parents and children received reinforcement for losing weight and were trained to praise other family members for changing eating and exercise habits. In the second group, only the children received reinforcement for losing weight but were similarly trained to praise family members for weight-control behaviors. Parents and children in the third group received reinforcement only for attending the meetings. They received information about social reinforcement without specific training in how to use the method. All subjects lost weight initially. At the 10-year mark, the children in the first group were, on average, 7.5 percent less overweight than at the beginning of the study while those in the second and third groups were 4.5 percent and 14.3 percent fatter, respectively. Parents in all three groups were more obese after 10 years than at the start of the study. In a journal editorial, Dr. Albert J. Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania medical school and Dr. Robert I. Berkowitz of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic cautioned that the ``treatment did not prevent obesity, it limited it.'' They called Epstein's results surprising, perhaps because of his relatively small study sample: intact, middle-class families in which the parents were likely to be very supportive of their children's efforts. They said replication of Epstein's study ``is clearly needed'' before the findings can be embraced.
AP900727-0213 	X	Stock prices fell today, pressured by new evidence of sluggish business conditions. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 23.02 to 2,897.77 by 2 p.m. on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 2 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 472 up, 941 down and 518 unchanged. The Commerce Department reported that the gross national product grew at a 1.2 percent annual rate, after adjustment for inflation, in the second quarter of the year. The figure came in below most advance estimates. In addition, analysts noted that a significant amount of the increase stemmed from inventory expansion, a negative portent for production. Open-market interest rates declined in response to the news. For stock traders, however, the data seemed primarily to emphasize recent worries about the outlook for corporate profits. Many big-name stocks have run into selling of late on earnings reports that didn't live up to expectations. Walt Disney, for instance, dropped 4[ to 116~ after posting a 23.3 percent quarterly earnings gain that evidently disappointed some traders. Elsewhere, energy stocks were mostly higher on reports that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had agreed on a new oil production ceiling and reference price of $21 a barrel for the rest of the year. Exxon rose { to 49]; Atlantic Richfield { to 124|; Amoco | to 54, and Texaco { to 62\. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 1.46 to 193.09. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down .79 at 355.54. Volume on the Big Board came to 105.17 million shares with two hours to go.
AP881111-0194 	X	Members of the ruling Politburo flew to the restive Baltic republics Friday, and one warned residents against pushing too hard for economic and cultural autonomy from Moscow, local journalists reported. Dissatisfaction in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania has been fueled by political reforms proposed by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Baltic residents say the changes will void their constitutional right to secede and give Moscow control over their economy and other aspects of life. The Politburo, the Communist Party's supreme body, promised Thursday to hold a discussion on expanding the rights of the 15 constituent Soviet republics. But the dispatching of three of its members to the Baltic region indicated the Kremlin wants to draw the line now on what sort of political changes can be contemplated. The 1,500-member Supreme Soviet parliament is to meet in special session in Moscow on Nov. 29 to approve Gorbachev's blueprint for political change, which also increases the powers of the presidential post and creates a new national legislature. Viktor M. Chebrikov, the former KGB chief who now heads a party Central Committee commission on legal and judicial reform, opposed demands for local economic independence in comments to workers at a plastics factory in Tallinn, Estonia, according to Tarmu Tammerk, an Estonian journalist. ``He said very strong words against economic independence. He said the whole of the Soviet economy is so tightly linked that one cannot speak of independence for one of its parts,'' Tammerk, who works for the newspaper Homeland, said in a telephone interview. Chebrikov's remarks were broadcast on state-run Estonian radio in an attempt to give them the widest possible exposure. ``His words sounded like a grim warning to people here,'' Tammerk said. ``Economic Independence'' has been the watchword of a widespread movement in Estonia called the Popular Front, which seeks greater control by Estonians over the affairs of their Switzerland-sized republic. Estonians say the fruits of their labor are siphoned off by Moscow to subsidize poorer regions of the country, including the giant Russian federation, the largest Soviet republic. Two of Chebrikov's colleagues on the Politburo traveled to the other Baltic states, ideology chief Vadim M. Medvedev to Latvia and Nikolai N. Slyunkov, who is in charge of formulating the party's social and economic policy, to Lithuania. Their arrivals were reported by state-run media in the Baltic republics, journalists there said. Later, the evening television news program Vremya broadcast brief reports on the visits. Tass, the official news agency, said Medvedev outlined limits to political activity in meetings with workers at two factories in Riga, the Latvian capital. Tass said Latvians agreed with Medvedev on the need ``to subordinate group ambitions to the interests of society as a whole in the conditions of perestroika.'' However, during his visit to the Norma factory in Tallinn, Chebrikov heard Estonians object to elements of Gorbachev's political reform plan, Vremya said. The westward-looking Baltic republics, independent states until the Soviet Union absorbed them in 1940, have become a proving ground for bold economic reforms that are part of Gorbachev's drive for ``perestroika'' or restructuring. Granting a greater degree of autonomy to the small republics on the Soviet Union's western edge is fraught with political risks, since many residents resent Moscow's control and some openly say their ultimate desire is complete independence. The Estonian Popular Front and a similar organization in Latvia have condemned Gorbachev's political reform plan, which is embodied in proposed amendments to the 1977 Constitution. The Lithuanian Restructuring Movement is to meet Sunday in Vilnius, the republic's capital, to consider the issue. Members of the three popular fronts are now gathering signatures on petitions asking that the amendments be dropped and rewritten, Algimontas Vaishnoras of the Lithuanian group said in a telephone interview. The Estonian Supreme Soviet, or parliament, has scheduled a meeting on the political reform issue for Wednesday, and Lithuania's legislature will meet the next day. The 12-man Politburo, in a report on its Thursday night meeting, said authorities will consider changing the draft constitutional changes in response to more than 80,000 suggestions and comments from citizens and organizations. Friday night the Central Committee announced it would hold a special plenary meeting in mid-1989 to review policies dealing with the country's more than 100 ethnic groups. ``The task of perfecting relations among nationalities is acquiring special importance and urgency,'' a Central Committee statement said according to Tass.
AP900101-0035 	X	The 28 crew members of a 600-foot Greek freighter that sank in the Pacific Ocean should arrive Wednesday aboard a Coast Guard cutter, authorities said. The Vulca went down Sunday morning, 800 miles northeast of Hawaii after efforts to pump water from its two forward holds failed, the Coast Guard said. The ship was carrying scrap metal from Los Angeles to South Korea when it began taking water Thursday. The Philippine crew members and Greek officers fled unharmed to the cutter Sassafras on Saturday evening. The cause of the original flooding was not determined, and there was no estimate on the value of the ship and its cargo, officials said.
AP900919-0123 	X	Nine months after a Yugoslav freighter ran aground and destroyed a 500-foot swath of live coral off Key West, the state and the ship's owner and captain have reached a tentative $3.3 million settlement. Tuesday's agreement, which must still be approved by Gov. Bob Martinez and the Cabinet, came just one day before a lawsuit filed over the grounding would have gone to trial in Key West. ``We think it's a very, very good settlement,'' John Costigan, chief of environmental litigation in Attorney General Bob Butterworth's office. Allen Von Spiegelfeld, a Tampa attorney who represented the freighter Mavro Vetranic, owner Atlantska Plovidba and captain Zdravko Berana, said his clients agreed to the proposed settlement late Monday by telephone from Yugoslavia. The ?3.3 million will go to the state's coral reef restoration fund, which finances research and other activity to preserve and revitalize the reefs. The Florida barrier reef, a tract of about 6,000 coral reefs extending from Miami along the Keys to the Dry Tortugas archipelago west of Key West, is the third-longest barrier reef in the world. It's home to 52 coral species and 10 times as many fish. It can take 100 years for a coral to grow one yard. The grounding last Oct. 30 was the second of three such incidents in less than three weeks in the Florida Keys. The federal government filed a $9 million lawsuit alleging that the Mavro Vetranic was unseaworthy and its crew incompetent when it ran aground. But government attorneys later conceded that the reef was in state territory and stepped aside to let the state handle the suit, Costigan said.
AP900226-0216 	X	Lockheed Corp., the nation's eighth largest defense contractor, reached a tentative labor agreement with the union representing about 20,000 workers for the aerospace firm. The tentative contract reached early Sunday still must be ratified by rank and file members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. A nationwide vote was scheduled for March 4. ``We feel it's the best contract that we can negotiate at this time, especially with government audits,'' union negotiator Bob Gregory said Sunday, referring to government monitoring of Lockheed's hourly compensation costs. Tom Goff, spokesman for the Calabasas-based Lockheed, confirmed that the two sides had reached a tentative agreement. A week earlier, union members rejected management's latest offer by a 98 percent margin. The union said Lockheed's earlier offer was inadequate and set up a two-tier wage structure. As part of the tentative agreement, both sides declined to disclose terms of the contract until the rank-and-file votes. The union workers have been operating under an extension of the previous three-year contract that expired last October. The present contract offer will be retroactive to October and runs through March 1, 1993, Gregory said. The union's Local District 727 represents 6,000 workers in Burbank and Palmdale. The contract also covers workers at Lockheed plants in Sunnyvale and Marietta, Ga. Contract talks had resumed Thursday in Florida and concluded early Sunday. Asked about changes in the contract offer's pension plan, Gregory said that it establishes an employee stock ownership plan for union members. Lockheed set up an employee stock-ownership plan for salaried employees last April. The plan, designed to strengthen the company against take-over attempts, gave salaried workers control of 17 percent of the company.
AP880213-0133 	X	Mozambique rebels said Saturday they attacked and occupied army barracks 15 miles from the South African border and killed an undisclosed number of soldiers. The Mozambique National Resistance said it attacked the barracks in Moamba on Tuesday and ``destroyed three battalions of the 2nd brigade'' of the Mozambique army. Moamba is about 30 miles northwest of the capital, Maputo. A rebel statement distributed in Lisbon said the survivors of the attack fled toward South Africa. The statement also denied any responsibility for reported massacres of civilians over the past 15 days. The rebels, also known as RENAMO, have been fighting since 1977 to topple Mozambique's Marxist government.
AP901102-0176 	X	Hyosuke Niwa, a former Japanese labor minister, died Friday of heart failure caused by excessive bleeding at age 72, nearly two weeks after he was stabbed by a mental patient at a military ceremony. Niwa, a 12-term member of the governing Liberal Democratic Party in Parliament, was labor minister from December 1988 to June 1989 in the Cabinet of former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. Niwa was attacked Oct. 21 while walking to a military ceremony at the Moriyama military base in Nagoya, 170 miles west of Tokyo. He was stabbed with a knife by a 47-year-old mental patient.
AP901029-0147 	X	A 17-year-old high school student held a classmate hostage at gunpoint Monday after taking over a classroom and then freeing his teacher and five other students, officials said. The student, Eli Dean, made no demands and fired no shots. Negotiators were communicating with him over the school's intercom system, said state police Sgt. Marvin Jenkins. ``The important thing is we don't want anybody injured and we don't think he does either,'' Jenkins said. The rest of the 643-student school was evacuated onto the school football field. Hostage negotiators were at the school, and two state police chaplains were flown in. Members of Dean's family also were present, including his father, Robin, a civilian employee of the state police. Jenkins said snipers were positioned around the school, but that officials were keepings their options open. ``We're not making a move ... We're not in any great rush to do things,'' he said. The student, a senior, had been suspended from school twice during the past two weeks. He returned to the school late Monday morning with a handgun, officials said. Dean let his teacher leave first, and then later let most of the students go. The youth's stepfather, Rocky Williams of Charlestown, said he believed Dean had taken his .44-calibre pistol to the school. State police said they did not know what type of weapon the boy had. Williams said his stepson was suspended about two weeks ago after he accidentally set off a fire alarm. He was suspended again last week for breaking a window, Williams said. ``He was falling behind in his school work and was upset,'' his stepfather said. Police refused to speculate on Dean's motives. ``Maybe the fact that he's 17 years old is as much reason as anything,'' Jenkins said.
AP880630-0277 	X	BLACK SINGLES 1.``Paradise'' Sade (Epic) 2.``I'm Real'' James Brown (Scotti Bros.) 3.``Roses are Red'' The Mac Band featuring the McCampbell Bros. (MCA) 4.``The Right Stuff'' Vanessa Williams (Wing) 5.``I'll Prove It to You'' Gregory Abbott (Columbia) 6.``Joy'' Teddy Pendergrass (Elektra) 7.``If It Isn't Love'' New Edition (MCA) 8.``Don't Be Cruel'' Bobby Brown (MCA) 9.``Keep Risin' to the Top'' Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew (Reality) 10.``Sign Your Name'' Terence Tent D'Arby (Columbia) 11.``Shoot `Em Up Movies'' The Deele (Solar) 12.``I Can't Complain'' Melba Moore & Freddie Jackson (Capitol) 13.``Let Me Take You Down'' Stacy Lattisaw (Motown) 14.``Off On Your Own'' Al B. Sure! (Warner Bros.) 15.``Alphabet St.'' Prince (Paisley Park) 16.``Mamacita'' Troop (Atlantic) 17.``Knocked Out'' Paula Aboul (Virgin) 18.``Groove Me'' Guy (Uptown) 19.``Parents Just Don't Understand'' D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (Jive) 20.``Symptoms of True Love'' Tracie Spencer (Capitol)
AP881104-0262 	X	In some ways, imprisoned Vietnam vets do differ from other inmates _ they tend to be more cooperative, more reclusive, less involved with gangs, said Wilson, the Cleveland State professor. While some are hardened convicts, he said, others have no criminal mentality but their post-war lives have unraveled. Wilson said there's a direct link between post traumatic stress and drunken driving, disorderly conduct, assault and weapons charges. Reibel, who was found guilty but mentally ill of child torture, said his anger simmered for years. Records show he had a history of assaulting his son before his arrest. ``I thought about (Vietnam) everyday for 10 years and was afraid to say anything,'' he said. Some also say the public's intense anti-war feelings made their return all the more traumatic. ``Everybody that came back from World War II was a war hero,'' Armstrong said. ``When I come home, (I thought) `Man, I'm a war hero.' (But) you're one of the four horsemen. You're death riding on a horse.'' Most Vietnam vets readjusted well, but Armstrong and others got into bar fights, drank heavily, drove recklessly. Some called it their death wish. Others say Vietnam destroyed their priorities. ``Things that were important before I left weren't important anymore _ friends, family, success,'' said George Fisher, who robbed a shoe store to support a drug habit he picked up in Vietnam. The notion of right and wrong blurred, too. ``When you grow up and they teach you ... don't hit a girl ... when you get over there ... what if this little 16-year-old kid happens to be a girl and firing that Mauser at you?'' asked inmate Ken Everhart, convicted of criminal sexual conduct against his wife, from whom he was separated. ``People look and say, you're ... sick, pathetic,'' said Everhart, who's been married five times. ``I say, you beat me down. You've got me down. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm 41 ... years old. I've been fighting Vietnam for 21 years now. Vietnam destroyed my value system.''
AP880321-0214 	X	Authorities are investigating whether a former federal prosecutor manufactured threats against herself and a magistrate during the extradition case of two Sikhs accused of terrorism in India, the U.S. attorney said Monday. A search of former prosecutor Judy Russell's house revealed similar threatening messages in a travel bag, said U.S. Attorney Samuel A. Alito Jr. An FBI laboratory analysis concluded that typewritten characters on envelopes containing the threats matched those on the prosecutor's 1983 application to the U.S. attorney's office, Alito said. The typewriter matching the print also was found in her house, he said. Ms. Russell was in charge of handling the Sikhs' case as an assistant U.S. attorney until leaving the office last summer to enter private practice. She received a temporary appointment as a special assistant after that, so she could continue to handle the case. She had submitted sealed information to U.S. Magistrate Ronald J. Hedges during the weeklong hearing about the extradition in February. Alito revealed Monday that they consisted of three typewritten envelopes containing the messages and one handwritten envelope, all purportedly mailed to her Newark law office. One of the letters addressed to Ms. Russell said: ``Don't get dead. Don't go to court.'' Hedges also received a threatening letter, two weeks before the extradition hearing, Alito said. The revelations that Ms. Russell was under investigation came during a court session requested by Alito to ``correct and supplement'' the record regarding the threats. Robert J. Fettweis, Ms. Russell's attorney and former colleague in the U.S. attorney's office, said she was in a private hospital. He would not comment on any aspect of the case or the nature of her illness. Alito said Ms. Russell had not been charged. The Justice Department's Department of Public Integrity was handling the investigation, he said. The extradition hearings took place Feb. 1-5 under extraordinary security, including sharpshooters on rooftops, which federal officials said was prompted by ``intelligence'' received by investigators. Hedges ordered that the men, Ranjit Singh Gill, 25, and Sukhminder Singh, 26, could be extradited. That ruling was being appealed. Alito said the revelation about Ms. Russell's alleged involvement in the threats had no affect on the outcome of the extradition case, but said he would seek a new hearing ``only because we want to avoid any appearance of impropriety.'' The Indian government charges that Singh plotted the revenge assassination of a retired general who led the bloody 1984 assault against Sikh militants occupying the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Gill was charged in the killing of a Parliament member. Singh's attorney, Ronald Kuby, called the affair ``clearly the most astounding thing I've heard.'' He has accused the Indian government of being behind the ``threats'' to poison the atmosphere against the two Sikhs.
AP881106-0062 	X	Television watchers of the 19th annual New York City Marathon followed the step-by-step progress Sunday of the leaders, but many spectators on the course scanned the thousands of runners for a familar face. The winner in the field of 23,478 _ largest ever for a marathon _ was Steve Jones of Wales, who finished in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 20 seconds, only seven seconds off the course record. Grete Waitz of Norway won the women's division for a record ninth time in 2:28:07. Marybeth Torpe was hoping another runner would run fast _ her boyfriend Tony Giannelli. She and several others had staked out the corner table at a restaurant on First Avenue to get a good view of the runners as they romped off the Queensboro Bridge. Their hopes on seeing Giannelli depended on how fast the Yonkers native ran. ``We have to leave this table by 12:30. The manager's kicking us out,'' said one of Giannelli's friends, Pete Koogan. Torpe was eager for Giannelli to finish, too. ``I'm going to ask him to marry me today,'' she said, holding up the rose she planned to give him. Crowds cheered for the those in the lead packs and the also-rans on the warm, sunny autumn day. Lynne Avery, a sophomore at Morristown (N.J.) High School, waited on First Avenue near 60th Street hoping to catch a glimpse of her English teacher, Robert Paciorkowski. But she was not taking any chances on missing him. ``Mr. Paciorkowski told us if he saw a television camera, he'd wave to us,'' Avery said _ as she held a small portable television in her hand. All along the marathon route, volunteers handed drinks to runners, but Rick Fairlamb of Glen Rock, N.J., had prepared a special elixir of carrot juice. He handed them out to the 50 or so runners in the ``Natural Living'' running club who passed his table at 61st Street and First Avenue. ``Last night I went into Brooklyn and got 500 pounds of carrots from a food co-op. We juiced them starting at 5 this morning,'' he said. In Central Park, Richard Borrego stood on the railing with a bullhorn, waiting for his favorites in the race to pass. He didn't have any trouble finding them. ``I'm cheering for Grete and Steve Jones,'' Mr. Borrego said, referring to the winners. ``They're both so courteous, full of good sportsmanship. They always help other runners. They never knock other runners,'' Borrego said. ``And that's the way it should be.'' In Washington, D.C., more than 13,000 people from 23 countries and 49 states ran the Marine Corps Marathon, which offers no prize money and prides itself on being the ``people's race.'' Jim Hage, a lawyer from Lanham, Md., who had never won a major marathon, pulled away from two-time champion Brad Ingram in the last half mile to win in 2:21:58.
AP880815-0057 	X	A 9-year-old boy and his aunt drowned in the Lehigh River as family members watched in horror after the two were swept away while wading across a shallow area below a dam, authorities say. Emisilda Santana, 41, and her nephew Lizandro Santiago were pronounced dead of accidental drowning Sunday despite efforts by rescuers who pulled the victims from the water and administered emergency aid on the shore. The woman's husband, Jose Santiago, and the boy's mother, Maria Pacheco, both of Allentown, were comforted by friends at the scene. The victims were among a group of six who were walking through the rapids ``when the water came and took us,'' said Esperanca Santiago, 10, a cousin of Santiago and Mrs. Santana's niece. Esperanca's brother, sister and another cousin also were in the group, she said, but all survivors escaped injuries. One child was hanging piggy-back on Mrs. Santana as the group struggled to shore, Esperanca said. She said Lizandro could not swim and had to be pulled from a public swimming pool earlier this year. Robert Dougher, 41, of Bethlehem, a Conrail policeman, said he was nearby when children came running from the wooded bank crying for help. He ran down to the river and saw Mrs. Santiago floating face down near the shore. Dougher said he pulled her ashore and gave her mouth-to-mouth and cardiopulmonary resuscitation but ``I couldn't get any vitals.'' Other rescuers arrived and tried to resuscitate the woman while two police officers tied to ropes searched for the boy in the 5-to-6-foot deep water. Two fishermen in a boat downstream found the boy in about 6 to 8 feet of water. The victims were taken to two different hospitals, where they were pronounced dead.
AP880320-0089 	X	Sen. Bob Dole, kicking off a Wisconsin campaign swing Sunday, flipped two coins into a wishing well, thinking perhaps of a badly needed win in Wisconsin's April 5 primary. As he strolled around a sports exposition at the city's convention center, Dole was asked by reporters about a Milwaukee Journal poll suggesting Vice President George Bush led him by a margin of nearly 3-1 among Wisconsin voters considered likely to vote in the Republican primary. ``There are no secrets,'' he said. ``I've got a lot of hill to climb before April 5,'' he said later in an interview. ``I met a lot of friendly people out there. It's tough when you're losing. It's a lot more fun when you're winning,'' he said. ``But I still have a lot of supporters out there. And we want them to know Bob Dole is a fighter, that we're going to stay in this race.'' The Kansas senator said, however, that he would have to reassess his standing if he lost in Wisconsin. ``We shouldn't be into this game about are you going to run or are you going to drop out,'' he said. But he added that after Wisconsin, he would have to do some thinking about whether to stay in the race. ``We've been hearing the end is near, but people forget George Bush stayed in eight weeks after he began losing to Ronald Reagan,'' Dole said. ``Eight weeks was enough for him to lose. But I think eight weeks would be enough time for me to turn some things around.'' At the sports exposition, he was presented with a fishing rod and fisermen's vest, and viewed a tank that served as an artifical fishing pond containing trout. A demonstrator cast a few lines but came up empty. Dole was also visiting a Veterans Administration hospital on Sunday. On Monday, he was attending a farm day in northwestern Wisconsin, visiting a vocational school in Eau Claire and touring a brewery in La Crosse. Dole's state campaign chairman Michael Grebe said he expected the senator's visit to be ``the kickoff to a strong effort in Wisconsin.'' ``We expect to have a direct mail effort, radio and television advertising and continuing volunteer effort and volunteer phone banks,'' Grebe said. Dole was trounced by Bush on Super Tuesday, and lost again last week in Illinois. He has indicated he intends to remain in the race at least through the Wisconsin primary. The Milwaukee Journal poll of 732 Wisconsin residents showed 69 percent of those planning to vote Republican preferred Bush, 25 percent chose Dole and 6 percent chose Pat Robertson.
AP880527-0262 	X	An Ohio prison inmate who took two guards hostage at gunpoint and fled in a rented Cadillac with his wife and 9-year-old stepdaughter was captured Friday, crossing from Mexico into El Paso, Texas. Michael Day, 31, of Athens, who escaped Sunday from the Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe, was arrested without incident about 6:30 p.m. EDT as he crossed the Santa Fe-Juarez bridge, officials at the prison said. His wife, Sylvia Carraveo Day, had been arrested about 2 p.m. as she crossed the same bridge, and Mrs. Day's daughter was also in custody, the FBI's El Paso office said. Day and his wife were in the El Paso city jail Friday night and will be arraigned Tuesday before a U.S. magistrate, authorities said. The FBI, El Paso police and authorities from Ohio and Indiana took part in the arrest. Day, serving an 18- to 25-year sentence for burglary and othger felonies, escaped with a pistol officials said was sent to him in a television set. Karen Albert, 29, of Athens was arrested and charged Monday with sending the gun. Day took his two hostages in a prison jeep to a Holiday Inn here, where his wife and stepdaughter waited with a getaway car. He handcuffed one guard to the jeep and the other to a towel bar in a room registered to his wife. A blue Cadillac that Mrs. Day rented Sunday night at the Columbus Airport Sunday night was found Friday morning near the international bridge, Ross Correctional spokeswoman Sandy Price said. Authorities staked out the area near the car and waited for the Days to return, Ms. Price said. She said authorities believe Mrs. Day has relatives in Texas and possibly in Mexico. Ms. Price said the stepdaughter would be released to Mrs. Day's parents. Day was convicted of attempted abduction, burglary, receiving stolen property and carrying a concealed weapon after a felony conviction, Ms. Price said. He had been at the Ross prison since June 1987 and had served at the Chillicothe Correctional Institute and Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield since April 1985, and married while he was in prison.
AP880616-0222 	X	BLACK SINGLES 1.``Joy'' Teddy Pendergrass (Elektra) 2.``One More Try'' George Michael (Columbia) 3.``Alphabet St.'' Prince (Paisley Park) 4.``Paradise'' Sade (Epic) 5.``I'm Real'' James Brown (Scotti Bros.) 6.``Little Walter'' Tony! Toni! Tone! (Wing) 7.``Keep Risin' to the Top'' Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew (Reality) 8.``Dirty Diana'' Michael Jackson (Epic) 9.``I'll Prove It to You'' Gregory Abbott (Columbia) 10.``Parents Just Don't Understand'' D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (Jive) 11.``Most of All'' Jody Watley (MCA) 12.``Just Got Paid'' Johnny Kemp (Columbia) 13.``Run's House'' Run-D.M.C. (Profile) 14.``Roses are Red'' The Mac Band featuring the McCampbell Bros. (MCA) 15.``Everything Your Heart Desires'' Daryl Hall & John Oates (Arista) 16.``The Right Stuff'' Vanessa Williams (Wing) 17.``Shoot `Em Up Movies'' The Deele (Solar) 18.``Should I Say Yes'' Nu Shooz (Atlantic) 19.``Let Me Take You Down'' Stacy Lattisaw (Motown) 20.``I Can't Complain'' Melba Moore & Freddie Jackson (Capitol)
AP880801-0158 	X	President Reagan heard arguments Monday for and against U.S. participation in a treaty aimed at freezing emissions of an important precursor of acid rain. The pollutant in question, oxides of nitrogen, accounts for about one-third of the acidity in rainfall in the eastern United States and Canada. The Cabinet's Domestic Policy Council, with Reagan presiding, was briefed on a proposal coming from a United Nations-sponsored negotiation that would freeze emissions until 1996, pending further research on the effects of nitrogen oxides and how to reduce them. Reagan made no decision, but participants expect one soon. Oxides of nitrogen are formed in the combustion of fossil fuels in industry, utilities and motor vehicles. In the air they may be transformed into nitric acid. In urban areas they are an essential raw material for making smog. U.S. emissions have been roughly steady since 1980 and according to EPA projections should remain that way until about 1995, when slow increases should start. The 21.3 million tons emitted in 1986, the most recent year available, were 8.5 percent below the peak year of 1978. According to two participants in discussions over the issue, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, the Environmental Protection Agency supports joining the treaty while the Energy Department, supported by the Interior and Commerce departments and the Office of Management and Budget, opposes it. EPA spokesmen declined to discuss their agency's participation in the meeting. The telephone of an Energy Department official to whom questions were referred did not answer. The United States in 1985 declined to join a similar international agreement calling for a 30 percent reduction in emissions of the other major precursor of acid rain, sulfur dioxide.
AP901009-0217 	X	Diplomats from Eastern Europe used to have a hard time getting inside the heavily guarded NATO complex. Now they are given up-to-the-minute briefings on the Persian Gulf crisis. ``A year ago, just walking around NATO headquarters . . . would have been either illegal or certainly incredible,'' said Tibor Kiss, the Hungarian charge d'affaires in Brussels. He is among diplomats from Eastern European countries that accepted an invitation from North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders to a ``regular diplomatic liaison'' with the Western alliance. At their July summit in London, President Bush and the other NATO leaders said the West wanted to share ``our thinking and deliberations in this historic period of change.'' They made the offer to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, all members of the Warsaw Pact, the crumbling Eastern military alliance. The seventh Warsaw Pact member was East Germany, now part of united Germany, which belongs to NATO. The Soviet Union and Hungary were the first to accept, telling NATO their ambassadors to Belgium would represent them, and the others followed. Diplomats from the six countries have had about half a dozen briefings at NATO, mostly on the gulf crisis. A senior NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the briefings illustrated ``the new post-Cold War era that we're in. . . . We are no longer adversaries.'' Henning Wegener, assistant secretary-general of NATO for political affairs, gave the diplomats information on two meetings in August and September of foreign ministers of the Western alliance's 16 member nations. Separate sessions have been held with American officials, including the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and Condolezza Rice, a Soviet specialist at the National Security Council in Washington. No NATO secrets were divulged, said those attending the discussions. ``I would not say these briefings are more informative than the press conferences,'' one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. Others described them as helpful, especially the ones given soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Kiss said Hungary ``certainly took into account whatever was said by the West'' in determi ning its position on the invasion. NATO is wrestling with the question of how far it should go in contacts with the ambassadors, known in NATO-speak as interlocutors. William H. Taft IV, U.S. representative to the alliance, would like to see the links expanded. ``I would hope . . . that we would at the least go well beyond the idea of simply keeping these new friends advised of major developments when they occur,'' he said in a recent speech. ``The point of liaison is surely something more - indeed, to keep in touch before major steps are taken and to benefit from consultation . . . before decisions are taken.'' Some European countries, notably France, are more cautious. One NATO diplomat, who would not let his name be used, said the invitation was a symbolic gesture ``intended to end the kind of distrust the six countries had concerning NATO. It was important to tell them our door was open.'' Making the contacts more formal, by opening a new NATO office for the purpose or granting the diplomats observer status at meetings, would change ``the real objective of this measure,'' he said. ``We have to have first a real debate in the organization about what we want to do,'' the NATO diplomat said in an interview. Andrei Keline, first secretary at the Soviet Embassy, doubts he ever will observe high-level NATO meetings. ``This is an alliance,'' he said. ``We are not part of it.'' Still, Keline said Moscow feels the links offer potential for military, scientific and economic cooperation. ``NATO is an important organization,'' he said. ``What we want (is contacts that are) business-like. They should be deep, and they should give as much as possible for both sides.'' Hungary, which plans to leave the Warsaw Pact's military arm next year, wants to deal with NATO on its own, not in a group with the other pact members. Could the initial contacts eventually lead to one or more of the Warsaw Pact countries applying for membership in the Western alliance? ``NATO isn't seized with that question because nobody has asked,'' the senior NATO official said. Keline commented: ``I wouldn't bury the (Warsaw Pact) right now.''
AP900621-0195 	X	The House on Thursday rejected a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from desecration, heeding opponents who said it would risk damage to the Bill of Rights. The 254-177 tally left the amendment, which was supported by President Bush, 34 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution. Republicans voted 159-17 for it, Democrats 160-95 against. The vote followed a sometimes impassioned day of debate featuring more than 100 speeches, including a rare address by the speaker of the House, Rep. Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash. ``We should not amend the Constitution of the United States to reach the sparse and scattered and despicable conduct of a few who would dishonor the flag and defile it,'' said Foley, who also cast a rare speaker's vote to register his opposition to the amendment. By tradition, the speaker does not normally engage in debate or vote. Countered Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.: ``Let us take the flag out of the gutter where the counterculture has dragged it and is smearing it. We have 10 amendments that guarantee us all sorts of rights. How about one amendment that gives us a duty?'' Foley told reporters that Thursday's vote would be the last one on the amendment this year in the House, but Republicans promised to keep the issue alive. ``I am confident this debate is going to go on for a long time,'' Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., told the chamber. Asked about the Bush's efforts on behalf of the amendment, Gingrich said ``it was very hard for the president in two days to override the speaker.'' Supporters of the amendment, backed by veterans' groups seeking more time to lobby, had tried to delay Thursday's vote until next week but were defeated 231-192. Rep. Rep. G.V. Montgomery, D-Miss., the chairman of the House Veterans Committee and the amendment's prime Democratic sponsor, said of the proposal, ``I think we owe it to the brave Americans who have died for this country.'' But Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., decried the attempt to modify the First Amendment. ``When I look around the politicians today, I see more people who remind me of Daffy Duck than Thomas Jefferson,'' he said. The strength of the opposition was larger than expected and was aided by the unexpected support of some conservatives. ``Up until 24 hours ago, I was a sponsor of this amendment,'' said Rep. Tim Valentine, D-N.C. ``But over the rhetoric of the past few days, I finally heard the voice of my own conscience.'' The amendment read, ``The Congress and the states shall have power to prohibit physical desecration of the flag of the United States.'' It was first proposed in 1989 after the Supreme Court ruled that flag burning was a form of protected free speech. The issue was revived last week when the court rejected last year's attempt to pass an anti-flag-burning law that the court could accept. After the vote on the amendment, the House also rejected a new statute _ not a constitutional amendment _ to ban flag burning. The bill, narrowly drawn in hopes of avoiding court rejection, would impose fines and jail terms for people who burn flags to promote violence or who burn flags on federal property or belonging to the federal government. Republicans voted overwhelmingly against it after their leadership called it a ``fig leaf'' to protect Democrats who opposed the constitutional amendment, and it lost 236-179. The Senate is expected to vote next week on the amendment, which would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers, and approval by 38 of the 50 states, for ratification. Foley said the House would not vote again this year. Regardless of the outcome on Capitol Hill, Republicans promise to raise the issue in this fall's campaign. The House majority leader, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., acknowledged the political tightrope members were walking. Several members decorated their speeches with flags and other props. Rep. Gary Ackerman, trying to highlight the difficulty of enforcing legislation to protect the flag, held aloft a wide variety of household items and gags decorated with the stars and stripes. ``How about American flag napkins,'' he said, holding one. ``What if you blow your nose in one. Have you broken the law?'' Although Ackerman said he was not trying to trivialize the debate, Rep. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said he was offended. Most Republican speakers supported the amendment; the bulk of opposition came from Democrats. There also was a noticeable generational tilt in the debate. House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill., a decorated World War II veteran, co-sponsored the amendment and called it ``a measured, prudent, limited thoughtful approach to the problem.'' ``Surely this is something different from the `assault on the Bill of Rights' some critics say it is,'' he said. Rep. James H. Quillen, R-Tenn., another World War II vet, used photographs of the famed Iwo Jima flag raising and of a flag-burning protest in New York's Central Park to dramatize his support for the amendment. But Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., a Vietnam veteran who said he would ``never forget the sacrifices that have been made so that our flag can fly proudly and freely,'' was a leader of the opposition. ``In 200 years of our history, these basic freedoms have never been amended, never. And if we start now, who knows what freedoms will be next? ... Where will it end?'' he asked.
AP900607-0048 	X	Explorers bored a 250-foot shaft through the Greenland icecap to a B-17 bomber buried since World War II, said a sponsor who was awaiting word today of their findings. ``They're going to try to enlarge the hole to get into a hatch,'' Pat Epps, president of the Greenland Expedition Society, said Wednesday. One plan was to use hot water from the thermal borer that cut through the Arctic ice to enlarge the bottom of the shaft. If that doesn't work, ``somebody has to go down there with electric chain saws and carve around the airplane,'' Epps said. Epps, who had been on the icecap with the expedition until last week, heard by radio from Greenland on Wednesday morning that the expedition succeeded in reaching the plane. The bomber is one of two B-17s and six twin-engine, P-38 Lightning fighters that crash-landed when they ran out of fuel after being decoyed by false radio transmissions from German submarines while en route to Europe in 1942. Epps and Atlanta architect Richard Taylor formed an expedition to find and salvage the planes. This year, the third consecutive year the men flew to the icecap, a team led by Taylor used a thermal borer to drill the 42-inch diameter shaft to the B-17 named Big Stoop. A second team, led by Angelo Pizzagalli of Burlington, Vt., used a huge auger to bore a hole 16 feet in diameter toward a P-38. Epps, who hopes to fly one of the P-38s off the icecap, said plans call for getting all six fighters out by Sept. 1. The eight planes crash-landed July 15, 1942. Their crews camped in one of the B-17s for nine days until rescuers arrived on dog sleds. In the early 1970s, Col. Carl Rudder, one of the P-38 pilots, mentioned the planes to Roy Degan, a commercial airline pilot who brought the idea of an Arctic expedition to Epps. The explorers eventually obtained search and salvage rights from Denmark, which administers Greenland. In 1988, the society found the aircraft using low-frequency subsurface radar. Last year, expedition members drilled down to the B-17 and brought back poker chip-size pieces of its skin. Epps estimated his group will have spent $800,000 to $1 million by Sept. 1, financed by fund raising and Rolls Ltd., Pizzagalli's non-profit corporation in Vermont.
AP880726-0200 	X	Automobile innovator Malcolm Bricklin is seeking to evict a business associate from his northwestern Colorado ranch in a lawsuit that has brought bitter allegations from both sides. A jury trial in the Combined Courts of Rio Blanco County is scheduled to begin Wednesday in the civil suit brought by Bricklin Industries Inc. against John Avery. Bricklin, 49, wants to remove Avery, his wife and three children from a refurbished home on a ranch Bricklin owns nine miles south of here and about 225 miles west of Denver. Earlier this year, several small businesses filed liens of more than $100,000 against Bricklin-owned property in Colorado. Bricklin paid off his debts by early May, however, after he received the proceeds from the sale of his stake in Global Motors Inc. Global was the parent of Yugo America Inc., which introduced the cut-priced Yugo automobile to the United States in 1985. But Bricklin is best known for his failed attempt in the 1970s to popularize a plastic, gull-wing sports car bearing his name. In the latest dispute, he contends that Avery, 38, is not doing the job he was hired for. The millionaire had paid Avery $8,000 a month to act as ranch manager and also paid him as a real estate consultant. His suit follows a lawsuit filed by Avery earlier this year in federal court. Avery's suit contends that Bricklin has not lived up to terms of a verbal agreement under which Avery was allowed to buy 500 acres of Bricklin's 8,000-acre Franklin Ranch and invest $40,000 in a ranch house on the property. Bricklin says the agreements covered only rental of the property. Joseph Coleman, Avery's lawyer, said Bricklin cut off payments to his client and sought to get out of the verbal agreement in August 1987. ``When John filed a lawsuit, Bricklin responded by trying to take his home away,'' he said Tuesday. In an interview in the Rocky Mountain News on Tuesday, Bricklin said: ``People can't do the job, then they turn around and ask you for more money. It's something that wouldn't be happening if it wasn't me, because I've got some money. And if it wasn't me, it wouldn't be news.'' However, Coleman said bank accounts for the initial land purchase bear both men's names, indicating a partnership existed and supporting the verbal agreement.
AP880412-0224 	X	Little Rock Police Chief Jess F. ``Doc'' Hale, suspended following his arrest on theft charges, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound Tuesday, authorities said. Lt. Bert Jenkins said Hale's wife, Jean, found Hale, 47, shot in the head in the laundry room of his home. Hale, of Cabot, was suspended as chief pending the outcome of his trial on a charge of theft of less than $200 from a cash register in a Little Rock drug store. He was arrested March 10 outside the store. Hale's trial was to begin May 24 in Pulaski County Circuit Court. He pleaded innocent to the charge March 11 and was released on his own recognizance. In a statement, Little Rock City Manager Tom Dalton said the gunshot wound ``appears to be self-inflicted.'' ``Our entire city is shocked and stunned as we share this tragedy and sorrow,'' Dalton said. ``We extend our deepest sympathy to Doc's family.'' Hale was charged after state police made secret videotapes in the store, which is a favorite hangout for local politicians and police. Chief Deputy Larry Jones of the Lonoke County sheriff's office said notes on several sheets from a yellow legal pad were found in Hale's residence, but he did not know the contents. However, Sheriff J.O. Isaac said Tuesday night that Hale didn't leave any note that would explain his death. ``There was not a note found in the vicinity of where the body was. Any businessman or law officer keeps notes and that's what these were,'' Isaac said of the sheets from the legal pad. Isaac said he expected results of an autopsy conducted late Tuesday would be released Wednesday by the state Crime Laboratory. The sheriff said he would not know until then whether Hale's death was a suicide. He said tests were also being conducted on a pistol _ not Hale's service revolver _ that was found near the body. Radio station KARN, quoting sources who insisted on anonymity, reported late Tuesday that a settlement of the Hale case was being negotiated. Under the settlement, KARN said, the charges against Hale would have been dropped if the chief resigned. Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Piazza declined comment on the report, and attorneys for Hale and the store owner could not be reached at their homes or offices Tuesday night. Hale was hired as chief Oct. 20, 1986, after running the Medicaid Fraud Division of the state attorney general's office. He had joined the attorney general after a long career with the Little Rock Police Department.
AP900215-0218 	X	Wilfred LePage saw his first zebra mussel Feb. 1. By September, thousands of the tiny molluscs jammed the intake of the water treatment plant he manages, cutting the flow 20 percent and nearly sparking a water emergency. ``There is no cheap solution to it and there's no real cure to the problem,'' said LePage, water treatment superintendent in Monroe, Mich., on Lake Erie's western edge. At the eastern end of the lake, in Dunkirk, N.Y., the green-and-yellow striped shellfish first appeared Oct. 3, and now infest a Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. generating plant. December's deep freeze stopped them from clogging water intakes but they quickly settled inside the plant. ``They like it where it's dimly lit, they like it where it's warm, and they don't like a lot of turbulence. This place is ideal for them,'' said Robert C. Henderson, a chemical lab supervisor at the plant. ``By July, we're going to have a massive problem with them.'' Three years after they were introduced to North America and after only one year in Lake Erie, zebra mussels have spread throughout the lake and have been spotted at the entrance to Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River. It's an invasion scientists say could affect farming, fishing and daily life along virtually every body of fresh water in North America in the next few years. The mussels are mostly about a half-inch long, although they can reach 2 inches during their five-year lifespans. They eat by filtering microscopic food particles from the water, and love intake pipes of water and power plants because the current brings them a steady supply of fresh food. A mussel can filter more than a gallon of water an hour, said R. Warren Flint, a scientist with the Great Lakes Program at the State University of New York-Buffalo. As a result, they will leave water cleaner than before. ``From an aesthetic perspective, that would certainly be a benefit, I guess,'' he said. Europeans have used zebra mussels to clean algae-choked ponds, and the shells can be used to add calcium to livestock feed, said Charles O'Neill, with the Sea Grant program at the State University College at Brockport. The mussels also are a good source of food for diving ducks and some kinds of fish, including sturgeons and eels, Flint said. But with millions of them at work filtering microscopic food, they could deplete the supply for the small fish that support the billion-dollar walleye- and bass-fishing industry. And the bad news could spread beyond the lake and its shoreline. Farmers and golf courses that draw irrigation water from the lakes can expect problems, and beachgoers will have to wear shoes because of the shells, O'Neill said. ``It can affect everything from the electricity at your outlet to the water at your tap,'' O'Neill said. ``It's not just an environmental problem.'' Like their distant cousins, the blue mussels, zebras ought, in theory, to be edible by humans, Flint said. But when Canadian researchers tried steaming a bunch, O'Neill said, ``What they got was a stench that cleared the lab.'' The mussels have plagued Europe for more than a century and are believed to have arrived in North America on a freighter that emptied its ballast tanks in Lake St. Clair, upstream from Lake Erie, in 1986. Scientists are studying the possibility that the Lake Erie infestations came from several ships rather than that single 1986 event, O'Neill said. But Flint said one colony could have infested the lake because one mussel can lay 30,000 to 50,000 eggs a year and the larvae can swim for up to two weeks before growing shells. ``They could easily get across Lake Erie or Lake Ontario in that period of time,'' he said. For public water systems, controlling the mussels is a matter of applying chlorine, ozone or other disinfectants at the mouth of the intake pipe rather than waiting until the water is inside the plant, say scientists and plant operators like LePage who have already faced the problem. Power plants have a different problem, because officials are reluctant to let them put chlorine or other disinfectants in cooling water discharged back to the lake, Henderson said. Niagara Mohawk and the state Department of Environmental Conservation are negotiating a solution. James Sell, chief operator of the Dunkirk water plant, is studying ways of getting chlorine to the pipe's mouth, like building a platform over the intake or running a smaller chlorine pipe out through the intake. ``We're better off than the people in the western end of the lake,'' Sell said. ``At least we have some time to do something by spring.'' The City Council hasn't been persuaded to pay up to $100,000 for the plans, but Sell, who keeps three living mussels in a jar to show visitors, said, ``I don't see much option for them if they want a water supply.'' Farther inland, many water officials are unaware of the problem or not prepared to do anything about it. Michael Burke, director of the state Health Department's bureau of public water supply protection, said the department was studying the problem but doesn't see the need to issue warnings. ``I think the word's getting to them, particularly those with large surface intakes in the Great Lakes. It is coming out in industry papers and things of that sort.'' O'Neill and other scientists said the state should do more to get the word out, because it is only a matter of time _ and not necessarily very much time. ``The chances of them getting into the western reach of the Erie Canal is good,'' O'Neill said. ``The canal is an ideal place for them to live. It's warm. It's shallow. Most of it has rock riprap to attach to.'' Pleasure boats can also carry mussels and their larvae in their engine housings and other places where water collects. Once the mussels get into Lake Michigan, they will almost certainly spread through the Chicago River and into the Mississippi River basin, O'Neill said. ``Any area in North America that is utilizing surface water should be concerned.''
AP901126-0085 	X	Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini wrote an aide in 1986 asking what ``we can do to bring heat'' on a federal banking regulator who was opposed by savings and loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr., the Senate Ethics Committee was told today. The senator's memo to his staff aide, Laurie A. Sedlmayr, was written in December 1986, after Keating had made clear his opposition to top bank regulator Edwin Gray, who wanted Keating's thrift to adhere to investment limits. Committee special counsel Robert S. Bennett cited the memo in questioning Sedlmayr as the panel held its fifth day of hearings into allegations DeConcini and four other senators improperly intervened with regulators on behalf of Keating, a financial contributor. Sedlmayr said she was aware Keating wanted Gray out of office. DeConcini wrote her a memo on Dec. 11, 1986, citing press accounts of potential financial and ethical problems facing Gray and asking, ``Anything we can do to bring heat?'' She said she responded five days later saying it was ``probably unnecessary'' for him to take action and suggesting the senator ``stay out of this.'' Sedlmayr, under questioning by Bennett, said Keating was more aggressive than many other businessmen she dealt with. ``I found him to be something of a zealot and I wasn't comfortable with that,'' she said. ``I think the senator probably thought I was overstating the case,'' she said. Keating, who owned the now defunct Lincoln Savings and Loan, and his associates contributed $1.3 million to the senators' campaigns or favored causes. As the panel began its fifth day of hearings in three weeks, DeConcini, D-Ariz., was the only one of the five senators under investigation who attended the session. The other four are Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrats Alan Cranston of California, Donald Riegle of Michigan and John Glenn of Ohio. Sedlmayr was questioned about a memo she wrote to DeConcini in 1987 suggesting a possible deal with the government on behalf of Keating's savings and loan. DeConcini denies he offered a deal or tried to negotiate for Keating in the April 2, 1987, meeting. Sedlmayr testified that DeConcini went to the April 2 meeting with three other senators and Gray despite being warned by an aide that the session was a ``political mistake.'' She testified that she was not concerned about the propriety of the meeting, but was concerned Gray ``would misrepresent it'' later. ``I told him I didn't think it was a good idea and could later be misinterpreted by the press,'' she said. ``I thought ... it was a political mistake.'' Sedlmayr and other aides were not included in the meeting, but she said that when it ended, DeConcini ``said he was pretty disgusted.'' She said DeConcini recounted that Gray had said, ``I don't know anything about Lincoln, I don't have any information and you'll have to meet with the regulators in San Francisco.'' Riegle, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, did not attend that meeting. However, he did attend a session on Lincoln a week later with the other senators and San Francisco-based federal regulators. The question of whether DeConcini offered a deal on Keating's behalf is considered crucial to the ethics investigation. Bennett, told the panel ``there is overwhelming evidence'' DeConcini asked Gray to withdraw a regulation opposed by Keating in exchange for a promise by Lincoln to make more home loans. The regulation limited Lincoln's ability to make risky investments in speculative real estate ventures. Sedlmayr's memo to her boss detailed ``What American Continental wants from Gray for concessions,'' and ``What American Continental is willing to do.'' American Continental was Lincoln's Phoenix-based parent company, controlled by Keating. A sworn statement by another Senate aide says that DeConcini took the Sedlmayr memo with him to the April 2 meeting and ``made verbal references to the subjects discussed in the memorandum.'' That statement was by Mary Jane Veno, administrative assistant to Glenn. She said she was told of the memo's use by Gene Karp, DeConcini's administrative assistant. When the meeting was over, she said, McCain asked DeConcini to explain what he had been talking about and in response DeConcini gave McCain a copy of the memo. But Karp said Friday he did not know if DeConcini actually referred to the memo and could not recall what he told Veno. ``As I remember it now, Gray said at the very beginning he didn't know anything about Lincoln and DeConcini never got into the subject matter of the investigation or anything about that,'' Karp said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``Whether there was any specific reference made, I can't answer. Only the principals that were there can answer it.'' Gray has said DeConcini offered a ``quid pro quo'' proposal and that Gray believed the meeting was improper. No aides attended the April 2 meeting, and Bennett said there is evidence DeConcini's office instructed all to come alone. Lincoln was the object of a bank board examination at the time of the meeting. Bennett said the senators were there ``with varying degrees of intensity, to pressure the board to end promptly the Lincoln examination.'' Lincoln was seized by the federal government in April 1989 at a potential bailout cost to taxpayers of more than $2 billion to cover insured deposits.
AP881114-0230 	X	Share prices closed lower Monday after a day of choppy trading on the London Stock Exchange. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index fell 8.4 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,794.3. Trading volume was moderate at 479.3 million shares, compared with the 708.7 million shares traded Friday. The market sank at the onset of trading, reflecting concerns about how the administration of President-elect George Bush would handle U.S. economic problems. But it rose sharply by midday on bargain-hunting by big investors, only to sink on the release of disappointing British economic statistics. The Financial Times 30-share index fell 8.7 points to 1,452.5. The Financial Times 500-share index fell 6.68 points to close at 1,021.95.
AP880617-0051 	X	A British judge sentenced an Arab man to 11 years in prison for keeping a cache of explosives for the Palestine Liberation Organization in his home. Judge Christopher French of Old Bailey's Central Criminal Court told Ismael Sowan on Thursday that the sentence was the very least he could give for his ``extremely grave offences.'' Sowan, 28, was convicted Wednesday of storing explosives, rifles and grenades in his home in the eastern port of Hull. In announcing the sentence Thursday, the judge said, ``we were reminded ... only yesterday of the appalling use to which these materials can be put.'' The reference was to a bombing in Northern Ireland that killed six soldiers and wounded 10 civilians Wednesday. Sowan was arrested last August when police were investigating the shooting death of an Arab cartoonist, Ali Naji Awad Al-Adhami. Although he was arrested in Hull, Sowan's trial was held in London at the Old Bailey court because cases involving security and terrorism usually are tried there and because Scotland Yard had participated in the investigation. Sowan testified that the weapons found in locked suitcases in his bathroom belonged to Abder Mustapha, a known PLO guerrilla suspected of organizing Al-Adhami's murder. Police said that Mustapha fled to the Middle East after Al-Adhami was shot in the head. Sowan, a university research assistant, is not a suspect in that crime, although he was a friend and associate of Mustapha. After his arrest, Sowan claimed to be funneling information about Mustapha to the Israeli secret service Mossad. Officials at the Israeli Embassy in London confirmed that Sowan was in contact with them, and that he had told them that he had Mustapha's weapons. British police and intelligence agencies said they did not know about the spying operation and did not receive information from Mossad about the weapons cache during the investigation. David Cocks, Sowan's defense attorney, said the Israeli factor made his client innocent.
AP880404-0247 	X	A top IBM executive has confirmed that the company has offered its state-of-the-art computer chips for sale to other companies, according to a report published today. IBM's vice chairman and highest-ranking engineer, Jack D. Kuehler, denied industry speculation that the company was acting to prevent its American competitors from becoming dependent on Japanese suppliers for chips, The New York Times reported. The chip is the core technology in advanced computers. Kuehler acknowledged that for more than two years the company has offered small supplies of advanced chips to fewer than a dozen American and European computer makers. The company did so ``to sharpen our own competitiveness'' by letting other computer makers choose between IBM's chips and those offered by Japanese companies, he said. ``Sometimes we found we were deficient and we have worked to correct that,'' he said. ``Sometimes we found we were truly leaders.'' But the Times reported that other industry officials suspected that International Business Machines had other motives in acting as a chip supplier to competitors, such as driving down its own production costs. ``IBM is in the unusual position of having to worry about the global competitiveness of American chip technology,'' said Richard Shaffer, editor of the Technologic Computer Letter, which follows the computer and semiconductor industries. IBM officials have said the company's own health depends on maintaining a strong domestic ability to produce chips, train a large number of microelectronic engineers and sustain a strong semiconductor equipment manufacturing business so IBM will not need to depend on Japan for the most up-to-date technology. Reports that IBM offered to sell chips to an archrival, Digital Equipment Corporation, surfaced about 10 days ago and industry sources then revealed the offers were more widespread. The company also has said it was selling only its chips, not its underlying designs or process technology.
AP900314-0013 	X	Sir Eric Gairy, the flamboyant former prime minister, failed Tuesday in his comeback attempt in Grenada's second election since the 1983 U.S.-led invasion, complete but unofficial returns indicated. However, all four political parties opposing Gairy also failed to gained a parliamentary majority, creating uncertainty over who will lead the tiny Caribbean island's next government. With final but unofficial results in from all 15 parliamentary constituencies, the National Democratic Congress of Nicholas Brathwaite led with seven seats in the House of Representatives, or parliament, one short of the necessary majority to form a government, Radio Grenada reported. Gairy's Grenada United Labor Party won four seats, but Gairy himself was defeated in his parliamentary district, the radio said, citing the Electoral Commission. Gairy had dominated the island's politics for three decades before he was ousted in a Marxist revolution 11 years ago. Radio Grenada said The National Party of acting Prime Minister Ben Jones and the New National Party led by Keith Mitchell won two seats each. Jones and Mitchell were both returned to parliament. The leftist Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement failed to gain any parliamentary seats. Radio Grenada said the results were complete but unofficial. Official results were to be announced Wednesday. Although the outcome was inconclusive, Brathwaite, 65, a moderate who led a 13-month interim government after the 1983 invasion, was in a strong position to become the next prime minister. He said before the election that he would not be interested in forming a coalition government, but most observers thought it likely Brathwaite and Jones would merge their parties to form a government. There was no immediate comment from any of the candidates. Turnout was estimated at 60 percent of the 58,296 eligible voters, sharply below the 85 percent recorded in the 1984 election. The election happened to fall on the 11th anniversary of the Marxist coup that toppled Gairy's authoritarian government on March 13, 1979, and brought to power the People's Revolutionary Government of the late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. A rift in Bishop's government led to his assassination, along with 10 other people, on Oct. 19, 1983. Six days later, U.S. Marines and paratroopers, along with a small regional force, invaded the island and ousted a Marxist junta that had seized power. The Reagan administration, already alarmed by Bishop's close ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union, said the invasion was necessary to protect hundreds of medical students and prevent the island from becoming a bastion of Communist aggression in the region. Gairy, 68, and apparently nearly blind with glaucoma, earlier said he would not contest the election unless a ``miracle'' improved his sight. Last month, however, he said ``a source greater than I'' ordained that he once again lead Grenada. He also said the election came on the anniversary of his ouster not by coincidence but because it had been ``arranged cosmically by a divine force.'' Gairy, who was Grenada's first prime minister after independence from Britain in 1974, was widely regarded as repressive and corrupt. As early as 1961, Britain dissolved Gairy's pre-independence government because of alleged financial irregularities. Gairy's party won 36 percent of the vote in the 1984 election but gained only one seat, which it later lost in a party defection. The merged New National Party won 14 seats, with 58.5 percent of the vote, but later split into three groups. The election followed the death of conservative Prime Minister Herbert Blaize in December.
AP900111-0059 	X	Earthquakes continued to rumble under Redoubt Volcano and oil producers shut down their platforms amid fears the tremors could send floodwaters cascading over an oil terminal on the Cook Inlet. Redoubt has been erupting since mid-December, sending corrosive ash as high as eight miles into the sky and melting glacier ice, producing muddy torrents of water that have overflowed the banks of the Drift River. The Drift River storage terminal, with 38 million gallons of oil stored in its tanks, sits on the banks of the inlet in the shadow of the volcano 115 miles southwest of Anchorage. The terminal has been closed since Tuesday, and officials planned to remove most of its oil. Redoubt's last eruption was Monday, but seismologists said the volcano remains active, and that more flooding was possible in future eruptions. ``The quake activity indicates the volcano is relatively quiet for now and it does not appear to be building toward stronger eruptive activity,'' geologist Steve Brantley of the Alaska Volcano Observatory said Wednesday. Still, a major eruption like Monday's is possible, he said. Ten of the 15 platforms that pull oil from the Cook Inlet send their crude to the Drift River terminal for storage. With the terminal closed, eight of the 10 platforms have been forced to shut down, said Bill Lamoreaux, a regional supervisor with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. ``The other two platforms are (operating at) very low volume,'' Lamoreaux said. There have been fears the flooding could breach storage tanks, causing a spill of the dimensions of the March 24 wreck of the tanker Exxon Valdez, which released 11 million gallons of North Slope crude into Prince William Sound. Harold Mouser, manager of Cook Inlet Pipe Line Co., which operates the terminal, said the tanker Sansinena was standing by to remove the terminal's oil as soon as the procedure is ready. ``We do not have our equipment operational yet for loading the tanker. People there are working on it and have been working through the night,'' Mouser said Wednesday. Cook Inlet Pipeline Co. and the state agreed Tuesday to shut down the terminal and remove about 80 percent of the oil. The terminal probably will not resume operations until the company and the state can agree how to operate it safely under the continuing threat of Redoubt, Lamoreaux said. ``They recognize they had a heck of an inventory of crude oil,'' he said. ``The facility sits right on the shoreline of Cook Inlet. The tank farm is on the back side, but there's nothing to stop it if the contents were lost.'' ``I'll be feeling a lot better when the total volume is reduced.'' The production halt could cost the state of Alaska some money, said Chuck Logsden, a petroleum economist with the Department of Revenue. The affected fields contributed much of the $23.3 million in royalties Alaska collected last year from Cook Inlet production, he said.
AP880719-0067 	X	A controversial hardliner in the guerrilla war against Nicaragua's leftist government has become the first military man to win a key role in the rebel leadership. Col. Enrique Bermudez, who survived an ouster attempt in April, joins a seven-member Contra directorate that oversees the U.S.-backed insurgency against the Sandinista government. The 56-year-old professional soldier, a former colonel in the Nicaraguan National Guard under ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza, was elected by a 44-2 vote Monday by an assembly of rebel delegates meeting here. Three of the 54 assembly members abstained and five were absent when the vote was taken on the second day of the assembly's three-day meeting in this Caribbean capital. Bermudez ran unopposed as an independent candidate for a one-year term on the directorate, which sets overall policy for the Nicaraguan resistance. He pledged to unify the exiled movement, which has been split by infighting and has struggled to stay financially afloat since Congress halted military aid in February. ``Today, more than ever, I offer my spirit and goodwill ... to strengthen our movement,'' Bermudez said. ``To our Marxist-Leninist enemy, we promise a hard battle.'' The Contras have been fighting a seven-year war to overthrow the government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega. Bermudez insisted he would confine himself to military affairs. Although all seven directors have equal power under assembly rules, senior director Adolfo Calero had been widely regarded as the movement's de facto political head. Calero was re-elected with 36 votes to 16 for his conservative rival, Fernando Aguero Rocha, with two abstentions. There had been some speculation that he could lose his seat in a power struggle with Bermudez. Calero, 56, said he expected Bermudez to confine himself to military matters, and said he was satisfied with the election results. Bermudez' position was strengthened with the defeat Monday night of incumbent director Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who lost his seat by a 31-20 vote with three abstentions, to Wilfredo Montalvan, 42. Chamorro and Calero tried but failed to strip Bermudez of his military command in April when Bermudez fired six regional Contra commanders for mutiny. Chamorro said talk of making Bermudez a defense minister for the directorate was a ``mask'' for the military chief's ambition to gain absolute control of the movement. ``I don't think he has total control yet, but that is clearly his intention,'' Chamorro said after the election. Bermudez' closest ally on the directorate, Aristides Sanchez, was re-elected, along with Alfredo Cesar, who has supported the military leader's candidacy. The other newly elected directors were Roberto Ferrey, replacing his sister, Azucena, who decided not to seek re-election; and Wycliffe Diego, who fills a vacant seat representing the Atlantic Coast Miskito Indians and Creoles.
AP900405-0124 	X	NASA finished testing the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope aboard Discovery and started final pre-countdown work Thursday, raising the space agency's hopes for a timely launch next week. It is the most comfortable NASA officials have felt about Tuesday's launch date since a power outage interrupted the testing Monday, said George Diller, a spokesman for the space agency. ``Basically, the work's done. We're just down to the things you can't do before now anyway,'' Diller said. ``We're essentially on or near schedule on all of that work. I'm really not aware of anything that's unusually shaky,'' he said. The countdown is scheduled to begin Saturday afternoon. Early forecasts show an 80 percent chance of weather favorable for launch Tuesday, with the weather worsening slightly during the next two days. Functional testing of the telescope and shuttle was completed early Thursday, and the launch pad was cleared of all non-essential personnel for final preparation of the payload and orbiter. Technicians were in the middle of the 52-hour test when a power outage at Kennedy Space Center knocked out air conditioning and forced the shutdown of heat-sensitive computers. Testing resumed Tuesday evening and had to be completed by Thursday morning for the mission to stay on schedule. As soon as the testing ended, technicians began the routine procedure of placing explosive devices on the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, external tank and the orbiter itself to be used in the event of a serious malfunction, said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham. Power was turned off to the telescope and shuttle so that the hazardous work could be performed. Charging of the telescope's nickel-hydrogen batteries also was halted and was to resume. The telescope's batteries will be charged until the shuttle's payload bay doors are closed two days before launch. The 24,250-pound, 43-foot-long telescope, named for the late American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, is the most expensive unmanned spacecraft ever built by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It originally was scheduled for launch in 1983, but was delayed due to technical problems and the 1986 Challenger explosion. Discovery's five astronauts plan to deploy the telescope on the second day of the five-day mission. The Hubble will orbit 380 miles high for 15 years, enabling astronomers to study stars and galaxies so distant that their light has been traveling to Earth for 14 billion years. It will be capable of detecting objects 50 times fainter and with 10 times greater clarity than the best ground-based observatory.
AP900611-0189 	X	The stock market snapped out of last week's slump Monday with a rally led by blue chips. But trading set its slowest pace in more than two months. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 38.59 points last week, rebounded 30.19 to 2,892.57. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 5 to 3 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 918 up, 563 down and 516 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 119.55 million shares, down from 142.60 million in the previous session and the lightest total since a 114.97 million-share day on April 9. Analysts said traders were doing some selective ``bargain-hunting'' in the blue chips while they awaited a broad array of economic reports due from the government this week. Among the monthly statistics on the agenda for Wall Street are the producer price index of finished goods, due on Thursday, and the consumer price index and the nation's trade balance, both on Friday. If all goes as expected, brokers say, the data will support the popular view that economic growth is plodding along at a pace slow enough to permit inflation and interest rates to ease. However, they add, any surprises in the numbers could unsettle some of the optimism generated during the rally that carried stock prices to new highs as recently as last Monday. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 145.41 million shares. Boeing led the active list, up 3 at 58{ on turnover of more than 2.3 million shares. The stock, which was split 3-for-2 effective with Monday's trading, reponded to word of a $4.8 billion order from Korean Airlines for Boeing 747-400 jets. Energy stocks attracted buyers after dropping last week in line with falling oil prices. Exxon gained ~ to 47~; Chevron 1[ to 70|; Atlantic Richfield 2 to 116~; Amoco ~ to 51{, and Texaco ] to 57~. Elsewhere among the blue chips, International Business Machines rose 1[ to 119~; Coca-Cola { to 44{; General Motors | to 49[; American Telephone & Telegraph \ to 42\, and DuPont { to 39|. Microcom Inc. tumbled 8{ to 9} as the most active issue in the over-the-counter market. Late Friday the company projected a loss for the fiscal quarter ending June 30, saying major domestic distributors were overstocked with its software and modem products. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market increased $22.14 billion, or 0.64 percent, in value. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks gained 1.37 to 197.42. Standard & Poor's industrial index rose 3.79 to 421.22, and S&P's 500-stock composite index was up 2.92 at 361.63. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market added 1.92 to 462.79. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 362.32, up 1.15.
AP880406-0034 	X	Francis A. Keating II, selected for the No. 3 job at the Justice Department, is a former FBI agent who has spent much of his time in the Reagan administration going after big banks who launder money for drug smugglers and other criminals. Keating, assistant Treasury secretary for enforcement, pursued various cases against banks for neglecting, either intentionally or inadvertently, a 17-year-old law requiring that the institutions to inform the government in writing whenever they handle a cash transaction of $10,000 or more. The Treasury crackdown assessed multimillion-dollar penalties against some of the nation's biggest banks, including a record $4.75 million fine paid by the Bank of America. The crackdown on money laundering was started by Keating's predecessor in the job, John M. Walker Jr., who is now a federal judge in New York, but Keating continued the effort when he took over at the Treasury Department in December 1985. As head of enforcement, Keating, 44, oversees the Secret Service, the Customs Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Keating was one of the officials charged with implementing the administration's stepped-up efforts at halting the flow of illegal drugs into the country. Keating, who will replace Associate Attorney General Stephen Trott, was praised by Attorney General Edwin Meese III as someone who ``can hit the ground running'' in the Justice Department's work in combating illegal drugs. Trott is leaving Washington to become a federal appeals court judge in California. At Treasury, Keating also has headed the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency charged with implementing economic sanctions imposed against Cuba, Libya, Iran and South Africa. Before joining the administration, Keating was a partner in an Oklahoma law firm. He also served as a U.S. attorney from 1981 to 1983 for the Northern District of Oklahoma. From 1972 to 1981, Keating was a member of the Oklahoma legislature, starting out in the House of Representatives and then winning a seat in the state Senate, where he served as Republican leader. Keating is also a former state prosecutor and FBI agent. He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington in 1966 and received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1969.
AP881028-0067 	X	A projected $55 million-plus lottery prize that would return the North American title for big jackpots to the state is making Californians' gambling fever rise again. Lottery officials and merchants said ticket sales for the Saturday drawing were running about double the usual pace for Thursday's sales. The official estimate of ``over $55 million'' for the drawing is conservative, based on similar situations in the two-year history of California's computerized Lotto 6-49 game, said lottery spokesman Bob Taylor. On June 4, California's lottery paid out a $51.4 million jackpot, North America's largest at the time. That jackpot was eclipsed Sept. 3 by a $55.1 million prize in Florida. The state-run lottery's policy is to estimate the jackpot conservatively, then revise the projection upward as sales soar. It all depends on how wildly Californians react to the 1-in-14-million chance of winning the jackpot. ``The jackpot is going to generate an awful lot of sales,'' said Taylor. The size of the jackpot depends on sales and jackpot rollovers, which combine to produce heavy gambling periods, dubbed ``lottomania'' when they first struck other state's games. When nobody picks all six winning numbers out of a choice 49, the jackpot is rolled over, or added, to the top prize for the next twice-weekly drawing. Four rollovers, including the rollover of a $33.4 million jackpot Wednesday night, produced the current record prize estimate. The exact size of the jackpot will depend on how many tickets are sold. Of every $1 ticket, 20 cents goes into the jackpot. Each time the jackpot climbs, so do sales, pushing the total still higher, generating even more sales. Historically, most of the sales occur in the last few hours before the televised drawing at four seconds before 7:57 p.m. Sales are cut off at 7:45 p.m. By 2 p.m. Thursday, sales hit $1.2 million, which is normally the total for the entire 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. sales period on a Thursday, said Taylor.
AP900213-0083 	X	The United States has completed withdrawal of its military force that invaded Panama on Dec. 20, the White House said today. The U.S. troop strength in Panama is at 13,504, below the 13,597 stationed in the Central American nation before the invasion, said presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater. More than 14,000 troops had been rushed from bases in the United States for the invasion. While the troop levels have fluctuated by a few thousand over recent years, the 13,000 level is considered in the normal range, he said. That includes, however, the 2,000 extra personnel President Bush sent to Panama following an election last May 7 that was invalidated by now-deposed Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. ``The efforts of all the U.S. military personnel in Panama were key to helping put Panama on the road to democracy,'' Fitzwater told reporters. ``The president commends the efforts of these brave men and women. Their task is something of which all men and women should be proud.'' The Panama invasion resulted in the combat deaths of 23 U.S. soldiers and the wounding of 324, with 314 Panamanian troops killed and 124 wounded, according to Pentagon figures. In addition, 202 civilians were killed in the fighting. The United States has no plans to withdraw its permanent force in Panama. However, the troops are shifting their emphasis from the traditional one of concentrating on the Panama Canal to help train a new national police force for Panama. Noriega's Panamanian Defense Force was effectively put out of business by the invasion and his ouster, but thousands of its members have signed up for the new police force. Fitzwater said the number of U.S. troops will likely continue to fluctuate in the years to come. Presence of the invasion force was a thorn in the side of Panama's Latin American neighbors who saw the invasion as an unwarranted use of U.S. muscle. President Alan Garcia of Peru initially said he would not attend this Thursday's drug summit in Colombia with President Bush as long as the invasion troops remained. Last week, however, as the U.S. troop withdrawal continued, he announced he would attend.
AP881031-0187 	X	The search for a teen-ager suspected of slaying a college student whose body was found in her bathtub spread through New England Monday as reported sightings flooded the police station of this wary town. ``We've even had people call in sightings that turned out to be farmers walking down dirt roads and of one little girl on a road,'' said Police Chief David McCarthy. Tensions had been running high for days in the town of 18,000, especially since published accounts quoting sources as saying the suspect had a fascination with a Halloween horror movie. A cinema agreed to suspend the showing of a new horror film, ``Halloween IV,'' and selectmen voted Friday to hold trick-or-treating in broad daylight Sunday, a day early. McCarthy said he has sent out 1,000 photographs of Mark Branch to other police forces in New England. Branch, 19, disappeared shortly after the stabbing death of Greenfield Community College student Sharon Gregory, 18. Her body was discovered in her tub on Oct. 21 by her sister. ``This subject should be considered armed and dangerous,'' said a state police bulletin, according to The Recorder of Greenfield. ``Info received ... indicates this subject may kill again.'' The bulletin said Gregory was stabbed in the back and head with a knife that McCarthy said has not been found. He said Gregory was not sexually assaulted. The chief described Branch as ``a loner. He was a different type of individual,'' adding: ``A lot of people didn't like the kid.'' He stressed, however, that investigators have found no link between Branch's alleged taste for horror films and the slaying. A state police investigator said sightings were reported as far away as Enfield, Conn., 50 miles to the south of the western Massachusetts town. Police have searched for Branch since his car was discovered abandoned on a back road in nearby Buckland a day after Gregory's body was found. Over the weekend, however, a manhunt in Buckland was called off because 30 searchers and trained dogs turned up nothing. ``I think it would be very reasonable to assume Branch has gone from the area,'' McCarthy said. ``Twenty-five hours elapsed between the time of the murder and the time we found his car.'' Newspapers have reported that Branch was a fan of the ``Friday the 13th'' movie series, in which a character named Jason committed a Halloween night massacre. And they cited unnamed sources as saying police found Jason costume paraphernalia in Branch's home, including a hockey goalie mask and black boots. Police have refused to comment on their search and the search warrant they used has been impounded. McCarthy said his detectives reviewed the ``Friday the 13th'' movies to try to find a connection with the slaying. Police have no evidence that Gregory's slayer may have acted as Jason, ``no paraphernalia left at the scene of the crime, no notes, nothing,'' McCarthy said. ``This was a brutal murder, but it had nothing to do with any ritual involving Satanism, Jason, Friday the 13th.'' McCarthy said he tripled the number of police cars on patrol for Halloween, but expected no trouble. ``I spent four days trying to clear up the fear frenzy that has run rampant in this town,'' he said. ``I think by now the town has come off this fear thing.''
AP881128-0041 	X	The dollar surged against the Japanese yen Monday, and stock prices were sharply lower due to concern over higher oil prices and the possibility of a U.S. interest rate increase. At the end of trading, the dollar was quoted at 122.00 yen, up 0.85 yen from Friday's close of 121.15 yen. It opened higher at 121.60 yen and moved between 121.58 yen and 122.00 yen throughout the day. On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues, a 43.06-point loser during Saturday's half-day session, fell another 380.27 points or 1.3 percent to close at 28,983.32 points. A dealer at the Bank of Tokyo said the dollar ``was being bought in expectation that U.S. monetary authorities may (raise) prime lending rates and the nation's discount rate,'' the rate the Federal Reserve Board charges on loans to commercial banks. Meanwhile, Bank of Japan Governor Satoshi Sumita told reporters that Japan's central bank was closely watching for a possible move by the Federal Reserve, Kyodo News Service said. The dollar's strength paralleled the firmness of the British pound despite an increase in British interest rates after news last week of London's wider-than-expected current account deficit, the dealer said. The firmer dollar, expectations of a move by the Federal Reserve and higher oil prices encouraged investors to take profits from the recent rally on the Tokyo stock market, pushing prices lower, analysts said. Volume during morning trading was a relatively heavy 750 million shares, with most activity in heavy industrials like Kawasaki Heavy Industries, said Nick Ganner of Citicorp Scrimgeour Vickers International Ltd. Steels and heavy industrials were mixed, while the broader market was weaker. Fisheries were helped by press reports over the weekend that said the Soviet Union's state-owned fish processing company and Taiyo Fishery have reached an agreement to set up a joint venture on the Soviet island of Sakhalin to process catches from Japanese and Soviet vessels.
AP880815-0190 	X	U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said Monday he has no reason to believe he will be selected as Republican George Bush's running mate, and that it would be ``presumptuous'' to say whether he would accept such an offer. ``I'll be back on the job tomorrow in Washington,'' Thornburgh, the former two-term, Pennsylvania governor, told reporters at a rally sponsored by his state's GOP convention delegation. Thornburgh said he was in town only to hear President Reagan's address to the convention Monday night. Asked how he would respond to an offer from the all-but-certain nominee for the vice presidency, Thornburgh hesitated before replying: ``That's a presumptuous kind of a statement to make. I have no reason to think that's going to happen.'' Thornburgh was sworn in as the successor to former attorney general Edwin Meese III on Friday. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a member of the Judiciary Committee that heaped praise on Thornburgh during his confirmation hearing, said senators would understand if Thornburgh left after less than a week on the job. ``Obviously the Justice Department is very important. We pushed hard to move things quickly (with confirmation),'' Specter said. ``But my sense is people would feel this is important _ if the vice presidency gives him a higher calling, that's that,'' he said. Specter, who favors Kansas Sen. Bob Dole for the No. 2 spot on the ticket, said he did not know what Thornburgh's chances were of getting the nod.
AP900627-0003 	X	The House on Tuesday rejected legislation to protect homosexuals from harassment after an ugly debate in which one lawmaker labeled colleagues bigots and others called gay men and lesbians perverts. The House defeated the measure 118-80. Its sponsor, Rep. Babette Josephs, a Democrat, said after the vote she was unsure what move to take next, but vowed not to let the issue die. Under the measure, the same state law that gives special protection to religious, racial and ethnic groups would have been extended to include homosexuals. The bill would have extended the tougher penalties for bias crimes to protect people who are thought to be homosexual. ``We have a growing and serious problem of violence against people perceived to be gay or lesbian,'' Ms. Josephs said. ``The problem is real, pervasive and growing.'' In one of the most impassioned speeches of the debate, Rep. Thomas Murphy Jr., said he was disturbed by discussion and jokes around him on the House floor slamming homosexuals. ``This is bigotry in action. You don't have to go a local bar or sports stadium to hear bigotry, you can sit on the House floor and listen to it,'' Murphy said. ``Your snickers say you're bigoted. You don't condone a different lifestyle.'' Opponents of the bill criticized not only the measure, but also homosexuality. ``I feel in my heart and in my gut that to pass this bill is wrong,'' said Rep. Howard Fargo, a Republican. ``It's wrong to do anything legislatively to promote sexual perversion. It's wrong to do anything legislatively that would lead to the further deterioration of the traditional family and its values.'' Supporters said the issue was not one of morality, but of law and order. One group lobbying in favor of its passage, the Pride of Philadelphia Election Committee, which supports gay rights candidates, had distributed a pack of letters from supporters including Gov. Robert Casey's administration. Rep. Karen Ritter, a Democrat, said Pennsylvania had the most homosexual-related murders in the nation last year. ``We are not providing special treatment to perversion as has been suggested. Bigots who are unsure of their own sexuality have already singled out homosexuals for special treatment through violence,'' Ms. Ritter said.
AP880421-0106 	X	Gov. Jim Martin has ordered that Confederate flag bumper plates no longer be sold through privately run businesses that also sell North Carolina license plates and validation stickers. The rebel flag plates had been sold at many of the 125 offices. Martin decided to limit sales of the plates after being questioned about them last week by a group of black business leaders in Winston-Salem, Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner William Hiatt said Wednesday. Asked whether the plates being sold at the license plate agencies were in good taste, Martin said, ``Probably not.'' The motor vehicles commissioner can cancel a contract with a private license-plate agency with 60 days' notice and without reason, Hiatt said. State license plates go on the backs of vehicles, and motorists often attach other plates on the front bumper.
AP880607-0149 	X	New Mexico Republicans chose from among four candidates Tuesday to try to unseat first-term Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman. State Sens. Bill Valentine and Joe Carraro, party activist Corky Morris and former U.S. Interior Department official Rick Montoya each argued that he was the right candidate to mount a successful challenge to the man Republicans believe is too liberal for New Mexico. In the presidential primary, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was favored over Jesse Jackson in the race for 24 Democratic delegates. Vice President George Bush was unopposed for 26 Republican delegates. In the state's 1st Congressional District, Republican Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. was retiring after 20 years. Three Republicans sought the nomination, including Lujan's younger brother Edward, the former state GOP chairman. Eight Democrats sought their party's nomination, including former state Land Commissioner Jim Baca.
AP880413-0277 	X	The state-owned Aeromexico airline cancelled 270 flights Tuesday after 7,500 airline ground crew workers struck to protest the planned sale of 13 aircraft and anticipated firings of workers by the troubled carrier. Aeromexico's 43 aircraft were grounded in airports in Mexico and abroad after unionized ground workers walked off their jobs at 2:00 p.m. EDT, said Enrique Gutierrez Ortega, spokesman for the Aeronave de Mexico parent company. Gutierrez Ortega estimated during a telephone interview that revenue losses would amount to more than $2 million for each day of the strike. The strikers, members of the Aeromexico National Technical Workers Union, were demanding a halt to company plans to sell 13 aircraft and lay off an unspecified number of airline workers to cut operating losses. Some 17,000 airline passengers had their flights cancelled because of the walkout, Gutierrez Ortega said. ``The passengers most affected are those who had flights to New York and Paris'' and were unable to quickly arrange alternative connections, he said. Union spokesman Rene Arce told The Associated Press the strike would continue ``indefinitely as long as the company doesn't revoke its decision to sell the planes and terminate union workers.'' Aeromexico officials were appealing to the federal Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to declare the strike illegal, Gutierrez Ortega said. The government did not plan to take over the nation's second-largest airline to keep it operating, the Communications and Transportation Department said in a statement released Tuesday.
AP900430-0012 	X	You can stomp grasshoppers, spread poison, bash 'em with shovels, or burn the critters if you have to. Now, the Agriculture Department says computers are the latest weapons. If some new software being evaluated by USDA experts, state and county extension agents, consultants and ranchers proves out, the computer programs should ready for general use in another year. Officials at the Grasshopper Integrated Pest Management project in Boise, Idaho, said managing range livestock is so complex that grasshopper control requires a huge amount of information. The computer program under development and testing is intended to put information into the hands of range managers, including the latest on grasshopper population forecasts, timing and selection of control options, range condition assessments, weather data and an economic analysis of management practices. Jim Berry of the department's rangeland insect laboratory at Bozeman, Mont., said in a recent report that many potential users of the new software package have had little experience with computers. ``In fact, some may have an initial reluctance to use a computer-based system,'' he said. ``Therefore, the system is primarily menu-driven, responds quickly, and requires little knowledge about computers to evaluate a variety of management options.'' Meanwhile, the threat to western rangelands and crops is real, not part of a computer program that can be turned on and off by somebody punching buttons. A relative of grasshoppers _ the Mormon cricket _ is merrily chewing its way through parts of Utah and Idaho. These pests, named because they attacked crops of Mormon settlers in Utah in 1848, are also being targeted by USDA scientists. Last week the department's Agricultural Research Service said a one-celled microbe that infects and kills Mormon crickets was being released in field tests in southern Idaho. Entomologist John Henry of Montana State University, Bozeman, said the microbe, a protozoan, was found naturally infecting Mormon crickets in Colorado and Utah. Once it infects a cricket, the organism acts slowly, taking up to 12 days to multiply. The microbes then kill the crickets by consuming body fat. ``It could be the most promising long-term weapon against them,'' Henry said. Aside from the possibility of seagulls appearing and devouring the crickets, as they did in 1848 to save the crops of Mormon settlers, the best bet for immediate action against destructive insects still appears to be pesticide-laced bait and aerial spraying. The anti-grasshopper lobby in Congress has been active lately, including pushes by lawmakers from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota for more action. As a result, the Senate Appropriations Committee has added $6.8 million to an emergency spending bill to help control an expected grasshopper surge this summer in drought areas of the northern plains. The USDA budget for 1990 includes only $8.7 million for control of hoppers and crickets, primarily on grasslands. Sen. Quentin Burdick, D-N.D., chairman of the agricultural appropriations subcommittee, said only eight grasshoppers per square yard can cause economic losses and that some areas are reporting 1,000 or more hoppers per square yard. The Environmental Protection Agency has been asked to approve an emergency request for the farm use of a pesticide called Asana-XL on grasshopper eggs. The EPA has the request under review.
AP880303-0007 	X	Nancy Reagan says doctors should be more circumspect about commenting in public on the health problems of presidents and their families. In a television interview to be broadcast Friday night, Mrs. Reagan recalled an instance when she and President Reagan were watching television while he was in the hospital recovering from an operation ``and some doctor came on and said, `Well, I'll give him about four or five months.''' ``I thought to myself: Doesn't it ever occur to these people that we might be sitting watching?' What a terrible, terrible statement to make!'' She said Reagan did not react adversely to the doctor's comment but she said he reasonably could have wondered at that moment whether information about his health was being withheld from him. ``It would be a normal reaction,'' she said. Mrs. Reagan made her comments in an interview with Barbara Walters for a segment of the ABC-TV News ``20-20'' program. By coincidence, the program is being shown on the Reagans' 36th wedding anniversary. Mrs. Reagan did not say in the interview what the president was recovering from at the time the gloomy prognosis was broadcast. Nor did she provide any further details. Reagan has undergone several operations during the seven years of his presidency. Recalling her bout with breast cancer, the first lady also said she did not understand the criticism directed at her when she chose to have her breast removed rather than to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment. ``I really don't understand the people who criticize,'' she said. ``It was my choice to make. So don't criticize me for making what I thought was the right choice for me. ``You know the whole point about feminism is that you have a choice, that women have a choice. ... ``And I think having doctors who know nothing about the case, who know nothing about you, and know nothing about the case at all coming on giving their opinion, I don't think that's right.''
AP901126-0005 	X	Lawmakers looking for ways to trim the federal deficit can cut defense spending and even raise taxes if they have to. But they have found they'd better not touch Social Security. This year, Social Security will dispense about $265 billion - more than one-fifth of all federal spending. But the program was untouched in the deficit-reduction package enacted last month. And new budget rules make Social Security virtually untouchable in the future. The reason has much to do with the political power of the elderly, but also with the program's overall popularity, analysts and lawmakers say. ``It's a real gut issue,'' said Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Both Social Security and Medicare, the health care program for the elderly, are ``enormously popular programs,'' noted Henry Aaron, director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. ``The public opinion polls indicate that people would prefer to cut the deficit in any other way.'' That explains why, as lawmakers were voting billions of dollars in new taxes and defense cuts to cut the budget deficit last month, Social Security recipients being were told their benefits would increase 5.4 percent in January. The Bush administration announced this month it was looking at ways to shift government benefits from the wealthy to the poor, but it specifically excluded Social Security. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., noted that ``members of Congress are still pretty sensitive'' after having to repeal the Medicare catastrophic illness program last year after an outcry by senior citizens who didn't want to pay for it. The program was designed to protect the elderly from financial ruin if they were struck by a devastating illness. A fight over Medicare cuts was one issue that delayed last month's budget agreement. In the final version, Medicare takes a $42 billion hit over five years. About $10 billion of that comes from beneficiaries' pockets. Social Security and Medicare are widely considered the most effective government programs ever to improve the lives of senior citizens. A 1988 Census Bureau report said Social Security benefits lifted 15 million elderly citizens out of poverty in 1986 and cut the poverty rate among the elderly from 47 percent to 14 percent. ``It's done a fantastic job of reducing poverty among the elderly,'' said Robert Ball, former Social Security commissioner. ``About two thirds of beneficiaries get more than half their income from Social Security.'' Social Security and the hospital part of the Medicare program are funded in the same way - with a payroll tax held in a trust fund earmarked solely for that program. Neither program is run like welfare; benefits are given to rich and poor alike. Rather, the criteria are related to age or disability, plus a person's lifetime contributions to the program. ``It's precisely the fact that they're not programs for the poor that gives these programs their unifying force,'' said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at Brookings. ``People think they have paid and now they're entitled'' to benefits, Aaron said. Judy Schub, senior economic lobbyist at the American Association of Retired Persons, said the elderly tend to think of their Social Security benefits as money that was put away for them, ``that there's a piggy bank with my name on it.'' However, the system is an inter-generational plan, with today's recipients receiving far more than they ever paid into the system. Current workers are paying those benefits. After financial troubles in the early 1980s, Social Security benefits were scaled back in 1983 and other changes were made to keep its trust fund solvent. Now there's a large surplus, and Sen. Daniel Moynihan, D-N.Y., tried this year to reduce the Social Security payroll tax so that money from the program would not grow so quickly and be used to mask the size of the federal budget deficit. His effort was unsuccessful, but others in Congress did succeed in removing the program from the calculations used to determine the federal deficit. That means that cutting Social Security won't help the deficit. Medicare, however, is facing mounting pressure, as inflation in medical costs continues to outpace overall inflation. The reserves in the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund are shrinking and the fund faces bankruptcy in 13 to 15 years unless action is taken, according to the 1990 annual report of the program's Board of Trustees. Ball said he is mindful of Social Security's popularity and the political risk in touching it. ``Changes should be made in Social Security from time to time ... to bring it up to date and make it a better program,'' said Ball, a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee at the Department of Health and Human Services. But, he said, ``The changes should be made for sound Social Security policy, not to reduce the deficit.''
AP900609-0060 	X	A former health minister has called for the legalization of brothels to help fight AIDS, and a poll made public Saturday suggested most French people think it's a good idea. Condemnations have come from across the political spectrum, including women's rights advocates who say lifting the 44-year ban on brothels would amount to state-sanctioned slavery. But a Louis Harris poll indicated strong public support for the suggestion by the former health minister, Michele Barzach, one of the few women with a high profile in French national politics. Of the 1,008 people surveyed, 80 percent said reopening brothels would help control AIDS by allowing closer medical supervision of prostitutes, according to the poll. According to unofficial estimates, France has 75,000 to 90,000 full- or part-time prostitutes. About 10,500 cases of AIDS have been recorded in France since 1982. Ms. Barzach, a 46-year-old gynecologist, was health minister from 1986 to 1988 in the conservative government of Premier Jacques Chirac, and many of her policies stirred controversy. During her tenure, she helped launch campaigns to reduce tobacco and alcohol consumption, denounced surrogate motherhood, cut back on state-paid medical benefits and led a campaign against AIDS that included scrapping a ban on condom advertisements. The current furor was set off by an interview published Thursday in the newspaper Le Monde, in which Ms. Barzach discussed the AIDS threat. ``The current situation is unacceptable and frightening,'' she said. ``It's necessary to reopen the licensed brothels. Let's install a genuine health system.'' Licensed brothels were shut down on April 13, 1946, under the ``Marthe Richard law,'' named for its legislative sponsor, a World War I spy and World War II resistance member. Ms. Barzach now is a deputy to Chirac, mayor of Paris. He took pains Friday to say the brothel proposal was only her personal opinion _ not a position of their Rally for the Republic party. Within the ranks of the governing Socialists, reactions varied from cautious to caustic. Michele Andre, secretary of state for women's rights, said she was ``deeply offended'' by the proposal to ``lock up women and use them as merchandise.'' Health Minster Claude Evin said the problem of acquired immune deficiency syndrome extended far beyond prostitutes and homosexuals, but added: ``I am ready to consider anything that would help stop the spread of AIDS.'' French police officials in the past have expressed support for relegalizing brothels, but they made no formal endorsement of Ms. Barzach's suggestion.
AP900927-0198 	X	One of the hardest times to stick to a low-fat diet is when confronted with a restaurant menu. What's really in all those dishes described so temptingly? Since the average American eats several meals a week away from home, it's important to know. A new pocket-size book can provide some guidance. The ``Guide to Low-Cholesterol Dining Out'' by Harriet Roth (Signet, $1.95), focuses not only on the animal products that contain cholesterol but on high-fat foods that can raise the level of cholesterol in the body. Roth advises diners to ask questions and make requests (such as sauce on the side). More and more restaurants are willing to comply with health-conscious eaters' wishes, said Roth, former director of the Pritikin Longevity Center Cooking School. There are general guidelines and lists of foods to enjoy and avoid at 17 kinds of restaurants, in take-out foods, among beverages and when traveling. She also includes a brief list of requests (such as ``I am on a special low-fat, low-cholesterol diet.'') in French, Spanish, Italian and German. ---
AP901021-0008 	X	Here are the winning numbers picked Saturday night for the California Lottery's twice-weekly ``Lotto 6-53'' game: 9, 38, 6, 29, 7, 20, and the bonus number, 27.
AP900518-0012 	X	A three-judge federal panel on Thursday upheld the authority of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to determine the level of discharges from a Missouri River reservoir in South Dakota and North Dakota. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned a lower court order that releases from the Oahe reservoir be reduced, as had been requested by the drought-stricken states. The appeals panel said it had serious reservations about whether courts have jurisdiction over such decisions by the corps. In a brief order, the panel said it would spell out its legal reasoning later in a formal opinion. The tug-of-war over water rights pitted the corps and the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri against North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana over whether water flow should be reduced from the reservoir, which stretches from Pierre, S.D., to near Bismarck, N.D. U.S. District Judge Patrick Conmy in Bismarck had ordered the corps to reduce the discharges by one-third until June 1 so the hatch of walleye pike could be completed in the 232-mile long reservoir. The appeals panel granted an emergency stay of that order last Friday. The corps said the lower water level would threaten barge traffic between Sioux City, Iowa, and St. Louis, a 730-mile shipping channel, and also would jeopardize two species of birds protected by the Endangered Species Act. State officials on both sides of the issue said they were not surprised by the ruling. ``It was expected, anticipated that the judges would rule in our favor. But nonetheless it is good news,'' said Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr in Omaha, Neb. ``The downstream states have to protect our interests from the states upstream,'' she said. North Dakota Attorney General Nicholas Spaeth, who argued the case Wednesday before the panel, said in Bismarck that there probably isn't time to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. ``We don't have many options,'' said Spaeth. ``It'll be almost impossible to get Supreme Court review in the two weeks we have left.'' North Dakota Gov. George Sinner, speaking from Washington, D.C., expressed strong disappointment with the ruling. ``The upper basin states have continued to give and give and give. We gave up huge amounts of our most fertile land for flood protection for the lower basin states,'' he said. ``Now we're being asked to give up recreation for the lower basin navigation. ``It's patently unfair and we will seek every avenue that we can to get restitution for our people,'' Sinner added. Despite the defeat, South Dakota Gov. George Mickelson said in Sioux Falls, S D., ``it was a battle that had to be fought.''
AP901008-0134 	X	Tropical Storm Klaus, which strengthened after being downgraded to a depression, threatened the Bahamas and contributed to flooding along Florida's Atlantic shores Monday. The National Hurricane Center in suburban Coral Gables was also tracking Tropical Storm Lili, which formed in the central Atlantic but posed no immediate threat to land. At 6 p.m. EDT, Klaus had top winds of 40 mph, just over the threshold of storm strength. Its center was near 22.2 degrees north latitude and 70.8 degrees west longitude, or about 470 miles southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas. Klaus was moving northwest at 15 mph and was expected to continue on that track for the next day or two, forecasters said. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the central Bahamas in the Caribbean, the northern Bahamas were under a tropical storm watch and a coastal flood watch was in effect for Florida's east coast and Keys. Some increase in strength was likely during the next day for Klaus, which at one point was strong enough to be the sixth hurricane of the season. The storm was expected to strengthen, but wasn't expected to move over Florida, said Bob Sheets, director of the hurricane center. ``We think it's going to move on a northwest course and most likely will not move over Florida, particularly South Florida.'' However, Klaus-related winds were already partly responsible for beach erosion, rough surf and potentially deadly rip currents along Florida's eastern coast, and heavy winds and rain elsewhere in the state, the center said. Klaus killed at least six people and left 1,500 homeless in the northeastern Caribbean before being downgraded Saturday to a typical storm when its top winds dropped below 73 mph. It was downgraded late Sunday to a tropical depression when its winds dipped below 39 mph. Meanwhile, tropical storm Lili at At 6 p.m. was located near 32.7 degrees north latitude and 47.5 degrees west longitude, or about 1,000 miles west-southwest of the Azores, a group of islands off Portugal. Lili, with top winds near 65 mph, was expected to strengthen during the next day as it moved southwest at 7 mph, forecasters said.
AP900808-0209 	X	President Bush said today that the Middle East crisis and the resulting increases in oil prices have not reduced the necessity for a significant deficit-reduction agreement. ``I still think it's absolutely essential to get a budget agreement (with Congress) and that's going to require a lot of principle,'' Bush told a news conference. Congressional leaders and the administration have made little progress in devising a deficit-reduction plan, agreeing only to resume efforts next month. Bush implied that he soon will resume public criticism of Democrats' negotiating posture. ``I don't feel bound by an agreement that I've told the congressional leaders is no longer in effect,'' he said, apparently referring to an earlier concession to tone down political rhetoric about the negotiations. Congressional Republicans are unhappy that Democrats have refused to put forth a specific proposal, even after Bush backed away from a campaign pledge to oppose tax increases. Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole told reporters today the administration is still seeking a $500 billion, five-year deficit-reduction plan. He added, however, that there is little chance of raising gasoline taxes as part of that plan and questioned how deeply defense spending could be cut in light of U.S. military involvement in Saudi Arabia. Key members of Congress say they see no reason to ease up on efforts to reach an agreement. ``If the economy begins to look really bad, every element of the deficit-reduction package will be threatened,'' Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, said Tuesday. ``Right now, the major effect is to make an energy tax less likely.'' A military face-off with Iraq also could fuel arguments that slashing the $300 billion defense budget is a bad idea right now. ``It's living proof there are mean people in the world and we need a respectable national defense,'' said Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. However, Senate Budget Committee Chairman James Sasser, D-Tenn., said the proposed $10 billion to $15 billion in military cuts ``really aren't that deep in the first place.'' Petroleum prices have jumped several dollars closer to $30 per barrel since Iraq invaded oil-rich Kuwait last week. Fuel costs in the United States are already rising, along with prices for other goods and services such as airline tickets and electricity. Bargainers concede that with fuel prices rising, raising taxes on gasoline or other sources of energy becomes less palatable. ``I think it probably will kill any effort to have a broad-based energy tax,'' Gramm said. Congressional leaders and Bush administration officials have struggled inconclusively since May to forge a package of tax increases and spending cuts totaling $50 billion for next year and $500 billion over five years. The summit talks are on hold for Congress' August recess. Iraq's takeover of Kuwait _ and resulting military and economic moves by the United States and its allies _ means the American economy could be weaker when the bargainers reconvene in September. Negotiators said they would watch economic performance closely. ``Anybody who thinks we're not being forced into a re-evaluation these next few weeks is kidding themselves,'' said House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, D-Calif. If the economy seems shaky, one option would be to lower the amount of taxes and spending cuts slated for fiscal 1991, which starts Oct. 1. ``Under any circumstances, we need to focus on significant deficit reduction over five years,'' said Panetta. But budget bargainers said no reasons have yet surfaced to shoot for a less ambitious deficit-cutting package. ``I don't think we can see clearly enough into the future to know how much we'll be affected,'' said Frenzel. ``I think the summiteers ought to go forward with the plan we've been discussing.''
AP900404-0175 	X	Police said Wednesday they are checking into reports that the fiery crash of a small plane may have been the result of a suicide-bound passenger who struggled for control of the craft. The Cessna 421 Golden Eagle streaked over the foothills west of Boulder on Sunday, slammed into a tree, then destroyed a vacant house, four garages and six parked cars, engulfing a large section of the residential block in flames. Killed were Gordon Larry Hood, 45, and the pilot, James Wilford ``Bill'' Layne, 56, police said. Eyewitnesses reported that the plane flipped onto its side and went into a power dive, behavior that might reflect a struggle going on in the cockpit, said police spokesman David Grimm. ``Was the pilot overpowered, was the pilot shot, was the pilot stabbed? We just don't know,'' Grimm said. ``As far as we can tell right now, the pilot just happens to be the unfortunate person who got hired that day.'' Police asked the National Transportation Safety Board to allow them back into the crash site after two out-of-state acquaintances told investigators that Hood was suicidal, Grimm said. ``The sources gave us information when we spoke to them that there were indications made to them that Mr. Hood was potentially contemplating suicide and in a manner similar to what occurred,'' Grimm said. ``We thought we were investigating an air accident, and it has turned into something else.'' Authorities released Hood's identity Wednesday, saying he is believed to be from Atlanta, but had recently moved to the Denver area. They believe Hood was a photographer. Layne, an employee of Intensive Air Care, a Denver-based private charter company, had taken Hood to Granby, a mountain community about 80 miles northwest of Denver, and the two were returning to Denver when the plane crashed. ``We don't necessarily get the impression that there was physical struggle going on,'' Grimm said. ``It could simply have been a struggle over control of the aircraft.'' Autopsy results released Tuesday showed Hood and Layne died of injuries suffered in the plane crash and not from other causes, according to Tom Faure, chief medical investigator of the Boulder County coroner's office. Grimm said Hood was seen carrying a briefcase into a post office in Granby, and investigators believe he mailed some cards or letters there. Police are asking anyone who may have received mail from Hood to contact them.
AP880528-0104 	X	President Reagan, the target of embarrassing disclosures in books by former aides, says he probably will write a book of his own to ``straighten out the record and tell things as they really are.'' However, the president indicated he wasn't happy about the idea. ``I don't look forward to it. I wrote a book once and found it was quite a chore,'' said Reagan, the author of a 1965 autobiography entitled ``Where's the Rest of Me.'' Reagan revealed his plans in a televised interview with two Soviet journalists, broadcast Saturday night in the Soviet Union after being taped last week in the Oval Office. ``I've been thinking very seriously about writing a book. In view of the fact that several people who have left government have written some books, I think maybe I better straighten out the record and tell things as they really are,'' Reagan said. He said the presidential library to be built in southern California after he leaves office will house the papers and memorabilia that he collected. ``So there will be a record that is open for public view. But I'll probably get around to writing a book.'' ``For the Record,'' a recent book by former White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan, portrayed Reagan as a hand-off leader whose schedule was guided by astrological forecasts followed by his wife, Nancy. Former White House spokesman Larry Speakes also drew an unflattering portrait of Reagan in his book, ``Speaking Out,'' and said he made up quotes for the president at the Geneva summit with Gorbachev because Reagan was losing the public relations battle. Speakes said he also took words from Secretary of State George P. Shultz and attributed them to Reagan after the Soviet Union shot down a Korean airliner. Speakes said Reagan didn't have anything to say on his own at meetings with key aides.
AP880213-0186 	X	A federal judge Friday sentenced a former state auditor general to six years in prison for racketeering and tax fraud related to ``a sickening pattern of soliciting, accepting and paying bribes.'' Al Benedict, a one-time gubernatorial hopeful, also was fined $20,000 by U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir, who said the sentence was intended as a deterrent for other public officials. The judge ordered Benedict to surrender to U.S. marshals on March 14. Benedict, 58, pleaded guilty last month to charges of racketeering and tax fraud. The racketeering charge encompassed 10 state bribery-related charges, which the government said occurred between April 1976 and November 1984. Benedict acknowledged accepting bribes in return for hiring and promoting state workers and for awarding no-bid contracts. He also admitted making a $6,000 payoff to a lawmaker in return for a bigger state appropriation for his department. ``I could never express to you how I feel ... the pain, suffering, embarrassment, humiliation,'' Benedict said in court. ``All I can attempt to do is atone for my transgressions and sins.'' Benedict refused to answer reporters' questions as he left the courthouse. His lawyer, Arthur Goldberg, said Benedict was surprised but not angered by the sentence. He could have been sentenced to up to 23 years in prison and $125,000 in fines. Federal prosecutors asked for a light sentence, citing Benedict's cooperation in a continuing investigation of state-government corruption. The defense, in a memorandum filed by Goldberg, asked for a one-year sentence with early parole and a term of public service. The memorandum portrays Benedict, a former television commentator who became de facto head of the state Democratic Party during two terms as auditor general, as a broken, humiliated man. It also places the blame for Benedict's predicament on his former top aide, John Kerr, who was convicted of masterminding the job-selling scheme. Kerr was sentenced to two to five years in prison and remains free on bail. He led investigators to Benedict late in 1986. Among the spectators at the sentencing was Joanne Dwyer, widow of state Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. Her husband killed himself during a news conference last year, one day before he was to be sentenced by Muir on bribery-conspiracy charges. She criticized the plea-bargaining system that allowed Benedict to shorten his prison term and said her husband never got a chance to bargain because he was innocent and had been framed.
AP900911-0210 	X	Drug cases have clogged urban courts, delayed civil matters, overcrowded jails and stirred new debate over the best possible solution _ legalization or more judges. ``If you want to look at the largest single cause of caseload glut, drugs are it,'' said Albert Alschuler, professor at the University of Chicago Law School. ``We're having fewer and fewer trials, particularly on the civil side. No one can afford to wait. The system's just become unworkable.'' Much of the impact is on state courts, which process about 97 percent of drug arrests. But the federal system also is feeling the crunch. Consider: _ Drug cases in federal courts increased by 280 percent since 1980, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said last December in his annual end-of-the-year report. He urged Congress to act immediately on a proposal to create new judgeships. In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure to create 77 new judgeships. The bill is pending in the Senate. _ Federal drug cases represented more than 26 percent of new criminal filings, and up to 60 percent in some districts, Rehnquist said. Nearly 55 percent of criminal appeals involved drug offenses, compared with 30 percent in 1980. _ The drug caseload rose by 56 percent in 17 big-city courts between 1983 and 1987, according to a 1989 report, ``The Impact of Drug Cases on Case Processing in Urban Trial Courts.'' Among the major increases: Boston _ 175 percent; Jersey City, N.J. _ 114 percent; the Bronx borough of New York City _ 109 percent; and Oakland, Calif. _ 95 percent. _ Drug-related cases made up about a quarter of felonies disposed of in 26 big-city courts in 1987, the report said. It noted that number actually is low because it doesn't count incidents in which drugs were involved but didn't constitute the most serious charge. The situation has turned even grimmer since then; in Detroit, the percentage of state court drug cases more than doubled from 1987 to 1989, said John Goerdt, the report's co-author and senior staff attorney at the National Center for State Courts. Drug cases, he added, are ``starting to show up in family courts, in juvenile courts, with abused and neglected kids.'' When courts are stressed, ``nobody can render the same quality of justice,'' said James Fyfe, a criminal justice professor at American University in Washington, D.C. ``We all know the old saw that justice delayed is justice denied. ... Evidence disappears. Recollections grow dimmer.'' Complicating matters, experts say, are new mandatory sentencing laws, leading some defendants to seek trial rather than pleading guilty, adding to the backlog. In Goerdt's report, jury trials in the 26 big-city courts disposed of only 6 percent of all felonies in 1987. While some propose more staff, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet in New York last year became the first federal judge to publicly advocate drug legalization. The burden is so great, he said, that in September 1989, no federal juries in Manhattan were available to hear civil trials. Others who have previously supported legalization include Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and conservative columnist William F. Buckley. Regardless of different proposals, experts agree the impact is enormous. ``The taxpayers are spending lots of money to warehouse people in jail,'' Alschuler said. ``(Inmates) are sleeping on floors on mattresses. ... Everybody in the system suffers.''
AP901002-0024 	X	Students barricaded inside a building at the University of the District of Columbia say they may give some members of the school's board of trustees until March 31 to resign. Leaders of the protest, which began Wednesday, had said the students wouldn't leave the building unless the 11 mayoral appointees to the 15-member board submitted letters of resignation immediately. However they softened that demand on Monday. ``That gives everybody six months to determine whether or not there are some members we want to reinstate or some we want to replace,'' protest leader Mark Thompson said. The protesters are demanding extensive changes in the way the 12,000-student university is run and improvements in several athletic and academic programs. They say the board has allowed the quality of the school to decline and put the accreditation of some of its departments in jeopardy. The students and the board have reached agreement on nearly all of the students' other demands. But negotiations remain stalemated on the issue of resignations, with most of the board refusing to quit. ``It would not appear to be in the best interests of the university for them to quit,'' UDC spokesman John Britton said. ``We've made progress, and honestly, the dialogue has become a bit more candid and a bit more cordial, but we're still discussing and neither side has really bent any,'' Thompson said. Thompson said about 500 students remained in the building Monday, down from the 1,000 he said participated in the demonstrations this weekend. Trustees have estimated the number of students involved from 150 to 300. Thompson said protesters were successful in persuading most students to stay away from classes Monday, despite administrators having officially opened the university for the first time since demonstrations began. ``As far as we are concerned, school is still closed,'' Thompson said. All buildings except an administration building occupied by the students were reopened. But instructors were seen conducting classes with fewer than 10 students each. Two trustees have agreed to resign for personal reasons, Britton said, but the protests had not forced the actions. A third trustee has agreed to quit because of illness, Thompson said. Trustee Nira Long has agreed to step down as board chairwoman but has refused to leave the board.
AP880609-0057 	X	Russian sailors danced in this remote American outpost during a shore-leave blowout celebrating the recent U.S.-Soviet fisheries agreement. More than 600 Soviet sailors, many clutching fistfuls of dollars, arrived late Tuesday in this Aleutian Island town of about 1,900 people 800 miles southwest of Anchorage. They were treated to rock music, mounds of food and gallons of various beverages, welcome sights and sounds for Soviet sailors who had been at sea more than six months. ``This is the first time I meet Americans,'' said Alexander Cherkov, first mate aboard the vessel Semiozernoye. ``Americans are very nice people.'' ``These people are real people,'' an American fisherman who identified himself only as Captain America slurred as he staggered off, his arms around two Soviet seamen. ``Just like you and me. Can you believe it?'' The party was held partly to celebrate the fisheries agreement President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed during last week's Moscow summit meeting. The agreement allows U.S. vessels to fish in Soviet waters and use Soviet ports, and joint fishing and conservation in the North Pacific. Soviet seamen have been coming here for the past three years or so, but Mayor Paul Fuhs said he could not remember when more Soviets had visited at one time. ``This is great, just great,'' said a beaming Fuhs, who also played with one of the rock bands. ``Where else could this happen?'' Fuhs finished the evening with a red carnation tucked behind his ear. ``It was one of those nights,'' he said. As the party picked up steam, a Soviet maritime officer in full uniform tried to make his way across the windblown town dock jammed with hundreds of dancing people, but was beseiged by giggling children. He stopped, put down his coat and began playing games with them. Soviet sailors showered toys, candy and other gifts on any child in sight. Americans and Soviets struggled to converse, and traded pins, hats and anything else not nailed down. While music blared from the rusty flatbed trailer that served as a bandstand, the Soviets showed old flickering black-and-while films of Lenin and Soyuz space launches on a screen dangling from the side of a ship. Soviet sailors lined up to have their pictures taken with police officers. Off to the side, a young Soviet seaman quietly played a guitar for an American girl. By night's end, the sailors had to help one another back aboard their vessels; many townspeople were in no better shape. ``The party was a success,'' Harbormaster Gary Daily said early Wednesday. ``Everybody seems to have survived.'' ``This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to Soviet-American relations,'' said Dianna Matthias, lead observer of the Soviet fleet for the National Marine Fisheries Service. ``I never, never again want to hear that these people and Americans can't get along.'' ``I love these guys,'' said Ed Cameron, a fisherman from Tacoma, Wash. ``This is the fishermen's summit. ... I could never raise a hand or gun to any of them. If we ever have a war with them, I'll be a conscientious objector.'' The Soviets started coming ashore at Dutch Harbor for crew rests around 1985, said Mark Dudley, Dutch Harbor manager of Maritime Resources Co. International, a joint U.S.-Soviet fishing venture. ``Word spread like wildfire in the Soviet fleet,'' Dudley said, yelling to be heard over the music. ``And every year after that there have been more and more calls.'' He said his company expects its Soviet vessels to make about 30 port calls by year's end. Town officials said they expect perhaps 10 additional Soviet ships. Each ship's crew is given up to $20,000 to spend here, Dudley said. The sailors come ashore to buy American and Japanese goods. Before the party, they descended on stores to stock up on such goods as music tapes, portable radio-tape decks, solar powered watches, ice cream and gum _ lots of gum. ``My kids call it hooba booba,'' said Alexander Mokhov, captain of the Mys Chassavoi, a 285-foot fish processor. ``They want nothing else. If the gum sticks to your hair, they know it is good gum.''
AP881114-0072 	X	Here are highlights of Monday's Supreme Court actions.
AP881209-0098 	X	The 10 men who flew the two Arizona-based planes fired on over Mauritania were a close-knit group dedicated to ridding western Africa of locusts, their families said. One of the planes was shot down Thursday and officials said all five people aboard were killed. A second DC-7 was damaged in the anti-aircraft missile attack but was able to land at a remote airstrip in Morocco. No injuries were reported among those aboard. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. A co-owner of the downed DC-7 identified those who were killed as: Joel Blackmer, 46; his son, Frank Kennedy, 21, of Phoenix; Bernard Rossini, 49, of Tempe, Ariz.; Frank Hederman, 47, of Cody, Wyo.; and Wes Wilson, of Hershey, Neb. Sergio Tomassoni, 64, a co-owner of T & G Aviation in Chandler, Ariz., said in a telephone interview from Agadir, Morocco, that he was aboard the other T & G Aviation DC-7. ``We were just flying along at about 11,000 feet when, all of a sudden, the first airplane was hit,'' Tomassoni said. ``We saw the smoke and a big ball of fire. One of the engines was in flames. The plane started losing altitude, and then the right wing blew off. I knew they were in trouble, but we had problems of our own.'' The planes were under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development to spray locust swarms in Senegal, he said. They were fired on near where Marxist rebels have been fighting Morocco for an independent Western Sahara. ``All my dad wanted to do was take some of his skills to help other people,'' said Kara Rossini, 22, of St. Paul, Rossini's daughter. ``He was the kind of guy who would look at the little Ethiopian kids with the big bellies and cry. He ends up getting shot by a bunch of creeps who probably are going to get some of the food from this effort,'' she said. The 10 men who made up the crews were friends who loved to spend time talking shop about airplanes and aviation, Tomassoni said. Tomassoni's wife, Lydia, of Chandler, said her husband survived another tragedy in 1986 on another pesticide-spraying mission in Senegal. His plane, another DC-7, developed engine trouble and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, she said. Three others died, but Tomassoni survived. ``Nothing bothers those idiots,'' Mrs. Tomassoni said. ``They're all ex-servicemen. That's their life.''
AP900627-0110 	X	The City Planning Commission on Wednesday approved the construction of a $25 million biomedical laboratory on the site where Malcolm X was slain, provided a substantial portion of the building is preserved. That includes 40 percent of the Audubon Ballroom, including the stage on which the black nationalist leader was shot o Feb. 21, 1965. In May, the commission had deferred a decision on a plan to demolish the ballroom at Broadway and 165th Street, across from Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Followers of Malcolm X objected. Applicants for the research building were Columbia University and the city. It is to get funding from the Municipal Assistance Corp. and state urban development aid. The project still has to be approved by the city's Board of Estimate. Malcolm X headed the Harlem mosque of the Black Muslims but split with Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad in 1963. Malcolm X then formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which promoted black nationalism but admitted the possibility of interracial brotherhood.
AP900407-0139 	X	The owner of the building that housed an illegal social club where 87 people were killed in a fire has been accused in lawsuits by his brother and sister of ruining the family real estate business. The Daily News and The New York Times reported in their Sunday editions that the siblings of Alex DiLorenzo III accuse him of making speculative commodities investments, buying failing businesses and acquired buildings in need of repairs. Alex DiLorenzo last week surrendered to authorities on 43 arrest warrants for outstanding building code violations, including one violation at the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, where the fire occurred last month. The other 42 concerned citations at various Manhattan properties. DiLorenzo's brother, Marc, and sister, Lisa, sued to wrest control of two family partnerships which have about 250 holdings valued in court papers at as much as $1.2 billion, the Times said. At the family's request, the pending case has been sealed. In one decision before the sealing, Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Harold Baer credited Alex DiLorenzo with increasing the success of the family business. Baer in December rejected Marc DiLorenzo's motion to have Alex removed as head of the business. Among the non-real estate transactions questioned in the lawsuit, the News said, was Alex DiLorenzo's involvement in a firm that began to sell frozen cow embryos and bull semen to Third World countries. Five brokers who have worked with the DiLorenzo family said Alex failed to follow his late father's pattern of buying established, expensive properties, the Times said. The DiLorenzo business was left in trust to the three children when their father died in 1975. Alex DiLorenzo administered the trust. Several years ago, Marc DiLorenzo, under terms allowed in the trust, asked that the partnership be broken into three equal parts and distributed. Alex DiLorenzo refused and his siblings sued.
AP900720-0130 	X	State health officials complained Friday that the Agriculture Department has left them to their own devices in the fight against salmonella enteritidis, a potentially fatal form of bacteria found in raw or undercooked eggs. ``The absence of a coordinated federal response has left states with no alternative but to take strong action to protect their citizens from contaminated food often produced in other states,'' John J. Guzewich of the New York State Health Department told a congressional oversight panel. Robert Flentge of the Illinois Public Health Department complained about ``mixed signals at the federal level'' and interference with his department. A.B. Park of the Maryland Agriculture Department said state officials began tracing eggs and testing chickens while federal officials were debating whether salmonellosis is a poultry disease. The witnesses appeared before the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The panel's chairman, Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., alleged that the Agriculture Department was late in recognizing the growing number of outbreaks traced to the bacteria and withheld information from the Food and Drug Administration, which also regulates the food supply. Poisoning from the enteritidis form of salmonella has been increasing steadily since 1982 and is most likely to be fatal among the very old, the very young and others whose immune systems are weak, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The agency says the increase is directly related to contamination of Grade A eggs that are eaten raw or undercooked. Infection has been spread through scrambled, poached and over-easy eggs, as well as in home-made ice cream, cole slaw, sauces and dressings. Since 1985, there have been 217 outbreaks responsible for 7,370 cases of infection. Of those cases, 44 resulted in death, CDC says. Health officials say tracing the food poisoning to a particular flock is by nature difficult and is made more difficult by the lack of effective regulation. Even an infected flock may produce only one contaminated egg in 1,000, said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control. Testing all chickens before allowing their eggs to be shipped is also impossible for now, he said. Organ cultures are required to find the bacteria. The problem can become worse when the eggs reach a restaurant, nursing home or institution, said Tauxe. One contaminated egg can contaminate a bowl of 500, he said. The state officials complained that federal inspections are limited to brood hens that produce the laying hens, even though environmental contamination remains a real risk. They also complained that no recall provision exists for eggs that have reached the market, and that no effective way exists for tracing eggs.
AP901019-0135 	X	Iraq on Friday ordered all foreigners in occupied Kuwait to report to authorities or face punishment, and announced it would ration gasoline to save imported chemicals used in refining fuel. The gasoline rationing was the latest indication that international trade sanctions against Iraq are having an impact. The U.N. embargo was imposed two months ago to force Iraq out of Kuwait, which it invaded Aug. 2. In New York, there was good news about oil. Prices were down $2.00 a barrel in early afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to $34.70. Traders said prices eased after conciliatory remarks by an Iraqi official. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Taha Yassin Ramadan, said Thursday in Amman, Jordan, that he thought both sides in the crisis were reassessing their positions and that peace talks could be in the offing. But in Washington, President Bush said he saw no chance for compromise in the Persian Gulf crisis. ``I am as determined as I was the day the first troop left, that Saddam Hussein's aggression not be rewarded by some compromise,'' Bush said in a meeting with Italian-American leaders. Bush met later with a Soviet envoy, Yevgeny Primakov, who said he agreed that the world should not relax its insistence on an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. ``One cannot allow a situation where actions that are incompatible with a civilized society would be in order,'' Primakov said after the meeting. A report published in Iraqi newspapers Friday said all foreigners in Kuwait must register with local authorities before Nov. 5. Those who fail to do so ``will be responsible before the law, and their residency cards will be canceled,'' the report said. Under Iraqi law, foreigners found without residency cards are punished with fines and imprisonment. The exceptions are citizens from Arab Cooperation Council nations - Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. About 400,000 foreigners are believed in Kuwait, including 2,000 Westerners that the U.S. State Department says are hiding from Iraqi soldiers. Hundreds more are held in Iraq, many at strategic sites to deter attack by the multinational force. About 200,000 U.S. soldiers and thousands from other nations are facing an estimated 430,000 Iraqi troops in the region. Saddam's forces overran his southern neighbor in a dispute over oil, land and money. With Kuwaiti oilfields, his share of world reserves increased to 20 percent, second only to Saudi Arabia. Despite Iraq's vast reserves, the Oil Ministry announced Friday gasoline rationing would begin next week. The U.N. embargo on Iraq has squeezed Baghdad's supply of imported chemicals used in refining oil. ``There is nothing to get worried about. ... The rationing is just a precaution,'' said oil minister Issam Abdul-Rahim al-Chalabi.``There is a lot of waste and by introducing the rationing we are going to cut that waste.'' Iraq is already rationing food staples such as milk, meat and bread. Baghdad says there are shortages of all such products - and many more. Car owners were ordered to pick up ration coupons at special centers, although the minister did not say how much gasoline would be allocated to each person or how long the rationing would last. Iraqis rushed to gasoline stations to stock up on gasoline Friday and long lines formed outside gas stations. In Moscow, U.S. Defense Secretary Richard Cheney praised Soviet cooperation in bringing diplomatic and economic pressure to bear on Iraq and said ``we have not given up on that policy.'' ``I have also made it clear ... that we have not ruled out other options,'' said Cheney. He declined to speculate on possible U.S. military steps. Cheney later traveled to Paris for three days of talks with the French government on cooperation in the gulf crisis. France has deployed 13,000 troops in the gulf, the second-largest Western contingent after the United States. At the United Nations, the Security Council was considering a resolution that would allow nations hurt by Iraq's invasion to seek reparations from Baghdad's frozen assets abroad or against its future oil earnings, diplomats said. The resolution also threatens Baghdad with unspecified ``further enforcement measures,'' condemns Iraq's human rights violations in Kuwait, and demands that Iraq release all Western hostages, the diplomats said. No vote has yet been scheduled on the new resolution, they said. It would be the 10th U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Iraq. In other developments: -U.S. military officials in Saudi Arabia said there had been 2,500 interceptions, 240 boardings and 11 ``diversions'' of commercial ships since the embargo against Baghdad was imposed. -Iraqi troops have placed explosives at oil fields, gas and gasoline storage tanks as well as on bridges and viaducts in Kuwait, according to Sheik Mishal Mohammed al-Sabah, a member of the emirate's exiled ruling family. He was quoted as telling the Amsterdam newspaper De Telegraaf that Iraq plans to blow up the facilities if its soldiers are forced to withdraw. -Canada suspended operations at its embassy in Kuwait, Ottawa said Friday. Saddam ordered embassies in Kuwait closed after he annexed the emirate, and although only the British, French and U.S. embassies now remain open, most nations still recognize Kuwait as a separate nation.
AP900526-0133 	X	About 90 campers, some in trees, were rescued Saturday after heavy rains caused a creek of the Mineral Fork River to rise and flood several campgrounds, authorities said. ``You could see them hanging in the tops of the trees, waving flashlights and screaming for help,'' said Dennis Spradling, a firefighter for the Potosi Fire Protection District. Dozens of people, including Washington County sheriff's deputies, firefighters from about 15 area departments and volunteers, used boats to help rescue campers near this eastern Missouri town, Spradling said. The water was over Highway 21, hampering rescuers' efforts, he said. The river already had been high, following persistent rains through most of May. The call for help came in about 12:30 a.m., Spradling said. People were rescued from four campgrounds just south of Washington State Park, about 13 miles north of Potosi. They were taken to a nearby school. There were no major injuries, Spradling said. Three boats sank in the rain and fast-moving water. By mid-afternoon Saturday, the high water was receding and authorities were checking campers, other vehicles and camping equipment. There were no reports of missing people, Spradling said. The area got about 2.5 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending at John Feldt of the National Weather Service said the area got about 2.5 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending at 7 a.m. Saturday. He said the heaviest rain was in central Missouri, with Iberia getting about 6 inches in that period.
AP900124-0096 	X	Q: Mr. President, given the weakness of the dollar and the turmoil in the financial markets and the recent poor economic indicators, what are you going to do to calm the economy _ calm the markets and keep the economy from sliding into a recession? A: Well, one thing I'm not going to do is comment on levels of the market, except to say that there's been a substantial increase over the last year, and some are reading the recent couple of days as corrections, although I gather it recovered a little bit yesterday, and the market has always been an indicator, and it's been one that's been read quite positively. But I don't want to get into market levels. What I do want to do is establish sound policies, and I'm convinced that if we can get the cooperation of Congress that we need on reducing the deficit, that that will go a long way, not market prices but in terms of the fundamentals on the economy. It's slowed down a little. There's a lot of prediction that it will be slow for a while and then have a rather robust step-up come summer. But I don't know. All I know is that we've got to not bash anybody but get out there and try to enact policies that will help keep the longest recovery in modern history going. Q: You said that you felt that there was room for further reduction of interest rates. Given the need to attract foreign investment from overseas where rates are high, how do you square that with your call for lower interest rates? A: You mean to attract -- Q: Attract foreign investment to cover the U.S. deficit and yet though we're competing against the foreign investment _ A: I think that people see U.S. _ the U.S. still, regardless of what's temporary out there, as the safest haven for investment anywhere in the world, and I want to conduct the fiscal policies of this government so they will continue to see it that way. John, then Charles, then we'll take -- Q: Going back to the vote on the Chinese student visas, you and your people have been trying to get that vote delayed. Is that because you have some indications from the Chinese that they may soon release Fang Lizhi ... A: No. Q: ... and if this vote goes against you, it could hurt his chances? A: No, it is not, but I don't think it will help his chances. But I would love to see that step taken by the Chinese. But it isn't _ there's not a _ I think we're reconciled to the fact that the vote will go forward tomorrow in the Senate. Q: When you try to defend your China policy, one thing you never do is talk about the ``China card.'' You seem to hate that expression, even though when Kissinger and Nixon were doing it, it was considered a master stroke of foreign policy, playing the Chinese off against the Soviets. If Gorbachev does fall from power and is succeeded by men whose role model is Joe Stalin, aren't you going to have to play the China card, too? A: I don't think you ``play a card.'' I think that's gratuitously offensive to the Soviets and to the Chinese. But one of the reasons I want to stay engaged is that there are geopolitical reasons to have good relations or improved relations even under these unsatisfactory conditions. And it's going to be hard to do because of the human rights setback. But I want to have some contact. I want to retain contact because, as you look around the world, take a look at Cambodia. Take a look at Japan. Take a look at a lot of countries in the Pacific. China is a key player. And I'd like to think that our representations will have them move forward on the human rights side so we can have a more normalized relationship with them. Q: Mr. President, regarding the Soviet Union, have you in the course of these events going on in Baku, or any of your senior people _ I see General Scowcroft is here _ been in touch with Mr. Gorbachev or his people to discuss how severe it is, and ... A: Well, we've had contact with them. I don't remember when my last contact was with Mr. Gorbachev, but it didn't relate specifically to the Baku. Q: Could I then follow, sir, to ask you to reconcile, if you can, the position that you've taken that you say you want Mr. Gorbachev to survive and succeed, and on the other hand, you have areas of the Soviet Union such as the Baltics that you do not recognize as being part of the Soviet Union, and where you say you favor an independent pursuit of their own destiny. Does he succeed if they secede? A: Well, he _ that's again, at this juncture the U.S. position is well known, and you've stated it correctly, that we have not recognized the status of the Baltics. However, what I say that we want to do is to encourage Mr. Gorbachev's stand that peaceful change is the order of the day. And he's sorting out some very difficult internal problems in these three Baltic countries. And I don't think it helps facilitate things for us to fine tune all that. They know our position. I talked to him about this, incidentally, at Malta. But the thing I think is that, in looking at the Soviet scene there, that he is still adhering as best he can to the concept of peaceful change in the Baltics. And that's got to dominate.
AP880425-0092 	X	An Israeli court today sentenced John Demjanjuk to be executed for war crimes committed as ``Ivan the Terrible,'' a sadistic Nazi guard who ran gas chambers where about 800,000 Jews died. ``He was a chief hangman who with his own hands killed tens of thousands with cruelty ... We sentence him to death,'' said Judge Zvi Tal. Onlookers clapped and shouted as the sentence was announced. Some chanted ``Bravo.'' Others shouted: ``Death, death.'' Last week, the court convicted the 68-year-old retired Ohio autoworker of Nazi war crimes. It said he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews at the Treblinka concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. About 800,000 Jews died in 1942 and 1943, when ``Ivan'' worked at the camp. Only one man has ever been executed in Israel's 40-year history. Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, was hanged in 1962. Court Spokesman Yossi Hassin said Demjanjuk would most likely be hanged. ``If the sentence is upheld on appeal, the expectation is he would be hanged,'' Hassin said. Demjanjuk attended today's sentences in a wheelchair, complaining of back problems. He entered the courtroom moments before the verdict was read, shouting in Hebrew: ``I am innocent.'' A Christian, he was seen making the sign of the cross and whispering to himself, apparently praying, during arguments from prosecutors who demanded the death penalty. After the verdict he was wheeled away, expressionless and ringed by riot police. Demjanjuk's lawyers have said they will appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. Today's sentence followed a trial that lasted 14 months. Yosef Czarny, a Treblinka survivor who testified against Demjanjuk, said that although ``a thousand deaths cannot compensate for what happened ... at least we have judged one of the Angels of Death.'' ``I feel like a burden has been lifted,'' said Pinchas Epstein, another Holocaust survivor. Tal's statement after three hours of judicial deliberation drew applause and whistling from hundreds of Israelis in the audience, including survivors of the Holocaust. Several hundred onlookers crowded into the converted movie theater to hear the verdict. Earlier, longtime observers said they expected the death penalty because of the sweeping guilty verdict which discounted each defense argument. ``There is no forgiveness in the law or the heart ... (Holocaust) victims are still crying out to us,'' said Tal, who was born in Poland. ``Even a thousand deaths cannot compensate.'' Demjanjuk's son, 22-year-old John Jr., said his family had expected a death sentence. ``It amounts to nothing less than the judicial murder of an innocent man,'' he said. ``It will bring shame to the state of Israel, the Israeli Justice Department, the U.S. Justice Department, and most unfortunately the six million victims of the Nazi Holocaust.'' Earlier in the day, his father told the three-judge panel it was making a ``very, very, very big mistake.'' The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk has consistently alleged he is a victim of mistaken identity, although he admitted lying on his American emigration papers about his past. He contends he was held in a Nazi prisoner of war camp during the critical period in question. ``I am not Ivan the Terrible, and to that God is the most just witness. He knows I am innocent,'' Demjanjuk told the court today. He spoke in Ukrainian. The court adjourned briefly after Demjanjuk spoke to allow the judges time to consider the arguments. The defense also had pleaded against a death sentence. ``There is also a question of an individual's holocaust,'' said defense attorney John Gill of Cleveland. ``The taking of any innocent human life is a holocaust.'' Opening the proceedings today, prosecutor Yona Blattman told the three judges that Demjanjuk ``was not a small cog in the Nazi machine, he was a major criminal, an arch-henchman.'' ``We maintain the only punishment that can be imposed on the accused is the death penalty,'' Blattman argued. Demjanjuk pointed to his chest, shaking his head no, as Blattman alleged that Demjanjuk had ``distinguished himself by the sheer brutality of his behavior ... beating Jews mercilessly with a sword or whip.'' Gill said the conviction could be shown at a later date to have been incorrect and he cited previous wrongful convictions. The problem with the death penalty, he said, is that it ``is in fact irrevocable.'' In its verdict last week, the tribunal convicted Demjanjuk ``without hesitation or doubt'' of being the brutal guard at Treblinka. The three judges said Demjanjuk ``killed masses of human beings with his own hands,'' frequently exceeding the brutality ordered by Nazi commanders. Nazi war crimes and terrorism are the only offenses punishable by death in the Jewish state. During the trial, five Holocaust survivors identified Demjanjuk, of suburban Cleveland, as the Nazi guard who operated Treblinka's gas chambers. Justice Minister Avraham Sharir had urged the death penalty for Demjanjuk, saying ``a man convicted of such terrible crimes deserves no other sentence.''
AP880715-0198 	X	Republican National Convention officials said Friday their $15 million makeover of the Louisiana Superdome is already about 20 percent complete just five days after they took over the massive arena to prepare for next month's convention. ``We are on schedule or ahead of schedule on every phase,'' convention manager Bill Phillips told reporters during a guided tour of the dome. Work was being done on the framework of a huge, $570,000 podium from which President Reagan, Vice President Bush and other dignitaries will adress the 31,000 people expected to attend the convention, which runs Aug. 15-18. Phillips said the Republican Party is spending about $9 million on the convention. The city of New Orleans is raising about $5.5 million through private contributions to pay for the sound and light systems and other projects. ``Basically, we're looking at a $15 million operation,'' Phillips said. Best known as an indoor football stadium, the dome is looking less and less like the home of the New Orleans Saints and more and more like a media center. Four television networks will have tall, multi-level booths near the podium. Carpenters and electricians worked to convert suites known as skyboxes, which overlook the floor from the perimeter of the stadium, into broadcast booths for other radio and television broadcasters. Arising on either side of the podium was the framework for the structures from which print journalists will observe the proceedings. Still to come is the hanging of the nine-story high, three-ton blue curtain that will serve as a room divider for the dome. Public convention business will be conducted for the cameras on one side while trailers, used as offices, will be driven onto the floor behind the curtains. Phillips said construction should be completed by Aug. 10, giving convention officials plenty of time to run tests on equipment before the convention begins. Once the convention ends, the construction work begins again _ in reverse. The Republicans' agreement with the Superdome calls for the stadium to be restored to its original condition by Aug. 25.
AP900320-0201 	X	The U.S. trade deficit, bloated by a record demand for foreign oil, worsened dramatically in January, climbing to $9.3 billion, the government said today. The Commerce Department said the January deficit was 20.5 percent larger than December's $7.7 billion imbalance. Most of the deterioration came from a 44 percent surge in oil shipments. The January deficit was an ominous beginning for the new decade. Many analysts believe America's trade woes will worsen in coming years as U.S. dependence on foreign oil grows. For January, exports climbed to an all-time high of $32.1 billion, 4 percent above the December level. However, this gain was swamped by a 7.3 percent surge in imports, which increased to $41.3 billion. The trade deficit, the difference between imports and exports, was the largest since a $10.1 billion imbalance in November. At the White House, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the January increase showed export growth has been outpacing growth in imports. ``These numbers are pretty much as expected due to the deficit drop in December, which was the lowest in five years. Everyone seemed to realize they couldn't maintain that low level, and so it was expected that there would be an increase in January,'' Fitzwater said. The U.S. trade deficit has been improving for the past two years, falling to $109 billion last year, down 8 percent from 1988. But many economists predicted the 1990 deficit could begin rising again because of the oil bill and gains in the value of the dollar. A stronger U.S. currency makes imports cheaper for Americans and U.S. products less competitive on overseas markets. The huge 44 percent surge in oil imports did not come as a surprise, with analysts blaming the rise on December's record cold weather, which caused oil companies to import heavily in January to restock depleted supplies. The total volume of oil, 291,278 barrels, was an all-time high, topping a previous record set in August. Prices shot up to $20.13 per barrel, pushing the total oil bill to $5.86 billion, the highest total dollar amount snce August 1982, a month when the volume was less but the price per barrel was higher. The American Petroleum Institute has reported that foreign oil accounted for a record 54 percent of consumption in January as domestic production fell to its lowest level in a quarter century. Another factor swelling the deficit in January was a 31 percent surge in imports of clothing, which totaled $3.1 billion in January. As usual, the deficit with Japan was the largest of any country. However, at $2.9 billion, it was at the lowest level since December 1984. The Bush administration has been pressing the Japanese to do more to purchase U.S. exports as a way of reducing the huge annual deficit of $49 billion that America is running with Japan. Other big deficits included Taiwan, $1.2 billion; China, $800 million; Canada, $600 million, and the countries of Western Europe, $300 million. Many economists are worried that the deficit will worsen even further in coming months. Michael Evans, head of a Washington forecasting company, said he was looking for the deficit for all of 1990 to total between $120 billion and $125 billion, which would make it the second worst imbalance on history. The all-time high was a $152.1 billion deficit in 1987. ``Without a weaker dollar, we are just not going to get an improvement in trade,'' Evans said. ``We are destined to have bad trade numbers for some time.'' Such a forecast could spell trouble for the Bush administration, which is counting on further gains in exports to help boost the fortunes of American manufacturers and dampen protectionist sentiments in Congress. Last month, President Bush held a hastily arranged meeting in California with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to press demands that Japan do more to reduce its trade gap with the United States, which amounted to $49 billion last year. Kaifu promised to make reduction of trade tensions a top priority, but U.S. critics question whether the verbal commitments will be turned into significant market-opening moves. Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the Senate trade subcommittee, said Monday that Japanese officials he met with in Tokyo last week appeared to be more willing to address U.S. complaints about their closed markets. ``There was a recognition that the time had come to redress the grievances we had,'' said Danforth, who has been a leading critic of both Japanese trade practices and the way Bush and former President Reagan addressed them. But Danforth told reporters, ``I remain skeptical that the ... talks are going to lead to the kind of concrete results we hope for.'' He said the talks will have to produce more specific sales of U.S. products to Japan as well as a broader general commitment by Tokyo to removing impediments.
AP881217-0069 	X	Ten years ago, three days before Christmas, Dr. Robert Stein was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was a routine call for a medical examiner _ police had found two bodies. But there was nothing routine about the case that began unfolding that night, when Stein was called to the home of John Wayne Gacy. Stein looked out a window and grimaced at the snow that was burying Chicago, then dressed warmly for the drive to Norwood Park Township just east of O'Hare International Airport. He walked into Gacy's ranch-style home and caught a whiff of trouble. ``It was the odor of death,'' Stein said, recalling that two evidence technicians had found two decaying bodies in the crawl space. ``I said, `Oh brother, let's stop right here.' I was convinced there were more bodies. Gacy later drew a diagram on a piece of paper and showed that there were many, many bodies.'' In the crawl space alone, 29 bodies were found. Four more were dumped in nearby rivers. Ten years ago this week, Gacy _ successful building contractor, decorated Jaycee, amateur clown, Democratic activist _ became king of the mass murderers apprehended in this country. Gacy told police he strangled all but one of his 33 male victims by wrapping rope around their necks and twisting it with a stick. He had sex with some of them before killing them. The murders were committed over a three-year period beginning in 1975. In 1980, he was convicted of 33 murders _ more than anyone before or since. Gacy, 46, received death sentences for 12 of the killings and life in prison for each of the remaining 21. In September, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the convictions and the sentences. Execution is scheduled for Jan. 11, but is almost certain to be delayed by appeals. Illinois' last execution was in 1962. Today, Gacy sits in a 46-square-foot cell on death row at Menard Correctional Center in Chester, a small town in southern Illinois. He is allowed to exercise an hour a day and to spend another 60 minutes in the prison law library. ``He's not a disciplinary problem,'' says Nic Howell, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. ``He was painting landscapes the last time I saw him.'' Gacy's name surfaced briefly in this year's presidential campaign when a pamphlet distributed by Illinois Republicans claimed that Gacy would have been eligible for weekend passes had he committed his crimes in Massachusetts under Gov. Michael Dukakis' administration. Dukakis labeled the pamphlet ``garbage,'' and Gacy later wrote to state GOP officials complaining about the ``sleazy'' tactic. At Gacy's request, corrections officials no longer relay oral requests for interviews. The uneasy memories of Gacy and the crimes that stunned the world remain close to the surface. ``What I especially remember was the ghoulishness of people on the outside of the house,'' said Stein, who is still Cook County medical examiner and owns two Gacy paintings. ``Just like counting down the seconds in a basketball game, they were counting up the bodies that were pulled from the ground.'' Gacy, a Chicago native, lived in Springfield and Iowa before returning in the early 1970s to start his own business, specializing in remodeling work at retail stores. He often hired teen-age boys. Joseph Kozenczak, chief of detectives in Des Plaines who is now police chief, had been looking for Robert Piest, a 15-year-old who disappeared after telling his mother he was going to see Gacy about a summer job. A few days later, the detective got a search warrant for Gacy's home. ``We never suspected we were in the middle of mass murders _ we were looking for one kid,'' Kozenczak said. Eight of the bodies were so badly decomposed they were never identified. At a funeral where authorities hoped they might get clues to the identities by watching the mourners, this was the final prayer offered for them: ``Lord, you alone know the names of these brothers, names you have written on the palm of your hand. We praise and thank you for the gift of life you gave them. We are sorry for the violence which took away their mortal lives.''
AP880829-0009 	X	Shanghai residents wanting a new aluminum pot will have to surrender an old one under regulations to curb profiteering and panic buying, the official China Daily said today. The price of aluminum in China has more than doubled since January. Only newly married couples who produce their marriage certificates will be exempt from the old-for-new rationing system, the newspaper said, and those couples will be limited to two sauce pans and one tea pot. It said the rationing would counter the rising price of aluminum caused by a shortage of supplies and ``the meddling of profiteers.'' Aluminum is selling for the equivalent of $4,324 per ton, compared to $1,892 in January. The China Daily said Shanghai speculators have been illegally buying price-controlled aluminum cookware and then selling the utensils outside the city for large profits.
AP900531-0128 	X	Here is a look at events Thursday in the Soviet Union:
AP880528-0060 	X	Syrian troops today entered Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold but a source said they would not occupy the pro-Iranian militia's main barracks, where most of the 18 foreign hostages are believed held. Meanwhile, civilians, who had fled their homes in the southern slums began trickling back to piece together their shattered lives. The first Syrian soldiers moved into the 16 square miles of tin-roofed huts and cement-block apartments on Friday, putting an end to a three-week battle between Hezbollah and the mainstream Shiite Moslem militia Amal. Sources at the Syrian command said the troops started moving at midday. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plan does not cover Hezbollah's main barracks in Hay Madi, where most of the foreign hostages are believed held by Shiite extremists under Hezbollah's wing. The source said the barracks is considered part of the demarcation line with Christian east Beirut _ the only area of south Beirut where Syria will allow either militia to maintain gunmen. A Lebanese security source, speaking privately, said the Syrian deployment in Hay Madi will ``tighten the grip on Hezbollah. It means the kidnappers will not be able to move the hostages from one place to another.'' The hostages include nine Americans, three Britons, a West German, an Italian, an Irishman, an Indian and two unidentified men. The two-phase Syrian deployment, implementing a cease-fire agreed to by Syrian and Iran, ended fighting in the slums narrow alleys that police say left 300 people dead and 1,000 wounded since it began May 6. Abdul Hadi Hamadi, Hezbollah's security chief and a reputed kidnapper, escorted Syrian officers into south Beirut Friday. His public appearance stole the spotlight from the Syrian move. Hamadi's brothers, Mohammed Ali and Abbas, are held in West Germany on terrorist charges. Mohammed Ali is accused of the 1985 TWA hijacking in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. Abdul Hadi, who represents Hezbollah on a four-party committee set up Friday to supervise the truce, is believed to have mastermined the January 1987 abduction of two West Germans to swap them for his jailed brothers. One of the Germans, Alfred Schmidt, was released last September. The other, Rudolf Cordes, 53, is one of the 18 foreign hostages. A 900-strong force of Syrian infantry men set up five checkpoints Friday along a disengagement line between the Shiyah neighborhood, held by Amal, and the Hezbollah-controlled Ghobeiri district. The demarcation line stretched through two miles of gutted shops, smoldering cars and bullet-scarred cement block shanties. Broken power cables dangled the streets, littered with glass shards and used cartridges. The Syrians also erected checkpoints at key road junctions in two Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods. Civilians today started returning to the Syrian-policed districts of south Beirut to check their property. ``My life's earnings have gone,'' said Azzam Sadeq as he inspected his gutted apartment that overlooks Hezbollah's positions across the street. A helmeted Syrian soldier, armed with a Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle, guarded the entrance to the six-story apartment building. The soldier, who refused to be named, only allowed residents into the building to ``prevent looting.'' ``All the doors to the apartments are open. They were either shot open by gunmen or opened by the pressure of exploding shells,'' the soldier said. Sadeq said fire ``destroyed'' everything in his third floor apartment. ``I don't have furniture anymore. My (two) daughters' books and clothes were also burned. We don't have enough money to repair the damage and buy new furniture and clothes,'' he said, his eyes filling with tears. Sadeq said he, his wife and two daughters, fled the apartment shortly after the fighting broke out. Hezbollah took more than 90 percent of the slums in the fighting. ``May God's wrath burn the gunmen, all the gunmen,'' shouted a gray-haired, middle-aged man as he inspectged his demolished one-story house. ``They fought in my house. Both Amal and Hezbollah took turns occupying my house.'' A young man, an apparent Hezbollah member, told him the party's spiritual guide Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah ``will compensate for your losses.'' ``Neither Fadlallah nor Allah can compensate,'' the man shouted back. ``May you all roast in Hell.'' Syria has 25,000 soldiers in eastern and northern Lebanon and about 7,500 patrolling Moslem west Beirut. President Hafez Assad of Syria has become Lebanon's main power broker during 13 years of civil war, but Iran has used Hezbollah to challenge Syrian influence among the 1.2 million Shiites, the largest sect in Lebanon.
AP880316-0043 	X	Susan Butcher, bundled against biting winds and subzero temperatures, widened her lead and seemed assured of an unprecedented third straight victory in the 1,150-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Butcher, who left this checkpoint just as her closest competitor arrived Tuesday, was expected to cross the finish line in Nome today. If Butcher wins, it will be the fourth consecutive year that a woman has won the 16-year-old race. Libby Riddles of Teller won in 1985, and Butcher won in 1986 and 1987, setting a course record each year. Butcher left Elim, 123 miles from Nome, at 5:11 p.m. Tuesday, after stopping in the Eskimo village for two hours to feed and rest her dog team. Martin Buser of Big Lake arrived two minutes before she left. Butcher, a resident of Manley, took the lead early Tuesday and has not yielded it. She left Elim with 10 of the 17 dogs she started with March 5 in Anchorage; the others were dropped at checkpoints along the trail. Buser was traveling with 12 of his original 20 dogs still in harness. Subzero temperatures and biting winds continued to hinder the leaders, and weather forecasters said the wind chill factor could sink to minus 70 degrees along the trail's final miles. In each of her two previous victories, Butcher proved the strength and endurance of her team in the final, windswept miles along the barren Bering Sea coast. Her elapsed time last year was 11 days, 2 hours. Her closest rival last year was four-time Iditarod champion Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, who ran neck-and-neck with Butcher until his dogs refused to continue just 22 miles from the finish. This year, Swenson was about six hours behind Butcher at last report, leaving Koyuk at 2 p.m. Tuesday in third place. Running in fourth was Joe Garnie of Teller. Herbie Nayokpuk of Shishmaref was fifth. Seventy-year-old Joe Redington of Knik, who took an early lead and held it for more than 400 miles, was sixth. Redington, known as the ``Father of the Iditarod'' for organizing the first race in 1973, has run all but two races and placed as high as fifth, but has yet to win. The first musher to Nome collects $30,000 of a $150,000 purse; the next 19 finishers split the rest. Five of the 52 teams that started the race have dropped out.
AP901205-0199 	X	Elizabeth Taylor ignored her ex-boyfriend in court Wednesday as their lawyers began selecting a jury to decide a multimillion-dollar dispute over the rights to her ``Passion'' perfume. Miss Taylor walked across the courtroom surrounded by her lawyers and made no acknowledgement of former beau Henry Wynberg, seated at the opposite end of a table. A panel of 50 prospective jurors sat with their eyes riveted on the actress, dressed in purple, as the judge explained what the trial was all about. Miss Taylor won permission earlier in the day to tell jurors about Wynberg's criminal record after her lawyers said it would explain her decision to keep him out of her perfume business. Lawyers for Henry Wynberg sought to prevent jurors from hearing that Wynberg - who courted Miss Taylor between her two marriages to Richard Burton - once pleaded guilty to statutory rape, providing drugs to underage high school girls in return for sex and taking pornographic photos of young girls. They called the evidence ``irrelevant, inflammatory and prejudicial.'' But Miss Taylor's lawyers argued that those issues were crucial to proving that she was justified in breaking off her business relationship with Wynberg ``because any reputable cosmetics company would refuse to deal with Wynberg.'' Superior Court Judge Coleman Swart declined to bar the evidence. Wynberg claims he conceived the actress' line of ``Passion'' perfume, and he's seeking a hefty share of the profits. He says he created the fragrance under the Elizabeth Taylor Cosmetics Inc. banner. At stake: about $70 million a year in profits. Litigation has produced volumes of depositions and affidavits about Wynberg's claim that he had a contract with Miss Taylor for exclusive rights to her name and likeness for promotion and sale of cosmetics. Wynberg sued in 1986 for 72 percent of ``Passion'' profits. Court documents show Wynberg's two-year romance with the violet-eyed actress ended in August 1975, when Miss Taylor said, ``I'm going back to Richard, Henry. I'll see you later.'' Burton and Miss Taylor remarried in Africa, and Wynberg returned to California. Court records show that a short time later, Miss Taylor and Wynberg signed the cosmetics agreement in Switzerland, with Burton as a witness. Wynberg said he spent years consulting with chemists and manufacturers, smelling perfumes and looking for the perfect bottle. ``I wanted sparkling little lights like stars in there, and I wanted it to look like money, feel like money,'' Wynberg said. According to Wynberg, Hen he presented the actress with the heart-shaped bottle and fragrance in November 1983, Miss Taylor said: ``Let's let bygones be bygones, Henry. Let's split 50-50 on the perfume deal.'' In a deposition, Miss Taylor denies Wynberg's assertion. ``I didn't want to do any business with him,'' she said. Miss Taylor contends that Wynberg's failure to follow through on the project violated the contract and made it invalid. In 1986 she signed with the Chesebrough-Ponds Inc. cosmetics company to market ``Passion'' using her name and likeness. It went on to be a big seller.
AP880712-0125 	X	In an election-year bow to an agency that serves one-third of all Americans, the Senate voted Tuesday to give the Veterans Administration a seat in the president's Cabinet. The bill was passed by an 84-11 vote. The House approved similar legislation last November, a week after the idea was advanced by President Reagan. Negotiators from the the Senate and House will work out minor differences between the two bills. The Department of Veterans' Affairs would become the 14th in the Cabinet and the fifth addition since 1960. The change would take effect Jan. 1, 1989. Sponsors said veterans and their dependents deserve to be heard in the highest councils of government. Opponents called the bill another example of congressional pandering to special interests. ``In recent years the VA has frequently been relegated to a relatively insignificant role within the executive branch, with the administrator having little or no access to the president or other top officials in the White House,'' said Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who has been promoting a veterans' department since 1975, said his support is not aimed at getting more money for veterans. ``Given the nature and scope of the VA, it is appropriate that we make it an executive department ... (to) ensure that these federal dollars are more effectively administered.'' Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., a former Veterans Committee chairman, opposed creation of the Cabinet seat. He bitterly criticized some veterans' service organizations for supporting the bill while they fought another measure, passed Monday by the Senate, that would allow courts to overturn some VA decisions on veterans' benefits. ``If anybody believes veterans needed a stronger voice ... than they already have, then I've missed something in the nine years I've been year,'' Simpson said. Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., called the bill ``absurd... silly... goofy... illogical ... irresponsible. This is rubbish. This is unprincipled (prostitution) after special-interest groups.'' According to the Veterans' Affairs Committee, VA serves 27 million veterans and 49 million dependents or survivors with a budget of $30 billion, making it the largest independent federal agency. It will dispense $14 billion in income maintenance and $626 million for education and rehabilitation assistance this year. The agency and its 240,000 employees administered 90,000 patient beds in 534 health facilities and will see 20 million outpatients this year. It runs 109 national cemeteries and will bury 300,000 veterans this year. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that converting the VA into a Cabinet department would cost $33 million over five years. The biggest part of the cost would go for changing signs on VA buildings. The bill would reorganize VA operations and allow the secretary of veterans' affairs to name up to four assistant secretaries and 15 deputy assistants. The legislation requires that the top operating officers _ the chief medical director and chief benefits director _ be selected on the basic of expertise and without regard to politics. Voting against elevating VA to the Cabinet were Sens. William Armstrong, R-Colo.; Dan Evans, R-Wash.; Jake Garn, R-Utah; Humphrey; Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan.; James McClure, R-Idaho; William Proxmire, D-Wis.; Dan Quayle, R-Ind.; Warren Rudman, R-N.H.; Simpson, and Steven Symms, R-Idaho. Not voting were Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Jesse Helms, R-N.C.; Paul Trible, R-Va., and John Warner, R-Va.
AP900228-0183 	X	Lawyers for Juan Ponce Enrile asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to free the opposition senator, who was arrested on charges of backing December's failed coup. Vice President Salvador Laurel described the arrest of the former defense minister as an attempt to silence the opposition. Laurel broke with President Corazon Aquino in 1987 and later joined Enrile in forming the opposition Nacionalista Party. ``It could only be the beginning,'' Laurel told reporters. ``It is not the end. We are bracing for that. We are prepared for the worst. ... I think Mrs. Aquino is exacerbating the fragmentation and disunity of the nation.'' Enrile, who played a key role in bringing Mrs. Aquino to power in a 1986 uprising, was arrested Tuesday, held overnight at the National Bureau of Investigation, and transferred early Wednesday to police headquarters in suburban Quezon City. He faces charges of ``rebellion with murder.'' Military dissidents claimed the arrest of one of the administration's sharpest critics was a prelude to martial law. In a petition filed Wednesday, Enrile's law partner, Renato Cayetano, claimed the arrest was illegal and violated the senator's rights. The petition asked that Enrile be freed. Court officials said no hearing had been scheduled. Also Wednesday, three senators filed a proposal asking judicial authorities to place Enrile under the custody of the Senate's sergeant-at-arms to allow the lone opposition senator to attend sessions. Enrile, who was among seven people indicted Tuesday, denied any role in the Dec. 1-9 coup attempt that left at least 113 people dead and wounded more than 600. Indicted with 66-year-old Enrile, were dismissed Lt. Col. Gregorio ``Gringo'' Honasan; Rodolfo Aguinaldo, suspended governor of Cagayan province; ret. Brig. Gen. Felix Brawner; retired Lt. Col. Billy Bibit; and businessman Rebecco Panlilio and his wife, Erlinda. In the northern province of Cagayan, a local government official said Aguinaldo, a former army lieutenant colonel, was reported to have gone in hiding after learning late Tuesday that an arrest warrant would be served on him the next day. Enrile is the most prominent figure charged in any of the six coup attempts since Mrs. Aquino was swept to power in February 1986 by the military-popular uprising that drove the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos into exile. Troops went on alert in the Manila area Tuesday to prevent possible reprisals after the arrest, according to presidential spokesman Tomas Gomez. On Wednesday, police defused a homemade bomb outside a shopping center in Manila's financial district of Makati. Police said they did not know who placed the bomb. Enrile was defense minister under Marcos but turned against him and led the military mutiny that prompted the uprising. He kept the post under Mrs. Aquino, but he was fired in November 1986 after a coup attempt by his followers. A spokesman for soldiers involved in the December coup said the nation ``should brace itself for the imminent declaration of martial law.'' However, in a radio interview Wednesday, Gomez said the charges were justified because Enrile led ``the numerous attempts at a coup d'etat to destroy this government of ours.'' Enrile was arrested after three witnesses claimed they saw Honasan and about 100 rebels at Enrile's home on the first day of the failed coup. The senator claims not to have seen Honasan, his former protege, since 1987.
AP880815-0045 	X	Striking submarine builders at Electric Boat could torpedo their futures if they don't acknowledge the increasing competitive marketplace and tightening military budget, analysts say. Despite a low unemployment rate and shortage of skilled workers, conditions that should favor the union, defense industry analysts say Electric Boat holds the upper hand in the 6-week-old strike by the 10,000-member Metal Trades Council. The union struck over Electric Boat's demand that employees accept lump-sum bonuses instead of wage increases in a three-year contract. The company says it needs to bring down labor costs to become more competitive with its Virginia rival, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. The union said the offer doesn't take into account Connecticut's higher cost of living. In only the second negotiating session since the strike began, the company Thursday offered bonuses of 5 percent and 4 percent in the first two years and a 3 percent wage increase in the third year, in addition to a $600 bonus. The union, which said the offer was not even worth putting to a vote, has asked for wage increases of 5 percent the first year and 4 percent the final two years of the contract. The company said that as of Friday, 668 workers had crossed picket lines. During a five-month strike in 1975, only 150 workers were reported to have done so. Electric Boat's efforts to hire replacement workers, which have included placing full-page ads in newspapers, have produced meager results. Only 20 people have signed up, about the number of workers the sub builder loses each week through attrition. Electric Boat could hurt itself more by acceding to the union's demands and settling quickly than by holding out, despite the low jobless rate and shortage of skilled workers, analysts say. Electric Boat, a division of General Dynamics, has lost six attack submarine contracts in the last two years to Newport News. Electric Boat was awarded only one of three this year; Newport News had bid on only two. In all, Electric Boat has contracts for seven Trident subs and nine attack subs. The company is the only builder of the Trident. First-class mechanics, a job classification covering more than 85 percent of Electric Boat's sub builders, earn $12.02 an hour. The same workers at Newport News earn $1.24 less an hour in wages and benefits, according to Electric Boat. ``The Navy is going to the lowest bidder, and that has predominantly been Newport News. I don't know what the union expects the Navy to do,'' said Paul Nisbet, analyst for Prudential-Bache Securities. While Electric Boat is making money on the production of Trident submarines, it has not been making money on attack subs for some time, which is ``a further reason for them to hold out longer,'' Nisbet said. ``I don't think the union has much bargaining strength,'' said Gary Reich, an analyst at Shearson Lehman Brothers. Also working in the company's favor is the tightening military budget, said Phil Friedman of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Electric Boat has reassigned about 1,800 salaried workers to jobs performed by strikers. It has also shifted work to yards in Quonset Point, R.I., where all sub construction begins, and in Charleston, S.C. While certain vendors and small groceries around the shipyard here have suffered, the heavy tourist trade has kept business brisk elsewhere, said Audrey Golub, head of the regional Chamber of Commerce. ``No one has said to me yet, `God, the strike is really hurting.' If the strike continues into the fall and winter then we would begin to be able to see an impact,'' she said.
AP900117-0009 	X	The publication of Claude Monet's cookery notebooks reveals the father of Impressionism as a tyrannical gourmet who could fly into a rage over a sauce. ``Monet's Cookery Notebooks,'' by Claire Joyes and published recently by Editions du Chene, is a delightful look at the private life of the man who immortalized haystacks in the haze and water lilies floating under a quaint Japanese footbridge. The book is to be published in the United States in the spring by Prentice Hall. A must for art buffs and food lovers alike, Monet's cookbook _ with recipes tested and adapted by award-winning chef Joel Robuchon _ is an authentic record taken from family notes. Like a social and cultural chronicle of the half century Monet spent at his Normandy country home in Giverny from 1883 to 1926, the notebooks detail Monet's likes and dislikes, what he served to his friends and what his second wife Alice had prepared for their eight children (two were his, six were hers) on ordinary days and holidays. It even tells how tables were set for picnics. Joyes, an art historian, found the handwritten notebooks tucked among letters, photographs and other Monet archives inherited by her husband, Jean-Marie Toulgouat, a great-grandson of Alice Hoschede Monet. ``Claire was the storyteller, Jean-Marie had the memory,'' said Benedicte Servignat, Joyes' editor at Chene. ``He never knew Monet, but he spent all his childhood vacations at the Giverny farmhouse and remembered the cook Marguerite and, of course, Monet's step-daughter Blanche, who carried on all the culinary traditions after Monet's death.'' Toulgouat, an artist, and Joyes live in the village of Giverny, near Vernon, but have nothing to do with Monet's renovated farmhouse, now open to the public as a museum. Monet was a solid, middle-class bon vivant, but his daily routine was strictly regimented and it revolved totally around painting. He rose before dawn to capture the variations of early morning light, took a cold shower and breakfasted English-style _ on eggs and bacon, grilled tripe sausages and cheese, toast and orange marmelade. He would spend the morning working on his studio-boat with Blanche, also an artist. Back by 11 a.m., they were ravenous and impatient to sit down to lunch. Joyes decribed Monet as ``a demon for punctuality. A first, then a second stroke of the gong would assemble the scattered family in the dining room for lunch, which was served at 11:30 precisely. Monet would cough irritably on the very half second, causing panic in the kitchen,'' she wrote. Lunch invariably was a five-course extravaganza, which included a fish course, meat dish, salad, cheese, a different homebaked dessert every day and cakes at 4 p.m. _ all prepared by the family cook Marguerite. Monet never lingered over his food. Service had to be quick so he could get back to work. He even ordered servants never to pass dishes around twice when his American stepson-in-law Theodore Butler was lunching with them since Butler's slow eating habits drove Monet mad. Lunch was a social affair, often with guests. Tea was served under the lime trees, always at 4:00. Friends were never invited for dinner because Monet was always in bed by 9:30. The uninvited, even close friends, were politely turned away. Though Alice ran the house, she consulted Monet in planning menus, which revolved around the fruit and vegetables in season and which catered to the special tastes of a roster of illustrious guests like Renoir, Cezanne and Premier Georges Clemenceau, who loved the waterlilies. Monet and his family arrived in Giverny in May in 1883. Despite their precarious financial situation, they immediately set about renovating the kitchen and landscaping the wild gardens which sloped gently down to wide meadows and a small pond. Monet was obssessed with order in his flower gardens, but he was fanatical about the picking schedule of his fruit and vegetables grown and nurtured in a 2{-acre walled kitchen garden on the other side of the town. Constantly looking to expand and improve an impressive array of herbs and vegetables, he would spend evenings leafing through scholarly publications to find new seeds to test in the rich and often wet Norman soil. Joyes described Monet as equally fanatical about the poultry he was served, spending an ``inordinate amount of time choosing ducks and hens to be used for breeding stock.'' He just didn't trust local farmers.
AP880620-0186 	X	Dennis Day, the Irish tenor of radio and television fame, was sent home Monday from St. John's Hospital and Health Center, although he remains in critical condition, a hospital spokesman said. ``According to his physician, he was discharged because his care can be continued in a home setting,'' said Armen Markarian, a hospital spokesman. ``He's surrounded by his family there, and he'll be more comfortable in a home setting.'' Day was admitted to Saint John's on June 5, and continues to suffer from a recurrence of pressure on the brain, publicist Kitty Davis said. The 71-year-old singer was diagnosed last summer as suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressively degenerative nerve disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. On March 9, Day suffered a head injury in a fall at his Bel Air home, and underwent emergency treatment to relieve the pressure caused by bleeding in the brain. He remained in the hospital until April 12, Markarian said. Day appeared regularly with comedian Jack Benny on radio and television as well as in films. Born Eugene Denis McNulty in New York, he assumed the name Dennis Day when he joined Benny's radio show as a singer in 1939 and quickly grew into a comic foil for the host.
AP900423-0214 	X	The hotel and motel industry is a growing industry in need of help. ``There are simply not enough people to meet the requirements of a constantly expanding industry,'' says Roger Saunders, president of the American Hotel and Motel Association. ``Young people will find abundant openings as never before, in administration, computer technology, food and beverage, sales, room management, housekeeping, accounting _ you name it,'' says Saunders, who is also chairman and chief executive officer of the Saunders Hotels Co., Boston. Saunders says the travel business is now the nation's second biggest employer and ``in just 10 years, by the turn of the century, travel will be the nation's No. 1 employer, with one out of every seven people in the work force.'' He advises young people considering a career to look into hotel schools to prepare for the business. But it is not a career only for young people, he says. ``There are excellent income potentials for students and mothers of young children, or women whose children are grown. The same is true for senior citizens who want to work _ whether 50, 60 or over 70. They are reliable, dependable workers and serve as role models for young people. ``The same is true for the handicapped who can and want to work.''
AP900818-0033 	X	Typhoon Yancy skimmed the northern tip of the Philippines' main Luzon island today with wind gusts of up to 91 miles per hour and was approaching southern Taiwan, the Manila weather bureau said. In a weather bulletin issued at noon (midnight EDT Friday), Yancy was centered 175 miles northeast of Basco City, the capital of Batanes province, an island group about 410 miles north of Manila. No casualties or major damage have been reported. Forecasters said Yancy gained strength overnight with sustained winds of 81 mph and gusts of 91 mph. Yancy also slowed down and was moving west-northwest at 7 mph, forecasters said. Senior weather forecaster Daniel Dimagiba said that if Yancy maintains its present course, the sixth major weather disturbance to strike the country this year will move out of Philippine territory by Sunday morning and hit southern Taiwan. Dimagiba said Yancy has a radius of 375 miles, which would mean its effect could be felt as far as the central Philippines. Provinces in the entire Luzon island, including Manila, have been placed on storm alert because of this, he added. Sea travel in the typhoon's path was ``extremely dangerous'' and the weather bureau had advised ships and smaller seacraft to stay in port. Philippine Airlines canceled eight flights from Manila to the affected areas. About 20 typhoons and storms hit the Philippines yearly.
AP900330-0061 	X	South Africa released seven black nationalists from prison today, including the nephew of African National Congress leader Walter Sisulu. The releases raised to 42 the number of political prisoners freed from Robben Island prison since the end of an 11-day hunger strike there in early March. The strike ended after a meeting between lawyers of the 346 hunger strikers and government officials. The details of their agreement have never been made public, but the pace of releases has increased since the meeting. The ANC, the leading black anti-apartheid group, has demanded the release of all prisoners convicted of politically motivated crimes as a condition for its participation in formal negotiations on a new constitution. The prisoners freed today included five members of the ANC and two members of the Black Consciousness Movement. Among the prisoners released was Jomguzi Sisulu, 31, who was sentenced in May 1986 to five years for treason. The father of two small children said he was shocked when authorities told him Thursday he would be freed the next day. ``I couldn't believe it, it was so unexpected,'' he said. Sisulu's uncle, Walter, was freed from the same prison in October after serving 25 years of a life term for plotting sabotage to end white rule. President F.W. de Klerk will hold talks April 11 with top ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, to work out a framework for constitutional talks.
AP880704-0159 	X	Nearly a year after he began his firsthand study of the capitalist system, Soviet economist Mikhail Popov says he's ready to put his knowledge to work as part of the sweeping reform in his homeland. ``I will use the ideas of American scholars,'' said Popov, a regional economist for the Siberian Branch of the Soviet Union's Academy of Sciences. ``Many of them are new and up-to-date and not available in the Soviet Union.'' Popov has studied such capitalist cornerstones as rents, interest rates and prices since his arrival last September at West Virginia University's Regional Research Institute under an international exchange program. ``When I look at things in the United States, I usually think `How can I use them to restructure our economy?''' Popov said. ``I also look at the history. What worked and what didn't?'' During an interview on the eve of his scheduled Fourth of July departure, the 35-year-old expert on Soviet industrial production said he was anxious to share his experience with colleagues who are intimately involved in ``perestroika'' _ Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to overhaul the Soviet system. Popov said his study of the decline of the steel industry in Pittsbugh and of coal mining in Appalachia could help ease the transition of the Kuzbass region of Siberia, where much of the country's heavy industry once was centered. ``We have similar problems in some areas and wanted to look at the tremendous changes that have occurred in Pittsburgh, for example, and study the optimal way to shift from basic industries to high-tech,'' Popov said. Gorbachev began pressing for the restructuring of Soviet society shortly after taking office three years ago. Last week, during a national meeting of the Communist Party, he called for democratization, economic reform and changes in the Soviet political system that he said would make perestroika ``irreversible.'' ``Perestroika really is an expression of our society,'' Popov said. ``It just didn't happen with a change of leadership. It was inevitable, a natural evolution of the socialist system. ``We couldn't have avoided it,'' he concluded. Some commentators in the U.S. have said Gorbachev's attempts to introduce market mechanisms into the Soviet system prove that communism is doomed. Others in the Soviet Union say Gorbachev has gone too far too quickly. Popov, an unabashed Gorbachev supporter, said he disagreed on both counts. ``I'm not afraid that we will lose the main ideas of socialism,'' said Popov. ``If someone is willing to produce much more than the other guy and works harder, he deserves to be rewarded. ``That doesn't threaten socialism at all.'' During his stay, Popov also has presented several papers on the Soviet economy, visited Penn State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy and given dozens of lectures.
AP880825-0074 	X	With the symbolic passing of a small cross made of grape vines, the Rev. Jesse Jackson ended a three-day fast and vowed to wage a continuing boycott against California table grapes. Jackson, who received the cross from Cesar Chavez as the president of the United Farm Workers Union ended a 36-day water-only fast, ended his fast Wednesday and passed the cross to the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Lowery, of Atlanta, said he will fast until Saturday, when he will hand the cross to actors Martin Sheen and Robert Blake, who will fast. ``I have fasted with Cesar Chavez,'' Jackson said. ``I have shared the pain. I want to be a better person. I want to be an even more committed person to the workers and the abandoned families who harvest the food we eat.'' Wednesday's ceremony occurred outside a Jewel Co. food store, but Jackson and other demonstrators stressed they were not calling for a boycott of the supermarket chain _ only a boycott of the grapes, which the UFW maintains are treated with pesticides dangerous to farm workers. The union contends pesticides contribute to cancer, miscarriages and birth defects among those who pick grapes. California table grape growers acknowledge that four pesticides are used, but say the same chemicals are sprayed on other vegetables and fruits and pose no health risk. A spokesman for California table grape growers said Chavez is targeting the industry because the union does not have any contracts with growers. ``That's the bottom line,'' spokesman Adam Ortega said from Los Angeles. ``They're accusing stores of selling poisoned grapes. That's not true. They're scare tactics.''
AP900823-0145 	X	The leaders of this all-male monastic republic declared a state of emergency Thursday as a 10-day-old forest fire raged out of control. The fire had burned over 2,250 acres of chestnut trees and thick brush by Thursday night, according to fire brigade officials. At one point it threatened three of the 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries on the forested peninsula that reaches into the Aegean Sea. Premier Constantine Mitsotakis ordered the Defense Ministry to dispatch more troops to help combat the fire. Under the state of emergency, the military will coordinate firefighting efforts. Authorities said 1,300 soldiers were battling the fire with the community's 1,400 monks, hundreds of civilian volunteers from neighboring regions and the crew of 10 fire engines. Strong winds kept firefighting planes from the peninsula Thursday. Two warships were anchored nearby in stormy seas, ready to evacuate monks and priceless treasures from the monasteries if needed. The fire brigade said it was difficult for land firefighting forces because of the lack of roads and firebreaks on the densely wooded, 30-square-mile peninsula. Cause of the fire was unknown. The Mount Athos religious comunity was founded in 963. It enjoyed administrative independence under the Byzantine and Ottoman empires and was made a theocratic republic under Greek suzerainty in 1927. It is governed by a civil administrator and a council of monks. Women and female animals are barred.
AP900323-0118 	X	Chairman Lee Iacocca went to school, He wanted to groove on that golden rule. Got to rapping with the gang And the Rich Academy guys gave him some slang: ``He left Ford Motor Company with a plan on the double. Became Chrysler's CEO, found out they were in trouble. He designed a new automobile, they called the `K.' His new car and charming wit surely saved the day.'' Student Chris Longino got in the entrepreneurial way: ``I'm going to keep this (song). I might make some money off this one day.'' Translated: The Chrysler Corp. chairman visited the 9-year-old alternative school on Thursday. During his visit, Longino and fellow student Aaron Bolton performed their ``Iacocca Rap.''
AP900828-0087 	X	Pro-democracy activists accused the ruling party Tuesday of harassment after police refused to give them permission to hold a mass rally this weekend. Vernon Mwaanga, a spokesman for pro-democracy campaigners, charged that ruling party officials have intimidated opposition supporters. He said ``thugs and hooligans'' tore down posters announcing upcoming rallies. Mwaanga described the postponement of Saturday's rally as an attempt to frustrate the opposition campaign for a multiparty democracy in this one-party state. The rally was rescheduled Sept. 8. Mwaanga said heads of the Frontline African states bordering South Africa are to meet in Lusaka on Saturday and police said they did not have the manpower to supervise both events simultaneously. ``It has been a consistent feature of our campaign that the authorities have frustrated our efforts to hold meetings,'' Mwaanga said. In a separate press statement Tuesday, Arthur Wina, chairman of the National Interim Committee for Multiparty Democracy, said he was disappointed that the government ``continued to operate on the basis of giving priority to foreign and international images rather than domestic affairs and national welfare.'' Earlier Tuesday, a longtime political associate of President Kenneth Kaunda said he would aggressively campaign to end one-party rule. Legislator Humphrey Mulemba, a former ruling party secretary-general, told reporters in Lusaka the scrapping of the one-party system was vital for the future well-being of Zambia, one of Africa's poorest nations. ``It is time we had political structural changes by removing one-party and introduce multiparty politics in Zambia,'' he said. As secretary-general of the ruling party for four years, Mulemba was No. 2 in the party hierarchy after Kaunda. He is the second ruling party legislator to openly attack one-party rule. ``With immediate effect I am going public and I am appealing to all Zambians for support,'' he said. Kaunda imposed a one-party system in 1973, when his ruling United National Independence Party became the only legal political organization in Zambia. Mulemba blamed one-party rule for ``inertia, corruption and lack of competition.'' On Monday, Frederick Chiluba, head of the powerful Zambia Congress of Trade Unions made his strongest attack yet against the ruling party. Addressing pro-democracy supporters, Chiluba accused Kaunda of being a dictator and criticized the ruling party for being out of touch with the people. A referendum on the political future of Zambia is scheduled Aug. 13, 1991.
AP900306-0038 	X	College students prefer periodic tests or term papers to big final exams and learn more from teachers who give them substantial, immediate feedback, a Harvard University study found. For example, a ``one-minute, low-tech, no-cost'' technique is to ask students at the end of each class for a quick, one-paragraph summary of what they learned, said Richard J. Light, author of the three-year study issued Monday. The study concludes that modest shifts in academic policies can create major improvements in college classrooms. Light, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government, based the study on in-depth interviews with 360 Harvard undergraduates _ conducted by their fellow students _ and seminars that included faculty and administrators from Harvard and about 20 other institutions. Among the conclusions of ``Explorations with Students and Faculty about Teaching, Learning and Student Life'': _Students said they learned the most in classes with periodic tests, oral presentations and papers that let them know how they were doing ``mid-course,'' rather than a big exam at the end of the course. In particular, students indicated they preferred opportunities to rewrite term papers after ``red-penciling'' by faculty. ``Students said they learned more from doing the fourth draft than by doing the first draft,'' Light said. _Students found small study groups of up to six people meeting outside the classroom particularly effective. Light said teachers should encourage formation of such groups. _Students in outside activities such as athletics or clubs, jobs or volunteer work for up to 35 hours a week ``are by far the happiest students,'' Light said. He said teachers should urge students to ``get involved.'' While only Harvard students were involved in the study, Light said the in-depth questionnaires and the information from the seminars made the results applicable to other institutions, including high school and graduate school. Light said he was surprised by some of the differences found between male and female students. For example, although there is no substantial difference between the grades of male and female students, 39 percent of the females said they were not happy with their academic performance, compared with 19 percent of men, he said. Also, although both groups indicated that study groups were effective, males were more likely to join one or form one, Light said. Twelve undergraduate and graduate students were trained by Light and other colleagues before they conducted interviews with the 360 randomly selected Harvard students. They used a 23-page questionnaire that included many open-ended questions. Follow-up interviews were done five to six months later. R. Eugene Rice, senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, said the Harvard study ``confirms a lot that we know about learning, in fact, just about human work in general _ the importance of feedback, its regulation and its timing.'' Rice said he hoped that faculty heeds the study's recommendations, but he noted that universities must then ``reward faculty for putting their time into this kind of teaching which take away time for work on research.''
AP880303-0207 	X	Political television ads grew more negative as well as more plentiful Thursday with Sen. Albert Gore Jr. and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis going on the attack for the first time less than a week before Super Tuesday. Gore, Dukakis and Vice President George Bush all sent out critical ads in many of the 20 states holding primaries and caucuses next week. Gore launched the first TV attack of his campaign, a pointed 60-second excerpt from the Feb. 18 Democratic debate in Dallas. Within those 60 seconds, Gore accuses Gephardt of voting against minimum wage increases, against creating the Department of Education, for tuition tax credits and for Reagonomics _ and reversing his positions on all four issues. ``The next president of the United States has to be someone the American people can believe will stay with his convictions. ... You've got to be willing to stand your ground and be consistent,'' Gore says. A Gephardt spokeswoman said there would be no direct response to the Gore ad. Gephardt has been running commercials criticizing both Gore and Dukakis for several days in Super Tuesday states. Dukakis began responding Wednesday night with an ad assaulting Gephardt's populist message that ``it's your fight too.'' The Dukakis ad consists of a rolling list of corporate political action committees that have contributed to Gephardt's campaign. ``Is Dick Gephardt really fighting your fight, or theirs?'' asks the narrator. Dukakis does not accept PAC contributions. Gephardt, making a stop at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, called the Dukakis ad ``absolutely ridiculous'' and said only 5 percent of his overall contributions are from PACs. He said all of his PAC contributions were fully disclosed, and he charged that Dukakis has received millions of dollars ``from special interests who do business with the state of Massachusetts.'' ``It raises the specter of a serious conflict of interest,'' Gephardt said and added that his campaign would release a partial list of those contributors Friday. Responding to Gephardt's response, Dukakis aide Leslie Dach said, ``The Dukakis campaign does not take a dime of corporate PAC money or any money from a lobbyist registered in the state of Massachusetts.'' Bush also joined the negative fray with an ad appearing in South Carolina, which holds a GOP primary on Saturday. The ad denounces Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole for not being able to get Judge Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination confirmed by the Senate. And it says Dole has failed to vote with the Reagan administration 30 percent of the time. The candidates stepping up their media campaigns in the final stretch included Bush and Dukakis with their bulging campaign coffers and Jesse Jackson who has borrowed money to keep his presidential drive going. Dukakis put TV ads in six additional Super Tuesday states between Wednesday and Thursday, bringing his total to nine _ North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida, Texas and Maryland. Bush's ad director, Sig Rogich, said the vice president has been running ads in Florida, Texas, South Carolina and most other Super Tuesday states. ``You'll see more of our ads now in the last few days before Super Tuesday,'' he said. Jackson planned to start $100,000 worth of TV ads Friday in eight Southern states. The TV purchase, Jackson's largest so far, targets Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Dole's latest negative ad attacks Bush for supporting Reagan's veto of a protectionist textile trade bill and mocks his explanation: ``C'est la vie.'' Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the Bush-Dole match has become ``pretty rough'' but that that is not all bad, as long as they keep their advertising accurate. ``In many ways I've welcomed what's happened,'' Fahrenkopf told reporters in Boston. ``In January I was concerned with the lack of fire in the belly.''
AP881004-0081 	X	A prison officer was killed today by a bomb planted in the car he was driving in Belfast, police said. The bomb exploded as the officer was driving through predominantly Protestant east Belfast, said the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the province's police force. The victim was not immediately identified, but police said he was a prison officer in his mid-40s. Police said children from a nearby elementary school were walking home for lunch when the bomb exploded nearby, but escaped injury. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. Prison officers are among the targets of the Irish Republican Army in its campaign to rid Northern Ireland of British rule and unite it with the Irish Republic. It was the 81st killing in the province this year, and brought the official death toll since Northern Ireland's present strife erupted in 1969 to 2,699.
AP880408-0064 	X	A 9-year-old runaway driving a van on Interstate 95 fled police at speeds up to 100 mph before crashing into a guardrail while his teen-age companions slept in the back, state police said. The boy was in critical condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital today with head and chest injuries, while his 14-year-old brother and their 12-year-old friend were in satisfactory condition, police said. The boys' names were not released because of their ages, and investigators were to meet with the youngsters' parents this morning, Maryland State Police Sgt. James Black said today. The three boys, from suburban Trenton, N.J., apparently were en route to Florida on Thursday in the van owned by the 12-year-old's parents, police said. The older boys were asleep in the back of the van during the chase, Black said, and are not cooperating with investigators. State police said they were told that a van was being driven erratically on the Delaware Turnpike, just across the Maryland line. The chase began when a Maryland trooper signaled the van to stop and it accelerated to speeds of up to 100 mph. The driver lost control, and the van veered across the median strip, slamming into a guardrail and overturning on the northbound lanes about 10 miles north of downtown Baltimore, police said.
AP880720-0087 	X	Radio dispatcher Jani Kochever received a very special early morning call from Clark County Sheriff's Deputy Greg Chaney, known on the air as code number 140. ``Control 2, 140,'' Chaney said Tuesday. ``Personal request.'' ``Go ahead,'' replied Ms. Kochever, known on the radio as Control 2. ``Jani, will you marry me?'' Chaney asked. ``She sat there with her mouth open,'' said fellow dispatcher Pam Shurtliff. ``I almost answered for her. I was going to say, `Yeah, she'll marry you.''' When Ms. Kochever recovered, she replied, ``140, Control 2, absolutely I'll marry you. ``And then another deputy said, `You can't back out now, because we're all witnesses,''' the bride-to-be recalled. Ms. Kochever said she and Chaney had been dating about 10 months, but she had no hint he would make his graveyard-shift proposal. No wedding date has been set, but stay tuned.
AP880628-0228 	X	Claude Monet's Impressionist painting of his wife in a meadow became the third highest priced work at auction Tuesday, going for $24.59 million to an anonymous telephone bidder, Sotheby's said. The price for ``Dans La Prairie'' (``In the Meadow'') broke the record for a Monet set 24 hours earlier at Christie's, which sold his painting of a blue house for $6.55 million, also to an anonymous telephone bidder. The two sales of Impressionist and modern paintings and sculpture by the rival firms totaled nearly $123.5 million. Sotheby's also sold a Monet landscape for $2 million and set a record price for Pierre Bonnard, whose painting of a woman in her bath fetched $3.78 million. A picture of two women musicians by Henri Matisse sold for $2.83 million. Only one buyer of works realizing more than 1 million pounds ($1.72 million) was identified: Japan's Fujii Gallery paid $2.17 million for Pierre-Auguste Renoir's portrait of a young woman in a yellow hat. ``The picture of his wife was Monet's most important work to appear on the market for 20 years,'' said Sotheby's expert, Michel Strauss. ``There was ferocious bidding which lasted for five minutes between two people on the telephone and no one in the saleroom appeared to be bidding while it was going on,'' said Fiona Ford, Sotheby's spokeswoman. Auctioneer Julian Barran opened the bidding at $6.8 million after Sotheby's had estimated the picture to be worth around $10.3 million. The highest auction prices have been paid for flower paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. His ``Irises'' sold to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's in New York last November for $53.9 million. Van Gogh's ``Sunflowers'' was bought by a Japanese insurance company at Christie's in London in March 1987 for $39.85 million. Monet, a Frenchman known as the father of Impressionism and the greatest master of that style, painted his wife in 1876 when they were living at Argenteuil near Paris. The summery picture depicts Camille in a white dress and hat, with a parasol behind her, reading a book as she lies among tall grass and wild flowers. The picture was sold by trustees of the estate of the late David David-Weill, an art collector who bought it about 1938 in Paris from the art dealers, Wildenstein.
AP901114-0041 	X	Here are excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad. --- Nov. 13 Birmingham (Ala.) Post-Herald on the Persian Gulf crisis: Whatever lies ahead in the Persian Gulf, the large new deployment of forces ordered by President Bush is justified. ... The magnitude of the force being built up in the gulf sends a necessary message, too, to all Americans: This commitment is irrevocable - and may be costly. War against Iraq would be no quick-fix intervention on the order of Grenada or Panama. It could be long and bloody. President Bush, who has handled many aspects of the gulf crisis with skill, has yet to level with the public about the possible sacrifice ahead. --- Nov. 11 Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald on the Persian Gulf: It would be reassuring if Bush toned down the rhetoric while he built up the armies, as well. There may yet be a diplomatic solution to this crisis. There have been suggestions that Iraq might be satisifed with better access to the sea, control of an uninhabited sandbar and an indemnity for Kuwait's well-documented theft of oil and its shenanigans in the oil cartels. With these conditions, Kuwait could be restore as an independent nation, perhaps with a U.N. peace-keeping force stationed there. If such a settlement is possible, it ought to be sought. It is far more attractive than the war. Saddam may yet reject it, of course. Then the consequences are on his shoulders. If it is not offered before thousands of lives are lost, the president will need to explain his failure as a diplomat to his people and to history. --- Nov. 13 The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette on the Persian Gulf: Is President Bush preparing to invade Iraq and Kuwait, without asking Congress for a declaration of war, just as he invaded Panama without Congress' approval? Would he do it without a United Nations decision authorizing warfare? Questions like these hang in the air as Bush continues his bellicose tone and his military buildup in the Middle East. ... Bush contends that he is acting to deter aggression, to undo Iraq's seizure of tiny Kuwait. But that's window-dressing. ... No, America and other nations are acting strictly to protect the Mideast oil supply that sustains the industrialized world - an understandable goal. The nagging question is: does one man have the right, all by himself, to plunge America into a major war? ... We would feel less uneasy if he would promise not to send 400,000 young Americans into a blood bath without asking Congress first. --- Nov. 13 Delaware County Daily Times, Primos, Pa., on the death of Stormie Jones: Doctors are vigorously trying to find out what exactly killed Stormie Jones, the 13-year-old Texas girl who underwent a historic heart-liver transplant in 1984. ... But all forensic medical technology in the world is useless in telling us what kept Stormie going and her chin up the past 6{ years. Stormie battled her way through hell - a living hell. She survived a war in which many of us would have been mentally conquered. ... This courageous little girl captured the hearts of America - time and time again as she showed us all how to manhandle adversity and what it really means to live. ... --- Nov. 8 The Marietta (Ohio) Times on the U.S. elections: An expert, as most people know, is someone who offers an opinion from far away. ``Pork barrel'' is used to describe government money that funds a project in somebody else's neighborhood. Now, Tuesday's national election figures have given us a new definition: ``Bum'' is somebody else's congressman. ``Throw the bums out!'' supposedly was the cry of the land, at least according to media prophets before the election. Wednesday morning, however, America woke up to find Congress almost exactly as it was before the vote - before the budget-tax debacle, before the savings and loan bailout, before the pay raise issue, before ethics inquiries, before any of the other decisions that supposedly inflamed right-thinking patriots ... So, basically, on election day, we got what we asked for. We apparently are being duly represented. --- Nov. 12 The New Mexican, Santa Fe, N.M., on the elections: What the voters did on Nov. 6 should give neither the Republicans nor the Democrats much comfort. Neither major party really won or lost much. Although the returns gave a few members reason to worry because of the closeness of the tally, they set the U.S. on no new course. The state of the economy and events in the Persian Gulf will probably do more to shape politics in the next two years than did Election Day, 1990. . .. If messages were sent to Congress they were that taxes are unpopular, perhaps even more unpopular than the Democrats believed. Despite the difficulty of this year's tax fight, and the votes' reaction to it, taxes will probably be an issue both in 1991 and 1992. The sour taste of the 1990 tax debate likely sets the stage for harder fights over budget cutting in 1991 and 1992. ... ---
AP880512-0279 	X	RJR Nabisco Inc. announced it has formed a new company, Del Monte Foods, to combine the operations of its worldwide Del Monte operations and other portions of Nabisco Brands Inc. The new company will be headquartered in Coral Gables, Fla., and will stand as a separate major operating unit of RJR Nabisco, the Atlanta-based consumer products giant said Wednesday.. RJR Nabisco Vice Chairman Robert J. Carbonell, who is also chairman of the American Trade Consortium, will serve as chairman and chief executive officer of Del Monte Foods. ``Through Del Monte Foods, RJR Nabisco will be positioned to fully leverage the value of the Del Monte name as a global brand, covering both fresh fruit and processed fruits and vegetables,'' Carbonell said. The consolidation also will allow the company to increase its presence in Latin American countries, he said.. Del Monte Foods will provide management for four operating divisions: Del Monte Tropical Fruit Company; Del Monte Foods USA; Del Monte Foods Latin America; and Del Monte Foods Europe. The operations of the combined division had 1987 sales of about $2.5 billion and net income of about $1.3 million. Del Monte Foods' worldwide operations include food processing facilities in the United Sates, central and South America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Africa. Del Monte Tropical Fruit has production operations in Cameroon, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Hawaii, Kenya and the Philippines.
AP900102-0083 	X	AIDS victim Ryan White spent the New Year's holiday with pop singer Michael Jackson, resting and watching movies at Jackson's California ranch, White's mother said Tuesday. Jeanne White said her son had been at Jackson's ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., since Thursday and was expected to return to Cicero later Tuesday. ``They've had a really good time,'' Mrs. White said in a telephone interview. She said the trip had taken her son's mind off of his most recent physical ailments. White, who turned 18 last month, has recently suffered staph infections, a low-platelet count, a hernia, a protein deficiency and fluid retention. A hemophiliac, White contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome from a blood transfusion. Four years ago, he was barred from attending Western Middle School near Kokomo by officials who feared the AIDS could be transmitted to other students. A judge ruled that Ryan should be allowed to attend school because the disease can not be transmitted through casual contact. Since then, the Whites have moved to Cicero, where Ryan attends Hamilton Heights High School. White was hospitalized before Christmas to alleviate swelling in his abdomen caused by fluid retention. During the two-day hospital stay he lost four pounds of fluid, his mother said. ``It made him more comfortable.'' Mrs. White said his treatments include drinking a protein supplement five times a day.
AP901027-0022 	X	About 800 Daily News editorial workers struck Friday rather than accept management's order to cross picket lines set up by eight other unions at the financially troubled tabloid. Management at the nation's second-largest city daily flew in the replacement workers to help circumvent a violent strike that began Thursday night when 1,800 employees walked out. Substitutes were imported from Tribune Co. newspapers in Orlando, Fla., and Chicago. Officials of the Daily News, which is owned by the company, said the paper would be on newsstands this weekend. Daily News director of labor relations Edward Gold said the paper would begin replacing workers if they failed to show up at work ``as soon as possible.'' The newspaper has 2,600 unionized employees. ``This is not a typical labor strike situation,'' said political reporter Frank Lombardi. ``They've declared an all-out war on the unions. They don't want negotiation, they want total capitulation.'' Union contracts expired in March. The News, using management and replacement workers, claimed it printed and distributed 611,000 copies of Friday's newspaper. The normal daily circulation is 1.18 million, second only to the Los Angeles Times among metropolitan newspapers. But deliveries of the single edition were spotty at best after firebombs, rocks and other projectiles were hurled at delivery trucks leaving plants in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Long Island. The Daily News was unavailable at rush hour at many midtown Manhattan newsstands, suburban railroad stations and other spots in the metropolitan area. The content was limited as well. The paper had just 48 pages, with just 7{ pages of local, domestic and international news articles. In comparison, last Friday's paper contained 116 pages. Sporadic violence was reported again Friday night. Cars and buses carrying replacement workers again were pelted with rocks as they drove from the Brooklyn plant. Two strikers were arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, police spokesman Mark Warren said. The News has lost about $115 million and seen daily circulation slip by about 700,000 in the past 10 years. The strike was good news for the Daily News' competitors in the battle for tabloid survival in the city. New York Newsday and the New York Post printed additional copies in an effort to pick up News readers. Outside the News' highrise headquarters on 42nd Street, pickets marched and union leaders told workers to head home for the day. Editorial employees from The Newspaper Guild initially honored the picket lines, then joined the strike at what was billed as an informational meeting Friday afternoon. Barry Lipton, the local Guild president, said the decision to strike was made after the News told union officials that replacement workers had already filled some editorial jobs. The News has taken a hard line in its negotiations with the unions, saying it must eliminate labor abuse to save $50 million to $70 million a year. The unions say the paper is trying to break them. Michael Alvino, president of the 700-member drivers' union, called the strike at about 10 p.m. after 60 drivers with the most seniority were fired and replaced with non-union workers. Union workers had walked out early Thursday after management ordered one worker to stand rather than sit on the job. The only one of 10 unions not involved in the strike is the New York Typographical Union, whose 200 members have lifetime guaranteed jobs. Late Thursday, replacement workers driving delivery trucks were attacked in New York and New Jersey. Eleven arrests and two minor injuries were reported. ``This vandalism and outright violence by the strikers is deplorable,'' said John Sloan, the News' vice president for labor relations. ``These are orchestrated and purposeful criminal acts.'' A truck leaving a Kearny, N.J., plant was firebombed at 3:10 a.m. in neighboring Harrison, N.J., although no one was injured. Two men were arrested shortly after the incident for possession of three Molotov cocktails, Kearny Police Lt. Michael Davitt said. Two trucks in Brooklyn were attacked, including one that crashed into two parked cars after it was pelted with debris. Similar incidents in Garden City led to six arrests for disorderly conduct at the plant there. There were two arrests in Brooklyn and one more in New Jersey. Sloan, in a statement issued by the News, also said the families of News executives were threatened overnight by union members.
AP900913-0078 	X	A forest fire in the southern Black Hills moved into Custer State Park early today. More people fled their homes, and the U.S. Forest Service bolstered its firefighting efforts. Park Superintendent Rollie Noem said the fire jumped Highway 87, the park's main north-south road, at about 3 a.m. A lodge and some private homes in the area were evacuated. Forest Service spokeswoman Mary Sue Waxler said the size of the fire was about 3,000 acres. About 350 people were fighting the fire, Waxler said, with 100 more on the way. No injuries and no structural damage were reported. No buildings were threatened but fire trucks were standing by to protect property. On Wednesday, 14 homes were evacuated in the general path of the fire. The fire stopped advancing about 1{ miles from the homes. The number of people who live in the area was not known. But officials said 25 families went to a temporary shelter at the Custer Armory looking for places to stay. Shelter director Mary Hutt said all found rooms either with family or friends. The fire was reported about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday by a state fire lookout. Officials said it was caused by logging equipment in a timber sale area south of Cicero Peak. Cicero Peak is a 6,100-foot mountain about 10 miles south of Custer and 10 miles west of the western border of Custer State Park.
AP880527-0303 	X	A government advisory committee Friday unveiled a series of measures to bring down soaring land prices, including promoting the relocation of government offices outside of Tokyo and more underground and high-rise construction. A government report in April said land prices skyrocketed last year, with the most expensive real estate in central Tokyo valued at 34 million yen, or $272,000, per square meter, or more than $6.7 billion an acre. The medium- and long-term recommendations also include tax reform to encourage development of farmland within cities for housing and the use of taxes on idle land to promote construction of leisure facilities, said Tadashi Miyagawa of the Management and Coordination Agency. The panel is expected to present its plan to the new administrative reform committee on May 30 for further study. A final report will be presented to Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita in mid-June, Miyagawa said. The government is expected to decide soon after which measures it will take to bring down inflated land prices, he said. Politicians and consumer groups have called the land price problem the most urgent in Japanese society. Most young people have given up hopes of owning their own home.
AP880627-0280 	X	The Senate voted Monday to slash the proposed 1989 Internal Revenue Service budget by $241 million and use the money for the Customs Service's anti-drug program. The anti-drug measure was part of a larger bill that also calls for a 4 percent pay increase in 1989 for all federal civilian employees except members of Congress, and 4.1 percent for military personnel. The Senate approved an amendment requiring that no future pay increase for members of Congress take effect until voted on separately by the House and Senate. The White House had opposed reducing the IRS spending. It cautioned that the ``impact of this reduced level on returns processsing and taxpayer services would be devastating.'' IRS Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs had complained that the reduction could cut revenues by $1.4 billion next year. The cut in the IRS budget, to the 1988 level of just under $5.1 billion, was part of a bill that included $15.9 billion for the Treasury Department and its agencies, the Postal Service and several other federal agencies. The vote was 81-4. The spending bill is $246 million less than the administration asked and $196.3 million below what the House passed. The measure is about $801 million over what was appropriated for the same agencies for 1988. When he sent his budget to Congress in January, President Reagan asked for a $241 million increase for the IRS ``to improve the speed and accuracy of tax processing and expand information services provided to taxpayers'' in light of the 1986 tax overhaul. The House agreed. When the Senate panel was considering the appropriations bill last week, James C. Miller III, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that holding the IRS budget to this year's level would ``jeopardize service to the public both in terms of taxpayer inquiries and timely returns processing.'' ``These areas are particularly high priorities of the administration, given the need to implement tax reform fully and the desire to avoid repeating the disruptions of the 1985 filing season,'' Miller wrote. However, the Senate committee concluded that ``the level of funding proposed by the committee will allow the IRS to meet its revenue-raising targets established in the'' deficit-reduction agreement reached by the White House and Congress last year. The bill includes $1.05 billion for the Customs Service, which is $79 million above what the administration requested and $41 million over what the House passed. ``I am proud to say that this bill goes the extra mile, beyond the president's budget to maintain our important anti-drug effort at some of the most important drug enforcement agencies,'' said Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the treasury, postal service and general government, which wrote the measure. As part of the Customs Service efforts against illegal drugs, the bill recommends the agency buy a surveillance airship capable of carrying a sensor that can detect ship movements in the Gulf of Mexico. The measure includes money for customs to develop four long-range P-3 Orion planes to use in drug surveillance missions. The Senate approved an amendment by Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., suggesting that the Postal Service not activate the second part of a contract with Perot Systems Corp. until the General Accounting Office studies the contract. The corporation, headed by billionaire H. Ross Perot, would get a share of the profits from cost-saving suggestions it made to the Postal Service. Simon contends such a lucrative contract should not have been awarded without bids.
AP900427-0146 	X	The Hubble Space Telescope orbited with its big eye open Friday after ground controllers overcame communications problems and lifted its lens cover, but its electronics were shut down due to a malfunction. Those problems, however, were not the immediate concern of shuttle Discovery's astronauts, who prepared for Sunday's return to Earth. ``You've been released from Hubble support. It's on its own,'' Mission Control's Story Musgrave told the five crew members. ``That's great news,'' replied Discovery commander Loren J. Shriver. ``There are handshakes and smiles all around up here. I'll bet it's just that way back down there, too,'' added mission specialist Steven Hawley. ``Who's buying tonight?'' ``We'll buy when you all get back,'' Musgrave replied. Flight director William Reeves said it was too early to cheer. `We still have an important part of the mission to go,'' Reeves said. ``We reserve our celebration until the crew is safely on the ground.'' Discovery is to land at 9:48 a.m. EDT Sunday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Landing would have been delayed a day if astronauts Bruce McCandless and Kathryn Sullivan had had to perform a space walk to crank open the telescope's lens cover, or aperture door. The shuttle trailed 50 miles behind Hubble when the aperture door opened 380 miles above Earth, but passed 3.7 miles beneath the telescope later in the day. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had planned to release its first test image from the $1.5 billion telescope on Tuesday, showing an open star cluster in the constellation Carina. But Steve Terry, director of orbital verifications, said that would be delayed by problems with Hubble's high-speed antennas. Scientific data will follow in a month or two. Hubble's 10-foot aluminum aperture door was opened to the heavens at 10:30 a.m. EDT, nearly four hours later than planned, exposing its finely polished 94.5-inch mirror to starlight for the first time. Ground controllers sent a signal commanding the door to lift even though the telescope was in an automatic ``safe mode,'' with all motion stopped because of problems in linking its high-speed dish antennas with a relay satellite. One of the two antennas apparently had swung too far, and the telescope shut down, said Jean Oliver, a Hubble deputy project manager. If future movements of the antenna have to be limited to avoid the problem, it would have only slight impact on the telescope's observing time, Oliver said. Terry said the opening of the aperture door could not have been delayed much longer. ``There has to be a point where you say they have to go their way and we have to go ours,'' he said of the astronauts. When the door opened, two of Hubble's four position-stabilizing gyroscopes stopped working; later, engineers got them back on line. The motion of the lens cover knocked out the gyros, said Dave Drachlis of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. That, too, kept it in the safe mode. Oliver said it would be Saturday morning before the telescope is brought out of the safe mode. It will take another day to get the instrument operating normally again, putting controllers at Goddard several days behind. ``We're trying to be very deliberate and trying not to cut any corners and do anything fast because we feel there's a lot at risk here and we want to make sure we're doing it properly,'' Oliver said. ``We've got a long future ahead of us, and we want to make sure it starts off on the right foot.'' NASA said the telescope was safe and in a stable position. Tolerances for the telescope systems were set particularly narrow for the first operations and that was the cause of many malfunctions, Terry said. In addition to that trouble, there were two communications outages totaling several hours. ``We're cautious, and that's natural,'' Terry said. ``We've got a very expensive spacecraft here and we don't want to do anything to jeopardize the usefulness. ... We'll get to the point where we know exactly what the spacecraft will do and set the limits appropriately.'' Terry said Hubble is designed with safe modes so it can be ``the master of its own destiny'' in case contact with an orbiting communications system is lost for extended periods. The telescope will share the system, known as Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, with other space craft. Except for a tiny wedge opening, the lens cover had been closed and the telescope blind ever since Hubble was released by the astronauts Wednesday. From its orbit high above Earth's distorting atmosphere, the telescope will enable astronomers over its 15-year working lifetime to look back 14 billion years and possibly determine the age of the universe. The universe is believed to have been created about 15 billion years ago in a cosmic explosion. The late astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, for whom the telescope is named, provided the basis for the Big Bang theory of creation. He discovered during the 1920s that the universe is expanding and that the farther the galaxy is from Earth, the faster it is moving away. In honor of the astronomer, Sullivan carried with her into space an eyepiece from the 100-inch telescope at California's Mount Wilson Observatory that Hubble used to make his pioneering observations. ``It's a great pleasure to have something of such historical significance and something that so directly symbolizes Edwin Hubble's fundamental contributions to astronomy,'' she said Friday afternoon. Once back on Earth, the eyepiece will be displayed at the observatory.
AP900914-0222 	X	Retail prices in Britain were up 10.6 percent in August compared to levels a year earlier, the highest rate of inflation since 1982, the government reported Friday. Higher prices for gasoline, heating oil, food and beer pushed the index up 1.0 percent between July and August, the Central Statistical Office said. The last time inflation was in double figures was in March 1982 when the rate was 10.4 percent. Excluding mortgages and local taxes, the rate of increase was 7.9 percent in August, up from 7.0 percent in July, the government said.
AP880809-0204 	X	Following are state-by-state ozone pollution figures released by the Sierra Club. After each city or county's name are four numbers: 1-high reading for 1988; 2-high reading for 1987; 3-the number of times through Aug. 3 that reading exceeded federal standard; 4-the number of times the area is expected to have exceeded standard in 1987 when the Environmental Protection Agency completes its statistical review for the year.
AP900524-0160 	X	The United States has no plans to return a Mexican doctor brought across the border by bounty hunters to face charges of participating in a drug agent's murder, officials said Thursday. Mexico's request for the return of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain was received by the State Department and the U.S. will ``respond in due course,'' Justice Department spokesman Doug Tillett said. However, officials who spoke on condition of anonymity noted that Mexico had not made a formal extradition request, calling merely for Alvarez's return. The officials also pointed to recent public statements by the Justice Department stressing that the U.S. had no plans to return Alvarez to his homeland. Justice Department spokesman David Runkel said several weeks ago that he couldn't ``foresee any circumstances'' under which Alvarez would be returned. Alvarez, accused of participating in the torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena, was abducted by bounty hunters and flown to El Paso, Texas, on April 3. His arrest by waiting DEA agents touched off a diplomatic flap between the two nations that included a charge by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari that it violated Mexico's sovereignty. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said in a May 10 interview, however, that he was not concerned about the circumstances of Alvarez's delivery to the U.S. border. He invited bounty hunters to turn over more Mexicans wanted in the Camarena case. ``Whatever actions that are carried out by Mexican authorities are of no moment to us,'' Thornburgh said. The Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday in Mexico City that the government wanted Alvarez's return for questioning about possible crimes in Mexico. The statement did not mention specific cases. ``This request is based fundamentally on the fact that the procedure followed by his captors and those who transferred Dr. Alvarez Machain violated'' articles of the Mexican constitution, the statement said. Alvarez is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday for a hearing on defense motions to dismiss the charges because the circumstances of his arrest amounted to ``outrageous government conduct.'' Last week, the Justice Department filed papers claiming that a Mexican police official last year delivered an offer to swap a suspect in the Camarena case for a fugitive wanted by Mexican authorities. The papers quoted the Mexican official as saying he was speaking on behalf of Mexican Attorney General Enrique Alvarez del Castillo. The Mexican attorney general has since issued a statement denying the Justice Department claim. Antonio Garate Bustamante, a former Mexican police official residing in Los Angeles, has said he arranged Alvarez's abduction for DEA.
AP900608-0188 	X	The Arab League's U.N. envoy Friday said Israel's new hard-line government was a ``blessing in disguise'' and said the right-wing adiministration might force the United States to get tougher with its ally. Clovis Maksoud, permanent observer of the 22-nation Arab League, said the government, which will consist of acting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's right-wing Likud bloc and smaller ultranationalist and religious parties, could force Congress to reexamine its relationship with Israel. Shamir's government, which still needs parliamentary approval, has vowed to expand Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and has indicated it is prepared to use harsher measures to quell the 30-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel's rule of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United States has called Jewish settlements an obstacle to peace and has tried to encourage Israel to open peace talks with a Palestinian delegation. ``I hope formation of this new Cabinet will jolt the U.S. administration and the U.S. Congress to come back to their historical sense of fairness in the Middle East,'' Maksoud said after a strategy meeting with Arab representatives. ``This can be a blessing in disguise if it awakens the U.S. administration from permissiveness to allow Israel to proceed with the defiance of the international community,'' he added. Maksoud also criticized the United States saying it has shielded Israel from international censure by using its veto in the U.N. Security Council. On Thursday, the United States blocked an Arab-sponsored Security Council resolution calling for a U.N. team to visit the occupied territories and investigate allegations of Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights. Arab states plan to reintroduce the measure.
AP900410-0204 	X	Soviet emigre Sarah Rudman proudly speaks two words in English: ``America good.'' It's quite a statement for someone starting life over, both she and her husband unable to work because they are crippled, living in a barren apartment an ocean and a continent away from their homeland. The Rudmans, both 64, have a hand-me-down bed without sheets, a folding table, two chairs, two lamps, a 13-inch portable TV and one curtain for two windows. All the furnishings were either donated, left over or scrounged. ``I never had many things. Books and spiritual things are much more valuable than material things,'' Mrs. Rudman said through an interpreter. ``We didn't think everything will fall from the sky. I'm happy with what I have.'' She gained something worth more than home furnishings, so she doesn't mind using a corner of her bed as a sofa. ``We wanted to be free and not be persecuted because we are Jewish,'' she said. ``We wanted our kids to be free, to get an education. People here are really free. They can express themselves. They can observe any religion they want to. Everybody does what he wants.'' Mrs. Rudman, who taught kindergarten in Odessa, hasn't left the apartment since her Dec. 20 arrival in Brighton Beach. She's laid up with a bad back, a condition stemming from typhoid fever contracted during World War II when she was evacuated to Siberia to escape invading Nazis. Her husband, Lazar, was a shoemaker until he suffered a disabling head injury in a 1983 streetcar accident. He also was mugged before leaving the Soviet Union and walks with a cane. The Rudmans came to America with a daughter and her three children. Another daughter stayed behind because her child had meningitis, and she hopes to emigrate later this year. Until then, they are reluctant to talk about Soviet life. As refugees, the Rudmans are entitled to food stamps, welfare and federal rent subsidies. They also get money for rent and food from the New York Association for New Americans, which gets the bulk of its support from United Jewish Appeal. Nevertheless, they had to borrow money from relatives and other immigrants to pay their $525 monthly rent. They were too proud at first to seek government help. ``We're a little embarrassed,'' Mrs. Rudman said. The Rudmans, who first applied to leave the Soviet Union in 1978, learn English through a paperback translation book or by watching cartoons and other TV shows. ``I am afraid of nothing. A person dies only once,'' Mrs. Rudman said defiantly. Then she clasped her hands in a gesture of prayer and said in broken English, ``America good. So very good.''
AP880711-0230 	X	Central bankers from leading industrial countries agreed Monday on common standards for the minimum capital reserves that banks must hold. The accord ``will help to strengthen the soundness and stability of the international banking system and will remove an important source of competitive inequality for banks arising from differences in national supervisory requirements,'' said Karl Otto Poehl, president of West Germany's central bank. It represents ``a significant step forward in international supervisory cooperation,'' he said after the meeting at the headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements. The new standards detail a framework for measuring capital adequacy and set a minimum reserve standard for each country's authorities to put into force. A BIS committee chaired by Bank of England associate director Peter Cooke completed the draft proposals last December. Swiss and British banks, which already have high capital requirements, are expected to benefit particularly from the new rules. Banks in France and Japan generally will have to boost their reserves because their countries have relatively lenient requirements. Central bankers endorsed a target capital ratio of 8 percent of a bank's assets, to be achieved in each country by the end of 1992. At least half of a bank's capital base counted toward the standard must consist of equity capital and published reserves from after-tax retained earnings. Central bankers from the Group of 10 major industrial countries and Switzerland attended Monday's meeting. The Group of 10 includes Belgium, West Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States.
AP880415-0173 	X	American rice farmers may benefit in the early months of the 1988-89 season from a shortage of exportable crops in competing nations, an Agriculture Department report said Friday. World rice production from the 1987-88 harvests is forecast at 304 million metric tons, milled equivalent, down 4 percent from last year, the department's Economic Research Service said. Weak monsoons left Asian producers with limited supplies. Meanwhile, global rice consumption is expected to increase 3 percent, leaving world stockpiles at their lowest level relative to use since 1974. The U.S. rice supply also has tightened, reflecting a 6 percent reduction in last year's harvest. But the department's planting survey in early March indicated American producers intend to boost 1988 rice plantings by 19 percent to 2.8 million acres. That could boost this year's output sharply. ``U.S. farmers will harvest rice crops at least four months ahead of their Asian competitors,'' the report said. ``Since the United States will be the major source of supply during those months, some increased export opportunities may exist towards the end of 1988.'' However, analysts cautioned that some foreign importers, if possible, may ``choose to wait until the beginning of 1989, when prices are likely to decline during the Asian harvest.''
AP881017-0054 	X	A current trade fair in Canton features bullet-proof vests, anti-riot helmets and shields, electric shock batons and other equipment for use by China's newly formed riot police force, an official daily said today. The China Daily said the China Jingan Equipment Import and Export Corporation is also displaying tear gas bombs, dye bombs, submachine guns and anti-riot guns. It quoted an official of the corporation, the only Chinese firm authorized to deal in police equipment in China, as saying more than 1,000 sets of anti-riot helmets and shields have already been supplied to police in Henan, Liaoning and Tibet provinces. Tibet is troubled by a small independence movement and tension between Chinese and the local Tibetans, while there have been reports of labor unrest in Liaoning, northeast China. The creation of the riot police force coincides with what Chinese security officials acknowledge is a rising problem with crime and social unrest resulting from the state's gradual loosening of political and economic controls. In the past few years there have been riots in Tibet, student demonstrations calling for greater democracy, labor strikes and protests by farmers about pollution. Jingan official Yin Guishan said the cost of providing a riot police officer with a full range of equipment would be about $1,350. He said the company is also designing China's first armored police personnel carrier, a $81,000 vehicle carrying 10 people and equipped with surveillance instruments and weapons.
AP900527-0001 	X	Police units Saturday prevented Contra rebel leaders from leaving two hotels where they came to negotiate their disarmament with the government. One Contra leader said they were being held ``hostage.'' Later in the day, members of a government investigative team announced they found no proof of Contra claims that the army massacred 14 rebels who had laid down their weapons. Contra leaders broke off the disarmament talks with the government on Friday demanding an investigation of the purported army massacre of the rebel fighters and 100 civilians May 18 near Waslala in Matagalpa province, 150 miles northeast of Managua. Contra commander Oscar Sovalbarro was named to the commission created Friday, but he remained in Managua on Saturday in a hotel where he said he and 18 other Contras were being held ``hostage'' by police. Sovalbarro said 10 other Contra leaders were prevented from leaving another Managua hotel. He said the rebels were considering a hunger strike in protest. The police who surrounded the Managua hotels did not appear to be threatening the rebels, but Contra leaders said they were told they could not leave the hotel grounds. Presidential spokesman Danilo Lacayo and Interior Minister Carlos Hurtado told The Associated Press that police had been placed at the hotel for the Contras' own protection. The leftist Sandinistas, who turned over power to President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro last month after losing February elections, still control the military and police. Sovalbarro, also known as Commander Ruben, said Saturday's police action showed the Contras ``have a good reason not to trust the government.'' He spoke from the garden of the Hotel Mercedes, where about two dozen police from the elite black beret unit were seen patrolling. The investigative commission, named by Mrs. Chamorro, traveled Saturday by helicopter to the area of the purported massacre and interviewed army and rebel leaders, said Santiago Murray, representative of the U.N. International Support and Verification Commission, at a news conference later in the day. ``We haven't been able to confirm the existence of any dead alleged by the Nicaraguan Resistance,'' he said. He said the commission members found no information about ``any dead or other serious incident.'' People interviewed near Waslala in the community of Zinica, where rebels alleged the incident occurred, seemed surprised by news of a massacre and said they had heard about it from a Managua radio station. The investigating commission consisted of government delegates, U.N. officials, Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo and a Contra representative. A May 4 agreement between the Contras and the Chamorro government set a June 10 deadline for more than 11,000 rebels to surrender their weapons. But on May 19, the Contra high command suspended the disarmament, claiming authorities were not providing enough food, housing, jobs and security measures for fighters who lay down their arms. Only 1,404 of the rebel fighters have been demobilized, the government said. The U.S.-backed Contras fought the Sandinista government in a 10-year war that left 30,000 dead. The rebel fighters said they would give up their arms after Mrs. Chamorro, also backed by the United States, took over the presidency from Sandinista President Daniel Ortega on April 25. The Contras say their chief concern is that the army is controlled mostly by Sandinistas.
AP900613-0180 	X	About 120 prospective jurors in the trial of three teen-agers accused of raping and nearly killing a Central Park jogger were given questionnaires Wednesday asking their attitudes on race and crime. All three defendants are black teen-agers who live in Harlem. The victim is a 29-year-old white investment banker. The 54-question, 17-page form was handed to those from a pool of 382 who told state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Galligan they would be able to stay for a six- to eight-week trial. The questionnaire asks if the prospective juror or his or her children attended an integrated school; whether the person has lived in a racially mixed community, and whether he or she has friends of a different race. It also asks whether the individual would prefer help from a police officer of his or her own racial or ethnic group if in need of assistance. The questions were agreed on by all parties in the case, said Michael Joseph, attorney for defendant Antron McCray, 15. Members of the Guardian Angels community patrol group marched in front of the Manhattan courthouse, passing out leaflets that said the case ``is not a question of black and white; it's about what's wrong and what's right.'' McCray and five other youths are charged with gang raping and beating the woman as she jogged through the Central Park the evening of April 19, 1989. The victim suffered brain damage in the assault and cannot remember the attack or identify her assailants. After emerging from a coma and being treated at a Connecticut rehabilitation hospital, she returned to work at Salomon Brothers and recently was named a vice president. McCray, along with Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana, both 16, are being tried as adults on charges of attempted murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, assault, robbery and riot. The other three youths are to be tried later, also as adults. If any in the first group were to be convicted, they would be sentenced as juveniles and would face a maximum of 10 years in prison. The questionnaire also asks potential jurors if they have a particular bias against people accused of sex crimes, whether they or any of their relatives jog, and whether they use Central Park often. In addition, there are the usual questions about whether the prospective juror has relatives in law enforcement or has been a crime victim. Jury selection was to continue Thursday.
AP901025-0058 	X	An army newspaper marking the 30th anniversary of a rocket explosion says the mishap killed 165 people, including a leading general, making it the worst known space-related accident in the Soviet Union. The Red Star article on Wednesday said a prototype rocket's second stage was accidentally ignited on the launch pad, causing an explosion that burned many of the victims beyond recognition. Secrecy has shrouded the accident at the Baikonur Space Center ever since the explosion shot flames into the Central Asian sky on Oct. 24, 1960. No official death toll or technical details of the accident have ever been released, despite several articles describing the event. A monument to the victims lists only 54 names and published obituaries claimed that Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, commander in chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, died in an unrelated plane crash. Red Star reported on the accident's 30th anniversary Wednesday, saying ``the tragedy at the cosmodrome caused the deaths of 165 people.'' James Oberg, an American expert on the Soviet space program, said Western observers estimated the death toll to be as high as 300. He said in an interview from his Houston home that many victims were immediately shipped back to Moscow for burial. The newspaper said the rocket was a new design, and Oberg said he believes it was a new type of missile. He said space officials told him the explosion came after the first stage failed to ignite, and technicians tried to replace one component. ``Somebody plugged an umbilical cord into the wrong connection,'' igniting the second stage, Oberg said. The flames caused fuel trucks to burst into fire, unleashing fireballs. People in the vicinity ``just burst into flames like candlewax,'' he said. The Red Star account said the explosion was caused by an ``unnecessary sequence of events in carrying out one of the operations while the valves of the second stage were opened, starting the engine.'' Oberg, hearing the Russian-language version, said it did not offer a clear technical explanation of the accident. The newspaper said the rocket's launch was repeatedly delayed ``for technical reasons,'' including leaking fuel. It quotes Stanislav Pavlov, then chief of the launching group, as saying a few drops of fuel burned holes in technicians' rubber gloves when the rocket's joints and tubes were checked for leaks. ``We didn't pay attention to this, but later we learned it was dangerous,'' he was quoted as saying. Pavlov said he was standing 15 to 20 yards from the rocket when it exploded. ``The site was on fire and full of smoke,'' he told the newspaper. ``The first thought that came to my mind was `that's it. The end.''' Pavlov said he rushed to a nearby bunker housing the control center, but was still so badly burned he spent three days unconscious and one year in the hospital recovering. He said his injury was not entered on his official record until 1988. Pavlov said he was told Nedelin survived the explosion, bt died later in the hospital from his burns. He said many of the other victims were so badly burned they could not be identified visually.
AP900419-0186 	X	BUENOS AIRES, Argentintics
AP880728-0135 	X	A millionaire businessman who promised to bankroll a new life for a welfare mother of five faces criminal charges and a $1.4 million judgment in a bank fraud and is not free to spend his money, attorneys said today. James Gisclair had offered to buy a house for Anita Hunter and her family and provide her with a job, a college education, a car and a nurse to care for the children. But court records show that a subsidiary of Capital Bank won a civil judgment against him after alleging in state court that Gisclair defrauded the lender out of $1.3 million. The judgment includes interest on that amount. The criminal charges stem from the civil case, according to Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie, who filed charges against Gisclair two weeks ago in federal court accusing him of making a false statement to a bank. Capital's attorney, Hugh Culverhouse Jr., said today that he understands Gisclair must satisfy any outstanding judgments before he can freely spend his money. The attorney added that in a deposition filed after the judgment, Gisclair said his businesses were worthless. Gisclair did not immediately return calls to this Boca Raton office today. He said Wednesday that he made his promise to Hunter because he felt like ``nobody was doing more than lip service to make a difference'' about poverty. ``I kept driving by and seeing the homeless,'' he said. ``It started to really bother me. ... I honestly became consumed by the urge to do something about it.'' For 28-year-old Anita Hunter, struggling to raise her children, including a month-old son, in a drug-ridden inner-city Miami neighborhood dubbed ``The Hole,'' his offer is a ``fairy tale'' come true. ``I can't believe this is happening to me,'' she said. ``It's just a miracle from God. I've struggled and hoped for so long to get my children out of this neighborhood and into a safe environment.'' Gisclair, a 43-year-old New Orleans native and principal owner of six Boca Raton enterprises, including a real estate management company and a restaurant, found the family through Livia Garcia of Miami's Community Development Department. He told her he wanted to help real people he could see and talk to. ``My idea is to see exactly where my money is going and be able to measure its success,'' said Gisclair, who has four children. ``The idea is to get Anita to become self-sufficient to the point where she can pay her own rent on the house, pay her own bills and do everything on her own someday. I plan to pay for everything until she reaches that point.'' He said he would find a home for the family in Boca Raton, Delray Beach or Deerfield Beach, about 100 miles north of Miami. Ms. Hunter would work during the day and attend Florida Atlantic University at night so she could pursue her goal of becoming an accountant. It's not the first time Gisclair has tried the idea. An earlier effort to help a welfare mother with four children failed because ``she was totally unwilling to participate,'' Gisclair said. ``And then one day she asked me to pay half of her rent because her ex-husband didn't come through with the money. I volunteered to pay it directly to her landlord, but she said, `No, send it to me.' That was enough for me to realize I was being connned.'' That's why Gisclair's has attached some conditions. ``I just want Anita to be honest with me,'' he said. ``I want her to become self-sufficient, and she has promised to have no more children. I will see to it that she gets medical care as well to take care of that.'' Ms. Hunter said Gisclair's conditions are ``tiny'' compared to the chance he's giving her family. She said the neighborhood she lives now is so dangerous she doesn't let her children _ Kentrail, 10, Krystal, 4, Grady, 3, Alex, 1, and Antjon, 1 month _ play outside. ``It's like a fairy tale,'' she said. ``These things don't happen every day and they never happen to me.'' Gisclair said he was shocked by the family's poverty when he met Ms. Austin on a visit to her cramped, one-bedroom apartment Friday. ``There was one bed and a hot plate,'' he said. ``But the place is immaculate and so are the children. ``They're well disciplined; they're clean. If you took one look at their smiles you'd want to do the same thing.''
AP900628-0009 	X	East Germany will bid goodbye to an old currency by burying it in salt mines and feeding it to foundries, clearing the way for new cash and a radically different way of life. At the stroke of midnight Saturday, the 42-year-old East German mark of the ousted Communist regime will be replaced by one of the free market's most powerful forces, the West German mark. An East German who buys a beer with his old money in the minutes before midnight could have his change brought back in West German marks, so quick is this change to take place. That modest event would signal the economic unification of the two German states, the end of four decades of East German socialism and the de facto creation of a single Germany. The West German state bank, the Bundesbank, has trucked in 25 billion uncirculated West German marks, said spokesman Sigfried Guterman in Frankfurt. ``Transporting money is our business,'' he said Wednesday. ``This was a little more complicated.'' Guterman said heavily guarded trucks from Bundesbank offices throughout West Germany brought 600 tons of paper money _ 400 million individual bills _ and 500 tons of coins during the past two months. The money was distributed to 15 different cities. The East German State Bank has been taking that money to 10,000 different locations, where it will be available to East Germans beginning Sunday. Long lines at banks nationwide continued as East Germans filled out forms to convert their savings accounts to West German marks. Guterman said there have been no major problems replacing one currency with another virtually overnight. The 25 billion in West German marks is new, uncirculated cash that should be enough to accomodate the nation, Guterman said. East Germany now only has 12.3 billion East German marks in circulation, said Bernd Schroeter, spokesman for the East German State Bank. All citizens will be asked to deposit their remaining East German cash in banks by July 6. There, it is to be counted, sorted and wrapped. After final inventory, the bills will be stored in salt mines pending their later destruction, Schroeter said. East Germany is not equipped to burn large amounts of bills in environmentally safe ways, he said. Guterman said East Germany might have to use the Bundesbank facilities to burn the money. Most of the coins are pure aluminum _ which drew chuckles from Westerners _ and two denominations are in copper. Schroeter said these will be melted down and recycled. The East German currency is small and flimsy compared with the large West German bills. The 50-mark bill carries the picture of Friedrich Engels, who with Karl Marx drafted the blueprint for modern socialism. The back depicts a giant factory spewing smoke. The East German currency was non-convertible and virtually worthless outside the East bloc. After the East German revolt last autumn, it was traded on the black market at a 20-1 rate for West German money. Now, small savings accounts will be traded at a 1-1 rate, with larger amounts converted at a 2-1 rate. The Bundesbank has been planning a new West German currency for years, and will begin circulating some notes on Oct. 1. By the end of the next year, Guterman said, all the current money will be replaced. Concidentally, one of the first bills that goes into circulation on Oct. 1 _ the 100 mark note _ will depict the East German city of Leipzig. ``It is more or less by accident,'' Guterman said. ``Nobody knew there would be a currency union when these bills were designed.'' Leipzig is on the back of the bill because it is the birthplace of the person on the front, 19th century German pianist Clara Schumann. Leipzig is also the home of the an East German currency mint, and Guterman said it will be used to print part of the new 5 mark note.
AP881208-0281 	X	South Korean automobile production surpassed the 1 million mark for the first time Thursday. The nation's automakers said production since the start of the year totaled a record 1,000,660. The tally is expected to reach 1.09 million vehicles by year's end, compared with 979,739 vehicles in 1987, they said. Hyundai Motor Co. produced the most vehicles, 594,645, followed by Kia Motors Corp., with 225,267, and Daewoo Motor Co., 150,047.
AP900918-0023 	X	A set of valleys said to resemble the animated character Gumby and a meteorite impact crater unlike any other seen in the solar system are visible in the Magellan spacecraft's newest pictures of Venus. The computer-assembled pictures, released by NASA Monday, were made from data Magellan collected Saturday as it started its 243-day mission to peer through the planet's thick clouds and map its rugged landscape. ``It's just excitement time. The scientists are in there like bees to honey,'' said Ed Sherry, a Magellan technical assistant at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One picture shows a 40-mile-long set of valleys or troughs. ``It's a feature we nicknamed Gumby,'' said Steve Saunders, Magellan's chief scientist, referring to the animated clay figure from a children's TV show of the 1950s. Two valleys, each about three miles wide, look like Gumby's legs. The north end of the two valleys converge into a single trough, resembling Gumby's upper body. And the trough ends in a box canyon that looks a bit like Gumby's head. The Gumby-like feature probably formed when underground molten rock flowed out of the area, causing the ground above to collapse along fault lines and create the valleys, Saunders said. Similar features have been seen on Mars, he said. Another picture released Monday shows a meteorite impact crater about five miles wide and seven miles long. Large lobes of material ejected by the impact are visible north, south and east of the crater. That means the crater was formed when a meteorite slammed into Venus at a low angle, rather than from directly above, Saunders said. Shaped like a kidney, it is unlike any other impact crater seen in the solar system, NASA said. A possible explanation for the strange shape is that the meteorite broke into several large chunks just before it hit, Saunders said. Magellan, which was launched from the shuttle Atlantis in May 1989, was to have formally begun its $744 million mapping mission on Aug. 29, almost three weeks after it went into orbit around Venus. But engineers temporarily lost radio contact with the spacecraft on Aug. 16 and again Aug. 21.
AP881228-0045 	X	President Reagan and other U.S. officials marked the ninth anniversary of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan stressing that they expect Moscow to honor its commitment to complete military withdrawal by Feb. 15. Failure to meet the deadline would get Moscow ``off to a very bad start'' with President-elect Bush's incoming administration, warned Michael Armacost, the State Department's undersecretary for political affairs. The State Department also predicted Tuesday that the Afghan national army will collapse after the Soviet withdrawal is completed and that some top leaders of the Kabul government regarded by the populace as traitors might choose to flee the country. The Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979. Western analysts say their were 110,000 to 115,000 Soviet troops in the country supporting the government against rebels armed by the United States. About half have been withdrawn. ``I fully expect them to honor their obligation to withdraw completely by Feb. 15,'' President Reagan said in a statement issued by the White House during his California vacation. But the president and other officials also voiced concern that the withdrawal has been halted and Soviet offensive military operations have resumed. ``Even today, as Feb. 15 approaches, the Soviets continue offensive military operations in Afghanistan,'' Reagan said. ``The introduction of new weapons, and the escalation in the use of Soviet warplanes in bombing raids against Afghanistan call into question the Soviet commitment to a peaceful solution.'' In a report released Tuesday on the military situation in Afghanistan, the State Department said the rebels made sizable gains this year despite the introduction of Backfire bombers and other new weapons by the Soviets. The report called the Afghan army ``demoralized force'' suffering shortages of qualified officers and manpower, despite forced conscriptions and bribes of tribal militia. ``Most experts agree that it probably can survive no more than a matter of months after a complete Soviet withdrawal,'' it said. The report also hailed talks earlier this year the Soviets had with resistance leaders without representatives of the Kabul government. ``Moscow now appears ready to explore all options that could lead to a political settlement,'' the report said.
AP901214-0035 	X	European Community leaders gathered today for a summit aimed at launching the trading bloc on the road to a federated Europe. Britain, the prime objector, is in a more conciliatory mood since the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. The 12 leaders beginning their two-day meeting today in the flag-bedecked Italian Parliament also will consider granting a $2.4 billion aid package to the Soviet Union and increased help to other East European countries. The Europeans received a new exhortation from President Bush to stand firm on the Persian Gulf crisis. In a letter Thursday to Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti, current holder of the rotating summit chairmanship, Bush said Iraq's blanket release of foreign hostages should not lessen pressure on Iraq to pull out of Kuwait. ``We must continue to maintain a very rigid attitude,'' Bush said, according to Italian officials. British Prime Minister John Major, who succeeded Mrs. Thatcher Nov. 28 and is virtually unknown to the other summiteers, joined them at the opera for a performance of ``Tosca'' on Thursday night. Major, 47, was holding separate prior talks with Andreotti, Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand are pressing for economic union and a single currency, perhaps by the year 2000, and for a form of political union that would strip member nations of many sovereign powers. Major, keen to avoid a repeat of the Britain-versus-the-rest showdown that helped topple Mrs. Thatcher after the summit in Rome in October, was optimistic despite Britain's continued opposition to key unity proposals, his aides said. ``We see ways in which significant progress can be made,'' a senior British source said Thursday night. ``But there are areas where we will reaffirm our positions quite clearly, including our opposition to having a single currency imposed upon us,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday urged the 12 EC heads of state to work on restarting talks to liberalize world trade. The global trade negotiations broke down in Brussels last week, in part due to the EC's refusal to cut farm subsidies enough to satisfy the United States. The talks are to resume at a lower level next month in Geneva. Soviet aid, which topped the agenda of this summit, was given fresh impetus by the U.S. decision Wednesday to give the Soviet Union $1 billion in loan guarantees to buy American farm products and manufactured goods. Andreotti's spokesman, Pio Mastrobuoni, said he was confident of agreement, despite some arguments that the Soviet Union needs help in managing its huge resources, including distributing its harvest, rather than handouts and loans it will have trouble repaying. On financial union, Andreotti cornered Mrs. Thatcher at the October summit by getting the others to agree to establish a single central banking system - the prelude to one currency - by January 1994. Mrs. Thatcher objected loudly. In a change of tone, Major planned to argue the British alternative of a European currency that would circulate alongside the 12 existing currencies, without ruling out an eventual sole currency. On political union, Britain has shifted toward French and German proposals for giving the EC a formal role in security. And aides said Major was confident Britain will not be alone in opposing other proposals that would give the community far-reaching powers over issues ranging from health, social policy and education to taxation and transport. The EC nations are Italy, France, Britain, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Greece, Denmark and Germany.
AP880319-0115 	X	The Red Cross acknowledged Saturday it erred in distributing 24 pints of blood that had failed AIDS procedures but said none of the blood was used and none carried the deadly virus. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that the questionable one-pint units were shipped last month to hospitals and laboratories by Red Cross centers in Washington and Nashville, Tenn., but were never used on any patients. The FDA did not identify the facilities that received the blood. ``While it should not have been shipped, it actually proved to be HIV (AIDS virus) free, and a number of units underwent processing that would inactivate the virus,'' said Gene Jeffers, American Red Cross spokesman. He said there was ``no known health hazard associated with the 24 units of blood. We were very fortunate and lucked out in that there was no human risk at all involved here.'' Jeffers acknowledged, however, that five of the units tested positive for hepatitis B antigens and could have posed a health risk had they been used in transfusions. However, they were not used, he said. Initial tests showed 10 of the questionable units contained HIV antibodies, which signaled an AIDS danger, but those units underwent a process that breaks down the blood into components for specific uses and eliminates the virus, Jeffers said. The remaining nine units, he said, were from donors who were unacceptable because they previously tested ``false positive'' for AIDS, but all the actual units were tested as safe, he said. Federal officials estimate that the chances of getting AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, from a transfusion are one in 40,000. The chief victims have been homosexual men or intravenous drug users. No one is known to have recovered from the disease that attacks the body's immune system, rendering it incapable of resisting other diseases and infections. The Nashville Banner reported Saturday that two additional pints from disqualified donors were actually used in transfusions, but no patient was harmed. The newspaper gave no details of the transfusions but said follow-up tests of the blood donors showed they did not carry the AIDS virus. Jeffers said he knew of no actual transfusion of blood that should have been rejected. The FDA report said none of the questionable blood was used on patients. As a result of the errors, the FDA said it has increased its periodic audits of the blood supply and instituted new training procedures for blood bank employees. The mistake in Washington was discovered in a routine audit. The Tennessee errors came to light in an FDA investigation that followed a lawsuit against local blood bank officials by a woman who said she became infected with AIDS through a blood transfusion. Two senior officials of the Washington regional office of the American Red Cross _ John McGraw and Frederick Darr _ have been suspended with pay for 30 days pending an investigation of their actions, said Richard Schubert, president of the American Red Cross. Schubert said no officials in the Nashville center had been disciplined, but that the investigation there was continuing. Six of the questionable units of blood were from the Washington center and the other 18 were from Nashville, the FDA said.
AP881123-0251 	X	The Consumer Product Safety Commission has defended its record on ridding the market of dangerous toys but is urging parents to consider safety when shopping for their children this holiday season. The commission said Tuesday that its joint effort with the U.S. Customs Service has resulted in the seizure of 891,000 toys that failed to meet federal safety guidelines between Oct. 1, 1987 and Sept. 30, 1988, and 162,668 toys since Oct. 1 of this year. But commission officials urged parents to heed the age recommendations and warning labels on toys.
AP880503-0043 	X	A proposed bypass road in eastern England has caused a battle between conservationists who want to save the habitat of a rare moth and people who want heavy traffic diverted from their village. Six hundred residents from the village of Dersingham marched 1{ miles on Monday to Queen Elizabeth II's Sandringham estate in Norfolk to demand that work begin on the bypass, which they first called for 25 years ago. After pressure from conservationists, environment secretary Nicholas Ridley said he would consider revoking planning permission for the bypass, which would cut through a bog on the royal estate that is home to the moth. A group called the Nature Conservancy Council said the road could wipe out the moth, Choristoneura Lafauryana, by destroying the bog where it breeds. But the demonstrators doubt there are any moths left. ``A big survey by the Nature Conservancy Council led to nothing _ they couldn't even find the damn moth,'' said one marcher, James Crowe.
AP901027-0112 	X	A Roman Catholic bishop denounced the IRA as followers of Satan during a eulogy Saturday at the funeral of a man forced to drive a bomb into a military checkpoint. ``They may say they are followers of Christ, some of them may even still engage in the hypocrisy of coming to church, but their lives and their works proclaim clearly that they follow Satan,'' said Bishop Edward Daly. Daly spoke at the funeral of Patsy Gillespie, 42, who was forced to drive a van loaded with explosives into a military checkpoint outside Londonderry. The explosion Wednesday morning killed Gillespie and five British soldiers. Gillespie was a civilian kitchen assistant in the army's Fort George camp in Londonderry. In its claim of responsibility for the attack, the Irish Republican Army branded him a collaborator. The predominantly Roman Catholic IRA is seeking to drive the British out of northern Ireland and unite it with the mainly Catholic Republic of Ireland. Gillespie's wife, Kathleen, said the family's home had been taken over by armed men Tuesday night and her husband taken away while the rest of the family was held hostage. The IRA used similar tactics in setting off a bomb the same morning at a checkpoint in Newry. One soldier was killed. A third attack in Omagh failed and the driver escaped injury. At the funeral Saturday of the soldier killed in Newry, the Rev. Anthony Doran said 21-year-old Cyril Smith died because he had helped the driver and then ran back to warn his comrades. Smith ``gave his life by running back into danger for his friends,'' the Catholic priest said. Londonderry was a flash point of the ``troubles'' that erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, leading to a revival of the IRA as the self-proclaimed defenders of the Catholic minority. The city remains one of the IRA's strongholds. Daly, for years a stern critic of the IRA, said the outlawed organization had ``descended a step lower to use people's lives to launch their vile attacks.'' ``Everyone is now at risk from these evil people with their foul and obscene actions. They corrupt everything and every person they touch,'' Daly said. ``We weep for the Gillespie family this morning. We weep for the families of the soldiers who died and we weep for our own city, a city we all love deeply. ``We weep because we have among our citizens men who are capable of planning and carrying out and even attempting to justify such evil.'' Gillespie died on his oldest son's birthay. His wife and three children -Patrick, 18, Kieran, 16, and Jennifer, 12 - wept at the graveside. Among the 60 wreaths was one from the Kings Regiment, which lost five soldiers in the attack. The death toll in Northern Ireland rose to 63 with the killing Friday night of Tommy Casey, a member of the IRA's legal political wing, Sinn Fein. Protestant guerrillas were suspected in the killing.
AP880929-0156 	X	The Soviet Union released the first photos of its secret space shuttle Thursday in a move that appeared timed to steal some of the thunder from the launch of Discovery. Photos of the Soviet craft, which looks just like the American shuttle, moved on the wires of the official Tass news agency at about the time the Discovery was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral. Along with the photos of the Soviet craft, the agency transmitted a brief dispatch on the American launch. The Soviet shuttle previously was not shown to the Soviet or foreign public, although some Western reconnaissance photographs of the craft or mockup versions have been taken. The Tass photos showed the Soviet spacecraft against a twilight sky, with its black-tipped white wings and fuselage. The letters ``CCCP'' _ Russian for U.S.S.R. _ were written in red on one wing. State-run Soviet television did not broadcast the Discovery launch live, but showed only a film clip of the American craft sitting on the launch pad in darkness. An announcer read a report on the blastoff during a regularly scheduled newscast a few minutes later. The evening television news program Vremya, which is watched by millions of Soviets, showed still pictures of the Soviet shuttle as its third item and said that ground tests of its equipment were continuing. It showed film of the Discovery launch about 20 minutes later. Radio Moscow's international newscast also juxtaposed reports about the U.S. takeoff with updates on the Soviet space station Mir _ meaning both Earth and Peace _ with three cosmonauts aboard. Despite repeated comments by Soviet officials that their shuttle has a distinct design and capabilities, the Tass photographs indicated it was quite similar to the American version. The Soviet shuttle, under development since at least 1982, has delta-shaped wings like its American counterpart, and is mated to its booster rocket, the Energia, in a similar way as the American craft. Mir was pictured in front of the huge Energia booster, which can carry payloads of up to 100 tons _ much more than the American shuttle. In the photos, the booster and shuttle stood upright on tarmac, apparently at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Central Asia, but it was not clear if it was stationed at a launchpad. Soviet officials have said their shuttle will be launched by the end of 1988, but have not given an exact date. They have acknowledged technical problems are causing delays. They also point to the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion of the U.S. shuttle Challenger, which caused a 2{-year suspension in the U.S. manned space program, as an example of the hazards they are trying to prevent. The Soviet shuttle's first flight is to be unmanned. The Energia booster has been tested once, on May 15, 1987, when it successfully carried aloft a dummy spacecraft. Soviet program also has had difficulties this month. Soviet officials said they have lost radio contact with one of two Mars probes launched in July. In addition, the re-entry to Earth of a Soviet and an Afghan cosmonaut aboard a space capsule that docked with Mir nearly failed because of equipment problems and human error. The Soviets' main goal has been to maintain a continuous manned presence in space. Cosmonaut crews have been aboard the orbiting space station Mir without a break since February 1987. Yuri Romanenko set a space endurance record last year by staying in space 326 days, and officials have said they expect the two cosmonauts currently aboard the craft to break Romanenko's record.
AP880903-0132 	X	Solidarity leader Lech Walesa risked his reputation with supporters by halting a series of strikes in exchange for a vague government promise to discuss legalizing his banned union movement and allowing union pluralism. But the stakes in the upcoming talks also are high for the government. After strikes this spring and summer, Poland appears doomed to recurring episodes of costly labor unrest unless the government can find a way to build social confidence, or at least patience, for austerity measures to fix the ailing economy. Church mediator Jacek Ambroziak said Saturday the ``roundtable'' talks on broad social and political issues could begin very soon. After a preliminary meeting with authorities Wednesday, Walesa won a promise that Solidarity would be on the agenda. But many pro-Solidarity workers, distrustful of government promises, feared Walesa agreed too easily to end the strikes without a firm agreement from authorities to legalize Solidarity or at least some form of independent unions. Solidarity, the only independent union federation in the Soviet bloc, was crushed with martial law in 1981 and banned the following year. Walesa was unsmiling when asked about opposition among workers to ending the strikes. The question was put shortly after a tense late-night meeting Wednesday with strikers in Gdansk. ``I have always trusted my instincts,'' he said emphatically. ``And my instincts tell me I am right.'' Walesa spent the next two days going to shipyards and ports in Gdansk and to a coal mine in Silesia to persuade strikers to return to work, and he delivered the same message by phone to the Szczecin port and the Stalowa Wola steel mill. In the end, he bent all the strikers to his will, but workers who considered the strikes the best way to pressure the government appeared likely to hold Walesa responsible if the talks failed to produce concrete results. Although the government could easily undercut Walesa by torpedoing the talks, the Solidarity leader may be calculating that the government has just as much to lose as him if they fail. As a political scientist who advises Polish leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski suggested in a prominently published interview Friday, the meeting could be key for marshaling support for hard economic choices. It is easy to stir strikes, said Antoni Rajkiewicz, but ``very difficult to persuade people to do things ... demanding patience, endurance and thrift.'' He said the government needs through the talks not only to reach a working consensus with the Roman Catholic church and Solidarity activists, but also to stimulate the imagination and mobilize the mass of people now caught up in ``tides of hopelessness.'' The extent of the hopelessness was revealed in a poll of high school students. The poll, released Friday, said 64 percent believed they lacked chances to realize their life goals in Poland Meanwhile, there were growing signs in the press of a possible government shakeup to try to increase public support for the economic reform program, which so far has led to strikes and inflation expected to top 60 percent this year. ``The lack of confidence in the government is a political fact,'' the influential communist party weekly Polityka commented this week. Changes in the government ``will not deliver more money to our pockets or more goods to our shops,'' it said. ``However, they will give radical reform a boost.''
AP880630-0269 	X	For a decade Henry Cisneros has been the pre-eminent Hispanic leader _ a successful mayor, an articulate speaker, a thoughtful politician, a powerful role model. At the height of his prestige, he is moving to the sidelines, maybe even getting out of politics. He's turned down an offer to speak at the Democratic National Convention, quashed any talk of the vice presidency and ruled out trying to spread his ``San Antonio Miracle'' with a statewide race in Texas in 1990. Even as national attention turns to the power of Hispanic political clout this year, Cisneros says he may not seek re-election as mayor. Cisneros said of his move out of the national arena, ``It's a decision that I've made.'' ``For the moment my total and exclusive focus is on San Antonio issues,'' he said. ``We're in a period of tremendous resurgence in San Antonio after the Texas slump and we have many, many initiatives here that are setting this city in position for the long run.'' His attention is also focused on a year-old son with a congenital heart defect who will require extensive surgery at about the same time as the 1990 campaigning season. Cisneros also talks regularly with two businessmen about joining them in a corporate venture. To other Hispanics leaders across the country, not having Henry Cisneros out front carrying the torch will be a setback. ``He leaves a huge vacuum,'' said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina. ``His soft-spoken yet direct way is what we need and I don't know if anyone else can sit down with presidential candidates, labor leaders, or whoever and look them in the eye and not give in. ``As he steps to the sidelines, he'll be sorely missed,'' Molina said. ``Everyone thinks it's a shame but they respect his priorities,'' said Harry Pachon, director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Cisneros, interviewed four years ago by Walter Mondale as a possible running mate, says he'll campaign for Democrat Michael Dukakis this fall, and he'll announce Sept. 15 his decision on a possible fifth term as mayor. He often points out he's never put himself forward as any sort of official Hispanic spokesman or leader, and says he turned down a chance to address the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta because he just didn't have the time. ``To take weeks off to prepare a quality major speech and then deliver it just adds to the weight of what I need to do here on things I have promised to do,'' including projects on water, education, drugs and a domed stadium, he said. He says he doesn't see a gap in Hispanic political leadership. ``I can see from the Jesse Jackson experience that it might be useful to have someone who could bring people together and speak for people in a way that Jackson is doing,'' Cisneros said. ``But frankly, the Hispanic community doesn't lend itself to that. There are more differences in the Hispanic community than there are in the black community. ... My sense is what is happening is very productive and that is a lot of leadership is being developed across the country.''
AP881108-0225 	X	As the final appeals echoed across the land from a long, bare-knuckle campaign, Americans headed for the polls to choose between presidential rivals George Bush and Michael Dukakis, and determine the makeup of the next Congress and the outcome of thousands of races for lesser offices. ``It's in the hands of the gods and the American people,'' said Bush as he completed his final campaign swing Monday. ``I know this race is within our grasp both here and across this country,'' Dukakis told more than 10,000 supporters in Los Angeles.
AP900731-0091 	X	The nation's murder toll is headed toward a record high this year, with an 8 percent expected increase in the number of slayings that is attributable mainly to drug-related crime, the Senate was told today. ``If this pace continues _ and there is every reason to believe it will _ 1990 will be the bloodiest year in American history,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden, D-Del. The committee issued a forecast of 23,220 murders in America this year at the present rate. That is 2,000 or 8 percent over the 1989 toll. The total would also top the previous record high of 23,040 murders in 1980. Scarce supplies of cocaine in the nation's major cities have contributed to the carnage, causing drug pushers to fight each other for turf, the committee said. It also blamed the proliferation of assault rifles. ``These firearms have become the weapons of choice for drug dealers and the weapons of doom for law enforcement personnel,'' said a report prepared by the panel. It said a third cause is a fresh wave of teen-agers, the offspring of the so-called baby boomers, entering the high-crime years. The projected toll would make 1990 the third straight year of increasing murders in the United States. The murder toll actually dropped 18 percent between 1980 and 1985 but has increased 22 percent since then, the committee said. ``The nation is faced with an immediate peril and the situation is doomed to get worse unless we take action today,'' Biden said. He urged swift House action on a Senate-passed omnibus crime bill with a ban on nine semiautomatic assault weapons and the death penalty for 34 federal offenses. A hush fell over the hearing room as Dr. Lynn Richardson, associate chief of emergency services at Harlem Hospital Center in New York, told of a young woman rushed in several weeks ago. The right side of her head had been blown away by a slug from a high-powered rifle in an apparent drug-corner shootout. Doctors managed to save a 6 1@2-month-old fetus, ``the ultimate innocent bystander,'' she said. The woman died but the child is still clinging to life, she said.
AP900319-0112 	X	The Supreme Court today refused to reinstate a $550,000 award won, and then lost, by a Texas couple whose daughter was born with deformities after her mother took the anti-nausea drug Bendectin. The justices, without comment, let stand a federal appeals court ruling that overturned a jury award against Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the drug's manufacturer. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Brock of Moscow, Texas, sued Merrell Dow after their daughter, Rachel, was born with deformed limbs in 1982. A three-member panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year threw out the $550,000 judgment a federal trial jury had awarded the Brocks. The appeals court said there is no definitive scientific proof that Bendectin causes birth defects, and said the jury award was based on speculation. ``Speculation unconfirmed by ... proof cannot form the basis for causation in a court of law,'' the appeals court said. The full 5th Circuit court, by a 8-6 vote, refused to review the three-member panel's ruling. The dissenters noted that six experts testified for the Brocks that Bendectin is capable of causing birth defects, and that three testified they believed the drug caused Rachel's deformities. The dissenting judges said appellate courts should not substitute their understanding of the facts for that of a jury merely because medical experts disagree. Bendectin was marketed by Richardson-Merrell Inc. between 1957 and 1983. More than 30 million women used the drug during pregnancy. Richardson-Merrell later became Merrell Dow, which last July merged with Marion Laboratories Inc. and became Marion Merrell Dow Inc., based in Kansas City. The company stopped selling Bendectin 1983, although the Federal Drug Administration never has rescinded approval of it. Merrell Dow in 1984 agreed to pay $120 million to more than 800 families to compensate children with birth defects allegedly caused by Bendectin. As part of the settlement, the corporation did not admit that the drug caused the defects. The settlement was rejected by a federal appeals court, and the lawsuits then went to a consolidated trial in Ohio, where Merrell Dow has its headquarters in Hamilton County. After a 22-day trial in 1985, an Ohio jury found that Bendectin did not cause birth defects when taken in prescribed doses. The case acted on today is Brock vs. Merrell Dow, 89-1189.
AP880326-0050 	X	Despite some misgivings, Wisconsin state senators have approved a measure allowing blind people to hunt deer and other game if accompanied by a sighted hunter. ``Do we really want people out there shooting guns when they don't know where they're shooting?'' Sen. Alan Lasee asked during debate Friday night. ``As much as I have empathy for the visually handicapped, I don't believe I can support this.'' Sen. Brian Rude supported the proposal and noted that the Department of Natural Resources can issue licenses to handicapped hunters. People confined to wheelchairs are allowed to shoot or hunt from an automobile parked off a highway and more than 50 feet from the center of a roadway, he said. The bill extends eligibility for a special permit to people who present medical evidence that they are unable to hunt alone because of a permanent physical disability or handicap, including blindness. Under the measure, a visually handicapped hunter would have to be accompanied by someone who could assist in sighting the firearm. A 27-6 vote sent the measure to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson.
AP900509-0213 	X	Ienner at 36 became the label's youngest president when he took over last April. He was at his new job for less than 48 hours when he heard the Poi Dog tape and decided to make the band his cause celebre. ``I must have had 40 tapes that weekend,'' Ienner said. ``All of the sudden this thing came on and I was astounded by it.'' He especially liked the song ``Living With the Dreaming Body,'' which begins with a lilting tin whistle, and listened to it about 100 times. He later mastered the tin whistle so he could play the intro himself. After checking around, he found Columbia was ``either the 11th or 12th company interested in the band. That really got my juices going. ``Basically we told them we wanted them, and they said they don't want to be with Columbia,'' Ienner said. ``(The band thought), `it's too corporate, it's too monolithic, it's too bureaucratic.''' But when Ienner met Poi Dog's manager, Mike Stewart, they n of America. In 1975, an infamously slow time for the recording industry, earnings totaled $2.37 billion, the RIAA said. In 1978, punk and new wave signaled a revival and the figure jumped to $4.13 billion. In 1988, $6.25 billion was earned. ``We needed to change direction,'' Ienner said. ``There was nothing, just retreading the superstars, just one after another after another.'' Poi Dog would be the Columbia's ``signature band,'' Ienner said, to show ``our musical sensitivity.'' It would also help establish a division within Columbia that would cater to a huge audience carved out in large part by college radio stations looking for an alternative to Top 40 music. Those involved refuse to discuss the deal's financial side. But many in the industry say the band was signed for more than $200,000 for the first album. A new pop band can fetch anywhere from $75,000 to $350,000 for its first record contract, industry officals say. The sum, however, doesn't just pile into the musician's pockets. Much of it is reinvested to pay for the recording costs for the first album. The ballpark figures for recording an album go from about $200,000 to $400,000, said Harold Vogel, an entertainment industry analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. Another hunk goes to practical expenses such as paying off band members' debts. And still another chunk is invested in upgrading the band's equipment and buying new instruments. The rest goes to lifestyle expenses to maintain the band while they are recording and keep them going until they get to record number two, which brings another windfall. Although Orrall is tight-lipped about how much Poi Dog got, he does give a general breakdown for how it was used: ``What we essentially are doing with our advance is just putting it in an account and paying everyone in the band $1,000 a month so ... everyone can quit their jobs, pay their rent, get their guitar strings and buy their beer,'' he said. To celebrate the contract, Poi Dog Pondering played a surprise set at Columbia's offices. They set up in an elevator and when the doors opened, they began to play. People slowly drifted from their offices into the halls. ``The sound traveled down the elevator banks and people were coming up the stairwells from all the floors,'' said Mary Ellen Cataneo, a Columbia publicist. ``Literally, people had tears in their eyes,'' Ienner said. ``People were all standing there with tears in their eyes.'' It was the first time in 20 years a musician had played live at Columbia's offices. The guy who did it was also a new artist _ a young piano player by the name of Billy Joel.
AP901120-0040 	X	America's No. 1 video chain is swallowing No. 3 in a $40 million deal that gives Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. a total of more than 1,700 stores. Blockbuster agreed to acquire Erol's Inc. of Springfield, Va., a chain of 208 outlets that pioneered the video rental business in 1980 but has struggled amid management shuffles and stiff competition. The deal ``provides an outstanding opportunity for Blockbuster and its franchise owners to broaden the base of ourstores,'' Blockbuster chairman and chief executive officer H. Wayne Huizenga said Monday. Erol's, the nation's third-largest chain behind West Coast-National of Philadelphia, has stores in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago as well as 112 stores in the Washington, D.C., area, where Blockbuster has only 48 outlets and was looking to expand. Blockbuster, based in Fort Lauderdale, opened its 1,500th store Monday, in Vancouver, British Columbia. In all, the chain has stores in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Canada and England. Erol's founder and principal stockholder, Erol Onaran, said the buyout was in the best interest of his 2,600 employees. ``It was going to be a fight,'' said analyst Drew Beja at Advest Securities. ``And Blockbuster had the resources to win the fight.'' Onaron founded Erol's as a stereo repair shop in Washington in 1963. It was an early pioneer in the video industry, opening stores exclusively devoted to rentals in 1980, and led all other video chains in revenue until Blockbuster surpassed it in 1988. But Erol's has been stagnating since then, and didn't begin to sell franchises until last August, said Frank Molstad, editor of Video Store magazine. In contrast, Blockbuster has been expanding by 400 to 500 stores a year since Huizenga bought the company in 1987 for $19 million, and Huizenga has said sales this year could top $1 billion. Erol's had revenue of $100 million last year, said Jerry Falkner, an analyst at Southwest Research Partners in Boca Raton. While more than 1,700 stores by the end of the year, Blockbuster will still have only about 10 percent of the home video market, said Fran Blechman Bernstein, an analyst with Merrill Lynch.
AP880409-0101 	X	Five OPEC oil ministers agreed Saturday to call two special meetings later this month to consider ways of halting the decline in oil prices, according to the cartel's Nigerian president. The ministers, at the end of a full day of closed-door meetings, made no recommendations for immediate OPEC action to combat the slipping prices, said Nigeria's Rilwanu Lukman, who was chairman of the session. He said he and the oil ministers of Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Venezuela and Indonesia would invite at least seven non-OPEC oil producing nations to meet with them in Vienna on April 23 to discuss ways of cooperating to stabilize oil prices. Lukman declined to identify the non-OPEC countries, but industry sources said they would be Mexico, Egypt, Oman, Angola, Brunei, Malaysia and Colombia. When asked, Lukman said he would not rule out inviting representatives also from the Soviet Union and Norway. The Soviets are the world's largest oil producers. Oil ministers of all 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will then meet in Vienna on April 25, Lukman said. He suggested that the non-OPEC representatives might be asked to attend that session as official observers. OPEC had not previously planned to hold any meetings until its regularly scheduled summer conference June 8. Lukman said the five ministers had decided that special meetings were needed to ``look into the situation generally in the market'' and to consider ways of cooperating with non-OPEC countries. OPEC oil ministers held two meetings with representatives of Mexico, Angola, Egypt, Malaysia, Oman and Brunei in the spring of 1986, but the cartel was unsuccessful in persuading those countries to reduce their production. This time the situation is different, according to Lukman. ``Non-OPEC (countries) have, on their own, realized the need to cooperate'' among themselves and with OPEC, Lukman told reporters after the meeting. OPEC often has declared in recent years that it alone cannot be expected to bear the burden of cutting production in order to stablize oil prices. OPEC controls only about 35 percent of the total world oil supply, down from more than 60 percent in the late 1970s. Lukman said the separate April 25 meeting of all 13 OPEC members was called because of the severity of the recent price decline. ``The price is not what we expected it to be'' after having decided last December to maintain strict oil production limits, he said. Oil prices in the open market are at least $3 below OPEC's official target level of $18 a barrel. Lukman said Saturday's meeting had made no recommendation about whether OPEC should reduce its production, either unilaterally or jointly with non-OPEC producers, as a way of boosting prices. He said increased production by non-OPEC producers this year was partly responsible for the oil price slump. Although Iran was not invited to Saturday's meeting, its deputy oil minister, Kazempour Ardebili, flew to Vienna and met separately with members of the group. He said later in an interview in his hotel room that Iran had proposed that OPEC cut its production by at least 5 percent immediately. He said this should be done with or without parallel action by non-OPEC oil-producing countries. Ardebili accused some OPEC members, which he did not name, of sabotaging Iranian initiatives to boost prices by cutting output. His comments appeared to be directed at Saudi Arabia, an opponent of further cuts in OPEC's share of the world oil market. Persian Iran has been at war with Arab Iraq since September 1980, and Iran often accuses other Arab countries of supporting Iraq directly or indirectly in the conflict. Both Iran and Iraq count on revenues from oil exports to help finance their war efforts.
AP900413-0071 	X	President Bush has a 56 percent approval rating among blacks, a huge increase over the ratings given former President Reagan, according to a new CBS News-New York Times poll. Only 13 percent of blacks supported Reagan at about the same point in his presidency, CBS Evening News reported Thursday. In May 1982, Reagan had a 73 percent disapproval rating among blacks; in the current poll, 26 percent of blacks surveyed disapproved of Bush, said Kathleen A. Frankovic, of the CBS network's polling division. CBS-Times polls conducted during Reagan's entire time in office found he had an average 67 percent disapproval rating among blacks, Frankovic said. The new survey is the fourth consecutive Times-CBS News poll in the last six months in which a majority of blacks said they approved of Bush's handling of his job, the Times reported in today's editions. For the last 30 years, five out of six blacks have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, no matter who the nominee was, CBS reported. In the new poll, one out of 10 blacks said they probably would vote for Bush against a Democratic candidate in 1992, while another 20 percent said their choice would depend on who was running, the Times said. One-third of the blacks surveyed, and 46 percent of the whites, said their opinion of Bush had improved since he became president, the Times said. Blacks were evenly divided on whether Bush is doing a good job handling the war on drugs, while whites approved 56 percent to 35 percent, the Times said. White respondents gave Bush an overall approval rating of 75 percent to 14 percent. The telephone poll of 1,515 adult Americans, including 403 blacks, was conducted March 30-April 2. The margin of error for the entire survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for blacks it is 5 percentage points.
AP880928-0151 	X	The curator of Ronnie DeSillers' estate has sued a savings and loan to recover nearly $200,000 she claims the thrift allowed to be improperly withdrawn by the boy's mother. Court-appointed curator Karen Gievers on Tuesday filed suit in Dade Circuit Court against Coral Gables Federal Savings & Loan for allowing Maria DeSillers to withdraw and spend the money, which was donated to pay for Ronnie's medical bills and to help other young liver transplant patients. The withdrawal, she argued, was contrary to state law. The thrift knew the purpose of the money, Ms. Gievers alleged. Seven-year-old Ronnie died at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital in April 1987 while awaiting a fourth liver transplant, and his mother has been involved in legal disputes ever since for refusing to pay the balance of the boy's medical bills. She claims her son received improper care, which the hospital denies. DeSillers is accused of withdrawing about $260,000 from the Coral Gables Federal account, but less than $60,000 has been recovered. The money was allegedly spent on a used BMW car and jewelry, and some was given to her ex-husband and her boyfriend. Some $690,000 were donated to Ronnie from around the country, including $1,000 from President Reagan and $200,000 from Miami Beach industrialist Victor Posner, after a small fund collected by his school was repored stolen. Meanwhile, DeSillers' boyfriend and former fiance, Jose Castillo, pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges that he pawned stolen computer equipment. Castillo, who is free on bond, is charged with third-degree grand theft for possession of the stolen computer and with unlawful consignment of property to a pawn shop. DeSillers accompanied Castillo to the Broward County pawn shop April 2. Circuit Judge Mel Grossman scheduled trial for Nov. 7.
AP901014-0068 	X	Light voter turnout was reported Sunday in municipal runoff elections, the sixth time Hungarians went to the polls in less than a year. In Budapest, the opposition Alliance of Free Democrats won a plurality of votes in the first round of municipal elections Sept. 30 and was leading in Sunday's second round. The liberal Free Democrats led with 36 percent of the vote in Budapest, with about 17 percent of the ballots counted, state-run television reported. The Hungarian Democratic Forum, the strongest force in Parliament, had about 25 percent. The results in Budapest and other urban centers are seen as a test for the center-right coalition government of Jozsef Antall, six months after national elections. Runoffs were held in communities with below 40 percent turnout in the first round of municipal elections. The first-round turnout was 34 percent in Budapest. In the runoffs, a simple majority will decide the vote. Complete results in Budapests and results elsewhere were not expected until Monday. According to state radio, turnout Sunday ranged from 20 percent in some rural areas to about 32 percent of Budapest's 1.5 million eligible voters.
AP880505-0335 	X	Hawaii remains the most popular choice of Americans for summer vacation travel, according to a survey released Thursday by American Express Co. The forecast, based on a mail survey of 350 American Express travel agencies nationwide, showed 27 percent of the agents polled named Hawaii as the top choice for vacation travel this summer. The other leading vacation destinations were Europe with 21 percent, and Florida and the Caribbean with 18 percent. Despite the fall of the dollar against major foreign currencies, the agents said most of their clients planning European vacations this summer are not changing their plans. Florida ranked as the leading family vacation spot, according to 72.5 percent of the agents surveyed, largely because of Walt Disney World in Orlando. Mexico is the summer destination growing fastest in popularity, according to the survey. It found some regional differences, however: Mexico is the fastest growing for travelers from the Northeast and the South, while the majority of agents in the Midwest named Europe as gaining quickest in popularity. For vacationers from the West Coast, the South Pacific _ including Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti _ is growing the fastest. Within the United States, the 10 most popular cities for vacations this summer, in order of preference, are: Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Washington, Miami, Denver, Boston and Chicago. The survey also found that price and quality of service are the key factors determining the choice of a vacation. Cruises are the most popular type of vacation planned for this summer, followed by all-inclusive resort vacations, escorted tour packages and weekend fly-drive packages, the survey showed. Single men most often choose all-inclusive resort packages for summer vacations, while cruises are the top choice of single women, according to the survey.
AP900914-0170 	X	Feminist leaders said Friday the clock would be turned back 25 years on women's rights if David Souter is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. ``If we lose this one, we'll never get it back,'' said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, who is lobbying the Senate to reject the nominee. Smeal said she had read all 200 of Souter's legal opinions and believes he would work to cut off women's access to birth control and abortion. Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, said Souter revealed his opposition to abortion by calling it the ``killing of unborn children.'' ``That's the language of the right wing,'' Yard said. Souter did not use the words during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings this week, but while New Hampshire attorney general he signed a brief that contained the language. However, during the hearings Friday, Souter said he has not made up his mind on the abortion rights issue and would consider both sides if he is confirmed. ``I have not got any agenda on what should be done with Roe vs. Wade,'' Souter in reference to the case that legalized abortion. ``I would listen to both sides of that case. I have not made up my mind and I would not go on the court saying I must go one way or I must go the other way.'' But Yard said that Souter's repeated reference to the abortion rights position as ``the other side,'' was evidence of where he stood. Smeal and Yard, who have attended most of the hearings, said Souter's answers to questions on constitutionally protected privacy rights concerning birth control indicated he believed in the concept for married couples, but left open whether single people had the same right. Smeal said the addition of Souter to the court would create the majority needed to whittle away at a woman's right to abortion and birth control until access no longer existed. ``It would take about 10 years,'' she said. ``First would be a requirement that teen-agers get parental consent for an abortion, then spousal consent.'' She predicted the court then would restrict the time period in which an abortion could be performed and then limit the kind of facility that could do the operation. Those decisions would be followed by requirements that teen-agers get parental consent for birth control requiring a physician's prescription and later that women get their husbands' consent, Smeal said. ``The last step would be outlawing the sale of birth control to single people,'' she said. ``That would take us back to 1965.'' That year, in Griswold vs. Connecticut, a case involving the sale of contraceptives, the court for the first time recognized a constitutional right of privacy. The decision led to widespread availability of birth control for married and unmarried people. Smeal said women's ability to get out from under the burden of unwanted pregnancies have been the key to the many advances they have been able to achieve outside the home. Smeal and Yard spoke to a rally organized by NOW across the street from the Capitol. About 150 people opposing the Souter nomination attended.
AP900707-0115 	X	As state senators quietly debated whether to override Gov. Buddy Roemer's veto of a strict anti-abortion bill Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators shouted their stands as they broiled in the sun outside. The Senate sustained Roemer's veto of what would have been the nation's toughest state abortion law. The vote was 23 in favor of the override _ three short of the two-thirds majority needed _ and 16 against. Before senators cast their ballots, the parking lot at the skyscraper Capitol was jammed with about 1,500 people as temperatures inched into the 90s. State troopers limited access to the building, allowing almost 200 spectators in the Senate chamber, with another 500 in the rotunda separating the House and Senate chambers. Several hundred more gathered on the Capitol steps or under shade trees on the grounds. Most of the crowd was in favor of the strict anti-abortion bill, which would send abortionists to jail for up to 10 years. Anti-abortionists' cries of ``override, override'' pervaded the thick stone walls of the Senate chamber, in which every chair was filled and spectators lined up along the walls. Another anti-abortion rally was held on the Capitol lawn, while about 100 pro-choice demonstrators stood on the steps above them, shouting ``sustain that veto'' and ``church and state _ separate.'' After the Senate voted to sustain, one pro-choice supporter yelled ``all right'' and was told by security officers to be quiet. Then she ran from the chamber, screaming ``I'm out of here.'' As other viewers quietly filed out of the gallery, abortion rights supporters waved purple flowers and ribbons in the rotunda, shouting: ``We won.'' Anti-abortionists countered with ``We will win. We will win.'' The Senate was to vote against Sunday on the override measure.
AP900720-0171 	X	President Bush showed up about a half-hour late at the Cheyenne Municipal Airport on Friday evening, sporting a big smile and a baseball cap and toting a 12-inch trout. The president showed off his catch to the press and spectators as he crossed the tarmac to Air Force One, which took off around 6:40 p.m. for Washington. When asked how his fishing went, the president gave the ``thumbs up'' sign and said, ``Good.'' He then reached into a plastic garbage sack and grabbed the trout to show to the press. Bush, who'd been scheduled to arrive at the airport at 5:50 p.m. but didn't show up until around 6:20 p.m., spent about three hours fishing in the Middle Crow Creek west of Cheyenne with U.S. Sens. Al Simpson and Malcolm Wallop and Rep. Craig Thomas, all Wyoming Republicans. Simpson and Thomas said Bush's fish was the last, biggest catch of the day. They said the president appeared hesitant to leave for the airport until he caught a fish. The delegation accompanied the president to the airport, where Simpson opened a plastic garbage bag to show off the six other trout caught by the group. The president was in Cheyenne to help celebrate Wyoming's centennial, where he joined in a parade and gave a speech to thousands of spectators.
AP900215-0020 	X	Here is a complete list of nominees for the Academy Awards announced Wednesday. 1. PICTURE: ``Born on the Fourth of July,'' ``Dead Poets Society,'' ``Driving Miss Daisy,'' ``Field of Dreams,'' ``My Left Foot.'' 2. ACTOR: Kenneth Branagh, ``Henry V''; Tom Cruise, ``Born on the Fourth of July''; Daniel Day-Lewis, ``My Left Foot''; Morgan Freeman, ``Driving Miss Daisy''; Robin Williams, ``Dead Poets Society.'' 3. ACTRESS: Isabelle Adjani, ``Camille Claudel''; Pauline Collins, ``Shirley Valentine''; Jessica Lange, ``Music Box''; Michelle Pfeiffer, ``The Fabulous Baker Boys''; Jessica Tandy, ``Driving Miss Daisy.'' 4. SUPPORTING ACTOR: Danny Aiello, ``Do the Right Thing''; Dan Aykroyd, ``Driving Miss Daisy''; Marlon Brando, ``A Dry White Season''; Martin Landau, ``Crimes and Misdemeanors''; Denzel Washington, ``Glory.'' 5. SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Brenda Fricker, ``My Left Foot''; Anjelica Huston, ``Enemies, A Love Story''; Lena Olin, ``Enemies, A Love Story''; Julia Roberts, ``Steel Magnolias''; Dianne Wiest, ``Parenthood.'' 6. DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone, ``Born on the Fourth of July''; Woody Allen, ``Crimes and Misdemeanors''; Peter Weir, ``Dead Poets Society''; Kenneth Branagh, ``Henry V''; Jim Sheridan, ``My Left Foot.'' 7. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Woody Allen, ``Crimes and Misdemeanors''; Tom Schulman, ``Dead Poets Society''; Spike Lee, ``Do the Right Thing''; Steven Soderbergh, ``sex, lies and videotape''; Nora Ephron, ``When Harry Met Sally ...'' 8. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Oliver Stone and Ron Kovic, ``Born on the Fourth of July''; Alfred Uhry, ``Driving Miss Daisy''; Roger L. Simon and Paul Mazursky, ``Enemies, A Love Story''; Phil Alden Robinson, ``Field of Dreams''; Jim Sheridan and Shane Connaughton, ``My Left Foot.'' 9. BEST FOREIGN FILM: ``Camille Claudel,'' France; ``Cinema Paradiso,'' Italy; ``Jesus of Montreal,'' Canada; ``Santiago, The Story of His New Life,'' Puerto Rico; ``Waltzing Regitze,'' Denmark. 10. ART DIRECTION: ``The Abyss,'' ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,'' ``Batman,'' ``Driving Miss Daisy,'' ``Glory.'' 11. CINEMATOGRAPHY: ``The Abyss,'' ``Blaze,'' ``Born on the Fourth of July,'' ``The Fabulous Baker Boys,'' ``Glory.'' 12. COSTUME DESIGN: ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,'' ``Driving Miss Daisy,'' ``Harlem Nights,'' ``Henry V,'' ``Valmont.'' 13. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: ``Adam Clayton Powell,'' ``Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,'' ``Crack USA: Country Under Siege,'' ``For All Mankind,'' ``Super Chief: The Life and Legacy of Earl Warren.'' 14. DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: ``Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9,'' ``The Johnstown Flood,'' ``Yad Vashem: Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future.'' 15. FILM EDITING: ``The Bear,'' ``Born on the Fourth of July,'' ``Driving Miss Daisy,'' ``The Fabulous Baker Boys,'' ``Glory.'' 16. MAKEUP: ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,'' ``Dad,'' ``Driving Miss Daisy.'' 17. MUSIC ORIGINAL SCORE: John Williams, ``Born on the Fourth of July''; David Grusin, ``The Fabulous Baker Boys''; James Horner, ``Field of Dreams''; John Williams, ``Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade''; Alan Menken, ``The Little Mermaid.'' 18. MUSIC ORIGINAL SONG: ``After All'' from ``Chances Are''; ``The Girl Who Used to Be Me'' from ``Shirley Valentine''; ``I Love to See You Smile'' from ``Parenthood''; ``Kiss The Girl'' from ``The Little Mermaid''; ``Under the Sea'' from ``The Little Mermaid.'' 19. ANIMATED SHORT FILM: ``Balance,'' ``Cow,'' ``The Hill Farm.'' 20. LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: ``Amazon Diary,'' ``The Child Eater,'' ``Work Experience.'' 21. SOUND: ``The Abyss,'' ``Black Rain,'' ``Born on the Fourth of July,'' ``Glory,'' ``Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.'' 22. SOUND EFFECTS EDITING: ``Black Rain,'' ``Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,'' ``Lethal Weapon 2.'' 23. VISUAL EFFECTS: ``The Abyss,'' ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,'' ``Back to the Future Part II.''
AP900201-0095 	X	The office that appeared to be a fencing operation for buying stolen goods and drugs was really an 18-month-long police sting that drew 135 suspects, officials say. About $1.3 million in stolen goods was purchased for $70,000 during the undercover operation run by several law agencies, officials said. Goods netted included 130 vehicles; more than $20,000 worth of jewelry; power tools; a pickup truck full of sportswear; appliances; about 100 firearms _including sawed-off shotguns, assault rifles and a hand grenade _ and a human eye. In all, 135 suspects were sought on state and federal charges, Tommy Wittman, agent in charge of the Salt Lake office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said at a news conference where many of the confiscated items were displayed. West Valley City Police Department spokeswoman Marsha Campbell said today that at least 62 people had been served warrants since officers began issuing them early Wednesday. Half of the suspects were already in custody on other charges. The sting was run by the West Valley City and Salt Lake City police departments and the federal ATF bureau, with assistance from other agencies. It operated out of two phony businesses _ Industrial Motor Repair in South Salt Lake and Damaged Freight Haulers in West Valley. A stolen Christmas tree was fenced during the holiday season, and undercover officers buying morphine from a nursing student also bought a human eye that had been taken from the University of Utah Medical Center. The agents bought $16,445 in heroin, morphine, cocaine, methamphetamine, valium and marijuana and learned the locations of six methamphetamine laboratories in the area, Wittman said. Sgt. Charles Illsley of the Major Felony Unit said 95 percent of the suspects were trading in stolen goods to obtain money for drugs. ``Three had `priors' for homicide. ... The worst one had 11 felony convictions,'' he said. U.S. Attorney Dee Benson said the probe's 26 federal indictments all involved narcotics and firearms charges. The sting was the third in the county since 1985. In August 1986, a similar operation resulted in the arrest of 24 people and the recovery of more than $500,000 in stolen goods. The second sting ended in January 1988 with the arrests of 50 people and the recovery of more than $400,000. West Valley Assistant Police Chief Terry Keefe said undercover officers became friendly with many suspects, sometimes were introduced to their families and in one case helped them move in the middle of the night. A female officer portraying a receptionist got a marriage proposal from one suspect. Wittman said the suspects were not entrapped. ``Enticement yes, probably. But not entrapment,'' Wittman said. ``These people had already stolen the property when they came to us. We did not provide shopping lists.''
AP880312-0139 	X	Federal investigators have concluded their four-day hearing into the cause of a Continental jet crash that killed 28 people, but their findings probably won't be released until sometime around the accident's first anniversary in November. ``We have not eliminated any issue'' in the suspected cause of the Nov. 15 crash of Flight 1713, board of inquiry chairman Joseph T. Nall said Friday after investigators heard the final testimony in the National Transportation Safety Board hearings. Flight 1713, bound for Boise, Idaho, began rocking violently moments after taking off from Stapleton International Airport during a snowstorm. It flipped over on its back and crashed on the runway, breaking into three pieces. Fifty-four of the 82 people on board survived. Some of those survivors were among the 33 witnesses who testified at the hearing. The NTSB investigators were looking into flight characteristics of the DC-9-10 aircraft, especially in snow and ice conditions; air traffic control; cold weather operations by Continental; turbulence; and Continental's pilot training, pilot selection and crew pairing. ``I anticipate our board will determine a probable cause and contributing causes to the crash'' by November, Nall said. The pilot and co-pilot, Capt. Frank Zvonek, 43, and First Officer Lee Bruecher, 26, both were killed in the crash. Bruecher was at the controls. The brief flying time in the DC-9 by both pilots has been one area of study by the investigation. Zvonek had 12,135 total hours flying time, with 33 hours as a DC-9 captain. Bruecher had a total of 3,186 hours, with 12 hours as a DC-9 first officer. At Friday's hearings, Richard Hillman, Continental vice president for flight operations, said that since the crash, the carrier had adopted a Federal Aviation Administration bulletin recommendation that the co-pilot not be allowed to make takeoffs or landings until he or she had 100 hours in that type of aircraft. The hearings also delved into Continental's use of a flight simulator in pilot training that is based on the DC-9-30 _ a different model of DC-9 from the ``Dash 10'' flown by Zvonek and Bruecher. The main difference between the two DC-9 models is the ``Dash 30'' has wing slats to improve the wing's lift. The Dash 10 is an older model with a wing design considered more susceptiable to loss of lift from ice buildup. James E. Madsen, Continental's assistant chief DC-9 pilot at Denver, minimized handling difference between the Dash 10 and Dash 30s in his testimony. ``A DC-9 is a DC-9. There are some differences they (pilots) should be aware of,'' Madsen said. Early theories of what caused Flight 1713 to roll violently and crash seconds after liftoff included ice buildup on the wings, turbulence from a jumbo jet that had just landed on a parallel runway 1,600 feet away, and pilot error. Continental's de-icing procedures at Stapleton also came under scrutiny. Flight 1713 waited between 24 and 27 minutes for takeoff after it had been de-iced. Survivors offered conflicting testimony on the amount of snow and ice buildup on the wings. ``I wondered at one point, `Is that ice?' But I decided it was just wet,'' said Dr. Fred Helpenstall of Nampa, Idaho, who suffered broken ribs in the crash. Airman Greg Wadsworth of Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho said he had a clear view of the wing before takeoff. ``It was like the snow was starting to pile up (on the wings). I was very concerned but I said it under my breath,'' he testified. Other testimony attributed Flight 1713's delay between de-icing and takeoff on miscommunciation in the control tower and between the tower and aircraft. NTSB investigators refused to speculate on any of the suspected causes. ``Our minds are still open. We will make no final conclusion until the time we make our final report,'' Nall said.
AP900912-0217 	X	James R. Mellor was elected Wednesday as president and chief operating officer of General Dynamics Corp., effective Jan. 1. Mellor, 60, is executive vice president of marine, land systems and international at General Dynamics corporate offices in St. Louis. He will succeed President and CEO Herbert F. Rogers, 65, who will continue on special assignment as general manager of the company's Fort Worth Division. Rogers will become vice chairman on Jan. 1. William A. Anders, General Dynamics' vice chairman, will succeed Stanley Pace as chairman and CEO when Pace retires at the end of the year. Mellor joined General Dynamics in 1981 as executive vice president of commercial systems and corporate planning and as a member of the board. Before joining General Dynamics he was president and chief operating officer of AM International Inc.
AP880321-0032 	X	Rising costs last year forced a record 79 hospitals to close their doors, the American Hospital Association reported today. The closings, most in hospitals with fewer than 100 beds, were heavy in four southern states but were evenly split overall between rural and urban areas, the hospital group said. ``Hospitals that barely break even or continually lose money cannot buy needed medical equipment, replace deteriorating buildings or add important services,'' Carol McCarthy, president of the Chicago-based organization, said in a statement. Federal Medicare payments, which represent 40 percent of a hospital's income, may be partly to blame for the closings, she added. ``Hospitals saw the price of goods and services they purchase rise 22 percent between 1984 and 1988 while Medicare raised the prices its pays hospitals ... only 11 percent,'' she said. Of the 79 hospitals that closed in 30 states, 35 were for-profit, 30 were non-profit and 14 were government-owned, the association said. Twenty-five hospitals closed in four states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Most of the closed hospitals ranged from 25 beds to 99. ``In the past year, nearly seven in 10 rural hospitals in this country lost money caring for patients, and 50 percent of urban hospitals operated in the red,'' Ms. McCarthy said. Jan Shulman, an AHA spokeswoman, said the 42 hospitals that closed in 1986 was the previous record. In addition to the 79 hospitals that shut down, 17 speciality outlets also closed in 13 states in 1987. Most were rehabilitation or long-term care centers, said the association.
AP900809-0225 	X	An attorney formerly with a prestigious corporate law firm was accused Thursday of selling inside information about planned takeovers in a multimillion-dollar trading scheme. The lawyer, Steven L. Glauberman, was charged with four counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud in a criminal information brought by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Glauberman, 39, of Manhattan, was an associate at the firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions. The government alleged he leaked inside information about clients involved in some of the best-known takeovers of the 1980s to a stock broker, who passed it along to others. Glauberman simultaneously settled a civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, agreeing to pay back $221,000 in his alleged illegal profits. The SEC said he tipped off Eban Smith, a former broker-dealer at the Stamford, Conn., office of Smith Barney & Co., to 29 planned or pending corporate transactions between 1984 and 1989. These included Bristol Meyers' 1985 bid for Genetic Systems, a management leveraged buyout of National Gypsum, also in 1985, Black and Decker's 1988 unsolicited bid for American Standard, Walt Disney Co.'s offer for Gibson Greetings, and K mart's bid for Payless Drugstore Stores Northwest Inc. The SEC said Smith paid Glauberman $50,000 for the information and also traded in a special account for Glauberman's benefit. Glauberman's attorney, Martin Perschetz, said he had no comment on behalf of his client. Smith, 41, of Greenwich, Conn., was charged in a separate criminal indictment with using the information he obtained from Glauberman to buy and sell securities for his own account and to solicit more business for his firm. In addition, two other investors who allegedly were tipped off by Smith were charged criminally with making trades based on the information from Glauberman. They are Peter H. Jeffer, 44, a Manhattan money manager, and Stanley P. Patrick, 43, of Old Lyme, Conn., a former stock trader. Jeffer Management Corp., a New York corporation created by Jeffer that stopped doing business in 1988, was also named in the indictment. Court papers said Smith, Jeffer and Patrick earned a total $3.75 million in illegal profits through the trades. The SEC said Smith's portion of profits was more than $1.1 million. Smith, Jeffer and Patrick also were named in the SEC civil complaint. Jeffer settled, but Smith and Patrick did not, meaning the commission is still trying to recover their alleged profits in the scheme. In addition, Glauberman's sister Lori, an associate director in the preferred stock department of Bear Stearns & Co., was accused by the SEC of trading in the securities of at least 11 of the deals. According to the SEC, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Glauberman agreed to disgorge $221,098; his sister, Lori, 36, agreed to disgorge $19,135. Jeffer and his company would have been liable to disgorge $1.77 million but the SEC said that penalty was waived based on affidavits that they were unable to pay. A sixth defendant in the SEC complaint, Anthony Correra, 55, of Albuquerque, N.M., a former analyst and portfolio manager, will pay back $496,842.
AP881112-0074 	X	Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson and actress Robin Givens have discussed dissolving their stormy nine-month marriage with a quick divorce in the Dominican Republic, Tyson's lawyer said. Tyson, 22, is eager to ``get on with his life,'' lawyer Howard Weitzman told the New York Post in Saturday's editions. Lawyers for Miss Givens, 23, and Tyson met Nov. 6 in Las Vegas to discuss the possibility of filing for a divorce on the Caribbean island, where divorces can be obtained in about two days, the newspaper reported. Weitzman said an offshore divorce would be quicker than the annulment request Tyson filed Oct. 14 in New Jersey, which could take a year to resolve. Tyson claimed that Miss Givens, an actress on the ABC-TV series ``Head of the Class,'' manipulated him into marriage by saying falsely that she was pregnant.
AP881219-0153 	X	George Bush met with television evangelist Jim Bakker at a time when he was gearing up for his presidential run against another TV preacher, Pat Robertson, but a Bush spokesman said Monday the vice president ``didn't ask for anything or promise anything.'' Comments by White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater and Bush's onetime press secretary Pete Teeley left some confusion over the purpose for the November 1985 meeting at Bakker's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. Fitzwater, who attended the meeting, initially told a White House press briefing Monday that it was to seek support for Bush's forthcoming presidential race. But later he said he had misspoken and that the meeting was not political, but rather was in Bush's capacity as vice president _ ``a standard meeting of the kind that we had hundreds of. The vice president didn't ask for anything or promise anything.'' Fitzwater, who was Bush's vice presidential press secretary and will be White House press secretary when Bush takes office in January, made the comments at his daily briefing at the White House where he is currently President Reagan's spokesman. His account conflicted with that of Teeley, who at the time of the Bush-Bakker meeting was working as a marketing consultant for Bakker's PTL ministry. Teeley said Monday that Bush's meeting with Bakker was part of ``coalition building'' for the future presidential race and that the vice president met with many evangelical leaders for the same purpose, including the Rev. Billy Graham, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Robert Schuler. ``Those things were done every day. ... It didn't matter where you were _ Pittsburgh, Charlotte or Miami _ if you could meet with some people who were active politically, you tried to sit down and talk with them,'' Teeley said in telephone interview. Fitzwater, answering questions at Monday's briefing, initially had said Bush ``was seeking his support for the campaign, absolutely. ... You have hundreds of meetings like that when you're running for president.'' Later Fitzwater said that was not the correct characterization, that the only support Bush sought was for the Reagan administration's policies. In March 1987, Bakker stepped down from his PTL ministry, as his sexual involvement with former church secretary Jessica Hahn created headlines. At the time Bush met him, there had been no disclosure of such activity by Bakker. A report Sunday in The Washington Post contained an allegation by former Bakker bodyguard Don Hardister that Bush and Bakker talked about a possible admihistration job for Bakker. Asked about that report, Fitzwater told reporters, ``I don't know what Bakker thought. There was no talk of jobs or payoffs or anything else. It was a simple meeting as the vice president had with hundreds of other people and individuals asking their support ... asking his support for various policies and so forth. ``They talked about their Christian beliefs. They talked about the Robertson campaign. It was just a friendly discussion,'' Fitzwater told the briefing. Bush met with Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, in November 1985, as he was looking ahead to his race for the GOP presidential nomination. Eventually he defeated Robertson, host of the popular ``700 Club'' Christian television show, in the primaries. The Bush forces had been concerned about Robertson's unknown potential to pull votes from the religious right. Besides Bush's own meeting with Bakker, the vice president had three close associates whom Bakker hired as consultants: Teeley; Doug Weed, a sometime guest host on the ``700 Club'' who worked as a liaison for Bush's campaign with religious groups; and Dean Burch, former head of the Federal Communications Commission and the Republican National Committee. Weed currently works for the Bush presidential transition staff as a liaison with religious groups. Teeley, who acknowledged earning $120,000 for his PTL work, said his work for Bakker pertained to marketing and had no relation to Bush or politics.
AP900524-0214 	X	The nation's economy grew at a sluggish annual rate of 1.3 percent from January through March, far slower than previously believed, the government reported today. The Commerce Department said that the increase in the broadest measure of economic health _ the gross national product _ was much weaker than an initial estimate it made one month ago. At that time, it put GNP growth at a faster 2.1 percent rate. The weak growth was accompanied by a spurt in inflation as a price index tied to the GNP climbed at steep annual rate of 6.7 percent, the biggest inflationary surge in more than eight years. The increase was revised from an initial estimate of 6.5 percent. Although surprised by the size of the downward GNP revision, economists said they did not believe it indicated the country was in danger of toppling into a recession. They noted that the weakness came from a big reduction in the estimate of how much business inventories grew during the first three months of the year. Slower inventory growth was viewed as a favorable sign for future growth because it means businesses will have less of a backlog of unsold goods to work down before they can start ordering again. ``The first quarter was a time of major inventory correction and actually a healthy correction,'' said Allen Sinai, chief economist of the Boston Co. ``It was setting the economy up for sustained growth provided that sales stay up.'' The 1.3 percent first quarter GNP increase was only a slight improvement from a 1.1 percent GNP growth rate in the final three months of 1989. The growth rates in both quarters were the slowest since the summer of 1986 when the economy grew at a 0.8 percent annual rate. The inflation rate was the highest since it raced ahead at an annual rate of 7.7 percent in the final quarter of 1981. The GNP price guage rose 4.5 percent for all of 1989. Many economists expect inflation to moderate as the year progresses. They contend the first-quarter report was skewed by unusual winter weather that killed crops and drove up fuel prices. Indeed, Commerce said ``about one-half of the step-up was due to food and energy prices; large increases in January followed unusually cold weather in December.'' The growth rate was lowered today because of new information on business inventories, which were revised down $8.5 billion from the original report. The weaker economic growth means reduced tax revenues and adds to the problems confronting administration and congressional budget negotiators. Talks resume today on developing a formula to cut the deficit to the $64 billion mandated by the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Nevertheless, it was proof the current expansion, which began at the end of the last recession in November 1982, continued _ although slowly. A recession generally is defined as two straight declines in the GNP. The various changes means the GNP, after adjusting for inflation, totaled $4.188 trillion after the first three months of the year. ``The revision (in the GNP) was more than accounted for by change in business inventories,'' the department said. It said exports were revised up $9.9 billion, ``but this revision was largely offset in GNP by an upward revision of $9.0 billion in imports.'' In a companion report, the department said after-tax profits of U.S. corporations slowed to a 0.2 percent increase in the first quarter after rising 2.8 percent in the October-December period of 1989. Corporate profits had fallen during each of the first three quarters of last year, including a 1.1 percent drop during the comparable months of January through March. Surveys show that most economists believe overall growth during 1990 will total 2.0 percent, down from the 3.0 percent level of activity in 1989 and the slowest since activity declined 2.5 percent during the recession year of 1982. But many of the nation's top economic forecasters predict the economy will avoid a recession for another three years and are crediting Federal Reserve monetary policies for the extended growth. Sixty-three percent of the 68 professional forecasters responding to a survey by the National Association of Business Economists said they foresee no recession during the next three years. And 46 percent of those respondents said the primary reason for the economic expansion is ``effective monetary policy,'' James F. Smith, NABE president and professor of finance at the University of North Carolina, told a news conference earlier this week. The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee has tried for two years to stem inflation by keeping a tight grip on credit without slowing the economy so much that it skids into a recession.
AP880830-0002 	X	A military official said Tuesday that renegade soldiers loyal to ousted President Ferdinand Marcos have organized a new strike force to try to topple President Corazon Aquino. Col. Guilleromo Ruiz, chief of staff of the National Capital Region Defense Command, told reporters in the capital that the new group called itself ``Marcos Army Lost Command.'' Ruiz said the force was made up of troops who deserted the Presidential Security Command after Marcos fled to Hawaii after the 1986 civilian-military uprising toppled his administration. ``Lost Command'' is a Filipino term for military units which desert and hire out as ``private armies'' of politicians, businessmen and others. Military officials gave no estimate of the size of the group. They said the renegades were believed linked to forces loyal to renegade former Lt. Col. Reynaldo Cabauatan, who has been sought since a coup attempt in January 1987. Troops in the Manila area went on alert Saturday to guard against coup attempts while President Aquino visited Brunei. She was expected to return Wednesday after a three-day visit. On Monday, troops raided suspected right-wing hideouts in the Manila area and arrested three renegades believed linked to former Brig. Gen. Jose Marie Zumel. The former superintendent of the Philippine Military Academy is also sought in the January 1987 coup attempt. The government said that coup attempt, which included the seizing of military and media facilities in the capital, was designed to pave the way for Marcos to return from exile in Hawaii.
AP881222-0232 	X	In the two decades since an Army ammunition depot closed and stripped this town of more than 500 jobs, Edgemont has tried to find another healthy payroll, even courting a string of potentially hazardous industries. A uranium mining and milling operation succeeded for a while, then closed. Town leaders also wooed companies that proposed a low-level nuclear waste dump, a sewage ash processing plant, a munitions testing site and, most recently, a landfill for municipal waste from Northeastern cities. For various reasons, including opposition from environmental groups, all the proposals failed. A farmer raised pigs on the base for a time but recently pulled out because of falling pork prices. ``We need more jobs, and we're still looking,'' Mayor Pete Ziemet said. ``The only thing we have going for us, which I guess is both bad and good, is the notoriety Edgemont has had.'' Other civic leaders fear they may never find the industry needed to fill the empty houses and stores in this town sitting on the southern edge of the Black Hills, where pine-covered mountains give way to rough grasslands covered with sagebrush and yucca plants. ``Everything just seemed to go haywire. ... Just little by little, everything went wrong,'' said former Mayor Matt Brown. ``I've been here all my life, and so help me God, I can't put my finger on anything that will salvage the town. Maybe we can be lucky.'' A Defense Department survey of 100 communities that lost military bases from 1961 to 1977 reported that some towns prospered by converting the bases to other uses. But Edgemont is one of the places that has never recovered after the military left town. The Black Hills Army Depot, which stored ammunition in concrete bunkers at a place called Igloo eight miles south of Edgemont, was opened in the 1940s and closed in 1967. Brown said Edgemont not only lost 500-odd civilian jobs but also many long-time Edgemont residents who were transferred to civilian jobs at other military bases. Four local businessmen bought the 15,000-acre base to prepare it for other uses, but it still lies empty. Rows of concrete igloos sit like loaves of bread on the prairie. Near the base entrance, houses and administrative buildings are falling apart. Edgemont's population grew to 1,772 by 1960, but fell to less than 1,200 within a few years of the base's closing. The town's economy and population recovered in the 1970s, with the uranium mill and a Burlington Northern Railroad crew-shift station both busy. Ziemet estimates Edgemont now has only 1,130 people, a drop of about 20 percent since 1980. The mayor said 70 houses out of several hundred in town are empty, and 27 should be razed because they're falling apart. People trying to sell homes will be lucky to get 50 cents on the dollar, he said. The railroad is still a bright spot in the local economy. Burlington Northern switches crews at Edgemont and provides a good national connection, Ziemet said. The uranium operation closed due to lack of demand, and the 110 people now cleaning up uranium tailings will be out of work when the cleanup is completed next year, he said. City and state officials have provided financing to help re-open a factory that makes wooden bowls and other items from walnut, and the plant should employ up to 30 people. But the town has yet to find an industrial use for the abandoned ammunition depot. Cattle are grazed on the base, but an operation that raised hogs in the concrete igloos has been stopped at least temporarily. A plan to use the igloos for grain storage also washed out, Ziemet said. In 1983, Chem-Nuclear Systems Inc. proposed burying up to one-third of the nation's low-level nuclear waste at the base. The plan was scrapped after geological tests showed the site was unsuitable, and state voters rejected a proposed multi-state compact that would have allowed the dump. Consolidated Management Corp. of Reno, Nev., last year hauled almost 300,000 tons of incinerated sewage from St. Paul, Minn., to the old base, where the company planned to build a plant to extract gold and other precious metals from the ash. The company missed several deadlines to start the plant, however, and the state now is searching for a way to dispose of the ash. Honeywell Inc. wanted to set up a munitions testing operation in a canyon near Edgemont but abandoned the plan after a coalition of Indians and others opposed it. Edgemont now is working with South Dakota Disposal Systems Inc., headquartered in Colorado, on a plan to bury 1 million tons of municipal garbage a year. Edgemont could get more than $1 million a year from the plan, which also would create up to 50 jobs, company officials have said. The succession of proposals dealing with hazardous materials has angered some local residents and environmental groups across South Dakota. Ruth Kern, who lives on a ranch south of town and opposes all the waste disposal ideas, said Edgemont is gaining a reputation as a place willing to become the nation's dumping ground. Kern said residents are partly responsible for the base closing 20 years ago because they complained all the time and didn't want the ``riffraff'' from the base in town. She criticized Edgemont officials for seeking hazardous dumps that she said wouldn't provide enough jobs to save the town in any event. ``I don't want to see it go under, but neither can I support it when they want to do something to pollute my environment,'' Kern said. ``I'm tired of having everybody in the United States look at us as someplace they can bring in stuff to dump.'' Kern's stance has drawn criticism from townspeople who want jobs, whatever the industry. Brown is upset that environmental groups have been able to block virtually all the town's industrial proposals. ``For some reason, we can't seem to whip it,'' he said. ``I'd like to win one for a change.'' Ziemet, who's been mayor for the past decade, said he wouldn't support any industry that would contaminate ground, air or water, but he believes state and federal officials can make sure the proposed garbage dump is operated safely. Some of the national publicity has upset Ziemet and others. A recent Wall Street Journal story said the state and town acted too hastily when they allowed the Minnesota sewage ash to be hauled to the abandoned base. Ziemet said no one could know the company would run out of money before it built the processing plant, which he said would have been an environmentalist's dream had it succeeded in tranforming sewage into worthwhile products. He compared the town's situation to someone without a job. No one would criticize the person for taking a job on a garbage truck, he said. ``All we want is a job,'' he repeated. ``I believe something is going to come.''
AP881129-0260 	X	The value of U.S. farm exports should increase slightly to $36.5 billion this year but the volume of sales will fall about 8 percent lagely because of last summer's drought, the Agriculture Department reported Tuesday. Export values are predicted to grow by $1 billion in fiscal 1989, while volume will drop to 136 million metric tons, down from a six-year high of 147.5 million metric tons in the year ended Sept. 30, according to Richard W. Goldberg, acting undersecretary of agriculture for international affairs and commodity programs. Goldberg delivered what he described as a ``bright'' agricultural trade forecast at the opening session of USDA's Agricultural Outlook Conference, an annual event in which government analysts outline prospects for the coming year for farmers and agribusiness. ``Export volume is forecast smaller as the U.S. share of world trade shrinks for drought-affected products,'' Goldberg said. Overall, the United States is expected to account for 48 percent of world total grain trade in 1989, down from 50 percent. One of the hardest hit commodities is soybeans, with the U.S. share of world soybean trade forecast to drop to 35 percent in 1989 from 49 percent. Although the U.S. share of world wheat trade is expected to show a small gain in 1989, the volume of American wheat and flour exports is forecast to fall by about 3 percent while corn exports should grow by 2 percent, said James R. Donald, chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board. In general, farm prices are rising because of lower global grain stocks, mostly from the drought in North America, and Goldberg said world prices for wheat, corn and soybeans should be their highest since 1985. Goldberg said a $2.6 billion increase in the value of U.S. grain and feed exports will offset declines for cotton and oilseeds in 1989. ``For U.S. agriculture, the challenge in the coming year will be to sustain the momentum in overseas sales which has been regained over the past few years,'' Goldberg said. ``This will require more competitive prices, aggressive market development, persistent trade policy efforts and a market-oriented trade philosophy.'' Donald reported that U.S. farmers probably will receive less cash income but higher net income next year in the aftermath of the summer drought. Consumers are expected to pay 3 percent to 5 percent more for food in 1989, compared with about a 4 percent increase this year. Smaller crop supplies, firm demand and higher prices are shaping the global agricultural outlook for 1989, according to Donald. Expanded output appears likely in the second half of 1989, and he said continued large supplies of animal products probably will dampen livestock price increases. Still, American farmers can expect slightly higher receipts when they market their crops and livestock in 1989, Donald said. ``But they will be getting less in direct government payments and their production expenses will rise with expanded acreage and costlier production inputs,'' Donald said. Cash income therefore is likely to decline by about 10 percent from this year's record-tying estimated level of $56 billion to $58 billion, he said. In contrast, Donald said, net farm income is expected to about 20 percent above this year's estimated level of $38 billion to $40 billion. ``The 1989 outlook favors the food shopper, even though the drought trimmed potential meat output,'' Donald said. He said meat supplies would be the second largest ever, boosted by sizable pork supplies and even greater poultry supplies.
AP880818-0239 	X	Democrat Michael Dukakis on Wednesday criticized Republicans for using their convention for ``a trip down memory lane'' while ignoring GOP policies that have hurt American families and failed to help economically depressed regions. Dukakis, during a lakefront rally on Minnesota's Iron Range, also touted the qualifications of his running mate, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, and implied that Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, the certain Republican vice presidential nominee, was not qualified to be president. ``Nobody ever asked any questions about whether Lloyd Bentsen was qualified to be president of the United States,'' Dukakis said a day after George Bush tapped Quayle, a 41-year-old conservative, to fill out the Repubican ticket. Dukakis told the rally the Republicans were using their convention in New Orleans to celebrate the Reagan presidency because they did not want to discuss rising interest rates, the soaring trade and budget deficits and economic distress in the Midwest and other parts of the country. ``The Republican Party has been celebrating the past,'' he said. ``When you think about what's going to happen to them in November, you can't blame them. ``While they're partying on Bourbon Street, we're talking to people on Main Street,'' Dukakis said. ``While they're talking about labels, we're talking about jobs. While they take a trip down Memory Lane, we're looking to the future.'' In Boston, the Massachusetts governor's campaign office issued a statement saying Dukakis was saddened by the plane crash that claimed the lives of Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold L. Raphel and 35 others. ``President Zia will be remembered for his steadfast opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and for ensuring that 3 million Afghans had a place of refuge in Pakistan,'' Dukakis said in the statement. Dukakis, on the first day of a four-day campaign trip designed to help him steal some of the spotlight from the GOP gathering, went to great lengths to praise Bentsen, 67. Referring to legislation to give workers 60 days' notice before a plant closing, Dukakis told the rally: ``We've got to have a vice president who led the fight and didn't oppose the fight.'' Quayle opposed the plant-closing measure, along with Reagan and Bush. Reagan allowed it to became law without his signature. At a news conference after the rally, Dukakis used praise of Bentsen to criticize Quayle. ``I think Senator Bentsen is a tremendous asset to me and to the Democratic ticket because he is so steady and so mature and has demonstrated a capacity for leadership,'' Dukakis said. The Democratic nominee said ``that's a judgment the American people are going to have to make'' when asked if he thought Quayle was qualified to step in as president in the event of a tragedy. But he then left little doubt about his true feelings. ``I would just point out that nobody ever asked any questions about whether Lloyd Bentsen would be qualified to be president of the United States,'' the Massachusetts governor said. He cited Bentsen's leadership in winning passage of the plant-closing law, a major trade bill, welfare reform and catastrophic health care legislation, something Dukakis referred to as a ``legislative grand slam.'' Among those appearing at the rally with Dukakis were former Vice President Walter Mondale, Rep. James Oberstar and Hubert H. ``Skip'' Humphrey III, Minnesota attorney general and Senate candidate. Dukakis used the event to reiterate his support for Oberstar's National Economic Development Act, which would create a fund to invest in economically weak areas of the country. Dukakis has endorsed spending $500 million on such a program. ``Prosperity in some places and depression in others is not acceptable,'' said Dukakis, who earlier had mentioned the loss of 8,000 jobs on the Iron Range in the last 10 years. ``That's something the Republican Party might want to take a look at.'' The rally was interrupted for several minutes when an anti-abortion protester screamed, ``What about the unborn'' into an amplified bullhorn. ``Here's someone who wants to debate,'' Dukakis said as a Secret Service agent and several people at the rally forcibly removed the man from the crowd. ``Maybe we can get the vice president to debate.'' From the Iron Range, Dukakis flew to Minneapolis for a private fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee and then was headed to Miami, where he was to spend the night before addressing a Greek-American organization's convention. Other stops on his trip this week include Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee. He returns to Boston on Saturday night.
AP881102-0111 	X	A British soldier has died of injuries suffered at the Ramstein air show disaster on Aug. 28, bringing the death toll to 70, officials said Wednesday. The 40-year-old soldier, who was not identified, died over the weekend in a hospital in Hanover, said Juergen Dietzen, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Rhineland Palatinate state. Dietzen said 24 people remain hospitalized in 10 facilities, and four are in critical condition. The accident occurred when three Italian stunt planes collided at an annual air show at the Ramstein U.S. Air Force base. One of the planes plunged into the crowd. Authorities gave the following nationality breakdown for the dead: 60 West Germans, four Americans, one Dutch citizen, one French citizen, the British soldier and the three Italian pilots.
AP881025-0118 	X	The Soviet Union is seeking a deal with the Philippines to allow repair of Soviet military vessels at a shipyard adjacent to the strategic U.S. naval base at Subic Bay, government officials say. Dan Howard, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said Tuesday the United States ``would not look favorably'' on any such arrangement because of ``the opportunities it might afford the Soviets to spy on our activities at Subic Bay.'' ``The Philippine government is well aware of our feelings on that,'' he said. At the same time, Howard said he could not confirm that negotiations between the Filipinos and the Soviets were taking place. There were conflicting reports Tuesday about the status of the reported Soviet request. One official said a deal between the two countries had already been signed, while another that the Philippines was ``tempted'' by the offer but had made no decision. A third official said there was considerable confusion about the intentions of both the Soviets and the Philippines. All the officials asked that their names not be used. The Philippines has rejected previous Soviet requests for access to the Philseco repair yard. But economic and political factors appear to be prompting it to reassess that position, the officials said. The Philseco yard, a joint venture between Philippine and Japanese interests, has been losing money. In addition, the new Soviet proposal comes at a time when many Filipinos are seeking a relationship more independent of the United States. But the officials said close Soviet access to Subic Bay would not only be an intelligence-gathering bonus for Moscow but would also enable Soviet vessels to remain longer in the region, thus enhancing the Soviets' military capability, the officials said. The desire for ship repair facilities apparently reflects a major Soviet military buildup in the Pacific in recent years. According to the Pentagon, the Kremlin has increased the number of ships and submarines in its Pacific fleet by 40 vessels to a total of 860 since the end of 1984. Approval of the Soviet proposal also would be seen as further evidence of the Philippines' desire to dissociate itself from the United States. A more independent Filipino stance was apparent during recent base negotiations with the United States, which frequently were marked by bitter acrimony. A week ago, the two countries signed an agreement to provide the Philippines with $962 million in military and economic aid over the next two years in exchange for continued U.S. access to Subic and to Clark Air Base. They are the largest U.S. military installations overseas. As a reflection of the continuing strain in relations, both the Philippines and the United States have left open the possibility that their 1947 base agreement will not be renewed when it expires in 1991. Reaction in the Philippines to the aid agreement has been hostile, partly because Filipino negotiators backed away from their original demand for more than $1 billion annually in assistance. Still, the $481 million in annual aid agreed to for 1990 and 1991 represented a sharp increase from the $180 million the United States had been pledging since 1983. As U.S. officials see it, Philippine President Corazon Aquino could seek to placate opposition to the aid agreement by approving the Soviet request for a ship repair deal at Philseco.
AP880718-0037 	X	Four U.S. soldiers were recovering today from wounds sustained when a carload of men hurled bombs and fired guns at a group of off-duty American servicemen in a discotheque parking lot, officials said. Authorities had no suspects and were ``intensively investigating'' the attack early Sunday outside the Confetti disco in San Pedro Sula, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. Embassy spokesman Charles Barclay said no group had claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred at about 1 a.m. in Honduras' second-largest city. Barclay, in a telephone interview, said the four soldiers wounded in the attack were hospitalized in satisfactory condition. Embassy officials refused to identify them until their families were notified. A U.S. official, speaking on condition he not be identified, said the wounded men ``were out of danger.'' He did not elaborate. The soldiers were on leave from Palmerola Air Force Base, 41 miles northeast of the capital of Tegucigalpa, and were in civilian clothes and carrying no weapons at the time of the attack, Barclay said. ``The American soldiers were on a one-day recreation trip to San Pedro Sula,'' he said. They were leaving the nightspot's parking lot in a civilian vehicle rented from a Honduran company when the attackers threw small bombs and opened fire from inside another car in the parking lot, U.S. officials said. The vehicle with the soldiers immediately sped away. ``The attackers threw explosive bombs and shot at them with small-caliber weapons,'' Barclay said. In Washington, Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Kathy Wood said nine soldiers were attacked as they drove out of the discotheque's parking lot. She said there were 10 or 12 attackers. ``I guess if there's a hero in this, it's the driver,'' Wood said. ``He took evasive action. He drove away fast. He did things right.'' The driver's name was not available. The Confetti disco is frequented by U.S. military personnel. San Pedro Sula, is 125 miles north of the capital. The injured were taken to a hospital in San Pedro Sula and later flown to Palmerola. Maj. Wood said about 150 soldiers were on the one-day leave and that all returned to Palmerola as a precautionary measure. The United States has maintained a varying numbers of American troops in Honduras since the leftist Sandinistas seized power in neighboring Nicaragua in 1979. At least 30 American troops in Honduras have been killed or wounded in accidents or incidents of violence since the United States began joint military maneuvers with the Honduran military in 1982. Ten soldiers were injured in a helicopter crash during the deployment of about 1,500 American troops to Honduras in March following a reported incursion by Nicaraguan troops into Honduras. In August 1987, a pipe bomb exploded at a restaurant in Comayagua, 12 miles north of Palmerola, seriously injuring five U.S. soldiers and six civilians, including one American. The Honduran military said four suspects picked up in connection with that bombing told them the attack was part of a campaign directed by a ``foreign leftist organization.'' A wave of anti-American protests broke out in April following the deportation to the United States of a reputed international drug baron. Juan Ramon Matta, 43, was taken to the United States to face drug trafficking charges and questioning for the 1986 slaying in Mexico of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena. The Honduran constitution forbids the deportation of Honduran nationals. Demonstrators burned the U.S. Consulate and U.S. Information Service office in the capital to protest Matta's deportation and the U.S. military presence in Honduras. The violence prompted the government to temporarily impose a state of emergency restricting civil liberties.
AP880324-0259 	X	Neil Kinnock, leader of Britain's opposition Labor Party, will be challenged for the post by veteran leftist Tony Benn at the party conference in the fall, a Labor coalition said Wednesday. The Campaign Group, composed of about 40 leftist party lawmakers, said Kinnock's deputy, moderate Roy Hattersley, will be challenged by leftist Eric Heffer. The announcement came after a meeting of the party's national executive committee. Kinnock, 46, and Hattersley are considered not as left wing as Benn and Heffer. Benn, 62, a former Cabinet minister, has accused Kinnock of watering down socialism after the party's three defeats in nine years by the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Kinnock and Hattersley have worked for a united party and cracked down on militants in hopes of making a broader appeal to voters. They say a leadership contest will distract the party from opposing the government. Kinnock and Hattersley denounced the challenge in a joint statement as ``futile and selfish'' and predicted ``massive defeat'' for Benn and Heffer. Benn told reporters: ``Democracy is about choice.'' Heffer said: ``The time has come for a crusade for socialism. The working people of this country are getting a worse and worse deal.''
AP881206-0073 	X	A new wave of strikes has hit this communist nation, and thousands of shoe workers marched on Parliament today in heavy rain to protest the plummeting living standards. A triple cordon of police officers guarded the doors of the Parliament building as about 3,000 shoe workers, mostly female, chanted: ``You are afraid of women, shame on you!'' and ``Thieves, Thieves!'' At the Labin coal pits, 148 miles southwest of Zagreb, about 1,000 miners stopped working Monday to demand payment of a bonus for having fulfilled the annual production quota one month ahead of schedule, Belgrade newspapers reported. Also Monday, several hundred workers at the Bor copper mines, about 90 miles southwest of Belgrade, staged a brief work stoppage for the same reason as the Labin miners, newspapers reported. More than 3,000 employees of a fertilizer factory in Sabac, about 50 miles west of Belgrade, staged a street protest Monday, accusing municipal Communist Party leaders of inefficiency and dishonesty. As a result of the protest, the entire municipal leadership was replaced, press reports said. In Belgrade, a total of about 7,000 shoe workers went on strike today. About 3,000 of them marched almost 3 miles in the rain to reach the Parliament building, chanting anti-government slogans and demanding salary raises. ``We want proper wages, don't torment us!'' the crowd chanted, pressing against the police cordon. After several hours, the workers were allowed to enter Parliament, where they spoke with party officials. ``I can't feed myself and my children with $45 a month,'' Gvozdenka Pavlovic said. The average Yugoslav salary is about $100 a month. The demonstrators dispersed peacefully after Serbian Communist Party leader Slobodoan Milosevic promised he would visit their factory. Yugoslavia is facing increasing social and labor unrest as a result of the worst economic crisis in the country's postwar history, including a 236 percent annual inflation rate and a $21 billion foreign debt. According to official figures, workers' buying power has declined by 25 percent since the beginning of this year and living standards have dropped to 1960s levels. In the past 10 months, there have been more than 1,000 strikes, many of them involving street demonstrations, the government said. Official Belgrade trade unions today called on citizens to refuse to pay electricity bills if the latest 31 percent price raise was not canceled. News reports said about one-fourth of Belgrade's 2 million people have been unable to pay their electricity, water and heating bills. According to the reports, power companies have begun cutting off supplies in an effort to force people to pay. State-run newspapers said railroad workers in the capital said they would stage a strike Wednesday if their salaries were not raised by 50 percent. The strike would paralyze all rail traffic coming in and going out of the capital.
AP880408-0010 	X	Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh is being attacked in opposite directions by the Iran-Contra defendants, with one claiming he improperly ignored congressional testimony and the other three saying he illegally used it. Attorneys representing former national security adviser John M. Poindexter, Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and arms dealer Albert Hakim moved Thursday to dismiss the indictment against them, claiming Walsh illegally relied on testimony the three gave last year to the Iran-Contra congressional committees after being granted limited immunity. Because of the immunity grants, Walsh was required to collect all of his evidence independently. North, Piondexter and Hakim claim that, given the massive publicity surrounding the hearings, Walsh's case was inevitably tainted by exposure to their immunized _ regardless of efforts to insulate investigators and grand jurors from that evidence. But lawyers for retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, the fourth defendant, claim that Walsh unfairly ignored the congressional testimony of North and Poindexter. They say that testimony would have led the grand jury to decline to name their client in the 23-count indictment. Secord, who brokered the arms sales with Hakim, was the lead witness at last year's televised hearings of the House and Senate Iran-Contra committees and testified without any immunity. All four defendants are accused of conspiring to divert profits illegally from the U.S.-Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan rebels. The so-called ``use immunity'' grants conferred by Congress on North, Poindexter and Hakim prohibit Walsh from using evidence obtained directly or indirectly from their congressional testimony. Walsh imposed special precautions to prevent his staff and the grand jury from being exposed to the extensive publicity surrounding the hearings. Prosecutors and grand jurors alike were told to ignore news reports or conversations with friends about the hearings. Evidence was filed under seal in U.S. District Court to prove that it was obtained independently of the immunized testimony. But in pleadings filed with U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell, lawyers for North, Poindexter and Hakim said those precautions were not enough. ``Never in the history of this nation has the immunized testimony of putative defendants been broadcast live, on all major networks, to tens of millions of viewers and listeners,'' the defense said. ``Given the widespread dissemination of immunized testimony throughout our society, the broad use of immunized testimony has been inevitable, undeniable, and so pervasive that the indictment must be dismissed as a matter of law,'' the defense argued. As an alternative to dismissing the charges, the defense asked Gesell to conduct a hearing to determine if immunized congressional testimony influenced Walsh's investigation. The defense says it wants to question grand jurors to determine if they learned about the congressional hearings from friends, relatives or news broadcasts or from grand jury witnesses. Secord's lawyers are taking a different course. They contend that Walsh unfairly refused to consider the congressional testimony of North and Poindexter, which they contend would vindicate their client of any wrongdoing. The grand jury should have had an opportunity to consider this testimony before returning an indictment against Secord, his lawyers said. ``The independent counsel's decision to exalt prosecutorial convenience above General Secord's Fifth Amendment right to a fair and informed grand jury taints the proceedings against him and requires, as a matter of fundamental fairness, that the indictment be dismissed,'' Secord's lawyers said. Gesell has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday to discuss the immunity issue, which could take months to resolve.
AP880701-0044 	X	A former postman who pleaded guilty to stealing $2.50 from an envelope should be ordered to clean up his neighborhood with a ``broom, dustbin and plastic sack,'' a federal judge recommended. U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Higgins on Thursday also ordered Leon Watson, 33, to repay $315 that a January indictment charged he removed from envelopes carried on his route. Watson pleaded guilty to one count in a plea bargain calling for a maximum prison sentence of three years. That count charged him with stealing $2.50 from an envelope planted in a mailbox by U.S. Postal Service officials, who became suspicious of Watson after residents complained that they had received envelopes that were supposed to contain money but did not. ``I want Mr. Watson to become a custodian,'' Higgins said. ``He should be given a broom, dustbin and plastic sack and be made to keep good and clean'' parks and other public property near his home as community service work, the judge said. Higgins also ordered Watson to perform 300 hours of community service work and gave him a three-year suspended sentence.
AP901115-0213 	X	The newest gadgets that box, sort, tape and buffer are on display at a packaging industry trade show that looks grass-green in its support of sound environmental policies. ``It's the environmental revolution,'' said Craig Todd, district manager of Better Packages. ``Everybody's gotten on the bandwagon.'' Better Packages isn't offering a new product at the show but is exhibiting new packaging for its old products. The Shelton, Conn., company's tape machines, which use glue rather than adhesives which don't decompose, ``just happen to be the right thing at the right time,'' Todd said. More than 55,000 people were on hand Wednesday for the packaging industry's Pack Expo, which ends Friday at McCormick Place. Dozens of this year's 900 exhibitors included environmentally sensible products, which ran from mailing envelopes made of recycled materials to packaging ``peanuts'' made nearly entirely of cornstarch. The new ``peanuts,'' manufactured by American Excelsior Co. of Arlington, Texas, will give the environmentally conscious consumer an alternative to the standard polystyrene packaging peanut, the company said. The product, called Eco-Foam, is more than 95 percent cornstarch, and the rest is a water-soluble organic polymer, said Robert Asselin of National Starch and Chemical Co. of Bridgewater N.J. It handles the peanuts' production for American Excelsior. The product dissolves in water and is safe enough to eat, said Asselin, who did just that while chatting with a reporter. American Excelsior will keep making polystyrene peanuts, said company Vice President Ken Starrett. ``We've serviced this market for about 30 years or more,'' said Starrett. ``We're not competing with ourselves, and we don't see a conflict by making both products. Eco-Foam is still the newcomer to the market.'' Some companies said thir customers aren't fully converted to the idea that environmentally sound is best. ``They'll buy it if the cost is the same and the quality's the same. But if the price is higher or the quality's affected, forget it,'' said Peter Dauphinais, whose company, Polyair Corp., introduced ``Eco-Lite'' mailing envelopes this year. The envelopes are made from 100 percent recycled paper and plastic and, while they cost the same as non-recycled, they're less strong, said Dauphinais, sales man for the Toronto company. Cantech Industries Inc., of Johnson City, Tenn., introduced a new unbleached masking tape at the show. The new tape is free of caustic chemicals used in other tape manufacture but is not quite as white as its bleached counterpart, said Cantech's Jim Petruzzi. Petruzzi said manufacturers tend to have a natural inclination toward packaging materials which are the newest and white-est of whites - a tendency that dies hard. ``You spend your whole life on making things look good, then environmental issues come up,'' said Petruzzi. ``Not that they're not good issues.''
AP880706-0138 	X	A leading Soviet Bible scholar said Wednesday a Soviet magazine plans to serialize the New Testament in an effort to boost its sales. ``At first, I was shaken by such an indecency,'' said Sergei S. Averintzev, ``but then I thought, it's good.'' Averintzev, 61, said he was commissioned to write footnotes to the New Testament, which is to be published in the magazine In the World of Books. He said a Soviet publishing house also was preparing a book edition of the New Testament with his notes. The scholar, who is in Israel with a delegation of Soviet filmmakers, is a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and has written books and articles on ancient Greek and Byzantine culture and the Bible. In a lecture at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Averintzev said said the magazine wanted to print the New Testament ``to enlarge its circulation.''
AP880223-0242 	X	Campeau Corp. has extended until midnight Friday its $66-a-share offer for a friendly merger with Federated Department Stores Inc. Meanwhile, a federal judge Monday threw out an Ohio anti-takeover law enacted to protect Federated from the Toronto-based developer. Campeau said in a statement Monday that without a friendly merger it would continue its hostile tender offer at $61 a share, or $5.4 billion. The friendly offer, which previously expired Sunday, totals $5.8 billion. A Federated representative had no comment on the renewed offer. The Cincinnati-based retailer twice last week rejected the $66-a-share bid, saying Campeau had not shown it had adequate financing. Federated's board has delayed implementing a company shareholder-rights plan until midnight Thursday. The rights plan, a so-called ``poison pill'' defense, is designed to make a hostile takeover too expensive. A Campeau representative said the retail and real estate company was renewing its offer ``to remind (Federated's) board we're very interested in signing a transaction.'' At the same time, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Carl B. Rubin ruled unconstitutional the state's anti-takeover law enacted Feb. 12. Federated had no comment when asked if an appeal was planned. Rubin said that while states have a role in the regulation of commerce, the new law ``is discriminatory on its face.'' The act required that certain foreign businesses attempting to acquire companies with major operations in Ohio inform the state of the acquisition's impact on employment, tax revenues and details of its financing.
AP880716-0141 	X	An encouraging report on the U.S. trade deficit has helped catapult the dollar to recent highs against several key foreign currencies. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the United States posted a $10.9 billion trade deficit in May, the second smallest shortfall in almost three years. The news helped the dollar make its best showing since October against the British pound. The pound finished at $1.6605 in late New York trading, far cheaper than Thursday's $1.6875. The dollar's surge lifted bond prices, pushing interest rates lower. The yield on the Treasury's closely watched 30-year bond slipped to 9.14 percent from 9.17 percent late Thursday. The favorable trade news also sparked a moderate gain in stock prices on Wall Street. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 15.83 points to 2,129.45, finishing the week with a net gain of 23.30. In another key economic report, the Labor Department said wholesale prices rose a moderate 0.4 percent in June _ but analysts saw cause for worry in the steep, drought-induced climb in raw food prices. The hot, dry weather searing much of the nation sent prices of unprocessed grain and poultry soaring by more than 20 percent last month, pushing raw food prices 4.2 percent higher than in May. It was the biggest jump since October 1985. Grain futures closed mixed while soybeans posted strong gains on the Chicago Board of Trade amid conflicting weather forecasts for the drought-stricken Farm Belt. In other economic developments Friday: _The Federal Reserve reported that U.S. industrial production, boosted by heavy demand for electricity during the summer heat wave, climbed 0.4 percent in June, the ninth consecutive month without a decline. _The Commerce Department said business inventories climbed in May for the 17th consecutive month. Sales also rose strongly, easing economists' worries that too many goods are accumulating on shelves and back lots. The Reagan administration and private economists were in agreement that the May trade report offered conclusive proof that the government's efforts to deal with one of the country's biggest economic problems, a seemingly intractable trade deficit, were beginning to show results. The May deficit was actually $627 million higher than a revised April imbalance of $10.3 billion. But the April figure was the smallest imbalance since a $9.9 billion deficit in August 1985 and the May deficit was the second smallest imbalance since that time. Commerce Secretary C. William Verity noted that for the first five months of this year, U.S. exports have surged by 31 percent compared with the same period in 1987, reflecting the boom conditions in the nation's manufacturing brought on by the weaker dollar. ``The merchandise trade figures for May are consistent with the trend toward a lower trade deficit,'' Verity said. ``The improvement in the trade balance in the first five months has been widespread geographically.'' The administration launched an effort three years ago with major U.S. allies to devalue the dollar as a way of making American goods more competitive on overseas markets.
AP881103-0133 	X	Three contestants in the Mrs. America pageant have complained about being given a survey to fill out on their love lives. According to Mrs. Alabama Diane Gamble, Mrs. Wisconsin Gale Coleman and Mrs. North Carolina Connie Hedrick, the survey included such questions as ``Can you be in love with two men at the same time?'' and ``Outside of the bedroom, where is the most unusual place you have had romance with your husband?'' Pageant president David Marmel said he had not seen the survey, adding that they were used in the past to find out types of products used by contestants for the product-marketing purposes of pageant sponsors. Marmel said the women were not obliged to answer the questions. The three contestants also complained Tuesday about the use of bikinis, saying the skimpy attire was degrading for a pageant featurng mothers and professional women. ``How is it going to look for my fellow workers to see me bumping and grinding in a bikini on national television? It's demeaning, said Mrs. Gamble, a marketing director for an engineering firm. Only single-piece suits were used in state contests leading to the national pageant, she said. Jennifer Kline, 21, of Minnesota, won the pageant that ended Sunday and was televised Tuesday by ABC.
AP900209-0289 	X	Bond prices rose sharply Friday, rallying after the successful completion of the Treasury Department's $30 billion quarterly refunding auction. The newly issued 30-year government bond surged 1 25-32 points, or $17.81 per $1,000 in face amount, from its level at Thursday's auction. Its yield tumbled to 8.33 percent from 8.50 percent. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. The jump in the price of the long bond, the most widely watched of government securities, was the largest since last Oct. 13, when it rose 2 9-16 points in response to a sharp sell-off in the stock market. Credit market strategists attributed Friday's large increase to two factors: relief over the completion of the Treasury's three-day auction this week and a government report indicating that wholesale inflation in January was low, excluding volatile food and energy prices. The government sold $10 billion each of three-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The market had viewed the auctions with concern that low foreign buying would push yields up and prices down to stimulate interest. The United States has come to depend on foreign investors, particularly the Japanese, to help finance the federal deficit and pay interest on the total public debt. Instead, the auction was completed successfully, with adequate foreign interest propped up by strong domestic buying. Demand slackened only in the final leg, the 30-year bond. ``There's a lot of relief the refunding is over and the auctions by and large went well _ at least better than expected at the beginning of the week,'' said Steven A. Wood, money market economist with BankAmerica Capital Markets Group in San Francisco. In addition, the credit markets were pleased with an increase of just 0.1 percent in wholesale inflation for January excluding a spurt in food and energy prices due to severe cold around the country. Overall, the Producer Price Index for Janaury rose 1.8 percent, the sharpest rise since 1974. But the ``core rate'' excluding food energy is viewed as a better measure of underlying inflationary pressure. Economists said the low core rate was interpreted to indicate that the Federal Reserve Board would not likely raise interest rates to try to cool off the economy and curb increasing costs. High inflation tends to erode prices of fixed-income securities such as bonds. ``It's now viewed the Fed does not have to overreact to the energy and food situation and it can probably continue to hold policy pretty steady,'' Wood said. In the secondary market for Treasury securities, prices of short-term government issues rose [ point to 5-16 point, intermediate maturities gained 13-32 point to 27-32 point and long-term issues climbed 29-32 point to 1 point, according to figures provided by Telerate Inc., a financial information service. The movement of a point is equivalent to a change of $10 in the price of a bond with a $1,000 face value. The Shearson Lehman Hutton Daily Treasury Bond Index, which measures price movements on all outstanding Treasury issues with maturities of a year or longer, gained 6.52 to 1,166.99. Yields on three-month Treasury bills fell to 7.99 percent as the discount declined 6 basis points to 7.74 percent. Yields on six-month bills slipped to 8.07 percent as the discount lost 7 basis points to 7.66 percent. Yields on one-year bills declined to 8.01 percent as the discount declined 7 basis points to 7.49 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. The yield is the annualized return on an investment in a Treasury bill. The discount is the percentage that bills are selling below the face value, which is paid at maturity. The federal funds rate, the interest rate banks charge each other on overnight loans, was quoted at 8\ percent, up from 8 3-16 percent late Thursday. In the tax-exempt market, the Bond Buyer index of 40 actively traded municipal bonds closed at 92\, up 9-16 point. The average yield to maturity fell to 7.38 percent from 7.43 percent late Thursday.
AP880404-0109 	X	Gov. Evan Mecham broke the law and lied about it to the state Senate, a prosecutor said today in urging the Senate to convict the impeached first-term Republican and remove him from office. Prosecutor William French said in closing arguments that Mecham broke the law in borrowing $80,000 from the governor's protocol fund for his auto dealership. ``He has violated the law ... He has uttered untruths to you,'' French said. Earlier, prosecutor Paul Eckstein accused Mecham of showing ``a lifetime of reckless disregard for the reputation of anyne who has stood in his path to political power.'' ``Respondent (Mecham) has demonstrated for all the world to see his plain inability to tell the truth,' Eckstein said. ``How much proof is required to demonstrate that respondent puffed, exaggerated, misremembered, dissembled and out-and-out lied.'' Eckstein said Mecham's conduct in office ``was not just offensive, it was grossly offensive.'' Senators must decide whether to convict Mecham on two impeachment charges issued by the Arizona House. A third charge was dismissed. A vote could come late today or Tuesday, climaxing five weeks of trial, lawmakers said. A conviction would force the first-term Republican out of office. The first impeachment count accuses the governor of trying to thwart an investigation of an alleged death threat by a state official. Mecham contended he did not intend to beak the law and that he was not fully informed of the seriousness of the alleged threat. ``Ignorance of the law is no defense,'' Eckstein told senators. But Mecham's defense lawyer, Fred Craft, told senators, ``You're being asked to politically assassinate the governor.'' ``He doesn't resign (as Mecham has been urged to) because he's not guilty of these charges,'' Craft said. ``He dares to right city hall and he's doing it at great cost to himself.'' Craft said in his closing argument that the allegation was based on a 90-second conversation with Department of Public Safety Director Ralph Milstead. Craft accused prosecutors of seeking to ``twist and torture it in such a way that it accounts for an obstruction of justice.'' As closing arguments proceeded, a trumpeter played ``Taps'' outside the Senate building as a group of men carried a mock coffin labeled, ``Herein Lies the Right to an Elected Governor.'' The prosecutor accused Mecham of making a number of statements during his Senate testimony that ``are either wrong'' or were contradicted by other witnesses. Among the examples cited by Eckstein was the governor's testimony, recanted a day later, that his former chief bodyguard had stolen a report from the governor's office. Nonetheless, Eckstein said, Mecham and Department of Public Safety Director Ralph Milstead gave ``remarkably similar'' accounts of their Nov. 15 conversation in which Mecham allegedly ordered Milstead not to cooperate with the attorney general's investigation of the alleged threat. Mecham admitted in Senate testimony that he told Milstead, ``The attorney general is out to get me and I'm not going to help him in any way.'' Mecham sat at the defense table during closing arguments. When he arrived at the Capitol, he was cheered by a group of well-wishers as he walked into the Senate building behind bodyguards. He said nothing but smiled and flashed a thumbs-up signal at the crowd. Mecham, 63, who took office in January 1987, has maintained he is innocent of wrongdoing. He also is accused of misusing $80,000 from the governor's protocol fund by loaning it to his auto dealership. Last week the Senate dismissed a third charge that Mecham concealed a $350,000 campaign loan, the subject of the governor's April 21 criminal trial. Some senators said hearing testimony on that allegation could have prejudiced his criminal trial. However, Democrats acknowledged that the real reason they favored dismissing the charge was to ensure a Senate trial verdict well before the scheduled May 17 gubernatorial recall election. A two-thirds vote of the 30-member Senate is required for conviction. Lawmakers also could bar Mecham from holding any future public office. If convicted, Mecham would become the seventh U.S. governor removed from office by impeachment. The prosecution contends the governor's protocol fund _ created with inaugural ball proceeds _ was a public fund and that Mecham Pontiac needed the $80,000 loan to meet its July 1987 payroll. However, the defense said the fund was private money and that the loan was intended merely to provide a higher interest rate for the fund. Mecham Pontiac was in good financial shape and could have borrowed the money elsewhere, according to testimony by the governor's son, Dennis, who is general manager of the dealership. But the day after he testified last week, Dennis Mecham announced the dealership was being sold. Sales had suffered due to the ``avalanche of negative publicity'' about the governor, he said. The allegation regarding the death threat has boiled down to Mecham's word against that of Department of Public Safety Director Ralph Milstead. He testified that Mecham ordered him not to cooperate with the attorney general's investigation of the alleged threat by state official Lee Watkins against former top Mecham aide Donna Carlson. At the time of the alleged threat in November, Ms. Carlson was about to testify before the state grand jury regarding the $350,000 campaign loan. Senators, meanwhile, said they knew how important the impeachment vote will be. If the governor is allowed to return to his job, ``I think there'll be terrible chaos in state government,'' said Minority Leader Alan Stephens, a Democrat. Lawmakers' own careers also may hang in the balance, some senators said.
AP901220-0009 	X	NASA's mission is ``probably more difficult than that of any other organization in the world,'' says a report by the advisory committee on the future of the U.S. space program. It offered this illustration of what makes the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration's job so tough: ``Each Voyager spacecraft has the electronic circuitry of over 2,000 color television sets, yet is required to work for 12 years while traveling from Earth to Neptune. ``The two Voyager spacecraft schedules were absolutely unforgiving, the planets in their paths aligning themselves only once every 176 years. Yet by the time Voyager 2 reached Neptune, 4.4 billion miles away and 12 years later, the spacecraft was a mere 22 miles off its charted course and only one second off its updated flyby time. ``Mechanical challenges are equally impressive. Each space shuttle contains some 300 miles of electrical wiring, over 3,000 feet of welds and over 2.5 million lines of software code. Its pumps propel 65,000 gallons (the capacity of a large swimming pool) through its engines each minute. ``The power turbine on the shuttle operates at a temperature of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. Just four feet away, the pump turbine operates at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit .... ``The Hubble Space Telescope involved a total of over 40 million hours of work. To process a space shuttle for flight requires that 1.2 million separate procedures be accomplished. ``Furthermore, NASA must do all that it does in the public spotlight - which is, of course, as it should be.''
AP900822-0011 	X	U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson and Gov. Mike Sullivan handily won their primary races Tuesday, while GOP gubernatorial candidate Mary Mead took an early lead in an unusual two-woman race for her party's nomination. With 154 of the state's 471 precincts reporting, Mead had 69 percent of the vote to state Rep. Nyla Murphy's 31 percent. Simpson, the Senate minority whip, was easily winning his third Republican nomination with 83 percent of the early vote. It wasn't clear which of six little-known Democrats would win the right to challenge Simpson. Kathy Helling, a 32-year-old college student, and Al Hamburg, who was convicted last year of forging names on a campaign petition, were the top vote-getters in early returns. As it was four years ago, Sullivan walked away with the nomination Tuesday. He got 88 percent of the early vote in his primary contest with motorcycle mechanic Ron ``Suds'' Clingman. The governor said he would have preferred to face stiffer competition. ``I have to say that when you watch people debating the issues on the other side, you wish you had some primary opposition so you could talk about the issues,'' said Sullivan. The hunt for the GOP gubernatorial nomination pitted Mead, 55, the daughter of former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Cliff Hansen, against Murphy, a 59-year-old Casper woman who has served the past 12 years in the state House of Representatives. Mead's campaign stressed her skills as a rancher and businesswoman and attacked Sullivan's economic development efforts. Murphy, in turn, accused Mead of having a negative attitude toward Wyoming and of failing to propose solutions to the shortfalls she perceived. Sullivan largely ignored the primary campaign and stuck close to his gubernatorial duties. U.S. Rep. Craig Thomas was uncontested in the primary. Elected last year to fill Dick Cheney's unexpired term in office, Thomas is seeking his first full-term in the House this fall. Also unopposed was his Democratic challenger, Pete Maxfield, a University of Wyoming law professor.
AP880728-0025 	X	Dartmouth College says ``bullying tactics'' aimed at a black professor by staffers of a stridently conservative student publication led to suspensions that are now the subject of two lawsuits. The Dartmouth Review's lawsuits accuse the college of reverse discrimination against white students and of violating free speech rights for suspending three of its staffers. The Review staffers were suspended following a confrontation in a college classroom with a black music professor who earlier had been harshly criticized in the independent, off-campus newspaper. Review attorney Harvey D. Myerson said ``the facts clearly indicate that the students would not have been given such draconian penalties if they were black students criticizing a white professor.'' But officials at the private liberal arts college in Hanover, N.H., said Wednesday the disciplinary action against the students was taken to preserve the ``integrity'' of the classroom. Described by its critics as anti-minority, anti-women and anti-homosexual, the Review often has been the center of controversy since it was founded in 1980. In March of this year, Dartmouth President David Freedman blasted the paper, calling its staff ``ideological provocateurs posing as journalists.'' The faculty censured it in 1982 as racist and sexist after a critique of Dartmouth's affirmative action programs, written in what was intended to be black dialect and headlined: ``Dis Sho' Ain't No Jive, Bro.'' In 1984, a Review reporter secretly tape-recorded a Gay Students Association meeting and published excerpts and the names of group leaders. A Dartmouth disciplinary panel ruled in March that the three Review staffers were guilty of disorderly conduct for failing to leave Professor William Cole's classroom after being asked to do so. The paper earlier had described Cole's music class as ``one of Dartmouth's most academically deficient courses.'' The paper's attorneys, who filed suits in federal and state courts in New Hampshire, announced the action at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday with support from three conservative lawmakers. Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., called the disciplinary actions ``nothing less than a crude assault on freedom of expression and political diversity on campus.'' ``The elite Ivy League academics constantly proclaim themselves the champions of free speech and diversity of opinion. Yet here, when a small band of students express a viewpoint offensive to the prevailing orthodoxy, the college comes squarely down on the side of suppression and harsh persecution.'' Humphrey was joined at the news conference by Sen. William Armstrong, R-Colo., and Rep. Bob Smith, R-N.H. A state suit filed in New Hampshire Superior Court addresses the free speech issue, while a federal suit filed in U.S. District Court focuses on the reverse discrimination charge. Dartmouth spokesman Alex Huppe, who attended the news conference, said the disciplinary action had nothing to do with First Amendment rights. ``The sanctity of a classroom is what this is all about,'' Huppe said. ``Dartmouth College has got to protect the integrity of a classroom. They went in there to disrupt his classroom.'' Huppe accused the students of using ``bullying tactics'' in their confrontation with the professor and their refusal to leave. After the classroom incident, Freedman, the college president, said the paper had been ``irresponsible, mean-spirited, cruel and ugly'' and that it was trying to poison the ``intellectual environment'' of the campus.
AP880928-0252 	X	A group of Washington lobbyists have formed the capital-based National Vintners Association to promote and represent in Congress the wine interests in the 43 producing states. The NVA, in addition to representing the approximately 1,300 wineries in this country, also is targeting for membership thousands more winegrape growers at the start of the production chain, according to association Executive Director Richard Feeney. The NVA ``is a national trade association based on Capitol Hill...because the wine industry faces serious threats from federal regulation, because NVA members need to have timely, accurate information from Washington,'' Feeney said. Feeney, a Congressional lobbyist and onetime director of the National Meat Association, said his direct connection with wine was from 1970-74, when he was partner in a wine importing business. Feeney said the association, only a few weeks old, had no intention of vying for supremacy with California's 54-year-old Wine Institute, which directly represents for 520 of the state's 770 wineries. Most other wine-producing states have no organization, said Feeney, contending, ``The fact remains that if a vintner in Virginia or Oregon wants to join a national organization, there ain't any.'' Feeney said he did not think many other wine-producing states had adequate liaison with Congress and federal agencies affecting the industry. Vintners are worried about what they see as a wave of prohibitionist feeling in America, expressed in new label laws, restaurant posting of toxicity warnings for pregnant women, new taxes, and a widespread anti-alcohol surge. One of the NVA's most ambitious programs will be to lobby Congress to change the way federal law regards winegrapes, said Feeney, who said lawmakers might be ready ``to look at wine differently.'' Unlike many other agricultural products, grapes grown for wine get no subsidy, and the end product is regarded an alcoholic beverage subject to regulation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Feeney said, ``the time has come for wine to take its place with other agricultural products'' and to share benefits enjoyed by ``commodities such as soybeans, beef, dairy products, catfish and pork.'' He said he wants wine looked upon as food, a desire that coincides with ongoing efforts of California's major vintners, principally Robert Mondavi, who is about to launch a privately financed pro-wine program.
AP880601-0169 	X	Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev paid tribute to President Reagan on Wednesday for retracting his characterization of the Soviet Union as an ``evil empire,'' but he blamed the American side for the failure to make more tangible progress at the fourth superpower summit in 30 months. In the first nationally televised Moscow news conference by a Kremlin leader, Gorbachev hailed the continuing U.S.-Soviet dialogue and said ``it is vitally necessary'' that his meetings resume after Reagan's successor takes office in January. In a good-natured, wide-ranging session with Soviet and foreign reporters, the Communist Party chief held forth for nearly two hours, alternately praising the tone of U.S.-Soviet dialogue while criticizing specific U.S. positions. Gorbachev noted that ``within the walls of the Kremlin, next to the Czar's gun, right in the heart of the evil empire,'' Reagan had responded, ``No,'' when asked if the Soviet Union still deserved the appellation he gave it in March 1983. Reagan explained Tuesday that his characterization, one of the most-quoted of Reagan's presidency, was made in ``another time, another era.'' ``We take note of this,'' Gorbachev said, drawing on an ancient Greek saying to add, ``Everything flows, everything changes.'' Gorbachev said his meetings with Reagan were ``in-depth and at times intense discussions right up to the last minutes.'' He described the talks as respectful and productive, but indicated emotions ran high at times, saying he and Reagan were ``standing up at the table'' to make their points. ``I think that the meetings once again demonstrated the fact that we are indulging in realistic dialogue,'' the 57-year-old Soviet leader said. Gorbachev said he believed a treaty cutting strategic nuclear weapons by 30 percent to 50 percent was still possible this year, despite the failure to break the logjam that has blocked progress toward an agreement since the Washington summit last December. Asked if he expected to meet Reagan again before the president leaves office, Gorbachev said it was unlikely unless there is an unforeseen breakthrough in the strategic arms talks. He said the United States rejected several Soviet proposals for inclusion in a 24-page joint statement issued on conclusion of the talks. Both sides agreed there should be no war between them, yet the Americans objected to describing their goal as ``peaceful coexistence,'' or even ``coexistence,'' Gorbachev said. Gorbachev's remarks were contained in a 50-minute opening statement followed by a question-and-answer session that ran about an hour with questioners picked by Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov from a show of hands of some 300 Soviet and foreign journalists. The general secretary reiterated his criticism of ousted Moscow party boss Boris Yeltsin, a one-time protege, and dismissed Yeltsin's suggestion that the Kremlin's No. 2 man, Yegor Ligachev, should resign. Last October, at a closed meeting of the Communist Party's policy-making Central Committee, Yeltsin criticized the slow pace of perestroika, Gorbachev's campaign to modernize the Soviet economy and society, and offered to resign. Gorbachev said Wednesday that his one-time protege, who had risen to non-voting membership on the ruling Politburo, was overruled by fellow members of the Central Committee. He said he had not seen Yeltsin's recent comments in interviews with Western television networks but would ``demand from Comrade Yeltsin explanations as to what it is all about and what he is after.'' As for Ligachev and reports he was being pushed from power, Gorbachev said ``no such problem exists'' with the man widely perceived as the leader of a conservative faction opposing Gorbachev in the Politburo. ``Perestroika will win out,'' he said of speculation that the reform movement could be in trouble. He also said he had heard no alternative to his reforms and concluded, ``There can be some maneuvers ... but we have undertaken irreversible change.'' Gorbachev, sitting at a table with key members of his summit negotiating team, dominated the session with a self-confident air. Speaking off the cuff much of the time, he made his points gesturing with his hands and flashing a smile. At one point, when he realized that some American correspondents couldn't understand because their translation devices weren't functioning, he directed a good-natured reorganization of the seating, telling Soviet reporters to take chairs where the earphones weren't working. Many reporters, including NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, whom Gorbachev singled out by name, stood up and switched seats in the just-renovated auditorium in the Soviet Foreign Ministry press center. The party chief indicated that the United States and Soviet Union had made a recent breakthrough in long-stalled conventional arms talks in Europe but accused the United States of ``incomprehensible maneuvers'' that scuttled any mention of that in the closing communique. Asked about the prospects for a fifth summit, Gorbachev said, ``I like the possibility for a meeting with just one problem, if we have an opportunity to achieve a treaty concerning offensive arms.'' He said the president's Strategic Defense Initiative was one sure obstacle, along with a dispute over limits on submarine-launched cruise missiles. Later he said he told Reagan the president's view that the so-called Star Wars program is strictly defensive was ``just not serious.'' Asked about the Middle East, Gorbachev said for the first time that as soon as an international conference on the region is convened, ``we are prepared to address ourselves to regularizing relations with Israel,'' severed in 1967. He cited the Afghanistan agreement as an example of what could be achieved if the superpowers worked together with warring parties to solve the conflicts, but noted that if Soviet forces now come under attack from rebels as they withdraw, ``we shall react accordingly and appropriately.'' On human rights, he said that when Reagan ``tried to persuade me to change my mind, I said, `Your explanations are not convincing ... I am not filled with admiration at this aspect of the visit.''' Reagan met with a group of dissidents and refuseniks during his five-day visit here but scrapped a plan to visit a family of would-be Jewish emigrants. Sources said the Soviets warned U.S. officials the family would never be permitted to leave the country if the Reagans followed through with their plan. After talking of what he called the contrary attitude of the United States on some issues, Gorbachev singled out economic relations. ``Authoritative parts of American business circles would like to do business,'' he said. ``They are faced with intimidation and all sorts of restrictions.'' He cited the Jackson-Vanik Amendment which links trade opportunities to emigration freedoms and said he told the president: ``Why should the dead drag on the coattails of the living? ... The amendment was passed in totally different circumstances a decade ago. We should base our policies on present-day realities.'' As he has before, Gorbachev described the agreement to eliminate intermediate range (INF) nuclear weapons as ``a watershed political event in the Soviet-American dialogue.'' Earlier, in remarks at the exchange of final INF papers, the Soviet leader summarized the proceedings as ``big politics ... worthy of new times.'' ``The era of nuclear disarmament has begun,'' Gorbachev said. In his news conference statement, Gorbachev was sharply critical of the U.S. stand on reducing the non-nuclear forces in Europe of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact. He said Reagan had rejected a Soviet proposal to exchange data on the troops as a first step toward a massive reduction, but ``the other side immediately tried to dodge the issue.'' Gorbachev said the United States engaged in ``incomprehensible maneuvers'' and ``we missed a chance to take an important step forward to a civil relationship.''
AP880812-0236 	X	A refusenik family was embraced by tearful relatives Friday evening as they arrived in Boston after gaining permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union after the Moscow summit. ``I'm overwhelmed with gratitude toward all the people who helped me all the 11 years,'' said Yuri Zieman at Boston's Logan International Airport. Zieman, his wife, Tatyana, and their 12-year-old daughter, Vera, were greeted by relatives and Jewish activists who worked to secure their exit visas. ``We'll drink champagne and I'll put them to bed, they didn't sleep for two days,'' said Zieman's older daughter, Galina Khatutsky, who emigrated in 1987 with her husband. ``I don't feel like it really happened because I was imagining it so many times,'' said Mrs. Zieman. ``It's still in a dream.'' U.S. diplomats said President Reagan had planned to visit the Zieman family at their Moscow apartment during the summit meeting to underscore U.S. concern for human rights in the Soviet Union. The visit was canceled after U.S. officials were warned it could jeopardize the family's chances of emigrating. After the summit, the Ziemans were told their request had been denied again, but a few weeks later they were granted permission to leave. Zieman, 49, a computer specialist who lost his job when he applied to emigrate in 1977, worked as a plumber until he became ill several months ago. Zieman had been told he was not permitted to leave the country for security reasons. He contended he never had access to state secrets and had no information that could threaten Soviet security. The Ziemans left Moscow on Wednesday and stayed in Vienna until they left for Boston. Khatutsky, of Boston, said her parents will stay in an apartment in suburban Belmont. A refusenik is a term applied to Soviet citizens _ usually Jewish _ who are refused permission to emigrate to another country. Among the gathering of about 30 people at Logan airport was Sheila Galland of the Waltham, Mass.-based Action for Soviet Jewry. She called the release of the Ziemans a victory for the refusenik cause but said much work remains. ``There are still people waiting 10 years, 12 years,'' Galland said. She called the decision to free the Ziemans, ``a P.R. ploy,'' for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
AP881007-0060 	X	Two American human rights groups claimed today that Filipino soldiers may be linked to the killings of five human rights lawyers and the harassment of a dozen others since last year. A report by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and Asia Watch, both New York-based groups, claimed President Corazon Aquino's government ``has failed to respond adequately'' to attacks on human rights lawyers and that victims of abuses were afraid to seek legal redress. The 28-page report cited the unsolved killings of five human rights lawyers, who were slain in separate incidents from October 1987 until last June. It said evidence existed that the military or military-backed anti-Communist vigilante groups may have been involved in the killings. The report by the two groups said more than a dozen other lawyers have been subjected to threats, harassment and surveillance since 1987. It urged the Aquino government to ``publicly and unambiguously express its commitment to the protection of human rights lawyers and its condemnation of the killings, threats and harassment.'' ``Victims of abuses are often afraid to pursue legal redress,'' said the report, written by Norman Dorsen, professor of law at New York University, and Nadine Strossen, visiting professor of law at New York Law School. ``Those who do, often discover that those responsible are shielded from prosecution by the local military detachment,'' the report said. There was no comment from the government on the charges. Mrs. Aquino has vowed to curb human rights abuses. But last month, she said it was unfair to blame the entire military establishment for abuses by a few of its members. The report was released two days after the London-based Amnesty International human rights organization claimed more than 100 leftists, trade unionists and social activists were slain in the Philippines last year because of alleged links to Communist rebels. Human rights groups here claim such abuses are continuing despite Mrs. Aquino's pledge to protect civil liberties after the 1986 ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos. During a human rights seminar here Thursday, military officials and civil rights workers clashed over the government's plans to deploy a new civilian militia, the Citizens' Armed Forces Geographical Unit, to help battle the rebels. Undersecretary of Defense Eduardo Ermita said the 160,000-member armed forces alone could not contend with the 25,000-strong New People's Army, Moslem insurgents and right-wing extremists. He said members of the new force would be carefully screened and would face court-martial for any human rights abuses. But Mariss Diokno, a prominent human rights activist, said the new force was ``anti-democratic'' and a step toward militarization that social activists hoped would be reversed following Marcos' ouster.
AP880505-0091 	X	A French assault team today stormed a cave in this French Pacific territory and freed 22 gendarmes and a prosecutor held hostage by Melanesian separatists. An official said 17 people were killed. Bernard Pons, minister for overseas territories in the conservative government of Premier Jacques Chirac of France, said the dead included two members of the assault team and 15 kidnappers. He also said two members of the assault team were seriously injured. Pons said the hostages were freed after ``a particularly violent battle'' in the nearly seven-hour assault on a network of caves in Ouvea, an island off the northeast coast of New Caledonia. The assault team attacked the cave with tear gas, forcing most of the approximately 30 kidnappers out, Pons told a news conference after returning from Ouvea, where he had traveled for the operation. The hostages freed themselves from their handcuffs before the attack after a key was smuggled to them by Capt. Philippe Legorjus, chief of an anti-terrorism squad. Legorjus had been captured during earlier hostage negotiations with the separatists, then freed to act as an go-between with French authorities. Legorjus made several trips to and from the caves during negotiations and was told that the hostages would be killed if he did not return. Legorjus also smuggled to the caves two pistols with which hostages defended themselves during the attack. ``Profiting from the smoke created by tear gas bombs, the hostages were able to escape through a chimney in the back of the cave,'' Pons said. Police said the injured were taken to a hospital in Noumea, capital of this island territory 1,300 miles northeast of Australia. In Paris, Defense Minister Andre Giraud said in a television interview that the kidnappers' chief was among those killed. Giraud told French radio that the attack was ordered by Chirac, with approval from President Francois Mitterrand, when negotiations with the kidnappers stalled. ``The situation inside the cave had become extremely dangerous,'' Giraud said. ``In any case, it was entirely intolerable that representatives of the forces of order might be held hostage.'' Jean-Marie Tjibaou, president of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, the main Melanesian separatist organization, said the operation was ``a hard blow for the Kanak people.'' ``This will not stop the determination of the Kanak people in their demand for independence,'' Tjibaou told The Associated Press by telephone from his home in Hienghene at the northern end of New Caledonia. Asked if he expected to be arrested, Tjibaou replied: ``It's always possible. It would be completely logical, since the government thinks there is no political claim but only a terrorist band.'' Authorities had imposed a near total news blackout for several days, cut communications with Ouvea and would not allow journalists to go there. The Melanesian kidnappers had demanded negotiations toward independence for New Caledonia, the French Pacific island territory. Fifteen of the gendarmes had been held since they were kidnapped from a police station on Ouvea April 22. Four gendarmes were killed in that attack. Legorjus and seven other hostages were seized April 27 as they sought to negotiate the release of the other hostages. The militants were demanding that French troops be removed from Ouvea and that a mediator be sent to arrange a referendum on independence for New Caledonia, a French territory since 1853. They also had demanded the cancellation of elections, which took place during scattered violence April 24. As a result of that election, Mitterrand and Chirac will face each other in a presidential runoff election in France on Sunday. New Caledonia has become an issue in the campaign. Of New Caledonia's 145,000 inhabitants, 43 percent are native Melanesian, known as Kanaks, most of whom desire independence. European settlers make up 36 percent of the population, with the rest Asian and Polynesian. This group generally would prefer to remain part of France.
AP900214-0207 	X	Here is a brief economic rundown of the countries collectively referred to as Eastern Europe:
AP900215-0134 	X	Two Navy jets collided over the Atlantic on Thursday, killing one pilot and injuring the other, authorities said. The planes were taking part in an exercise around noon when the accident occurred 70 miles southeast of Jacksonville, the Navy said. The pilot killed was flying a single-engine A-4F attack jet from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia, said Bert Byers, a spokesman for Cecil Field Naval Air Station. The pilot's identity was not immediately released. The other pilot, Cmdr. David R. Miller, 39, of Orange Park, was rescued and was reported to be alert and talking at a hospital. Miller was flying a twin-engine, single-seat FA-18 Hornet, a strike fighter. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
AP901113-0022 	X	The first all-woman team to strike out for the South Pole hopes to return from the stark polar laboratory with valuable data on how women react to extreme cold and monotony. ``For us, it's not just a ski rally. We are trying to complete a science project,'' Soviet expedition member Irina Gureva said Monday. ``We strongly believe that women can live in the South Pole and, alongside men, can carry out scientific research.'' The expedition of three Americans, one Japanese and 12 Soviets is scheduled to reach Antarctica on Nov. 23 to begin the 70-day, 800-mile trek on skis from the Soviet scientific station at Vostok to the South Pole. Along the way, scientists will gather data on the women's medical, biological and psychological reactions. ``The cold and wind will be something to contend with. The altitude is something we're not sure of,'' said Julie Hyde, an Outward Bound instructor in Ely, Minn. ``That's the kind of thing that makes me most apprehensive. The monotony of the vast whiteness is something I've never experienced before.'' Some scientists have argued that previous cold weather research on men should stand for women, but the expedition's researhers aren't convinced. ``We don't know that there is a difference. But how can you say there are no differences unless you've looked?'' asked Dolly Lefever, a nurse-midwife from Alaska who will be studying changes in the women's menstrual cycles. Studies by the Soviet scientists will be of greater scope. A team of doctors will test blood and other bodily fluids to determine how a woman's metabolism is affected by the extreme cold and physically demanding conditions. A psychologist also will monitor how the women handle isolation and interact with other team members. The expedition should hold fewer surprises for some of the Soviet members who participated in a 1988-89 Antarctic expedition. ``After returning to Moscow, we could not accept external disturbances. We became more sensitive to outside noises, loud voices, cars,'' Gureva said. Such research could give insight into other situations where people live in closed, isolated quarters for long periods, such as in space and in submarines. ``The expedition allows us to study the human stress factor in real circumstances,'' said Irina Solovyova, a Soviet psychologist and cosmonaut. Besides the scientific goals, the women also hope to bring attention to next year's International Antarctica Treaty signing, which will determine if the continent will remain a world park. ``We are hoping that Antarctica will remain as it is, not belonging to anyone. We hope that mining exploration there can be kept at a level that will keep Antarctica pristine,'' Hyde said. Some of the participants conceded that the length and dangers of the journey caused some stress in their families. Gureva said her 10-year-old daughter was at first upset by the separation but became enthusiastic about the trip after seeing stories about it in the Soviet press. ``I think it's useful for a child when their parents can fulfill something great in their life. I think it's a great example for them,'' Gureva said. ``As for husbands ... they are not very glad, but I think their love does not decrease.''
AP900514-0251 	X	The U.S. dollar closed mixed Monday against other major foreign currencies in European trading. Gold prices, meanwhile, were little changed. Currency dealers said news of a major loss by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's conservative Christian Democractic Union party in two state elections Sunday boosted the dollar against the mark. ``The election outcome wasn't really favorable for the D-mark,'' said a trader at a large European bank in Frankfurt. ``It looks like the dollar has recovered a bit from last week's weakness.'' European markets, however, didn't react to news that U.S. business inventories were unchanged in March, dealers said. The economic indicator was fully in line with expectations, they added. Traders predicted quiet trading before the release, later in the week, of several other U.S. economic indicators. The Japanese yen continued to recoup major losses suffered earlier this year, dealers said. One trader said the more stable Japanese stock exchange justifies a stronger yen. In Tokyo, the dollar fell to a closing 153.35 Japanese yen from 154.15 yen at Friday's close. Later, in London, it fell to 152.75 yen. In London, the British pound was unchanged from Friday's close at $1.6817. By midday in New York it traded at $1.68025. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Friday: 1.6442 West German marks, up from 1.6300; 1.3952 Swiss francs, down from 1.3955; 5.5430 French francs, up from 5.5096; 1.8472 Dutch guilders, up from 1.8330; 1,209.75 Italian lire, up from 1,200.40; and 1.1767 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1783. Selected midday dollar rates in New York, included: 152.845 Japanese yen, 1.6470 West German marks, 1.39475 Swiss francs, 1,209.60 Italian lire, and 1.17575 Canadian dollars. Gold bullion dealers said gold was locked in a narrow range and they predicted trading volume would remain thin. Gold rose in London to a late bid price of $369.75 a troy ounce, up from $369.05 bid late Friday. In Zurich, gold fell to $368.75 an ounce, down from $368.80 Friday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold fell 0.97 cents to close at a bid $369.10 an ounce. Silver bullion rose in London to a late bid price of $5.09 a troy ounce, up from $5.06 Friday.
AP900115-0084 	X	Czechoslovakia began talks today with the Soviet Union on the withdrawal of about 75,000 Soviet troops, and one source said Czechoslovak officials want at least half of the force out by May. On the eve of the talks, about 6,000 people protested in the town of Pohorany, demanding the entire Soviet force leave by Aug. 21 _ the 22nd anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reforms. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lubos Dobrovsky said last week that the Soviet forces should leave Czechoslovakia by the end of the year. ``The idea is to have them (Soviets) make a political commitment during these talks that all the troops will leave by the end of the year,'' the source said on condition of anonymity. ``The rough idea of the time frame on the Czechoslovak side is to see a 50 to 60 percent withdrawal by mid-May,'' the source said, adding the talks should focus on technical details of the pullout as well as its precise timing. No details emerged from the talks, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Evzen Vacek and his Soviet counterpart, Ivan Aboimov. The source said demands for the complete withdrawal before Aug. 21 were ``technically out of the question.'' He noted it took a year to withdraw 5,300 soldiers, 708 tanks and 200 planes from Czechoslovakia in 1989 as part of a Kremlin move to withdraw about 50,000 troops from Eastern Europe. A peaceful revolution in November and December toppled the hard-line Communist government. Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel is now president and Alexander Dubcek, the former Communist Party chief who sponsored many of the Prague Spring reforms in 1968, is head of Parliament. In another development today, a South Korean government delegation arrived in Prague to discuss establishing diplomatic relations, the state CTK news agency reported. The delegation was invited by the Foreign Ministry, CTK said. South Korea, which is staunchly anti-Communist, has established formal diplomatic ties with Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia in recent months. In December, South Korea and Czechoslovakia agreed to open trade offices in each other's countries.
AP880610-0239 	X	Gov. Roy Romer on Friday reluctantly recommended a permit for a dam that would guarantee a water supply for the growing metropolitan area at the cost of flooding a scenic canyon. ``Colorado should build Two Forks, in my judgment, only as a last resort,'' the governor told a packed news conference at the state Capitol. The proposed Two Forks dam and reservoir southwest of Denver would flood Cheesman Canyon, which Romer would like to see preserved as a state recreational area. ``I am challenging the state to find an alternate solution,'' said Romer, who attached attached several conditions to his recommendation and said he favored building a smaller dam and reservoir at Estabrook. Romer said the Two Forks permit was ``an insurance policy'' for metropolitan Denver to be used only if other water sources and conservation proved insufficient, which he said is unlikely. ``We do not need to sacrifice that canyon in order to have water,'' the governor said. The dam project was proposed by the Denver Water Board and a consortium of 42 metropolitan area water providers and municipalities. Proponents have portrayed the project as crucial to metropolitan growth. They project that the region's population will grow from its present 1.5 million to 2.5 million by 2035, outstripping its supply of water. Environmentalists and sportsmen say the project would needlessly wipe out 20 miles of trout fishing and recreation, and would threaten whooping crane habitat and irrigators along the Platte River in Nebraska. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must decide whether to issue a permit, and is accustomed to considering a governor's recommendation as an important factor. At the Corps of Engineers district office in Omaha, Col. Steven G. West said Romer's statement was ``one of great importance in the Corps' decision,'' which he expected in late summer or early fall. The 615-foot-high dam and 300-foot-deep reservoir would be built downstream from the confluence of the South Platte River and its North Fork, about 25 miles southwest of Denver. If permits for the project were issued immediately, it could be ready for use in 1995, providing 98,000 acre-feet of water to the area, officials have said. One acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons. Romer said he would recommend a 25-year shelf life for the project, meaning it could be built anytime during that period. Romer pegged his approval on several conditions, including the creation of a metropolitan-area water conservation program and a Metropolitan Water Authority to plan distribution of water supplies. He also would require a plan to replace lost wildlife habitat and recreational facilities if Two Forks is built. He also said he would seek a full study of his proposal to build a smaller dam and reservoir at Estabrook, about 20 miles west of Two Forks up the North Fork. ``Handing the decision over the Legislature to save the canyon is a cop-out,'' said Carse Pustmueller, Platte River coordinator for the National Audubon Society. ``We're extremely pleased that the governor endorsed the issuance of permits and the 25-year shelf life for Two Forks,'' said Ed Pokorney of the Denver Water Department. Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr said Romer appeared to want to have it both ways. ``Gov. Romer, I think, has been acknowldedged as somebody who is a great compromiser,'' she said. ``But with his statement today, I'd say he is a great fence-straddler.''
AP880902-0111 	X	The Soviets are expanding naval facilities in the Syrian port of Tartus and the neighboring island of Arwad to counter the U.S. presence in the Mediterranean, Israeli analysts said today. The Soviet Union's installations in Tartus include submarine and surface ship maintenance facilities and constitute the largest Soviet naval base in the Mediterranean, said Dore Gold of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. According to Aharon Levran, editor of The Middle East Military Balance published this week by the center, the facilities extend to Arwad island and include recreation facilities for Soviet crews. Gold said there was no declassified information available on the current or planned size of the Soviet base but said the general trend has been one of expansion at least since 1987. In addition, the Soviets use land installations in Syria for naval and air intelligence-gathering, the two analysts said in separate interviews with The Associated Press. Gold said that the main objective of the Tartus base expansion was to counter the presence of the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. The Soviets had to find new arrangements in the region after Albania shifted its alliance to China in 1961 and Egypt abrogated its friendship treaty with Moscow in 1976, he said. He said the Tartus facility was important for prolonged deployment of Soviet attack submarines in the Mediterranean. In an article published today in the English-language daily Jerusalem Post, Gold noted that the London-based Jane's Defense Weekly in May referred to Tartus as ``the primary maintenance facility for Soviet submarines operating in the Mediterranean.'' Levran said the Soviets have been using Tartus for at least five years and that the base's expansion apparently was a price Syria had to pay for purchasing Soviet weapons. In spite of the Kremlin's recent reluctance to supply Syria with advanced weapons systems, he said, ``Syria is still the Soviet Union's strategic asset in the Middle East.'' He said the base replaced the Soviet practice of using Mediterranean Squadron's mother-ships for maintenance. But he said the base was less important than the recently developed Soviet Far Eastern base in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. Syria's navy, Levran wrote in the 1987-88 Middle East Military Balance, ``underwent a radical facelift'' due to supplies, training and maintenance cooperation from the Soviet Union. The Soviet base in Tartus could ``create a problem'' for Israel in wartime because Israel may be reluctant to harm a Soviet-flagged facility, he said.
AP900628-0189 	X	The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-4 Thursday for a bill that would impose sanctions on Iraq because of human rights violations. The measure said the Iraqi government has ``systematically detained, tortured and executed'' thousands of citizens, depopulated Kurdish areas of the country and murdered and tortured children to punish their parents. The fate of the bill in the Senate is uncertain. The Bush administration has opposed the measure. The legislation would require the United States to oppose any lending to Iraq by international financial institutions and bar U.S. government credits to the country. That would cost Iraq $200 million a year in credits through the Export-Import Bank as well as even larger amounts in loan guarantees used to buy U.S. farm products.
AP900813-0074 	X	The White House said today its naval barricade of Iraqi ships is taking hold as the United States and its allies squeeze Saddam Hussein economically so the Iraqis cannot ``maintain their war machine.'' The Bush administration said bluntly today that even food would be withheld from Iraq. ``You don't give them the essentials that enable them to carry on the war,'' White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. In Saudi Arabia, where American troops are building a massive defense against any further Iraqi aggression, the acting chief of staff for U.S. troop operations told reporters, ``I think our position grows stronger with each day that goes by.'' As Maj. Gen. Don L. Kaufman spoke, the steady drone of planes brought more soldiers and hardware to the Saudi desert. Kaufman said planes were landing virtually every 10 minutes or so with their military cargo. On the economic front, Fitzwater said the sanctions endorsed by the United Nations are hurting Baghdad. ``The purpose of the embargo is to put the pinch of them,'' Fitzwater said in Kennebunkport, where President Bush is vacationing. ``We assess the impact of the embargo as excellent.'' He said the White House had ``obvious humanitarian concerns'' about prohibiting food imports into Iraq. But he added: ``The purpose of the sanctions and the embargo is to put the pinch on them. It seems fairly obvious to me you don't let foodstuffs and other things go in that are subject to the sanctions. The purpose is not to let supplies go in that allow them to maintain the war machine, allow them to maintain their aggressive takeover of Kuwait.'' Asked about reports that Jordan was allowing Iraqi shipments through, Fitzwater said, ``We are hopeful that Jordan will comply. They have said they will abide by the sanctions.'' Fitzwater also said the White House reported ``two or three ships in recent hours that have turned away or been turned away or at least have otherwise not landed with their cargo.'' An Iraqi tanker tried to dock at a Saudi terminal to take on oil, but was turned away by Saudi officials, diplomatic sources in the region reported. Bush and his top aides are avoiding the word ``blockade'' to describe a U.S. decision to use whatever means necessary to choke off Iraq's oil trade and imports of other goods, including food. But their intention was clear. ``I consider interdiction of shipping to be in accord'' with United Nations economic sanctions, Bush told reporters Sunday. ``No point getting into all these semantics. The main thing is to stop the oil from coming out of there and that is what we're going to do.'' Diplomatic sources at the oil terminal near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, said the Iraqi tanker al-Qadissiyah, which could carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil, failed in its attempt to moor Sunday night because three tug boats that normally would help have been taken out of the water. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tanker sailed away today, after its apparent attempt to defy a U.S. declaration that its warships would enforce a U.N. embargo aimed at forcing Iraq's Saddam Hussein to give up his forced annexation of Kuwait. Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, said on ``Good Morning America'' that Saddam should not try to make the Israeli territories a part of the Kuwait crisis. ``He is mixing the issues,'' the ambassador said. ``That is not an excuse for an Arab country to go an invade another Arab country.'' The United States intensified its military fortification of Saudi Arabia and the surrounding seas over the weekend, sending in Marine and Army air assault troops and shipping Patriot surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated air-deployed weapons to the region. Sources who disclosed the movements said Pentagon planners assumed that, in the event of an Iraqi attack, an initial air battle could be decisive. The commander of the U.S. military action, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, briefed reporters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on the logistical difficulties of transporting troops and backup equipment 7,000 miles by air and 12,000 miles by sea. Schwarzkopf said the Iraqis are ``dug in right now for a strong defense.'' ``We have built up a great deal of force over there now ... and if they do make an attack they are going to pay a price for it,'' he said. Schwarzkopf said troops would be on guard against terrorists as well as Iraqi guns and gas. An estimated 50,000 troops are committed to Saudi Arabia in the initial deployment, with contingency plans for a force up to 250,000. ``I would never tell you that the American forces that are there are 100 percent out of harm's way,'' the general said. Indeed, the Pentagon reported the first casualty of the military action on Sunday. Air Force Staff Sgt. John Campisi, a 30-year-old aircraft mechanic from Covina, Calif., was klled when he was hit by a truck on a darkened runway. While soldiers took up their stations in the Saudi deserts, the White House pressed forward with its economic isolation of Iraq. Secretary of State James A. Baker III said the United States would begin ``almost instantly'' to ``take measures that are necessary and proportionate in order to enforce the (United Nations) sanctions.'' Asked if the United States was mounting a naval blockade, Baker _ appearing on ABC-TV's ``This Week With David Brinkley,'' _ said: ``Let's simply say that we now have the ability, the legal basis for interdicting those kinds of shipments.'' He declined to use the word blockade. Bush, vacationing in Kennebunkport, Maine, said the U.N.-approved embargo ``gave us broad authority, working in conjunction with others, to do whatever is necessary to see no oil goes out.'' Asked if the United States would block shipments of food as well as oil, the president said, ``Just watch. Everything.'' The Washington Post today quoted a senior administration official as saying, ``We will fire on a ship if it won't stop. We'll do the usual things _ warn them off, fire a shot across the bow. But if it comes to that, there is no question what we will do.'' The U.S. pledge to stop the flow of goods in and out of Iraq came after Kuwait's exiled leader, Sheik Jaber Alahmed Al-Saba, asked that the United States take steps to ensure the U.N. economic sanctions take hold. As the Bush administration vowed to quarantine Iraq, Saddam, in a statement read by a spokesman on television in Baghdad, urged his people to prepare for hardships that may result from the international economic sanctions. He also linked any Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel seized the occupied territories from Egypt and Jordan in 1967. The White House ``categorically'' rejected Saddam's proposals, press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said, calling them ``another attempt at distracting from Iraq's isolation and at imposing a new status quo.'' Only the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait will satisfy the United States, he said.
AP900817-0139 	X	Swift criticism Friday did not keep Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos from repeating his assertion that students who don't speak English are not ready for public education. ``Parental involvement and language competency are basic,'' Cavazos told about 1,500 teachers and principals in this city on the Mexican border. ``If that child cannot speak English the first day of school, that child is not ready to learn.'' In a panel discussion later, South Texas superintendents criticized Cavazos, saying students were capable of learning in other languages. ``The comment that we heard this morning that students who are not speaking English are not ready to learn is a disabling comment,'' said Robert Zamora, superintendent of the La Joya school district. Later Friday, during a news conference across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Cavazos repeated the comment and added: ``We work with the parents, with the schools to prepare the youngsters in English so they will learn ... My final point that I always make is that they not forget that other language and that culture.'' Cavazos, former president of Texas Tech University, said he supports bilingual education, but that its goal should be encouraging students to speak English so they do not miss opportunities in the United States. It was not the first time Cavazos drew criticism from fellow Hispanics for his comments on Hispanic education. In April, the League of United Latin American Citizens criticized him for blaming Hispanic parents for the high dropout rate among their children. In March, he angered some Hispanic lawmakers when he told the state Legislature that money was not the answer to education problems. Cavazos repeated that stance Friday, saying that education could be improved by giving teachers more freedom and allowing local schools more control. ``The new bottom line in education is not how much do we need to spend by how much are our students learning,'' Cavazos said. He stressed that he was referring to public schools across the nation, not just in Texas, and acknowledged ``there have been some inequities'' in school finance in the state. In Nuevo Laredo, Cavazos and Mexican Education Secretary Manuel Bartlett Diaz signed an agreement calling for closer educational ties between the two countries. The agreement paves the way for a ``border conference'' on education next winter.
AP900505-0131 	X	Costa Rica and a group of U.S. banks signed an accord Saturday restructuring the Central American country's $1.8 billion commercial debt. The accord, which is expected to save Costa Rica $150 million a year, was signed by James Jardine of the Bank of America, and Eduardo Lizano of the Costa Rican Central Bank. Jardine acted as the representative of the creditor banks. President Oscar Arias hailed the agreement as an historic event that removes one of the main obstacles to his country's economic growth. Eduardo Lizano, president of the Central Bank, said earlier that under the agreement, Costa Rica will repurchase 64 percent of its commercial debt at 16 cents on the dollar. Costa Rica now will have until May 21 to pay $253 million to bring itself up to date in payments and repurchase the old debt. Costa Rica was one of the earliest countries to reach agreement in principle on new financing packages under a U.S. plan unveiled in March 1989 by Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. It focuses on enticing commercial banks to write off some of their loans to Third World nations or reduce the interest charged in return for guarantees that the remaining debt will be paid.
AP900323-0093 	X	Demonstrators protesting the United States' ``interventionist conduct'' in Central American hurled paint bombs at the U.S. Consulate on Friday, and two people were arrested, police said. One policeman was slightly injured in scuffles that broke out during the incident. Police spokesman Klaas Wilting said about 200 people took part in the protest. He said one or two paint bombs hit the consulate building near Amsterdam's famous Rijksmuseum. A spokesman for the demonstrators said the protest was aimed at ``recent U.S. interventionist conduct in Nicaragua, Panama ... and an imminent action in El Salvador.'' The spokesman was referring to U.S. government support for the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua and the U.S. invasion of Panama in December. In El Salvador, the United States backs the government in its civil war with leftist insurgents. The spokesman did not elaborate on his claim of ``imminent action'' in that country.
AP900212-0090 	X	A Coast Guard monitor on duty the night of the Exxon Valdez disaster testified today he could not have ordered the ship to change course even if he had seen it was headed for a rocky reef. Gordon Taylor said it would have taken the authority of a higher Coast Guard officer to order Joseph Hazelwood to make a course change. However, Taylor said the matter never became an issue because the Exxon Valdez vanished from his radar screen shortly before the accident. Taylor said he struggled to adjust the radar but could not bring the ship back into his viewing range. ``So when you left, it was off the screen, and you didn't see it anymore?'' asked Hazelwood attorney Dick Madson. ``That's correct,'' said Taylor, who went off duty at 11:45 p.m. on March 23. He said he notified the monitor who took over for him that the vessel was outbound but had disappeared from the radar. Madson has maintained that Taylor and Bruce Blandford, the monitor who replaced Taylor at the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic System on the night of the Exxon Valdez disaster, were not watching the radar screen. Madson says if they had alerted Hazelwood that his ship was moving perilously close to jagged Bligh Reef, the accident never would have happened. Scoring a key legal point, Madson won permission to raise the Coast Guard responsiblity issue after Superior Court Judge Karl Johnstone initially vetoed the tactic. Johnstone reversed himself after considering case law on the issue. But the lawyer was barred from exploring another matter _ whether Taylor and Blandford were using drugs or alcohol on March 24 when the accident happened. Blood and urine tests administered between 15 hours and three days after the grounding showed that Blandford had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit for driving and Taylor showed a small quantity of marijuana in his system. Johnstone called the marijuana issue ``a red herring'' but said he would reconsider admitting the alcohol test if Madson can show its relevance. Blandford's alcohol reading of .203 was recorded 15 hours after the Exxon Valdez went aground in scenic Prince William Sound. Hazelwood, 43, of Huntington, N.Y., is being tried on a felony charge of second-degree criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment, negligent discharge of oil and operating a vessel while intoxicated. The maximum penalty for conviction on all counts is seven years, three months in prison and $61,000 in fines. Prosecution witnesses have said Hazelwood spent much of the day before the accident drinking vodka at a bar in the port town of Valdez. But his shipmates said Hazelwood didn't appear drunk and appeared in command of his ship. The 987-foot tanker, which ripped open on the rocky reef, spilled nearly 11 million gallons of Alaska crude oil, killing thousands of birds and other wildlife and blackening hundreds of miles of rocky coast. Exxon says the cleanup has cost $2 billion so far.
AP881001-0010 	X	The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says presidents should be sworn in earlier because the 2{ months between Election Day and Inauguration Day creates an unnecessary ``period of vulnerability.'' ``The incumbent president no longer has real political authority and the incoming president lacks constitutional authority, and the whole world knows it,'' Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., said Friday. ``It is a period of vulnerability which can and should be eliminated.'' In a Senate floor speech introducing a resolution for a constitutional amendment, Pell said the change would eliminate ``10 weeks of crippled leadership'' and avoid an ``unhealthy and unnecessary situation.'' The senator wants to move up Inauguration Day for the president and vice president from Jan. 20 to Nov. 20. The constitutional amendment also would move the swearing-in day for Congress from Jan. 3 to Nov. 15. Pell has introduced similar measures in the past. With time quickly running out in this session of Congress, action this year appears unlikely. From 1793 to 1933, the swearing in of new presidents took place March 4. The 20th Amendment pushed it back to Jan. 20 beginning in 1937. Pell, who introduced the resolution along with Sen. William V. Roth Jr., R-Del., said the move also would avoid `@lame duck'' administrations in which officials might be ``tempted to expend funds, make contracts and grants and promulgate regulations that may be either politically motivated or inspired by sheer self-interest.'' Pell said the development of voting machines and instant election result tabulations eliminates the justification for the long lag time between elections and inaugurations.
AP900515-0072 	X	An attorney for retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk today challenged the admissibility of two photo lineups used to identify Demjanjuk as a sadistic death camp guard and convict him of Nazi war drimes. In his appeal before a five-judge Supreme Court panel, defense attorney Yoram Sheftel also attacked the trial court for failing to halt prejudicial press coverage of the trial. A three-judge panel in April 1988 found Demjanjuk, 70, guilty of committing crimes against humanity and crimes against Jews, and sentenced him to death. The trial judges accepted the testimony of survivors who identified the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk with the help of photographs as ``Ivan the Terrible,'' who operated gas chambers at Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. More than 850,000 Jews perished there in 1942-43. Demjanjuk claims he is a victim of mistaken identity and that he was incarcerated in German POW camps after being captured while serving in the Soviet Red Army. Sheftel began the appeal Monday by challenging the Israeli court's jurisdiction to try an extradited suspect for war crimes and accusing the trial judges of being biased. He expanded on the bias argument today, blaming the judges for the emotional atmosphere surrounding the trial, including a Dec. 1, 1988, attack in which a Holocaust survivor threw acid in Sheftel's face at a funeral. Sheftel suffered an eye injury and still wears dark glasses as a result. He said the assault followed a spate of inflammatory press accounts of the trial. He cited an article that questioned his credibility and readiness as a Jew to defend an alleged Nazi collaborator. ``This was a bloodletting report,'' Sheftel said. ``The court didn't intercede or say anything. After such reports, the message is that such an action (attacking Sheftel) would be heroic.'' He also disputed the admissibility of two photograph lineups. Aided by the photos, eight Treblinka survivors singled out Demjanjuk as the notorious guard ``Ivan.'' Sheftel displayed a poster containing blowups of the lineups and said there were seven flaws in the identifiction process. One lineup involved a page containing eight photographs, including a 1951 shot of Demjanjuk that he had filed with his application for a U.S. immigration visa. The second included a disputed picture of Demjanjuk from a 1942 identity card that the Soviet Union supplied to Israel. It purportedly is from the Trawniki camp, which trained death camp guards. Sheftel has claimed the Trawniki document is a forgery. He said today the photographs were improperly shown to the survivors. Demjanjuk, for example, was never called for an in-person lineup, Sheftel argued. He noted rulings in both the United States and Israel that a suspect should participate in person in criminal indentificaton procedures. Only if a suspect refuses should photographs be used, Sheftel said. Another flaw, Sheftel said, was that none of the other head shots in either lineup resembled Demjanjuk. Hair color, shape and size of faces were clearly different. ``It is like putting a photograph of a black suspect among seven white men. Where have you heard of such a thing?'' Sheftel said. Demjanjuk, wearing a brown prison uniform, sat flanked by two police guards and listened grim-faced to the daylong proceedings. His wife, Vera, and his son, John Jr., watched from the front row. Asked about the appeal's chances, John Jr. said he was hopeful. ``They have the courage to make a decision based on the facts and the law, and the conviction will be overturned.''
AP900816-0222 	X	Renewed worries about inflation and the Persian Gulf squeezed the financial markets Thursday, pushing stocks, bonds and the dollar lower. Gold and oil prices rose. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks fell 66.83 to 2,681.44, its lowest close since the Mideast crisis began. Stocks declining in price outnumbered advancing ones by about 4 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks. Analysts blamed a worse-than-expected government report on inflation and disappointing news about the Iraq-U.S. standoff. The Dow index dropped about 20 points after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose 0.4 percent, higher than the 0.3 percent most economists expected. Meanwhile, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein charged that President Bush has lied to the American people about the Middle East situation, and warned there would be American deaths in the region if the United States continues to intervene. Also, President Bush met with Jordan's King Hussein, but afterward the king said he had not made up his mind about complying with a United Nations embargo of Iraq. In addition, the king said he did not carry a letter from the Iraqi leader to Bush, as was previously reported. ``The market was expecting something positive from the meeting,'' said Yuichi Abe, a vice president in the New York office of Nikko Securities Co. International Inc. In the credit markets, interest rates rose and prices fell in nervous trading. The Treasury's key 30-year bond fell 1 23-32 points, or $17.19 per $1,000 in face amount. The bond's yield jumped to 8.92 percent from 8.76 percent late Wednesday. It was the highest yield since it flirted with 9 percent in early May. ``What you're looking at here are straight worries about inflation,'' said Lincoln Anderson, an economist for Bear Stearns & Co., a Wall Street investment firm. ``The CPI report was not a good one.'' Bond investors generally sell on bad inflation news because higher prices erode the value of fixed-income investments. In the oil market, the September contract for U.S. crude closed up 90 cents at $27.36 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, mostly on disappointment over King Hussein's mission. Crude oil's recent rise had stalled earlier in the week on news that King Hussein would meet with Bush and initiate a peaceful solution to the Gulf situation. The dollar, which seems to have lost some of its allure as a safe haven, tumbled to an all-time low against the German mark during U.S. trading. The dollar was quoted at 1.5525 marks in late New York trading, down from 1.566 marks late Wednesday and from 1.5645 marks Tuesday, the previous low in the modern mark's 42-year history. Gold prices moved in the other direction, rising $6.60 an ounce to $409.20 on the Commodity Exchange in New York.
AP880308-0204 	X	Winter wheat planted last fall for harvest this summer is in ``mostly good to fair'' condition in some of the nation's major production areas, a government report said Tuesday. The Joint Agricultural Weather Facility said wheat during the week of Feb. 29 through March 6 was not quite in such good shape in the northern Great Plains, Delta and Rocky Mountain states, however. ``Snow cover was virtually nonexistent in the central and northern Great Plain and Rocky Mountain states, but mild temperatures kept damage at a minimum,'' the report said. ``Snow, preceding freezing temperatures, prevented severe winter damage to small grain (including wheat) in eastern Kansas, northern Oklahoma, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio.'' Crop development by early March ranged from greening in Colorado to jointing of plants in Mississippi and Oklahoma, and heading in Arizona, the report said. The facility is operated by the departments of Commerce and Agriculture. Reports do not forecast actual production of crops, only the condition of fields and plants.
AP880829-0074 	X	Some 2,200 registered nurses from six hospitals will return to work this week after ending a four-week strike that at one point involved 4,000 nurses from eight hospitals, union officials said. Of the 1,200 California Nurses Association members who voted Sunday, 77 percent approved a new contract, which offers a 21 percent wage increase over 34 months. The pact differs little from one rejected 11 days ago. The nurses are set to return to work on Wednesday, said CNA spokeswoman Maureen Anderson. Although 10 other hospitals were unaffected by the walkout, hundreds of patients were inconvenienced as some of the struck medical facilities closed emergency rooms, delayed surgeries and consolidated many other services. While many nurses weren't elated with the agreement, they said they demonstrated labor solidarity. ``We've put this message out to the hospitals: That nurses are serious about the issues facing them and we intend to be listened to,'' said Mary Scheib, a CNA nurse at Mt. Zion Hospital. ``We're going to be continuing our efforts (to improve pay and working conditions) when we go back to work,'' she added. ``Today is really day one of organizing for 1991, when the contract expires.'' A proposed CNA contract voted down Aug. 19 by a 2-1 margin offered 20 percent over 36 months. CNA went into the strike Aug. 2 demanding a 21 percent wage increase over two years. Karen Henry, chief negotiator for Affiliated Hospitals, the group representing the affected medical facilities, said Sunday that the CNA contract ``accomplished the hospitals' bargaining objectives.'' She defined that mainly as avoiding large pay raises in a two-year period. Under the CNA contract, a dayshift nurse at top scale will make $21.99 an hour by the end of the contract, or $45,700 annually. The 1,700 members of Local 250 of the Hospital and Health Care Workers Union, who went on strike July 26, began returning to work Wednesday. They walked out mainly over health benefits. CNA's negotiating committee unanimously endorsed the latest contract. The latest proposal was an unsolicited offer submitted Friday to Affiliated. The two sides had not met at the bargaining table for nearly a week. CNA nurses struck at Children's, Marshal Hale, St. Mary's, St. Francis and Mount Zion hospitals in San Francisco and Seton Medical Center in Daly City. Local 250 accepted a contract last week that provides up to 6 percent pay raises for nurses and some other hospital workers over two years. Some other workers will not receive raises, but bonuses ranging up to $300 by the end of the contract. About 100 nurses and service workers remain on strike at French Hospital, where talks have been held separately. A settlement there is expected to be routine.
AP880324-0172 	X	The former Armed Forces Radio disc jockey portrayed by Robin Williams in the hit movie ``Good Morning, Vietnam'' says Hollywood distorted his original idea for a screenplay and his life. ``No, I did not try to meet girls on street corners. No, I did not teach American slang to the Vietnamese. No, I was not thrown out of Vietnam and to my knowledge, no Vietnamese friends of mine were Viet Cong,'' Adrian Cronauer told students Wednesday at Mississippi State University. But he praised Williams' performance, which has been nominated for an Academy Award. Cronauer, 49, a law student at the University of Pennslyvania, bellowed ``Goooood Mooooorning, Vietnam'' at the beginning of his popular ``Dawn Buster'' 1965 Saigon radio show. His trademark sign-on was adopted by succeeding Saigon DJs, including ``Wheel Of Fortune'' host Pat Sajak.
AP901124-0058 	X	Northwest Airlines is offering flight attendants two free first-class tickets anywhere in the world for reporting as scheduled for holiday duty. It's an attempt to cut down on sick calls over the holidays. In a recent letter to workers, Northwest in-flight services chief Lloyd Warren thanked flight attendants in advance for reporting for holiday duty. And as ``a token of our thanks,'' Warren said, two free round-trip tickets in first-class seating would be given to flight attendants who report as scheduled between Dec. 15 and Jan. 1. Northwest employs more than 8,000 flight attendants. To qualify, workers must be scheduled for flights on Dec. 24, Dec. 25, Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. Service charges that normally accompany worker flight-pass privileges would be waived. Northwest spokesman Doug Miller said that last year, flight attendants were offered a $100 cash bonus for working through the holidays. Miller said the offer does not reflect a problem with holiday sick leave in the ranks of flight attendants. ``It's just that when we're in crunch time like we are around the holidays, every single person is key to our success,'' he said.
AP881111-0008 	X	A lament by Connecticut's poet laureate about his village grocery store may have lost the store. ``November Ode,'' a poem by James Merrill, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, has won him some admirers in the old center of this eastern Connecticut community, but also the animosity of the grocer and others who found his portrayal unfair. Merrill said his work was, in many ways, a generalized commentary on how community life everywhere has declined with the disappearance of small neighborhood stores and shops. While several people called him to say how the poem ``expressed their own feelings'' about life in Stonington, Merrill said the controversy has left him ``wondering if I shouldn't go back to incomprehensibility, which I have been accused of.'' To those who live in Stonington borough, which has fewer than 3,000 residents, there is no mistaking the ``dear dim local grocery'' mentioned unflatteringly in the poem. It is Roland's Market, the borough's last grocery. There are also other references to life in the borough, which was established in 1752 and is part of the town. Once a fishing village and major port, its late 18th- and early 19th-century homes and shops have been rehabilitated and there are a number of antique stores for visitors. Ronald Albamonti, 39, is the first to admit that life is changing in the borough, and that at the market, ``things just haven't been the same'' since his father, Roland, died last year and he took over. But he said he was deeply hurt by Merrill's poem, which he views as a personal attack. The poem reads, in part: ``The son picked to succeed him never lived up to the seigneurial old man. Yet his clientele kept brightly toeing the line of least resistance, taking with a grain of salt (Aisle 3) all talk of heavy drugs and light women, closing Republican eyes to dead mouse and decimated shelves, the padded statement ...'' With three large supermarkets within 12 miles of the borough, Albamonti said he decided to make Roland's more like a deli than a full-service grocery. The poem was the final straw for Albamonti. Gauging that the public generally shared the sentiments expressed by Merrill, Albamonti said he reached a tenative agreement this week to sell the business and the property. If the store is closed and the two-story building used for another purpose, Merrill's poem, written a year ago and published last month in The New York Review of Books, will have proven itself to be prophetic: ``Plainer than day was how, next summer, this prime square footage would be developed in the usual way.'' Merrill, who lives only two blocks from Roland's Market but hasn't been back to the store since the poem controversy erupted, moved to Stonington from New York City in the 1950s, partly to be part of a small community. At Keane's newstand a block from Roland's Market, Francis Keane, 78, who has been selling newspapers in the borough for 50 years, said some customers thought Merrill had been unfair in his criticism of Ronald Albamonti. At the same time, he said he agreed Merrill was right when he spoke of the decline of community life. ``It was a reflection of what is happening in small towns. It is a different environment now. Years ago everybody was more friendly and stayed in town. Now they come here just to sleep and eat and then go off in their cars to work,'' he said.
AP881006-0128 	X	With memories still fresh of a bridge collapsing into a rushing creek and killing 10 people, Gov. Mario Cuomo is asking voters to approve the biggest bond issue in New York history to repair roads. The $3 billion bond issue on the ballot Nov. 8 comes five years after voters agreed to Cuomo's proposal to borrow $1.25 billion to ``rebuild New York.'' With the money from the earlier bond issue due to run out in March, New York has 1,600 miles of highway deemed to be in poor condition by its inspectors, 660 miles of roads too small to handle the traffic and 7,400 bridges rated unacceptable. ``Everybody concedes the need,'' said Cuomo. ``I hear no one arguing (against) the absolute necessity of investing billions and billions of dollars in our roads and bridges.'' A coalition of construction and labor officials supporting the bond issue is reminding voters of the April 1987 collapse of the New York State Thruway bridge over the rushing Schoharie Creek west of Albany. ``Where will you be the next time the worst case happens?'' asks one TV commercial. Conservative rural upstate politicians, the New York chapter of the American Automobile Association and the New York Farm Bureau are among the opponents of the bond issue. They agree roads are in disrepair but are pressing for a pay-as-you-go system with New York dedicating all highway, gasoline and automobile-related taxes and fees to road construction and repair. ``Borrowing begets borrowing,'' said James McGowan, vice president of the 1.8 million-member state AAA. ``The '83 bond issue begat the '88 bond issue. Then where do we go? The next logical step is for a $7.5 billion bond issue in 1992 and then maybe a $15 billion bond issue in 1995. That's the way we're going.'' Cuomo has told New Yorkers that if enough of them don't vote ``yes'' in November, they may face an increase of as much as 20 cents on New York's 8-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax to pay for needed highway work. AAA officials contend taxes will have to be raised anyway. ``The enormous costs of the debt service from the bonds are going to have be borne by somebody,'' said McGowan.
AP881115-0063 	X	Researchers have discovered small quantities of a radioactive substance in material dredged from Savannah Harbor about 100 miles downstream from the Savannah River Plant. Cesium 137, a radioactive isotope, was found in material taken from the harbor and dumped on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, which forms the border with Georgia. Tests found tiny amounts of the material, insufficient to create a health hazard, The Charleston News & Courier reported today. The tests were done for the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department by researchers at the University of Georgia. The wildlife agency is sampling dredged material for pollutants because of water quality problems believed to be caused by industrial discharges into the river, agency officials said. Cesium 137 is produced as a byproduct of nuclear fission, and is generally associated with radioactive waste. It emits beta and gamma radiation, both of which can produce a variety of ill effects, depending on the dosage. Lou Gordell, acting director of the U.S. Department of Energy's environmental division at the nuclear plant, said he had not been informed of the study results, but acknowledged Monday that the material probably originated at the Savannah nuclear plant. The complex near Aiken produces the radioactive materials plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons. The government-owned plant has been under scrutiny in recent months since it was revealed that a series of accidents at the site over the past 30 years went unreported to the public. Gordell said sediment tests in Savannah Harbor for a 1984 study showed traces of Cesium 137, and that recent monitoring upstream found similar traces both in the water and river sediment. Much of the material leaked from SRP apparatus in the 1950s, but some is the result of continued discharge into the river, Gordell said. The level of contamination is far below EPA's maximum allowable level for drinking water, he said. Savannah and Beaufort-Jasper counties pump water from the Savannah River for drinking water. Traces of tritium also are found in the river, but also are below the maximum allowable levels, Gordell said. Cesium 137, with a half-life of 30 years, persists in the environment longer than tritium, with a half-life of 12 years. A half-life is the time it takes half the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. The Savannah Harbor is periodically dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain its depth for the port of Savannah.
AP881214-0143 	X	The Soviet Union has notified the United States it is destroying radar facilities at Gomel that President Reagan told Congress violated a superpower arms control treaty, the State Department said Wednesday. However, the installation at Krasnoyarsk remains in dispute. Department spokesman Charles E. Redman again called for its destruction. Redman said the United States would not reciprocate for the Soviet decision on Gomel. ``A violation is a violation,'' he said. Reagan claimed in his report to Congress last week that portable equipment had been moved to the Byelorussian city in violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty limits U.S. and Soviet radar on the theory a nuclear attack is less likely to be launched if devastating retaliation would follow. Redman said destruction of the Gomel radar ``when fully carried out and verified will satisfy our concerns regarding the illegal deployment of these radars.'' The Soviets informed the United States that destruction of the Gomel installation began last Friday, according to a U.S. official who spoke only on condition of anonymity. Redman said the Soviet decision underscored the importance of continuing the Reagan administration's policy ``of firmness'' with regard to Soviet treaty violations. ``However,'' Redman said, ``the more crucial issue of the Soviet violation at Krasnoyarsk remains unresolved. The Krasnoyarsk radar is a significant violation of a central element of the ABM treaty, which will continue to make it impossible for the US to conclude any future strategic arms agreements.'' The two sides had agreed in Geneva last month to resume work on a treaty o sharply reduce long-range nuclear bombers, missiles and submarines. Redman rejected again a Soviet proposal to turn the Krasnoyarsk installation in Siberia into an international space research facility. ``It would not remove the treaty-prohibited radar capability,'' he said. ``Nor would it restore the lead time'' the Reagan administration contends Krasnoyarsk would provide for mounting a defense against U.S. ballistic missiles. ``What the Soviets propose would allow them to move forward with work on the illegal radar, with no guarantees that the `international scientists' could not be expelled at a moment's notice,'' Redman said.
AP880414-0258 	X	U.S. Commerce Secretary C. William Verity on Thursday voiced opposition to suggestions that the Soviet Union should be allowed to join an international trade organization. But Verity said the U.S. government's opposition to Soviet participation in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) could change as the Soviet Union moves toward a market-oriented economy. Some American businessmen supported admitting the Soviets to the group. Verity spoke at a news conference after signing a protocol endorsing joint Soviet-American business ventures. In September 1986, the United States led the opposition to a Soviet effort to join GATT, a 95-nation group that sets international trading rules. ``It would be inappropriate, perhaps impossible, to make any progress if the Soviet Union was a member of GATT,'' Verity said. But he added that ``in time, as the Soviet Union moves towards a market economy, that would be different.'' Verity said Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's ``perestroika,'' or restructuring program, is designed ``to move the Soviet economy toward a market economy, and that is important to the Soviet side and to all other nations of the world who would like to see movement in that direction.'' Verity's trip to Moscow comes in advance of President Reagan's five-day visit to the Soviet capital scheduled to begin May 29. Trade frequently comes up during summit talks with Gorbachev, who wants access to American technology and services to help improve his country's ailing economy. Verity and Alexander I. Kachanov, Soviet first deputy minister of foreign economic relations, signed a protocol adding joint ventures to the types of cooperation encouraged by a 1974 trade agreement. Verity's three days of talks with Kachanov coincided with a Moscow meeting of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council, which attracted more than 400 American businessmen. Seven major U.S. companies said Wednesday they formed a consortium to work out business deals with the Soviets. Another company, Honeywell Inc., announced a joint venture on Monday to supply automated production controls for Soviet fertilizer factories. Verity said he stressed to Soviet officials that improvements in trade depended on Soviet easing of emigration restrictions. He said the Soviets had agreed to ``marketing glasnost,'' using the Russian word for openness that characterizes Gorbachev's drive for freer expression.
AP901128-0085 	X	Nov. 24 The Capital Times, Madison, Wis., on Congress: Here's a saga of pettiness and arrogance run amok. Last February, the in-house magazine of the National Park Service contained a column by the agency's legislative specialist. The column began by needling Congress for raising its members' pay. That offended the congressional staff member who handles the agency's budget. When Park Service officials learned that Neal Sigmon of the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee was upset, they went out of their way to apologize to him. A lot of good it did them. When the House and Senate worked out a compromise version of the Interior appropriations bill for the coming year, $75,000 was deleted from the Park Service budget - the $75,000 allocated for publishing the magazine. On the record, everyone claims to be mystified by the deletion. Off the record, one congressional staff member said, ``From time to time, signals are sent to agencies when they've been bad.'' It did not seem to matter whether or not the in-house newsletter served a useful function in communicating with Park Service employees who, of course, are scattered all across the country. All that mattered was that a congressional staff member felt that congressional pride had been wounded. --- Nov. 22 Roswell (N.M.) Daily Record on Congress: Despite all the talk about American voters throwing the bums out of Congress on Nov. 6, fully 96 percent of House members and 97 percent of senators who sought re-election were victorious. ... Members of Congress are so entrenched that there literally is more turnover in the Supreme Soviet. And this undemocratic situation will continue as long as big money corrupts the electoral process. ... The cleanest way to put an end to vote buying by special interests is to outlaw political action committee contributions in federal elections. If a flat ban proves to be unconstitutional, there should at least be strictly enforced caps on such contributions. No less important a reform is shutting down the soft-money system that enables political parties to launder large contributions through generic get-out-the-vote drives. These efforts are unfair because they almost always benefit incumbents. Also, let's end the widespread abuse of the congressional frank, or free mailers, at election time. --- Nov. 22 Daily News, Los Angeles, on Michael Milken: Michael R. Milken learned a tough lesson ... : The more power you get, the more you are obliged not to abuse it. U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood said essentially that in handing out a stiff, but appropriate, sentence of 10 years in prison to the former junk-bond financier, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to six felony charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. ... Legitimate investors can do without the contempt for the rules that Milken brought with him in his pursuit of profit. Whatever contributions Milken made to the financial world, those were offset by a combination of greed, ego and deceit that turned securities markets into personal playgrounds for the unethical. --- Nov. 24 The Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin on legal services: A recent issue of The Economist, the British news weekly, said of the ever-growing demand for legal services in the United States: ``Much of the `demand' for the output of this swollen industry is created not by clients but by other members of the (lawsuit) industry, as if doctors went around injecting diseases for other doctors to cure. Is this really a boost to living standards?'' That's a good question, to which we suspect the answer might be no. So it's a good sign for our economy that at least some big American companies are trying to do something about this disease. The same magazine enthusiastically reports that earlier this month the chief executives of 17 of the country's biggest companies sent out a group letter urging their fellow executives ``to negotiate and settle (disputes) early before litigation takes on a life of its own.'' ... The endless use of lawsuits, threatened and actual, to resolve disputes in our society has diverted time and money from what are usually more productive ends. Let us hope that in taking a pledge to try to avoid litigation, big business provides some useful suggestions to individuals of the numerous ways in which arguments can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction without lawsuits. An America with less litigation would probably be a richer and happier country. ---
AP900324-0007 	X	The Bush administration has its first payoff after 10 months of pressuring the Japanese to buy more American products, but members of Congress are warning much more needs to be done. The administration announced Friday an agreement designed to boost sales of U.S.-manufactured supercomputers in Japan by removing some restrictions imposed by the Japanese government. The agreement, which is expected to be formally signed in April, should open a $130 million-market for supercomputers purchased by Japanese universities and other government agencies. The breakthrough came late Thursday night following two days of intensive negotiations. U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills said the new pact ``should give us full and effective access'' to the Japanese government market. It marked the first success for the administration since it put Japan on a ``hit list'' last April of countries accused of erecting unfair barriers to sales of American goods. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, in Los Angeles for talks Friday with Japanese Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, said that with the agreement, ``We're showing that we can make some progress.'' Supercomputers were among three product areas singled out for negotiations. Little progress has been reported so far in talks on American-made satellites and wood products. ``Are (supercomputer concessions) all we want?'' Brady said. ``No. Are we going to get more? Yes. When, I can't say. I hope soon.'' The Japanese are facing a June 19 deadline to show a willingness to open their markets or face possible U.S. retaliation in increased tariffs on Japanese products sold in America. Members of Congress have been pushing the administration to take a tougher line in the trade negotiations with Tokyo, pointing to the $49 billion deficit the United States is running with Japan. That is close to half the total U.S. trade deficit last year. Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., said the supercomputer agreement was encouraging but would have to be followed by increased sales. ``Japan must recognize that promises without performance are simply unacceptable,'' Danforth said. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., noted a 1987 agreement by the Japanese to buy more American supercomputers had not produced results. He said U.S. negotiators shouldn't declare victory too soon. ``Nonetheless, progress is always encouraging. I hope this is a sign that the United States and Japan can jointly work out their trade frictions,'' said Baucus, who is chairman of the Senate Finance trade subcommittee. In addition to the product talks, the administration is conducting separate discussions on broader structural impediments to trade such as exclusionary Japanese business practices. Brady met with Hashimoto as a follow-up to trade discussions held by President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu. A U.S. trade official, briefing reporters in Washington on Friday, said the Japanese showed new urgency in the latest round of computer talks, apparently reflecting the impact of the Bush-Kaifu meeting. ``Their negotiators came with instructions to make a deal,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``We hope the Japanese will perceive the same kind of guidance in the other issues.'' Negotiators handling the structural impediments talks met at a remote hideaway in the Virginia countryside earlier this week in advance of more formal discussions in Washington April 2-3. However, U.S. officials said the discussions near Warrenton, Va., failed to make any progress. There have been reports from Tokyo that Kaifu is preparing trade concessions in these areas in hopes of dampening growing protectionist sentiment in Congress. Under the computer agreement announced Friday, the Japanese promised to open the procurement process for supercomputers to foreign firms and to base government purchase decisions on quality as well as price.
AP881118-0010 	X	The head of America's Roman Catholic bishops declared, ``We are in a most serene time,'' even though they had just ended a week that included open dispute with the Vatican and revival of their sniping at the government. Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis was referring in particular on Thursday to the U.S. church's relations with Pope John Paul II and the Vatican. He pronounced the pope ``bullish on the church in the United States'' and dismissed public spats with Rome as merely ``signs of a church that is essentially open.'' In fact, he and fellow members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops seemed little troubled by any of the controversy that swirled about them during their annual meeting that concluded Thursday. During the week, the bishops: _Took on the Soviet Union, decrying ``sustained and comprehensive'' religious persecution in Eastern Europe and encouraging the U.S. government to hold out prospects of better overall relations as an incentive to win greater religious freedom. _Blasted a U.S. immigration law they say leads employers to discriminate in hiring and firing Hispanics out of ignorance concerning potential penalties. _Criticized the Reagan administration for sending out thousands of foreclosure warnings to family farmers a week after the presidential election and just before the holiday season. _On their own turf, accepted but only grudgingly a Vatican intervention that kept them from voting on guidelines they had prepared for resolving disputes with theologians. _Approved rules for lay preachers that either, according to which bishop you asked, made it easier for lay men and women to preach during masses or took one more slap at Catholic women by reiterating that they may not give the main sermon interpreting the gospel. _Finally, sent back a Vatican draft document as ``unsuitable as a basis for discussion,'' thus rejecting both the scholarship of the draft and its contention that national bishops conferences have no real authority in the church. May had started the week by congratulating President-elect George Bush but then in the next breath assuring him the bishops would continue to speak out on public issues and not ``only in praise and appreciation.'' ``We are sometimes criticized for being too concerned about the world, of pursuing an agenda that in the minds of some critics is secular, leftist or in some way `ideological,''' May said. But he added that the pope's own example showed it is not possible to have ``too much social consciousness.'' On Wednesday, former conference president John Roach, bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, was asked about the arguing that preceded passage of the bishops' response to the Vatican document on conference authority, and about the relatively high number of ``no'' votes _ 59 among the 264 voting. He acknowledged differences of opinion within the organization, and suggested some of the negative votes might have included bishops getting a secret-vote chance to ``take a shot'' at the recent past presidents who prepared the response. But in proclaiming the bishops' serenity on Thursday, May said there was no big dispute with the Vatican. And he quoted the pope to support his own contention. ``The pope is bullish on the church in the United States _ that's what he says,'' May declared. In recent meetings with U.S. bishops, the pope had said, ``You are a superpower,'' May told reporters. He said the pope merely asked the Americans to weigh their words with the knowledge that ``the church in the United States has tremendous international influence, and the people of the world watch what is said there.'' ``There are disagreements from time to time'' with the Vatican, May said, but he added that he didn't see them ``as a tug-of-war or an ongoing fight or crisis or any of these words that are used.'' He said the pope often uses the term ``solidarity'' in regard to the church helping build bridges with the people of the world, including the most vulnerable as well as the powerful. This year's bishops' meeting was significant, May said, partly because ``we tried to demonstrate solidarity across an amazingly broad spectrum.'' Such efforts, he suggested, indicated the conference was alive and well, whatever the final draft of the Vatican document might say as to its theological authority.
AP900210-0046 	X	Eight bombs exploded today in the stronghold of Moslem militants seeking independence for the Himalayan valley of Kashmir, authorities said. No one was injured. Authorities said the blasts, at two banks, a post office and other shops and businesses, occurred hours after fire swept through a shopping complex in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state. No one claimed responsibilty for the explosions. Police said they believe the blaze was an accident since it occurred before dawn while a curfew was still in force. But other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed the fire and the bombs on the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, the militant group leading the four-decade-old drive for the country's only Moslem majority state to secede from predominantly Hindu India. India routinely blames neighoring Pakistan of arming, training and supporting the militants. Pakistan denies the charge but says the Kashmiri people have a right to self-determination. At least 82 people have been killed since Jan. 20 in frequent street clashes between militants and security forces in Srinagar and adjoining areas. Most of the victims have been protesters shot while defying curfew imposed by government forces to stem rising violence. The curfew was relaxed during the day from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., except in the areas where the explosions occurred. Kashmir, once a princely state, was divided between India and Pakistan after the two countries were partitioned following the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Srinagar and the surrounding areas of the valley became part of Jammu-Kashmir. Sixty-four percent of the state's 5 million people are Moslems, but Moslems make up 12 percent of the 880 million population nationwide. Kashmiri militants had earlier campaigned for union with Pakistan, which claims Kashmir because of its predominant Moslem population, but the militants now demand independence and the status of a neutral country. India has fought two wars with Pakistan over Kashmir.
AP900621-0117 	X	Atlantis' five astronauts on Thursday successfully completed a test that simulated an engine start and cut off moments before liftoff, NASA said. The shuttle is scheduled for a secret military mission in mid-July. NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said the two-day drill went smoothly. The countdown clock was stopped at four seconds before the mock liftoff. On Monday, Atlantis was moved from the hangar to the launch pad previously occupied by Columbia. Columbia was returned to the hangar last week for repair of a hydrogen leak that has delayed the shuttle's astronomy mission until at least mid-August. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to conduct a special tanking test on Wednesday, partly filling Atlantis' external tank with super-cold liquid hydrogen to make sure there are no leaks. A similar test was performed on Columbia a week after a hydrogen leak was detected during fueling for a May 30 launch. A launch date for Atlantis will be set at the conclusion of a two-day flight readiness review on June 28 and 29.
AP880322-0040 	X	Strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega has offered to resign before next year's presidential elections if opponents agree to talks with his regime, Panama's chief of state told his countrymen Monday. The opposition, whose general strike Monday paralyzed the nation, and the United States, which has kept up steady pressure to force a Noriega resignation, immediately rejected the general's offer. Elections are scheduled for May 1989. ``There will be no dialogue,'' said Aurelio Barria, the main leader of the National Civic Crusade, an anti-Noriega coalition of 200 business, professional, labor and political groups that called the indefinite work stoppage. He added: ``The general has to go _ immediately, not eventually. The strike will continue.'' Manuel Solis Palma, installed last month as the minister in charge of the presidency, made the announcement of Noriega's offer in a nationally broadcast speech. He said Noriega had given his word ``as an officer and a gentleman'' to step down if his conditions are met. In Washington, State Department spokesman Anita Stockman said: ``We believe the offer is little more than one, a ploy to attempt to legitimize the illegal Solis Palma regime by calling for negotiations between it and opposition groups and two, an effort on the part of Noriega to maintain direct or indirect control of the Panamanian Defense Forces. ``We stand by our previous view that Noriega should go, and the sooner the better for Panama.'' Noriega is under indictment on federal drug charges in Florida. The United States has dried up the flow of money to Panama, which uses the U.S. dollar as its currency, in the effort to force him out, and the economy is near collapse. The general put down a coup attempt by dissident officers last week and rejected a U.S. plan for him to leave Panama and live in Spain. In Washington, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said earlier Monday that there were no plans for further talks with Noriega after the return of two administration officials from Panama City. ``I think they have a pretty good reading of the general's attitude,'' Fitzwater said. ``It didn't seem to include further conversations, at least at this point.'' The strike included Panama City's central commercial district, where the small shops that cater to the lower and middle classes had not joined previous shutdowns by wealthier businesmen and industrialists. ``We're sending Noriega a message,'' said the owner of a shoe store, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. ``We hope he's listening.'' Noriega commands the military and police as head of the 15,000-member Defense Forces and is the power behind the civilian government. The secretary of the Panamanian Human Rights Foundation said a man died Monday of wounds suffered when he was hit in the face and chest by birdshot fired by police during disturbances in Panama City last Wednesday. It was the fourth protest-related death since anti-government demonstrations began last summer. Noriega's opponents hailed the strike as their greatest triumph so far. ``It's completely successful,'' said Guillermo Cochez, vice president of the Christian Democratic Party. ``Today has been a very special day ... in the capital as well as the provinces. We hope Noriega's advisers and the people surrounding him will help him to see the reality.'' ``The paralyzation is total in industry, finance and commerce,'' said Carlos Gonzalez de la Lastra, a business leader. Gonzalez and Cochez are directors, along with Barria, of the National Civic Crusade. Noriega made another move Monday to strengthen his control of the Defense Forces by announcing the promotions of 98 officers to ranks ranging from colonel to lieutenant. Among those promoted to colonel was Eros Ramiro Cal, who was named last week to replace Col. Leonidas Macias, the leader of the foiled coup, as the nation's police chief. The Defense Forces also said administrative discipline would be taken against 17 officers implicated in last Wednesday's attempted coup, but did not give details. It previously acknowledged eight or nine officers had joined in the attempt and said only five were being detained. Gustavo Gonzalez of the striking dockworkers said leaders of all major unions were summoned to a meeting Sunday night with Solis Palma, and told the military would not interfere if the strike remained peaceful. He said union leaders were told the government, which could not meet its payroll two weeks ago, also would be unable to cover semi-monthly paychecks due next week. Solis Palma replaced Eric Arturo Delvalle, who was dismissed by the legislature after he tried to fire Noriega and still is recognized by the United States as Panama's president. Delvalle is in hiding in Panama. Because the government has silenced opposition newspapers and broadcast stations, thousands of people went to work without knowing a strike had been called. Most went home when they found stores and offices closed. By midday, the city was a ghost town patrolled by helmeted soldiers in combat gear. The government said they were providing security for businesses that chose to open. Panama's ailing economy came apart after Feb. 25, when Delvalle tried to fire Noriega and the legislature fired Delvalle. Banks closed the following week and the government could not meet a $33 million payroll for 130,000 public employees. Washington has cut off economic and military aid and millions of dollars in Panamanian funds have been frozen in U.S. banks by legal actions.
AP900406-0224 	X	UAL Corp. directors announced today they have agreed to sell the parent of United Airlines to its employees for $201 a share, or $4.38 billion. The move heads off a threatened proxy fight with the company's largest shareholder but puts UAL back in a familiar position _ floating a deal with uncertain financing. Under the agreement, employees will exchange $155 in cash, $35 in UAL notes and an estimated $11 worth of securities in UAL subsidiary Covia Corp. for each UAL share. There was no immediate word on how the deal was to be financed. But a source close to the negotiations told The Associated Press the parties had no firm financing for the deal. UAL, parent of United Airlines, said it expects to conclude a final agreement promptly with United Employee Acquisition Corp., a new company organized by United's pilots, flight attendants and Machinists. At a news conference today in New York, representatives of the unions said the agreement calls for employees to give up $2 billion in concessions over five years, including $300 million in the first year and $500 million in the fifth year. The breakdown of ownership in the new company would be as follows: pilots owning about 37.9 percent; Machinists owning about 35.7 percent, non-union employees about 14.3 percent and flight attendants about 12 percent, the unions said. Machinists' union Vice President John Peterpaul predicted banks would look favorably on the deal. ``We're very optimistic about the financing,'' he said. UAL's largest shareholder, Coniston Partners, immediately called off its threatened proxy fight to oust the company's board at the April 26 annual shareholder meeting. Coniston holds an 11.8 percent stake. ``We think it's a fair deal,'' said Coniston general partner Paul Tierney, adding that employees and stockholders alike will gain from the agreement. The announcement met with a lukewarm reaction, however, from some analysts, who questioned how the deal would be financed and whether banks would be willing to back the bid without a strong management group behind it. The fate of UAL Chairman Stephen Wolf has been in doubt because of union indications made before today that they would dump Wolf in the event of an employee buyout. Pilots union head Frederick Dubinsky said in New York today that Wolf would be replaced. ``It's our intention to put together a top-notch senior management team ... and that will include a new (chief executive officer),'' he said. ``There's not a financed bid, and there's a lot of skepticism,'' said Edward Starkman, an airline analyst for PaineWebber Inc. in New York. UAL's stock opened up $3.50 a share at $169 on the New York Stock Exchange but by midday had slid back to $165.50, unchanged from Thursday. The agreement marks another chapter in a takeover saga that began in August when Los Angeles investor Marvin Davis made a $5.4 billion offer for the company. Davis said earlier this week he would not make another bid. But his initial offer sent United's pilots and management scrambling to come up with their own bid. In September, UAL directors accepted a $6.75 billion offer from the pilots, management and British Airways PLC that also included labor and wage concessions. The proposal was killed after the would-be purchasers were unable to line up enough financing. Failure of that deal contributed to a 190-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average on Oct. 13 and was seen as the end of the takeover boom of the 1980s. The stakes were raised again in November when Coniston announced it had amassed a large block of UAL stock and wanted to reduce the number of directors on the company's board. After UAL directors told financial advisers to consider a recapitalization plan in January, United's three labor unions proposed buying 75 percent of the stock. That proposal resulted in a $185-a-share, $3.8 billion buyout offer from the unions that the UAL board rejected two weeks ago. The bid was reportedly opposed strongly by UAL Chairman Stephen Wolf. Earlier this week, the board met at least twice by telephone, presumably on the buyout scenario. United is the nation's largest carrier behind American Airlines.
AP880531-0094 	X	The Supreme Court today let stand a $3.5 million punitive-damages award won by a San Diego gas station operator against Atlantic Richfield Co. The justices, without comment, refused to hear arguments that the award, believed to be the second largest of its kind ever upheld in California courts, is unconstitutionally excessive. John V. Nielsen had operated an ARCO station as an independent dealer for 12 years before agreeing to convert his service station to a mini-market and self-service station in 1979. His lawsuit charged ARCO with fraudulently misrepresenting facts in connection with the conversion of his station. A state court jury awarded Nielsen $525,788 in compensatory damages _ $79,061 in out-of-pocket losses, $396,727 in lost anticipated profits and $50,000 for emotional distress. The jury also awarded him $3.5 million in punitive damages against ARCO. A state appeals court upheld the award except for the emotional-distress damages, and the California Supreme Court refused to hear ARCO's appeal. In the appeal acted on today, lawyers for ARCO argued that the huge punitive-damages award _ seven times the compensatory-damages award _ violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on ``excessive fines.'' No court has ever applied that constitutional principle to non-criminal cases. The Supreme Court in May passed up deciding in a Mississippi case whether the constitutional ban on ``excessive fines'' can be applied to personal-injury lawsuits. Some state legislatures, reacting to soaring insurance rates, in recent years have imposed ceilings on how much money can be recovered in personal-injury lawsuits. Lawyers for ARCO urged the justices to ``send a clear signal that the state courts must stop these gargantuan awards.'' But lawyers for Nielsen argued that the ARCO appeal should not be granted because the oil company's lawyers had not raised the ``excessive fines'' argument in state courts. The justices refused to address the punitive-damages issue in the Mississippi case decided earlier this month after noting that it had not been raised in state courts. ARCO's appeal did not challenge the $475,000 compensatory-damages award won by Nielsen. The case is Atlantic Richfield vs. Nielsen, 87-1196.
AP900103-0138 	X	Julio Gallo, 79-year-old co-owner of the world's largest winery and one of the wealthiest men in America, was in stable condition Wednesday after a highway collision that killed a woman in the other car. Gallo and his 74-year-old wife, Eileen, were injured Tuesday as their car crossed the center line and struck another on the perilous, winding Pacheco Pass Highway about 80 miles south of San Francisco, the California Highway Patrol said. Investigating officer Tom Melden said an early probe of the wreck indicated Mrs. Gallo was driving and that the accident was her fault, but no charges were immediately filed. Alcohol did not appear to be a factor, he said. Gallo is president of the $1 billion-a-year, privately owned E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto; his brother, Ernest, is its chairman. The accident killed 27-year-old Sharon Kauk of San Jose, the Santa Clara County coroner's office reported. Her husband, Timothy, and 3-month-old son, Matthew, were airlifted to a Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Kauk was listed in stable condition Wednesday with minor injuries, which weren't disclosed, said Medical Center spokesman George Pavicich. Matthew, who had been in a seat restraint, was in serious condition with undetermined injuries, he said. The child had earlier been reported unhurt. The Gallos were admitted to San Jose Medical Center. He was listed in stable condition Wednesday, upgraded from guarded condition, and she was under observation and being treated for a hand injury. Last October, Forbes magazine listed Julio Gallo as the nation's 283 richest man. In 1933, with $5,900 of pooled money, he and his brother started making wine with a library recipe. Today, with Julio as master winemaker and Ernest as the marketing chief, E&J Gallo bottles some 250,000 cases of wine a day and sells nearly 27 percent of the wine in the United States. Sixteen brands carry their logo. Gallo spokesman Dan Solomon said Ernest Gallo had been informed of the accident but had no comment.
AP881110-0138 	X	NASA has agreed to help pick a landing site on Mars for a robot craft that the Soviets will launch in 1994, American and Soviet scientists announced Thursday at a joint news conference. Samuel W. Keller, the head of the NASA delegation that has been negotiating with Soviet scientists, said that the Soviets have picked four candidate landing sites after the United States provided detailed maps of the Martian surface. Keller said the Soviets have now asked for more data and details on the candidate sites. He made the comment at a news conference marking the end of a week of negotiations between representatives of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a delegation representing the Soviet solar system exploration program. The two groups met to work out areas of cooperation. Academician Valeriy L. Barsukov, head of the Soviet delegation, said that the four candidate Mars landing sites are all located within 30 degrees of the equator, but he declined to be more specific. NASA accumulated a vast amount of detailed images and maps of Mars during Viking spacecraft missions between 1975 and 1980. The Viking program put two craft in orbit of Mars and two on the surface. The Soviets plan to launch a spacecraft in 1994 that will orbit Mars and drop a lander that will scoop up soil and return it to Earth. Barsukov said that in picking a landing site the Soviets are considering such issues as a search for water and life, getting comprehensive samples of the geology, and gaining insights into the Martian evolution. Keller said other agreements reached during negotiations this week included: _Using the American Deep Space Network to help track and communicate with Soviet Mars probes. _An exchange of scientific personnel for work on specific missions. _An exchange of data on Venus, a planet extensively explored by both countries. Keller said the U.S.-Soviet studies are being combined to produce four detailed maps. _An exchange of lunar material gathered by the Apollo program for meteorite material collected by the Soviets. _An exchange of scientific instruments for use on planetary probes. Barsukov said that the Soviets feel that a manned Mars landing is ``inevitable'' and that it probably will take place in the middle of the next century. But before a manned mission to Mars is attempted, Barsukov said there probably will be new manned flights to the moon. He declined to elaborate.
AP900508-0097 	X	A cyclone packing winds up to 155 mph zeroed in on the south Indian coast Tuesday night, and authorites evacuated 100,000 families from a low-lying plain. Live electrical wires knocked down by winds preceeding the storm killed three people in the southern city of Madras, Indian news reports said. A building collapse injured eight others in the city, which is about 1,050 miles south of New Delhi. Waves 20 feet above normal crashed against parts of India's southeastern coast Tuesday night as the storm approached. Weather officials said the cyclone appeared to be stronger than a 1977 storm that killed thousands in southern India. Press Trust of India reported that 2,000 people had been evacuated from Madras. Weather officials said the core of the storm was 87 miles east of Madras over the Bay of Bengal and would cross into India by early Wednesday. A heavily populated, low-lying coastal plain in Andhra Pradesh state, just north of Tamil Nadu state, was expected to take the brunt of the storm. Authorities evacuated more than 100,000 families from the area and placed them in 300 camps inland, news reports said. Meteorologists said they expected ``very heavy damage to houses and installations and disruption of communications,'' Press Trust of India said. Andhra Pradesh's chief minister, M. Chenna Reddy, said army and navy helicopters and boats had been prepared for rescue operations. Heavy winds and rain were reported in several townships along the coastal plain, he said. One town, Kota, had seven inches of rain in the past 24 hours. Cyclones are the Indian Ocean's equivalent of hurricanes. They usually come in the spring just before the monsoon season begins.
AP900803-0064 	X	Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter before he struck gold as an actor, and finding a month to do nothing but make furniture is now one of his unfulfilled fantasies. Ford took up carpentry to pay the bills before landing a role in ``Star Wars'' in 1977, he tells US magazine in its Aug. 20 issue. His most recent foray into carpentry was about a year ago when he built a bed for his 3-year-old son, Malcolm. ``He watched me make it. But I'm sure he thinks that everybody's dad makes their bed,'' Ford said. Today, after an Oscar nomination for ``Witness'' and with the ``Indiana Jones'' series on his resume, he earns about $10 million per film. His latest is ``Presumed Innocent,'' in which he plays a big-city prosecutor accused of murdering a colleague-lover. Ford, 48, says carpentry is something he'd like more time for. ``I'd like to actually have a month and actually not do anything else but work on some furniture, work on honing those skills which I haven't practiced for so long,'' he said.
AP880321-0006 	X	``This is our last forest,'' said ranger Veerawat Dheeraprasart, pointing down a deep river valley. ``If the dam is built here, all this will vanish, and nobody will ever be able to replace it.'' Veerawat, the chief ranger of this rich wildlife sanctuary astride the border with Burma, is among thousands who have joined what unquestionably has become the greatest environmental battle in Thailand's history _ a fight to persuade the government not to build a dam in Thailand's last virgin forest. In a country that once was jungle-carpeted and teeming with wildlife, it is rare today to see a tract of undisturbed forest, an unpolluted river, white-handed gibbons or free-ranging tigers. Anti-dam groups have held rock concerts and demonstrations, some featuring life-like models of crucified animals, in their campaign. Newspapers are probing the issue in unprecedented detail. Former Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj says the government could face a mass uprising if it approves the Nam Choan dam. The dam's proponents say Nam Choam needs to be built, in what is the largest remaining area of protected forest in Southeast Asia, to increase Thailand's energy supply by about 2 percent. The government's Electric Generating Authority of Thailand has described the proposed, 580-megawatt dam as the ``last possible exploitable source of hydro power'' in the country. It says it will create a reservoir that would also help irrigate farm land and assure water supplies in times of drought. The projected dam site is still hard to get to: a lurching, nine-hour drive over dirt roads from Bangkok, the Thai capital, followed by a four-hour jungle trek. When monsoons lash the countryside, a three-day elephant ride offers the only access. But dam opponents claim construction of Nam Choan, with the necessary approach roads, facilities and ensuing human encroachment, would spell doom for what they say is also the last area in Thailand large enough to ensure the survival of a wide variety of wildlife. Found in the Thung Yai and the adjacent Huay Kha Khaeng Sanctuary, an area about the size of Delaware, are large mammals, such as elephant, gaur, tiger and clouded leopard; some 350 species of birds, and a wide range of plant life. A number of the species are classified as endangered in Thailand, some worldwide. Foreign conservation groups have written letters expressing concern to the Thai government. In December, Britain's Prince Philip, head of the World Wildlife Fund, urged an independent environmental impact study before a final decision is reached. A similar plea came from more than 1,300 conservationists and scientists at the general assembly in February of the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. The Electric Generating Authority maintains that Nam Choan would degrade only 4 percent of the area. But ranger Veerawat, who has served for 10 years in the sanctuary, contends the 47-mile-long dam reservoir would not only eradicate a biologically vital riverine valley but also disrupt the migration routes of animals, forcing them into smaller habitats. Opponents also dispute the 4 percent degradation estimate, saying that in Thailand roads built into remote, forested areas have inevitably been followed by massive logging, with collusion between businessmen and corrupt officials circumventing protective legislation. Loggers are already felling the rich forests along the park boundary. Pisit na Patalung, secretary-general of Wildlife Fund Thailand, one of some 30 private organizations opposing the proposal, said the dam issue has raised an environmental awareness among Thais. Until recent years, the public appeared apathetic as the country's once teeming wildlife was slaughtered and forests that blanketed about 70 percent of the country a generation ago were reduced to around 15 percent of total area today. The dam was first proposed in the early 1970s but plans were shelved in 1983 in wake of protests and charges that environmental impact studies were sloppy and improper. In 1986, the Electric Generating Authority asked that the project be reconsidered and the government appointed a 40-man committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Thienchai Sirisamphan to come up with a decision, which is expected soon. Some opponents believe government leaders will be impressed by their arguments that Thailand now has enough alternate energy sources, including offshore natural gas and lignite, to scrap the dam proposal. Others, however, feel that too many key bureaucrats and politicians are still little concerned over environmental problems. Another wildlife ranger, Sueb Nakhasathien, didn't sound optimistic. ``Thais haven't yet put a price on the environment,'' he said. ``They don't realize that trees and water have a price, that wildlife has a price.''
AP881013-0303 	X	The dollar sank today and interest rates rose after the government reported a jump in the nation's trade deficit to $12.2 billion. The stock market defied pessimism, though. Prices were mixed in early trading and the Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks was 6.03 points higher at 2,132.29 an hour after the New York Stock Exchange opening. A record level of American exports was swamped by an all-time high in imports, the Commerce Department announced. The imbalance between what the United States imports and what it sells abroad climbed by $2.7 billion over a July deficit of $9.5 billion. The July figure had been the smallest monthly imbalance in more than three years. Economists had expected an increase for August, but the actual result was worse than the $11.3 billion imbalance many forecasters had predicted. From the point of view of inflation-wary investors, the combination of strong exports and strong imports was ``probably the worst combination you could get'' because it signals possible overheating of the economy, said Michael Moran, chief economist of Daiwa Securities America Inc. Even before the figures were released, financial markets headed lower because of unease over what the government would report. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by 30.23 points on Wednesday, its biggest decline in nearly two months. The dollar's decline was not huge because the dollar had already fallen steadily this week in response to investors' fears of a bad trade number. A big deficit increases the likelihood that the dollar will need to decline to make American goods cheaper in world markets. Moments after the release of trade figures at 8:30 a.m. EDT, the dollar fell to just above 126 Japanese yen and less than 1.82 West German marks. But traders had second thoughts and the currency recovered part of its lost ground. Two hours after the trade figures' release, the dollar was traded at a little over 127 yen and under 1.82 marks, down from more than 129 yen and 1.83 marks Wednesday. The dollar has now retreated to its levels of late June and early July. Long-term interest rates rose. That reflected investors' concerns about inflation and a declining dollar, which would prompt investors to switch money from dollars into other currencies. The yield on the Treasury's 30-year Treasury bond, a key measure of long-term rates, rose to 8.95 percent from 8.90 percent late Wednesday. That reflected a decline in its price as inflation-wary bondholders sold the securities.
AP900323-0196 	X	The U.S. dollar was slightly lower in European trading this morning as attention turned to other major currencies. Gold prices were slightly higher. ``There is no evidence of a trend in the dollar right now,'' one Milan trader said. Traders said attention continued to focus on the weakness of the Japanese yen. Anticipation was strong that monetary authorities would move to shore up the Japanese currency after the market shrugged off an increase in Japanese interest rates earlier this week. Traders said the West German mark was suffering from continuing uncertainty about the costs of German reunification. In Tokyo, where trading ends as Europe's business day begins, the dollar rose 0.24 yen to a closing 155.07 yen. Later in London, it was quoted at a lower rate of 155.00 yen. In London, the dollar fell against the British pound, which was quoted at $1.6040, compared with $1.6015 late Thursday. Other dollar rates at midmorning in Europe, compared with late Thursday's rates included: 1.7050 West German marks, down from 1.7054; 1.5105 Swiss francs, down from 1.5150; 5.7490 French francs, down from 5.7505; 1.9177 Dutch guilders, down from 1.9210; 1,256 Italian lire, up from 1,255.50, and 1.1765 Canadian dollars, up from 1.1757. Gold opened in London at a bid price of $393.40 a troy ounce, up from $393.05 bid late Thursday. At midmorning, the city's major bullion dealers fixed a recommended price of $393.60. In Zurich, the bid price was $393.75, up from $393 late Thursday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold rose 13 cents to close at a bid $393.65. Silver rose in London to a bid price of $5.09 a troy ounce, from Thursday's $5.08.
AP880709-0148 	X	A U.S. House subcommittee is investigating allegations of attempts to influence senior Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and six other cities, a panel aide says. ``The allegations of misconduct concern high-level people at district and regional office levels,'' Peter Barash, staff director of the Commerce Consumer and Monetary Affairs subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee, told the Lawrenceville-based Gwinnett Daily News on Friday. For seven weeks, subcommittee investigators and the General Accounting Office have been looking into charges of abuse by senior staffers in Los Angeles; Cincinnati; Newark, N.J.; San Francisco; Chicago; and Dallas, as well as Washington, Barash said. The investigators also are trying to determine if top officials at IRS headquarters in Washington failed to act against senior regional officials who allegedly misused their authority, Barash said. Barash said the subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., received a number of allegations in the spring about misconduct within the agency. ``We checked out some things and found out that the allegations appear at this preliminary stage of the investigation to be true enough to begin a formal investigation,'' he said. ``It looks like some people, some top IRS senior staffers, were involved in misconduct, abusing of their power for private, personal gain or enrichment.'' Barnard's subcommittee will conduct hearings by early October on the results of its investigation, Barash said. The staff director described one case in Los Angeles involving a senior criminal investigator who went to work for Guess Jeans Inc. after leaving the federal agency. ``The allegation with regards to Guess Jeans is it had an IRS senior employee in Los Angeles under its control and influence and got this employee to either initiate criminal tax fraud investigations (against a competing jeans company) or to kill criminal tax fraud investigations at the behest of Guess Jeans,'' said Barash. The Gwinnett Daily News quoted a spokesman for the jeans maker as saying the company did nothing wrong and has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
AP900327-0002 	X	Here are the prime-time TV ratings as compiled by the A.C. Nielsen Co. for the week of March 19-25. Top 20 listings include the week's ranking, with full season-to-date ranking in parentheses, rating for the week, and total homes. An ``X'' in parentheses denotes one-time-only presentation. A rating measures the percentage of the nation's 92.1 million TV homes. 1. (2) ``The Cosby Show,'' NBC, 23.2 rating, 21.4 million homes. 2. (5) ``America's Funniest Home Videos,'' ABC, 22.6, 20.8 million homes. 3. (1) ``Roseanne,'' ABC, 22.4, 20.6 million homes. 4. (7) ``60 Minutes,'' CBS, 21.1, 19.4 million homes. 5. (4) ``A Different World,'' NBC, 20.8, 18.4 million homes. 6. (3) ``Cheers,'' NBC, 20.5, 18.9 million homes. 7. (6) ``Golden Girls,'' NBC, 20.3, 18.7 million homes. 8. (9) ``Empty Nest,'' NBC, 19.4, 17.9 million homes. 9. (8) ``Wonder Years'' ABC, 19.3, 17.8 million homes. 10. (16) ``L.A. Law,'' NBC, 18.7, 17.4 million homes. 11. (19) ``Coach,'' ABC, 18.0, 16.6 million homes. 12. (10) ``Murder, She Wrote,'' CBS, 17.4, 16.0 million homes. 13. (48) ``Married...With Children,'' FOX, 17.0, 15.7 million homes. 14. (14) ``Unsolved Mysteries,'' NBC, 16.9, 15.6 million homes. 14. (31) ``Simpsons,'' FOX, 16.9, 15.6 million homes. 16. (17) ``In The Heat of the Night,'' NBC, 16.6, 15.3 million homes. 17. (20) ``Matlock,'' NBC, 16.5, 15.2 million homes. 18. (15) ``Grand,'' NBC, 16.3, 15.0 million homes. 19. (22) ``Full House,'' ABC, 16.1, 14.8 million homes. 20. (12) ``Who's the Boss?'', ABC, 15.7, 14.5 million homes.
AP900112-0242 	X	Air France said Friday it has agreed to acquire a controlling interest in the privately held airline Union de Transports Aeriens, in a move that values UTA at almost 7 billion French francs, or around $1.2 billion. Air France, the government-owned airline, said it will buy initially a block of 930,000 UTA shares representing 54.58 percent of UTA's capital from Chargeurs SA, a holding company with transportation and textile interests. Air France said it will pay 4,083 francs, or $714, for each UTA share. Trading in UTA shares was suspended on the Paris Stock Exchange Friday at 2,770 francs, or $484. The Societe des Bourses Francaises, which regulates securities trading, announced the halt amid rumors that Air France would be purchasing a major stake in UTA, France's biggest private airline. Air France said it is offering the same terms to UTA's minority shareholders. Chargeurs controls 82.9 percent of UTA's capital, and Air France will have first refusal rights if Chargeurs decides on any future dilution of its stake in UTA. UTA has a fleet of only 19 jets, six of which are owned by its charter subsidiary Aeromaritime. UTA operates on long-haul routes, mainly to the Pacific and Africa. Chargeurs Chairman Jerome Seydoux had said on several occasions that he would sell UTA if the French government did not authorize it to operate on European and transatlantic routes. In late 1988, the French government rejected UTA's request for new routes and said it was opposed to allowing UTA to fly to Newark, N.J., although two years ago UTA won the right to operate between Paris and San Francisco. Air France said the takeover will create an air transport group that will be able to compete on an even footing with big international competitors. Several of Air France's European rivals, notably British Airways PLC and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, have considered or made investments in foreign airlines as a way to position themselves to exploit the Common Market deregulation set to begin in 1992. The deal also gives Air France control of the French domestic airline Air Inter. UTA holds 35.8 percent of Air Inter stock and Air France has 37 percent. Transport Minister Michel Delebarre issued a statement praising the deal. But the takeover could spark a political debate, because Socialist President Francois Mitterrand had promised there would be neither nationalizations nor privatizations during his current 7-year term. As part of the deal, UTA will acquire the 49 percent minority stake in Aeromaritime that is held by Chargeurs, giving UTA full control of the charter operation. Financial analysts said Air France's purchase of 54.6 percent of UTA will give Chargeurs an immediate cash injection of almost 3.8 billion francs, or $665 million. Chargeurs' 1989 earnings were affected by a strike by UTA pilots that lasted several months.
AP901224-0174 	X	The disposition of an individual's estate need not be a guessing game. Yet many people are unaware that by establishing a sound estate plan they easily may shelter many holdings from probate. Still more don't know the principles behind assessing their estate. But by better understanding how the federal government governs estate taxes, people may avoid or reduce the future federal tax liabilities. This tax savings can preserve assets in the estate that otherwise might be used to pay death taxes. These assets then may be passed on to a spouse, children, or charity. There are several steps to take in evaluating your estate. First, determine the nature and the value of your estate's assets. Assts may include: your residence, other property such as a vacation home, household furnishings, savings bonds, stocks, checking and savings accounts, pension benefits, life insurance policies, automobiles. For federal tax purposes, there are several exceptions to determining the value of an asset: - For jointly owned assets held by spouses, only half the value of the asset is included in your estate if you are the first spouse to die. - For life insurance policies, the amount included in your estate is the face amount of the policy rather than its replacement cost or present cash value (if whole life) at the date of your death. - If you die before retirement, you receive none of your pension. However, half the value of the pension is payable to your spouse and half the vested plan benefits - what would have been available to you had you lived to retirement - are included in your gross estate. - Finally, Series EE bonds are included at their present value when they mature. - All other assets generally are included at fair market value. Second, determine your deductions when calculating federal estate tax. Include funeral expenses, costs of the last illness of the decendent, if applicable; unpaid debts and mortgages; and administrative expenses for the estate. You'll incur fewer administrative expenses for assets transferred outside of the probate. To avoid probate, you may set up a living trust, although it will create some trust administration costs. In addition, property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship automatically passes to the surviving joint tenant outside the probate process. Other property of a contractual nature - such as life insurance policies or qualified pension plans - also will transfer to the beneficiary outside of probate. Step three, determine which property qualifies for the marital deduction or charitable deduction. Three factors make a difference: - If your will transfers property to your spouse, this property qualifies for the marital deduction. - If any property is held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, the property passes to the surviving spouse and qualifies for the marital deduction. - If any life insurance or qualified pension plan names your spouse as policy beneficiary or plan benificiary, this, too, qualifies. The same kinds of arrangements will qualify property for the charitable estate tax deduction if property is left to the charity as a result of a will, a specific property designation such as a joint tenancy, or a contractual benificiary designation. Any property qualifying for the marital deduction or the charitable deduction is not subject to federal estate tax liability. Remaining property is referred to as the taxable estate. The fourth, and final, step is to determine estimated federal tax liability on the taxable estate. The unified estate and gift transfer tax rates apply to the taxable estate when calculating the amount of federal estate tax. Every individual, regardless of the size of his or her estate, is entitled to a unified credit of $192,800 that absorbs, dollar for dollar, the amount of that individual's federal estate tax liability up to that amount. This assumes that you did not make any lifetime gifts to an individual in any one year while alive that exceeded the amount of the gift tax annual exclusion amount of $10,000. Here, a rule of thumb applies. For your federal estate tax liability to be greater than $192,800, your taxable estate must be greater than $600,000. As long as a husband and wife each hold $600,000 in separately owned assets, the couple can own a total of $1.2 million in assets and the entire amount for both estates avoids federal estate tax liability. The process of rearranging property ownership for estate assets, so that each spouse's estate takes maximum advantage is known as ``estate equalization.'' Many people assume they won't have assets exceeding $600,000, but in these days of appreciated home values and sizable pension plans or life insurance policies, estates are often of surprising size. --- EDITOR'S NOTE - Paul Lochray is an academic associate in the estate planning division of the College for Financial Planning in Denver.
AP881212-0017 	X	Nearly 10 million Americans lost their jobs due to plant closings or layoffs from 1983 to 1988 despite the longest peacetime economic expansion in the nation's history, the government reports. Of 9.7 million displaced workers during the period, 4.7 million were so-called ``tenured'' workers who had held their jobs for three years or more, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says in the latest of its biennial reports on worker displacement. That was a slight decline from earlier BLS studies of overlapping five-year periods _ 1979-84 and 1981-86 _ which both had shown that 5.1 million tenured workers lost their jobs during the respective periods. But each of those periods also included the severe recession of 1981-82. As a result, government and private economists say the new figures show a persisting displacement problem. Larry Mishel, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank, called the decline in job displacement after the recession years ``surprisingly small.'' The BLS began conducting the displacement surveys in 1984 at the request of the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration. The latest report was released over the weekend. While the 1984 and 1986 surveys showed 50 percent of the displaced workers coming out of factories, only 40 percent of the tenured workers losing their jobs in 1983-88 had been employed in manufacturing. In conjunction, the distribution of the layoffs has shifted somewhat from blue-collar occupations such as machine operators, laborers and repairmen during the recession periods to white-collar management and sales occupations from 1983 to 1988. ``This was the lean-and-mean era, when companies went after middle-level managers and other white-collar workers,'' said Mishel. ``But a lot of it, especially in retail trade, is also somewhat related to these leveraged buyouts. It's probably the better-paid retail workers who lost their jobs.'' One thing that hasn't changed is the percentage of workers who were given some kind of advance notice before losing their jobs. In all three surveys, roughly six of every 10 displaced workers had been told in advance to ``expect a layoff.'' But only two of every 10 in the latest survey said they had received a written notice of their impending dismissals _ a trend bound to change in view of a new law requiring 60 days written notice of plant closings and large layoffs beginning in 1989. Of the 4.7 million tenured workers who lost their jobs from 1983 to the end of 1987, 71 percent or approximately 3.2 million of them had new jobs as of January last year and 14 percent of them said they were looking for work. That compares favorably with re-employment rates of 67 percent and 60 percent and unemployment rates of 18 percent and 25 percent in the respective 1986 and 1984 surveys. Of those re-employed full-time, 56 percent reported making as much or more money in their new jobs while 44 percent reported making less _ in current dollars unadjusted for inflation. About 28 percent reported that their earnings had increased by 20 percent or more in their new jobs. Taking inflation into account, analysts said, that represents the workers who definitely are better off in their new jobs than they were in their old ones. But a slightly larger group, 30 percent, reported suffering an income loss of at least 20 percent from their old jobs. ``That's much deeper than in the previous surveys,'' said Mishel. ``It confirms a continuing trend of high-paid workers having no alternative but to shift to the poorer-paying jobs being created by this recovery.''
AP880531-0294 	X	Koppers Co. Inc. and Beazer PLC said today their top executives conducted talks toward a merger agreement during the Memorial Day weekend. ``Such negotiations are expected to continue although there can be no assurance that such negotiations will result in a mutually acceptable agreement,'' the companies said. Beazer has offered to pay $60 per share, or a total of $1.7 billion, for Koppers. The companies' announcement said the talks would allow Beazer's affiliate, BNS Inc., to acquire the Pittsburgh-based Koppers. In the meantime, BNS extended the deadline for its tender offer until midnight Wednesday. Earlier, Beazer said a federal appeals court in California had lifted one of the roadblocks to BNS' hostile takeover bid of Koppers. Beazer said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday BNS may proceed with its attempt to acquire Koppers' stock once a trustee is appointed to control Koppers' Sunny-Miller Contracting Co. road materials subsidiary in Irwindale, Calif. Koppers spokesman Robert O'Gara said the decision imposes further delays on the attempted takeover bid. A hearing is scheduled on the issue Wednesday before Chief U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles, according to O'Gara.
AP881103-0061 	X	A classics professor who received Ohio State University's highest teaching award plunged 12 stories to his death from a parking garage in an apparent suicide, police said. John Vaughn, 41, taught a class in mythology that attracted hundreds of students and sometimes had a waiting list. A parking attendant saw Vaughn pacing the top floor of the garage Wednesday and approached to see if he needed help, said manager Charles Bruns. Without a word, Vaughn took off his coat, sat on a ledge and fell backward, the attendant reported. Vaughn received an alumni award for distinguished teaching in 1981, one of eight professors so honored that year, university spokesman Steve Sterrett said. Franklin County Coroner William Adrion tentatively ruled the death a suicide.
AP900130-0235 	X	Congressional approval of President Bush's new budget would allow the Internal Revenue Service to increase the number of tax returns it audits _ but not by much. IRS Commissioner Fred T. Goldberg Jr. told reporters the agency anticipates auditing 102 returns per 10,000 that will be filed in 1990 and 103 per 10,000 next year. That compares with an all-time low of 97 per 10,000 returns for the 1989 tax year. ``The fact remains that there has been a continuing decline in audit coverage for a number of years, but now we are seeing a reversal of the trend,'' Goldberg said after Bush's proposed budget for the 1991 fiscal year was made public Monday. Although IRS officials agree that more returns should be audited, they point to concerted efforts over the past few years to target larger returns, those involving tax shelters and others likely to yield more revenue. Even so, Goldberg said, the audit statistics do not tell the whole story. He noted, for example, about 40 million couples and individuals file returns that are based almost entirely on income from wages, interest and dividends. IRS computers now automatically check those returns against backup documents filed by employers, banks and brokers to ensure that all income is reported. While those computer matches are not audits, Goldberg said, they are thorough enough to make it difficult for taxpayers to under-report such income. The agency's proposed budget for 1991 is $6.14 billion, up 11.6 percent from this year's $5.5 billion. A big part of that increase represents another installment on the agency's plan to replace an outmoded computer system. Goldberg said the new system will cost up to $6 billion over the next decade. One aim of the new system is to allow taxpayers to get answers to questions about their tax accounts as easily as they get information about a bill from a credit card company. The Bush administration estimates the IRS will collect an additional $3 billion next year because of management initiatives and the increase in the agency's own spending. Goldberg said the IRS will spend an additional $56 million and assign about 1,000 new staff members to reducing accounts receivable from a record level of nearly $60 billion. Those are taxes that have been assessed but not paid. The agency expects to spend $330 million in the new year for taxpayer service, which includes answering telephoned tax questions. That figure is up from $317 million this year, principally because last year IRS employees gave the wrong answer to one of every three telephoned questions.
AP900522-0047 	X	The dollar fell against the Japanese yen Tuesday, while the key index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained moderately, the first advance in three trading days. The dollar closed at 152.40 yen, down 0.85 yen from Monday's close of 153.25 yen. After opening at 153.36 yen, the dollar ranged between 152.30 yen and 153.36 yen. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues rose 173.25 points to close at 31,938.30 points. Tuesday's advance followed a 248.67-point decline on Monday and a 47.88 point-slip last Friday. In the bond market, the price of the benchmark No. 119 10-year Japanese government bonds inched down to 87.34 points as of 3 p.m. (2:00 a.m. EDT), down from Monday's close of 87.39. The yield stood at 7.095 percent, up from the previous day's 7.085 percent. Currency dealers said the dollar opened slightly higher following its overnight upswing in New York, where it finished at 153.73 yen, up from 153 yen Friday. ``The dollar weakened as it was affected by cross-trading'' between the yen and the West German mark, said Kozo Yoshida, a dealer with Mitsui Taiyo Kobe Bank. Yoshida said otherwise there was no major market-affecting news. The yen's rebound triggered an upswing in stocks, dealers said. ``Share prices as a whole dropped in early trading on index-related selling, but the yen's recovery against the dollar encouraged many investors,'' said Yu Yoshida, a stock analyst with Yamaichi Securities. In the bond market, the price of the benchmark No. 119 10-year Japanese government bond edged higher to 87.33 from Monday's close of 87.09. That lowered the yield to 7.10 percent from 7.15 percent.
AP900509-0062 	X	American Ballet Theater dancers looked wonderful on the second night of the company's season at the Metropolitan Opera. The program was two New York premieres, a dazzling ``Black Swan'' pas de deux and ``Lilac Garden'' starring Carla Fracci. The Italian ballerina returned to American Ballet Theater as a guest to perform in an excerpt from ``Lilac Garden'' at Monday's gala opening and the entire Antony Tudor ballet on Tuesday night. The entire ballet, to Chausson's ``Poeme,'' was as achingly romantic as it is meant to be. The young bride-to-be, danced by Miss Fracci with subtlety and gentle beauty, is stoical but suffering because in love with a younger man. He was danced with romantic yearning by Kevin McKenzie. Ross Stretton as the Man She Must Marry was stiff with his bride-to-be but softer when he met An Episode in His Past in the lilac garden. She, danced by Martine Van Hamel, seemed a strong survivor but she was hurting, too. The evening began with ``Birthday Offering,'' which Frederick Ashton choreographed for the 25th anniversary of the British Royal Ballet. It gives important solos to seven ballerinas, showing each one's strength. Ballet Theater added it to its repertory last October in Houston. On Tuesday, the star ballerina was Susan Jaffe, partnered by Stretton. The others were Cheryl Yeager, Amanda McKerrow, Julie Kent, Leslie Browne, Alessandra Ferri and Christine Dunham. All looked good. Fernando Bujones, back this season as a guest, having been greatly missed, and Cynthia Harvey danced the ``Black Swan'' pas de deux. Both were in the highest, exciting form. Toward the end of the duet, Miss Harvey danced only 16 of the famous 32 fouettes, whipped-leg turns. The audience murmured, fearing she had felt a muscle tear, but she finished the duet flawlessly. The evening ended with the half-hour ``Brief Fling'' which Twyla Tharp choreographed for the company. This eclectic, quite enjoyable ballet had its premiere in February in San Francisco. In it, Cheryl Yeager and Julio Bocca, in Navy, do formal ballet dancing to ``I'm a Little Teapot'' played on amplified piano. Shelley Washington, loose-limbed as Miss Tharp was as a dancer, looked like an urchin being tossed around by Jamie Bishton, Kevin O'Day and Keith Roberts in mini-kilts. Claudia Alfieri, Isabella Padovani, Gil Boggs and Robert Wallace wore red plaid. During the 10 sections of ``Brief Fling'' there also was a jig and music which sounded like minimalism meeting a cement mixer. The music was by Michel Colombier. Clever costumes were by Isaac Mizrahi. Dennis Cleveland played the violin solo in ``Lilac Garden.'' The orchestra sounded thin, as though too small for the requirements of the music.
AP901213-0188 	X	Beverly Hills must install a Christmas tree next to a 28-foot Hanukkah menorah or move the menorah next to an existing tree, a federal judge ruled Thursday in a lawsuit between two Jewish groups. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter said a U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning religious symbols on public property clearly allows such displays but only if both the menorah and the Christmas tree are represented and are close together. ``What I am going to order is that the menorah be moved so that it is next to the tree that has been designated to symbolize a secular Christmas tree and that no religious ceremonies be held (there),'' Hatter said. Marshall Grossman, an attorney for Chabad, a movement of Hasidic Jews, said the group paid $25,000 to install the menorah - an array of nine candles - on a permanent foundation and could not easily move it. Hatter said a large Christmas tree could be brought to the site and could be lighted next to the menorah. ``Your honor, I can probably do that myself,'' said Grossman. ``It may be the first time I've purchased a Christmas tree but I think I can get rabbinical approval.'' The American Jewish Congress and four Jewish residents of Beverly Hills, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking the menorah's removal. They claimed that having the menorah on public property was a violation of First Amendment guarantees of separation of church and state. They also drew support Thursday from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Grossman protested when the judge ruled that no religious ceremonies could be held in front of the menorah, which stands across the street from City Hall. Hatter denied a request from Beverly Hills attorney Mitchell Abbott to stay his temporary restraining order from taking effect until further arguments could be made. ACLU lawyers Carol Sobel and Douglas Mirell pressed for quick action, saying any delay would allow the menorah to stand alone through the eight-night celebratin of Hanukkah, which began Tuesday night. Although the city has two official Christmas trees and lighted street decorations, the attorneys said they are not close enough to the menorah to provide equal representation. Hatter suggested that the presence of two symbols might help to spread holiday cheer. ``Our society is in need of any sustenance of a positive nature,'' the judge said. ``The court is abiding by the letter of what the Supreme Court said,'' ACLU attorney Mirell said outside court. He called the ruling ``a clear victory'' for the plaintiffs. Grossman disagreed. ``The net result of this misguided effort ... is that this year instead of there being two Christmas trees and one menorah in Beverly Hills, there will now be an additional Christmas tree,'' he said.
AP880929-0129 	X	The House approved a $1.8 billion 1989 appropriations bill for Congress' own expenses Thursday, an election-year measure devoid of a pay raise that many lawmakers had talked about giving themselves. The measure was approved on a 253-133 vote and sent to the Senate for final congressional approval. The appropriations bill was one of five remaining that legislators are racing to complete by Saturday's start of federal fiscal year 1989. If all 13 are enacted by Saturday, it would be the first time since 1948 that all of the spending measures that finance government agencies were in place in time for the new year. Members of Congress have received base annual salaries of $89,500 since February 1987. But lawmakers have been coming under increasing public criticism for the large sums of money most of them receive for giving speeches to industry, labor and other groups. The amount of the payments _ called honoraria _ legislators can keep each year can total up to 30 percent of each representative's salary, and up to 40 percent of each senator's pay. Lawmakers have discussed lowering or eliminating the amount of honoraria permitted in exchange for increasing the base pay. After House-Senate negotiators working on the bill discussed the proposals briefly on Wednesday, they agreed not to address the issue in the spending measure. President Reagan is scheduled to propose salary adjustments for Congress and top federal officials in January. His proposal will be based on the recommendations that a special federal salary commission are scheduled to make in December. The money in the bill represents a 3 percent, or $59 million, increase over 1988 legislative spending. Of the total package, $506 million is for the House and $341 million for the Senate. The rest is for joint items such as the Capitol Police and for congressional agencies such as the Library of Congress.
AP880613-0224 	X	Today is Wednesday, June 22, the 174th day of 1988. There are 192 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: Fifty years ago, on June 22, 1938, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis knocked out German boxer Max Schmeling just two minutes, four seconds into the first round of their rematch at New York's Yankee Stadium, two years after Schmeling knocked out Louis. (In addition to gaining a personal triumph, Louis dealt a body blow to Adolf Hitler's doctrine of ``Aryan supremacy.'' In 1981, when Louis died, Schmeling hailed his one-time adversary as a ``boxing genius'' and ``the greatest opponent I ever faced in the ring.'') On this date: In 1611, English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers. In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated a second time. In 1868, Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union. In 1870, Congress created the Department of Justice. In 1911, Britain's King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey. In 1937, Joe Louis began his reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock in Chicago. In 1940, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union during World War II. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights. In 1969, singer-actress Judy Garland died in London at the age of 47. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed a measure lowering the voting age to 18. In 1977, John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. (He was released 19 months later.) In 1981, Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon outside Lennon's New York City apartment building the previous December. Ten years ago: A group of neo-Nazis called off plans to march in the predominantly Jewish community of Skokie, Ill., after winning a year-long battle for legal permission to demonstrate, but also said they would go ahead with plans for a rally in Chicago. Five years ago: The crew of the space shuttle Challenger released a West German satellite into space, then retrieved it with the shuttle's robot arm a total of five times _ demonstrating the shuttle's ability to retrieve and put back into orbit satellites in need of repair. One year ago: Dancer Fred Astaire, whose elegance and fancy footwork graced more than 30 movies, died at Century City Hospital in Los Angeles at age 88. Today's Birthdays: Movie director Billy Wilder (``Some Like It Hot'') is 82. Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh is 82. Broadway producer Joseph Papp is 67. Fashion designer Bill Blass is 66. Actor Ralph Waite is 60. Former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein is 55. Singer-actor Kris Kristofferson is 51. CBS news correspondent Ed Bradley is 47. Singer-musician Todd Rundgren is 40. Actress Meryl Streep is 39. Actress Lindsay Wagner is 39. Thought for Today: ``The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.'' _ Alistair Cooke, British-born American journalist and broadcaster.
AP880901-0261 	X	Bondholders who had pursued the Washington Public Power Supply System through the courts for five years have let WPPSS off the hook just before trial, claiming ``you can't get blood out of a turnip.'' Plaintiff attorneys said the deal with the supply system announced Wednesday will gain the cooperation of WPPSS employees, who will be leading witnesses when the securities fraud trial starts Sept. 7 in Tucson, Ariz. WPPSS agreed this week to settle litigation against it over the system's $2.25 billion bond default in 1983. The bonds were sold to finance construction of two nuclear power plants, which were never completed. The trial was moved to Tucson after judges in Seattle excused themselves because of possible perceived conflicts of interest and because some feared it would be impossible to get an impartial jury to hear the case. Thousands of people in Washington lost money because of the default. Bondholders agreed to drop claims against WPPSS in return for access to accounts for the terminated power plants, Nos. 4 and 5, containing millions of dollars. Remaining defendants include 20 public utilities in Washington and one in Oregon that participated in building the plants, three engineering firms and a firm that had provided WPPSS with financial advice. The abrupt pullout of WPPSS caught other defendants by surprise, and one acknowledged consideration was being given to requesting a trial delay. ``We're surprised they (WPPSS) didn't stay and defend their actions ...,'' said Chuck Shigley, administrator for the Snohomish County Public Utility District. WPPSS paid no money in the tentative settlement, but agreed that it has an obligation to pay the face value and interest on the bonds _ which total about $3 billion. ``Since you can't get blood out of a turnip, why not get all the other benefits you can,'' said Mel Weiss, representing class action plaintiffs in the giant lawsuit. However, the agreement noted that because of limited assets pledged to secure the bonds, there was ``no expectation'' the money would ever be paid. The WPPSS Executive Board was expected to approve the agreement when it meets Friday in Richland, Wash., in a special meeting, said Carl Halvorson, board chairman. ``It's a very favorable settlement for the supply system,'' he said. The tentative settlement, which also requires the approval of presiding U.S. District Judge William D. Browning, protects WPPSS' other assets against any further judgments in the case. In the legal action, bondholders sued the supply system, 88 utilities, bond underwriters, various directors and managers, engineering firms and advisors after WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion worth of bonds. Many defendants have settled over the past year, including bond underwriters and more than 60 utilities. They have agreed to pay a total of $331 million and may face further liabilities. The terminated plants are located at the Hanford nuclear reservation and Satsop, west of Olympia. Meanwhile, Browning ruled Wednesday in Tucson that bondholders are permitted to try to prove they should be fully refunded for the bonds they bought. Common law and state law permit rescission, or refund, damages, Browning said in his nine-page order. Claims under the federal Securities Act allow only for out-of-pocket losses, Browning said. That means the difference between what the bondholder paid and what the value of the bonds were. In both instances, the bondholders will be allowed to try to prove that because of misrepresentations, they bought bonds that otherwise would not have been put on the market and therefore should get full refunds plus interest.
AP900906-0079 	X	A federal appeals court today upheld a judge's dismissal of charges against an Iran-Contra scandal defendant because the government refused to allow the defense to use classified materials. Joseph Fernandez, the CIA station chief in Costa Rica from 1984-86, was entitled to the material to defend himself against charges that he lied to investigators about a scheme to send military aid to Contra rebels in Nicaragua, said a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Fernandez planned to use the classified evidence to argue that he did not lie about his knowledge of former National Security Council official Oliver North's involvement in the scheme and the type of supplies being sent to the Contras. ``Whether a jury would believe Fernandez's defense is speculation. But to preclude the jury from considering evidence relevant to this defense would be to deprive him of fundamental constitutional protections,'' said the opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III. He was joined by Judges William W. Wilkins Jr. and Robert F. Chapman. The 40-page opinion deletes numerous mentions of sensitive national security information. U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton of Alexandria dismissed the case last November after the government refused to submit the classified material sought by Fernandez. The former CIA station chief had been indicted on two counts of lying to investigators and two counts of obstructing justice. He was accused of telling investigators that a Costa Rican airstrip was for training that country's military in case of an invasion by Nicaragua when in fact the airstrip was used to illegally resupply the Contras. He also was accused of falsely saying he did not know of North's involvement and did not know that supplies he helped deliver to the Contras in 1986 contained military aid. Fernandez asked to disclose nearly 5,000 classified documents at his trial.
AP880808-0212 	X	A federal has board ordered a Postal Service contract with Texas computer billionaire H. Ross Perot voided because the way in which the contract was awarded violated proper procedures. The contract had been suspended on July 8 after a preliminary ruling which the Postal Service is challenging in the U.S. Court of Appeals. The board concluded Friday that the Postal Service violated federal rules by failing to provide any advance notice of the contract and awarding the contract to Perot without seeking competitive bids.
AP880526-0230 	X	Max Robinson, the country's first black network television anchor, knows that people think his recent life-threatening illness might be AIDS, but he refuses to discuss it. ``I take the position that my health is a private matter,'' he told The Washington Post in an interview at his home in Chicago. The Post, in a three-page profile of Robinson published Thursday, noted that ``it is widely rumored that Robinson has AIDS, and he's aware of that.'' ``The curiosity has at times annoyed me,'' Robinson said. ``I'm just not going to get into the subject of what I have.'' Robinson, whose TV career took off when he became an anchorman in Washington in 1969, moved to the ABC network in 1978 when he, Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings were the three anchors on ``World News Tonight.'' His relations with ABC wer sometimes stormy; he once accused the network of racism and in 1983 embarrassed ABC executives by missing Reynolds' funeral service at which he was expected to escort President and Mrs. Reagan. He left the network in 1984 and worked briefly at WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He has not worked much since, and said he is selling his Afro-American art collection which has been valued at a half-million dollars. Robinson was hospitalized on Dec. 4 last year in critical condition and complaining about weight loss. When he was released nearly two months later, officials refused to discuss his illness. ``While in intensive care, he lay in an isolated room, and when he was moved to another ward, a warning was posted outside his room to medical personnel to gown and glove before performing certain tasks in caring for him,'' the newspaper said. ``I feel pretty good,'' Robinson said. Asked if he was terminally ill, the 49-year-old Robinson replied, ``We all are.''
AP901214-0247 	X	Oil prices rallied Friday as traders speculated President Bush might scrap diplomatic meetings with Iraq, then crude fell back sharply when Bush's news conference rhetoric was not so harsh. Light sweet crude oil settled at $26.55 per barrel, up 13 cents, at the New York Mercantile Exchange on contracts for delivery in January. Crude for delivery in most later months closed lower. In early trading, crude had jumped up by $1.68 per barrel amid continued quarreling between the United States and Iraq over a date for Secretary of State James A. Baker III to visit Baghdad. Two senators said in Washington that Bush might be ready to abandon the idea of the talks, adding to oil's rally. After Bush said in the afternoon that he was discouraged but still hoped the talks could be held, crude plunged more than $1 per barrel in about a half hour. ``It was probably a little over-bought on the whole situation,'' said Ann-Louise Hittle, a senior oil analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. ``Once he came out and didn't do anything, it was easy to sell off, probably a little bit of buy-the-rumor, sell-the-fact.'' Oil traders often run up prices by buying crude futures contracts when rumors hit the market, because they don't want to run the risk of getting left out of a rally. They are more likely to sell off their oil contracts on the basis of facts that indicate adequate supplies or sluggish demand. During the week, crude hit its lowest prices since Aug. 3, the day after Iraq invaded Kuwait. But after the close of $25.35 per barrel on Wednesday, it began moving higher. Oil had been steadily dropping since Nov. 30, when Bush first proposed the talks with Iraq and traders began believing a peaceful solution to the crisis could be at hand. Once the diplomats showed they could not even agree on dates to meet, the war fears began resurfacing. ``The last few days, it seemed like the peace talk has diminished,'' said Ed Kevelson, a trader with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. For the week, crude finished 3 cents higher on January delivery contracts. Refined petroleum products moved in tandem with crude on Friday, rising in early trading then dropping to show little change at the close. Home heating oil was up .67 cent at 75.24 cents a gallon for January delivery. Unleaded gasoline was up .61 cent at 66.18 cents a gallon for January delivery. Heating oil has shown the most weakness of late, with supplies adequate and demand sluggish amid unseasonably warm fall weather. ``It won't get cold,'' said Thomas P. Blakeslee, an energy analyst with Pegasus Econometric Group Inc., in Hoboken, N.J. ``It's a little chilly out there today, but there's no forecast for any types of freezing temperatures.'' For the week, heating oil fell 3.93 cents for next-month delivery, while gasoline fell .29 cent. Natural gas for January delivery closed Friday at $2.262 per 1,000 cubic feet, up 4.2 cents for the day but down 8.8 cents for the week.
AP900911-0168 	X	Two suspected Colombian drug traffickers were extradited to the United States on Tuesday, the first such extraditions since President Cesar Gaviria took office last month. Jose Hilario Ortiz and Raul Hernan Buchelli, who both face drug trafficking charges in the United States, were placed on board a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plane bound for Miami, national police chief Gen. Miguel Gomez said in remarks broadcast by the RCN radio network. Ortiz faces drug trafficking charges in Connecticut and Buchelli is wanted in Florida, said a police spokesman, requesting anonymity. No further details were immediately available. Buchelli is wanted on charges of conspiracy to smuggle and distribute heroin and money laundering, while Ortiz pleaded guilty to a cocaine trafficking conspiracy charge and fled the country before sentencing, according to U.S. court records. Buchelli's brother, Guido Lucio, also faces drug trafficking charges in the United States. But he was released last week after the government rejected a U.S. request for his extradition, citing insufficient evidence. Colombia has extradited 24 suspected drug traffickers to the United States since August 1989, when the government launched a major anti-drug crackdown after the murder of a presidential candidate. Twelve of those extradited have either been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty; one was acquitted. An additional nine are awaiting trial. The crackdown prompted the Medellin cocaine cartel to declare ``total war'' on the government a year ago. Tuesday's extraditions were the first of suspected drug traffickers to the United States since Gaviria was inaugurated Aug. 7. He has pledged to continue the war against the cocaine cartels waged by his predecessor, Virgilio Barco. Last Wednesday, Gaviria modified the country's extradition policy. In a nationally televised speech, Gaviria said drug traffickers who turn themselves in and confess their crimes would be tried in Colombia and not face extradition to the United States. Under the decree announced by Gaviria, Colombian judges would be also empowered to impose shorter sentences for suspects who confess and cooperate with local investigations. The country's drug barons have so far offered no reply to Gaviria's offer. Gaviria's offer appeared to be, at least in part, a response to repeated offers from the drug traffickers to surrender to Colombian judges in return for a promise to end the extraditions that had been resumed last year by Barco. The drug traffickers have feared extradition to the United States because they would have little influence over the judicial process there. Cocaine cartel members have traditionally been able to either bribe or threaten their way out of Colombian jails. Judges who refuse to be intimidated have often been slain. In his speech last week, Gaviria announced that three Colombians would soon be extradited to the United States, but he said three other U.S. extradition requests had been turned down. The third suspect set to be extradited, Joaquin Oswaldo Gallo Chamorro, was still being held in Colombia on Tuesday. Authorities did not say why he was not sent to the United States with Ortiz and Buchelli. With the latest extraditions, the U.S. Justice Department is still seeking to extradite 14 suspected drug traffickers held in Colombia. Colombia's Cali and Medellin drug cartels supply most of the cocaine consumed in the United States and Europe. Authorities blame the Medellin for killing about 550 Colombians the past year, including three presidential candidates.
AP900504-0064 	X	Three men planting explosives near a British military barracks today fired at a guard before fleeing their bungled bombing attempt, officials said. Investigators later found 65 pounds of the high-powered explosive Semtex in three satchels outside a housing block at the British army's Langenhagen Barracks in Hanover, British military officials said. It was not known who was responsible. A Ministry of Defense spokesman in London said: ``We cannot say the men were IRA at this moment in time. All we can say is that they were terrorists.'' The Irish Republican Army has been blamed for numerous attacks against British military installations in West Germany over the past few years. The IRA has waged a campaign to drive the British from Northern Ireland and unite the Protestant-dominated province with the overwhelming Roman Catholic Irish Republic. According to police, a civilian guard making the rounds with a security dog noticed three suspicious people on the barracks grounds about 2 a.m. Three shots were fired by the people, said a British military spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the guard was not injured. Col. Henry Day, Chief of Public Information for the British Forces in Germany, said the attackers had cut a hole in the barracks' perimeter fence. He told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that 70 soldiers were moved from the building. ``It was Semtex, with a wire timing device,'' Day said. He said one satchel contained 10 blocks of explosives, and the second nine blocks. He said he had no details on the third.
AP880321-0016 	X	After 10 months, one of the many unanswered questions in the criminal investigation of Attorney General Edwin Meese III is whether he benefited financially from his efforts on behalf of an Iraqi oil pipeline project or scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp., sources familiar with the probe say. Last May 11, independent counsel James McKay launched his inquiry of Meese's assistance to Wedtech and the probe has spread to the attorney general's involvement with the pipeline. In both instances, McKay's investigators have been examining stock trades made on Meese's behalf by his investment manager, W. Franklyn Chinn. Chinn and Meese were brought together by Meese's longtime friend E. Robert Wallach, a central figure in both the Wedtech scandal and the pipeline project. It was disclosed earlier this month that: _In connection with the $1 billion proposed pipeline, Swiss oilman Bruce Rappaport paid $150,000 to his attorney Wallach, who directed the funds to an account owned by Chinn. Rappaport was a partner in the project with San Francisco-based Bechtel Group Inc., which was going to build the pipeline. Rappaport was brought into the deal in 1985 primarily because of his close ties to then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. _The money from the Meese Partners account, Wallach's $150,000 placed in the Chinn account and several hundred thousand dollars from Chinn's biggest customer, Marymount College of Palos Verdes, Calif., were used as capital by Chinn to buy hard-to-get, brand-new stock issues, which Chinn sold later the same day. It would have been difficult for Chinn to obtain such stock with Meese's money alone. ``Without using the holdings of the other accounts he controlled, ... Mr. Chinn may not have been able to conduct the number of trades he did ... on behalf of Meese Partners,'' a congressional subcommittee said in a report this month. _Once the stock was sold and the profit and loss determined, Chinn assigned profits and losses to his various customers. Overall, Meese invested $50,000 and came away 18 months later with $95,000, almost all of it gained through a total of 23 one-day stock trades. Eighteen of the trades were profitable. In seven of the trades, the attorney general didn't have enough money in his account to generate the profits and losses that were assigned him. Chinn's biggest customer, Marymount College, didn't fare nearly as well as Meese. Was the stock trading actually a well-disguised payoff to Meese? That question is one that McKay's office has been unable to resolve, say the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. Central to the criminal investigation is whether there was a plan to steer the proceeds of Chinn's stock transactions to Meese and whether the attorney general knew about it. The attorney general says he knew nothing about the transactions because he had set up a limited blind partnership with Chinn's company under which details were to be kept secret from Meese as a way to protect the attorney general from violating rules against conflict of interest. The investigators face a wall of silence from the others involved in setting up the financial arrangements, Chinn and Wallach, who are both under indictment for racketeering in the Wedtech scandal. Wallach denied to McKay's investigators that he gave anything of value to Meese, but Wallach refused to tell McKay anything about his dealings with Wedtech, his knowledge of the Meese-Chinn partnership and his dealings with Chinn. McKay said that after the Wedtech trial expected later this year of Wallach, Chinn and business associate R. Kent London, the independent counsel may seek their testimony again. The attorney general's good fortune in stock trading began months after he smoothed the way for Wallach to discuss the pipeline with then-National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who met with Wallach and Rappaport in June 1985. Later in the year, Meese and Wallach met with Peres about the pipeline, which was never built. Also during the period the stock trading was taking place, Chinn sat on the board of directors of Wedtech, the Bronx, N.Y., defense contractor that allegedly paid out millions of dollars to lawyers and lobbyists in an attempt to influence various public officials, including Meese, in the awarding of federal contracts. One of those lawyers was Wallach, who was paid $1.3 million from 1981 through 1986 by Wedtech. The stock trades that made profits for the attorney general took place some four years after Meese, then White House counselor, arranged for his deputy, James Jenkins, to intervene on behalf of Wedtech in connection with a $32 million no-bid contract to build small engines for the Army. Despite the misgivings of Army officials over what they regarded as a high price, Wedtech was awarded the contract following a White House meeting called by Jenkins. Meese ended the financial arrangement with Chinn last year after the investment adviser came under criminal investigation in the Wedtech scandal and after public disclosure that Chinn had sat on Wedtech's board of directors.
AP880726-0009 	X	Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci says he hopes to curb Pentagon purchasing abuses by ordering new limits on the number of ``final offers'' that defense contractors can make on a single deal. Carlucci said at a news conference Monday that he was surprised to learn how frequently companies were allowed to revise supposedly final bids, although he described it as ``the exception'' rather than the rule. In the past, contractors have been allowed to amend their final offers in consultation with the Pentagon to change prices or technical specifications to meet military needs. The Pentagon has been rocked in recent weeks by allegations that private consultants working for defense contractors bribed top military purchasing officials for secret contract information. Many of the alleged abuses disclosed in the Justice Department investigation involve contractors who, through the consultants, learned the price or other specifics of bids by competing companies, and then submitted a new ``best and final offer'' tailored to win contracts, some of them worth billions of dollars. ``It is the `best and final offer' that seems to us to create the most intensive point in the competitive cycle. And that means that information is at a premium,'' Carlucci said. ``We intend to continue with our competitive process. But when you repeat it once, twice, or three times, then it can readily become subject to abuse,'' Carlucci added. Carlucci, who was scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Committee today, also said his aides had drawn up a ``protocol'' for the military to follow as more information is disclosed from the Justice Department investigation. Carlucci said the department has: _Required that 17 companies implicated in the investigation certify they did not engage in ``illegal or improper activity'' to obtain a defense contract; _Required those 17 to agree, in any new contract greater than $100,000, to include a clause allowing the government to recover profits or 10 percent of the contract value if the deal is tainted; _Started procedures to lift the security clearances of six people, including one suspended without pay from the Navy Department and five others transferred to other duties pending results of the investigation; _Sent letters to the top 200 defense contractors urging them to implement strong internal ethics programs, ``stringent management controls, and asking them to report back to us on their self-governance programs;'' _Reviewed federal acquisition regulations to tighten controls on consultants employed by defense contractors; _Formed an audit task force to review the cost imposed on the military budget by consultants employed by private defense contractors. Carlucci said the certification requirement was being applied only to the 17 implicated companies to avoid penalizing contractors who were not under suspicion. ``This is a rifle action. It is not a shotgun action,'' he said. ``We are directing this at certain contractors. We do not intend to apply it indiscriminately, because it does impose a burden on people. ``And where there are burdens, there are costs, and those costs may come back to the Pentagon and the U.S. taxpayer,'' he said. ``It is only where we have reason to believe that people are under suspicion that we are doing this.'' Carlucci declined to identify people whose security clearances were being lifted, saying only that ``we are taking steps to revoke the security clearances of individuals who have been involved in illegal or improper actions.'' In a related development, the White House announced that President Reagan intends to nominate Milton L. Lohr to the new position of deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition. Since 1983, Lohr has been president of the Defense Research Corp. in La Jolla, Calif. Before that, he was executive vice president of Flight Systems Inc., from 1969-83. Lohr, a 63-year-old native of Revere, Mass., graduated from the University of Southern California in 1949 and the University of California at Los Angeles in 1964.
AP881229-0062 	X	Social Security officials say a quadriplegic who won a seat in the Legislature has been warned he could lose his medical benefits if he takes his newly won seat and begins drawing expense reimbursements. Bill Boharski, a Kalispell Republican, defeated Democrat Gordon Hall in November, to win his first term in the Montana House. But after drawing expense reimbursements for attending legislative caucuses in November, Boharski said he was notified the reimbursements were ``unearned income'' that would make him ineligible for continued medical benefits under Medicare and Medicaid. And Boharski, who is paralyzed from injuries he suffered in an automobile accident five years ago, says he can't afford to lose the money. He estimates his medical expenses at $15,000 a year. ``That put me in a position where I had to seriously consider whether or not I had to resign my position,'' the 27-year-old legislator-elect said. ``That amount of medical bills isn't something you can just pay.'' Boharski said the situation is not desperate because state and federal officials are trying to help. Legislative leaders say they're considering a change in state compensation law to redefine the reimbursements, and Boharski said Social Security has advised him the case is under review. Boharski also said he will ask Congress for help if need be. Montana legislators earn $52.13 for each working day in the session plus $50 a day during the session as reimbursement for living expenses in Helena. The 1989 session begins Monday. It's the expense reimbursement that concerns Social Security Administration officials. Mark Fredenberg, operations supervisor for the agency's Kalispell office, said that under federal law, the expense allowances are considered unearned income. Social Security disability benefits are reduced by the amount of unearned income over $20 that a person receives, he said. And a person who loses eligibility for those payments because of unearned income also loses eligibility for medical coverage, he said. Most people receiving disability payments don't work or don't travel to work, Fredenberg noted, saying a situation such as Boharski's arises ``very, very seldom.'' Boharski said he checked into the federal regulations before he filed for office last spring. He said he was told then he would qualify for continued medical benefits if elected, under a program that allows people to continue receiving medical coverage even if they are working. Boharski said Social Security officials have since told him he should be able to continue receiving his medical benefits. But, he said, he hasn't yet received written verification. Fredenberg said he could not comment directly on Boharski's case because of federal privacy laws. Boharski said if legislation at the state level doesn't resolve the problem, he will try to have changes made at the federal level so he can retain his legislative seat. ``I'm counting on staying,'' he said. ``Anyone who knows me knows I don't quit that easy.''
AP881230-0201 	X	In a major blow to Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, the man appointed to investigate a widening scandal resigned today after saying he had accepted political donations from the company at the center of the controversy. Takeshita today named a political outsider, former Supreme Court Judge Masami Takatsuji, 78, to replace Justice Minister Takashi Hasegawa. Hasegawa announced he was stepping down just three days after Takeshita appointed him to a new Cabinet supposedly untainted by a stock-dealing scandal that had already forced the resignation of 17 politicians and business leaders. Opposition parties and analysts say Takeshita should follow the lead of those leaders and resign. Hasegawa's resignation, which occurred the day after Takeshita publicly reaffirmed his support for him, was the second Cabinet casualty. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa stepped down on Dec. 9. Takeshita made no comment on the resignation of Hasegawa, 76. Takatsuji, a constitutional expert and former bureaucrat, served as a Supreme Court justice from 1973 to 1980. He is an unusual choice as a Cabinet member because he is not a career politician, the background of nearly all Cabinet ministers. Takeshita apparently decided it was necessary to go outside politics to find someone without links to the Recruit Co., the information conglomerate at the heart of the scandal over charges it sold unlisted stocks in a subsidiary to scores of politicians and business leaders at bargain prices. Asked at a news conference today if he had any connection to the Recruit affair, the new justice minister said: ``None at all.'' ``I don't really have anything to say about Recruit,'' Takatsuji said. ``My attitude toward it is no different from that of the people in general.'' His predecessor had been given a mandate to reform political ethics and head the legal probe of the Recruit scandal. But one day after Hasegawa's appointment, it was disclosed that Recruit had given money for 12 years to a group that financed his campaign and political activities. ``There is nothing wrong with politicians accepting donations made from the good will of their supporters,'' Hasegawa told reporters earlier today. ``However, as minister in charge of clearing up the Recruit problem in the Takeshita administration, which is trying to heighten trust in government, it is regrettable that I received donations from Recruit,'' he said. ``I apologize deeply and resign from my post as justice minister.'' The scandal has engulfed the Liberal Democrats, as several senior party lawmakers or their aides purchased shares in the subsidiary before the shares were offered publicly and later sold them at large tax-free profits. The transactions were legal but have generated a storm of controversy over business and political ethics. Prosecutors also are invesigating possible bribery. Leaders of the opposition Clean Government Party and the Democratic Socialist Party said Hasegawa's resignation was only natural, while the Communist Party called for the entire Cabinet to resign and new parliamentary elections. ``Takeshita should step down because he is connected to the Recruit affair himself and as long as he is appointing Cabinet ministers, government won't be clean,'' said Masayuki Fukuoka, a professor of political science at Komazawa University in Tokyo. ``There is no way for the Takeshita administration to regain its public support as more people will probably be arrested as the Recruit investigation advances next year,'' he said. It is widely perceived that the premier should consider resigning when public support dips below 20 percent, Fukuoka said. A newspaper poll this month found Takeshita's public support was 18 percent, down from 30 percent when he took office 13 months ago. An aide to Takeshita and one of his relatives also profited in the stock transactions, but the prime minister has denied any personal involvement. ``Takeshita cannot escape the responsibility of political reform that he has pledged, and he should resign,'' said Jiro Kamijima, professor of government at Tokyo's Rissho University. ``The entire parliament has been hijacked (by Recruit).'' Hasegawa confirmed Thursday that his political support organization received $46,000 from Recruit over the last 12 years, but Hasegawa said he had no knowledge of the donations. Other new Cabinet members have received donations from Recruit, including the agriculture and economic planning agency chiefs and Chief Cabinet Secretary Keizo Obuchi, who has acknowledged his political support group received monthly donations of $160 from Recruit.
AP880422-0200 	X	With lessons learned from the Grenada evacuation, Charleston County officials are preparing for the possibility of a hasty civilian evacuation from Central America. ``I guess that the national network interviews of Americans in Panama made me think in terms of that. Basically, it's just headlines until you start seeing people and their concerns about things like that,'' William J. Knowles, director of Charleston County's Department of Social Services, said Friday. During the past three weeks, social services employees have been assembling ``survival boxes'' containing items ranging from registration forms to diapers. They also have a stockpile of quarters for any new arrival who might need to make a telephone call. The repatriation would be similar to the last-minute handling of the more than 500 evacuees flown to the Charleston Air Force Base after the 1983 invasion of Grenada, said Knowles. Though the Charleston Air Force Base has not been designated a civilian evacuation landing zone, Knowles said it is the most logical and convenient for the large aircraft known to supply American bases in Central America. ``We were very lucky with Grenada because this line of government dealt with that line of government right up to the State Department. But with something like an evacuation, you never know what may happen,'' he said. ``It's just been a prudent ground effort to muster the resources of an agency at a minute's notice,'' he said. ``We don't want to be in a position of having to run around looking for this and that.''
AP900714-0061 	X	Two of the 14 Cubans who sought refuge in Czechoslovakia's embassy in Havana earlier this week have left the mission, the Foreign Ministry said today. According to a report carried by the state CTK news agency, one refugee left without notifying the embassy and the other asked to be released. The two apparently left without explanation. ``They left Friday afternoon, sometime between 4 and 4:30 p.m. local time,'' said Marcel Cintalan, a Foreign Ministry official. ``We don`t know why. They did not give any reasons.'' A senior official said Friday that Czechoslovakia would not turn the Cuban refugees in the Havana embassy over to authorities and that Prague was prepared for long and complicated talks over their fate. Three other asylum-seekers have sought refuge in Spain's Havana embassy. The Czechoslovak deputy foreign minister, Lubos Dobrovsky, met with Cuban Ambassador Mario Rodriguez Martinez Friday and asked Cuba to grant the refugees free passage. Dobrovsky also met with senior Soviet, West German and Italian diplomats to seek their help in resolving the situation. Tension has been growing between the two former Communist allies since a democratic revolution swept Czechoslovakia's Communist rulers from power last winter. Earlier this week, Prague said it suspected the influx of Cuban refugees might be a deliberate provocation by Havana to underline the growing strain between the nations.
AP900820-0059 	X	Iraq said today it had moved Western detainees to vital military targets, making good on its threat to use them as human shields against a potential American attack. The message came after Iraq warned its own people not to hide foreigners or they would face the ``severest punishment.'' Iraq had threatened earlier to use the trapped foreigners as shields, and today's statement by the official Iraqi News Agency said some had already been scattered at the target sites. The agency, monitored in Nicosia, quoted a spokesman for the Iraqi National Council as saying: ``Iraq's foreign guests have been in fact moved to all vital and military installations. They have been provided with all modern facilities and they are all in good physical condition.'' The three-line dispatch provided no further details, such as how many foreigners had been moved or to what installations. Earlier, President Bush demanded that Iraq release all foreigners detained in Iraq and Kuwait, and for the first time he referred to them as hostages. ``There can be little doubt that whatever these innocent citizens are called, they are in fact hostages,'' he said in a speech to war veterans in Baltimore. Also today, two senior U.N. officials headed for Baghdad to urge Iraq to free foreigners held captive in Kuwait and Iraq. U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein requested the envoys be sent. In his speech, Bush repeated U.S. demands that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait, which it invaded Aug. 2. He also likened Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. An Iraqi official also referred to World War II today, reminding the United States that it had once interned members of its own ethnic Japanese population. ``In response to the official American and Western declarations regarding Iraq's hosting of foreigners ... We would like to recall that America, during World War II, held about 100,000 of its own citizens of Japanese origin in detention camps to avert a potential Japanese attack on its western coast,'' said the statement carried by the state-run Iraqi News Agency. It was attributed to the Speaker of the Iraqi National Council, or parliament, Sadi Mehdi Saleh. The United States, meanwhile, picked up another ally in its military thrust against Iraq with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney's announcement today that U.S. C-130 cargo transports have begun operating from the United Arab Emirates. Cheney's statement in Abu Dhabi marked an important show of cooperation from a gulf nation with international efforts to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Also today, OPEC said there was not enough support among its members to call an emergency meeting to consider Saudi Arabia's request to boost oil production. A brief statement said OPEC's president would meet with some other oil ministers before the end of the month. Saudi Arabia said Saturday it would boost oil production by as much as 2 million barrels a day. Iraq said today that diplomats who fail to close their missions in Kuwait by Friday will be treated as any other foreign citizen. But in London, the Foreign office said Britain will attempt to keep an embassy in Kuwait. Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Sweden, and West Germany said they had no plans to close their missions in Kuwait. The Iraqi radio message, monitored in Nicosia, warned Iraqi citizens against secretly sheltering foreigners to protect them. ``Hosting a foreigner in an Iraqi's place of residence is considered a flagrant violation of the law, for which the severest punishments will be given,'' it said. It said the law applied ``with (Iraq's) entire administrative border'' _ apparently including annexed Kuwait. On Sunday, Saddam offered to free foreigners if the United States withdraws its forces from the Persian Gulf region and guarantees the economic embargo will be lifted. U.S. officials dismissed the offer. He later said he would free citizens of nations that remain neutral in the conflict, including those of Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Portugal. They account for only about 600 of the 21,000 foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait. There was growing international anxiety over the fate of the remaining foreign captives, including 3,000 Americans and 4,000 Britons, held for almost three weeks. Saddam said Sunday Westerners will be held at vital Iraqi installations to deter U.S. attacks on the facilities. ``Our people are seeking to avert a catastrophe,'' Saddam said, in comments read on Iraqi television. ``The presence of the foreigners with Iraqi families at vital targets might prevent an attack.'' Iraqi authorities also ordered Westerners in Kuwait to assemble at hotels or face the consequences. In other developments: _The White House said U.S. warships were still ``shadowing'' two Iraqi tankers, which ignored warning shots fired by the U.S. vessels on Saturday. _U.S. warships off the United Arab Emirates were challenging by radio practically every commercial ship coursing up and down the Persian Gulf, shipping executives reported today. _Iraq said today that Indonesian and some Argentine citizens may leave. _China's official Xinhua News Agency said the first group of 97 Chinese would be evacuated from Iraq today, with Baghdad's help. Also today, 122 Soviet citizens crossed into Jordan, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported. _The British Foreign Office said today that 82 Britons were taken Sunday by Iraqi authorities from a hotel in Kuwait city. A day earlier, 41 British citizens were taken from the Kuwait International hotel. _Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal arrived in Damascus, Syria today to discuss the Gulf crisis with the Syrian leadership. _Two Dutch Navy frigates were leaving today for the Persian Gulf to join the multinational force arrayed against Iraq. The air defense frigate Witte de With and the standard frigate Pieter Florisz were to take two weeks to reach the region. _ Greece also said it would send a frigate. _Iraqi soldiers today continued their withdrawal from occupied Iranian territory, the official Iranian news agency said, freeing up thousands of battle-hardened troops to face U.S. forces. Iraq and Iran were also repatriating prisoners from their eight-year war, which effectively ended with a cease-fire in August of 1988. _Iranian newspapers today attacked the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. The Jomhuri Islami said in an editorial the United States had virtually annexed Saudi Arabia, just as Iraq did Kuwait. But the newspaper stressed that although it opposes the U.S. military presence, it also opposes the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait. United Arab Emirates, an alliance comprising seven sheikdoms, today became the first of the moderate Arab governments in the southern gulf region to publicly announce overt military cooperation with the United States. On Sunday, the United Arab Emirates announced it would allow the deployment of Arab and ``friendly'' forces on its territory as part of multinational efforts to defend the Persian Gulf region. On Saturday night, the U.N. Security Council unanimously demanded that Iraq let all foreigners held in Iraq and Kuwait leave. CBS News said from Baghdad that 35 Americans, including four women and three children, took refuge at U.S. diplomatic ``quarters'' in the Iraqi capital Sunday. Asked about the report, a spokesman at the State Department said: ``We can't make a comment on that at this time.''
AP880513-0093 	X	A $76,000 appropriation for ``fuel management systems'' at two highway patrol stations raised eyebrows at a meeting of the state Building Commission. ``What's a fuel management system?'' Lt. Gov. John Wilder, commission vice chairman, asked Thursday. ``That's a gasoline pump,'' replied Safety Commissioner Robert Lawson. ``And you call it a fuel management system?'' Wilder asked. ``Yes,'' Lawson said. ``You're pumping gasoline into a vehicle?'' Wilder asked. ``Yes,'' Lawson said. ``Why don't you call it that?'' Wilder asked. ``I won't use the term again,'' Lawson promised.
AP880801-0115 	X	Syndicated columnist Carl T. Rowan, calling himself a pawn in a larger gun-control debate, pleaded innocent Monday to charges he used an unregistered weapon to shoot a teen-ager who took an uninvited dip in his backyard pool. Rowan has been charged with one count each of possessing an unregistered weapon, and possessing ammunition for the gun, in connection with the June 14 shooting. Both are misdemeanors. District of Columbia Superior Court Hearing Commissioner Kaye Christian scheduled trial for Sept. 22, and released Rowan on his own recognizance. Rowan requested a jury trial. If he is convicted on both charges, the columnist could face a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. The district's 1976 handgun ordinance essentially bans posession of handguns and ammunition not owned at the time the law was passed, except for law officers. After his court appearance, Rowan lashed out at those who say he is hypocritical for using a handgun. ``I am aware that I am the pawn in a brutal game between those who favor and those who oppose handgun control,'' Rowan said, reading a prepared statement to dozens of reporters and television camera crews. ``I want to make it clear that I still favor a strict national law to control the availability of handguns. ``There is no hypocrisy in advocating a national policy that no one seems to be able to get through Congress,'' he said. The columnist also asserted that he has received additional death threats since the shooting incident. He had previously told police that he obtained the weapon used in the shooting after receiving similar threats in 1982. Rowan has said that the gun and ammunition were originally owned by his son, Carl Jr., who was told that he did not need to register them because he was serving as an FBI agent at the time. Outside the courthouse, a half-dozen handgun advocates rallied in support of the columnist's right to bear arms. ``We think that Carl Rowan may be guilty of raving hypocrisy, but he shouldn't be charged in a court of law today for protecting his home with a gun,'' said Lee Bellinger, the leader of Action for America, a conservative activist group that champions the right to private handgun ownership. ``We welcome him into the family of people protecting their home with guns.'' Other supporters carried posters reading, ``Warning: This home protected by Carl Rowan,'' coupled with a Rambo-like drawing of Rowan's head atop a muscle-bound, gun-toting torso. Still others displayed signs reading, ``Leave Carl Rowan alone.'' ``It (the Rowan shooting) shows what can happen in a moment of panic,'' said Sarah Brady, wife of James Brady, President Reagan's press secretary. She was not at the rally, but said in a telephone interview, ``With the handgun, in most cases you see more cases of misuse than you do anything else.'' Brady became president of Handgun Control, an anti-handgun group, after her husband suffered permanent brain damage when he was wounded during John Hinckley Jr.'s attempt to assassinate Reagan in 1981. Rowan, 62, was cleared last month of assault charges in the shooting incident after an investigation by federal prosecutors. U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens said at the time that he thought Rowan should be prosecuted on the weapons charges, but deferred that decision to District of Columbia officials, who normally decide whether to prosecute such cases. The shooting occurred, Rowan said, when he heard noises in his backyard, called police, and discovered Benjamin Smith, 18, of suburban Chevy Chase, Md., and three other youths by his pool. Rowan shot Smith in the wrist when, he said, the youth lunged at him. Smith and a companion Laura Bachman, 19, were charged with unlawful entry, but prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charges in exchange for 40 hours of community service work.
AP900112-0052 	X	Opposition leaders and Communist officials have tentatively set national elections for June, government television reported. ``According to unofficial information, the first round of (parliamentary) elections should take place on June 8,'' Czechoslovak TV said Thursday. The report came as the Communists, other political parties and the opposition Civic Forum met to review procedures for the elections and the status of independent political parties. ``The draft elections law is aimed at having the elections for the Federal Assembly and both National Councils (parliament) first ... and in the second half of the year the elections to the lower levels of representative bodies should take place,'' the television said. The 35O-member Czechoslovak Parliament is so far dominated by Communists. The discussions are expected to produce a solution to balancing its membership to reflect the current political situation. The talks are being attended by all five political parties existing before the revolution and the loosely organized opposition group, Civic Forum. About 20 new political parties have been created in Czechoslovakia the past two months, but none is represented at the current talks. The peaceful revolution in Czechoslovakia led to the ouster of Communist party chief Milos Jakes and his hard-line colleagues in late November. Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel became president last month.
AP900712-0125 	X	Here are highlights of Thursday's session of the 28th Communist Party congress, its 10th day. The congress is scheduled to continue Friday.
AP880226-0054 	X	U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., whose avowed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has yet to take shape, has failed to make the ballot in two more Ohio congressional districts. The problems disclosed Thursday brought to four the number of Ohio districts in which Traficant's name will not be on the ballot. Ohio has 21 congressional districts. In the sprawling 6th District of Southern Ohio, Traficant needed 150 signatures, and 159 were submitted. Every signature was ruled invalid, said Nancy Stapleton, director of the Warren County Board of Elections. Elections officials in the 2nd District in suburban Cincinnati said Thursday that Traficant did not meet petition requirements there, either. Traficant already was off the ballot in two other districts.
AP880503-0052 	X	The number of white blood cells infected by the AIDS virus rises sharply in the year before virus-infected males actually develop the disease, says a study that may lead to speedier treatment for AIDS victims. While the existing test to detect the increase in AIDS-infected cells is too time-consuming and expensive for routine use, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is trying to develop a simpler test that could predict when an infected person will get full-blown AIDS, said the CDC's Janet Nicholson. Such a test would help doctors decide when the benefits of giving patients certain toxic anti-AIDS drugs outweigh the risks, said Dr. Paul Volberding, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and AIDS program director at San Francisco General Hospital. ``If we knew that somebody was getting close to the point of developing AIDS, we would want to treat the person at that point, even if he hadn't developed full-blown AIDS,'' he said. Nicholson, the CDC's clinical immunology chief, presented her findings Monday during the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. She and her colleagues spent three years regularly testing blood cells from 15 homosexual Atlanta men who were infected by the virus and had chronic swelling of lymph glands but didn't suffer AIDS. Six of the 15 subsequently developed AIDS, Nicholson said. She said in the year before those symptoms became apparent, the six showed a 25-fold increase in the number of AIDS virus-infected peripheral blood mononuclear cells _ a class of white blood cells. If a simple test could show that someone infected with the virus soon will get AIDS, doctors could better decide when to prescribe AZT and antibiotics that prevent pneumocystis pneumonia and other infections that kill AIDS patients once the virus has crippled their immune systems, Volberding said. AZT, or azidothymidine, is believed to slow progression of AIDS. From a scientific standpoint, ``learning what a person's risk of developing AIDS is over time is a very important one,'' he said. But Nicholson and Volberding acknowledged that some AIDS-infected people may not want to learn that they soon will develop disease symptoms. Nicholson said researchers previously knew that people infected with AIDS show reduced numbers of one type of disease-fighting white blood cell, called T4-helper cells, while the infection progresses. Her study found that the number of helper cells decreases more quickly and the number of AIDS-infected cells rises sharply in infected patients who go on to develop overt AIDS symptoms. ``It's not clear yet whether everyone who is infected will develop disease,'' she said, adding that her findings point the way toward determining which patients are likely to do so. AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome is caused by a virus that damages the body's immune system, leaving victims susceptible to death from infections and cancer. The CDC estimates that 1 million to 1.5 million Americans have been infected with the virus, and of that total, 20 percent to 30 percent will develop AIDS by the end of 1991.
AP880711-0068 	X	Michael Dukakis was back in his home base of Boston today, ready for a final round of deliberations on who will join him on the Democratic ticket. Jesse Jackson says he expects to speak privately with Dukakis in the coming week about the vice presidency. As the running drama over a running mate for Dukakis plays on, Democrats were preparing for the opening of their convention a week from today in Atlanta. Republican George Bush, meanwhile, was returning to Washington today after a weekend at his seaside retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. Aides speaking on condition of anonymity said the vice president, the certain Republican nominee, was preparing to propose a strict new conflict-of-interest code for public officials. Dukakis has frequently attacked Bush over the ethics of Reagan administration officials including Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who last week announced plans to step down. Meese, who was under investigation for a year, declared himself vindicated after an independent counsel decided not to seek an indictment of him. With Meese on the way out, campaign sources said the vice president hopes to take the offensive on the ethics issue. They said he would spell out his proposals later this month. Bush himself was the target of accusations last week from Democratic Party chief Paul Kirk, who accused him of using public funds to pay for campaign appearances. Bush aides denied the allegations. The vice president's only public appearance over the weekend was at a Lithuanian festival on Sunday near his vacation home. He said reforms in the Soviet Union signal a ``time of hope,'' but warned against ``complacency or weakness'' in dealing with Moscow. Bush and Jackson were speaking to the same agricultural group this afternoon in Washington. And all three contenders had appearances set at the NAACP's convention in Washington, Bush and Jackson on Tuesday and Dukakis on Wednesday. Dukakis, who is struggling to resolve a budget crunch in his home state, was turning his attention to gubernatorial business today after a four-day Western trip. In a string of appearances during his last pre-convention campaign swing, Dukakis took Bush to task on a variety of issues, from the Pentagon procurement scandal to the vice president's no-tax-hike pledge. Dukakis says Bush's support for higher fees for some government services amounts to backing higher taxes. Bush disputes that. Even as he sought to turn up the heat on Bush, Dukakis responded coolly to talk of possible convention disputes with Jackson. ``I think Jesse Jackson can do anything he wants to do,'' Dukakis told reporters in Estes Park, Colo., on Sunday. ``I'm going to the convention and I'm going to win it.'' Although Dukakis has the delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot, Jackson said over the weekend that ``my name will be in nomination.'' ``Let no one mislead you. This is not the time for the campaign to wind down,'' Jackson told his Texas delegates in Forth Worth on Sunday night. He suggested that some disagreements with the Dukakis camp would be aired at the convention. ``When you have unresolved matters, you have created tension,'' he told the delegates. However, he denied reports his forces might stage a walkout at the convention over platform disputes. ``It would not be to our advantage to walk out,'' Jackson said Saturday in Los Angeles. ``The threat is not that we're going to walk out. The threat is that we're going to stay and expand and build and grow and make a difference.'' Although Jackson has met several times with Dukakis in recent weeks, he says the two have yet to discuss in depth the possibility of Jackson being on the ticket. Jackson said he expects to have such a private talk before the start of the convention on July 18. The leading contenders for the vice presidential nomination are believed to be Sens. John Glenn of Ohio, Bob Graham of Florida, Lloyd Bentsen of Texas and Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, along with Reps. Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Lee Hamilton of Indiana. The Republicans, for their part, intend to fight for a share of the spotlight during the Democratic convention. Bush intends to campaign next week during the gathering, but spokeswoman Sheila Tate says details of his schedule have not yet been set.
AP880905-0040 	X	``It is a magnitude that no one in their wildest imagination or scientific predictions could have suggested.'' _ Yellowstone National Park spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo, discussing a complex of wildfires.
AP900304-0025 	X	The Bush administration will unveil a national transportation policy this week calling for more local government and private help to improve air, ground and water transportation into the next century. The long-awaited outline could lead to more toll roads, higher airline ticket fares, increased gasoline taxes in some areas and higher bus and mass transit fares. Major elements of the policy already have been disclosed by Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner, who says he wants to ``remove the heavy hand of government'' from transportation industries. Formal release is set for Thursday. Skinner's department faces formidable problems: overcrowded airports with about 30 percent of all flights delayed; a maritime industry in a record slump; highway bridges in need of billions of dollars in repairs; and an estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion demand for airport, railroad, highway and mass transit construction over the next 20 years. Skinner's solutions focus on increasing the nation's reliance for transport on the private sector and state and local governments by ``stimulating competition and allowing the magic of the marketplace to work.'' But Skinner has said the policy also will commit the federal government to ``fully using the funds that people have paid in user charges for transportation, for investments in transportation.'' The unspent $7.6 billion in the aviation trust fund, collected from an airline ticket tax, and the $10.1 billion in the highway trust fund, have been a sore point with transportation industry officials who say the money is going to offset the federal deficit rather than to help transportation. Some of the strategies Skinner has said will be promoted in the new policy are increased user fees, which he does not call tax hikes; increased private investment, including private construction of toll roads; extending deregulation to the trucking and maritime industries; and promotion of new technologies, including high-speed rail systems and ``smart cars'' that are less likely to crash. Major points Skinner has disclosed so far from the policy include: _ Promotion of a ``stronger, healthier partnership among federal, state and local governments,'' with ``regulatory flexibility,'' which Skinner has said could include new powers to levy local highway tolls. _ A concentration of federal assistance on ``projects of national significance,'' although the projects will not be identified in the policy document. _ Preservation of existing transportation systems, including the interstate highway system. _ A focus on ``moving people and goods _ not just vehicles,'' with promotion of high-occupancy vehicle lanes for crowded commuter routes. _ Encouragement of technology and innovation in all modes of transportation. Even before it has been released, the policy has attracted criticism, although Skinner is widely praised for undertaking the task. ``Flexibility sounds like a euphemism for `take care of yourself,''' Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., told Skinner as the secretary unveiled a portion of his plan before a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York, ranking Republican on the same subcommittee, said he feared the new policy would not help the continued development of large mass transit systems that take cars off the roads and decrease pollution. Carole Perkins, spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, said the rail industry supports Skinner's efforts and appreciates his commitment to treat all industries evenly and get rid of unneeded regulations. But she said railroad officials are looking for specifics and that it appears the policy will deal mostly in generalities. Airline industry officials have said they would like to see a separate policy outline from the Federal Aviation Administration, since Skinner's plan will give equal importance to all means of moving goods and people around the country. One problem airline officials say the policy is unlikely to address is the need for unified noise standards at airports. The new transportation policy is contained in a document that has passed the scrutiny of the White House's fiscal office, the Office of Management and Budget. Skinner told a congressional committee last week that reports that OMB would impose significant changes in the policy were not true. He described White House changes as ``wordsmithing'' only. The policy is the result of 117 ``town meeting''-style hearings held in 48 cities over the past year. Parts of it already are being implemented, according to Transportation Department officials, and some of its proposals are contained in Bush's fiscal 1991 budget, including calls for airport passenger fees and other increases in revenue from transportation users.
AP900101-0016 	X	Westminster College, where Winston S. Churchill's ``Iron Curtain speech'' signaled the start of the Cold War in 1946, hopes Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will deliver an epilogue. ``We're hoping that a world figure who has played such a major role in East-West politics would see the importance of returning to the place where the Cold War was first defined,'' college president Harvey Saunders said. Fulton, a community of 11,000, has asked Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., to help try to get Gorbachev to speak at Westminster in June when he visits the United States for a summit meeting with President Bush. While out of office as Britain's prime minister, Churchill was persuaded by President Truman to come to Fulton to accept an honorary degree. In his March 1946 lecture, Churchill said, ``From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the (European) continent.'' The phrase drew little immediate attention from the media, but soon it became part of the Cold War glossary.
AP880425-0289 	X	American business will spend more than $100 billion on travel and entertainment by 1990, according to an American Express survey of business travel management. By comparison, an estimated $85 billion was spent in 1986, which American Express says is one-third more than business paid in taxes. The travel expense figure was $2 billion in 1985. Nearly 2,500 companies were surveyed and 28 percent responded, says American Express. According to the survey, air travel accounted for the largest portion of the travel and entertainment expenses, 41 percent of every travel dollar. Lodging (22 percent) and meals (17 percent) were next highest, followed by entertainment (14 percent) and car (6 percent). In the future, competition for business customers will focus on quality of service, according to American Express Travel Management Services. ``The competition for business customers is going to be won on quality of service, not price, as travel vendors respond to a high level of consumer discontent and focus on service issues,'' said Tomasso Zanzotto, president of Travel Management Services, in a 1988 business travel forecast. Brian Froehlich, of American Express Travel Management Services, says, ``There's a definite interest in delivering high quality service to companies and their travelers. We understand that quality is directly related to our success.'' A recent booklet from the American Society of Travel Agents, a trade association, reminded customers to plan ahead and ask questions of their travel agents: What is included in the price? What restrictions apply on discounted fare travel? What about passports and foreign currency? Travelmasters, a Chicago-based agency, is among those who have created information services to help customers make decisions. The agency has a Travel Line for special and last minute details for leisure travel customers and Fare Update, a monthly newsletter for corporate travelers and a Travelmaster Market Pack, containing travel costs, tour information, maps and weather information. ``As our business has become more computerized,'' says agency executive Peggy Blitz, ``it's more important than ever that we give meaningful service to each other.'' In another report, Runzheimer International said business travel prices rose sharply during 1987, increasing by 16.5 percent over the previous year. Runzheimer is a consulting firm based in Rochester, Wis. ``The reason for the big increase is due mostly to rising costs in air travel,'' said Brad Burris, executive vice president. ``The airlines tightened restrictions for travelers in 1987, making discount fares less available than in the past. Therefore, business travelers had difficulty fitting their schedules around the available low fare flights. Air fares rose 30.5 percent during the year, according to Runzheimer.
AP880328-0072 	X	A prostitute who says she posed naked for evangelist Jimmy Swaggart will show those poses in the July issue of Penthouse magazine, a spokeswoman for the publication said today. ``From what I understand, the photographs will recreate the precise poses and actions that Jimmy Swaggart paid for during the long affair,'' said Leslie Jay, vice president and director of public relations for the magazine. ``I also understand that the interview will review every episode in the relationship that ruined this most powerful TV preacher in the world,'' she said in a telephone interview from her New York office. Jay said she had not seen the interview or the pictures. Swaggart stepped down from the pulpit Feb. 21 after tearfully confessing to an unspecified sin against his wife, family and church. Church leaders have said he was photographed with a reputed prostitute outside a seedy New Orleans motel. Debra Murphree says she is the woman in those photographs. Jay said she did not know how much Murphree was paid or about the editorial deliberations behind Penthouse's decision to use the photographs and interview. The National Enquirer decided last month not to use an interview with Murphree after she failed a lie detector test. She told New Orleans television station WVUE she failed the test because she had taken drugs the day before. Paul Levy, the Enquirer's senior editor, said Murphree's companion, John Martinez, 28, offered her story to the Enquirer for $100,000. Martinez has said he also tried to peddle the story to People magazine and ABC-TV's Nightline. Murphree, also known as Debra Arleen Hedge, has three children living with her parents in Indiana and an arrest record in Florida, Tennessee and Louisiana, mainly involving prostitution charges.
AP900221-0047 	X	A man sitting in his living room was shot and killed by a bullet that was fired through the floor of the apartment above his, police said. Vernon Russell, 76, of Greece, a Rochester suburb, was shot Tuesday, said police Commander Michael Murray. Clifton Jackson, 52, who lives in the apartment above Russell's, was charged with second-degree manslaughter, police said. Jackson pleaded innocent before Gates Town Justice John Pisaturo. He was sent to the Monroe County Jail in lieu of $5,000 cash or $10,000 bond. There was no dispute between the neighbors, and Jackson did not intend to shoot Russell, Murray said. He declined to say why the firearm was pointed at the floor.
AP900619-0081 	X	After six weeks of searching for 13{ tons of stolen coffee, this was the break authorities were looking for. A police officer became suspicious of a trailer that had been parked along a freeway for nearly two weeks in this San Bernardino County city and ran the license plate through a computer. The computer found nothing wrong, but the notion that something wasn't quite right kept percolating in Officer Tim Lane's police mind. Finally, on Saturday, he ran the trailer's vehicle identification number, and the case of the missing Folgers was cracked. The computer showed the refrigerated trailer was stolen last April in North Hollywood. Inside, officers found about 9,000 three-pound packages of Folgers, which was unloaded Monday. Capt. George Westcott said police traced the lot numbers of the coffee and determined it had been stolen May 2 in San Francisco. It was not immediately known why the coffee was abandoned.
AP880312-0209 	X	In other business and economic news this past week: _Mobil Corp. said it would sell its Montgomery Ward division for $3.8 billion to an investor group led by Bernard Brennan, the man credited with restoring the 115-year-old department store chain to profitability. _Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli launched a $1.86 billion offer for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., urging Firestone to scrap a plan to sell 75 percent of its tire-making business to Bridgestone of Japan. _General Electric Co. announced a $423 million offer for Roper Corp., which only last month signed a merger agreement with Whirlpool Corp. _Investor Marvin Davis made an unsolicited $780.3 million offer for loss-plagued Lorimar Telepictures Corp., which had said it was discussing the possibility of being acquired by Warner Communications Inc. _United Artists Communications Inc. and United Cable Television Corp. announced a merger agreement that would produce a concern ranking among the nation's biggest cable companies. _R.H. Macy & Co. Inc. began its $6.1 billion tender offer for Federated Department Stores Inc. and went to court in hopes of torpedoing the competing $6.18 billion offer by Campeau Corp. _Dart Group Corp. abandoned its $1.03 billion takeover bid for Stop & Shop Cos. The chain is to be taken private in a $1.23 billion leveraged buyout. _USG Corp., a leading producer of building materials, urged stockholders to reject a $1.9 billion hostile acquisition offer from a partnership led by two Texas oilmen. _Canadian liquor giant Seagram Co. Ltd. proposed buying orange juice producer Tropicana Products Inc. for $1.2 billion to expand Seagram's share of the beverage market. _Farmers Group Inc., a leading insurer, said its board unanimously rejected a $4.4 billion tender offer from the U.S. subsidiary of Britain's BAT Industries PLC. _Colt Industries Inc., a large defense contractor, accepted a $660 million cash buyout offer from a group led by senior management and a unit of Morgan Stanley Group Inc. _Investor Burt Sugarman said two companies he controls had boosted their stake in Media General Inc. to 10 percent from 9.8 percent and would seek a shareholder vote on his $1.75 billion takeover offer. _Texaco Inc. asked a federal bankruptcy judge to authorize a credit agreement allowing the company to borrow up to $3 billion to finance its Chapter 11 reorganization plan, and Carl C. Icahn threw his support behind the plan. _The Supreme Court handed investors a victory, placing a heavy burden of proof on companies sued for denying they are holding merger negotiations after informal talks have begun. _A federal judge cleared the way for the regional Bell telephone companies to offer certain new computerized information services, including voice storage and electronic mail. _The U.S. Postal Service governors postponed a final decision on the effective date of new postage rates, including an increase in first class to 25 cents. _A federal appellate panel upheld a lower court's finding that there was no evidence General Motors Corp. knowingly sold 1.1 million 1980 X-cars with alleged brake defects. _Ford Motor Co. handed thousands of profit-sharing checks to U.S. workers as their share of the company's industry record profit of $4.6 billion for 1987. _The United Auto Workers union agreed to early contract negotiations with Chrysler Corp. and the two sides soon will set a date for the start of talks. _Cheating on federal income taxes has declined by as much as 20 percent, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs said. _Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III said the Federal Reserve should be independent, but the central bank does not have to be ``totally sheltered from outside advice or criticism.'' _The government said retail sales, boosted by strength in autos, rose 0.6 percent in February, following a January decline. _Wholesale prices fell 0.2 percent in February, pushed downward by drops in both food and energy costs. _A business research company said more than 2.4 million jobs are expected to be created in the United States this year, fewer than the 3 million created in 1987 but ``still a very healthy number.'' _The Federal Reserve said Americans took out $5.42 billion more in installment debt than they paid off in January, the biggest monthly increase in four months and the second strong month in a row.
AP881028-0212 	X	Investigators have determined it was a 72mm anti-tank missile that hit the fifth floor of the U.S. AID office, officials said Friday. No one was injured in the attack Thursday evening on the six-story building, which is surrounded by a concrete wall about six feet high. Henry Bassford, head of the local office of the Agency for International Development, said police told him the projectile was fired from about 200 yards. Bassford said the rocket damaged an external wall on the fifth floor of the building in a residential district of the capital. He said U.S. and Salvadoran AID employees were at work at the time but no one was on the fifth floor. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but officials suspect leftist guerrillas who have been fighting El Salvador's U.S.-backed government for nine years. The Defense Ministry called it an act of terrorism. Military sources said the rocket, known as a LAW anti-tank missile, is a relatively small-caliber weapon readily available on the black market. It was the first attack on an AID office, but the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has been attacked several times.
AP880922-0219 	X	Stock prices drifted lower today in selling apparently prompted by impatience over the market's recent sluggish performance. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 5.15 to 2,085.35 by noontime on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 3 to 2 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 488 up, 731 down and 564 unchanged. Analysts said the market's sluggish recent behavior apparently convinced some investors that stocks were unable to break out of the trading range in which they have fluctuated for several months now. They also noted an absence of conviction about the business outlook to encourage any buying. Some prominent analysts and policymakers, including Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve Board, have been warning of the dangers of revived inflation. Yet the price of gold, a primary gauge of inflationary expectations, has fallen below $400 an ounce this week for the first time in more than a year and a half. Similarly, brokers say, there is widespread confusion and uncertainty among investors about prospects for continued economic growth in 1989 under a new administration whose makeup and policies are not yet known. Among actively traded blue chips, International Business Machines rose \ to 113{; American Express was unchanged at 27~, and American Telephone & Telegraph slipped [ to 26]. Reebok International, which reported a higher order backlog than a year ago, rose ] to 11 in active trading. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped .17 to 152.47. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down .63 at 298.34. Volume on the Big Board came to 76.28 million shares at noontime, up from 57.29 million Wednesday, when activity was diminished somewhat by the observance of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.
AP880316-0153 	X	Auto speed king Mickey Thompson and his wife were shot to death this morning in the driveway of their exclusive hillside home in what authorities said was ``an assassination'' by two gunmen who fled on bicycles. Thompson, 59, and his wife, Trudy, were found dead at dawn by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies responding to reports of gunfire, said Deputy Doug Gatlin. ``It was a double homicide, an assassination,'' said Deputy Richard Dinsmoor. Neighbors said they heard 6 or 8 shots before the bodies were found about 6 a.m. on the driveway in front of the couple's Spanish-style home on Woodlyn Road in a high-security, gated community 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. They were shot to death, but the type of weapon wasn't disclosed, Dinsmoor said. The Thompsons were walking out to their van when they were ambushed. ``We don't know a motive,'' said Deputy Dan Cox. Doug Stokes, spokesman for Thompson Entertainment Group in Anaheim, said the Thompson's were apparently leaving the house for work when the shooting occurred. He said he didn't know of any threats against the Thompsons. Thompson became famous as the ``Speed King'' in the 1950s when he set the first of his nearly 500 auto speed and endurance records. In 1960 he became the first to travel over 400 mph on land when he drove a four-engine streamlined car to a speed of 406.6 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. He later turned to drag racing, Indianapolis car racing, won a national economy championship and was a top competitor in road racing and off-road championships in the United States and Mexico. He was a drag racing innovator, building and driving the sport's first ``slingshot'' dragster. He worked in the 1950s to take the sport off the streets onto sanctioned drag racing strips, and he was honored by the California Senate for his contributions to the youth of the state as well as the automotive industry. He was also well known as a promoter and his other sports activities included stunt flying and management of prizefighters. In pursuit of his land speed and Indy-car projects, Thompson often teamed with one of the auto industry's leading figures, Semon ``Bunkie'' Knudsen. Knudsen was a top executive with General Motors Corp. when he backed the Thompson effort to break 400 mph. Later, when Knudsen moved from GM to become president of Ford Motor Co., Thompson got company help with his own design of a Ford-powered dune buggy racer. As a racer, Thompson often failed to finish events because of mechanical breakdowns. He failed to finish in the first 27 powerboat races that he entered. He brought custom machines to Indianapolis racing in the early 1960s, but again the cars he designed were fast but not durable. Longtime friend Carroll Shelby described him as ``one of the greatest hot-rodders we've ever had'' and ``the dominant figure in off-road racing.'' ``He certainly had a colorful career,'' Shelby said. ``We're all going to miss him.'' When he was 12, Thompson ended his first race at Lakeland Park in nearby El Monte by crashing his four-cylinder Ford Model B hot rod against a wall during the first lap. He wasn't hurt because he was wearing a football helmet and was strapped inside with clothesline rope since he couldn't afford a real crash helmet or seat belts. Racing put him in the hospital 27 times, including a seven-month stay when he was paralyzed from the waist down after a boat racing accident. It was two years before he walked again. Thompson had a variety of other careers. He swept floors at the Los Angeles Times and later wrote sports articles there (``Just to see if I could.''), sold 10-cent hamburgers at a drive-in, produced and directed racing movies, owned 29 different businesses (``Every one of them has made money'') and was mayor of Rolling Hills. Danny Thompson, the couple's 37-year-old son who is also an off-road racer, wasn't immediately available for comment, said his publicist Carolyn Williams.
AP881012-0108 	X	Oct. 7 Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald on the vice presidential debate: By all criteria _ style or substance _ Lloyd Bentsen was a lopsided winner in (the) vice presidential debate. Dan Quayle's only claim was that he was still standing. Call it a technical knockout. Sure, Bentsen overplayed the need for a ``tough'' trade policy (a trade war perhaps?) as a miracle cure for the American economy. But in other policy matters _ like welfare reform, the environment and defense burden-sharing by American allies _ he was resonant. Bentsen was perhaps most convincing in explaining that he can differ in degree with Michael Dukakis. On Contra aid (which he favors and Dukakis opposes), Bentsen criticized the Reagan administration for banking so heavily on military force that regional diplomacy is disregarded outright. Bentsen was also right on the shaky foundations of Reaganomics _ an economy propped up by foreign debt and deficit spending (``$200 billion in hot checks''). Quayle was left to give a testimonial to foreign entrepreneurs. Dukakis still has a lot of convincing to do to show his mettle as a leader, but Bentsen's performance helps him a lot. The senator from Texas came off as a real Dukakis asset _ a man of competence and moderation.
AP900123-0270 	X	Expectations of a buildup in petroleum supplies in the nation's storage tanks sent oil futures prices tumbling Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Analysts said investors sold energy contracts ahead of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory report, which was released after the close of trading. The report showed, as investors expected, increases in heating oil and gasoline stocks. Crude oil supplies declined. In trading on the New York Merc, the March contract for West Texas Intermediate, the main grade of U.S. crude oil, fell 17 cents to $21.60 per 42-gallon barrel. The April crude oil contract declined 13 cents to $21.02 and May lost 12 cents to $20.63. Among refined products, heating oil for February delivery fell 1.71 cents to 59.28 cents a gallon, March declined 0.93 cent to 57.07 cents and April ended 0.32 cent lower at 55.18 cents a gallon. Wholesale unleaded gasoline for February delivery dropped 1.02 cents to 59.62 cents a gallon, while March lost 0.74 cent to 60.58 cents and April slipped 0.43 cent to 61.51 cents a gallon. Analysts said imports and continued strong refinery output in the face of weakening demand contributed to the buildup in energy inventories. ``Looks like a lack of demand for heating oil because of the warmer weather,'' said Tom Bentz, director of futures trading for United Energy Inc. ``On crude, it's imports and refinery runs.'' According to the API, a trade association representing mainly large oil refiners, gasoline stocks rose 4.6 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 19 to 219.5 million barrels; heating oil stocks rose 3.4 million barrels to 111.8 million; and crude oil declined 1 million barrels to 344 million. Most of the decrease in crude oil was from one geographic area, while inventories in other regions rose, analysts said.
AP901121-0092 	X	Junk bond financier Michael Milken was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for breaking federal securities and tax laws in the most celebrated case of financial corruption in Wall Street history. Milken, who sobbed at points during the sentencing, stood with his head down as U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood pronounced the stiffest punishment yet in the fraud scandals that have gripped Wall Street since the mid-1980s. In addition, she sentenced him to three years' probation during which he must work 1,800 hours a year in community service. Milken, 44, faced a maximum of 28 years but Wood's sentence is far stiffer than many had predicted. He must serve at least one-third of his prison term before he can be considered for release. ``I believe that a prison term is required for the purposes of general deterrence,'' Wood told a court crammed with 200 spectators, including many of Milken's friends and supporters. Wood said Milken's misuse of his leadership position constituted ``serious crimes warranting serious punishment and the discomfort of being removed from society.'' She said Milken was a man of ``talent and industry'' but that a long prison term was required to send a message to other possible securities-law violators. The judge said she considered evidence of additional crimes, including obstruction of justice by Milken in handing down the sentence. He was ordered to begin his sentence March 4, 1991. No federal prison was designated. The sentence capped the long, tumultuous saga of the former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. executive who was first implicated in an aggressive government insider trading investigation by speculator Ivan Boesky in 1986. Milken of Encino, Calif., personally made more than $1 billion through a junk bond empire that altered American corporate finance in the 1980s. Sobbing at times during the 90-minute hearing, he told the judge: ``What I did violated not just the law but all of my principles and values and I will regret it for the rest of my life. I am truly sorry.'' Before Wood issued the sentence, Milken's attorney Arthur Liman asked her to consider the financier's more than $360 million in charitable contributions and other acts of generosity. ``He will never repeat his mistakes. He is a changed person,'' Liman said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jess Fardella countered that ``despite his talents and opportunities, Mr. Milken sought to multiply his success through the vehicle of fraud.'' Milken pleaded guilty in April to six counts of conspiracy and fraud related to illegal securities trading after denying a much broader array of accusations. None of the charges involved insider trading or junk bonds, the risky debt securities Milken turned into a tool for capital raising and corporate takeovers. As part of his plea bargain, Milken also agreed to pay $600 million in fines and restitution to defrauded investors, the largest penalty against an individual in U.S. history. The Wall Street fraud probe revealed seamy pockets of corruption at top firms during major investment deals and resulted in about 50 indictments. Boesky, by comparison, was sentenced to three years in prison and penalized $100 million after pleading guilty to one criminal count of lying to federal regulators. He served 18 months in prison. Before he was sentenced, Milken wrote an 11-page letter to Wood apologizing for his crimes and asking for a chance to rebuild his life by performing community service. ``I never dreamed I could do anything that would result in being a felon,'' Milken wrote. ``But I did break the law. I was wrong, and no matter how sorry I am I have to accept that fact.'' Wood delayed sentencing, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, for a hearing into government charges of additional crimes beyond Milken's guilty plea. Prosecutors revealed that Drexel paid Milken a total of $1.1 billion from 1984 to 1987, including $550 million the final year. That $550 million paycheck put him in the Guinness Book of World Records. Drexel in February filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The firm was hurt by its 1989 guilty plea to six felonies, its agreement to pay $650 million in penalties and the collapse of the junk bond market. Regulators have pinned much of the blame for the savings and loan crisis on Drexel, accusing it of plundering S&Ls through its junk bond practices.
AP880312-0196 	X	Loma Linda Medical Center said Friday has accepted a fourth baby born with most of his brain missing and will keep it alive for up to a week in hopes that its organs can be used for transplant. The boy, identified only as Baby D, was born at an unidentified Southern California hospital Thursday and transferred to Loma Linda University Medical Center, said Anita Rockwell, a spokeswoman for the center. Baby D suffers from anencephaly, in which most of the brain is missing. The condition almost always leads to death within days or weeks. ``His parents want to donate their baby's organs when brain death occurs,'' Rockwell said. Dr. Joyce Peabody, Loma Linda chief of neonatology, said Baby D was resting comfortably Friday and receiving nutrition and water as needed. Rockwell said the newborn will be cared for for a seven-day period that began Thursday night. Under Loma Linda policy, Baby D will be placed on life support if needed to prevent damage to organs. If Baby D is declared brain-dead within seven days, the hospital will give notice that his organs are available for transplant. If he isn't brain dead within seven days, he will be allowed to die. The time limit was developed to alleviate ethical concerns that doomed anencephalics not be kept alive indefinitely merely so their organs can be donated. Rockwell said anonymity was requested by Baby D's parents and officials of the hospital where he was born. Baby D is the fourth anencephalic newborn accepted as a possible organ donor at the hospital. The first was stillborn Dec. 23, thwarting her parents' desire to have her major organs donated. Her corneas and heart valves were given to infants needing them. The second anencephalic was declared brain-dead Feb. 18. Attempts to donate his liver failed because potential recipients either weren't suitable matches or couldn't be operated on in time. He was disconnected from life-support Feb. 20. Most recently, a girl was transferred to Loma Linda after birth Feb. 20. Because she never met brain-death criteria within the seven-day limit, she was disconnected from a respirator and allowed to die on Feb. 28. However, her eyes, corneas and heart valves were later donated to infants needing organs. Loma Linda gained worldwide attention in 1984 when Dr. Leonard Bailey, frustrated at the lack of heart donors for babies, transplanted a baboon's heart into a girl known as Baby Fae. She died 20{ days later. Bailey, whose baboon transplant was sharply criticized by many doctors, subsequently urged the use of anencephalics as donors of hearts and other organs.
AP880406-0100 	X	A woman who pleaded guilty to shooting her former psychologist and two members of his family was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay her victims $10,000. ``You I believe are a dangerous person who should be locked up . .. for as long as you remain a threat,'' Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz told Kimberly A. Gracyalny in sentencing her Tuesday. She will be eligible for parole in 10 to 11 years, said Deputy District Attorney Sharon Matsumoto. Ms. Gracyalny wounded neuropsychology specialist David Fox, his wife and daughter Dec. 20 as they returned to their home in the Fairfax area about 10 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. She hid in the Fox family's front yard and opened fire with a handgun, chasing them around the house to the back yard before the couple was able to subdue her, authorities said. During the attack, Fox, 34, was shot in the arm, his wife Deborah, 31, was shot in both legs and their 6-year-old daughter was shot in the left leg. The couple's three sons, ages 9, 11 and 18 months, were uninjured. Fox asked that Ms. Gracyalny be given the maximum sentence. ``My wife has five bullet holes in her leg,'' Fox told the judge. His 7-year-old daughter has a bullet lodged in her leg which cannot be removed, and he has suffered nerve damage to one hand, he said. ``The situation that my family and I have endured has gone beyond that of vandalism and harassment. It can only be compared to being held hostage in your own home,'' he said. Fox's eldest son, Abraham, 11, also asked that Ms. Gracyalny receive the maximum term. ``We have been afraid to play in our own yard due to the presence of Miss Gracyalny. We have also been afraid to walk to our schools and synagogue,'' he said. Fox treated Ms. Gracyalny between November 1982 and March 1983 for an undisclosed problem. The patient began harassing the therapist soon afterward, according to court records.
AP880714-0137 	X	Georgia schools must provide sex education courses beginning in the first grade and AIDS education beginning in the sixth grade, the state Board of Education decided Thursday. The board approved the Quality Core Curriculum, a revision that will bring the schools into compliance with a 1988 law making sex education mandatory. It currently is left to school districts' discretion. The law stipulates courses must stress abstinence, although the QCC language gives school systems the option of teaching methods of contraception in grades nine through 12. AIDS education will begin in the sixth grade with instruction on communicable diseases. The instruction is to emphasize abstinence from sex and drugs as the best prevention. The law gives parents the right to prevent their children from participating in sex education courses. ``It's a monumental step for Georgia and in the nation because we are one of the first states in the nation to have a state-mandated curriculum,'' said Peyton Williams, associate superintendent for instruction. ``We are excited about the equity it will provide in classrooms around the state.'' School districts will be required to adhere to the QCC as it is phased in over a period of years. State officials will encourage teachers to begin adhering to the guidelines this fall, but the full curriculum will be phased in over five years when textbooks and other materials are reordered.
AP901108-0091 	X	A man who opened fire on Red Square during the Revolution Day parade has been charged with committing a terrorist act, a spokesman for the KGB secret police said Thursday. Alexander A. Shmonov, 38, of Leningrad, will undergo psychiatric tests to determine whether he was sane at the time of the shooting Wednesday, said Alexei Kandaurov, deputy director of the KGB public relations office. He gave no other details on the case. No one was hurt in the incident, in which the man pulled out the hunting rifle in the heavily guarded square about 80 yards from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The shooting came during a Communist Party march that followed the military parade. A plainclothes officer knocked the weapon away as the man fired once into the air and again into the ground, newspapers said. He then was subdued by about 20 plainclothes officers and carried into the GUM department store across the square from Gorbachev. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze played down what may have been an assassination attempt, categorically denying that it indicated a loss of public support for Gorbachev's ``perestroika'' reform policies. ``I don't think this incident should be taken very seriously,'' Shevardnadze told reporters before meeting with visiting Secretary of State James A. Baker III. ``This is a huge country where something is always happening somewhere.'' Shmonov was interrogated and spoke in detail about his preparations for the act, the official Tass news agency quoted KGB investigator Pyotr Sokolov as saying. Soviet Deputy Prosecutor Janis Dzenitis on Thursday sanctioned Shmonov's arrest, Tass reported. Shomonov is charged with committing ``an attempted terrorist act,'' the news agency quoted Sokolov as saying. Kandaurov could not confirm a report by one newspaper that the gunman was carrying a light explosive in addition to the rifle. The conservative labor newspaper Trud said Shmonov was carrying a small explosive usually used for military rehearsals that could cause no serious damage. Kandaurov said the man was carrying at least one device, but added that laboratory tests would have to confirm whether it was an explosive. ``It is hard to tell now whom he was aiming at,'' Trud said. ``But one thing is clear: If it were not for the immediate reaction of a policeman, who succeeded in knocking the gun into the air, a disaster might have happened.'' KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov indicated Wednesday night that officials believed the man was deranged. Shmonov is being held in the KGB's isolation ward, Tass reported. Shmonov is an unemployed metal craftsman who last worked at the Izhorsky metal working factory in Leningrad, Kandaurov said. Soviet newspapers on Thursday carried front-page pictures of the gunman being subdued by plainclothes security. Newspapers were filled with glowing reports about the celebrations across the country Wednesday, the 73rd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. There were only brief reports about anti-Gorbachev rallies by hard-liners and radicals, which the Communist Party newspaper Pravda criticized as ``extravagant escapades verging on simple hooliganism.''
AP880420-0204 	X	Here are the members of the House of Representatives who will be attending the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, July 18-21, as ``super delegates'' and their public presidential preference. There are some super delegates who have told The Associated Press privately whom they are supporting.
AP880712-0262 	X	The London firm Ward White Group PLC has said it is not interested in pursuing the acquisition of Payless Cashways Inc. after reviewing information about the building materials firm. ``Any interest we had is withdrawn,'' David Bick, a spokesman for Ward White, said Monday. Molson Cos. Ltd., a diversified Canadian company, also said Monday that it did not have any interest in acquiring Payless after examining public information about the company. Sanjib Choudhuri, senior vice president of corporate development and planning, declined to say why his company lost interest. Senior management of Payless has offered $27 a share to take the company private. The offer was made to thwart an unfriendly takeover attempt by New York investor Asher Edelman and Sutherland Lumber-Southwest Inc., a competitor of Payless. The offer by Payless management is worth $909 million. Bick said Ward White was approached by an investment banking firm two or three weeks ago about Payless. He said Ward White agreed to request information about Payless because a takeover seemed worth considering, but Ward White's interest was never great. ``We no longer need nor want the information,'' Bick said. Ward White owns the third-largest building materials retailing chain in the United Kingdom. The Edelman-Sutherland group is Payless' largest shareholder with 8.1 percent of the stock. It had said for weeks that it is interested in acquiring Payless, but has not made a formal offer. The offer from Payless management requires the approval of two-thirds of the shareholders, who have until 3 to respond. Payless has 200 stores in 26 states.
AP880729-0068 	X	Israeli officials today said Jordan's decision to cancel a $1.3 billion development plan for the Israeli-occupied territories would have no practical effect because the plan existed primarily on paper. Palestinian leaders in the West Bank were divided on the impact. Some said it would seriously hurt some residents already struggling financially because of the 8-month-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied lands. Jordan announced Thursday it was canceling the development program in a move to hand over more responsibility for the 1.5 million Arabs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli expert on the West Bank, said he thought the move was the first step toward a decision by Jordan's King Hussein eventually to cut ties with the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip altogether. ``He wants to see how people react. But ultimately he has no choice but to cut ties,'' Benvenisti, head of the West Bank Data Bank, a U.S.-funded research project, said in an interview. ``If he doesn't, he gives money to people who in the long run are his enemies,'' said Benvenisti, referring to a growing anti-Jordanian slant among West Bank Palestinians. He said Hussein's plan ``was a bubble. King Hussein didn't have the money for the project. He hoped to get foreign governments to donate funds.'' It is difficult to gauge how much of the $1.3 billion has reached the occupied territories. Deposed Gaza City Mayor Rashad Shawaa said the Gaza Strip had received about $6.6 million. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the Jordanian measure would not affect his approach to a Middle East peace settlement based on Israeli-Jordanian negotiations. Hussein and Peres, of the left-leaning Labor Party, agreed last year to hold direct talks in the framework of an international peace conference. The accord was vetoed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, head of the right-wing Likud Bloc. Peres, speaking on Israel radio, said Jordan remained crucial to a resolution of the Palestinian problem because the 850,000 West Bank Palestinians hold Jordanian passports, the West Bank and Jordan have strong trade links, and Israel and Jordan share a long border. In Gaza City, Shawaa, known for his pro-Jordanian views, said in an interview that the move was ``regrettable because people here need help, and this was an important source of help.'' But Mustafa Natsche, deposed mayor of the West Bank city of Hebron and a PLO supporter, said ``the Amman decision will not affect anybody.'' Natsche said the Palestinians in the West Bank needed contributions from all the Arab countries, not just Jordan. But he said what they needed most was to be steadfast in their struggle to end Israeli occupation. The five-year project was set up by Jordan in 1986 under an agreement with Yasser Arafat's PLO. It was to improve health, education, housing, cultural and other services in the territories. Israel took the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Two-thirds of Jordan's 3.5 million people are of Palestinian origin.
AP880812-0266 	X	National Semiconductor Corp. has been granted a temporary restraining order against Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and Aspen Semiconductor, a new Cypress subsidiary. The order granted on Thursday bars the companies from using proprietary information of National or Fairchild Semiconductor, which Fairchild bought last year. ``We are not willing to subsidize research and development for our competitors,'' said James Smaha, executive vice president of National's semiconductor group. National filed suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court earlier Thursday against Cypress, charging theft of trade secrets. Narpat Bhandari, a former Fairchild manager, is accused in the suit of taking confidential Fairchild documents to the new subsidiary. The suit involved a major new chipmaking technology developed over five years by Fairchild.
AP901204-0204 	X	A businessman with ties to the Iran-Contra affair has been sentenced to two years probation for his role in a conspiracy to sell confidential Ashland Oil Inc. documents to Iran. U.S. District Judge Miriam G. Cedarbaum on Monday also ordered Roy M. Furmark, a private consultant in the oil industry, to pay Ashland $15,000 in restitution. Furmark pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Furmark, of Brooklyn, testified to Congress in 1987 that he was involved in the sale of American arms to Iran. In the Ashland case, Furmark cooperated with prosecutors for more than a year before his plea and helped implicate former Ashland chairman Orin E. Atkins in the conspiracy. On Friday, Atkins, who also pleaded guilty to conspiracy, was sentenced to two years probation and 600 hours of community service for his role in the scheme. Furmark admitted that he agreed to help Atkins arrange meetings with representatives of the Iranian National Oil Co., which was contemplating a lawsuit against Ashland for the company's decision not to pay $283 million for crude oil purchased in 1979. Atkins has said he wanted to sell to the Iranians confidential documents involving the disputed oil deal that he obtained after he was forced to resign as chairman in 1981 but remained as a paid Ashland consultant. While the Iranians never bought the documents, they later sued Ashland and last year obtained a $325 million settlement, which with interest was worth more than $500 million. ``This episode in my life has been totally uncharacteristic to my life and what I stand for,'' Furmark told Cedarbaum. ``I am deeply sorry.'' Cedarbaum said she considered Furmark's cooperation in deciding his sentence. Furmark set up a meeting with Atkins in 1988 where they discussed renewed efforts to sell the documents Iran. A videotape of that meeting made by investigators led to charges against Atkins.
AP880409-0114 	X	Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, saying that ``people are coming alive'' to his presidential candidacy, campaigned Saturday before racially diverse, overflow crowds of New Yorkers. He avoided direct bickering with Mayor Ed Koch over Jewish concerns, but he did take a sideswipe at Koch when asked if the mayor's negative comments were hurting him in New York. Jackson said his campaign is focused on ``healing,'' and without mentioning Koch's name, suggested the mayor is heightening black-Jewish tension. In light of various recent incidents of racial violence, he said, ``We are already in a very tender situation. And responsible leadership must move to heal people and not extend their fears.'' Jackson told each of his enthusiastic audiences from Crown Heights to Coney Island, ``I love you very much.'' As New York's April 19 primary looms, Jackson also said that in fairness, he should be the overall leader not only in the popular vote to date, but in presidential delegates. He said he earned the at-large delegates from the Illinois primary last month but is being kept from receiving them by Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, who is no longer an active candidate but is clinging to his delegates. Jackson suggested Simon should withdraw formally and said, ``I'm simply appealing for consistency and fairness.'' Jackson devoted the day of rallies and speeches in Brooklyn to discussing his ``economic justice'' message and emphasizing his positions on the Caribbean, Haiti, Panama and South Africa. Crowds that could not fit into the churches and halls where he spoke lined the streets and stood on fire escapes. Security around Jackson was intense as he waded into the throngs of people who mobbed him, shaking hands and holding babies. Jackson called his campaign ``hope reborn'' and said, ``People are coming alive.'' In trendy Park Slope, Jackson addressed a racially mixed outdoor rally of a few thousand. In Crown Heights, he was greeted by a steel drum Calypso band, and he delighted the sidewalk crowd by taking up a tambourine and bouncing to the beat. In Coney Island, several hundred screaming supporters lined the block outside the church where he was to speak, chanting ``Go Jesse.'' But he was dogged by questions about Koch's criticisms, most recently in Saturday's New York Times where Koch was quoted as saying Jackson is evading talking about issues of concern to Jews. As the candidate emerged from speaking to a wildly enthusiastic black audience in St. Mark's Episcopal Church, about two dozen dark-suited Orthodox Jewish men stood somberly at the edge of about 200 supporters waiting outside. They listened quietly while the rest of the onlookers cheered Jackson wildly as he talked about brotherhood. The group said they came out of curiosity. One, who declined to give his name because he said he should not give interviews on the Sabbath, said he planned to vote for Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, and that if Jackson wins the Democratic nomination, ``I'll vote Republican.'' Another said he was supporting Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, but of Jackson, he said, ``I think he's great. I just wish he knew more about the Middle East.'' In an impromptu address to the crowd, Jackson shouted without a microphone about New York's multicultural, multi-ethnic character. ``We seek to draw people together across lines of race and sex and religion,'' he said to rapt cheers from the largely black crowd. ``We know what makes us different _ our race, our sex, our religion, our culture. But what binds us together?'' In answer, he listed central issues of his candidacy: economic justice, fighting drugs, improving child care and education. Later, Jackson told reporters seeking his reaction to Koch's remarks, ``We are dealing with a highly politicized situation and you expect some of that but we'll keep our eyes on our real agenda.'' He refused to be drawn into a tit-for-tat with Koch. ``Our campaign is an outreach campaign,'' he said. ``We're going to keep it at that level.'' However, he denied evading any issues, noting that he has spoken often about the Middle East. He supports a Palestinian homeland and repeated Saturday his call for recognition of Israel by the Arab states. On foreign policy, Jackson said the United States should demand free and fair elections and human rights in Haiti. He called for U.S. humanitarian aid to the Panamanian people who are suffering under U.S. sanctions aimed at ousting Panamanian strong man General Manuel Noriega. He said he supports the sanctions, but also said there should be a congressional investigation of the CIA 's past role with Noriega.
AP900622-0148 	X	Winnie Mandela on Friday condemned ``necklacing'' and said a statement she made on South African militants' practice of killing with burning tires had been reported out of context. The wife of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela made the comment in a morning interview with Phil Donahue, whose syndicated talk show was to air in some areas of the country Friday and others on Monday. Mrs. Mandela later had lunch with the U.N. African Mothers' Association, and in the afternoon spoke at a Brooklyn church symposium of about 200 women active in civic and religious organizations. They included Joyce Dinkins, the mayor's wife; Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger; Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman; Hazel Dukes, head of the local NAACP; Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's widow; and ``Mother'' Clara Hale, founder of a Harlem home for babies sick from crack, AIDS and other maladies. Mrs. Mandela later attended a tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where she listened to Sweet Honey in the Rock, an acapella group known for its songs calling for black liberation. In brief remarks, Mrs. Mandela said the ANC would go to war if negotiations to end apartheid stall. ``If talks fall apart and they very well might, we know you will be there to take up arms with us,'' Mrs. Mandela told the sold-out crowd of 2,000. Much of the audience jumped out of their seats with shouts of support for her statement. Speaking at the earlier church meeting, Mrs. Mandela described the social problems encumbering blacks in South Africa, including a high infant mortality rate, inadequate health care and schools. ``Poverty and disease are the everyday companions of our people,'' she said. ``This is our legacy, a legacy of apartheid.'' ``In South Africa, we believe that if the women were in the forefront, we would have long won our freedom,'' she said, winning a roar of appreciation from the 200 women. In her comments on the Donahue program, Mrs. Mandela condemned ``necklacing'' _ killing government collaborators by putting a gasoline-soaked burning tire around his neck _ as ``brutal and barbaric.'' The practice has been employed by some militants in confrontations between rival groups in South Africa's black shantytowns. Mrs. Mandela was quoted as telling a rally in South Africa in 1986: ``With our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country.'' She reiterated Friday her claim that the comment was quoted out of context. ``Our children have been so oppressed and met up with such violence from the government that they have resorted to that method of eliminating their enemies,'' she said. ``That was not the form or method approved by the ANC. No sane person would ever approve of that.''
AP880915-0174 	X	Schoolgirls who survived a bloody bus hijacking sang hymns Thursday at a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II but still felt the terror from the night before, when police stormed the bus in a hail of bullets. One survivor said the hijackers, opposed to the military government, sang and prayed with the 71 hostages before shooting at the captives and lobbing grenades when police moved in to end the 27-hour ordeal on Wednesday night. Three hijackers and a 14-year-old girl were killed immediately. On Thursday, a second passenger died of a bullet wound to the head and the fourth hijacker died, the South African Broadcasting Corp. said. Officials said 20 people were injured by bullets and by shrapnel from the hijackers' grenades. Some of the hostages said they saw the hijackers setting up some type of explosive device. The independent South African Press Association, quoting ``well-placed sources who watched the saga at close range'' said a explosive device, to be triggered electronically, was found fixed to the door of the bus. The government, which earlier denied South African forces were invited to help end the hijacking, said South African police and Lesotho soldiers assaulted the bus after the gunmen ordered the driver to crash into the grounds of the British High Commission, or embassy. Vitilina Quoaoho, 18, said the hijackers ``told us to lay under the chairs and they ordered the driver to pass through the locked gate'' of the embassy. ``We saw a big light (a flare fired by police) and then the soldiers started shooting at the bus and the men (the hijackers) were shooting at us,'' she said. ``We were very frightened. We are still frightened,'' she said, with her friends echoing her words. As they spoke, men and women, singing hymns to the beat of drum, walked by to take communion during a brief, sunny moment in a Mass that had been punctuated by thunder, rain and cold winds. The schoolgirls and several nuns who were aboard the bus were among a crowd of about 15,000 who gathered at the Maseru racecourse to see the pope beatify a French missionary who worked in Lesotho until his death in 1914. Four of the girls, wearing plastic bags as rainhats and blue uniforms from Pope John XXII High School, said that during the hijacking police appeared ready several times to fire at the bus during the journey to Maseru from the hijack point at Quacha's Neck. ``The men (the hijackers) prevented them, saying, `If you shoot you will be shooting your own people,' '' said one of the girls. One unanswered question was why the hijackers suddenly tried to force the bus into the British embassy compound. It happened less than a half hour after the pope's motorcade, with police escort, had driven through the capital. He arrived by road from South Africa, where his plane was diverted due to bad weather in Maseru. Monica Morori, 36, who injured her feet jumping from the bus's shattered windows during the shootout, said the hijackers were joining passengers in singing and praying. Two of the hijackers were in their late teens and two were grown men. After the Mass, the pope rode through the capital's main street to the Queen Elizabeth II hospital, where he gave medals and crucifixes to some of the injured, including children and two nuns. The pope urged his followers at Thursday's youth rally to ``renounce every form of violence and hatred.'' ``The increase of violence in the world can never be halted by responding with more of the same,'' he said. In an apparent criticism of some militants, including activists who contend passive resistance alone cannot overcome South Africa's system of racial segregation, John Paul said: ``There could be nothing further from the truth. There is nothing passive about non-violence.'' The pope commented Thursday on the bus hijacking, remarking, ``I am saddened to learn that others on their way to join me on this pilgrimage have been victims of a hijack that has caused such anguish and ended in bloodshed.'' One of the nuns he visited, Sister Florina Nyogar, who had a bruised face, later told a reporter how she felt during the shooting. ``We saw that it was our end, and we accepted to die,'' she said. She said reports from the government that the hijackers refused to accept food for the hostages were inaccurate. ``We didn't feel like eating or drinking, we only felt like praying,'' she said. Several hostages said the hijackers, who brandished a Soviet-designed AK-47 automatic rifle, pistols and hand grenades, claimed to be members of the Lesotho Liberation Army, a dissident group that for years was based in South Africa but staged few operations. Lesotho's ruling military council also blamed the dissident group for the hijacking. The group's political commissar, Matladi Sehlabaka, told The Star newspaper of Johannesburg that his organization was not responsible. ``We could not have undertaken such an operation because we are on talking terms with the Lesotho regime,'' Sehlabaka said. The hijackers reportedly demanded an end to military rule and asked for a meeting with the pope and King Moshoeshoe II. The organization was also opposed to the leftist government of the late Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan, who was ousted by the current military council in a bloodless coup in January 1986.
AP880420-0318 	X	The stock market hovered in a narrow range today as Wall Streeters voiced mixed feelings about the inflation outlook. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 3.65 to 2,003.15 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 9 to 5 in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 518 up, 933 down and 482 unchanged. The Labor Department reported this morning that the consumer price index rose 0.5 percent in March. That marked the biggest monthly increase in the inflation gauge since it jumped 0.7 percent in January 1987. But analysts said there was a general sense of relief on Wall Street that the figure wasn't worse. Rumors and conjecture that the increase might run close to a full percentage point sent both stock and bond prices lower in late trading on Tuesday. Columbia Gas System fell 1{ to 28] in active trading. The company cut its quarterly dividend from 79.5 cents a share to 50 cents a share. American Telephone & Telegraph gained ] to 26~. The company reported higher first-quarter profits and said it was aiming to sustain earnings growth at a 15 percent rate for the remainder of the year. B.F. Goodrich was unchanged at 52\ after trading as high as 54{. The company said it had been notified by Sir James Goldsmith, the British financier, that he was a ``passive investor'' in Goodrich and was not interested, as rumored, in acquiring it. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks lost .17 to 146.00. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 1.99 at 297.93. Volume on the Big Board came to 120.56 million shares with an hour to go.
AP881007-0222 	X	About 406,000 hourly General Motors Corp. workers soon will receive performance bonus payments that average $900 to $1,000 per worker, the automaker says. Distribution of the checks, which total about $307 million, began Thursday, GM said. Each worker receives 3 percent of his or her earnings from the previous year, based on the rate of pay and the number of hours worked. The payments are part of the three-year GM-United Auto Workers union contract that went into effect last year. ``These special payments recognize the relationship between an improved standard of living, technological progress and the cooperative spirit and teamwork attitude of all employees in achieving that program,'' said Alfred Warren Jr., GM's vice president for industrial relations.
AP880518-0054 	X	Financial disclosure forms indicate a $1 million trust fund in which Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis is co-beneficiary sold stock worth up to $65,000 last year from companies with ties to South Africa. The forms, filed with the Federal Election Commission, are consistent with but more detailed than state financial disclosure forms filed by the Massachusetts governor last month. Dukakis gained no income in 1987 from the family trust established by his late father, whose equal beneficiaries are Dukakis and Bates College, the elder Dukakis' alma mater. The trust drew attention last year when similar forms filed with the FEC disclosed that until 1986 it included stock in companies that do business in South Africa. Dukakis has no role in investment decisions of the trust but in 1986, when questioned about its holdings during a gubernatorial re-election campaign, told the bank which controls the account to divest any stock in companies with South African dealings. Stock in 10 such companies was immediately sold. The trust gained between $15,001 and $50,000 last year by selling stock in Unisys Corp., which maintains operations in South Africa. Dukakis campaign spokesman Steven Akey said the trust had owned stock in a company acquired by Unisys last year and sold it because of Unisys' ties to South Africa. The trust also reported capital gains of between $5,001 and $15,000 from the sale of Pepsico Inc. stock. The company maintains indirect ties to South Africa through its Kentucky Fried Chicken subsidiary. Three companies in which the trust has holdings have indirect ties to racially segregated South Africa, largely through distribution agreements and spare parts sales contracts, according to the Washington-based Investor Responsibility Research Center. They are IBM Corp., General Electric Corp. and American Telephone & Telegraph. Akey said the trust's investment policy is to not acquire stock in any company on the Washington group's list of companies with direct dealings in South Africa. Dukakis is also a potential co-beneficiary of another $1 million trust left by his father. But that trust is not considered part of his net worth because Dukakis' 84-year-old mother controls it and could decide to alter arrangements which currently call for that fund to be split by Dukakis and Bates. The FEC forms, which cover the period from Jan. 1, 1987, to March 31, 1988, show Dukakis' principal source of income during that period was $106,310 from his salary as governor. The forms were filed Friday. He and his wife, Kitty, also earned between $1,001 and $2,500 in interest from a savings account that holds between $15,001 and $50,000; between $101 and $1,000 in interest from a smaller bank account in Mrs. Dukakis' name; and between $5,000 and $15,000 in interest from the governor's holdings in the state retirement plan. Mrs. Dukakis also earned $20,000 last year in salary from a Harvard University program that cleans up and preserves public grounds. An investment account in the name of the couple's three children earned between $2,600 and $5,100 last year, according to the FEC forms. The couple also owns a home in suburban Brookline that is worth more than $100,000. Dukakis and his wife, who do not use credit cards, listed no liabilities. The largest investment in the Panos Dukakis trust is a tax-exempt money market fund worth between $100,001 and $250,000. Five of the trust's investments are worth between $50,001 and $100,000: holdings in Maine municipal bonds, a tax-exempt bank trust fund, General Electric, AT&T and Atlantic Richfield Corp.
AP881028-0149 	X	The Soviet Union has agreed to a ``joint venture'' with American Jews for the opening of a Jewish cultural center in Moscow, Jewish sources said Friday. Details of the project will be discussed next week in Moscow between Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, the sources said. The decision, which contrasts sharply with decades of official repression of Jewish cultural and religious life, reflects the widesweeping changes undertaken by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in the Soviet society and economy. Until recently, the teaching of Hebrew and practice of Jewish culture often resulted in jail terms on trumped-up charges ranging from anti-Soviet propaganda to drug possession. An understanding in principle on the cultural center was reached last May in talks Bronfman held with Soviet officials, including Shevardnadze and Konstantin Kharchev, chairman of the state committee on religious affairs, said the sources. ``The Soviets have given the green light for this joint venture,'' said one source, who declined to be further identified. What remains to be discussed are the funding and exact location of the center, he said. The center will include a library, museum and rooms for celebration of weddings, bar mitzvahs and other religious ceremonies, the sources said. If the Moscow project is successful, similar centers will be opened in Kiev and other Soviet cities, they said. The center will be run by Soviet, American and European Jewish groups in a building supplied by the government, the sources said. The handful of synagogues allowed to operate in the Soviet Union are run by the state under close supervision. The agreement is the latest in a series of changes affecting the lives of the estimated 2.5 million Jews living in the Soviet Union. Authorities allowed some 12,000 Jews to emigrate this year, up from the 8,700 allowed to leave last year and a significant increase over the estimated 900 exit visas granted in 1986. The easing of restrictions also has affected other ethnic and religious minorities, who are enjoying greater freedom under Gorbachev. The changes also have extended to Soviet relations with Israel, which Moscow cut off in 1967. An official Soviet delegation went to Israel last year and an Israeli consular team is in Moscow now.
AP900627-0187 	X	Nelson Mandela leaves the capital today assured of some political support and buoyed by a tumultuous rally where he was serenaded, praised and nearly worshipped by more than 19,000 Washingtonians. ``We thank you, America. We thank you for being true to your responsibility ... We thank you for responding to our cause,'' the black South African leader told the cheering crowd Tuesday night. Mandela was leaving today for Atlanta after a three-day Washington visit during which he won assurances from President Bush and members of Congress of continuing U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa's white government. The 71-year-old African National Congress leader also called Tuesday for financial assistance to his country once the apartheid system of racial segregation is abolished.
AP900803-0206 	X	Iraq's invasion of Kuwait continued to shake financial markets today, but stock and bond prices got another jolt from a disappointing report on unemployment that worsened fears about inflation and a recession in the United States. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks tumbled more than 100 points at one time during the session on the double dose of bad news before recouping slightly. Oil prices, which shot up Thursday after the Iraqi attack, continued to climb today. Prices were boosted by the possibility the invasion eventually could affect output from the two nations or other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The September contract for West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark grade of U.S. crude, was up $1.94 to $25.05 a barrel by mid-afternoon on the New York Mercantile Exchange after jumping $1.57 on Thursday. In London, the spot price of North Sea Brent Blend, the most widely traded international crude, was quoted at $23.25 a barrel today, up 86 cents from Thursday, when the price rose $2 a barrel. The surge in oil prices came as a blow to other financial markets already concerned about the weakening U.S. economy. With oil and other energy sources crucial for every segment of the economy, rising crude prices can reinvigorate inflation. That would make the Federal Reserve _ which considers fighting inflation one of its top priorities _ less likely to move interest rates lower as a means of stimulating the economy. ``The Fed is caught between a rock and a hard place,'' said Jack Barbanel, president of First Global Asset Management Inc. ``They're trying to support a weakening economy and at the same time keep interest rates at a level to support foreign capital and keep inflation under control.'' The outlook worsened today as the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a sharp 0.3 percent to 5.5 percent in July. The jump indicated a continuing slowing of the economy as private companies lost 45,000 jobs from their payrolls. The report also carried bad inflation news: Average hourly earnings posted a 0.6 percent rise to $10.09, up from the $10.03 the average worker earned per hour in June. The double blow of rising oil prices and a negative economic outlook sent stock prices sharply lower. On Wall Street, the Dow industrial average skidded more than 100 points before rebounding slightly at mid-afternoon. The indicator was down about 81 points at 2:30 p.m. EDT, at 2,783.42. The Dow Jones average, which tracks the movement of 30 blue chip stocks, skidded 34.66 points on Thursday as traders grew uneasy about the effect oil prices would have on corporate profits. Stock prices also tumbled overseas in response to the Iraqi invasion. In Tokyo, the Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues shed 729.42 points, ending the day at 29,515.76. The index lost nearly 593 points on Thursday. Japan is especially vulnerable to the possibility of a disruption of energy sources because it imports 99 percent of its oil. Traders there are concerned that the oil price rise will take a heavy toll on Japanese business. Bond prices were also hit hard by the unemployment report and the prospect of higher inflation from rising oil prices. At midday today, the Treasury's bellwether 30-year bond was down about $3.43 per $1,000 in face value after plunging more than $12 on Thursday. The bond's yield, considered a benchmark for interest rates throughout the economy, rose to 8.48 percent from 8.46 percent late Thursday. Bond traders are concerned that inflation will erode the value of their fixed-income holdings. They're also worried that interest rates won't be dropping soon, as bond prices rise when rates decline, so higher rates depress prices. The dollar first soared Thursday in response to the Iraqi invasion and then gave up ground amid concern about the U.S. economy. Today the dollar was little changed against most foreign currencies, but made its biggest moves against the Japanese yen. In early New York trading, the dollar was worth 149.965 yen, up from 149.30 late Thursday.
AP880710-0060 	X	Ten opposition lawmakers began a hunger strike Sunday to force the government to solve a crisis in Israel's public health system, plagued by months of labor disputes. In an unusual show of unity, lawmakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum gathered in the hallway of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's office to launch their protest. They said they would fast for a week unless an agreement was reached before then between the Finance and Health ministries on how to meet demands by doctors for drastic salary increases. ``We are doing this because there is no other alternative,'' legislator Yossi Sarid of the left-wing Citizens Rights Movement told Israel radio. ``Maybe now the government will listen.'' Added Geula Cohen of the right-wing Tehiya Party: ``The common denominator is human suffering which doesn't distinguish between left-wingers from right-wingers.'' The protest was organized by the left-wing Mapam party. In the past few months, doctors in Israeli hospitals have repeatedly gone on strike and performed only emergency surgery to press demands for higher wages. Doctors make about $750 a month. As a result of the persistent labor disputes, thousands of Israelis have waited for months to be scheduled for crucial operations. Doctors have acknowledged they expect some patients to die because of delays in treatment. In a scenario typical of the past few months, doctors said they would strike Monday in Israel's northern hospitals, and in other regions during the remainder of the week. The Health Ministry has agreed in principle to the doctors' demands, but Finance Minister Moshe Nissim has refused to allocate additional funds to the Health Ministry to cover salary raises. The Finance Ministry is concerned a wage increase would trigger across-the-board wage hikes in the public health system and fuel inflation. Officials from the Finance and Health ministries were scheduled to meet Monday with union representatives in another attempt to solve the crisis. Israel television quoted Shamir as saying if no agreement is reached at Monday's meeting he would convene a special ministerial committee to make a decision this week.
AP900407-0121 	X	California will require aspirin makers to warn women against taking the drug in the late stages of pregnancy, a state science panel has decided. The panel on Friday classified aspirin a ``reproductive toxin'' under Proposition 65, the landmark toxics initiative law that requires public warnings for substances that pose a risk of cancer or birth defects. The warnings _ probably on aspirin labels _ must appear within one year after a substance is formally listed in keeping with the panel's decision. In making its recommendation, the panel rejected a $500,000 report prepared by the aspirin industry. That report said it found no evidence that aspirin taken in the last three months of pregnancy could cause excessive bleeding during delivery and other pregnancy complications. The panel unanimously ruled that such risks have been shown, based on studies involving high aspirin dosage. But panel members also acknowledged recent studies that aspirin in very low doses _ half a tablet or less _ may relieve certain medical problems suffered by pregnant women. They said the aspirin warning should be qualified to advise women against taking aspirin in the last three months of pregnancy ``... unless directed to do so by your doctor.'' Aspirin products have carried a general warning label since 1982 and certain over-the-counter aspirin substitutes also carry a label that reads: ``It is especially important not to use aspirin during the last three months of pregnancy unless specifically directed to do so by your doctor because it may cause problems in the unborn child or complications during delivery.'' Proposition 65 mandates public warnings but does not dictate warning labels on specific products. However, a spokesman for the aspirin industry said a warning label seemed likely in about a year. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notified state authorities last week that it planned to require a new warning on over-the-counter aspirin products similar to the warning under review by the Proposition 65 panel. But science panel members said they saw no point in waiting for federal action. Aspirin industry representatives said the FDA was pushed into action by Proposition 65, which has served as a model for toxics legislation across the country.
AP901004-0051 	X	Robby, a $1 million robot rover vehicle designed to explore Mars, successfully picked its way along a rocky dry river bed without human help, NASA said. ``This is the first time that an autonomous vehicle has ever navigated rugged terrain using video cameras,'' said Roger Bedard, planetary rover program manager at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ``Robby himself wouldn't go to Mars. He's a test vehicle.'' NASA called the Sept. 13 test ``a significant milestone'' in developing a planet-roving, computer-guided vehicle that would explore Mars to find suitable landing sites for a manned mission to the red planet. It will be about 1995 before engineers fully develop rover technology, and about 2000 before one can be built to go to Mars, Bedard said Wednesday. During the test, Robby took four hours, 20 minutes to crawl along a 109-yard course in the rugged Arroyo Seco, a dry river bed in a canyon next to the laboratory. NASA wants a real Mars rover to travel about 13 miles daily. Bedard said engineers told Robby where it was and where it was supposed to go, but the six-wheeled vehicle used its twin television cameras and computer to navigate a safe course around boulders and other obstacles. Other tests were conducted last week. Robby is about 15 feet long, 6 feet wide and 6 feet tall. It was named after Robby the Robot in ``Forbidden Planet,'' a 1956 science fiction film. The robot's television cameras give it stereoscopic vision, allowing it a three-dimensional look at objects about 6{ feet in front of it. Robby moves about 6{ feet at a time, then stops to survey another 6{-foot stretch of terrain before proceeding. Robby runs on a battery recharged by an onboard gasoline generator. A Mars rover would be powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium, Bedard said. The only unmanned rovers to explore another planet were two Soviet Lunakod vehicles that explored the moon in the early 1970s, Bedard said. NASA astronauts used a manned vehicle on the moon. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration doesn't yet have specific plans to put rovers on Mars, Bedard said. The Soviets are considering using rovers and terrain-hopping balloons during a 1994 mission to Mars. During the past week, 30-foot-tall balloons that would repeatedly rise and settle on Mars' surface were tested in California's desert by engineers from France, the Soviet Union and the Planetary Society, a group that advocates space exploration. Balloons have the advantage of not needing to navigate rough terrain, rising during the heat of day and settling to the Martian surface at night to take measurements. Bedard said rovers can be directed to explore areas of scientific interest, rather than taking a route that depends on prevailing winds.
AP880417-0061 	X	While first-year associates at the city's 20 largest law offices can expect to pull down about $71,000 a year, paychecks for the most senior associates vary by as much as 56 percent, according to a new survey. The study published in Monday's edition of the New York Law Journal found that 17 of the 20 firms pay first-year associates $70,000, $71,000 or $72,000. However, by the seventh year, base salaries vary from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's $108,000 to $169,000 at Sullivan & Cromwell. George D. Reycraft, a partner at Cadwalader, told the newspaper that associates normally get a bonus at his firm. ``You see similar salaries in the early years because the firms are all competing for the same scarce resource coming out of the top law schools,'' said William C. Cobb, a Houston-based legal consultant. In its survey, the publication found average compensation for lawyers at the 20 firms are: $71,700, first year; $80,000, second year; $85,800, third year; $101,900, fourth year; $114,800, fifth year; $126,200, sixth year; and $139,000, seventh year.
AP880504-0080 	X	Christian and Moslem militiamen today exchanged mortar fire across Beirut's dividing Green Line. No casualties were reported. The two-hour battle in downtown Beirut came amid reports of growing tension between a Christian militia and the Lebanese army. There was no word on what caused the battle, the fourth between civil war antagonists in Beirut in two weeks. The clashes have strained a 14-month-old truce in the war that began in 1975. The fighting coincided with a state of alert proclaimed by the 6,000-strong Lebanese Forces, the Christians' main militia, in east Beirut and the Christian heartland north of the capital. Christian militiamen set up checkpoints and roadblocks all over the Christian sector of Beirut and along the main coastal highway running north from the city, witnesses reported. Fighters in battle fatigues and carrying automatic weapons searched cars and frisked occupants, said the witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The militia gave no explanation for the alert. But the Christian-owned Ad-Diyar daily said it stemmed from tension between the militia and the Lebanese army, which is controlled by Christian officers. The newspaper said the militia was putting on a muscle-flexing show to demonstrate it controls the Christian enclave, not the army. The commander of the 37,000-man army, Gen. Michel Aoun, has been quoted by several Beirut newspapers recently as saying the military could finish off the militia any time it wanted. Newspapers said his remarks were part of a campaign by the Maronite Catholic commander to become the next president of Lebanon after President Amin Gemayel's six-year term expires in September. Aoun, who has not denied the statements, has not offically proclaimed his candidacy.
AP880719-0100 	X	Jesse Jackson's campaign said today common ground had been reached with Michael Dukakis' forces on most of Jackson's minority platform planks but the Jackson camp will press floor debate on three issues. Today's Democratic Convention session was moved up to allow more time for debate. Jackson officials, in a written notice, said today there would be debate on three planks for which he had filed minority versions _ higher taxes on the wealthy, no first use of nuclear weapons and Palestinian self-determination in the Middle East. However, they said they would not press the Middle East issue to a vote. The Dukakis delegates were expected to easily defeat Jackson on the higher-taxes and nuclear-weapons issues, but today's convention starting time was moved up from 4:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT to allow time to air the issues. The Jackson campaign's major concession was to drop a call for a five-year freeze on Pentagon spending. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jackson's chief platform negotiator, told a news conference, ``Jackson has had a grater impact on this platform than any candidate other than a nominee in memory.'' She said of the Palestinian homeland issue on CBS-TV today, ``Our supporters were anxious to have the issue debated, not necesssarily voted. ... What was sought was an agreement that would keep our party together and avoid the dissonance.'' But she said in regard to the Jackson plank that would pledge no first use of nuclear weapons, ``We are going to the floor on that. The Soviet Union has said it. It's much more in the American tradition to say that.'' Current U.S. and NATO policy would allow first use in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe. The Jackson campaign, in its written update, said, ``We have reached common ground on nine of the minority planks advocated by our campaign,'' including acceptance of Jackson's minority plank on the budget. That plank says, ``Investing in America and reducing the deficit requires that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share and that we restrain Pentagon spending.'' Other Jackson proposals will be included in the platform compromise language, including expanded support for prenatal care, Head Start and education. The platform negotiators resumed their talks Monday after a six-day hiatus caused by tension between Jackson and Dukakis. The Jackson campaign said that ``our major impact on the platform has been in the document itself (which) already reflects the guiding principles of our campaign: declaring South Africa a terrorist state, our five-point program to fight drugs, political empowerment and many more.'' Campaign lieutenants negotiated late into the night over the details of resolving the minority positions Jackson wanted in the streamlined, 4,500-word platform. ``I expect we won't have a marathon session,'' Michigan Gov. James J. Blanchard, chairman of the platform committee, said Monday. Blanchard says the platform, shorn of the usual special-interest rhetoric, is compact enough to fit on a poster. The agreement not to wage a drawn-out platform fight followed a Monday morning meeting in which Jackson pledged party unity and Michael Dukakis promised to increase Jackson's role in the party. The platform talks had been suspended last Tuesday when Dukakis failed to give Jackson early notice of his selection of Lloyd Bentsen as a running mate. Both Dukakis and Jackson said they anticipated some issues would be left to the 4,162 delegates to decide. Jackson said Monday night on the Cable News Network: ``There will be key planks to be debated tomorrow night. ... We are committed to having new budget priorities.'' Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a co-chair of the Platform Committee, said early today he thought there would be just ``a slight floor fight.'' Richardson said defense was where the Jackson forces had ``the chance to make the most inroads'' on Dukakis' majority. In a Platform Committee session in Denver June 25, the Dukakis forces rejected several cornerstone Jackson campaign positions, including his call for higher taxes on the wealthy, a Pentagon budget freeze, Palestinian self-determination and a U.S. policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. Actor Ed Begley of television's ``St. Elsewhere,'' a Dukakis delegate from California, was among many delegates sporting ``No First Use'' stickers at Monday night's opening session. Other Jackson minority planks called for full funding of Head Start and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, and doubling the education budget. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland told the 751 labor delegates they were free ``to dance with the candidates you came with'' on platform fights. The National Education Association, which has 291 delegates, voted Sunday to take Jackson's side on the education plank. The 4,500-word proposed platform is the Democrats' shortest in five decades. Borrowing a phrase from Republican nominee-to-be George Bush, it promises to reverse the ``voodoo economics'' of the Reagan administration, bolster programs for the needy and maintain ``more stable defense budgets.'' Tailored largely to Dukakis' specifications, it includes many of Jackson's positions as well, including a condemnation of South Africa as ``a terrorist state.'' The platform is the main order of convention business today before a prime-time speech by Jackson.
AP901016-0006 	X	In a raid on a rural drug refuge, the army arrested more than 100 alleged traffickers, seized about 1,900 pounds of pure cocaine, discovered huge coca fields and destroyed laboratories, an army official said. The cocaine seized in Monday's operation near Colombia's northern coast was hidden among cargo bags and ready to be exported to the United States, said regional army commander Col. Carlos Castro. He said troops destroyed six cocaine-processing laboratories, arrested 103 suspected drug traffickers and found nearly 5,000 acres of coca leaf, the raw material used to make cocaine. Soldiers also seized 30 vehicles, all with Venezuelan license plates, which had been used to transport drugs, Castro said. Also confiscated were cocaine- processing chemicals and a cache of weapons, he said. The bust was considered one of the year's most important. So far in 1990 security forces have confiscated about 45 tons of cocaine, compared to 33 tons in all of 1989. Colombia's Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels supply most of the cocaine consumed in the United States. The coca leaf is mostly grown in Bolivia and Peru, then processed in Colombia. The Medellin cartel has been blamed for a long series of terrorist attacks in which at least 550 people have died in the past 14 months.
AP900907-0105 	X	Investigators found ``promising evidence'' in the slayings of five college students when they searched the lodgings and car of a suspect, a spokeswoman said today. On Thursday, investigators searched the apartment of the suspect, 18-year-old part-time student Edward Lewis Humphrey, as well as the home of his grandmother and his car. They also took blood and hair samples from Humphrey. ``We did not leave empty-handed,'' Lt. Sadie Darnell, Gainesville police spokeswoman, told a news briefing today. Besides calling the evidence promising, she declined to elaborate. On Thursday, she had said that while she was not prepared to label Humphrey a prime suspect, ``it is obvious we have a lot of information on Mr. Humphrey.'' Humphrey, whom police describe as one of eight suspects in last month's grisly slayings, has not been charged in the deaths. He remained jailed today on $1 million bond in connection with an assault on his grandmother shortly after the killings. And Thursday, University of Florida police announced they issued a warrant charging Humphrey with two counts of aggravated assault in another incident Aug. 25, a day before the first two bodies were found. Police would not give details of the incident, but The Miami Herald reported today that two freshmen, both 18-year-old male fraternity pledges, were threatened with a knife at the Pi Lambda Phi house. Also Thursday, a judge in Sharpes cited Humphrey's bizarre behavior when he upheld a $1 million bond on the charge that Humphrey assaulted his 79-year-old grandmother. ``I see before me a very disturbed individual,'' Circuit Judge Martin Budnick said. ``I see a great deal of acting out ... neurotic or psychotic behavior.'' Budnick ruled that Humphrey is a danger to the community. But he indicated he would consider another request for bond reduction and wanted to hear medical testimony about Humphrey's mental condition. Humphrey's grandmother testified she didn't want to press charges and would welcome Humphrey back into her home, where Humphrey's mother also lives. ``I want it dropped ... definitely,'' Elna Hlavaty, her right cheek and right eye badly bruised, said as Humphrey looked on. She said she didn't fear her grandson, although she had called police repeatedly. Ms. Hlavaty said she couldn't remember details of the night she was hurt, other than that she bruised her right side when she fell on a concrete floor. Sheriff's Deputy Douglas Hammack testified she told him the night of the arrest that she feared Humphrey would beat her again. Warrants also have been issued for Humphrey in Indian River County for attempted sexual battery and armed burglary in an attack on a woman two years ago. Four women and a man, all students at the University of Florida or Santa Fe Community College, were slain last month in three attacks. Three victims were mutilated; one was decapitated, police said. Humphrey and Stephen Michael Bates, a 30-year-old Lakeland short-order cook, have been mentioned publicly as suspects. Bates has been held in the Polk County Jail on $100,500 bail since his Aug. 29 arrest in an unrelated assault. In Colorado, meanwhile, authorities disclosed Thursday that Humphrey was arrested two weeks before the Gainesville killings began on charges of theft and disorderly conduct for failing to pay for $12 worth of gasoline at a convenience store near Ordway, a town about 160 miles southeast of Denver. When he was booked into the county jail, Humphrey began ``hollering, yelling and flipping out,'' Sgt. Allan Turner of the Crowley County sheriff's department said. Humphrey also threatened suicide but didn't threaten anyone else, Turner said.
AP881201-0262 	X	NBC won the U.S. television rights to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, The Associated Press learned today. NBC, which televised the Summer Olympics in Seoul, had been considered a longshot to get the Barcelona rights. CBS was favored because it already owns the TV rights to the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. The International Olympic Committee and the Barcelona Olympic Organizing Committee scheduled a news conference later today for the official announcement.
AP900703-0024 	X	Here are some key quotes from Monday's session of the 28th Communist Party congress:
AP881209-0112 	X	A brush fire fanned by fierce Santa Ana winds raced through a neighborhood of expensive homes early today, burning at least 20 homes and forcing evacuations of up to 5,000 people. It was the second day wind reached speeds above 60 mph. On Thursday, fires destroyed at least 22 homes and cut power to half a million people. Today's brush fire was in the Porter Ranch district, 25 miles northwest of downtown, where many homes have flammable wooden shake shingle roofs, authorities said. Ten homes were destroyed and 10 were damaged as the fire spread through canyons in the Santa Susana Mountains and into foothill neighborhoods, said Fire Department spokesman Gary Svider. No injuries were reported. ``One of the major problems up here is that we have a lot of wood shingle roofs and they go up like matchsticks,'' said Battalion Chief Dean Cathey. Cause of the blaze, which blackened at least 1,800 acres, was not immediately known. Wind gusted to 60 mph, and the National Weather Service said the relative humidity was 15 percent, compared to a normal 60 percent in the early morning. Police began evacuating a residential area of four to six square miles after the fire broke out about 5:45 a.m., said police Sgt. Doug Boka. He said thousands of people would be forced from their homes near the northern foothills of the San Fernando Valley. Porter Ranch residents were awakened by choking smoke and an orange glow in the sky. ``It was just like raining fire,'' said Tim Dinsmore, 16, who helped his father wet down the family's home before they had to flee several blocks away. ``As I was spraying water the neighbors' houses started to burn; that's when I got scared.'' The Dinsmores' home survived the onslaught. ``Thousands of embers were coming down on us as we left,'' said Hank Piorek, who fled the neighborhood with his family of four. At least three schools in the area were closed and some sections of boulevard and freeway access ramps were closed because of smoke. The hot, dry ``devil winds'' from the desert gusted to 69 mph Thursday, causing damage estimated at $10 million but no serious injuries, although some residents had to dash through flames to safety, officials said. ``We saw sparks, showers of sparks, like rain,'' said Ruben Cabadas, 18, recounting his family's flight from their Baldwin Park home on Thursday. Hardest hit were the Los Angeles suburbs of Baldwin Park and La Verne, where fires blamed on wind-downed power lines destroyed at least 22 homes and damaged 12 others and five businesses. The winds toppled at least a dozen tractor-trailers and a motor home on freeways obscured by blowing dirt and sand. About 500,000 people were without power at various times. By nightfall Thursday, 30,800 remained in the dark in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, utility officials said. Electricity was out in the La Canada-Flintridge School District, where schools were closed today. The Santa Ana winds blow through the deserts on their way to Southern California at this time of year, picking up both speed and warmth and increasing the fire danger in areas left dry by lack of rain. The forecast held little relief. The high-pressure system causing the turbulence, in combination with a low-pressure system off Baja California, appeared to be stuck over southern Idaho, the National Weather Service said. ``I can see these winds continuing, although not as strong as today, into the early part of next week,'' weather service meteorologist Mark McKinley said Thursday. Fourteen homes were destroyed in Baldwin Park 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles and five were damaged along with five commercial buildings when 75 mph gusts snapped power lines, igniting a fire at Allan Paper Co., fire officials said. Damage was estimated at $4.5 million. In La Verne and neighboring unincorporated parts of Claremont, eight homes were devastated and seven damaged in wind-driven fires. Damage was estimated at $5 million. ``We lost everything _ the house, the cars,'' said Dan Hanlon, 49, of La Verne, who fled with his wife. ``We were lucky to get out. We had to drive through flames.'' An artificial Christmas tree wrapped in colored lights and tinsel lay on the driveway of Roy and Elinor Livingston's home, the only thing salvaged from the ruins. Awakened by a neighbor, the couple found a row of palm trees and a nearby home ablaze, and battled fires on their roof until they were overwhelmed. ``It was just like the air was full of these giant sparks,'' said Mrs. Livingston, 56. In the San Fernando Valley community of Chatsworth, six men were arrested for investigation of arson as firefighters doused a five-acre brushfire, a ridge into Glendale, Wells said. The powerful winds caused turbulence that jolted a Piedmont Airlines jet approaching Los Angeles International Airport, slightly injuring two flight attendants and four passengers. Damage was estimated at $40,000 to five floats being built for Pasadena's Tournament of Roses Parade. The floats' chicken-wire skeletons were crushed when a giant tent housing them in Azusa collapsed. They were expected to be rebuilt by the Jan. 2 event. In La Jolla to the south, a wind-fanned brush fire burned about 60 acres in a steep coastal canyon and threatened the Scripps Clinic hospital and other businesses before about 100 area firefighters contained it, said San Diego fire spokesman Larry Stewart. The California Highway Patrol warned Southern California motorists to exercise caution _ particularly those with campers, trailers and other high-profile vehicles vulnerable to wind.
AP881108-0241 	X	RJR Nabisco Inc. is adding another element to the epic takeover battle for the food and tobacco conglomerate, with its board of directors considering the possible sale of its food businesses in advance of any takeover. The possible sale of the food businesses, which last year accounted for about 60 percent of the company's $15.8 billion in net sales, was announced Monday by the special committee appointed by the board to evaluate the unprecedented multibillion-dollar buyout offers already made for RJR Nabisco. The committee also said it had set a Nov. 18 deadline for submission of any proposals to acquire either the entire company or just its tobacco businesses, and warned bidders that it would not consider their offers if they did not agree to the terms it set for the auction. RJR Nabisco already is the target of a record $20.3 billion tender offer _ worth $90 a share _ by the New York investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Inc. and a rival proposal by Nabisco management to acquire the company for $20.7 billion, or $92 a share. The New York buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co. announced last week it led an investor group _ including consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co., the investment firm Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Ralston Purina Co. _ interested in a possible counteroffer that would surpass both existing bids. RJR stock rose $1.75 a share to $87.37{ in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Monday. The special committee said that if the board decided to sell RJR's food businesses, the after-tax proceeds would be paid to shareholders before any acquisition of RJR. ``Accordingly, parties are invited to submit proposals on a basis which, in effect, would involve acquiring RJR Nabisco as a stand-alone tobacco company,'' the committee stated. Furthermore, the committee has ordered its financial advisers to explore available alternatives other than a buyout of the company. Industry analysts have estimated RJR Nabisco's food businesses would bring a sale price ranging from $12.5 billion to $15.5 billion. Atlanta-based RJR Nabisco makes such well-known brands as Winston and Camel cigarettes, Oreo cookies and Del Monte vegetables. The committee said it had made no final decision on whether to sell the company or any of its parts, and that the board had decided to take no position on the pending tender offer by Kohlberg Kravis. In addition, the committee stated it was inviting the inclusion in bids of a ``substantial common stock-related equity component.'' The panel's announcement did not elaborate on the reasons for the request, although including stock in their offers would enable bidders to increase the value of their bids without having to come up with more cash. The panel also warned that it would consider any attempt to bid for the company outside of its guidelines would be considered a hostile overture, and neither the special committee nor the board would consider offers from any bidders that had not agreed to those terms. A buyout of the RJR Nabisco food businesses would mirror the recent trend that has seen the acquisitions and sometimes breaking up of the nation's biggest food companies. Last month, Kraft Inc. agreed to be acquired by food and tobacco giant Philip Morris Companies Inc. in a $13.1 billion buyout, the second-biggest U.S. corporate acquisition ever. There also is a battle being waged by Pillsbury Co. against a $5.2 billion hostile buyout offer by Britain's Grand Metropolitan PLC, a food, liquor and real estate conglomerate. The big food companies are considered attractive because of their established brand names and relative steady businesses, which are regarded as recession proof.
AP881005-0052 	X	A 28-year-old man who hijacked a Brazilian jetliner with more than 100 people aboard has died following a five-hour police interrogation, hospital officials said. Raimundo Conceicao, described by authorities as a ``psychopath,'' died Tuesday of kidney failure after five days of steady progress, according to a medical report released by the Santa Genoveva hospital in Goiania, 850 miles northwest of Rio. On Sep. 29, Conceicao underwent surgery to stop internal bleeding caused by police bullet wounds suffered as the hijacking drew to a close. On Sunday, Conceicao underwent five hours of intense questioning by police on the hijacking. Late Monday afternoon, Conceicao was rushed to the hospital's intensive care unit with soaring blood pressure. The causes of Conceicao's sudden change in condition were unknown, according to the medical report, but a doctor who asked not to be identified said Conceicao's soaring blood pressure could have been prompted by a build-up of intestinal gases during the interrogation. Doctors on Monday refused to let police talk to Conceicao, saying his health had deteriorated. The contents of Conceicao's police deposition were not made public. On Sep. 29, Conceicao burst into the cockpit of a Brazilian jetliner on a routine flight from western Brazil to Rio and demanded the plane be flown to the federal capital of Brasilia. He reportedly told negotiators he wanted to crash the plane into a government building to ``settle accounts'' with the government over its economic policies. The plane was forced to land 125 miles southwest of the capital, in Goiania, where Conceicao shot and killed the co-pilot and wounded two others before being wounded by police as he prepared to change planes. On Monday, government officials announced passengers at major Brazilian airports will now have their baggage checked before boarding domestic flights. Previously, only passengers boarding international flights were subject to police checks.
AP900802-0006 	X	With decolonization complete, African leaders are turning to conflicts within their own countries that have killed millions of people, maimed countless more and created 5 million refugees. Those internal wars, some decades old, have been largely ignored by the Organization of African Unity, which devoted itself to supporting guerrilla movements in South Africa and colonies ruled by Europeans. Civil wars were considered beyond the bounds of the OAU, whose charter forbade meddling in the internal affairs of member states. Last month, a change began. For the first time since its birth in 1963, the organization declared that ballots should determine the future of the continent's 550 million people, not force of arms. It did not change the charter, but clearly shifted emphasis. ``The issue of restoring peace and stability to African countries and of dismantling the apartheid system was the dominant theme of discussion during the 26th OAU summit,'' the English-language daily Ethiopian Herald said in an editorial. The paper is published in Addis Ababa, headquarters of the OAU. In African eyes, the continent became free of colonies when Namibia gained independence from South Africa in March. Africans viewed Namibia, which South Africa governmed under a U.N. mandate withdrawn in 1966, as a colony of the white-ruled country. The OAU and United Nations have long recognized South Africa as an independent nation, but have tried to end the apartheid racial policy that maintains supremacy for 5 million whites over 28 million blacks. In previous years, the OAU has committed itself to financing guerrilla armies in areas ranging from Cape Verde, when it was a Portuguese colony, to the British territory of Rhodesia, now black-ruled Zimbabwe. It ended the June summit with the usual condemnation of apartheid, but for the first time omitted mention of continuing to support guerrilla-backed movements like the African National Congress or Pan-Africanist Congress. Instead, Africa's leaders committed themselves to increasing democracy within their own countries and finding peaceful solutions to civil wars in progress from the Western Sahara in the far northwest to Mozambique in the southeast. Here is a look at the long-running wars: ANGOLA _ Portugal, the colonial power, pulled out of this agriculturally rich West African territory in 1975, leaving three anti-colonial guerrilla armies to fight for the spoils. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won. Since then, the Marxist government has battled Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which has U.S. support. Zaire is mediating peace talks. CHAD _ This landlocked desert nation in north central Africa, independent from France since 1960, has been torn by rebellions and three civil wars. Virtually all involved meddling and military incursions by Chad's northern neighbor, Libya, with which it has a border dispute. President Hissen Habre's army scored a major victory over the Libyans in 1987, but skirmishing continues between government forces and Libyan-backed rebels. ETHIOPIA _ For 29 years, Africa's longest civil war has raged in northernmost Eritrea Province, where rebels of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front control virtually all the countryside and the port of Massawa, one of Ethiopia's two Red Sea harbors. The Eritreans, loosely allied with the Tigre People's Liberation Front in neighboring Tigre province, want independence for Eritrea, a former Italian colony federated with Ethiopia in 1952. The Tigreans want to overthrow the central government of President Mengistu Haile Mariam. The two conflicts and the famines they spawned have claimed more than 1 million lives. MOZAMBIQUE _ After Portugal granted independence in 1975, a rebel army called the Mozambique National Resistance, known as Renamo, was organized within Mozambique by the white military of neighboring Rhodesia. Mozambique was the main springboard for incursions by guerrillas bent on toppling Rhodesia's white-minority government. White-ruled South Africa took over Renamo after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, but now says it has ended support of the guerrillas. Hundreds of thousands of people have died and other hundreds of thousands have fled Mozambique. Preliminary peace talks began last year, but no real progress is evident. SOMALIA _ Since 1969, when he took power in a military coup, President Mohammed Siad Barre has ruled this Horn of Africa nation with what human rights groups describe as nearly unmatched brutality. Insurgents in the north have fought his regime for a decade and new rebel organizations sprang up in the south last year. The president has promised a referendum on a new constitution later this year and multiparty elections early in 1991. SUDAN _ For seven years, southern rebels who are mainly Christian or animist have been fighting for autonomy from the Moslem-dominated central government in Khartoum. Former President Jimmy Carter arranged peace talks last year that failed to settle the conflict. As in Ethiopia, the fighting has led to periodic famine and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. WESTERN SAHARA _ Morocco and the Polisario Front, a Marxist group, have been at war since 1977 over the desolate Western Sahara. Spain as the colonial power, granted the region to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975, but Mauritania later abandoned its claim. The Morocco-Polisario conflict has been largely at stalemate in recent years.
AP881231-0079 	X	Swiss police on Saturday freed a Turkish businessman reported kidnapped in Geneva and said they were holding three Turkish nationals as suspects. Police spokesman Marcel Vaudroz told a press conference that 28-year-old Mehmet Reyhan was freed unharmed shortly before noon in a Geneva apartment following a tip from a Geneva resident. Vaudroz said Reyhan was found in one room and that he was under guard by two of the suspects who were in another room. He said they had no firearms but carried knives. A third suspect was detained at another unspecified location. The abductors, who had demanded $3.3 million ransom, were identified by Vaudroz as Turkish nationals who had been in Switzerland for several years pending a decision on their request for political asylum. Their names were not disclosed. Vaudroz said it was too early to say whether the alleged kidnappers were affiliated to any group opposed to the Turkish government. Reyhan's family said the abductors identified themselves in telephone calls as members of a group called ``Vengeance Brigade'' of the outlawed Kurdish Labor Party, who are seeking to set up an independent Kurdish state. ``I am very happy to free again,'' Mehmet Reyhan told reporters. ``At some point I feared for my life.'' He said he was held up at gunpoint on Tuesday after he had stepped out of his downtown hotel and then was taken away. He said that attackers spoke Turkish but declined to say more about their identity. He looked pale but in good health as he spoke briefly at the police press conference where he was joined by his father, Ugur Reyhan, and his twin-brother, Ali, who had come to Geneva at the demand of the kidnappers. Ugur Reyhan is a member on the executive board of the conservative Istanbul daily Tercuman, which broke the story of the kidnapping. Mehmet is based in Luxembourg but travels to Switzerland frequently on business.
AP880316-0137 	X	A man convicted of buying LSD with $20,000 he received from a state fund for crime victims has been sentenced to four years in prison and fined $14,000, federal court officials said Wednesday. James B. Miller, 29, of South Charleston, pleaded guilty in January to two counts of distributing the hallucinogenic drug, admitting he sold 3,300 ``hits'' of LSD to police agents in 1986. He appeared Tuesday before U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. Compensation fund records show Miller was awarded the maximum personal-injury payment of $20,000 in 1985 after he was shot in 1983. Miller apparently had just arrived at a beach party when he was shot in the right arm by someone using a .30-caliber rifle, police records show. Miller lost his arm and incurred about $38,000 in medical bills, according to state officials. State officials said the crime victims' fund now can pay claims directly to hospitals.
AP900823-0121 	X	The U.S. Navy has boarded ``a handful'' of ships in its week-old effort to halt Iraqi shipping, the Pentagon said Thursday. Spokesman Pete Williams, asked to be more specific, said ``a handful would have to be less than 10.'' He said he could not give a definitive number nor say when or where the boardings occurred. In recent days, the United States has been urging swift approval of a U.N. resolution allowing military force to support the international body's sanctions against Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait, but the Soviet Union has been counseling that caution be used before military force is applied. At a Pentagon briefing, Williams said he was not aware of any more shots having been fired, but said ``dozens'' of ships were involved in the interdiction operations. ``We continue to monitor ships,'' Williams said. Ships belonging to the two aircraft carrier battle groups in the Red Sea, one carrier battle group in the Gulf of Oman and the ships of the Middle East Task Force in the Persian Gulf are involved in the operation. Boarding parties have been issued shotguns, pistols and specialized instructions on how to board and search vessels suspected of carrying cargo bound to or from Iraq. The sailors carry plastic cards in French, Arabic and English telling the ships' crews to remain calm and that no harm will come to them if they cooperate with the U.S. boarding parties. Williams said there was a ``high degree of voluntary compliance'' with the effort, and that ``many ships have turned back.'' Again, he said he had no specific number. Williams said the two Iraqi tankers involved in Saturday's shooting incident _ the first of the operation _ were ``still being shadowed'' by U.S. Navy ships. The fast frigate USS Reid fired six warning shots across the bow of the Iraqi-flagged vessel Khanaqin in the Gulf of Oman after it refused repeated requests to halt. In a separate incident, the USS Bradley fired three warning shots across the bow of another Iraqi tanker. The Khanaqin unloaded ``a portion of its cargo'' in Aden, Yemen, on Tuesday and has left port, Williams said. ``The Yemenis have assured the United Sates that the off-loading stopped before it was completed,'' the spokesman said. Williams referred reporters to the State Department when they asked whether it had been determined that the cargo involved items that would break the U.N.-sanctioned embargo against Iraq. Asked whether any other ships had been challenged and had sailed on, Williams replied: ``Not that I know of.''
AP880713-0194 	X	The government Wednesday pressed ahead with the trial of a Palestinian whose detention may have provoked a cruise ship massacre and said it would not allow Greece to become an arena for terrorist battles. A previously unknown group linked with Palestinians claimed responsibility for Monday's attack on the City of Poros cruise ship. The Organization of the Martyrs of the Popular Revolution in Palestine, took responsibility in a statement delivered Wednesday to a Western news agency in west Beirut. Radio France-Inter in Paris, meanwhile, reported that an anonymous caller said in a rambling conversation that the pro-Iranian group Islamic Jihad carried out the attack to avenge the U.S. downing of an Iranian passenger plane. There was no way to authenticate either claim. The PLO has condemned the attack on the City of Poros. Tourists were sunbathing and strolling on the ship's deck Monday when several terrorists pulled machine guns and began shooting and throwing hand grenades. Nine people were killed, and 98 were wounded. Merchant Marine Minister Evangelos Yiannopoulos told Parliament Wednesday that the terrorists returned to shore in rescue boats and had not escaped in a waiting speedboat as police initially reported. Many vessels rushed to the ship's aid and rescued panicked passengers who had jumped overboard to escape the attack. An Athens radio station reported that one of the terrorists was a woman who received treatment in the hospital for a foot injury after the attack. The station identified her as Aysal Lampsalmi, a Moroccan passport-holder, and said she checked out of the Tzanneion Hospital in Piraeus on Monday night with other survivors who sustained slight injuries. Greek authorities believe the guerrillas who carried out the attack may have intended to hijack the ship to win freedom for Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian. Rashid is wanted by the U.S. government for allegedly planting a bomb on a Pan Am jet in 1982 that killed one person and injured 15. He is charged in Greece with entering the country on a forged passport. His trial had been delayed until the end of July, but Justice Minister Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas overruled that decision Wednesday and ordered proceedings to begin. Rashid told reporters at the courthouse that he was not a terrorist and claimed the ship attack was ``an American operation ... to distract attention from the shooting down of the Iranian plane and the Palestinian uprising'' against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. ``The Americans can say what they like ... I had nothing to do with anything,'' he said. Rashid's trial was held over until Thursday because his lawyer and interpreter were unavailable. The deputy minister for tourism, Nikos Skoulas, said Greece was determined not to become ``an arena for different groups or factions to settle their differences.'' ``We are not soft or weak on anyone. That accusation has been leveled at us,'' he added, referring to past criticism by the United States for laxity in combating terrorism. Skoulas said security officers were being posted on the one-day Greek island cruises operated by the City of Poros and other vessels. Confusing and sometimes contradictory information obscured many details about the attack. The statement signed by The Organization of the Martyrs of the Popular Revolution in Palestine said the attack was ``in retaliation for the escalation in the operations of murder and extermination by the murderous Zionist-American gangs in Palestine, Lebanon, the gulf and all over the world.'' It also claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed two men near the liner's home dock of Piraeus about six hours before the ship attack. Police speculated that automatic weapons, grenades and explosives found in the car were intended for hijacking the ship. In Baghdad, Iraq, Bassam Abu Sharif, spokesman for PLO chief Yasser Arafat, declared, ``The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian people, being themselves victims of state-organized terrorism, strongly condemn this criminal attack on the Greek ship and the car bombing.'' Security police backtracked on an earlier claim that a young woman with a French passport was among the terrorists. But they said a woman was still believed to be among the terrorists. It remained unclear how many terrorists were involved. Most accounts by survivors and authorities varied between three and four. The death toll has also varied. The harbor authority initially said 11 people died, and the coroner said there were 10 bodies. On Wednesday, the government finally said the official death count was nine. It said confusion apparently arose because bodies were badly charred and some were dismembered.
AP900314-0159 	X	Greyhound Lines Inc. agreed to resume talks with the union representing its bus drivers for the first time since the violence-marred walkout began nearly two weeks ago. The Dallas-based company said Tuesday it had agreed to begin the talks Saturday in Phoenix at the request of Bernard DeLury, head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The company's announcement seemed to catch union officials off guard. ``If this is true, we welcome the opportunity to talk to the company. This is what we have been seeking all along,'' said James La Sala, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. At least seven shooting incidents have been reported since the strike began March 2, including one in Florida where eight people were injured. A picketing driver was crushed to death by a bus on the second day of the strike. On Tuesday, a sniper shot at a moving Greyhound bus in Chicago. In Fresno, Calif., a Greyhound-owned Trailways bus parked in a storage yard was set on fire Monday night, police said. No one was injured in either episode. Greyhound had refused to resume negotiations unless the union offered new proposals. Spokesman George Gravley had said Tuesday he did not know if the union had changed its offer. ``There's no point in our speculating what may happen,'' Gravley said. ``We are going back to the bargaining table and that speaks for itself.'' Greyhound, the only nationwide bus company, has been operating on a reduced schedule to the 9,600 communities it serves, using permanent replacements and union members willing to cross the picket line. Greyhound has said it cannot afford more than the $63 million, three-year pact it offered. The company valued the union's last offer at $207 million, although the union said it would cost much less. The differences apparently stem from questions over the cost of measures such as benefits, safety pay incentives and productivity raises. In the shooting, at 1:15 a.m., two bullets hit the front end of the bus, one hit the door and one went through a window and ``just missed a fellow's head by a couple inches,'' said Master Sgt. John Meduga of the Illinois State Police. ``Everybody started to scream,'' Meduga said. Gravley said he had no evidence to connect the latest shooting to the strike, but added, ``We don't have buses shot at when we're not negotiating a contract.'' Union officials have condemned the violence, which has included three shootings in Chicago and shootings in Ohio, Arizona, Florida and Connecticut. Greyhound spokeswoman Liz Hale said a $25,000 reward remained in effect for information on a sniper who shot a bus Sunday in Jacksonville, Fla., injuring eight passengers with shrapnel and other debris. In Pittsburgh, meanwhile, the city council issued a resolution encouraging residents to boycott Greyhound buses until the strike is over. The council accused Greyhound of an ``utter lack of good faith toward its employees.''
AP881116-0087 	X	Mickey Mouse celebrated his 60th birthday two days early Wednesday with balloons, a four-tiered cake and a jazz band party, where his tailless friends disclosed he's a contented bachelor and a closet Republican. ``I think he's been a Republican,'' said Roy Disney, who ought to know. No sooner had Walt Disney's nephew uttered the R-word than Michael Eisner, board chairman of Disney's $3 billion corporate empire, grabbed the microphone and said, ``No, he's non-partisan.'' But the elephant was out of the bag, and Mickey didn't deny it. Fat, sleek and eternally grinning, he merely bowed and waved a white-gloved hand at his adoring fans at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. It was 60 years ago Friday, on Nov. 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York City, that Mickey made his film debut in ``Steamboat Willie,'' the first synchronized sound cartoon in black and white. To mark the anniversary, museum director Roger Kennedy was given six original pencil drawings of Mickey Mouse sketched by Disney's chief animator, Ub Iwerks, for ``Steamboat Willie,'' along with a replica of an animation cel, or celluloid painting, used in the film. Mickey also gave Kennedy a happy birthday T-shirt and a hug. The drawings and cel were put on display in the museum's collection of pop culture memorabilia, which also includes Archie Bunker's armchair, John Philip Sousa's baton and Dorothy's ruby red slippers. Kennedy said Mickey Mouse was ``a terribly important figure in American mythology,'' whose enormous worldwide popularity ``scared all those Wall Streeters'' who once rejected Disney's pleas for financial backing. Walt Disney, who died a multimillionaire in 1966, always said Mickey captivated the public because ``he's just a nice little guy,'' noted Roy Disney, a former Disney filmmaker who is corporate vice chairman. Mickey didn't seem to mind that Minnie, his ever-faithful girlfriend, had missed the party, even though tiny figures of the two cartoon mice topped the birthday cake. Does Mickey ever entertain thoughts of getting married and raising a family? ``He's only dating these days,'' Eisner said. ``At 60, it's too late for little mice.''
AP880502-0098 	X	About 400 leftists rampaged through a working class section of Berlin, smashing windows, erecting barricades and pelting police with rocks, officials said Monday. Police said 134 people were arrested and 53 police officers injured in the violence in West Berlin's Kreuzberg district. But the city policemen's union said that 87 officers had been injured. City officials said the violence late Sunday and early Monday was a sign of what officials could expect in September, when finance chiefs gather in West Berlin for a World Bank meeting. ``This was just a trial run for the World Bank meeting,'' city interior affairs chief Wilhelm Kewenig said. Some stores were looted after the windows were smashed, a police statement said. Police said one group of hooded men broke into an apartment and roughed up a 21-year-old man who had been photographing the melee. The vandalism started after an estimated 8,000 people marched in a May Day parade in the working class neighborhood of Kreuzberg. Young leftists in the Kreuzberg district, an area of high unemployment, stage protests nearly every year on May Day. Demonstrations are anticipated during the World Bank meeting here. Leftists maintain Western bankers should forgive the debts of heavily indebted developing nations.
AP901001-0107 	X	The Supreme Court today permitted the prosecution of an alleged Honduran drug dealer who said U.S. officials kidnapped and tortured him. The court, over one dissenting vote, rejected arguments that the defendant should be freed because U.S. officials violated international law and the U.S. and Honduras constitutions. Only Justice Byron R. White voted to hear arguments in the case. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February refused to bar prosecution of Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros, who faces drug charges in Arizona and California and was sentenced in a federal court in Florida to three years in prison for an earlier escape. Matta escaped from the Eglin Air Force Base prison in Florida in 1971 and fled to his native Honduras, which does not extradite its own citizens. He was arrested by Honduran authorities at his home in Tegucigalpa on April 5, 1988, and was turned over to U.S. marshals. Matta said the marshals, who took him to a federal prison in Marion, Ill., beat him severely and burned him with a stun gun that uses electric pulses to immobilize victims. U.S. officials denied those allegations and said any mistreatment Matta suffered while in custody was the work of his Honduran captors. Matta was transferred from Illinois to Florida, where he was convicted of escaping from federal custody. The 7th Circuit court ruled that even if Matta's rights were violated, he is not entitled to be freed. ``For the past 100 years, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the manner in which a defendant is brought to trial does not affect the ability of the government to try him,'' the appeals court said. If Matta was mistreated, the appeals court said, his remedy is to sue the government and the officials who allegedly violated his rights. A related issue has been raised by the arrest of a Mexican suspect in the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena. A federal judge has ruled that U.S. officials violated an extradition treaty with Mexico when they seized Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, a gynecologist accused of administering drugs to Camarena while the agent was tortured. Justice Department lawyers are appealing the judge's ruling. The Mexican government protested Alvarez's arrest, in contrast to Matta's capture in which the Honduran government cooperated. The Supreme Court last February bolstered the fight against drug smuggling and terrorism when it ruled that U.S. agents do not need warrants to search in other countries. The court upheld the warrantless search of the home of a suspected Mexican drug smuggler. The case acted on today is Matta-Ballesteros v. Henman, 89-1797.
AP881011-0204 	X	Leftist guerrillas hijacked six busloads of people in Medellin Tuesday and harrangued their approximately 300 captives to support a general strike called by a union for later this month, police said. About 100 guerrillas of the National Liberation Army took part, the national police in Medellin, a city of 2.5 million people in northwest Colombia, said in a communique. Drivers and passengers said in broadcast reports that the guerrillas forced the buses to Medellin's outskirts Tuesday morning and made everyone get out and assemble to form an audience. ``They made us listen to a speech in favor of the general strike and against the government's peace proposal,'' bus driver Oswaldo Correa said in a broadcast interview with the Colombian radio chain RCN. The entire episode took about two hours. The guerrillas took the bus keys with them when they left to immobilize the vehicles until police arrived. Colombia's largest labor union, the Workers' Unitary Central, has called a general strike for Oct. 27. It asked guerrillas not to interfere to avoid the strike's leading to violence. The last big general strike in Colombia was in 1977. Police and soldiers fired on rioters in the capital of Bogota, killing 29 people. The Workers' Unitary Central is protesting inflation and is demanding higher wages, a price freeze and an end to right-wing death squads that have killed about 180 union members in the last two years. The inflation rate has been running at about 22 percent. The minimum wage is about $90 a month for a six-day work week. All six of Colombia's leftist guerrilla groups last month turned down a peace plan proposed by President Virgilio Barco. He called for a cease-fire with the nation's estimated 10,000 guerrillas; negotiations, and pardons for all guerrillas who surrendered.
AP900620-0058 	X	Scores of residents of a poor neighborhood fired shots and hurled bottles and bricks at cars, venting anger over what they said was footdragging by police in responding to a teen-ager's hit-and-run death. Twelve people were arrested and six residents suffered minor injuries during the two-hour melee Tuesday night, authorities said. Several shots were fired from the crowd of at least 100 people that gathered at the intersection where 16-year-old Chris Crawford was struck and killed by a car Monday night, said. The shots apparently were fired into the air, and no one was hit, police said. Police said they fired no shots. State and county police and prison officers were sent to help city police control the crowd. Police used dogs to help clear the streets. The disturbance stemmed from the death of Crawford and the wounding of his cousin Michael Cain, 17. Crawford's death resulted from a confrontation among some 30 youths, police said. Cain said he and Crawford were assaulted as they stood near a video arcade. Cain said his cousin was forced into the street, then hit by a car. Cain said he was shot in the side as the vehicle passed. He was treated at a hospital and released. Crawford's death brought accusations from some residents who say police respond faster to calls from more affluent neighborhoods. Vince Wodard, a neighborhood resident, said police took more than an hour to reach the scene. ``We called them on 911, and they didn't come,'' he said. Mayor Robert Behler said the first squad car arrived within 30 seconds after police dispatchers received a call for help. About two hours before the incident, Anthony T. Gooden, 20, of Gary, was arrested on murder charges in Crawford's death, Drake said.
AP881007-0121 	X	Several thousand demonstrators chanted Islamic slogans after Moslem prayer services today, and authorities reported 900 arrests and an unspecified number of deaths in three days of rioting. Police and troops were blocking the demonstrators, estimated by reporters to number at least 6,000, in the Belcourt district in eastern Algiers. They chanted ``God is Great'' and other slogans and called for establishment of an Islamic republic. Earlier today, Algerians formed long lines for bread after an overnight curfew that was almost universally obeyed. On Thursday, the government declared a national state of emergency and put all police and administrative authorities under the military. Occasional gunshots broke the early morning silence. It was not clear whether the shots were fired at protesters or were warnings to chase away the few people in the streets. Protesters this week have included youths protesting an austerity program that has sharply increased prices, Islamic fundamentalists who oppose the government's secular orientation and rioters whose political stance was not known. The military command said 900 people were arrested in the three previous days and were caught ``red-handed in pillage and vandalism.'' In a separate statement, the command said street battles caused ``losses of human life among the demonstrators as well as in the ranks of the forces of order.'' It said the deaths occurred Thursday during the day and night. It did not say where in Algiers they happened. More than 30 people seriously injured in the clashes were admitted to Mustapha Hospital in Algiers, medical sources said today on condition of anonymity. They said the worst injuries occurred Wednesday night. President Chadli Bendjadid proclaimed a state of emergency on Thursday and ordered a curfew from midnight to 6 a.m. The army was given responsibility for public order for the first time since Algeria won independence from France 26 years ago. Bakeries were among the few shops open today, as other food stores remained closed either for lack of supplies or for fear of renewed violence. While prices of meats and other goods have soared, bread remains heavily subsidized by the government. Army convoys escorted trucks carrying flour to bakeries early in the morning to assure supplies. ``Getting provisions to the citizens is one of our main concerns, along with security,'' an army officer on one of the escorts told The Associated Press. He declined to give his name. The national airline Air Algerie announced today it was canceling all its flights, but international airlines continued to operate flights in and out of Algiers' Houari Boumediene airport. Government offices and other businesses were closed as usual today, the Moslem day of prayer. Former President Ahmed Ben Bella, who lives in exile in Geneva, was quoted in the Paris daily Le Figaro as saying some people were killed in the disturbances, without specifying how many or providing details. ``It was predictable that young people would rise up against the corruption, the bad management and the total lack of freedom,'' Ben Bella, who was president from independence in 1962 until he was overthrown in a military coup in 1965, was quoted as saying. The French news agency Agence France-Presse reported that two brothers, aged 14 and 23, were killed in the El-Biar neighborhood and quoted a relative as saying she saw their bodies at the Birtraria hospital. A hospital official, refusing to identify himself, denied the report today. The protests began last week with a series of strikes in industries _ which are nearly all government-controlled _ as well as the postal and telephone service and Air Algerie. By unofficial estimates, unemployment is above 40 percent in the capital. Under the government's economic reform program, prices for basic food staples other than bread have risen sharply. Slightly more than two pounds of beef sell for $25 or more.
AP880226-0101 	X	President Reagan was ``just being realistic'' in saying that there isn't enough time to finish work on a U.S.-Soviet strategic weapons treaty before his planned summit meeting in Moscow, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today. Reagan, in an interview published in today's Washington Post, also said he believes it is still possible for the treaty to be completed and signed before he leaves office in January. U.S. and Soviet negotiatiors had hoped to have the treaty ready for Reagan to sign with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev when the two meet in Moscow in May or June. Fitzwater said the president's statements did not represent any major change in the U.S. position. ``The president said the same thing that I have said here many times, that Secretary (of State George) Shultz and others have said, and that is that we are working on a START agreement; if we can get one that will be done in time to sign at the summit, that would be great; but, realistically, it doesn't appear that's likely to happen.'' ``The president was just being realistic,'' Fitzwater said. During a 30-minute Oval Office interview with the Post on Thursday, Reagan was asked whether he expected to sign the treaty to reduce strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons by 50 percent during the summit. ``That would be nice, if it could happen, but I have to tell you that common sense indicates that the time is too limited for us to really think that we could bring a treaty ready for signature to that meeting,'' Reagan said. ``We're not at this moment anticipating that it would be ready for signature then,'' he said. Reagan said the negotiations being conducted by representatives of both sides at the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks in Geneva are far more complex than those that preceded the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, which was signed by the two leaders during the Washington summit in December. The INF treaty eliminated short-and intermediate-range missiles from Europe. It is awaiting action by the Senate. ``This one is so much more complicated with regard to verification and everything else than the INF Treaty, which we were able to bring together. But even that took a few months to do,'' Reagan said. ``I believe with the amount of time that would still be remaining that, if there is sincerity on both sides with regard to getting such an agreement _ and I think there is _ I think that could be done ... before my time expired,'' he said. He reiterated that he would not use the Strategic Defense Initiative _ known as Star Wars _ as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Soviet Union. ``I have told him (Gorbachev) every time. ... If it is that good, we are going to deploy it. We see it as the basis then for eliminating the strategic ballistic missiles on both sides. And I have even told him that I would be willing to see this shared,'' the president said. Reagan also said National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Colin Powell and Secretary of State George P. Shultz are convinced the Soviets want to pull out of Afghanistan, where they have been battling U.S.-backed rebels. ``I think that a large part of that could be the economic situation in the Soviet Union and the fact that, after going on nine years, it's still a stalemate. So I think that there's reason to believe that they really want out,'' he said. A group of senators back from a tour of NATO capitals said they won assurances from Reagan on Thursday that the strategic arms treaty would not be rushed through simply to have it ready for signing at the Moscow summit. ``I am very concerned that the START agreement not be based on the calendar, the day of the month, that it not be governed by meeting a deadline,'' said Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. He said he was assured that would not be the case. On Monday, during Shultz's talks with Soviet leaders in Moscow, U.S. and Soviet negotiators at the START talks in Geneva had been directed to prepare within a month three draft agreements for a treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons by 30 percent to 50 percent. Draft accords on verification, disposing of weapons and exchange of information are to be ready for the next meeting between Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, scheduled for March 22-23 in Washington. Other issues covered during the Post interview included: _The U.S. budget deficit: ``It's a burden. There's no question about that. But ... not the disaster some people proclaim. ... One of the major factors in our budget right now is the interest. But who gets that interest? And you find out then that a great many institutions, universities, educational institutions of all kinds, that part of their endowment are government bonds. And so a lot of that interest is going to them ... (and) to individual Americans.'' _Former White House aides Michael Deaver, convicted of perjury for lying about his lobbying activities, and Lyn Nofziger, convicted of illegal lobbying, and Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is being investigated by an independent counsel: ``Of course, I am saddened. ... I found all those individuals to be the very soul of integrity in the more than 20 years that I have known them.''
AP900208-0009 	X	The Communist Party leadership has blazed the way to a brave new world of Soviet politics, where it will be forced to compete with other parties and people will directly choose the nation's leader for the first time. ``There will be a multiparty system. There will be a normal democracy,'' is how Communist Party member Svyatoslav Fyodorov, a noted eye surgeon, approvingly summed up a three-day meeting of the party's Central Committee, which voted Wednesday to end the party's legal monopoly on power. The decisions won't assume force of law until they are adopted by the Soviet legislative system, a process that could begin next week. They are the boldest steps yet in President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's campaign to get the party he heads out of the day-to-day business of running the country and provide greater freedom for political action. A Central Committee source said the platform approved Wednesday calls for a president elected by the people instead of the Congress of People's Deputies or another legislative body _ a revolutionary transformation for Soviet politics. That would allow Gorbachev to bypass the Moscow bureaucracy and take his case directly to the people. ``The party does not assume full government authority,'' Vice President Anatoly I. Lukyanov told a news conference called to explain the new platform, which was to be published later. ``Its role is to be a political leader with no particular role to be included in the constitution.'' Following the lead of its fraternal parties in Eastern Europe, the Soviet party will propose repeal of its constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on power, Lukyanov said. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher praised the vote as a great decision but added there was ``a lot still to be done.'' President Bush made no direct reference to the vote but credited Gorbachev for ``handling some extraordinarily complicated internal problems ... with a certain restraint and finesse that I think demonstrates a real commitment to peaceful change.'' Gorbachev has been struggling for nearly five years to transform the Soviet Union into a modern democracy, to save the badly ailing economy and to keep the union from dissolving under the weight of nationalist upheaval. His new proposals are unlikely to bring about the rapid collapse of Communist power. Unlike Eastern Europe, where alternative political groups have been at least marginally active for years and sprang quickly into genuine opposition parties during last year's peaceful revolutions, the Soviet Union has no nationwide alternative to the Communists. The party also holds uncounted financial resources and controls much of the nation's press, from Pravda, the party's flagship daily, to small-circulation tabloids printed for reindeer herders in Siberia. It has long held veto power on appointments to important jobs on every level. The vast majority of Soviets now living have never known anything but Communist Party rule, established after the 1917 revolution swept the czar from power. Voters are unlikely to immediately oust the Communists from control except in a few regions such as the independence-minded Baltic republics, where there are strong local political movements. ``We Communists are not going to surrender our positions. Just like any party in the world, we shall be waging a struggle for our rights,'' Politburo member Vitaly I. Vorotnikov told a group of Brazilian legislators in remarks reported by the official Tass news agency. Fellow Politburo member Alexander N. Yakovlev, a close Gorbachev ally, told the news conference he hopes new parties will share the socialist ideal. But he said the adopted platform calls for banning only groups that condone ethnic strife or violent overthrow of the government. The actual constitutional change must be approved by the Supreme Soviet legislature, which opens its next session on Wednesday, and by the Congress, which is to meet this spring but could be called into special session. At its last meeting in December, the Congress heeded Gorbachev's plea for delay and blocked an effort by reformers to strike the Communists' leading role from the constitution. The issue achieved greater urgency after Lithuania's Communists broke with Moscow later that month and formed a new party. Gorbachev dropped his public opposition to alternative political parties just three weeks ago, so it was a surprise when he proposed Monday that the possibility should be put into law. Gorbachev packed the meeting of the 249-member Central Committee with more than 700 other officials, many of them progressives who took the floor to demand radical reform. In two votes, first by the Central Committee and then by the entire assembly, there was only one ``no'' vote _ maverick Communist Boris N. Yeltsin, who had favored an even more radical program demanding a virtual apology by the party for decades of totalitarian rule, the Central Committee source said. The committee also agreed to advance the start of the next party Congress from October to June. For the first time, delegates to the Congress, the most powerful party body, will be elected by the nation's 20 million Communists. Previously they were approved by the leadership, thus ensuring the status quo. Congress then will elect a new Central Committee and could either choose the party leader _ now Gorbachev _ or allow the rank-and-file to choose, Yakovlev said. The Central Committee is considered by reformers to be the bastion of conservatives wary of Gorbachev's reform program and the Congress would offer Gorbachev another chance to reform the committee to his liking. The committee scolded Lithuania's Communist Party for declaring independence from Moscow and backed a small group of Lithuanian Communists who remain loyal to the Kremlin. Lithuanian officials said the break was a precursor to secession by the Baltic republic and said it was necessary for them to prevent defeat in local elections Feb. 24.
AP900831-0083 	X	The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said today there will be no war unless Iraq starts one, a move he said would be ``an awfully stupid mistake.'' Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, in his first news conference since moving his command post to Saudi Arabia, repeatedly ducked questions about specific U.S. military options under consideration. But he said the United States was not looking to start hostilities. ``There's not going to be any war unless the Iraqis attack,'' Schwarzkopf told reporters after spending the day visiting American troops in northeast Saudi Arabia. Schwarzkopf called the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait ``not only a mugging but a rape.'' He said said Iraqi forces in Iraq and Kuwait appeared to be in defensive posture but were capable of taking the offense. ``They certainly have the capability to attack, although I think if they were to do so it would be an awful stupid mistake,'' Schwarzkopf said. The general glanced at the floor before answering a question about how much impact Iraq's holding of American and other Western hostages had on his military planning. ``I would tell you that obviously I am just as concerned as anyone else about every single human life,'' Schwarzkopf said. But, he added: ``What I have to do is plan the military component and not concern myself with the hostages.'' He refused to answer a question about whether his early declaration about war prospects meant that the United States would not make an offensive push to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. He also refused to say whether the military was aiding the Kuwaiti resistance. There have been reports that Army special operations forces are helping the resistance movement. There has been speculation that the United States would seek a permanent military foothold in Saudi Arabia regardless of the outcome of the current staandoff _ a delicate subject because of anti-American sentiment in parts of the Arab world. When asked about such prospects, Schwarzkopf said: ``We have no intention of establishing a permanent base in Saudi Arabia.'' Schwarzkopf laughed when asked who was in charge of the multinational forces. ``This is not NATO,'' he said. ``This is not a single command and there doesn't need to be.'' The United States has by far the biggest military presence in Saudi Arabia and many nations that have committed forces to the region have not yet sent them, or sent only small contingents. Asked by a French reporter if France should send more forces, Scwarzkopf said only: ``I would like all the help I can get.'' Schwarzkopf is a bear of a man and can be gruff at times. But he was grandfatherly during stops at several U.S. staging areas, filling the troops in on the latest developments in the crisis and promising them more newspapers and radios. After a briefing by commanders of the 101st Airborne Division's air assault brigade, Schwarzkopf walked into a garage area and immediately encountered Staff Sgt. John Frady, of Sylva, N.C., a member of a maintenance platoon who was in the process of receiving a haircut. The general asked him: ``Ready to do the job?'' Frady answered: ``Ready to go to war, sir.'' He next visited the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing from Myrtle Beach, S.C., telling them the arrival of the wing's A-10 tank-killers had made him more confident of the deterrent power of the U.S. deployment. He said the United States was there to defend Saudi Arabia but ready to fight back if Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi forces to invade the kingdom. ``Let's face it, if he dares come across that border and comes down here, I'm completely confident that we're going to kick his butt when he gets here,'' Schwarzkopf said. Speaking to a group of officers in an air-conditioned tent at the same airstrip, Schwarzkopf said. ``Every now and then people have to go to war and ask themselves whether they are on the right side or the wrong side. There is no doubt that we are on the right side now, because the whole world is telling us that.'' His next and last stop was a Marine support camp in northeast Saudi Arabia, where Schwarzkopf received yet another briefing and visited with Marines digging a sandbag-lined foxhole. ``Our attitude has to be to be in this for the long haul,'' Schwarzkopf told a small group of Marines who had asked him about the latest developments in the crisis. One Marine said he had heard a rumor about the C-5 crash in Germany this week. Schwarzkopf told the group the transport indeed had crashed, killing 13 people. As the Marines shook their heads, Schwarzkopf said: ``That's 13 more counts against Saddam Hussein.''
AP880421-0217 	X	Gunmen who holed up in a bank after a foiled robbery in which five people died let their 42 captives go Thursday and were allowed to flee with three Red Cross workers as hostages. Police said the gunmen released the hostages 15 minutes later, when they abandoned an armored car in which they left the bank for a stolen pickup truck and station wagon. Hostage Rosario Angulo, who drove the armored car, said only five gunmen fled, one of whom had an arm wound. ``I think the other two mixed in among the crowd at the moment of leaving the bank,'' said Rosario, 20. Most police officers had withdrawn from around the bank just before the seven men left, apparently as part of an agreement ending the 24-hour standoff. Angulo said the robbers had ``goats horns (sawed-off machine guns), ammunition and dynamite sticks.'' When the armored car had roared away, a policemen shouted to hundreds of people outside the branch of the National Bank of Mexico: ``Thanks to you, the hostages are safe!'' Spectators had urged officials to end the crisis peacefully and some had shouted ``Freedom, freedom!'' in support of the gunmen. Gov. Francisco Labastida Ochoa told the Televisa network's afternoon news program the agreement allowed police to pursue the gunmen. ``We're not deceiving anyone,'' the governor said. ``We simply reached an agreement in which we could safeguard lives.'' The 42 hostages were taken to a hospital in Red Cross ambulances. Soldiers were seen checking vehicles on highways leading from the city. Ignacio Lara, a spokesman for the governor, said the gunmen demanded earlier that they be allowed to leave by air. Police said the robbers were in their late teens or early 20s and had no political motives. Labastida Ochoa said there were no injuries in a shooting incident Thursday morning when the gunmen grabbed weapons from a pickup truck outside the bank. News reports had said one gunman was wounded by police gunfire. The standoff in Los Mochis, a city of 120,000 on the Gulf of California, began at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday when the gunmen took hostages after an alarm alerted police to the attempted robbery. Bank robberies and other crime has increased in Mexico since 1982, when an economic crisis caused by plummeting oil prices began to erode purchasing power and drive up unemployment. Sinaloa is known as a crime center, particularly involving the illegal drug trade. Red Cross spokesmen said five people were killed and at least 15 wounded during the attempted robbery and ensuing standoff. They said the gunmen freed two men and two women Thursday morning. Hundreds of police had surrounded the bank. ``We are all going to die,'' one gunmen said by telephone to a radio station in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state. ``Let them give us the helicopter ... or we are going to blow up all of this. ... We don't want innocent people to die, but if we are going to die innocent people are going to as well,'' said the man, who identified himself only as Alfredo. Gov. Labastida Ochoa had offered in an interview with Televisa to let the gunmen meet with a committee of Red Cross officials, journalists, a Roman Catholic priest and state police to guarantee safety and due process of law. Another gunman, in an interview Televisa broadcast Thursday morning, said all the hostages were being treated well. Asked where they could go if given safe passage, he replied: ``I wouldn't be able to tell you where we could go. We can't turn ourselves in. They want to kill us.'' Hostages told the media by telephone during the siege the gunmen were getting them food and beverages. Jesus Acosta, a spokesman for the local Red Cross, said one of its rescue workers was among those killed in a gunfight Wednesday between police and the gunmen. He said the others slain were a customer, bank official and teller, and a policeman who was in the bank on business at the time of the robbery and tried to prevent it.
AP880304-0171 	X	Here is a rundown of the historical cost of mailing a first-class letter in the United States. In the first half of the 19th century the cost of sending a single sheet of paper 40 miles or less was between 6 cents and 8 cents, with the cost rising by distance. Letters going 400 miles and over cost 25 cents to send per sheet of paper. By the middle of that century postage stamps were introduced, along with standard rates regardless of distance traveled. These started at 2 cents per half-ounce in 1863, rising to 3 cents in 1883. In 1885 the current first-class standard based on 1 ounce was started. The 1 ounce rates since then have been: July 1, 1885: 2 cents. Nov. 3, 1917: 3 cents. July 1, 1919: 2 cents. July 6, 1932: 3 cents. Aug. 1, 1958: 4 cents. Jan. 7, 1963: 5 cents. Jan. 7, 1968: 6 cents. May 16, 1971: 8 cents. March 2, 1974: 10 cents. Dec. 31, 1975: 13 cents. May 29, 1978: 15 cents. March 22, 1981: 18 cents. Nov. 1, 1981: 20 cents. Feb. 17, 1985: 22 cents.
AP880830-0178 	X	A federal appeals court Tuesday overturned the nine-year sentence and most of the criminal convictions of former Guam Gov. Ricardo Bordallo, who allegedly exchanged political favors for payoffs. In a 3-0 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said four bribery-related convictions had to be reversed because the federal crime of bribery applies only to state officials and Guam is a territory, not a state. The court also reversed four extortion-related convictions because the jury was not told that it must find Bordallo demanded or otherwise induced the payoffs, totaling $79,600 in cash. The court ruled recently in another Guam case that extortion does not cover payments that an official accepted without either a request or an understanding that the donor would get benefits in exchange. The ruling, if it stands, would entitle Bordallo to a retrial on those charges. The court upheld Bordallo's two other convictions: tampering with a witness, for asking a supporter to lie to the grand jury, and a related charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. But according to Bordallo's lawyer, the entire nine-year prison sentence was for the extortion convictions. He was given suspended sentences on the other charges. Bordallo, a Democrat elected in 1982, was indicted a few days before the 1986 Democratic primary. He won the primary but was defeated in November 1986 by Republican Joseph Ada. He has been free on bail during his appeal. Prosecutors said Bordallo approved government contracts and permits for various firms in exchange for payments, mostly delivered to him in unmarked envelopes. The money was described by the donors as campaign contributions or gifts, but never was reported by Bordallo in his campaign statements, authorities said. He also was accused of approving a $103,000 government contract for a company that agreed to hire his campaign manager.
AP880813-0111 	X	Putting yourself in the proper frame of mind can help you beat the heat as much as plugging in the air conditioner, psychologists say. ``It's a time for people to learn to remain cool,'' said Michael R. Mantell, chief psychologist for the San Diego Police Department. He was attending the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. ``Stop telling yourself it's awful. It's just hot,'' Mantell said. ``At the very worst, it's an inconvenience.'' ``It is very comforting to think and to realize that it could be worse,'' he said. Though rainfall eased drought conditions in parts of the Midwest, much of the nation continued to swelter Saturday, and power consumption and temperature records fell. ``This is like Brazil,'' said Mel Goldstein, director of the weather center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. ``It's tropical weather, with high heat and the water vapor just absolutely saturating the atmosphere.'' The temperature reached 90 degrees shortly after noon Saturday in Windsor Locks, Conn. It was the 12th day of the month with temperatures at 90 or above, breaking the August record of 11 days with more than half the month still to go. In New York City, Saturday was the 30th straight day with temperatures in the 90s. Consolidated Edison said electricity use set a record Friday, while in Boston, heat-related power outages affected more than 6,000 customers. Temperatures in that range may have an effect on the safety of a top summer pastime. A study released at the meeting Saturday suggests baseball batters get beaned by pitches more often when the temperature is in the 90s, maybe because the heat is making pitchers more aggressive. It's not so much that the beanballs are deliberate, but rather the pitchers may be trying to move batters back from the plate, prodded by discomfort from the heat, said researcher Alan Reifman. ``You might plan to throw it close, and your aim is a little off,'' he said. He and colleagues found that in 21 games analyzed for which the temperature was in the 90s, pitchers racked up an average of 0.57 hit batters per game. For the remainder of the total 215 games in the study, the highest average for cooler weather was 0.33, for games played in the 80s. Lower rates were found for games at lower temperatures. Mantell suggested that one strategy for coping with the heat is to spend some time alone and take an occasional break from life's stresses. ``During a heat wave you don't want to be a workaholic,'' he said. ``Your thinking can be an internal thermometer to lower the temperature to what it is outside, instead of what you've exaggerated it to,'' he said. Parents should distract their children from focusing on the heat, and they should model a cool mental attitude for the children to see, he said. A good line of approach is, ``Boy, it sure is hot, it sure is uncomfortable, but it will pass. ... I can tolerate it,'' Mantell said. James Rotton, a psychologist at Florida International University in North Miami, recommended drinking plenty of water rather than alcohol. Alcohol tends to unleash aggression in hot weather, he said. Studies have given strong evidence that hot weather promotes assaults between acquaintances, homicides and rape, he said in a telephone interview. Humidity amplifies the effect of heat, but the main problem is that the body can't shed its own heat when the air is so warm, he said. To cope with heat, as with any stress, Rotton recommended staying in good physical shape. But don't overdo the exercise in hot weather, he added. Drinking water is important because during hot weather the body loses water faster than people can detect through thirst, he said. The result can be heat stroke.
AP880803-0041 	X	Alf Saliba wants to make a point. Actually, the human dartboard wants to make several points _ in his chest. Saliba, a 49-year-old stuntman who calls himself ``The Incredible Alf,'' said he's had as many as 20 darts hurled into his chest. He announced today that he's now shooting for 50 darts, which he figures ought to be good enough for his primary target of gaining entry into the Guinness Book of World Records. Saliba makes his living by pushing skewers through his cheeks, threading hooks through the fleshy parts of his body and hanging bricks from them. He said he accomplishes these things _ without bleeding _ through concentration and meditation. The current record holder isn't exactly sitting on pins and needles waiting for the record to fall. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, there isn't a current record holder.
AP880903-0009 	X	After a thunderous opening before thousands of fans in London's Wembley Stadium, Amnesty International today takes its star-filled rock show on a global road that runs from Argentina to Zimbabwe. More than 65,000 people packed Wembley on Friday to hear artists ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Sting sing for human rights. The six-hour concert climaxed with Springsteen leading the cheering fans in ``Chimes of Freedom,'' a Bob Dylan classic highlighting the theme of the show sponsored by Amnesty International, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group. The show heads for a weekend concert in Paris and then to communist Hungary, the first stops in a six-week journey to 20 cities across five continents. Organizers expressed delight at the sellout in London, launch pad for the tour being held to mark the 40th anniversary of the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights. ``I couldn't be more pleased,'' said Jack Healey, Amnesty's U.S. director and a prime organizer of the tour. ``We're selling out all around the world and we're feeling quite confident about ourselves ... We have great artists, a great audience here and, I think, the greatest cause in the world.'' The crowd at Wembley was made up mainly youngsters attracted by the big stars. They are the generation to whom Amnesty is making a special appeal to back the human rights declaration, which is widely endorsed but frequently ignored by governments. Springsteen shares a bill for the entire tour with British stars Sting and Peter Gabriel, American folk singer Tracy Chapman and Senegal's Youssou N'dour. From a podium surrounded by a turquoise and green global map emblazoned with ``Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in red letters, the stars belted out well-known numbers. The crowd swayed and applauded wildly. Spectators in the grandstands rose as Gabriel rocked the podium with ``Sledgehammer'' and ``Don't Give Up,'' and then went wild as Springstreen came on with his hit ``Born in the USA.'' The organizers stress that the aim is not to raise funds, but to stir the consciences of the young people in the cause of human rights. Amnesty hopes the tour will break even. Thousands of fans signed slips of paper endorsing the human rights declaration. Amnesty officials plan to hand over the signatures at the U.N. headquarters in New York at the end of the tour. ``I'm a big fan of Sting, I guess I really came to hear him. But it's also a very good cause,'' Ricky McCabe, a 21-year-old chef, told The Associated Press after signing the declaration. Ticket prices vary between rich and poor countries _ $37.60 in London and $3 in Budapest. Amnesty has had a tricky time getting the show to some countries the organization has sharply criticized. It monitors human rights abuses, particularly the plight of political prisoners, around the world. Healey is still trying to get the Kremlin to agree to a show in Moscow. ``I am hopeful that negotiations don't break down on our side or on theirs,'' Healey said. ``We are very anxious to play in the other superpower.'' Among the more contentious negotiations was a date in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, whose government reacted angrily to Amnesty reports several years ago of brutal suppression of the minority Ndebele tribe. The date for Harare is Oct. 7 after what Healey called ``a careful negotiation.'' Other confirmed venues are Turin, Italy, on Sept. 8; Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 10; San Jose, Costa Rica, Sept. 13; Toronto and Montreal on Sept. 16-17; Philadelphia Sept. 19; Los Angeles Sept. 21; Tokyo Sept. 27; New Delhi Sept. 30; Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 12; Mendoza, Argentina, Oct. 14; and Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, for a finale Oct. 15.
AP881224-0123 	X	Carols filtered through loudspeakers and drifted across Manger Square, but few Christmas Eve pilgrims were on hand to hear them in this biblical town, where soldiers seemed to outnumber celebrants. A driving rain, a Palestinian general strike and heavy Israeli security kept crowds slim. As darkness fell, troops with automatic rifles stood guard on rooftops, including that of the Church of the Nativity, which marks the site where Jesus Christ is said to have been born. The few visitors who spent the afternoon in Bethlehem huddled under Manger Square's arcade, outside shops closed down by striking Palestinians. In other parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, five Palestinians were reported wounded, one in a clash with troops and four in a clash with an Arab village official accused of collaborating with Israel, Arab reports said. Israel radio quoted security sources as saying a family feud was behind the incident. Two Arabs also died and three others were wounded as they ``handled an explosive device'' in the small West bank village of Marj en Naja, an army spokesman said. The army had no further details. Bethlehem was quiet. Arab municipal officials canceled the traditional Christmas parade in an expression of solidarity with the year-old uprising against Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Slogans written on Bethlehem walls by the uprising's PLO-backed leadership ordered Palestinians to stay at home. But Israeli authorities went ahead with a choir concert before midnight Mass in St. Catherine's Church. Several hundred tourists and Christian pilgrims attended the performance, but the number was a considerable drop from the thousands who normally attend. ``Silent Night,'' sung in German and English by the Pueri Youth Chorus from Geneva opened the concert. Also on the program was another Swiss choir, two choirs from Spain and one from the Shiloh baptist church in Washington, which sang ``Let My People Go.'' The choir director, Charles W. Fleming, said the song was chosen to speak out for freedom from oppression all over the world. ``The idea is that people should be free. Christ came to bring us that freedom,'' he said. Official ceremonies began Saturday with the arrival of Michel Sabbah, the bishop of Jerusalem, in the afternoon. Sabbah, the Roman Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem, was greeted in Manger Square by the Israeli military governor of Bethlehem, Lt. Col. Shaltiel Levy, and the city's mayor, Elias Freij. The visitors and pilgrims who watched the bishop arrive near the Mosque of Omar were far outnumbered by journalists and hundreds of Israeli police, troops and plainclothes officers. A leaflet issued earlier this week by the PLO-backed underground leaders of the uprising called for a general strike on Christmas Eve, and complained of Israeli participation in the Christian ceremonies. But Israeli officials said they felt it was important to maintain the practice _ more than a century old _ in which rulers of the region greet church leaders as a symbol of the protection offered to minority Christians in the largely Moslem Middle East. The practice was followed by the British and Turkish rulers of Palestine. Sabbah, who is the first Palestinian appointed bishop of Jerusalem, was led into the church by traditional Moslem guards wearing red fezzes and carrying curved swords. Hundreds of people crowded into the church to attend after strict searches by Israeli security guards. More than 100 stood outside in the rain to watch the mass on a large screen set up on the wall of the Manger Square police station. Holy water was sprinkled at the doorway of the Church of the Nativity as the bishop, preceded by altar boys, entered amid a clowd of incense smoke. The midnight Mass, led by Sabbah, is held each year in St. Catherine's basilica next door because the Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where Christ was born, is run by the Greek Orthodox church. The Greek Orthodox celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6, the Epiphany. Israeli troops blocked all streets around Manger Square, and pilgrims had to walk blocks to reach it. Before they could enter, they had to pass through metal detectors and were searched by Israeli security forces. Virginia Lankton, of Lansing, Mich., said she did not mind the heavy security because ``I realize it is for my own safety.'' She said her husband died recently and she came to the Holy Land at Christmas to realize a life-long dream. ``I was alone and I thought this was a good place to be, instead of being home alone,'' she said. Father Stephen Doyle, a Franciscan priest who is assistant rector at the nearby ecumenical institute, said he was discouraged by the deployment of many Israeli soldiers and police around Manger Square. ``It's extremely depressing to see something like this the day before we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace,'' said the Philadelphia-born priest. There was no violence in heavily-guarded Bethlehem, but in Nablus, 25 miles north, a 21-year-old Arab man who was shot in the head by soldiers last week died of his wounds Saturday. Doyle said he thought most Arab Christians from the West Bank would probably not attend midnight Mass because of the heavy security, but likely would fill the church on Christmas morning. About 35,000 Palestinan Christians live in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the the 1967 Middle East war. At least 334 Palestinians have been killed during the revolt. Fourteen Israelis also have been killed.
AP881012-0171 	X	The hunt crossed three continents and required hundreds of computers, but a team of researchers captured a prize few thought possible _ the prime factors of the 100-digit number on mathematicians' ``most wanted'' list. The breakthrough could have important implications for governments and banks, which use large-digit numbers in security systems on the assumption they provide a code too difficult to break. But the pleasure of the hunt concerned researchers more. ``Why did we go after it?'' University of Chicago computer scientist Arjen Lenstra said Wednesday. ``Because people compile lists.'' The number, which begins 9,412,343,607 ... and stretches on for 90 more digits, defied all previous efforts to find its prime factors. The factors of a number are two numbers that, when multiplied together, yield the larger number. A prime number is one that is evenly divisible only by 1 or itself. The prime factors of 21, for example, are 3 and 7. By comparison, the prime numbers that solved the 100-digit number are, respectively, 41 digits and 60 digits long. Finding the prime factors of such large numbers was thought to be so difficult, in fact, that many security systems assume such computations to be beyond the range of even the most powerful computers being applied for long periods of time. Governments transfer secret messages and banks transfer funds electronically by encoding the information in large-digit numbers that require the receiver to know its prime factors in order to decipher the information. ``Ten years ago, everybody suggested 80 digits were safe. Nowadays, that's trivial'' said Lenstra, co-director of the project with Dr. Mark Manasse of the Digital Equipment Corp.'s Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif. ``I think 150 is reasonable,'' he continued. ``But personally, I'd go a little beyond 200 now.'' Computer scientists had theorized that a single computer doing a million calculations per second would have needed 25 years to solve the problem. Even a state-of-the-art supercomputer such as the Cray would need about 10 months of constant computing _ that at a cost of thousands of dollars per hour. Lenstra and Manasse, however, factored the number in just 26 days. They began their attack on the 100-digit number by breaking the problem into smaller tasks, then farmed them out to about 400 computers in the United States, Europe and Australia through an exisiting electronic mail network. All the computers used in the project worked on the factoring problem only when they were not being used for anything else. Each time a problem was solved, it was relayed by electronic mail to Digital's Palo Alto lab. The last sequence of numbers required to solve the entire problem flashed across a computer screen at 2:03 a.m. PDT Tuesday. ``One of the really nice things about this effort is that it cost us virtually nothing,'' Lenstra said. ``We contacted friends, other computer scientists, anybody that thought factoring was fun and got them to participate.'' Lenstra, 32, a visiting professor in Chicago's computer science department is unsure where the next horizon lies. He said every time the length of the number goes up by three digits, the time needed to compute the prime factors doubles. ``But we don't know what our problem-solving limit is until we find out how much interest is out there and how big an electronic mail network we can assemble. ``We've already started on a 102-digit number,'' he concluded, ``just to keep us busy.''
AP880729-0224 	X	A professor convicted of killing and dismembering a teen-age prostitute with a chain saw was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison by a judge who said the educator was ``a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'' Max Bernard Franc, 58, whose secret life as a homosexual voyeur was disclosed during his trial, coughed slightly but remained impassive as Superior Court Judge John Reid imposed the maximum sentence. Reid described the murder of Tracy Leroy Nute, 18, and the dismemberment of his body with a chain saw as ``hideous, cruel and callous.'' Franc was accused of shooting Nute, a runaway from Kansas City, Mo., chopping up the body and distributing it across 200 miles of California. Franc said a transient named Terry Adams committed the crime. But Adams was never found. ``Dr. Franc, the one thing that becomes very clear to me is you are two different people,'' said the judge. ``You're the scholar to your colleagues. Your students talk about you as if you were the second coming as a teacher. But none of them talk about what was going on in the Hollywood area of your life.'' Franc, who taught at Fresno State University until his arrest last August, had maintained an apartment in West Hollywood, some 200 miles away, where he paid young men to pose for nude photographs, his attorney has said. ``An analogy has to be drawn to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,'' said the judge. He imposed the sentence after Franc's sister, Carol Waiters, a social worker from Philadelphia, made an impassioned plea for her brother, describing him as a brilliant, bilingual teacher who inspired his students. ``I ask, I beg of you, Judge Reid, do not let this mind go to waste in prison,'' Mrs. Waiters said in a trembling voice. ``He has so much to offer,'' she said. ``To shut him away and snuff out his creativity and productivity would be a terrible waste to society.'' Reid said he hoped Franc would use the time in prison to help uneducated inmates improve themselves. ``I hope you do something beneficial with the rest of your life,'' he said. ``I think it's a shame it had to come to this. But these are your acts, no one else's acts.'' Franc, a native of DePere, Wis., was arrested after a chain saw he had rented was returned with bits of flesh and blood in it. ``Even if the only thing you did was watch someone else kill Terry Nute, what type of person could go and rent a chain saw knowing it would be used to cut up a body?'' the judge asked Franc. ``There's no question that's exactly what you did.'' Deputy Public Defender Mark Kaiserman lost a bid for a new trial and reduction of the first-degree murder conviction. The judge said he felt the jury's verdict was proper even if Franc had only aided and abetted in the murder. He conceded that what actually happened was never clear and he could not conclude positively that Franc pulled the trigger to kill Nute. Deputy District Attorney Sterling Norris said Franc ``ought to feel lucky that he doesn't go to the gas chamber'' because special circumstances were not involved in the case. He said the pleas for leniency based on Franc's status as a college professor ``smacks to me of class distinction.'' Kaiserman said Franc will appeal his conviction.
AP881003-0293 	X	Archaeologists say the Moche people were a warring nation given to human sacrifice, highly skilled in metallurgy and proficient in using complex irrigation systems to make desert lands produce bountiful harvests of cotton and corn. The Moche dominated a 300-mile stretch of Peru's northern coast from about 100 to 800 A.D. Their civilization mysteriously disappeared long before the Spaniards arrived in the 1530s and destroyed the better known Inca empire, which held sway hundreds of years after the Moche. The Huaca Rajada pyramid apparently was a giant mausoleum for a succession of Moche rulers, and archaeologists have recently discovered a second tomb, now under excavation, of another warrior-priest, although of lesser rank than the Lord of Sipan. ``It is as if we were making the Moche live again,'' archaeologist Chero said of the discoveries. The Moche did not have a written language. But Chero, whose copper skin and high cheekbones are mirrored in the faces on Sipan's golden masks, said the carefully placed layers of ceramic vessels with descriptive scenes found in the first tomb were like ``the pages of a book.'' Valuable information about the relationship of one object to another in a tomb is irretrievably lost when it is plundered by grave robbers, known here as ``huaqueros,'' a word meaning looters that is a spinoff of the Quechua word ``huaca,'' for holy place. ``Pottery is not placed haphazardly in tombs,'' Chero explained. ``It always is meant to communicate something. What the huaqueros do is terrible. They destroy everything and take the pieces out of their context.'' Huaca Rajada is honeycombed with tunnels and pock-marked with looters' pits. A vertical tunnel that Alva said was dug by huaqueros stops about 3 feet short of the burial chamber. Fifteen feet away near the top of the platform is another tunnel 20 feet straight down. It was there that huaqueros from the village of Sipan struck pay dirt in February 1987. Working day and night with guards posted to warn of the arrival of strangers, several dozen looters extracted what is believed to have been a treasure trove perhaps as great as that found by the archaeologists months later. Soon afterwards authorities noticed an influx of unusually fine gold and silver artifacts on the clandestine antiquities market. Some artifacts confiscated at the Los Angeles airport in April may include items stolen from Sipan. Alva has traveled to Los Angeles to study the pieces. Without a tip from jealous huaqueros, ``it would have been very difficult for the government to learn exactly where the gold was coming from,'' said Martinez. In a police raid in April 1987 at the home of one of the families looting the pyramid, a ringleader was shot and killed and some of the gold artifacts were rescued. When Alva and his assistants arrived at Sipan to excavate the pyramid, the villagers accused them of trying to take what was rightfully theirs and threatened them. The site is now protected by armed police and enclosed by a 10-foot-high barbed wire fence. ``Many people in Sipan say their families have dug through the temples around here for generations,'' Martinez said. Taking artifacts from ancient temples is prohibited, but Peru lacks the funds to enforce the laws or to finance archaeological excavations. ``There is no economic support in Peru by the government to conduct archaeological work on a large scale,'' said Martinez. ``The government is interested in projects that give quick returns.'' Chero said hundreds of temples on Peru's northern coast have never been excavated by archaeologists because of lack of money. ``Near Sipan alone, there are 15 pyramids. We have a good idea of where there may be tombs,'' he said. ``But without money, we can't excavate.''
AP900319-0045 	X	A rogue computer program that steals electronic documents and covers its own tracks has invaded dozens of computers in a nationwide computer network, a published report said. The program has infiltrated the computers of corporations, non-classified military installations, government laboratories and several universities, The New York Times reported in today's editions. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Digital Equipment Corporation, Harvard University, Boston University and the University of Texas are among the affected institutions, unidentified investigators told the Times. The computer network is Internet, a worldwide collection of computer systems that links corporations, government projects and universities together. Government computer security teams have been unable to trace the source of the illegal program. Their job has been especially difficult because the program automatically erases computer files that would help them trace break-ins, the newspaper said. No classified military computers have been affected and damage has been slight to the Internet system, unidentified government officials told the newspaper. The computer attack is being run through a single hidden location. But in order to avoid detection, the hacker is connecting to Internet through a series of computers. The program is designed to find a file containing the system's passwords and copy the file into another computer for decoding. Some of the break-ins were traced to Texas and New Mexico before investigators lost the trail. Internet was thrown into chaos in November 1988 when a program written by Robert Tappan Morris, a graduate student at Cornell University, jammed the system. The new program is not the same as one that Morris used. That program, called a worm, copied itself from computer to computer, as a computer virus does. ``The computer virus frenzy is not the real problem,'' said Peter Neumann, a computer security expert at SRI International, a research center in Menlo Park, Calif. ``The real problem is the fact that the computers are so vulnerable, and whether the attack is by one person at a computer or a program like a worm or virus, they're all exploiting the same problem _ the vulnerability of our computer systems.''
AP881005-0163 	X	The Senate voted 89-0 approval Wednesday of legislation paving the way for the United States to join a century-old agreement among 76 nations that grants global copyrights to literary and artistic works. ``Adherence to the convention will greatly benefit the United States,'' said Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on patents, copyrights and trademarks. ``It will provide the guidelines which govern the copyright regulations between nations.'' Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, ranking Republican on the panel, agreed. ``Our participation will provide benefits to American copyright holders and artists.'' The bill would change U.S. copyright law, paving the way for Senate consent to ratification of the treaty, signed in Berne, Switzerland, on Sept. 9, 1886. Ratification will come on a separate vote. The Berne Convention, which has been signed by 76 nations, spells out minimum copyright standards, detailing what is protected and how long the protection lasts. The pact prohibits member nations from discriminating against copyrighted works of other member nations. It also provides for copyright protection to take effect in other countries automatically without the necessity of government formalities, such as providing official notice of a copyright. The chief dispute over the legislation involved how best to protect what are known as ``moral rights'' _ the authority of a writer or artist to guard the integrity of his work against what he thinks are damaging changes or misuse. Artists have generally argued for stiff coverage in U.S. law of moral rights. Critics have said that strong coverage is unnecessary, although they support the idea of protecting the artistic integrity of works. American copyright law doesn't cover moral rights. The Berne Convention requires signing nations to protect in law the right of an artist to ensure the integrity of his work. However, that protection doesn't have to be part of copyright law. The bill approved Wednesday sidesteps that issue, providing that neither the measure nor adherence to the Berne Convention expands or contracts a copyright holder's rights to object to any change in a protected work.
AP900129-0131 	X	President Bush, hailing moves toward democracy throughout Eastern Europe, said Monday that ``the world, increasingly, is on the side of God.'' Bush, in a speech to the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, also said ``I believe with all my heart that one cannot be America's president without a belief in God, without the strength that your faith gives to you.'' He got a rousing response from the crowd of about 2,000, particularly when he expressed opposition to abortion, saying, ``I support the sanctity of life,'' and when he reiterated his support for a constitutional amendment permitting voluntary prayer in public schools. Bush has been a regular speaker at the broadcasters' conventions. Monday's address marked his fourth appearance before the group. ``We believe that political values without moral values, a moral underpinning, cannot sustain a people,'' Bush said. He recalled his comment in his inaugural address that ``the day of the dictator is over,'' and said, ``Indeed, the last year has been a victory for the freedoms with which God has blessed the United States of America. We have seen the rights of man move mountains or _ as in East Berlin _ even move a wall. Bush said the changes in Eastern Europe ``were propelled by many things, faith not the least of them.'' He said that as pro-democracy demonstrations spread across Europe, ``the day of the dictator did end.'' The president praised the role of religious figures in democratic revolutions, and singled out a Romanian Orthodox priest, Gheorghe Calciu, who spent 21 of his 64 years in jail and was spared at the last minute from a death sentence. Addressing the priest, who was in the audience, Bush said, ``Father, it's an honor to salute you. ... I know, too, you hope to return to your native land.'' ``And in this season of miracles, who can doubt you will?,'' Bush said. ``For today, the times are on the side of peace, because the world, increasingly, is on the side of God.''
AP901124-0011 	X	It was apparently late Wednesday night, unseasonably chilly even for November, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher faced the cold reality that most of her party wanted her to quit. Only hours before, she had strode confidently from 10 Downing Street, the official residence, to say she was intent on beating Michael Heseltine, the former defense secretary who had challenged her for leadership of the governing Conservative Party. ``I fight on, I fight to win!'' she had declared. According to statements by aides and allies, as well as accounts in Friday's newspapers, it was all downhill from there. The prime minister seemed in good form earlier Wednesday in the House of Commons, delivering a report on the European security summit in Paris. Then she surprised lawmakers with a rare appearance in the Commons' tearoom to solicit support. Later, in her office at the House of Commons, she met one by one with a succession of Cabinet ministers and old allies. Most delivered the same brutal message: the rank-and-file were defecting after Mrs. Thatcher's failure to dispatch Heseltine cleanly in the first round of a party leadership vote. ``It's a funny old world,'' she told some of her messengers, according to The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Only a few of her staunchest allies encouraged the prime minister to push on. ``It took just a few hours for Mrs. Thatcher to realize she had lost touch with reality, that her supporters on the right of the party were seeing the world through eyes focused on her earlier triumphs,'' wrote Philip Stephens, the respected political writer of The Financial Times. To Thatcher loyalists, it looked like a palace coup. ``It's rank treachery. Our own people have done it,'' complained Tory lawmaker Edward Leigh. The agony began Tuesday evening when Mrs. Thatcher, in Paris for the 34-nation security summit, learned that she had narrowly failed to gain the margin of 56 votes needed to beat Heseltine in round one that day. Of the 372 Tory lawmakers, 204 voted for the prime minister, 152 for Heseltine and 16 abstained. She responded within minutes. ``Look, I have more than half the votes of the parliamentary party. It was not quite 15 percent above those of Mr. Heseltine. ... so it means we have to go forward for a second ballot,'' she told reporters. She then changed into a formal gown to join other government leaders for ballet and dinner at Versailles. She arrived a few minutes late, smiling radiantly. But she was sufficiently rattled to leave the summit early. Returning to London at midday Wednesday, she sacked her campaign manager and began drawing up new battle plans. She received some welcome advice from staunch allies Norman Tebbit and party chairman Kenneth Baker. According to Stephens, they convinced her that her first-round failure was simply ``due to a lack of lack of organization and commitment,'' and predicted she would win on the second ballot, when all she needed was an outright majority. But the Cabinet reportedly was becoming increasingly mutinous. John MacGregor, the leader of the House of Commons, ascertained that 12 of 21 Cabinet ministers thought Mrs. Thatcher should resign, Stephens said. Mrs. Thatcher, however, reportedly seized on the upbeat report from Tebbit and Baker. When Tim Renton, the government's chief vote-counter in the House of Commons, told her the rank-and-file support was collapsing, Stephens said that she snapped: ``Who else can beat Heseltine?'' That evening, in those one-on-one meetings, The Times said she old one visitor: ``I am coming under an awful lot of pressure.'' The final blow, according to Stephens, was delivered by John Wakeham, whom Mrs. Thatcher had installed earlier in the day to direct her campaign. Wakeham is an old and trusted friend. His first wife was one of five people killed in 1984 by an Irish Republican Army bomb that ripped through a hotel where Mrs. Thatcher was attending a party conference. ``Wakeham ... came back to report his soundings among members of parliament. Yes, the Cabinet was right. She had to withdraw,'' Stephens said. The next morning, she made the announcement to her Cabinet.
AP900309-0208 	X	The Federal Communications Commission took another big step toward a deregulated interstate long-distance phone business and proposed to loosen rules on AT&T because the onetime monopoly company now faces ``significant competition.'' The commission, in a 4-0 vote Thursday, adopted a staff proposal that, if finally approved, would give the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. the freedom it says it needs to maneuver against some 500 long-distance companies in the $55 billion long-distance marketplace.
AP900803-0073 	X	Florida agricultural officials today declared an end to a 3{-month Medfly infestation with a slap at California for taking so long to get rid of its pests. Helicopters sprayed up to 20 square miles of suburban Miami with malathion in eight aerial treatments to kill Mediterranean fruit flies, considered the most destructive farm pest because it can attack 250 fruits and vegetables. California's year-old infestation has spread to more than 900 square miles with limited aerial pesticide spraying at a cost of more than $38 million, said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Doyle Conner. ``It is absolutely vital to move quickly and aggressively, which is exactly what we did,'' he said. Florida's $1.6 million eradication effort began after a fly was trapped near Miami International Airport on April 16. By May 21, 23 Medflies were found at 21 locations. ``The bottom line is that we've turned back a serious threat to our food supply in an environmentally sound program involving a limited geographic area,'' Conner said. Unlike California, where malathion spraying produced a public outcry, the spraying in Virginia Gardens, Miami Springs and parts of Hialeah went on with little fuss.
AP900309-0235 	X	Bank of New England Corp. named Lawrence K. Fish as its chairman and chief executive Friday as officials continued restructuring the troubled company in an effort to restore financial health and public confidence. ``While there has been considerable speculation about candidates, Mr. Fish was our first choice, and the only one to receive an offer from us,'' Peter L. Scott, head of the executive search, said in a statement. Analysts generally praised the decision to hire Fish, a former Bank of Boston Corp. executive vice president, but they warned he might not be able to rescue the bank. ``He's coming into a situation that's very grave,'' said Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with Tucker Anthony Inc. ``If the economy does not cooperate, a miracle worker is going to have a hard time. A major part of it is out of his hands.'' Fish, whose hiring was expected for more than a week, replaces Walter Connolly, who oversaw the bank's dramatic growth in the 1980s but was ousted this year after the company suffered massive losses. Much of the trouble has been traced to the bank's aggressive lending practices during a construction boom in the mid-1980s. When the economy slowed near the end of the decade, the real estate market tumbled, and the bank was saddled with a mountain of problem loans. Last month, the bank announced it lost $1.11 billion in 1989 and disclosed it was reviewing financial data from previous quarters to see whether larger provisions against bad loans should have been made earlier in the year. The bank also is operating under federal consent orders signed last week, which place the corporation under strict government oversight while it takes steps to fix its problems. Under the orders, the bank must tighten its lending practices, withhold stock dividends and review the work of its senior level management to see where changes should be made. ``(Fish) has to come down like a ton of bricks on some situations,'' Cassidy said. ``It's fresh blood. He can come in and make the decisions.'' Fish, 45, left Bank of Boston in 1988 to become president and chief operating officer of Columbia Savings & Loan Association in Beverly Hills, Calif. Part of his job at Columbia was to produce a plan to make the institution less reliant on high risk, high yield junk bonds. Fish resigned last August, and since then Columbia has suffered with a crash in the junk bond market. The newly appointed chairman said in a prepared statement Friday that he believed in the Bank of New England's ``soundness and strength,'' but acknowledged the road to financial recovery could be long. ``We ... have significant problems. I plan to be thoughtful but to make decisions promptly,'' said Fish, who was also named chairman and CEO of the Bank of New England's Massachusetts subsidiary.
AP900420-0130 	X	A radical reform economist, Gavriil Popov, was elected Moscow's mayor Friday by the new city council, the official Tass news agency reported. The city council was dominated by reformers in recent elections, which were the first multi-candidate elections for local representative bodies in the Soviet Union. The split between progressives and their opponents on the council was reflected in the 280-162 vote for Popov. He has captured national attention for his leadership of the country's first parliamentary opposition group, the progressive InterRegional Group of the Congress of People's Deputies. Soviet officials are allowed to hold two elected posts simultaneously. The election of the 54-year-old reformer portends drastic change for the Soviet capital, which has fallen into extreme disrepair under decades of neglect. He strongly supports a market economy and has suggested rationing during the transition period to allocate scarce items fairly. In a nationally televised speech in December, Popov harshly criticized Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov's economic reform plan for continuing central planning for five more years. He noted it went so far into micro-management as to set the number of eggs to be produced per person. Popov suggested that if bureaucrats want to increase egg production, they should raise chickens. Popov is a member of the Communist Party, but as a supporter of the Democratic Platform wing he is in danger of being ousted by hard-liners.
AP901204-0052 	X	Northwest Airlines has made headlines in recent years for a major jetliner crash, a change in ownership, the convictions of three of its pilots who were flying while intoxicated, and its efforts to eliminate smoking on planes. Here are details of those and other events: -Aug. 16, 1987: Northwest Flight 255 crashed near Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing 156 people when the MD-80 failed to gain altitude during takeoff and slammed into a highway overpass. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the pilots didn't set the plane's wing flaps and slats properly for takeoff and that failure of a cockpit warning device contributed to the crash. -March 23, 1988: Northwest announced that it would ban smoking on all of its continental domestic flights effective April 23, the same day a federal law would take effect banning smoking on all flights of two hours or less. Northwest's policy went beyond the new law's requirements. -Aug. 3, 1989: Los Angeles investor Alfred Checchi signed acquisition papers to complete his group's $3.65 billion buyout of NWA Inc., the parent of Northwest Airlines. -Dec. 28, 1989: Northwest publicized a bomb threat it received for a Dec. 30 flight from Paris to Detroit. More than 100 people canceled their reservations for the flight; 28 passengers and 14 crew members made the trip. -Jan. 4, 1990: An engine fell off a three-engine Northwest plane flying from Miami to Minneapolis; the Boeing 727 landed safely in Tampa, Fla. Federal officials said improper maintenance was involved and proposed a $200,000 fine. -March 8, 1990: Three Northwest pilots flying a Boeing 727 from Fargo, N.D., were arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after authorities were alerted that the pilots had been drinking heavily the night before. The three became the first commercial pilots to be convicted for flying a jetliner while intoxicated. Their sentences ranged from one year to 16 months. -May 28, 1990: A Northwest pilot on his way to work was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $627. The pilot is appealing Northwest's decision to fire him for violating company rules against drinking within 12 hours of a scheduled flight. -Sept. 11, 1990: A Northwest captain's pilot's license was suspended after a hearing in which authorities said he buzzed a snowmobile race in one private plane and crash-landed another because of a fuel problem. -Sept. 20, 1990: Airbus Industrie said Northwest got a $500 million loan from Airbus and General Electric Co. The loan coincided with an order for 75 Airbus planes valued at $4.6 billion. Later, a spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills said Hills believed the loan could be an unfair inducement to get Northwest to buy the jets. Representatives of Airbus, a four-nation consortium, denied any unfairness. -Oct. 16, 1990: Checchi said layoffs and a reduced flight schedule were imminent since machinists rejected a temporary wage cut. Northwest announced it was implementing a third major fare increase in as many months due to higher jet fuel prices brought on by Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. -Oct. 17, 1990: Northwest said ground workers in Atlanta filled the hydraulic systems of two DC-9 jets with a mixture of hand soap and hydraulic fluid. The airline called it a mistake, not sabotage. Fifty flights were canceled around the country and 12 DC-9s were grounded for inspections. -Nov. 12, 1990: Northwest said higher fuels costs associated with the Mideast crisis caused a 47 percent drop in its third-quarter earnings and will result in a fourth-quarter loss. -Nov. 16, 1990: The Saint Paul Pioneer Press reported that Checchi was exploring a buyout of Eastern Airlines using up to $150 million in pension funds of Eastern's union pilots. -Nov. 17, 1990: The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported that the Federal Aviation Administration had ordered Northwest to examine 11 planes for possible safety defects. The FAA warned that an instrument critical to controlling the plane has jammed at least six times on A320s operated by foreign carriers and in test flights, the Star Tribune reported. -Dec. 3, 1990: Two Northwest jetliners collide on the ground at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing eight people.
AP900810-0102 	X	The Roman Catholic Church asked court permission to open a grave in an old church cemetery to make sure it holds the remains of Pierre Toussaint, a onetime slave from Haiti who could become the first black American saint. ``We want to be certain that what's down there is not sticks and stones and someone else's bones,'' said Monsignor Robert O'Connell, who is directing the campaign to canonize Toussaint. On Thursday, the archdiocese of New York sought the order from state Supreme Court. Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacob scheduled a hearing for Aug. 28 and pronounced the matter ``utterly fascinating. ... This is much more interesting than Trump.'' Although the Health Department routinely issues permits to unearth buried coffins _ mostly so they can be moved from one cemetery to another _ anyone who wants to actually open a coffin must obtain a court order. Those present when the coffin is opened, including pathologists, church officials and gravediggers, ``must take an oath to testify truthfully to what they saw,'' O'Connell said. Church officials do not expect to find any supernatural evidence of Toussaint's sainthood, such as an unusually well-preserved corpse, he said. Toussaint apparently was buried 137 years ago in the cemetery of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan's Little Italy. The grave bears several markers, but O'Connell said that ``if he is declared a saint, and there is a ceremony honoring him, we must be sure.'' He said there was another reason for positive identification: If Toussaint becomes a saint, the Vatican may distribute some of his bones or personal items to ``places where his faith was nourished,'' such as Haiti, or to prominent places of worship such as St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Toussaint was born a slave in Haiti in 1766, and moved to New York with his owner's family in 1787. He became one of the city's leading hairdressers, and was allowed to keep some of his income. When Toussaint's owner died, leaving his wife and child impoverished, Toussaint secretly supported them for about 20 years. The widow freed Toussaint shortly before her death in 1807. Toussaint gave lavishly to several charities, including an orphanage and the city's first school for black children, and entered quarantined sections of the city each August to help yellow fever victims. But he took no stand on slavery, and seems generally to have avoided controversy; according to a pamphlet released by the archdiocese: ``The famous phrase, `Only my hairdresser knows for sure,' could well have had its origin in Pierre's discretion.'' When Toussaint died in 1853, the New York Post said he was ``spoken of by all who know him as a man of the warmest and most active benevolence.'' O'Connell said the case for Toussaint's sainthood is buttressed by one reported miracle: the recovery of a young Haitian with cancer who refused medical care and relied solely on prayers to Toussaint. Even if Toussaint is deemed worthy of sainthood, canonization could be years away. Cardinal John O'Connor has said he hopes Toussaint might be near sainthood by the time Pope John Paul II visits Haiti in 1992, but O'Connell said he was told by Vatican officials that no timetable could be set.
AP900426-0003 	X	Unocal Corp., joining a growing contingent of oil companies with clean air ideas, announced Thursday it would offer to buy 7,000 older gas-eating cars in an effort to reduce smog in the Los Angeles basin. Unocal has allocated $5 million to purchase the cars, which must be at least 20 years old, and scrap them, said Richard J. Stegemeier, Unocal's chairman and chief executive. The plan would eliminate an estimated 6 million pounds of pollutant gases, he said. Owners would be offered $700 apiece for the locally registered junkers, Stegemeier said. ``We want to take the heaviest polluters off the road and hand them over to a scrap yard, which will shred and recycle the metal,'' Stegemeier said. Unocal executives noted that pre-1971 vehicles pollute from 15 to 30 times more than 1990 models, with about 410,000 such jalopies and bombs registered in the region. The program is scheduled to begin June 1. Another voluntary program, to take effect in July, offers free smog checks and emission control tune-ups for pre-1975 cars at participating Unocal 76 service stations. Such tune-ups could remove 17 million pounds of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and reactive organic gases from the Los Angeles basin, which has the worst air quality problem in the nation, the Los Angeles-based oil company said. A spokesman for Southern California's powerful air quality agency voiced support for Unocal's program, which was seen by one industry analyst as a growing trend of ``greening'' among oil companies. Unocal's approach also reflects a different philosophical approach to eliminating air pollution in the region. ``We want to demonstrate ways of reducing smog that are efficient and cost-effective,'' Stegemeier said. A similar proposal was suggested last year to regional smog control officials by the Claremont Institute, a conservative non-profit think tank. The institute had suggested paying about $1,500 apiece to remove 850,000 pre-1980 vehicles from the region, at a cost of $1.3 billion, said Lucas Morel, a research associate at the institute. It moves away from the command and control of a centralized bureaucracy by allowing industries in the marketplace to choose their own methods to achieve certain reductions of emissions, Morel said. While unusual in its approach, however, Unocal's announcement was hardly unique. ``They're all becoming environmentally pro-active,'' said Kenneth B. Funsten, an oil industry analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. Funsten attributed the trend largely to Exxon's handling of the Alaskan oil spill, which has hardened political opposition to oil industry operations. Atlantic Richfield Co. last September introduced a reformulated low-emission gasoline to replace leaded regular in its pumps, and the Shell Oil Co. followed suit with a similar reformulation for premium gas.
AP900612-0098 	X	An FBI agent pleaded guilty today to manslaughter in the strangulation death of a pregnant woman with whom he purportedly was having an affair. Pike Circuit Judge Bayard Collier sentenced the agent, Mark Putnam, to 16 years in prison after Putnam accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to killing Susan Daniels Smith, 28, of Freeburn, Ky., on June 8, 1989. Sources have said that Ms. Smith met Putnam when she was serving as an FBI informant. The Pike County grand jury indicted Putnam earlier today. The indictment said Putnam killed the woman ``while under extreme emotional duress.'' The FBI has said it has no record of any agent ever being convicted of killing someone in a similar case. Dressed in a starched white shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, Putnam said little during the 18-minute proceeding, except to answer Collier's questions. Ms. Smith's family on Monday bitterly denounced the pending plea agreement and asked the grand jury to indict him for murder. Shelby Ward, Ms. Smith's sister, and several sources say Putnam admitted killing Ms. Smith during an argument over support payments for the woman's expected child. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and Ms. Smith's family say the agent described the killing and location of the woman's body in exchange for a plea bargain. The remains were found only last week. Mrs. Ward and her brother, Billy Joe Daniels, said Commonwealth's Attorney John Paul Runyon did not consult the family about the plea bargain. ``Because he was a big FBI, famous and everything, they don't want him to get justice,'' Mrs. Ward said after meeting with the grand jury. ``I'd still like to have a murder trial. ... I don't care what that clique there says. To me it was a brutal murder. Brutal, brutal.'' Runyon declined to respond, saying only: ``I can't control what she says.'' Ms. Smith's family has retained Pikeville lawyer Larry Webster to file a lawsuit against the agent and possibly the FBI. Webster said he intends to file the suit today, seeking ``millions'' in damages and lost earnings. ``If she was working for them at the time and she lost her life, she could be entitled to get paid for that,'' Webster said.
AP900403-0076 	X	Beef imported from the United States will be sold in vending machines in Japan under a Japanese-U.S. joint venture project, a Japanese official said Tuesday. ``Our aim is to supply imported beef at a cheaper price to consumers by reducing the costs of distribution-related personnel,'' said Naoki Sakai, a spokesman for Jackson Co. Jackson is a Japanese meat dealer based in the western port city of Kobe. It joined with the Hamilton Meat Co., a meat packer based in San Diego, to set up the joint venture, Sakai said. Sakai said it will be first time in Japan that beef has been sold in vending machines. Seasoned beef for steak and sukiyaki will be processed in the United States before being imported in frozen vacuum packages for sale in Japan, Sakai said. The machines, equipped with freezers, will be set up at 1,000 locations, mainly near railway stations and convenience stores, Sakai said. The company plans to sell a pack containing 17.5 ounces of beef for about $11.30, about half the price of locally produced beef. The company will install the vending machines starting next week.
AP880430-0123 	X	Rioting broke out in the western city of Poona on Saturday after a man threw human waste on a Hindu idol at a temple during worship services, the United News of India reported. Officials imposed a 48-hour curfew on the city after shops were burned in clashes between Hindus and Moslems. Police said one boy was severely beaten by a mob and at least 41 arrests were made. United News of India said a man, believed to be a Moslem, threw the waste on a statue of Lord Ganesha during morning rituals at a temple in the Laxmi Road area of Poona, 75 miles southeast of Bombay. It reported worshipers caught the man and turned him over to police. The agency said about 20 vegetable and fruit shops owned by both Hindus and Moslems were set ablaze during street fighting. B.J. Misar, the city police commissioner, said police dispersed a crowd of hundreds of Hindus gathered near the temple to protest the incident. He told a ``peace committee'' meeting of all political parties that the man suspected of hurling the waste would be charged under the National Security Act that allows detention without trial for up to two years. Hundreds of people are killed every year in Hindu-Moslem violence in India, often provoked by minor fights or deliberate acts such as the one in Poona.
AP880920-0269 	X	Witnesses reported a 60th person was shot and killed as soldiers halted looting at a market in the city. One witness reported an exchange of gunfire in downtown Rangoon on Tuesday evening, but details could not be confirmed because of the 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew imposed by Saw Maung. Sporadic clashes were reported in Mandalay in central Burma but no details were available. Telephone communications were out after the Communications Department's microwave dish was damaged by a rocket in the morning. One opposition leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said street protests had been called off to avoid further bloodshed. Three key opposition leaders issued a statement Tuesday condemning the military crackdown, saying: ``Such suppression by force of arms will not stop the people's just demand for democracy.'' The statement was issued by former Brig. Gen. Aung Gyi, former Defense Minister Tin Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma's late independence leader. They demanded talks with Saw Maung ``to seek ways to correctly solve the current crisis.'' The statement also rebuffed offers from the country's myriad ethnic insurgents to support the pro-democracy uprising and told authorities to stop spreading rumors that the rebels had infiltrated the mass demonstrations, which have included millions of Buddhist monks, students and striking civil servants. The top Buddhist monks' group also issued a statement Tuesday seeking a dialogue between demonstrators and the new government. State-run radio announced that a deadline for striking workers to return to their jobs was extended from Sept. 26 to Oct. 3. Most government employees walked off their jobs Aug. 8 following a call for a nationwide general strike. That strike and bloody protests earlier forced a quick end to Sein Lwin's presidency, which lasted only 16 days until Aug. 12. He had replaced Ne Win, the strongman who came to power in a 1962 coup. Ne Win quit after mounting unrest over the country's moribound economy and one-party rule. Some observers believe Ne Win still controls the leadership from behind the scenes.
AP901203-0060 	X	The Supreme Court today strengthened the right of criminal suspects to have lawyers present when they are questioned by police. By a 6-2 vote, the justices overturned the murder conviction of Mississippi death row inmate Robert S. Minnick, who confessed when he was questioned without his lawyer present. The court said Minnick's rights were violated even though he earlier had consulted with his lawyer and agreed to talk to authorities. Unless the suspect initiates such a talk with police, the court said, he may not be questioned outside the presence of his lawyer once he has invoked his right to a lawyer. In other action, the court: - Left intact a lawsuit settlement that eased restrictions on abortion clinics in Illinois. The court, without comment, rejected an appeal by two nurses and two expectant fathers who said the settlement does not adequately protect women or fetuses. - Refused to kill a lawsuit against a California community college's officials accused of unlawful censorship for blocking the on-campus performance of a racially charged play. The court, without comment, rejected an appeal by the college officials. - Shielded businesses from some big-money lawsuits filed by employees who claim they were fired so their employers would not have to pay pension benefits. The court ruled unanimously that fired employees may not sue4 in state courts over such allegations. The state suits are pre-empted by a federal law protecting pensions, the court said. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court in the confession case, said, ``There can be no doubt that the interrogation in question was initiated by the police. It was a formal interview which (Minnick) was compelled to attend.'' ``Since (Minnick) made a specific request for counsel before the interview, the police-initiated interrogation was impermissible.'' In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority was ``misguided'' to discourage ``an honest confession.'' He said the ruling undermines a ``belief in either personal responsibility or the moral claim of just government to obedience.'' He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Justice David H. Souter did not take part in the case. Minnick and James ``Monkey'' Dyess escaped from Clarke County, Miss., jail in April 1986 and went looking for guns, authorities said. Police said the two men fatally shot Donald Ellis Thomas and Lamar Lafferty when the victims returned to Thomas's mobile home to find Minnick and Dyess there. Minnick was arrested in Lemon Grove, Calif., on Aug. 22, 1986. FBI agents ended their questioning of him when he asked for a lawyer. Minnick then met with an attorney who advised him not to answer any more questions. A few days later, Deputy Sheriff J.C. Denham of Clarke County flew to California and questioned Minnick. The suspect confessed, saying he shot Lafferty because Dyess was threatening to kill Minnick if he did not. Minnick was convicted in Mississippi and sentenced to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court, in upholding his conviction, said Denham's questioning of Minnick did not violate a rule the U.S. Supreme Court established in 1981. The high court barred police from questioning a suspect who has asked for a lawyer unless the suspect initiates the conversation. Today the high court extended that ruling to instances in which a suspect already has conferred with an attorney. Kennedy said the 1981 ruling is designed to prevent police from badgering a defendant into giving up the right to a lawyer provided by the court's famous Miranda ruling in 1966. The threat of badgering is no less after the suspect has talked to his lawyer, Kennedy said. ``A single consultation with an attorney does not remove the suspect from persistent attempts by officials to persuade him to waive his rights or from the coercive pressures that accompany custody and that may increase as custody is prolonged,'' he said. The case is Minnick vs. Mississippi, 89-6332.
AP900604-0269 	X	Regional fortunes seem to be constantly shifting, said Janet Norwood, labor statistics commissioner, in her monthly employment report to Congress. The striking stability of the national jobless rate over the past two years, she told the Joint Economic Committee, has disguised substantial and important regional shifts. During the past 12 months, for example, the nation's official monthly jobless rate has varied from 5.3 percent only three times _ in May 1989 and in March 1990 when it read 5.2 percent and in April 1990 when 5.4 percent was recorded. Remarkable stability indeed. But only when you average things out, and averages are not what people live by. The jobless rate in New England, for example, had been unusually low a year or so ago, in some communities as low as 3 percent, which statisticians believe is about as low as you can get. But in the past year, unemployment in that six-state New England region has risen 2 percentage points, bringing the situation there close to the national average. The Southern region also has been closing in on the national average, but from a different direction. Rates there, which had been among the highest in the nation, have been improving, i.e. going the opposite way. It is out of such differences that national averages come into being. They are official. They are highly publicized and analyzed. They produce profound documents on possible policy implications. But to residents of those two huge areas of America, especially jobseekers and jobholders, those official statistics mislead. Generally speaking, said Norwood, ``the last year has seen some convergence of state and regional unemployment rates, with the worse-off areas improving and the best deteriorating.'' This is a big country, statisticians explain, and some of them say it is about time the differences were recognized. U.S. regional economies, they say, are as big as the economies of major industrialized nations. Geographical differences aren't the only ones. Sector differences are just as pronounced. Job growth in manufacturing has been weak, but until the past few months it had been strong in services. Health-care costs and employment have been beating an independent path upward for years. It is in the geographical area, however, where the vastness of the separate American economies is most pronounced. While homebuilding is off in New England, where it had been booming, it is up in Houston, where it had collapsed. While economies of some Rocky Mountain and Southeast states are depressed, several Midwest states are well off. One well-known market research firm, Sindlinger & Co., claims that it is only a specific interpretation of statistical evidence that keeps the Commerce Department from recognizing that a national recession might already exist. It's not the first time such a situation has existed, says Albert Sindlinger, whose research suggests there are far more states in recession than are free of it, but that the national averages disguise their plight. Vivid contrasts always can be found among geographical and sectoral areas, and that poses an enormous challenge to those who handle the economic levers, such as Federal Reserve officials. The Fed mechanism, it has been demonstrated in the past few years, can be very sensitive to national statistics; it has used them, for example, to skirt the fine line between economic growth and shrinkage. But it is not nearly as adept at handling regional or sectoral statistics. One of its most effective tools, for instance, is the fine tuning of interest rates nationally, but interest rates and the availability of funds still vary greatly from area to area. National economics, not microeconomics, is its specialty and, with regional economies growing and going their independent ways, microeconomics might be the big challenge to be met.
AP900703-0035 	X	Anatoly Grishchenko, a Soviet helicopter pilot who contracted leukemia after what was hailed as a heroic effort to try to douse the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, has died at age 53. Grishchenko had been in critical condition with a lung infection for more than two weeks at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he had received a bone-marrow transplant April 27 in an attempt to conquer his leukemia. He died late Monday of cardiopulmonary failure, said spokeswoman Susan Edmonds. Grishchenko in 1986 repeatedly flew his heavy-lift copter through the intensely radioactive gases spewing from the Chernobyl plant, dumping sand and cement in an overmatched effort to cap the crippled reactor. He and a handful of others in the operation were designated heroes of the Soviet Union, that country's highest honor. Despite lead shielding on the aircraft and other protective gear, Grishchenko suffered radiation sickness and was found to have radiation-related leukemia last year. He arrived in Seattle on April 11 for the marrow transplant, which was performed after chemotherapy and radiation treatment to kill off his own marrow. The transplant went smoothly, but Grischenko's condition suddenly deteriorated in mid-June. Antibiotics had failed to knock out the lung infection, which Grishchenko developed before coming to Seattle. The pre-transplant therapy leaves patients with no natural immunity against disease until the new marrow, which is transplanted intravenously, takes hold. ``There's a lot of sadness. It's been difficult watching him not progress, and as with all our patients, we hope they come here, be treated and go home and have a long life,'' Edmonds said. ``It was very sad to watch him have problems and grow worse.'' Grishchenko's wife of 27 years, Galina, was at his bedside, Edmonds said. At least 31 deaths are officially blamed on the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at the plant in the Ukraine. Scientists say many more people may eventually be stricken with radiation-related diseases.
AP881214-0022 	X	This has been ``a decade of progress for women on television'' _ especially for female characters in prime time _ but the industry must be monitored to ensure further gains, the National Commission on Working Women said. The accolade and note of caution came Tuesday as the commission released a report entitled ``Ten Years in Prime Time: An Analysis of the Image of Women on Entertainment Television, 1979-1988,'' which examined the portrayal of women and compared the fictional panorama with the profile of real-life women during the decade. ``The 1980s mark a decade of progress for women on television. Their portrayals have become more diverse and, for the most part, more true-to-life,'' the report said. ``... The networks get a pat on the back,'' said the study's author, Sally Streenland. The study said 60 percent of female characters on the 25 top Nielsen rated shows in 1979 were portrayed as employed outside the home. By 1987, that figure had risen to 75 percent. By comparison, 1987 population statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 56 percent of all women were in the labor force. Streenland's study also showed TV painting an unrealistically rosy picture of the types of jobs held by women. In 1979, more than 40 percent of television's women were employed in clerical or service jobs. By 1987 only 23 percent of the women on TV had the lower skilled jobs and more than half had professional careers. The real life situation is that 47 percent of working women have clerical and service occupations and only 24 percent work in professional or managerial jobs. The report also showed that black women have become more visible on TV. In 1979 there was only one black female character on television, but by 1987, 22 percent of women characters were black.
AP900508-0203 	X	Oliver North met with then-Vice President George Bush a few hours after lying to the House intelligence committee about assisting the Nicaraguan Contras, an entry in North's White House diaries suggests. Portions of the diaries, released Tuesday, renew questions about whether Bush was more deeply involved in assisting the Contras than he has acknowledged. The 1,400 pages of notebook entries were obtained by a private group, the National Security Archive, as the result of a lawsuit filed against the government. U.S. intelligence agencies still are reviewing the remaining 1,200 pages of North's diaries. White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said, ``The vice president's role in the Iran-Contra affair was completely examined in the congressional inquiry and we have nothing to add.'' Among the disclosures in the newly released material: _On Dec. 20, 1985, North laid out a ``3rd Country Solicitation Plan'' in support of the Contras that included trips by Bush to Honduras for an inauguration there. The plan also called for President Reagan to meet with Ecuador's president. Bush went to Honduras in January 1986 for the inauguration of President Jose Azcona Hoyo and Reagan met in Washington that month with Ecuadoran President Leon Febres Cordero. There was an elaborate plan in the Reagan administration to induce third countries to support the Contras, according to evidence introduced at North's trial last year. Bush has denied being involved in any ``quid pro quo'' arrangements providing additional economic and military aid to Honduras in exchange for allowing the Contras to use base camps there. _North's notes refer to a noon ``meeting w V.P.'' on Aug. 6, 1986. That would have been just 3{ hours after North lied to the House intelligence committee by denying he was supplying military advice to the Contras. North admitted he had lied when he took the witness stand at his own trial last year and when he testified in the recent trial of former National Security Adviser John Poindexter. Shortly before meeting with Bush, according to North's diaries, the White House aide had a ``meeting w Don Gregg,'' Bush's top national security aide. Gregg, now the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has said he found out about North's involvement with the then-secret Contra resupply network on Aug. 8, 1986. Gregg asserts he didn't tell Bush about North's involvement until four months later, after the Iran-Contra affair became public. The notebooks provide offer no elaboration on the Aug. 6 meeting entries. But earlier that day, the diaries show, North got a call relating to problems in the Contra resupply operation. The call was about Felix Rodriguez, a former CIA operative sent to El Salvador with the blessing of Gregg. Rodriguez wound up working in North's Contra resupply network, but had a falling out with him. Rodriguez complained to Gregg on Aug. 8, 1986 that private operators were getting rich off of North's network. U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., said he didn't believe Congress had seen the page referring to Bush and Gregg and Aug. 6 meetings. ``It clearly at the very least would raise questions which ought to have been put at the time to appropriate witnesses,'' Hamilton said of the Aug. 6 entries. ``I would have if I had seen them.'' The former House Iran-Contra committee chairman suggested that a congressional investigation might be in order. ``If there is evidence relevant diaries were withheld, redacted or blacked out then I would want'' the House intelligence or judiciary committees to ``conduct an investigation,'' said Hamilton. ``I would expect the same of the independent counsel,'' he added, referring to the Iran-Contra prosecutor's office. _North and others in the U.S. government who aren't identified by name in his notes met with Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega in March 1984, where the discussion focused on the role of Costa Rica as a ``buffer'' between Nicaragua and Panama. _A March 6, 1984, entry focused on the ``vulnerabilities'' of Roberto D'Aubuisson, referring to his ``inability to deliver U.S. aid,'' saying he was a ``poor military officer'' and alleging he ``bumped off best friend.'' D'Aubuisson is the founder of Arena, now the ruling party in El Salvador. ``What were the quids and the quos with all these countries?'' Tom Blanton, deputy director of the archive, asked at a news conference. ``What did the vice president know and when did he know it? How much did Don Gregg know?'' The Justice Department released the new material from North's notebooks in response to a lawsuit filed by the group and by Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader. North still has the notebooks, but he supplied copies of 900 pages in 1987 to the Iran-Contra congressional committees. His lawyers heavily censored the portions they turned over to Congress. Asked whether North attorney Brendan Sullivan had withheld relevant material from the Iran-Contra congressional committees, Blanton said, ``You bet.'' Blanton cited a Jan. 5, 1984, entry stating, ``Costa Rica project approved,'' a reference to planned military exercises and other steps designed to counter the threat posed by Nicaragua. One entry said that then-Costa Rican President Alberto Monge ``needs to be stroked.'' Reached by telephone at his office, Sullivan said that he has not commented in the past on the Iran-Contra affair and would not do so now. ``This material should never have been withheld from Congress in the first place,'' said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., whose Senate subcommittee investigated allegations of narcotics trafficking in connection with the Contras. Kerry said the executive branch should produce the remainder of the material ``without further delay.'' North turned over copies of all 2,600 pages of his notebooks to the Iran-Contra prosecutor's office at his trial last year. Prosecutors did not object to the turning over of the new batch of material to the private group.
AP901120-0168 	X	A perjury indictment that cost former Police Chief Mack Vines his job was thrown out Tuesday after a judge ruled its allegations were too vague. Former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge John Onion quashed the misdemeanor perjury indictment in a hearing, a court spokeswoman said, referring all other questions to Assistant District Attorney Ted Steinke. Steinke said the DA's office was drafting a new indictment that would be filed Wednesday. ``This happens every day in the courthouse. It's not unusual at all,'' he said. Vines said he was relieved the perjury charge was thrown out. ``I hope and pray that ... the assistant district attorney and the district attorney's office will see the wisdom in not refiling,'' he said. ``We'll review the new indictment, if they file, and see if it's properly done,'' said his attorney, Bill Boyd. ``If not we'll file to quash, again. If they've done it right, we'll prepare for trial.'' Vines was fired by Dallas City Manager Jan Hart on Sept. 12, hours after being indicted on the perjury charge. He is accused of lying to a special panel investigating the June 1989 firing of officer Patrick LeMaire, who fatally shot an unarmed man last year. LeMaire was reinstated in July by an administrative law judge but declined to return to the police force. The perjury charge alleged that Vines lied to the panel about a telephone conversation he had with assistant police chief Greg Holliday on Aug. 2, the night before Holliday was to testify before the panel. Holliday said Vines tried to influence his testimony. Vines has maintained his innocence. Boyd said the indictment was quashed because ``the law in Texas requires that if you allege perjury, you must first show the statement that you allege to be false and then state what you claim the truth to be.'' ``They made a general allegation in the indictment as to what they claimed to be false and they made no allegation as to what they claimed the truth to be,'' he said. Tuesday's action was the latest setback in the district attorney's prosecution of Vines, who had been police chief for two years. Prosecutors initially filed the case in state district court, but were told last month that the court had no jurisdiction because official misconduct was not alleged. The case was moved to Dallas County Criminal Court, where Judge John McCall stepped aside and asked Onion to preside. The city began a nationwide search for a new police chief after Vines' dismissal. Sixty-two candidates have applied for the job, including Acting Chief Sam Gonzales.
AP881023-0090 	X	Here's how many people are old enough to vote in this year's election, and how they are spread across the United States, along with figures on the total population. Generally, in the most recent elections when the presidency was at stake, only about half of those who were old enough to vote actually went to the polls. For example, according to the Census Bureau, turnout in the 1984 presidential election was only 53.1 percent of the voting-age population, up from 52.6 percent in 1980. The bureau said turnout was 62.8 percent in 1960, 61.9 percent in 1964, 60.9 percent in 1968, 55.1 percent in 1972, and 53.6 percent in 1976. The last census in 1980 placed the nation's total population at 226,546,000, and the next such official count will be in 1990. Meantime, the Census Bureau's most recent detailed estimates are that total population reached 243,400,000 in mid-1987 and that 182,628,000 residents will be at least 18 years old when America votes this November. Since the 1984 presidential election, the voting-age population is estimated to have grown by more than 8 million. The bureau points out that voting-age projections are based on the resident population of the United States including members of the armed forces where they reside at their duty stations. It said these projections exclude people overseas _ about 520,000 in the military and 65,000 federal civilian workers plus their dependents of voting age, and an unknown number of other American citizens residing abroad _ who would be eligible to vote by absentee ballot in their home state. Meanwhile, the bureau said that the population of voting age includes many who meet the age requirement but cannot vote. Because citizenship is a universal requirement for voting, aliens are the main group of ineligible voting-age people, the bureau said. About 6.5 million legal aliens and 2.5 million undocumented aliens age 18 or over are included in the estimates and represent roughly 5 percent of the total population of voting age, the bureau said. The bureau also said somewhat more than 680,000 people will be ineligible to vote because they will be in prisons or mental hospitals. Based on Census Bureau reports, here is a state-by-state list covering: _Total population figures from the census on April 1, 1980. _An estimate of what the total population had reached on July 1, 1987, the latest available such list. _An estimate of this November's voting-age population (residents aged 18 or over), from projections released in February as a reference for the current election season.
AP880623-0234 	X	COUNTRY SINGLES 1.``If It Don't Come Easy'' Tanya Tucker (Capitol) 2.``Fallin' Again'' Alabama (RCA) 3.``If You Change Your Mind'' Rosanne Cash (Columbia) 4.``Set `Em Up Joe'' Vern Gosdin (Columbia) 5.``Workin' Man (Nowhere to Go)'' Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (Warner Bros.) 6.``Talkin' to the Wrong Man'' Michael Martin Murphey (Warner Bros.) 7.``I Will Whisper Your Name'' Michael Johnson (RCA) 8.``Goodbye Time'' Conway Twitty (MCA) 9.``Don't We All Have the Right'' Ricky Van Shelton (Columbia) 10.``Don't Close Your Eyes'' Keith Whitley (RCA) 11.``Baby Blue'' George Strait (MCA) 12.``Just One Kiss'' Exile (Epic) 13.``Sunday Kind of Love'' Reba McEntire (MCA) 14.``Midnight Highway'' Southern Pacific (Warner Bros.) 15.``He's Back and I'm Blue'' The Desert Rose Band (MCA-Curb) 16.``Givers and Takers'' Schuyler, Knobloch and Bickhardt (MTM) 17.``Bluest Eyes in Texas'' Restless Heart (RCA) 18.``Satisfy You'' Sweethearts of the Rodeo (Columbia) 19.``She Doesn't Cry Anymore'' Shenandoah (Columbia) 20.``I'll Give You All My Love Tonight'' Bellamy Bros. (MCA-Curb)
AP900726-0172 	X	The government Thursday played down the importance of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's brusque refusal to discuss Japan's claim to the disputed Kuril Islands. The issue has prevented the two countries from agreeing on a peace treaty to end World War II officially. It is a main cause for chilly relations even while other countries have made great strides in improving ties with Moscow. Gorbachev's latest statement was the banner story in every national Japanese newspaper because it appeared to reverse Moscow's grudging willingness to discuss the 45-year-old argument. It could also indicate negative fallout from what Japan had touted as a diplomatic victory at the Houston summit of the seven major industrial democracies this month. Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu was able to persuade other countries to mention the Kurils dispute in a summit communique. Kaifu also rejected Japanese participation in a Western European drive to give financial aid to Moscow, saying the territorial dispute stood in the way. The Soviet leader met in Moscow on Wednesday with a delegation led by Yoshio Sakurauchi, speaker of the powerful lower house of Parliament. Gorbachev turned aside the politician's effort to raise Tokyo's claim to be the rightful owner of Soviet-held islands off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Gorbachev, quoted by the official Tass news agency, said the issue had been decided after World War II and the Soviet Union abides by postwar arrangements. ``I do not want to launch a discussion today on the issue that was repeatedly discussed with representatives of Japan,'' Tass quoted Gorbachev as saying. ``I can repeat today: We do not have a territorial issue.'' The Kyodo News Service said Gorbachev went on to hint he may cancel a trip to Tokyo tentatively set for early 1991 if Japan insists only on talking about the territorial dispute. Japan is banking on Gorbachev's trip to Tokyo as a chance to make progress on the issue. Both the Foreign Ministry and chief government spokesman Misoji Sakamoto said Thursday they believe the trip will take place as planned. ``As far as the government is concerned, there is no need to be overly affected by'' Gorbachev's comment, Sakamoto said at a news conference. A Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared Gorbachev was simply stating the official Soviet position. The official said Japan has an ``earnest intention'' to improve relations with the Soviet Union but stressed the most important problem is the territorial issue. Soviet troops captured the islands in the last days of World War II and claims them as historically Russian territory. Japan demands their return on grounds that they had been ceded to Japan in 19th-century agreements. The Kurils make up a string of three islands and a cluster of islets lying in waters rich with salmon and other marine resources. The islands also have strategic value as a barrier to access between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk.
AP900125-0039 	X	Moslem militants fighting for Kashmir's secession from India opened fire today on air force officers, killing at least four, police said. The killings raised to at least 61 the number of people killed in Kashmir since Saturday, when the lingering Moslem movement for secession from Hindu-majority India flared. Most of the killings have occured in confrontations between troops enforcing an around-the-clock curfew and mobs of militants defying the curfew. ``The attack makes it clear that the terrorists want to make targets of anyone who is associated with the Indian government,'' said a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The air force officers were waiting for a bus to take them to the Srinagar airport when they were attacked by assailants who drove up in a car, the police official said. Three of the officers were killed on the spot in repeated bursts of fire from automatic rifles and at least four others were wounded, two of them seriously, he said. One of the wounded died at a hospital. A woman and a child walking by were also hurt, the official said. Witnesses said they saw at least five bodies being carried away after the shooting. Hundreds of troops and paramilitary police have been deployed to halt the violence in Srinagar, famous for its lakes and tourist resorts. Troops and the militants exchanged gunfire at four places in the city during a four-hour curfew relaxation which began at 5 a.m. today, police said. No deaths were reported although one para-military policeman was wounded, police said. Under the curfew imposed Saturday, people have been ordered to stay indoors except for brief periods when the ban is lifted to enable people to shop. Islamic militants are demanding either independence for predominantly Moslem Kashmir or union with neighboring Islamic Pakistan. Kashmir forms the northern part of Jammu-Kashmir state and Srinagar is the summer capital. The Jammu region, which lies south of Kashmir, is predominantly Hindu. Claimed by India and Pakistan, Kashmir was divided into Indian and Pakistani sectors by a cease-fire line that is monitored by U.N. military observers. The dispute over the territory, which has led to two wars, began after India and Pakistan were partitioned on gaining independence from Britain in 1947. India has often accused Pakistan of aiding Kashmiri militants, and Pakistan has routinely denied the charge. About 64 percent of Jammu-Kashmir's 5 million people are Moslems. Nationwide, Moslems comprise 12 percent of India's 880 million people and Hindus make up 82 percent.
AP900924-0020 	X	A court decision allowing audio tapes of counseling to be used in a murder trial has mental health professionals worried that the ancient tradition of patient confidentiality is in danger. California courts opened the door to the psychotherapist's office a bit wider with a decision Aug. 6 allowing tapes of counseling to be used against brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez in the slaying of their parents. Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot repeatedly at close range in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Six months later, police arrested Lyle, 21, and Erik, 19, alleging the young men coveted their parents' $15 million estate. Prosecutors argued that tapes of the brothers' counseling sessions with therapist L. Jerome Oziel, in which they reportedly confessed to killing their parents, could be used as evidence. Superior Court Judge James Albracht agreed, saying the tapes were not covered by laws guarding patint-therapist communication. These statutes are an extension of the right of privacy between doctor and patient that dates to Greek philosopher Hippocrates, the founder of modern medicine. The Hippocratic oath, still taken by new physicians, binds doctors to secrecy about their patients' cases. Many psychotherapists say the courts are eroding this vow when the need to protect society clashes with an individual's right to privacy. ``Confidentiality is the cornerstone of the relationship between patient and therapist,'' said Win Schachter, an attorney for the American Psychological Association in Sacramento. ``They (patients) talk about their most intimate and deepest thoughts. If there is a hole in that privacy, they will feel less secure and safe.'' Albracht's Menendez decision was upheld by the state Court of Appeal and is now before the California Supreme Court, which ordered the tapes sealed until it decides whether to hear the case. In making his decision, Albracht cited a recent state Supreme Court case, People vs. Clark. William John Clark was convicted of injuring his former therapist and murdering her husband by setting the couple's home on fire. While in therapy during the trial, Clark told another psychologist he wanted to kill two other people. That therapist warned the two people, following guidelines established in a 1974 landmark duty-to-warn ruling called the Tarasoff decision. She later testified about Clark's murderous desires. Clark, sentenced to death, appealed the verdict, arguing that he had not given his therapist permission to break confidentiality. But the Supreme Court ruled the sessions were not privileged because the therapist had already broken confidentiality by issuing the warnings, as required under Tarasoff. Since the Oziel tapes - as well as transcripts of the secret hearings on their admissibility - remain sealed, it is not known for sure what parallels exist between the Clark and Menendez cases. Yet a woman who claims to have had a romantic relationship with Oziel said in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine that the therapist let her listen to sessions in which the brothers confessed to the murders. Although Oziel has denied he shared the tapes, refusing further comment, prosecutors say the brothers threatened the therapist. Under Tarasoff, this would make the counselor's alleged sharing of the tapes acceptable and therefore admissable in the Menendez case under Clark. ``Once the facts become known,'' Albracht said, ``it will be fairly clear that this case falls squarely within the statute.'' Gerald Chaleff, Lyle Menendez's attorney, acknowledged that threats were made but questioned the judge's decision to allow all the tapes into evidence. ``What has to be divulged is only what is necessary to prevent danger,'' he said. The APA's Schachter said the Menendez decision could have a chilling effect on therapy. ``The decision might imply that any careless words or placing of files might inadvertently trigger an opening of what was believed to have been confidential,'' he said. ``It could be incredibly damaging.'' However, Elliott Alhadeff, the prosecutor who argued for the tapes to be released, said, ``The patient has nothing to worry about as long as he trusts his psychotherapist.'' In the 1950s and 1960s, nearly all states passed laws requiring physicians and therapists to report suspected child abuse. Next came the far-reaching Tarasoff decision by the California Supreme Court. It requires counselors to warn people who they feel may be in danger from their patients, based on conclusions stemming from the patients' treatment. The decision makes thetherapist liable for civil damages for any harm that may occur. Dozens of other court decisions have further limited patient privacy, and therapists wonder where it will end. ``Will we have the same duty to prevent burglary, or if someone says he is going to punch that kid?'' asked Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist who has published many articles on confidentiality. ``Where do you draw the line? You can't expect the therapist to do the job of policing society.''
AP901201-0035 	X	The Marlboro man has corralled his last horse and Salem's ``springtime'' has ended on Hong Kong TV following a cigarette ad ban that began today in this British colony. The ban is part of a growing campaign in Asia against tobacco companies, which have been accused of targeting Asia's women and children. In a related development, Hong Kong's legislature has urged the government to ban children under the age of 15 from smoking in restaurants. ``Smoking parties'' where a group of young people lounge around a table and chain-smoke cigarettes is a popular pastime in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is also readying legislation to ban smoking in ferries, buses, taxis, government buildings, cinemas and theaters. In other Asian countries, Indonesia has banned smoking in most schools and Singapore has moved to limit advertising.
AP900613-0115 	X	Soldiers shot at anti-government demonstrators in central Bucharest tonight after the protesters occupied state-run television and stormed and burned police headquarters, witnesses said. One witness reported seeing at least two bodies after the shooting, but this could not be immediately confirmed. The most serious violence in the Romanian capital since December's revolution that toppled the Ceausescu regime was caused by a pre-dawn police raid that ended a 53-day anti-Communist protest in University Square. Demonstrators clashed with police during the afternoon in the square, then fanned out to police headquarters, secret police headquarters, the TV station and Victory Square, headquarters of the governing National Salvation Front. The shooting occurred outside the secret police headquarters, where the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's hated Securitate force operated. Before the buildings were attacked, President-elect Ion Iliescu issued a communique calling on all ``aware and responsible people'' to surround government buildings and state TV to ward off ``extremist groups'' and to save Romania's democracy ``earned with so much difficulty.'' Scottish free-lance photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert said he saw soldiers shooting from inside the Securitate building in downtown Bucharest. He said he saw the body of a man in his 40s who had been shot in the head. He said other photographers had seen at least one more body near the building, which was ringed by half a dozen armored personnel carriers. State-run television, scene of fierce fighting during December's revolution, was stormed by the protesters who occupied one of the main studios. An announcer said they might not be able to transmit any longer. Minutes later, the picture was cut and shortly afterward the sound was also cut. Demonstrators carrying gasoline cans got into headquarters of the regular police this evening and set fire to cars and trucks nearby. About 1,500 people stood outside, watching the right wing of the building burn. Some civilians working in the headquarters leaned out the windows, looking panicked and coughing. Every few minutes, there were minor explosions, apparently from gasoline in the vehicles set ablaze. People who thronged the streets booed as helicopters flew overhead surveying the situation. The demonstrators say Communists still dominate the National Salvation Front, which has been in power since the December revolution and which won last month's free elections by a landslide. The government said more than 260 people were detained when steel-helmeted police moved in before dawn to break up the sit-in in University Square that had blocked the capital's main thoroughfare for 53 days. Witnesses said the police clubbed several protesters. Casualty figures were not immediately available, but officials said one policeman was injured in the clash with an estimated 1,000 people supporting the demonstrators. About 20 hunger strikers were among those camped in a small tent city in University Square. Police took the fasting demonstrators, some of whom had gone without food for a month, to the hospital. The protesters supporting the hunger strikers freed two people detained in a police van then overturned the vehicle and set it on fire, witnesses said. Several buses and trucks were also reported on fire. The attack on the police headquarters occurred several hours later. A government communique issued soon after the square was cleared said 263 people were detained for investigation. It accused protesters of attempting to resist the police with violence and said some arms were confiscated. Brindusa Muresan, who had been on a hunger striker since May 9, said some of her colleagues were clubbed by police in the lobby of the nearby Intercontinental Hotel. She said they were taken to a police station, fingerprinted and photographed and sent to the hospital for tests. Protesters, their ranks sometimes swelling to as many as 10,000 by day, had blocked traffic in the central square since April 22, dubbing the area a ``Communist-free zone.'' The protesters have pressed for a 10-year ban on former Communists officials _ such as Iliescu _ holding office. The demonstrators also demanded independent and private broadcast media. Government officials who met with the hunger strikers for the first time on Monday pledged their support for establishing such stations.
AP900424-0135 	X	The nation's newspaper publishers on Tuesday watched videotaped interviews with Americans who say they don't read newspapers very much, then debated how to change that. An advertising consultant advised the publishers to adopt a more local focus, suggesting that international issues such as the push for independence in Lithuania don't sell advertising. A publisher countered that newspapers still reach a larger audience than any other news medium. The comments were made during a panel discussion at the American Newspaper Publishers Association 104th annual convention. The discussion, moderated by Jeff Greenfield of ABC News, was called ``Ozzie and Harriet Are Gone _ Who Do You Think You're Writing For?'' Virginia Dodge Fielder, vice president of research for Knight-Ridder Inc., expressed industry frustration in trying to pinpoint the cause of declining readership. ``I wish people hated us more,'' she said. ``I wish they expressed more dissatisfaction because if they did we'd know how to tackle it. ... What the public is saying is not `I hate you' but `I don't need you. You're a great electric company, but I live in an all-gas house.''' The session opened with videotaped interviews in which subjects were asked if they read a newspaper. ``I don't have time,'' was a common response. Several said that TV news was ``easier.'' One man said he felt less connected to his local newspaper since big business had taken it over. The comment echoed a message emphasized by Laurel Cutler, vice chairman of FCB-Leber Katz partners and vice president of consumer affairs for the Chrysler Corp. ``The only specialized thing about a newspaper is its locality,'' she told the audience. Localness is what you have to sell. That's why USA Today is a very peculiar animal. I guess it's the local newspaper for people on airlines.'' Frank A. Daniels Jr., president and publisher of The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., interjected that ``a newspaper traditionally has been a smorgasbord. You have something in there for everybody.'' But Ms. Cutler warned against newspapers trying to be ``all things to all people'' and suggested specialization was more appealing to advertisers. ``The more generalized, the more all things to all people, the less we care about you,'' she said. Daniels suggested that newspapers might have to follow the lead of American Express, which created different categories of cards for different income brackets. He noted that a newspaper subscription is costly and perhaps different price brackets for different incomes would encourage more readership. ``How do we create a platinum card newspaper?'' he asked. Greenfield suggested that the puzzle of declining readership may not be complex. ``Is it possible that the reason people read newspapers so devotedly in 1940 is there was nothing else to inform them?'' he asked. ``And maybe this age of newspapers is like the buggy whip manufacturers in 1910.'' Publishers and editors on the panel disagreed. ``One thing you may be overlooking is how adaptable newspapers are,'' said C. Shelby Coffey III, editor and executive vice president of the Los Angeles Times. He noted that the Times has numerous regional bureaus to keep the paper local but has inaugurated a new ``World Report'' section to emphasize global developments. ``Research at the Times shows that international news is of great interest to readers,'' he said. Coffey and Gerald Garcia, editor and publisher of The Knoxville (Tenn.) Journal, also urged development of a multi-ethnic reporting force to keep up with interests of a diverse reading audience. Coffey called it ``the polycultural newsroom.'' Consultant Ronald Brown, president of Banks, Brown Inc. of San Francisco, noted that the interests of that city's Chinese-Americn population are underrepresented in its newspapers All panelists agreed that improved education would improve readership of newspapers.
AP880719-0275 	X	Share prices took the largest drop of the year today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the dollar fell sharply against the Japanese yen. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues, a 251.67-point loser the day before, plunged 513.09 points, or 1.89 percent, closing at 27,149.03 points. It was the largest one-day decline of the key index since December 26, 1987, when the Nikkei fell 587.50 points. Stock brokers attributed the decline purely to the internal reasons. They said steel and shipbuilding shares, which had supported the market over the past few weeks, finally gave way and led to a decline across the board. Nippon Steel, one of the largest shares on the exchange, had risen from the 400's to 750 yen in less than two months, but lost 54 points today. ``I can't see any outstanding reason why shares, especially steel shares, fell this much today,'' said Ichitaro Watanabe, a broker at Nikko Securities Co. ``The market seems to have entered a transitional stage. The 500-point drop is a result of an adjustment made for the transition.'' Another stock broker said the plunge without apparent reason indicated steel and ship building shares can no longer sustain the market. ``The market as a whole was not in a good mood in the last two weeks except for steel and shipbuilding shares,'' said Keiichi Nishida of Kidder Peabody. ``Today's plunge indicates the end of the steel-led market. Investors have to find other shares they can count on.'' In the foreign exchange market, the dollar, which gained 1.75 yen Monday, closed at 133.85 yen, down 1.30 yen from Monday's close. After opening at 134.30 yen, it traded in a range of 133.70-134.38 yen. Currency dealers said early morning speculation on whether the Bank of Japan would intervene in the market and sell dollars was the major cause of the currency's decline. ``The speculation led to a one-sided selling of the dollar,'' said an exchange dealer at a major U.S. bank in Tokyo, speaking on condition of anonymity.
AP901027-0129 	X	Soldiers raided illegal gold mines in the Amazon jungle and arrested more than 300 people, mostly foreigners, Foreign Minister Reinaldo Figueredo said Saturday. Most of the illegal miners detained in last week's raids were taken to Puerto Ayacucho, a jungle outpost on the Orinoco River about 400 miles south of Caracas, where they were to be tried on charges of damaging the environment, authorities said. Since last year, the federal government has made more than 1,000 arrests in attempting to staunch an invasion of miners crossing the unmarked jungle border between Brazil and Venezuela. The mining process, which uses mercury, has been blamed for poisoning rivers and for the deaths of several Yanomami Indians in Venezuela's isolated, largely roadless Amazonas territory. The government is trying to protect the estimated 14,000 Yanomami living in Venezuela, possibly the most isolated and largest primitive tribe remaining on earth. Defense Minister Hector Jurado Toro said about 800 soldiers were involved in the sweep. The troops dismantled mining operations and detained everyone who did not manage to escape into the jungle, he said.
AP900301-0149 	X	The Bush administration could support cutting U.S. aid to Israel and Egypt if similar cuts were applied to other nations as a way of freeing money for emerging democracies, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Thursday. Baker told a House subcommittee that ``we're willing to stand up and be counted'' on such a plan because it would result in the flexibility to put foreign aid money where it is most needed. The secretary also told the panel he has done ``pretty much all we can do'' to bring the Israelis into talks with a Palestinian delegation aimed at setting up elections in the occupied territories. An Israeli Cabinet meeting was scheduled for Sunday. In answer to a question by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, Baker said administration support for the cuts would ``depend on whether we do it in a non-discriminatory manner.'' In his busy Middle East diplomacy, Baker said, he has not found any significant reduction in tensions. But he added: ``At the same time, we must find a way to respond to changes in Eastern Europe, in Panama and in Nicaragua.'' ``If these leaders are not able to produce for their people, we will rue the day'' that the United States fell short in providing aid, he said. ``We are talking about supporting an extraordinary outbreak of freedom and democracy.'' Baker also said he did not want to see a repetition of the current year's budget crunch, in which some friendly countries that expected U.S. aid got little or nothing because 90 percent of the aid budget was already earmarked by Congress for specific other recipients. ``We ought not to be hidebound by what's been done over the past 10 years,'' Baker said. He said economic aid to all of Africa totaled just $14 million this year ``because there's no one up here lobbying for them.'' His comments were the clearest indication yet that the administration would accept cuts to Israel and Egypt, which get the largest slice of U.S. aid as a result of their participation in the Camp David Middle East peace accord a decade ago. Israel is receiving $3 billion this year and Egypt $2.1 billion, out of an overall budget of roughly $10 billion for bilateral aid. The administration has asked Congress for the same amounts for both countries next year. Baker left himself some latitude, saying he could also support a total elimination of earmarks or the creation of a new discretionary fund which the administration could use to meet new needs that develop during the year. He also said he could support enlargement of the overall foreign aid budget. But he acknowledged that those outcomes are unlikely. Earmarks have been almost sacred in Congress because of the political clout of the countries which receive them and because of lawmakers' view that such spending guidance is their prerogative as keepers of the federal purse. It is equally difficult to increase foreign aid spending because of the popular notion that money spent overseas is wasted. Bush has proposed an increase of about $800 million for fiscal 1991, which begins Oct. 1, to an overall level of $15.3 billion. But potential new aid recipients have been popping up faster than the budget can accommodate them. Already there are demands for new aid to Eastern European countries emerging from Soviet domination, reparations to a newly democratic Panama, and support for the new democratic government in Nicaragua. Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., proposed finding the money for such needs by cutting 5 percent from the top current aid recipients. The administration denied planting the idea with Dole at the time, but expressed agreement with its goal of increased flexibility in distributing aid money. In his testimony, Baker also said the administration would support $400 million in loan guarantees for Israel to build housing for an influx of Soviet Jewish refugees, but only if Israel offers assurances that it would not put any new settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza strip. The money is expected to be added to an upcoming supplemental appropriations bill and is likely to win congressional approval because of Israel's strong support on Capitol Hill. Israel has declined to provide such assurances about future settlement, but has contended that in the past that about 1 percent of refugees have settled in the territories. ``Settlements are not conducive to the peace process'' because they aggravate tensions with Palestinian residents, Baker said. ``We see them as an obstacle to peace... It is not unreasonable to ask some assurances these funds will not be used to create new settlements or expand old settlements in the occupied territories.'' Baker also said ``we're coming very close to the time when we will know one way or the other'' whether Israel will accept a proposal for talks with a Palestinian delegation about elections among the 1.7 million Palestinians in the territories. Baker has been expressing growing impatience with Israel's failure to respond to his proposals, aired during his meetings with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Israel. ``We've really done pretty much all we can do, we think, from our end, and we are waiting for a response from the Israeli government,'' Baker said.
AP880514-0054 	X	Government forces fired at the Golden Temple today after seizing surrounding buildings and tightening their grip on the shrine, where militant Sikh separatists were holed up for a sixth day. Sikh extremists and government commandos traded intermittent fire through the night inside the sprawling temple complex, home of the Sikh faith's holiest sanctuary. At least 27 people, mostly Sikh militants, have been killed during the siege that began Monday. About 20 women and children, thought to be relatives of the militants, remain in the temple, Amritsar Police Chief K.P.S. Gill said. Government forces on Friday seized about one-third of the complex, including adjacent temple offices and a hostel. That left the militants with the equivalent of 3{ city blocks, including the temple. The extremists inside the temple complex are thought to number fewer than 100. Police sharpshooters killed at least six militants Friday, including one who tried to shoot his way out of the complex. Police said no government troops have been killed since the siege began. About 2,800 troops are posted outside the temple. Most of the militants are believed to be entrenched at the western side of the complex, officers said. But they said any government assault would more likely come from the west, officers said. ``The eastern side is difficult to enter because terrorists are still holding two 80-foot towers overlooking that entrance,'' said a paramilitary officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities escorted journalists to a sandbagged position atop a buildimg overlooking the towers today. In a two-hour period, government troops regularly fired machine gun bursts into the temple compound, but only sporadic shots were returned. S.D.S. Aswal, deputy superintendent of the Central Reserve Police Force, said the Sikhs did not fire from the tower in daylight because that would give away their position: ``They start firing from portholes cut into the tower after late evening.'' The bunker had a commanding view of the Golden Temple and the sacred pool that surrounds it. One body was seen lying near a marble walkway. In the square facing the compound's main entrance, cane-wielding police charged at a group of Sikhs who attempted to march into the temple. At least eight marchers were arrested, said witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity. The siege is the biggest massing of forces outside the Golden Temple since June 1984, when the army stormed the 400-year-old shrine to dislodge the Sikh militants. More than 1,200 people were killed, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the raid, was assassinated five months later by her Sikh bodyguards. Sikh militants have waged a campaign of violence, often gunning down whole family of Hindus and moderate Sikhs, in their battle to establish a Sikh homeland in northern Punjab state, which includes Amritsar. Although Sikhs form only 2 percent of India's total population, they are a majority in Punjab. The Sikhs say they are discriminated against by Hindus, who comprise 82 percent of India's 800 million people.
AP880316-0277 	X	Twenty years after a sniper's bullet felled Martin Luther King Jr., his dream of equality and prosperity for American blacks still shines like a beacon. Despite some remarkable progress, however, for too many it remains only a dream. The first story of three in a series that assesses black progress in economics, politics and social influence looks at a poor West Side Chicago neighborhood where King lived in 1966 to wage war on slums and poverty.
AP900720-0069 	X	President Bush lashed out today at the Democrats, saying their ``stranglehold on Congress'' is to blame for the skyrocketing deficit and ``government by gridlock in Washington.'' ``Twenty-nine out of the last 35 years of Democrat control is long enough. We must have more Republicans in Congress,'' Bush said at a $100-a-plate fund-raising breakfast for GOP Senate candidate Allen Kolstad, Montana's lieutenant governor, who is trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. Bush reiterated his promise to negotiate a budget agreement ``without preconditions'' and said ``we are getting some good cooperation with the leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle'' in those talks. He devoted most of the speech to a strident attack on the opposition, who control the Senate by a 55-45 margin and the House by 257-176. Bush is hoping to wrest back control of the Senate for the GOP in this fall's 34 Senate races. ``With the Democrats now in the control of the United States Congress, both houses, we're facing government by gridlock in Washington, with spending skyrocketing out of control, good legislation thrown aside for pork barrel programs and a budget deficit looming over our children's children,'' Bush said. ``While the Republican Party is using everything we've got to build a strong, competitive America, the Democratic stranglehold on the United States Congress has finally taken its toll,'' he said. ``Enough is enough. We must end this 'deficits don't matter' mentality,'' Bush said. ``I do not want to preside over these godawful deficits that are saddling these young people here with billions in debt.'' He attacked Congress for not passing his educational excellence act and his version of child care legislation, and blasted it for adding $3.5 billion to his request for $800 million in emergency aid for Panama and Nicaragua last spring. It took 108 days to win passage of the bill, Bush said, a delay that ``jeopardized the hard-won freedom of the brave people of Nicaragua and Panama. That's more than a difference between parties. In my view that was a disgrace.'' Later, at an anti-drug rally in Daylis Stadium, Bush criticized Congress for not passing his anti-crime package. Standing in front of a huge banner with a map of Montana and the legend, ``Don't Let Drugs Cloud The Big Sky,'' Bush declared, ``It's time for Congress to act. Our children, our communities and our cops have waited long enough.'' Bush was flying later to Cheyenne, Wyo., to attend a Frontier Days parade and rally, inspect the nation's only squadron of 50 MX missiles in their silos at Warren Air Force Base and get in a quick fishing trip to the Middle Crow Creek Fishing Area before heading back to Washington. Asked why Bush was going out of his way to inspect the newest nuclear missile in the U.S. arsenal at a time of reduced East-West tensions, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the president wanted to underscore ``the need to maintain a strong defense during changing times.'' Soviet missiles are still ``aimed at us. Our relations are changing, but both countries have millions of men under arms,'' Fitzwater said aboard Air Force One. ``We can't let down our guard.'' At a GOP fund-raising dinner in Boise, Idaho, on Thursday, Bush defended his reversal on tax increases and blamed Congress for the looming $160 billion deficit. Addressing 900 people at an event that raised upwards of $200,000 for Rep. Larry Craig's Senate race, the president said Congress ``appropriates every dollar and tells the president how to spend every single penny.'' ``I have said I will negotiate without preconditions. And I will,'' he said. ``You've seen the firestorm about revenues being on the table,'' aid Bush, who sowed discord in Republican ranks last month by abandoning his ``no new taxes'' campaign pledge in acknowledging that ``tax revenue increases'' are needed to cut the deficit. ``Well, I've done my part and now it's their turn. A truly comprehensive package, not a temporary Band-Aid. There must be reform of the budget process and there must be real spending control,'' Bush said, his voice rising to a shout. ``The American people are entitled to that!''
AP880630-0200 	X	The White House, on the heels of revelations that five employees were relieved of their duties as authorities investigate drug use, said today it will soon begin mandatory, random drug tests. Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the months-old investigation, which has resulted in the dismissal of two National Security Council clerks and the suspension of three White House guards, ``illustrates all too well the terrible fact of drug use in our society.'' Reagan, asked at a picture-taking session about the developments, first reported in today's Washington Post, said, ``Yes, of course I am upset that it (drug use) is found anywhere.'' Asked if he thought his security had ever been endangered, the president replied, ``No, I don't think so.'' Reagan, posing with Republican congressmen who had come to the White House to discuss drug policy options, said that if White House workers are found to have used drugs he would like to see them enter drug treatment programs. ``If it was just a case of using'' drugs, Reagan said, ``then I would like to see us do our best to get them into a drug-treatment organization with a view to attempting a cure. ... Let the people know that then we will do our best to salvage anyone who has been a victim.'' On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Liz Murphy said the two clerks had ``admitted drug use and were separated from the NSC.'' Fitzwater today told reporters that the clerks ``agreed to resign'' several months ago, ``during the winter.'' Asked at what level the NSC clerks worked, Fitzwater said he could not specify except to say they were at the ``secretary level.'' Pressed to say whether the two were involved in handling sensitive matters, he responded, ``It's fair to assume that everyone who works at the NSC has access to sensitive material.'' Fitzwater said Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan, who has led a campaign to ``just say no to drugs,'' have known of the investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Secret Service ``for several months. ``It was started last winter when allegations were brought to the attention of the Secret Service,'' Fitzwater said. He said the tip had come from a member of the Uniformed Division, whose officers guard the Executive Mansion. But the White House later today corrected Fitzwater's statement, saying the information had come from outside the Secret Service. Fitzwater would not say today what drugs had been involved. The Post, however, quoted an unnamed source as saying that a transaction involving cocaine had taken place on the White House grounds. Fitzwater said today there was no evidence produced by the investigation so far to substantiate that any such drug sales occurred. Fitzwater said that White House employees will be sent a letter giving them 60 days' notice of the mandatory, random drug testing. Fitzwater said the tests will be conducted six times a year, with each round involving about 2 percent of the approximately 1,600 employees of the executive office of the president. Included are employees of the Office of Management and Budget, the National Security Council and the office of the vice president and first lady. The spokesman also said that the Secret Service will begin on July 13 a program of pre-employment drug testing for job applicants. ``We have been advised that drugs were not used or sold on the White House premises and there was no breach of security,'' he said, although Fitzwater cautioned that the investigation by the U.S. attorney's office, Secret Service and DEA was continuing. Names of the five employees were not released. Evidence in the investigation, begun several months ago, has been turned over to the U.S. attorney's office, Secret Service spokesman Robert Snow said Wednesday. ``No arrests have been made,'' Snow said. ``These are only administrative actions at this point.'' Two of the guards were relieved of their duties last Friday. The third was placed on leave Monday. It was not clear when the NSC clerks were fired. Asked why the clerks were no longer on the payroll while the Secret Service officers were on paid leave, Fitzwater said the guards have the protection of civil service appeal processes while members of the executive office serve at the pleasure of the president. In addition to guarding the White House grounds, uniformed members of the Secret Service guard the vice president's home and foreign embassies. They also travel with the president to provide security. The NSC, chaired by the president, advises the president on matters of national security.
AP880224-0068 	X	Five radical students armed with bombs and knives seized a U.S. Information Service office today and detonated two bombs and started a fire before police overpowered them. Two of the students brandishing explosive devices and draped in South Korean flags stood at shattered windows on the second floor yelling ``Yankee go home'' as riot police ringed the building. U.S. Embassy officials said they had no reports of injuries, but the attackers smashed windows and set a fire in a periodical storage room. Thick smoke filled part of the building located in the heart of Seoul. People inside the building at the time of the attack, including at least one American, were not detained by the radicals. The students, who said they were members of the ``Young Student Suicide Group'' claimed they had 18 bombs and screamed at surrounding police to stay away. They tossed down a statement charging the United States was attempting to make South Korea a colony. ``Yankees stay out of Korea,'' the students yelled. A police officer said it was unclear how many of the explosive devices the attackers had. The bombs were crude chemical devices, possibly some kind of plastic explosive, he said. About 200 radical students hurling firebombs and rocks clashed with riot police about an hour later outside Myungdong Cathedral. Police fired volleys of tear gas at the students who yelled slogans denouncing President-elect Roh Tae-woo, who is to be sworn in Thursday. Hundreds of protesters had gathered at the cathedral less than a mile from the U.S. Information Service office earlier in the afternoon for an anti-government protest. ``Down with Roh Tae-woo,'' the students yelled. Some of the attackers were reading in the office's library when there was a large explosion in a nearby roon and they suddenly pulled out bombs and started screaming slogans, eyewitnesses said. At least one of the attackers pulled out a knife and brandished it, they said. ``He was kind of crazy-eyed,'' said Paul Wadden, a visiting American teacher who was reading in the library at the time. The attackers smashed three windows overlooking the main street outside and two of them stood shouting slogans out into the street and brandishing bombs and cigaretee lighters. Riot police stood on the sidewalk below with shields covering their heads and shattered glass covered the street. The students tossed at least one bomb into the street where it exploded harmlessly, eyewitnesses said. A second bomb was tossed out, but did not explode, they said. People caught in the library said the students did not attempt to detain them and they were able to leave after recovering from their initial shock. Wadden said he and other people were prevented from leaving downstairs for up to 10 minutes by building guards. There were about 40 people in the library at the time, most of them Koreans, eyewitnesses said. Police who entered the building by the rear entrance overpowered the protesters about 30 minutes after the attack began. The students were taken out of the building in a bus with covered windows. U.S. Embassy officials said South Korean riot police entered the building at their request. Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita arrived at the Lotte Hotel across the street from the U.S. Information Service office just as the incident ended, officials said. Takeshita is in Seoul for Roh's inauguration. American diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they did not know why the students attacked the U.S. facility. ``We have no idea what the motivation was,'' an embassy official said. The United States is South Korea's chief ally. Washington has 40,000 troops in South Korea under a mutual defense pact against communist North Korea. The U.S. Information Service provides reading material and other materials on the United States and operates libraries and information centers around the world in conjunction with American embassies. The service office in Seoul is located about half a mile from the American Embassy. The same office was seized by 73 radical students for four days in May, 1985 as an anti-American protest. They ended the occupation peacefully and some later received prison sentences. U.S. Embassy officials were unable to explain today how the attackers were able to bring weapons into the well-guarded building. Visitors must pass a metal detector, present identification and have their bags searched and there are police guards inside and outside. The statement by the students denounced Roh as a puppet who had been installed by the United States. South Korean radicals have repeatedly charged the United States has kept a series of authoritarian governments in power in South Korea. Roh, a former general, won the first democratic elections in 16 years last December.
AP901108-0123 	X	Lt. Gov. Martha Griffiths says Gov. James Blanchard lost his job in part because he removed her as a running mate. ``I don't know if I feel vindicated, but I think it clearly shows that I won it for him the first two times,'' Griffiths said Wednesday after Republican John Engler defeated Blanchard by 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent. In announcing last summer he was dropping her from the ticket, Blanchard said he was concerned about the 78-year-old Griffiths' ability to run the state in the event something happened to him. ``I feel bad for him, but he took some very bad advice,'' she said. ``I would have gotten out the Detroit vote,'' she said, referring to the low turnout in Detroit, which analysts said hurt Blanchard. Griffiths said voters also told her repeatedly they had planned to vote against Blanchard because he took her off the ticket. Griffiths said Blanchard officials never took her up on an offer to campaign for the two-term governor.
AP880725-0034 	X	An out of control stock car flew through a fence and into the bleachers during a race, killing one spectator and injuring 13 others, authorities said. The driver, who estimated he was traveling at 50 mph, was able to walk away from Sunday's crash at Lakeside Speedway. The car, which landed in an open space between the guard rails and the grandstands after tearing through a chain link fence, ``looked like it had gone through a compactor,'' said Lakeside police Sgt. Bob Wall. Those injured were sitting in the front row, said spectator Mike Garrison of Thornton. Another race driver, Don Cash, said he was about five lengths behind the car driven by Gary Burton when Burton lost control. ``He hit the wall and got airborne,'' said Cash. ``I looked again and it (the car) just went around like a helicopter.'' Burton, 22, got out and walked away after the crash, Cash said. Burton was taken to a hospital shaken but uninjured, authorities said. Burton said the track was slick. ``The car got loose and tagged the guardrail. I got a little too close to the guardrail,'' said Burton. Kristy Carlson, 26, of suburban Arvada, was pronounced dead at St. Anthony Hospital late Sunday, said spokesman Randy Shook. Twelve others were injured and taken to hospitals, but only a 4-year-old girl with a broken arm and head injuries was admitted for observation. The accident occurred midway through the 25-lap main event on the fifth-mile paved oval, Cash said. Lakeside is a tiny incorporated town between Denver and Wheat Ridge with a population of about 15 residents.
AP900213-0246 	X	Here is a brief rundown of developments Tuesday in the financial crisis facing Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.:
AP900810-0049 	X	Grape stompers can cast off their shoes and squish for charity at Stone Hill Winery. For the 13th year, the winery is sponsoring a Grape Stomp on Saturday to raise money for a workshop for the disabled, and hundreds of contestants were expected to have a go. Last year, the event raised $1,900. Contestants paying a $3 entry fee get 30 pounds of red grapes and two minutes to show their stomping style, said Betty Held, co-owner of the 143-year-old winery. ``They will be stomping to the music of Otto's Polka Band from St. Louis,'' she said Thursday. ``The judges will grade them 80 percent on the amount of juice the stomping produces and 20 percent on their style.'' Age groups for contestants range from pre-teen to over 55. The best stompers will get prizes, and all contestants may keep the juice from their efforts. Hermann is on the Missouri River about 60 miles west of St. Louis.
AP880829-0232 	X	Despite greater awareness of exercise and healthy foods, many Americans remain ``significantly overweight,'' according to federal researchers who say most government nutritional goals are unlikely to be met. ``Everybody knows what is required to lose weight, yet the prevalence of overweight doesn't seem to change much,'' said Dr. Marion Nestle of the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in Washington. The national Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, reviewed the progress toward the government's 15 top-priority goals for American nutrition in 1990, including raising public knowledge of the effects of salt and lowering average blood-cholesterol levels. ``Substantial progress'' has been made in several areas, and three of the goals will be fully met, researchers said. But despite the progress, Americans will probably fall short of eight major goals, including that of getting people to lose weight, said Ms. Nestle, whose office helped prepare the report. ``The research that relates (poor) diet to disease is now incontrovertible,'' she said. ``It's really time now to start looking at ways to implement the recommendations that everybody is familiar with _ ways to improve the nutritional status of the population.'' The goals that will likely not be met, she said, are: _ Having less than 10 percent of American men and 17 percent of American women over the ``significantly overweight'' level, defined as more than 20 percent over desired weight. _ Having 50 percent of the overweight population on a weight-loss program combining diet and exercise. The CDC said recent surveys show half the nation's overweight people are indeed trying to lose weight _ but only half are using both diet and exercise. _ Cutting the average adult level of harmful serum cholesterol below the 200 count. In a 1976-80 survey, average cholesterol levels were 211 for women and 215 for men, down from 214 and 217 in 1971-74. ``That rate of decline is not as fast as it should be,'' Ms. Nestle said. _ Having at least three-fourths of all mothers breast-feeding their babies at the time they leave the hospital. A 1984 survey put the figure at 61 percent, up from 45 percent in 1978. _ Having all packaged foods labeled with ``useful calorie and nutrient information.'' Such is the case in 55 percent of packaged foods, up from 42 percent in 1978, Ms. Nestle said. _ Including nutrition education in the required school curriculum in all states. By 1985, only 12 states had such a requirement, the CDC said. The three objectives that researchers think will be fully met, she said, are: _ Having more than 75 percent of the population aware of nutritional risks for conditions such as heart disease and high blood pressure (fats and salt) and tooth decay (between-meal sweets). Awareness already runs as high as 90 percent in some categories, the CDC report said. _ Having 90 percent of U.S. adults aware that to lose weight they must eat fewer calories or increase physical activity, or both. The percentage was 73 in 1985 and is rising quickly, Ms. Nestle said. _ Implementation of a comprehensive national nutrition status monitoring system. It is already in place, the CDC reported.
AP881015-0011 	X	An air force officer arrested for taking part in a coup attempt was fatally wounded by guards today as he tried to scale a wall of his military prison, the armed forces said. Lt. Col. Francisco Baula, accused in a 1987 attempted coup that left 53 people dead and more than 300 wounded, died at a military hospital about nine hours after his bid to escape from the suburban Camp Crame stockade, military officials said. Last year's military uprising, led by former Lt. Col. Gregorio ``Gringo'' Honasan, was the most serious effort to oust the government of President Corazon Aquino. She came to power in February 1986 after a military-civilian uprising ousted President Ferdinand Marcos, who fled to Hawaii. Maj. Gen. Ramon Montano, commander of the Philippine Constabulary, said Baula was shot and wounded three times after he refused to halt and ignored warning shots. The stockade is located at the constabulary. Montano said Baula slipped into a dark corner of the stockade shortly after midnight and tried to climb over the wall with a makeshift ladder. Percival Adiong, the Camp Crame commandant, said Baula used wooden slats and the two frames of his double-decker bed to make the ladder. ``Our investigation shows that there were no others who tried to help him,'' Montano said. Baula was arrested Oct. 3 with two other military men sought in connection with the coup attempt on Aug. 28, 1987. Honasan remains at large. He was jailed last December but escaped from a prison ship in Manila Bay the following April.
AP880908-0248 	X	The crash of an jetliner in Newfoundland three years ago that killed 256 U.S. soldiers and crew members resulted in part from the exhaustion of the flight crew, who ignored ice on the plane's wings, according to a preliminary Canadian report. A still-unreleased draft report by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board noted the crew had flown a grueling schedule in the two weeks before the accident. Had they finished the trip, the captain would have been awake 24 hours. ``I think these people were tired,'' Dr. Stanley Mohler said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``They had been on a series of flights prior to that, which were fatiguing. I just think they needed a good night of sleep.'' Mohler, head of aerospace medicine at Wright State University, advised the Canadian board on fatigue factors in the crash. The plane, an Arrow Air charter, crashed Dec. 12, 1985, while taking off from a refueling stop at Gander International Airport, killing everyone aboard. The plane was ferrying U.S. troops from peace-keeping duties in the Sinai peninsula to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. The preliminary report lists ice on the wings of the plane as the principal cause of the crash. But it says that a too-slow takeoff speed and flight-crew fatigue were contributing factors. Spokesman James Harris said the board hopes to release a final version of the report in early December. ``It may bear no similarity to the draft report,'' he said. ``In fact, it won't. It will be quite different.'' He said he did not know whether fatigue would still be listed as a contributing cause. The draft report said that twice in the two weeks before the crash, the crew had flown longer than allowed by U.S. regulations. According to federal rules, no crew member may be on duty aloft for more than 12 hours in any 24-hour period. If the flight had made it to Oakland, Calif., its final planned stop, the crew would have flown about 15 hours and been on duty for 20. However, because the plane would have carried no passengers on its final leg, this trip would not have violated federal limits. The board could not determine with certainty whether the pilot, co-pilot or flight engineer were truly fatigued. However, it cited Mohler's testimony that ``in the 12 days leading up to the accident, the flight crew had been consistently exposed to work patterns and fatigue-producing factors which were highly conducive to the development of chronic fatigue.'' These included short layovers, night departures, multiple time-zone crossings and almost 57 hours in the air in the previous 10 days. In one 48-hour period that month, the crew flew for more than 22 hours, then were back in the cockpit seven hours later. The report said that at Gander the crew failed to notice ice on the wings, which prevented the plane from gaining altitude after it lifted off, and they set the wrong takeoff speed. ``Each of those would be consistent with tired pilots,'' Mohler said. ``Tired pilots do things like that. They omit things. They make mistakes.''
AP880617-0185 	X	The all-male Cosmos Club, whose members once included Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis, is about to vote for the third time in its 110-year history on admitting women. But for the first time, the leadership of the club has unanimously endorsed the idea. Members of the club are scheduled to vote Saturday afternoon, and although no one will say for certain how the vote will come out, club President Tedson J. Meyers said the question of whether to admit women has become the main topic of conversation among members. Meyers, a lawyer and former member of the City Council in Washington, said that the club currently has about 3,000 to 3,100 members, down several hundred in the past few years. But Meyers denied that the vote on admitting women has anything to do with the decline in membership. ``Membership seems to go up and down,'' he said. Meyers also denied that the vote Saturday is a direct result of a ruling last fall by the Washington Human Rights Office that ``there is probable cause to believe'' that the club's men-only policy violates the city's anti-discrimination law. The office is ready to order public hearings on the case, which could result in the loss of all city licenses and permits, if the all-male policy stays in place. ``It's a matter the club would have taken up in any event,'' Meyers said, although he acknowledged that the Human Rights Office's action did act as a catalyst. And while Meyers confirmed that a Committee of Concerned Members, formed in 1980 to advocate the admission of ``distinguished women,'' still exists, he said that it was not the committee that had put forth the latest proposal to admit women. ``This is the first time the officers and the board of directors brought the proposal forward,'' Meyers said. ``They unanimously endorsed it. They always opposed the idea before.'' The club, located in a mansion on the city's so-called Embassy Row, first voted on whether to admit women in 1973, after 61 members signed a petition proposing that women be allowed to join. The proposal was killed by a 274-203 vote. Again, in 1974, 50 members called for a vote on admitting women. The vote in this round was 407-204 against the proposal. A two-thirds majority is needed to change the club's bylaws, Meyers said. He pointed out that women can, and do, use the club. Female guests of members, as well as wives and widows of members and former members, are allowed to dine in the downstairs dining rooms. But women are not allowed in the second-floor members dining room, except on Thursday and Friday evenings and weekends. Members of the club have included Cabinet members, Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Peace Prize winners. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun was a member for 18 years, but resigned last winter. The club was founded by geologist John Wesley Powell in 1878 and originally met in Powell's living room. It now charges a $900 initiation fee and $900 in annual dues.
AP900815-0067 	X	After four months of patching streets, sweeping gutters and mowing lawns, inmates at a National Guard armory have repaired something even bigger: their image. County Sheriff Michael Ashe said Wednesday he's not surprised that Holyoke, which greeted the surplus prisoners from nearby Springfield with trepidation and a lawsuit, has been won over by good behavior. ``I'm just pleased that things are going well,'' said the mild-mannered lawman. He catapulted into national news in February when he solved his overcrowding problems by commandeering an armory in Springfield and refusing to budge until suitable quarters were found for his inmates. Ashe and state officials compromised by moving the prisoners 10 miles to a vacant National Guard armory in this western Massachusettes town. The agreement was met with horror by Holyoke residents, who feared the inmates would upset the neighborhood and could pose a problem for a preschool center across the street. But those fears haven't materialized, said Mary E. Kates, director of Holyoke's library, a few blocks from the armory. ``I was a little apprehensive, especially when I heard it was being located so close to the Early Childhood Learning Center,'' said Kates. Now, she is full of praise for her new neighbors. ``They sweep the curb and get rid of that and then they've been sweeping our walks, picking up any trash that's been disposed of in the park and they've been edging and removing weeds,'' she said. ``I've got loads of projects.'' The saga began Feb. 16 when Ashe dug up a 17th-century statute allowing sheriffs to demand aid and assistance and marched into a National Guard armory in Springfield, the main city in Hampden County. Stunned guard officials watched as the sheriff installed about a dozen prisoners. State officials eventually decided that Ashe was justified in taking extraordinary measures. Ashe's century-old jail was built to hold 279 inmates, is under federal orders to hold no more than 500 and had a waiting list at the time of the seizure. When the compromise was reached, angry Holyoke officials filed a lawsuit trying to block the transfer, but Ashe prevailed, moving in quietly in April. Holyoke Mayor Martin Dunn said Wednesday he's still not thrilled with the location of the temporary jail, scheduled to be used until a new, permanent jail is built in the county. But he said he's dropped the lawsuit and intends to keep using the inmates for such projects as park renovation. ``We've had them cleaning city lots, filling potholes,'' he said. ``Basically it's been going very well. It's been a productive experience.'' Ashe, who has a master's degree in social work, has won accolades for his innovative jail and community programs, including his pre-release program and a jail garden project teaming inmates and senior citizens. Inmates sent to the Holyoke center are those who are close to the end of their sentences and are serving for minor offences. From the beginning, Ashe called the Holyoke armory a ``Community Service Center,'' and assured residents the inmates would bring nothing but good to their neighborhood.
AP881003-0328 	X	Stock prices fell in light trading today, starting off the final quarter of 1988 on a wary note. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 6.40 on Friday, dropped 21.52 to 2,091.29 by 2 p.m. today on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by 3 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 359 up, 1,079 down and 414 unchanged. Wall Streeters were generally resigning themselves to a sluggish week, expecting investors to back away from stocks before the government issues its monthly report Friday on the employment situation. Analysts look for the data to show a pickup in payroll employment growth for September after relatively modest increases in July and August. If those estimates prove correct, it would come as a setback to hopes that the economy was slowing to a pace that would satisfy the Federal Reserve, which is seeking to keep inflation from heating up. The Commerce Department reported today that new factory orders rose 3.1 percent in August. Losers among the blue chips included Exxon, down | at 44[; International Business Machines, down 1 at 114]; American Telephone & Telegraph, down \ at 25}, and Coca-Cola, down 1[ at 42|. Technology issues were notably weak. Digital Equipment fell 1{ to 92], and Hewlett-Packard 1 to 48~, while in the over-the-counter market Intel lost 1} to 25} and Apple Computer was down 1\ at 42. Middle South Utilities bucked the downtrend, rising [ to 15[ in active trading. On Friday the company declared its first common-stock dividend in three years. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped 1.22 to 152.35. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 1.97 at 299.66. Volume on the Big Board came to 88.55 million shares with two hours to go.
AP900108-0211 	X	L.L. Bean is delaying plans to build a large distribution center because 1989 sales fell below expectations, a company spokesman said. The Freeport, Maine-sporting goods outfitter bought a 200-acre site in Hampden and announced in June 1988 that it would build there. Initial plans called for the center to be operational by 1992, and to employ 2,500 full-time workers and 200 to 300 seasonal workers during the Christmas shopping period. But plans have been put on hold, said spokesman D. Kilton Andrew Jr. ``Now we'll sit tight and see the lay of the land as far as our business growth goes,'' said Andrew. The distribution center in Hampden definitely will be needed at some point, he said. ``When we're ready, Hampden will be sitting there waiting,'' Andrew added. Andrew told the Bangor Daily News that Bean would do nothing at the site during 1990 and that he could not specify when development might occur. The Hampden site occupies the southern half of the 500-acre Ammo Industrial Park. Access to the site would be from a proposed road off U.S. Route 202 in Hampden. A 500,000-square-foot building planned for the site, which would cover about 11 acres, would be used to help handle Bean's mail-order business. Bean President Leon A. Gorman said previously that several factors led to selection of the Bangor-area site. ``The Hampden site has been developed for regional industrial use and is one of only a few in the state large enough for our facility,'' Gorman said. ``The site also has access to I-95 and to Bangor International Airport for expeditious receipt of merchandise and for rapid shipment of customer orders by truck or air.''
AP901207-0223 	X	Share prices finished higher on London's Stock Exchange Friday after a calm session. Prices moved up on a good performance in the stock index futures market, but investors then became reluctant to take positions as the weekend approached, dealers said. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was up 5.9 points, or 0.3 percent, at 2,183.4. The Financial Times 30-share index was up 5.9 points at 1,723.8. The Financial Times 500-share index rose 2.46 points to close at 1,152.52. Volume came to 521.3 million shares, compared with 559.3 million shares Thursday.
AP900202-0001 	X	Curiosity didn't kill a cat trapped in the trunk of a Mercedes-Benz for 10 days, but it nearly drove him to catatonia. Kitty, the 11-year-old orange cat, apparently jumped into the Mercedes when it was being serviced Jan. 17 at his owner's shop, Richie's Auto Radio. The proprietor, Richard P. D'Auteuil, placed ads in the newspaper, made daily calls to the Animal Rescue League and tried to contact customers who visited his store on that day. ``The only customer I didn't contact was the only one I didn't have a slip for,'' the owner of the Mercedes, D'Auteuil said. The Mercedes was brought back in 10 days later, and a worker opened the trunk when he heard mewing inside, D'Auteuil said. Out jumped the desperate Kitty, thin and thirsty but basically healthy. Kitty's strong constitution, and the relative warmth of the car, stored in a garage, probably saved his life, said Lawrence A. Shinnamon, a veterinarian at Anchor Animal Hospital.
AP900218-0064 	X	Former archenemies Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday discussed Arab and African issues, Egypt's government-run news agency said. It was the leaders' fourth summit meeting since relations between their neighboring north African countries started improving last year. However, Libya remains the only Arab state that has not officially resumed diplomatic relations with Egypt, severed in 1979 to protest the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The Middle East News Agency quoted Information Minister Safwat el-Sherif as saying the leaders met privately for two hours and then had a working lunch. El-Sherif said they discussed ``Arab issues, especially the developments of the Palestinian issue ... also the deteriorating situation in Lebanon ... (and) African issues.'' Following the talks, Mubarak said he would present an Egyptian suggestion for the resettlement of Soviet Jews during his meeting next month with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Mubarak did not elaborate but said the issue would top his agenda for the meeting. Israel's settling of Soviet Jews in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip _ which it captured in the 1967 Middle East war _ has angered Arabs. Many believe the influx of Soviet Jews, expected to reach 300,000 over the next three years, will drive Palestinians out of their land and damage chances for peace. ``This land is Arab land and is under dispute, it is very wrong of Israel to act on its own concerning this subject,'' the news agency quoted Mubarak as saying. Mubarak said he has sent messages on the issue to Gorbachev and to President Bush, as has Egypt's Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid to his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Arens. Mubarak and Gadhafi met again later Sunday with other officials from both countries. The Middle East News Agency said Mubarak welcomed Gadhafi in the southern resort city of Aswan, 580 miles south of Cairo. The Libyan leader was given an official welcoming ceremony at the airport, followed by a popular welcome by Egyptians who cheered him and Mubarak as they drove to the Soviet-built Aswan High Dam. The Mubarak and Gadhafi summits have taken place outside their countries' capitals since the Libyan leader refuses to visit Cairo as long as the Israeli flag flies over it. Egyptian media reports had said this summit had been scheduled to take place in the Sinai peninsula. Officials have declined to comment on the reason for the change of venue, but the opposition newspaper el-Wafd said Saturday the plans were changed for security reasons after an armed attack two weeks ago on an Israeli tourist bus en route from Israel through the Sinai to Cairo. Nine Israelis were killed and 21 were wounded in the attackm, which authorities say is linked to Palestinian terrorists. The news agency said Mubarak and Gadhafi would visit the Sinai briefly Monday after spending the night in Aswan. Gadhafi's trip was expected to last 24 hours. Following a meeting in December, Egypt and Libya agreed to build roads connecting oases, share television programs and cooperate in agricultural and industrial projects. Egypt and Libya had been bitter enemies since Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, refused a bid by Gadhafi to unify their countries in 1972. Relations continued to deteriorate and the countries fought a brief border war in 1977.
AP900908-0136 	X	Salim Fakhri, a prominent exiled opponent of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has died. He was 69. Fakhri died after collapsing at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Thursday. Scotland Yard police headquarters said Saturday he died of natural causes. ``There is no suspicion of any crime and there is no inquiry,'' it said. Newspapers reported that Fakhri was a potential target of the Saddam regime, which invaded Kuwait Aug. 2 and since has been squeezed by an international economic embargo. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said its reporter Nicholas Farrell was interviewing Fakhri when he collapsed. Farrell said Fakhri had spoken with him before going to a meeting of Iraqi opposition groups and then returned for further conversation minutes before he collapsed. He described Fakhri as a retired Iraqi army colonel who became a liberal democrat and secretary of the Democratic Rescue Movement, which was aimed at establishing a Western-style democracy in Iraq. Farrell said Fakhri had been instrumental in engineering a coalition of secularist groups such as his and the two main Iraqi Shiite fundamentalist groups. He quoted Fakhri as having said, ``The Iraqi opposition is powerful. With time we can topple him. It's probably within months rather than years.''
AP900715-0011 	X	Sixty-four percent of major U.S. companies are not happy with the reading, writing and reasoning abilities of high school graduates entering the work force, a poll of business executives said. The National Alliance of Business survey found that 72 percent of executives polled also thought new employees' math skills had worsened in the last five years. Sixty-five percent said reading skills decreased over the same period. Alliance President William Kolberg said the poll results should worry everyone _ parents, students, educators and employers. ``We are on a collision course with the reality that America is developing a second-class work force whose best feature in the future compared with other nations will be low pay,'' Kolberg said last week in an interview to discuss the survey results. ``Low skill means low pay.'' Kolberg said new attitudes and approaches were needed to prepare Americans for work who do not attend college. ``We have abandoned the millions of kids who don't plan to attend college,'' he said. ``Somewhere along the way, we lost respect for the skills we now so desperately need in our factories and on the front lines of our service industries.'' Kolberg said about 82 million U.S. jobs don't require a college degree, and filling those jobs may become impossible unless the educational system is changed. ``The entire school enterprise needs to be restructured, rethought and taken much more seriously,'' he said, pointing to the national education goals established by President Bush and the nation's governors. Kolberg was an assistant secretary of Labor and administrator of the Employment and Training Administration from 1973-77. The poll, described by the alliance as the first to survey officers either directly or indirectly responsible for the recruitment of workers at the 1,200 largest U.S. corporations, said only 36 percent of the officers were satisfied with the competency of new employees entering the work force. Kolberg defined competency as being able to read beyond the seventh grade level and compute math at higher than a fifth grade level. The survey indicated companies _ many of which have more challenging blue collar and secretarial work than in the past _ have to interview seven to eight applicants on average to find just one acceptable employee. Personnel officers also said many of those who are hired require too much training to become effective in their jobs. Forty-eight percent were satisfied with the ability of new hires to be retrained. Only 16 percent were satisfied with the educational training of new employees. Kolberg said the survey documents much of the anecdotal evidence discussed over the last few years. ``Most American companies, particularly smaller companies, have not been able to adopt new forms of work organization because they can't afford to spend money upgrading worker skills,'' Kolberg said. ``Our competitors in Europe and Asia have increased productivity by using these new methods of work. Our only response to this competitive situation has been to lower wages.'' The business alliance predicts that by the year 2000, an estimated 5 million to 15 million manufacturing jobs will require skills other than those being used today and that an equal number of service jobs will be obsolete. Kolberg said parents must make sure their children attend school and are prepared physically and emotionally to learn. Parents and teachers must raise their expectations of student achievement. The weekly wages of high school graduates dropped from $387.24 in 1969 to $335.20 in 1989. The alliance attributes the 12 percent drop to a loss in productivity by so-called frontline workers. It compares with a wage gain of about 8 percent for a college graduate. The research was conducted in late April by North Coast Behavioral Research Group of Cleveland, involving 500 of the largest manufacturing firms in America, the largest 500 service firms and the largest 200 privately owned companies. The poll had a margin of error of 6 percentage points. The NAB was founded in 1968 under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson and Henry Ford II to link businesses in a partnership with education, labor, government and community-based groups to help build a quality work force for the future.
AP900702-0034 	X	Senate Republican leader Bob Dole says he does not expect President Bush to propose an increase in income tax rates, but rather to back higher oil import fees and taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., countered Sunday on ABC's ``This Week With David Brinkley'' that such an approach would not raise enough money to reduce huge budget deficits. Moynihan said Democrats are prepared to force a $100 billion spending cut Oct. 1, as required by the Gramm-Rudman deficit spending law, if Bush does not increase income taxes and reduce the Social Security payroll deduction. New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, meanwhile, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' that the top tax rate should be raised from its present level of 28 percent to reduce the budget deficit, mentioning 33 percent and 35 percent as possibilities.
AP900408-0023 	X	A fire in a village in the central Blue Nile region killed four people and left more than 500 families homeless, the state-run Sudan News Agency said Sunday. A woman and three children were killed when the fire raged through Bott, a village of 2,500 people, the report said. The blaze destroyed the families' homes, burned the local market and killed scores of domestic animals, the news agency said. It did not say when the fire broke out or how it started.
AP881025-0250 	X	The stock market was unchanged early today as prices steadied after being hit recently by waves of billion-dollar takeover proposals. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was off .18 at 2,170.16 in the first half hour of trading. Losers kept pace with gainers in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 443 up, 443 down and 512 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 22.89 million shares as of 10 a.m. on Wall Street. Analysts are quick to note that two different markets currently are functioning _ one that involves takeover and buyout issues and another that involves the remaining equities untouched by either actual deals or speculation. ``The deal market can erupt anytime'' and propel the Dow Jones average higher, noted Larry Wachtel, first vice president at Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. ``All it takes is one announcement of another mega-deal and it's off to the races,'' he said, referring to recent billion-dollar bids for RJR Nabisco, Pillsbury, Kraft, West Point-Pepperell and Chicago Pacific. The rest of the market, however, is not awash with excitement. ``The broad market looks tired and overbought,'' Wachtel said. Some analysts believe the broader market is due for some consolidation. Among actively traded Big Board issues, Ford was up ] at 54; takeover target Nabisco was up 1| at 85|; Kraft fell 1} to 100\, and Pepsico was up \ at 43{. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks rose .04 to 158.89. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was off .41 at 304.54. On Monday the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 13.16 to 2,170.34. Declining issues outnumbered advances by about 7 to 5 on the NYSE, with 593 up, 863 down and 503 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 170.59 million shares, against 195.41 million in the previous session.
AP881122-0177 	X	A Washington woman was convicted Tuesday of bilking two investors out of $55,000 by posing as a Treasury Department official who could help them get loans. Carrye E. Maxwell, who was linked to money laundering and fraud charges against five men scheduled to stand trial in January, was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and three counts of impersonating a federal official. Ms. Maxwell could receive a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Louis Oberdorfer scheduled sentencing for Feb. 1. The jury found Ms. Maxwell guilty of posing as a special consultant to a non-existent Treasury Department program she said had access to foreign funds for loans. The May 6, 1988, indictment charged that she prepared bogus letterheads and put fake seals on documents to deceive investors into believing she was a consultant to the ``United States Recycle Program.'' The scheme is also the subject of a related indictment against a Miami businessman, Walter E. Johnson, and four co-defendants who are scheduled to stand trial on money laundering and fraud charges on Jan. 10. Ms. Maxwell was convicted of bilking Robert M. Capuano, operator of a local pizza restaurant, out of $30,000 in 1985 by saying she needed the money to help him get a multimillion-dollar loan he never received. She was also convicted of inducing James A. Whatley in 1985 to pay her $25,000 out of his bank account in Nashville, Tenn., as a bogus loan fee. The indictment against Johnson and his four co-defendants charges that the conspirators showed officials from a suburban Philadelphia company a letter Maxwell wrote on bogus Treasury Department stationary to bolster their scheme to bilk the firm out of $100,000.
AP901002-0180 	X	The challengers President Bush most wants to see elected to the Senate were among the first to break with the president on the budget agreement he negotiated with Congress. ``Muggers in pin-striped suits,'' cried Rep. Lynn Martin, the Republican trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Paul Simon. ``They're back at your pocketbook again.'' ``Throw out the leadership of Congress,'' said Martin, apparently excluding Bush from the gang of ``muggers.'' The plan would enact permanent tax increases while leaving spending cuts up to Congress to enact in the future, complained Rep. Newt Gingrich, one of Congress' leading conservatives. Gingrich, R-Ga., also was upset that the plan did not contain enough measures to help businesses. ---= WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says he'd consider going on television to ask the public to accept the $500 billion deficit-cutting plan, a boost congressional leaders may need to win enough support from worried lawmakers. Bush and leaders of the House and Senate continue searching for votes today for the package, which was unveiled Sunday. In its two-day life span, the plan has drawn barbs from lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, wary of voting for a record amount of tax increases and spending cuts in an election year. ``Everybody knew this deficit-reduction agreement was an ugly duckling,'' said Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. ``Nobody expected it to sprout wings and fly like a swan.'' But Bush put an optimistic face on prospects of approval. ``It will all work out. Everybody will do what's right,'' he told reporters. ---= WEST BERLIN (AP) - East and West fade out today as official ways to describe Germany. Old military occupiers' power will be handed over and scores of foreign diplomats will lose their host country. The new united Germany of almost 78 million people arising at midnight will have to rely on considerable strengths to cope with difficult tasks. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told a convention of his Christian Democratic Union in Hamburg on Monday that Germany now faces three immense tasks: the reconstruction of formerly Communist East Germany, the completion of European integration and the taking on of a greater international role. ---= NEW YORK (AP) - Women who took at least two alcoholic drinks a day were three times more likely than abstainers to die before age 65, a study found. The difference was nearly two-fold for men in the study, which was based on a national sample of people who died in 1986. For women, 40.7 percent of so-called heavier drinkers died before age 65 versus 13.2 percent of abstainers. For men, the figures were 42.3 percent versus 22.4 percent. Even people classified as moderate or light drinkers showed higher death rates than the abstainers. ---= SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The strategically located Korean peninsula is in the vortex of rapidly developing new relationships that may change the political landscape of Northeast Asia. For he first time since the end of World War II, countries that have been bitter adversaries and battleground enemies are talking to one another. Delicate relations are being slowly, cautiously realigned. Northeast Asia is unique in that it engages the vital interests of four of the world's great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and China. The tense and bitterly divided Korean peninsula sits at its geographical heart. All four countries are involved in, and will be affected by, changes in Korea. All four governments have an interest in security and peace on the peninsula and all four have economic reasons for wanting to encourage friendly ties between North and South Korea.
AP900226-0117 	X	Violeta Chamorro's presidential victory in Nicaragua brought elation on Capitol Hill on Monday but also heightened Congress' problem of finding foreign aid money for new democracies. ``We must provide her new government with aid, and let's not kid ourselves _ it will take big bucks,'' said Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan. ``She needs our help and she deserves it.'' ``Nobody said democracy was cheap,'' added Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dante Fascell, D-Fla. House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., while not mentioning a specific aid figures, said the United States might start by sending amounts similar to past aid to the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels. Estimates ranged from $100 million to $300 million as the U.S. share of a multilateral package that could provide $1 billion for Nicaragua. But others cautioned that with a growing line of potential new foreign aid recipients _ Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Panama and others _ it would be difficult to promise new money when the budget already is falling short. ``It's not realistic to expect the result of all this is going to be a tripling of foreign aid,'' said Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., the senior GOP member of the foreign aid subcommittee. ``The American people aren't going to support it.'' This year, the United States will send about $9.8 billion in military, economic and development aid to several dozen friendly countries around the globe. The lion's share, $5.1 billion, goes to Israel and Egypt as a reward for entering into the Camp David peace process. The Bush administration has asked for a slight increase in the total, to $10.1 billion, for 1991. Rep. Stephen Solarz, D-N.Y., said he hoped the United States could come up with $200 million to $300 million as a contribution to a billion-dollar international emergency aid program for Nicaragua, similar to those aiding the Philippines and emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. The money should be taken out of the U.S. defense budget, he said. Dole used the occasion of Chamorro's win over leftist Sandinista President Daniel Ortega on Sunday to renew his proposal to alter the nation's foreign aid priorities, beginning with the two largest recipients, Israel and Egypt. ``The only way we're going to pay for new aid to Nicaragua, Panama, Czechoslovakia _ is to look to the foreign aid budget that now exists, and make some tough calls,'' Dole said in a Senate floor speech. But that proposal has so far met with stiff opposition, and Foley cautioned that Nicaragua should not automatically be given priority over current recipients of U.S. aid. Lawmakers overwhelmingly supported President Bush's call for a speedy lifting of trade sanctions, and many called for the immediate sending of a U.S. ambassador to Managua. The sanctions were imposed in 1985, and the American ambassador was sent home in 1988. Many of the legislators observed that Chamorro's win had accelerated an already breathtaking downfall of communism around the world. Asked his reaction, Edwards said, ``It was astonishment... It's happening from one end of the world to the other, the tyrants are being swept out.'' ``It is yet another example of the desire for democratic government that is being courageously expressed by people throughout the world living under totalitarian regimes,'' said Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine. Several members of Congress also noted that the demise of the Sandinista government could have an added benefit in nearby El Salvador, where leftist FMLN guerrillas fighting the elected government have relied on Managua for weapons and support. At the same time, the lawmakers warned that Chamorro faces a difficult road in rebuilding her nation's economy, moving her country out of war and maintaining her political coalition. ``Much remains to be done before democracy can be said to have been established in Nicaragua,'' said House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., ``but this victory is a splendid beginning.'' From the other side of the political spectrum, Rep. Sam Gejdenson, D-Conn., called the outcome ``an amazing step forward for the Western Hemisphere'' and long overdue. Gejdenson, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, attributed Chamorro's victory to her call for an end to the military draft; the country's economy, devastated by a decade of civil war and U.S. economic sanctions, and a popular belief that she could best demobilize the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels.
AP880816-0067 	X	Here is a transcript of the speech delivered by former Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Hanford Dole at the Republican National Convention on Monday. Thank you. Thank you very much. Theresa. You're an outstanding member of the North Carolina Legislature, and I know that you're going to have a resounding re-election victory in November. Thank you so much. Peace, progress, opportunity. That's what we're here to celebrate. That's the legacy of a great president, Ronald Reagan. And that will be the living legacy of the next president of the United States, George Bush. First, let me thank the Democratic Party leaders for televising their Convention. What I saw and heard reminded me and millions of other former Democrats why we're proud to be Republicans. The Dukakis convention speech was just like the Democrat platform, hedging on defense, hedging on taxes, hedging on spending. We're not running against Bentsen and Dukakis, we're running against Bentsen and Hedges. ``Governor Hedges,'' ``Governor Hedges,'' ``Governor Hedges'' tried mightily to paint over his liberal policies with pretty rhetoric. But the make-up job failed. As an old federal trade commissioner, I want to know -- whatever happened to truth in advertising? But we've come to New Orleans not to pin the tail on the donkey. We're here to pin our hopes on the American future. And we're not buying the Dukakis deception. Despite what he says, this election is about ideas and ideology. They do matter. They will matter to Americans who face a choice this year as stark and dramatic as any in memory. We Americans faced a similar choice in 1980. And what did we get for our choice? We got a president who doesn't apologize for American interests _ he asserts them. We got a breakthrough in Soviet relations and the INF treaty. We got the longest economic boom in peacetime history. It was my privilege for seven years to serve the man who made this happen _ one of America's greatest presidents, Ronald Reagan. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President, for that opportunity. Today's strong economy means stronger families. And we affirm the woman who chooses to work in the home. But our strong economy has also provided needed jobs for millions of women, and let me say to the women of America: I respect the fact that some of you have questions. I also ask you to have an open mind. You know better then anyone that a job _ a good job _ is absolutely basic to a family's happiness and stability. That's our freedom. Are we going to let them take it away? (Crowd yells, ``No.'') In the past eight years, President Reagan has created an incredible jobs machine _ more jobs for more Americans than ever before. And two-thirds of the 17 million new jobs created since 1982 went to women. Good jobs, not bad jobs. Real work, not make work. That's our freedom. Are we going to let them take it away? (Crowd yells, ``No.'') You did it. You were the expansion. You, the women of America _ who are holding jobs as never before, who've started businesses as never before, who have invested as never before. This expansion _ it's your triumph. But it was Ronald Reagan and George Bush who set in motion the forces which allowed that growth to occur and the economy to bloom. That's our freedom. Are we going to let them take it away? (Crowd yells, ``No.'') America is on a roll. If this great economic upsurge is stopped, if we have a President who raises taxes again and in creases regulation again and stifles growth again _ and believe me, that's what Michael Dukakis will do _ if we let the liberals back in, we lose all that progress _ your progress.
AP881006-0299 	X	The Environmental Protection Agency has failed to act against tens of thousands of violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act by local water systems, the National Wildlife Federation said Thursday. ``There has been a major breakdown'' in administration of the 1974 law, said Jay Hair, executive vice president of the federation, at a news conference. The federation, whose 5 million members make it the nation's largest environmental organization, released a report of an 18-month examination of 15,000 pages of EPA computer printouts for the 1987 fiscal year that showed 36,763 water systems committing 101,588 violations of the act. The nation has over 200,000 water systems. Though the law requires that every violation be reported to customers of the system, only 5,867 notices were issued. The federation did not count failure to issue notices in its survey of violations. If it had, they would have numbered 197,309. Of the violations, said Norman Dean, federation staff lawyer and principal author of the report, 17,506 were violations of enforceable contaminant standards and the rest were monitoring and reporting violations which both he and the agency consider potentially more serious. Monitoring and reporting requirements are ``the heart of the law,'' the study said. ``They enable the identification and correction of public health risks before they blossom into crises.'' Seventy percent of the contaminant violations were for exceeding bacteriological standards, 20 percent involved inorganic chemicals or substances like metals or arsenic, 0.6 percent were organic chemicals such as pesticides, 0.9 percent were radioactivity violations, and 7.7 percent were turbidity _ sediment _ violations, according to Dean's figures. ``There's no excuse for a public water system to be distributing water that exceeds the bacteriological standards,'' said Dean, since bacteria are easily killed by cheap, well-understood chlorination. The law permits states to run drinking water protection programs approved by EPA if their standards and procedures are as tough as the federal standards. Only Indiana, Wyoming and the District of Columbia have opted to leave EPA with direct authority in those jurisdictions. Dean said a 1982 report on lax enforcement by the General Accounting Office led Congress to remove enforcement discretion from EPA in 1986, changing the statute to read that EPA ``shall'' take enforcement action against every violation if the state does not do so in 30 days. Before, the law read that EPA ``may'' act. But what action is needed is left to EPA. The maximum penalty is a fine of $25,000 a day for each violation, rarely imposed. Peter Cook, deputy director of EPA's Office of Drinking Water, said, ``All regulatory agencies must have enforcement discretion.'' When EPA finds a violation, ``It is our position that it need not be an enforcement action'' that follows. ``It's important to understand that if enforcement actions are not taken, the states are aggressive in protecting the public health'' through ``boil water'' announcements, requirements for provision of bottled water and similar measures, Cook said. Small systems _ almost two-thirds of the total serve fewer than 500 people _ may have difficulty raising money, Cook said. ``It may take some time for this community to float a loan'' to upgrade treatment systems. ``You're talking about years. It doesn't make a lot of sense, if you have a cooperative community which is moving ahead, to beat them over the head with penalties that they can't afford anyway.'' Hair said ``there is no question discretion must be used,'' but the agency must do something. ``For a first-time violator and a minor violation,'' no fine would be appropriate, Dean said. ``A simple compliance order and a public admonishment'' would suffice. ``We're not talking about calibrating the enforcement dial a little bit,'' said Hair. ``We're talking about tens of thousands of violations.'' Hair said the federation made no attempt to assess health risks to the public from the violations, but he and Dean noted that EPA had estimated that 110,000 illnesses arose in the population between 1971 and 1985 from waterborne disease, and some experts believe there may actually have been 25 times as many cases. People worried about their water may get it tested by a private lab, but a full rundown on organic and inorganic chemicals can cost more than $200, ``more than the average person should be asked to do,'' Hair said. EPA established a toll-free telephone number 15 months ago to answer question about drinking water (800-426-4791,) and Jeremy Rowland, the contractor operating it, said calls now run about 200 a day. About half come from local and state government agencies and water systems seeking information and half from the general public. Of the public callers, he estimated three quarters were worried about water quality and a quarter were people saying, ``We're overregulated and our water bills are too high.'' At the American Water Works Association, the trade association of private and publicly operated water supply systems, deputy executive director Jack Sullivan said he did not doubt the federation's figures, and also did not doubt that many violations that should have been punished were not. But Sullivan echoed Cook's comment that many systems were financially strapped. ``We're going to have to say to some of these smaller systems, `You're going to have to have financial capability, or we're going to force you into a regional system,''' something the state of Connecticut is doing, Sullivan said.
AP880711-0234 	X	Savings institution depositors withdrew more money from their accounts than they deposited in May for the first time in seven months, while losses continued to erode the ailing industry's capital, the government said Monday. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board said net withdrawals at the nation's 3,102 federally insured S&Ls totaled $941 million in May. But the decline came after seven consecutive months of net deposit gains totaling $28 billion. Through the first nine months of last year, thrift institutions were troubled by what industry analysts called a ``slow-motion run'' as uncertain depositors withdrew their money. However, after the October stock market crash, investors pulled their money out of risky stock investments and put it into insured S&L and bank acounts. James Barth, chief economist at the bank board, said there was no obvious explanation for the May deposit drain, but he noted that commercial banks and money market mutual funds experienced a similar decline. Bert Ely, an Alexandria, Va., industry analyst, said S&Ls appear to be trying to resist the rise in interest rates and thus are attracting fewer deposits. Meanwhile, thrift institutions' capital _ the difference between what they owe in liabilities and own in assets _ shrank by $303 million in May after falling $392 million in April. Capital numbers are closely watched because they can provide a good indication of industry losses, which totaled a post-Depression record $7.6 billion last year and $3.8 billion for the first three months of this year. The May capital shrinkage was smaller than declines in all but one of the previous 12 months, but Ely noted that capital tends to shrink the most in the third month of every quarter when many institutions credit interest earnings to depositors. ``We're not going to get a read on the second quarter until we see how June turns out,'' he said. Savings institutions closed $21.1 billion in mortgage loans in May, up from $19.1 billion in April but down sharply from $24.6 billion a year ago. Barth attributed the decline to a drop in refinancing activity.
AP881208-0123 	X	Here is a list of major earthquakes of the 20th century. The location is followed by the Richter scale magnitude and the number of dead. Sept. 19, 1985, Mexico, 8.1, 9,500. Oct. 30, 1983, Turkey, 7.1, 1,300. Dec. 13, 1982, North Yemen, 6.0, 2,800. Nov. 23, 1980, Italy, 7.2, 4,800. Oct. 10, 1980, Algeria, 7.3, 4,500. Dec. 12, 1979, Colombia and Ecuador, 7.9, 800. Sept. 16, 1978, Iran, 7.7, 25,000. March 4, 1977, Romania, 7.5, 1,541. Nov. 24, 1976, Eastern Turkey, 7.9, 4,000. Aug. 17, 1976, Philippines, 7.8, 8,000. July 28, 1976, Tangshan, China, 7.8 to 8.2, official figure: 242,000. unofficial estimates: as many as 800,000. May 6, 1976, Italy, 6.5, 946. Feb. 4, 1976, Guatemala, 7.5, 22,778. Sept. 6, 1975, Turkey, 6.8, 2,312. Dec. 28, 1974, Pakistan, 6.3, 5,200. Dec. 23, 1972, Nicaragua, 6.2, 5,000. April 10, 1972, Iran, 6.9, 5,057. May 31, 1970, Peru, 7.7, 66,794. March 28, 1970, Turkey, 7.4, 1,086. Aug. 31, 1968, Iran, 7.4, 12,000. Aug. 19, 1966, Turkey, 6.9, 2,520. July 26, 1963, Yugoslavia, 6.0, 1,100. Sept. 1, 1962, Iran, 7.1, 12,230. May 21-30, 1960, Chile, 8.3, 5,000. Feb. 29, 1960, Morocco, 5.8, 12,000. Dec. 13, 1957, Iran, 7.1, 2,000. July 2, 1957, Iran, 7.4, 2,500. June 10-17, 1956, Afghanistan, 7.7, 2,000. March 18, 1953, Turkey, 7.2, 1,200. Aug. 15, 1950, India, 8.7, 1,530. Aug. 5, 1949, Ecuador, 6.8, 6,000. June 28, 1948, Japan, 7.3, 5,131. Dec. 21, 1946, Japan, 8.4, 2,000. Dec. 26, 1939, Turkey, 7.9, 30,000. Jan. 24, 1939, Chile, 8.3, 28,000. May 31, 1935, India, 7.5, 30,000 Jan. 15, 1934, India, 8.4, 10,700. March 2, 1933, Japan, 8.9, 2,990. Dec. 26, 1932, China, 7.6, 70,000. May 22, 1927, China, 8.3, 200,000. Sept. 1, 1923, Tokyo, Japan, 8.3, 100,000. Dec. 16, 1920, China, 8.6, 100,000. Jan. 13, 1915, Italy, 7.5, 29,980. Dec. 28, 1908, Italy, 7.5, 83,000. Aug. 16, 1906, Chile, 8.6, 20,000. April 18-19, 1906, San Francisco, 8.3, 452.
AP880427-0067 	X	A senior United Nations official predicted Washington would ignore a World Court ruling that said the United States violated a U.N. treaty by trying to close the PLO's New York office. In an advisory opinion issued Tuesday, the International Court of Justice, as the court is formally known, ordered the United States to submit to arbitration in its dispute with the United Nations over the Palestine Liberation Organization's observer mission to the United Nations. The court is the judicial arm of the United Nations. It has no enforcement powers and depends on voluntary adherence to its rulings. The Reagan administration's dispute with the U.N. arose from legislation signed into law by the U.S. Congress in December that classifies the PLO as a ``terrorist organization'' and bars it from operating on American soil. The U.S. government maintains that the anti-terrorist law takes precedence over any international agreements. Carl-August Fleischhauer of West Germany, the U.N. undersecretary-general for legal affairs, told reporters after Tuesday's ruling that he doubted the United States would submit to arbitration. ``We want harmonious relations with our host country,'' Fleischhauer said. ``We are ready to go to arbitration. It is now basically for the United States government to decide what conclusions it draws from this ruling.'' ``It is a pleasure to be proved right,'' Fleischhauer's boss, U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, said of the ruling during a press conference in New York. Although the court took pains to dodge the question of whether Washington's attempt to close the PLO office is legal, the ruling was seen in Vienna as an implicit condemnation of the U.S. effort. The court said the U.S. Justice Department's shutdown order violated the Headquarters Agreement by not submitting the issue to arbitration first. That 1947 pact between the Truman Administration and the U.N. guarantees diplomats unimpeded access to U.N. headquarters in New York. ``The United States is bound to respect the obligation to have recourse to arbitration,'' said the court's 15 judges. The Headquarters Agreement mandates independent arbitration of any disputes arising from it, but the United States has rejected any such arbitration. The opinion marked the second time in two years the court has ruled against the United States. In the previous case, brought by Nicaragua, the United States boycotted the proceedings and ignored the court's order to halt its support for rebels trying to overthrow the Managua government. The PLO was granted permanent observer status by the U.N. General Assembly in 1974, and its U.N. mission has been operating ever since out of an office in Manhattan. Its information office in Washington, D.C., was closed prior to the passage of the anti-terrorist legislation. Early this year, the U.S. government said arbitration of the PLO mission issue was premature, and noted that the anti-terrorist law would only come into force on March 22. When the PLO refused to comply with U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III's March 22 order to close its New York operation, the U.S. government filed suit in a New York federal court. That lawsuit is pending. Washington's attempt to close the PLO office has been condemned by every U.N. member nation except Israel.
AP900407-0119 	X	Earrings probably won't become de rigueur among the ranks of Portland's Finest, but policemen wishing to adorn their ears with dainty pieces of precious metal may now do so. The city attorney's office has advised the police to allow male officers to wear earrings after a policeman filed a labor grievance recently. The office got involved because of a grievance filed by an officer whose name is being withheld, said Stan Peters, president of the Portland Police Association said. The grievance challenged rules on proper attire that specified female officers must wear small, non-dangling earrings, but didn't really address the question of ear decorations for males. Police officials say they'll follow the city attorney's advice, but they don't have to like it. ``I don't think the public is prepared to see a male police officer wear an earring,'' said Capt. Wayne Inman. ``But I do see a shift in public attitudes to allow police officers to mirror society's dress code.''
AP880919-0103 	X	Michael Dukakis accused Republican George Bush today of campaigning with ``a warmed-over call to selfishness'' and said a Democratic White House would seek prosperity for all Americans, not just the wealthy. The Democratic presidential nominee said Bush does not understand that GOP economic policies have not spread their benefits across the economy but had served people who already have good jobs _ or inherited wealth. ``But most Americans aren't satisfied, and neither am I,'' the Massachusetts governor told an invitation-only campaign rally. In a line borrowed from John F. Kennedy, Dukakis said he means ``to get America moving again,'' restoring strength to all parts of the economy and all sections of the nation. He said the next president will face ``a sea of Republican red ink that not even Moses could part.'' In his prepared speech, Dukakis said federal resources are limited but problems cannot be shrugged away. ``And we can't afford leadership that says over and over again that it's morning in America and then suggests that all we Americans have to do is roll over and go back to sleep,'' he said. Dukakis said Bush is the candidate of a complacent party that ``seems to have exhausted its reservoir of ideas'' for dealing with the economy. ``In their hearts they know that four more years of Reaganomics would be bad for the country, and that four more years of Reaganomics without Reagan would be a disaster.''
AP880905-0049 	X	Kurdish guerrillas claimed today they have killed or wounded 7,000 Iraqi soldiers in fierce fighting in northeastern Iraq. They said nearly 2,000 civilians also died. The guerrillas acknowledged several of their bases have been overrun. They said the bases fell after repeated poison gas attacks. There was no independent confirmation of the Kurdish claims. Turkish officials said that about 90,000 Kurds, including some wounded guerrillas, have fled across the frontier in recent days. ``Most of the Kurdish civilian casualties are from constant Iraqi poison gas attacks on their villages and settlements,'' a spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Party told The Associated Press by telephone. ``Iraqi troops has overrun our bases in Zakho and Dahok provinces, but our guerrillas are still engaged in fierce fighting inside Iraq to save our civilian population from severe Iraqi reprisals,'' he said. The spokesman, based in a West European capital, has given information to the AP on several other occasions. He declined to give his name for security reasons. Iraq's 3.5 million Kurds have been waging their separatist struggle on and off for 50 years. Kurdish officials said many of the refugees were injured in mustard gas attacks, but there was no official Turkish confirmation. Kurdish guerrillas are battling an estimated 60,000 Iraqi troops who are supported by tanks, artillery, fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships. The Iraqis launched a major offense Aug. 26 against the rebels. The guerrillas claimed the Iraqis have carried out scores of poison gas attacks in recent weeks against Kurdish villages and guerrilla bases. Iraq has denied using chemical weapons, outlawed under a 1925 Geneva treaty. The spokesman stressed that Kurdish ``resistance is continuing'' in the Amadiyah and Sherwan regions. He said the guerrillas were trying to avoid set-piece battles with the heavily armed Iraqis and were ambushing military columns in coordinated hit-and-run attacks. He said guerrillas shot down four Iraqi helicopter gunships in the last few days and killed or wounded 7,000 government troops in recent fighting. Kurdish casualties were listed as 250 guerrillas and 1,900 civilians killed, with 5,000 civilians wounded. The spokesman said the Iraqis have not been able to seal off the border with Turkey. This is the only escape route for civilians. In a separate statement, Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani denied press reports that he had sought asylum in Turkey. ``Our decision is to remain with our beleaguered people ... and to continue our resistance for the survival of the Kurdish people.'' About 20 million Kurds lived in the mountainous region where the borders of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria meet. Kurdish rebels joined forces in November 1986 and launched an increasingly effective campaign against Baghdad. Iraq's intensified operations against the Kurds came after an Aug. 20 cease-fire with Iran took effect.
AP881212-0121 	X	Kidnappers holding U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins said in a statement released Monday they have sentenced him to death as a spy for Israel. ``We have issued the irrevocable sentence to execute this American spy,'' said the typewritten Arabic statement signed by the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth. ``The spy has been turned over to those responsible for executing this just and revolutionary verdict,'' said the statement delivered to the Beirut newspaper An-Nahar. The statement did not give a date when the sentence was to be carried out. A photocopy of a photograph purporting to show Higgins in a dark sweater was pasted to the bottom of the 15-line statement. Captors of foreign hostages in Lebanon usually provide a photograph to authenticate their statements. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., was head of a 76-man observer group attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon when he was kidnapped near the southern port city of Tyre on Feb. 17. ``It has been proven by clearcut evidence that he and his American team of observers are guilty of providing the Zionist enemy with accurate and detailed military and security information about our resistance fighters, their positions, movements, supply routes and the quantity and quality of their weaponry,'' the statement said. It said the decision to kill Higgins was a retaliation for Israeli attacks against ``our people in occupied Palestine'' and predominantly Shiite south Lebanon. The statement also said Higgins was sentenced to die in ``revenge for the blood of the martyrs of the latest Israeli raid'' on a Palestinian guerrilla base nine miles south of Beirut. Nine guerrillas were killed Friday in the Israeli attack. An Israeli officer also died. Fifteen foreigners are missing and presumed kidnapped in Lebanon. They are nine Americans, three Britons, one Irishman, one Italian and a Swiss. The longest held is American Terry A. Anderson, 40, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, who was kidnapped March 16, 1985. Higgins, 43, a decorated Vietnam veteran, is married to Marine Maj. Robin Higgins and has a 17-year-old daughter. He graduated from high school in Louisville, Ky., and from Miami University of Ohio on ROTC scholarship in 1967. He earned master's degrees in human resources management at Pepperdine Univiversity in California and in political science at Auburn in Alabama.
AP881128-0095 	X	A couple accused of taking a premature baby from a hospital were arrested after they showed off the infant to relatives who became suspicious and called police, authorities said. Sharon and Robert Newkirk were arrested Saturday on charges of kidnapping 2{-month-old Debra Lynn Moore on Friday evening from her crib at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. They were to be arraigned later today. The Newkirks on Friday took a child to the home of Robert Newkirk's sister and brother-in-law, Judy and Gerald Edmundson. ``Robert was so excited,'' Judy Edmundson said. ``He held her and said, `Daddy loves you.''' But in retrospect, ``We had a funny feeling about it,'' Gerald Edmundson said. ``The next day, we heard the report on the news that a baby had been kidnapped. We put two and two together.'' Police picked up the Newkirks as they pulled into the driveway of their home in Howell, about 20 miles away. Police said they found the baby in the couple's car. The baby was returned to C.S. Mott, where her twin brother also is a patient, and was listed in good condition. Police Sgt. Jim Tieman said authorities did not know a motive for the abduction.
AP880613-0192 	X	Jesse Jackson expressed confidence Monday that he could rally his supporters behind certain Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, even if Dukakis doesn't pick him as a running mate. But Jackson continued to stress that he is entitled to ``serious consideration'' for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Even if Dukakis picks someone else, Jackson told reporters here, the Massachusetts governor could expect backing from him ``so long as our agreements are rational, fair and consistent.'' Jackson sought to put the focus on harmony with the Dukakis camp, citing the weekend agreement that South Africa shuld be branded a ``terrorist state.'' Jackson had strongly pushed that view, and, at a preliminary platform-drafting meeting in Mackinac Island, Mich., the Dukakis forces went along. The South Africa position ``is a step in the right direction for America because we must regain our credibility and our moral authority in the third world as leader of the free world,'' Jackson said at an impromptu sidewalk news conference here. Dukakis has backed strong sanctions and a divestiture of U.S. industries in South Africa to protest its apartheid policies of racial segregation. But the Massachusetts governor had resisted branding South Africa a ``terrorist state'' in the same category of states as Libya and Iran. ``Our agreeing to declare South Africa a terrorist state and thereby pointing to apply anti-terrorist legislation to South Africa is a real hope to people throughout the world who seek fairness and justice,'' said Jackson. He said there was ``a good tone'' to the negotiations with the Dukakis camp. ``So far they (the talks) are having an impact on broadening and strengthening the Democratic Party,'' he said. But Jackson noted that major differences remain, including Dukakis' refusal to support the freeze on military spending that Jackson has called for, and the Dukakis forces' resistance to the tax hikes Jackson wants. Jackson was in Chicago for a weekend of meetings with members of his national staff to discuss plans for the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta next month. Jackson said he planned to deliver several major policy speeches before the convention outlining his programs for health care, education, the war on drugs, and foreign and defense policy. He also met Monday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune and with officials of Johnson Publishing Co., publishers of Jet and Ebony magazines.
AP881228-0114 	X	When lawyers displease him _ by being late, stubborn or sloppy _ Judge J. Leonard Fleet sentences them to the supermarket to buy food for the poor. ``It keeps them on their toes,'' the Broward County Circuit judge said of his reprimand, which he calls Fleet's Food Brigade. ``When lawyers do what they're supposed to on time, it eases the burden on the justice system and saves the taxpayers money. At the same time, the program is helping people. It's had some beautiful spinoffs,'' Fleet said. The judge orders the lawyers to deliver cans of food to him. Then he gives the food to non-profit organizations around the county. ``Judge Fleet has found a very creative way to help us,'' said Jeanne Miley, executive director of Kids in Distress, one of the beneficiaries. Since he started the program five years ago, Fleet has collected more than 15 tons of food from at least 300 lawyers, he said. Most lawyers laugh when he hits them with a food fine, and some bring food whenever they appear before the judge. ``Every time I go over there for a trial I figure he's going to do it to me at least once, no matter what I do,'' said James Dawson, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who had to buy 24 cans of sliced pineapple last fall. ``Some guys might resent it, but the program is a lot of fun, and it does a lot of good,'' said Dania City Attorney Frank Adler, who was ordered to donate 24 cans of lentil soup after he got into an argument with an opposing lawyer.
AP900221-0083 	X	John Poindexter says former President Reagan's testimony is favorable to his case, but the former national security adviser wants to delay its release until after a jury is sworn in for his Iran-Contra trial. Twelve news organizations on Tuesday suggested in a court filing that the videotape and transcripts of Reagan's testimony Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles be made available as soon as possible. Iran-Contra prosecutors told U.S. District Court Judge Harold Greene, who is presiding in the case involving Poindexter, that they have ``no objections'' to releasing the videotapes and transcripts of Reagan's deposition now. But Reagan's lawyers filed court papers asking that the tapes be withheld until the end of the trial. Poindexter's lawyers maintained in court papers that Reagan's testimony ``is favorable to the defense.'' But the former president did not support Poindexter in connection with key portions of allegedly false letters which Poindexter sent to Congress in 1986, according to sources familiar with Reagan's testimony who spoke on condition of anonymity. Poindexter's letters embraced the White House's denials the previous year that National Security Council aide Oliver North was raising money or providing military advice to the Contras. In his initial answers about the letters, Reagan focused on portions which stated the NSC staff was complying with the spirit and the letter of the Boland Amendment barring U.S. intelligence agencies from providing military aid to the Contras. Reagan, in his deposition in Los Angeles, supported those sections of the letters. The ex-president has said publicly he did not regard the NSC as being subject to the restrictions of the Boland Amendment. However, under cross-examination by Iran-Contra prosecutor Dan Webb, Reagan's attention was drawn to other statements in Poindexter's letters referring to the earlier information provided to Congress. That information included the denials that North was fundraising or supplying military advice. Reagan agreed with Webb he didn't recall seeing those earlier responses at the time Poindexter's letters were sent to Congress, according to the sources. The earlier responses led to a guilty plea by ex-national security adviser Robert McFarlane to misdemeanor charges of withholding information from Congress. Poindexter's lawyers maintained in court papers that publicizing Reagan's testimony now would have an ``incalculable impact'' on prospective jurors. Disclosing Reagan's testimony prior to the March 5 trial date could result in Iran-Contra prosecutors rejecting prospective jurors who otherwise would be favorable to the defense, lawyers for Reagan's former national security adviser said. They also said the testimony should be made public only ``after the jury in this case has been sworn and instructed regarding trial publicity.'' Alternatively, Poindexter asked that the media before the trial be provided only with a transcript of Reagan's testimony and that access to the videotape be deferred until the jury is sworn in. In their own filing, Reagan's lawyers asked that copies of the tape not be disseminated until the end of the trial, and that public access to Reagan's testimony ``be limited to reviewing the videotape at a location under control of the court.'' Any earlier distribution of copies of the tape ``goes far beyond the requirements of the First Amendment and may damage irreparably the rights of the defendant and the former president,'' the former president's lawyers argued. The news organizations told Greene that Cable News Network Inc. would act as pool representative for distribution of copies of the videotape to the news media. In addition, the news organizations suggested, transcripts should be released at the same time as the videotape through a commercial copying center selected by the news media.
AP900817-0044 	X	Retired Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, who took power after a 1982 military coup but was overthrown a year later, has signed up as a presidential candidate in a November election. His action Thursday conflicts with Supreme Court and congressional rulings that he is ineligible to run because of the military coup. Rios Montt, a born-again Christian who as military ruler sent more than a dozen convicted leftists before the firing squads, is campaigning as a law-and-order candidate. Human rights workers and others are worried that Rios Montt's eye-for-an-eye brand of justice will lead to further human rights abuses in a country already plagued with them. Polls show him among the leading contenders to replace President Vinicio Cerezo. Rios Montt took power after the coup ousted Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia on March 23, 1982. Rios Montt, in turn, was removed by Gen. Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores on Aug. 8, 1983. The Supreme Court, in a non-binding opinion sought by Congress last year, said Rios Montt cannot be president or vice president because of a constitutional ban on the holding of those posts by people who assumed power in a coup. Last month, the Association of National Dignitaries, made up of people who drew up the current constitution, arrived at the same conclusion. Rios Montt is running with the backing of three of Guatemala's 19 registered parties. Nine candidates have signed up for the presidency, including Jorge Carpio Nicolle, a journalist defeated five years ago by Cerezo. There will be a runoff on Jan. 6 if no candidate wins a majority in the Nov. 11 election. If Guatemala's elections registry refuses to accept his candidacy, Rios Montt can appeal through the court system.
AP900713-0133 	X	Five prominent conservatives on Friday accused President Bush of abandoning his conservative electoral base and urged him to return to the fold lest he weaken the Republican party and its candidates. If he doesn't, Bush will face an ``almost certain'' challenge from a conservative candidate in the 1992 primaries, one of them warned. Another, Richard A. Viguerie, said Bush ``took a sharp turn to the left'' shortly after his election. ``It is the conservatives in the Republican Party that have produced the money, the workers and the votes all these years,'' said Viguerie, president of the United Conservatives of America. ``Whenever there's a close presidential race and the Republican nominee abandons his conservative voters, they lose,'' Viguerie said. He cited as examples the races of 1948, when New York Gov. Thomas A. Dewey lost to President Truman; 1960, when Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy and 1976, when President Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. Viguerie and four other leaders of the conservative movement joined together at a news conference to cite issue after issue as grounds for their concern. Topics ranged from trade concessions for China to support for government-financed art that may be considered obscene, but it was clear their biggest complaint was with the president's abandonment of his ``no new taxes'' pledge. Politicians may change their minds but ``when a politician does that on a core defining issue he used to get elected, he sells out not just his followers but he weakens the system,'' said David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. Bush has ``dealt a crippling blow to his own credibility,'' Keene said. The conservatives' news conference was timed to coincide with a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Chicago. RNC spokeswoman Leslie Goodman in Chicago said she was unfamiliar with the conservatives' comments and declined to respond. The five conservatives released a letter to party Chairman Lee Atwater protesting that the administration had showed ``that it does not intend to honor the commitments made to the American people in the 1988 presidential campaign.'' The conservative leaders showed some differences among themselves. Viguerie said he thought Bush had sailed under a ``false flag'' of conservatism in 1988, and now was reverting ``to the big-business, country-club kind of Republican he was in the '60s and the '70s.'' Keene, however, said Bush did not sail under any false flags, but rather had been seduced by high poll ratings. The president appears not to know that ``success in the polls has a history of breeding failure,'' he said. Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, said ``It is too early to tell what any of us is going to do.'' But Phillips said that if Bush ``stays in his present course he will be challenged in 1992, almost certainly in the Republican primaries and certainly in the general election.'' Also participating in the news conference were L. Brent Bozell III, executive director of the Conservative Victory Committee, and John Cregan, president of the U.S. Business and Industrial Council.
AP880725-0172 	X	Police seized 15 tons of hashish in a specially built tunnel between two Mediterranean resort towns and made seven arrests, the civil governor's office said Monday. The office called it the largest drug haul ever in Spain. Among those arrested was Jacques Antoine Cannavaggio, 51, from Corsica, who was said to be the brain of an international drug trafficking organization. He was wanted by the French police. According to police in Barcelona, Cannavaggio had operated in southern Italy and France before moving a few years ago to L'Escala, a village on Spain's northeastern Costa Brava. Police said a French national, a Portuguese and four Spaniards also were arrested. Police found the 15 tons of hashish Sunday in a tunnel between the towns of Lloret de Mar and Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava. The tunnel was equipped with a special ventilation system and police estimated the tunnel cost $1 million to build. Police said they also seized a yacht and a motorboat allegedly used to transport the hashish to Spain from Morocco. Police also seized six submachine guns.
AP900709-0173 	X	James Curtis Barden, a retired vice president and chief financial officer of Media General Inc., died of a heart attack July 3. He was 59. Barden retired this year from Media General, parent company of Richmond Newspapers Inc. and other media holdings. A certified public accountant, Barden was named assistant controller of the company in 1967. He became vice president 10 years later and was appointed chief financial officer in 1983. He is survived by a son and a sister.
AP901004-0100 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev moved to boost the output of Soviet businesses on Thursday by allowing them - with certain restrictions - to negotiate their own wholesale prices. A presidential decree on prices, released by the Tass news agency, was billed as a step toward a market economy. It was Gorbachev's second decree since the Soviet legislature on Sept. 24 gave him sweeping new powers to rescue the collapsing economy and maintain law and order. Economists have said freeing prices to respond to market forces, rather than having them set by the government, is essential to curing the economy. It is unclear, however, whether the decree frees prices enough to make a difference. The decree says businesses can sign contracts with each other for 1991 using negotiated wholesale prices. But it then adds three restrictions. It says the prices must be based on those outlined by the Council of Ministers in June 1988, that profits over a state-set limit will be taxed and that wholesale prices of some goods will remain fixed. Finance Minister Valentin Pavlov told Soviet television the decree was a compromise but did not say what the differences had been. A correspondent for the nightly TV newscast ``Vremya'' said the decree should put more goods into the stores, by offering price incentives for increased production. Shortages have left many stores nationwide bare of such essential goods as flour, matches, cheese and bread. Pavlov insisted the decree has no direct relation to retail prices and assured viewers that state subsidies will continue. But it appeared stores would have to raise retail prices if they had to pay more to receive wholesale stocks. The finance minister said the decree was necessary so businesses can know now what prices they will be able to charge - and therefore how much product to plan - in 1991. In his first decree, issued one week ago, Gorbachev ordered businesses to fulfill supply contracts and the government to ensure distribution in 1991. He threatened businesses with fines if they did not fulfill supply contracts to government retailers. Many workers and businesses are uncertain how they will fit in the market economy Gorbachev is trying to establish and find it more profitable to trade goods on the black market, rather than distribute them in the established structure. The Supreme Soviet legislature is to choose a plan for switching to a market economy on Oct. 15. The most radical blueprint, written by economist Stanislav Shatalin, calls for junking the central planning system and moving to a market economy within 500 days by selling factories to private owners and breaking up collective farms.
AP880725-0070 	X	Former college football star Bobby Hoppe will not be retried in a 31-year-old slaying because there is no new evidence in the case, a prosecutor said today. ``We have gone to great extremes to try to find new proof in this case ... There is no new proof. There is nothing different than what we had initially,'' said District Attorney General Gary Gerbitz. Hoppe, 53, went on trial last month for the July 20, 1957, shotgun death of moonshine runner Don Hudson, but a mistrial was declared when the jury deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal. The state contended that Hoppe, then a 22-year-old college student, killed Hudson because Hudson, 24, had beaten Joan Hoppe Voiles, Hudson's ex-girlfriend and Hoppe's sister. Hoppe claimed self-defense, testifying that he fired a shotgun at Hudson only after the bootlegger drove up beside his car on a dark street and pointed a pistol at him. The prosecutor said the state was handicapped because it could try Hoppe only for first-degree murder, since the statute of limitations for lesser degrees of homicide has expired. ``If this case would have gone to the jury under a first-degree, second-degree, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter option, the outcome may very well have been different in June,'' he said. Nevertheless, Gerbitz said, the state was pleased that it had finally answered the question of who had killed Hudson. ``For 31 years, the Hudson family lived with the fact that they didn't know who killed their son and their brother,'' he said. ``They know now who killed him. And even though his admission is one of self-defense, it was an admission.'' At the time of the slaying, Hoppe was preparing for his senior year at Auburn, where he was a halfback on the football team. That fall, the Tigers went 10-0 and won their only national championship. Although Hoppe was questioned about the slaying in 1957, no charges were filed until March 2, 1988, when he was indicted after a 14-month investigation that began when Hudson's mother, Georgia Hudson, asked police to reopen the case.
AP880414-0153 	X	Former Mayor Jane Byrne, spurned in her last three election bids, has signed with a New York agent and says she will write her autobiography. ``There are a lot of people who would pay me a million dollars not to write the book,'' Mrs. Byrne said Wednesday. ``I might as well write the book.'' Gerard McCauley, a former senior editor for Little, Brown & Co. and Alfred A. Knopf, has been hired to represent her. There is ``substantial interest'' on the part of New York publishers in a book by the former mayor, McCauley said. In it, Mrs. Byrne, 54, said she will discuss her tenure as mayor from 1979 to 1983 as well as her early life, her membership in former Mayor Richard Daley's cabinet, her association with the Kennedy family and her roles in local, state and national Democratic politics. Mrs. Byrne lost a primary race to former Mayor Harold Washington in her bid for re-election in 1983. She lost the Democratic mayoral primary again last year. Earlier this year, she lost a bid for the office of clerk of the circuit courts for Cook County.
AP901128-0083 	X	Here are excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad. --- Nov. 2 The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, on presidential war powers: As a rule the federal courts have been reluctant to horn in on disputes between the executive branch and Congress. So it seems unlikely that the lawsuit brought by 45 House Democrats will impede the slide toward war in the Persian Gulf, if war is what George Bush has in mind. The plaintiffs may stand athwart the road to Armageddon, but the courts will be reluctant to stand with them. Twice before in recent years ... members of Congress have sought to define the president's war-making authority. In each case the courts have run for cover. ... Bush makes no secret of his objectives in the gulf, and they offer scant comfort to those who define America's interests narrowly. His stated goals continue to include the restoration of the Kuwaiti monarchy - of marginal interest to Americans at best - and ``unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces,'' though a negotiated withdrawal might save countless lives and much treasure. If war is his intention, the president is among a shrinking minority. According to the latest polls, 70 percent of the American people resist the idea of military action against Iraq - this before the body bags start arriving home. Enthusiasm for a shooting war also is absent in Congress, even among the president's own loyalists. If ... Bush turns his back on such realities, he will face the same icy blast that finally swept Lyndon Johnson out of office. --- Nov. 22 Enterprise-Journal, McComb, Miss., on the Persian Gulf: Is the United States going to war in the Saudi Arabian-Kuwait desert? As U.S. military forces continue their buildup - it surely looks that way. Immediately after Iraq's invasion of oil-rich Kuwait, American applauded President Bush's decisive response and his tough stance. But as the crisis drags out, apprehension in Congress and throughout the nation grows. Do we really want American boys to die in the desert for Kuwait? Do we want them to die over the price of gasoline? To boot out Saddam Hussein, a vicious, cruel ruler? For Arab states like Iran or Syria, whose actions have been as bad as Iraq's? We are confident, if war comes, the United States and its allies would prevail. But at what price in U.S. casualties? Twenty thousand, 50,000, 100,000? And what price in civilian casualties to Iraq should Iraqi cities get caught in U.S. air attacks? Hundred of thousands? Millions? We wonder, too, what would be the ultimate effect of such a war on the Middle East? Would Arab nations become even more hostile to the United States as U.S. aircraft killed Arab men, women and children? And who would be the ultimate gainer? Probably not the United States. Probably Iran and Syria, no friends of ours. Moreover, should such a war not end quickly, and as U.S. casualties mounted, American public opposition would surely grow. That leads us to hope that Bush won't get impatient and pursue a military solution before exhausting all avenues of negotiation. It's hard to figure how Saddam can hold out against such united condemnation. Even though it might take a little longer, U.S. troops bivouacking in a hot desert, is much preferable to the body bags we recall from Vietnam. --- Nov. 23 Capital Journal, Pierre, S.D., on the Persian Gulf: Congressmen on both sides of the aisle are asking for a bigger role in the United States' military buildup in the Persian Gulf. The word from the White House is that President Bush doesn't need any help, or vindication, from Congress. As the massive U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia drags on, what this country needs is debate about the buildup and its future. Letting the fate of 400,000 troops hang on the decisions of one man is scary, even if that man is the president of the United States. Bush has already gotten this country into a desert stalemate half a world away. His best course of action is to court Congress and seek some sort of joint official action rather than shutting out its members. If he insists on making all the decisions himself, he may face another protracted deadlock right in Washington, D.C. --- Nov. 22 Statesman Journal, Salem, Ore., on holidays and war: Last year we had big news to celebrate at Thanksgiving: Peace had broken out. For the first time in 45 years, the superpowers no longer faced each other with nuclear-tipped missiles while threatening to blow themselves and the rest of the world to smithereens. We looked forward to a year of peace in the world and progress at home, and we hoped by this Thanksgiving to see as much progress at home as we had seen overseas. That didn't happen. Thanks to Saddam Hussein, a year that started out with great hopes ended up as so many others had: in war or war preparation. Our money, our resources and our hopes for a changed world and a rebuilt United States now are stuck in the sands of Saudi Arabia. It's easy to be thankful when everything is going well, as it was last year. What takes devotion and optimism is to be hopeful when you feel the disappointment of failure. Fortunately, we still have optimism. Let us give thanks for what we can still do to try in the Middle East the key that brought peace in Europe. There is still time to avoid the ruins of war. Let us give thanks that although disappointed, we still have endless blessings ourselves, and we can still share them with those around the world nnd at home who need our help. Every year brings new problems and new opportunities. Though disappointed by lost opportunities of the past year, we must recognize our good fortune in what we have ourselves and in what we can do between now and next Thanksgiving for our country and our world. ---
AP900630-0110 	X	A former KGB counterintelligence chief has been stripped of his military rank and decortions after telling foreign and Soviet media that the spy agency should be abolished, Tass said Saturday. Oleg Kalugin, a major-general and top spy in the United States during the 1960s, said in interviews two weeks ago that he was hounded out of the KGB because of his reformist political views. Kalugin, 55, spoke to foreign and Soviet journalists and appeared on Soviet television saying the KGB had too much power and should be disbanded. ``By decision of the president of the U.S.S.R., at the request of the KGB, Oleg Kalugin was deprived of all state decorations for actions compromising the honor and dignity of the state security organs,'' the state news agency said. ``By decision of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., he was deprived of his military rank of major-general (reserve) for the same actions,'' it said. Tass said he also was stripped of all departmental decorations. Kalugin said KGB agents are still tapping telephones, infiltrating the Russian Orthodox Church and labor unions, and carrying out other actions. Kalugin, a member of the Democratic Platform reform movement, said he was drummed out of the intelligence agency this year after being demoted to reserve status because of his reformist leanings. Kalugin said he was seeking publicity, not only to speak out on political issues, but partly to protect himself from repercussions for his reformist views. ``The KGB has too much political power, and this way will remain a threat to democracy,'' he said. ``I would abolish the KGB as such.'' The KGB said in a news release Kalugin was trying to launch a political career and was using the domestic and foreign media to become a public figure. ``Kalugin's personality is well known to us. His pronouncements, with gross distortions and hostile remarks about the activity of the present state security agencies, logically follow from his acts and conduct during his work with the KGB agencies,'' the KGB said. The former agent, who speaks English well, said he worked as an spy in the United States from 1958-70, first under the cover of a Radio Moscow correspondent, then as a first secretary in the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Kalugin said he returned to the foreign counterintelligence department in Moscow, and led it for seven years before he was demoted for speaking out in favor of reforms.
AP900319-0174 	X	A woman who once claimed she was David Letterman's wife was charged Monday with breaking into the talk-show host's home for a sixth time _ two days after her release from prison for an earlier break-in. Margaret Ray, 37, of Crawford, Colo., was arrested at 12:46 a.m. Monday and charged with first-degree trespassing when she was found near the tennis court on Letterman's property, said police Sgt. Nick Warren. Letterman called to report seeing her in the hallway of his home, Warren said. Warren said Ray had also been there the day before. Letterman had called Sunday to report a broken window, and when police went to investigate, they found her in the house, escorted her off the property and warned her not to come back. Ray was held overnight on $1,000 bond and taken to Norwalk Superior Court on Monday afternoon, where a psychiatric evaluation was ordered, said a spokeswoman in the public defender's office. Ray was taken to the Niantic State Prison for women and is due back in court April 4. It was Ray's sixth arrest in two years for bothering the host of NBC's ``Late Night with David Letterman.'' She was released last Friday from the Niantic prison, where she had served seven months of a nine-month sentence for trespassing at his home last August, said William Flower, a Department of Correction spokesman. An NBC publicist, Rosemary Keenan, said Letterman had no comment on the arrest. Ray, who last year described Letterman as the ``dominant figure in my life,'' was first arrested in May 1988, when she was stopped driving his Porsche near the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City. She identified herself as Mrs. Letterman and her son as David Jr. when she was unable to pay the $3 toll. Authorities said she took the car after breaking into his house and setting up housekeeping. Letterman initially declined to press charges, but she was charged with trespassing when she returned a second time. Ray was arrested again on Feb. 24, 1989, and four days later when she was found again on the property. She pleaded guilty in June and was sentenced to three years' probation, to be served in Colorado. But police nabbed her a fifth time on Aug. 24. The following day, she was sentenced to nine months in Niantic for violating her probation.
AP900630-0063 	X	Many Communist Party congresses have come at historic junctures and indicated the road the Soviet Union would follow. Here is a look at some that preceded the 28th, which begins Monday: 1st, 1898 _ Emigre Russian Marxists met in Minsk, capital of Byelorussia, and formed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, forerunner of the Communist Party. 2nd, 1903 _ In Brussels, Belgium, Vladimir I. Lenin pushed through his party program and charter and asserted tight personal control over party affairs. The party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. 7th, 1918 _ The Bolsheviks, now in power, met in Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg and later to be named Leningrad. 10th, 1921 _ At the first party congress in Moscow, site of all future congresses, factions were banned and freedom of opinion limited. It marked the beginning of the New Economic Policy, which allowed some private enterprise. 11th, 1922 _ Josef Stalin became head of the party. 12th, 1923 _ With Lenin seriously ill, Stalin stepped up his campaign against Leon Trotsky and other rivals. 14th, 1925 _ Stalin, now in charge, began his crash industrialization program. 15th, 1927 _ This congress set the stage for the sweeping collectivization of agriculture Stalin ordered two years later. Millions of people died from famine. 17th, 1934 _ The ``Congress of Victors'' showed signs of moderation from Stalin's radical course, but was followed by purges in which millions of people were killed. 20th, 1956 _ Nikita S. Khrushchev, in a secret speech, exposed many of the evils of Stalin's reign and began ``destalinization.'' 25th, 1976 _ The congress was considered the height of what now is called Leonid I. Brezhnev's ``stagnation period.'' 27th, 1986 _ Mikhail S. Gorbachev laid out his program for ``perestroika,'' to democratize the political system and introduce modest economic reform.
AP901225-0047 	X	By this point on the political calendar, New Hampshire's campaign veterans are accustomed to seeing would-be presidential nominees at work in the first primary state, in person or by proxy. But a year before first primary of the next presidential election campaign, nothing is stirring. A few potential candidates visited in 1989 and early 1990, but not one candidate or campaign worker has set up shop in what should be prime time to prepare for 1992. ``It's been amazingly quiet,'' says Dennis Murphy, chairman of Illinois Sen. Paul Simon's 1988 primary campaign. ``I haven't heard from anyone, haven't talked to anyone even remotely representing a presidential candidate.'' By contrast, Democrats Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona governor, and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, the House majority leader from Missouri, campaigned in New Hampshire two years before the 1988 primary. Other candidates, including then-Vice President George Bush, had campaign workers in the state at this time in 1986. Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, the eventual nominees, won their party primaries here in 1988. Since the current primary system was instituted, no president has been elected without winning in New Hampshire first. In Iowa, site of the first presidential caucus, the political scene is equally quiet. What's the story? Some say candidates have abandoned long primary campaigns because they are too grueling, can lead to burnout, and have turned off many voters. They also point to Gephardt, who withdrew before the national convention in 1988, as evidence that candidates who get the jump on their competition often end up losing anyway. Others say candidates don't want to tip their hands too early. ``After even one trip here, no one can say anything on their minds anymore because it will be viewed as being motivated by presidential politics,'' says Ned Helms, the state Democratic chairman. Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia recently turned down an invitation to speak in New Hampshire in February. ``I am not ready to have everyone in the country say that Sam Nunn has decided to run for president,'' he explained. The 1988 primary was for an open presidential race, with Ronald Reagan retiring. Bush will be up for re-election in 1992. State Republican Chairwoman Rhona Charbonneau said Gov. Mario Cuomo's narrowed margin in a three-way New York election, and Sen. Bill Bradley's close call victory in New Jersey hurt two of the Democrats' most appealing potential candidates. Other Democrats mentioned as possible entries include Nunn; Sens. Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, Lloyd M. Bentsen of Texas, Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska; Govs. Douglas Wilder of Virginia and Richard Celeste of Ohio; and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The speculation about a possible conservative challenge to Bush in a Republican primary comes up short of likely candidates. Former Delaware Gov. Pete du Pont has set up a political action committee, but he quickly told a New Hampshire newspaper that it wasn't to finance a second presidential bid. Du Pont ran in 1988. He said his Committee for Republican Leadership is to fight tax increases, not to launch a presidential bid. Thomas Rath, who led Sen. Bob Dole's 1988 New Hampshire primary effort, says Bush's enormous popularity for most of his first term, and the Persian Gulf crisis, are reasons for the political inactivity. ``For an extended period of time Bush's numbers were so high, they maybe scared off challengers,'' Rath says. ``And the Middle East has had a big impact. I don't think anyone wants to look like they're using it for their own political gain.'' Some welcome the change from two-year primary campaigns. `I'm not disappointed at all,'' Murphy says. ``I've never been a fan of the first-in-the-nation primary. What happens in the statehouse is much more important.'' Mary Chambers, Democratic leader of the New Hampshire House, also believes less is better in primary elections. ``Nobody is even thinking about it - they're too busy with other things,'' she says. ``They are going to stay (in Washington) and take care of business as long as it's so questionable about what will happen in the Middle East.''
AP900817-0136 	X	Disruptive children can cause parents to drink more, a Florida State University study released Friday shows. ``I'm not suggesting we blame children for the alcoholism of their parents, because those who grow up in alcoholic homes have suffered enough already,'' said Dr. Alan Lang, an associate professor of psychology at Florida State. ``Nonetheless, particularly difficult children can cause distress for parents and, in some cases, this may contribute to increased alcohol use.'' Contrary to the teachings of self-help groups, who place the onus on parents and tell children of alcoholics they aren't to blame, the Florida State study may provide the first documented evidence that children actually can cause their parents to drink more. Lang teamed with Dr. William Pelham of the University of Pittsburgh to conduct the research. ``Our studies show how the destructive role of alcohol in parent-child interactions is a two-way street,'' Lang said. ``Problem drinkers make poor parents, but problem children may also drive parents to drink.'' He said the findings are similar to those of studies that show children who are mentally retarded or have serious behavioral problems are abused more often than normal, obedient children. ``The point is that while we usually think of parents as influencers of children, children can affect parents as well,'' Lang said. ``And the outcome is not always favorable.'' Dr. Robin Room, scientific director of the Alchohol Research Group of the Medical Research Institute of San Francisco, wasn't surprised by the findings but said it was important to look into the cause of drinking among parents, ``rather than give in to the bumper sticker-type humor that says children cause their parents to drink. ``It's important to understand that parental drinking patterns can later influence their children's drinking patterns,'' Room said. The Florida researchers, under a grant from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, asked 120 parents with 5-to-12-year-old sons to interact with an unfamiliar boy of a similar age. The parents were then given an opportunity to drink as much or as little alcohol as they wanted, while anticipating a second interaction with the same child. Half of the parents in the study had difficult children of their own with short attention spans, hyperactivity, conduct disorders, or some combination of the three. The other half had only children without behavior disorders. But the researchers stacked the deck. Half the parents had initially interacted with boys who behaved normally, while half had faced boys trained by the researchers to behave in an overactive and disruptive way. Among parents of normal children, those who interacted with disruptive boys drank one-third more than those who interacted with a cooperative child. ``I feel justified in suggesting that these results indicate that drinking is a parental behavior that can be influenced by the characteristics and behaviors of children,'' Lang said. Parents with disruptive children at home responded differently to the study, however, depending on the drinking patterns of their own parents. Those who had a family history of drinking problems drank 50 percent more after interacting with a deviant child-actor, while those with no such family history drank less. ``This suggests that people differ in their vulnerability to increased drinking in response to the stress of interactions with a difficult child,'' Lang said.
AP900118-0284 	X	Wheat futures prices dropped and cattle futures climbed Thursday as an intense winter storm system muscled into the Southern Plains, bringing badly needed moisture to the winter wheat crop and slowing livestock marketings. On other commodity markets Thursday, orange juice futures fell sharply; most energy futures rose; and precious metals retreated. Meteorologist Harvey Freese of Freese-Notis Weather Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa, said the winter storm was likely to bring the largest snowfall amounts in two years to the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. Snow amounts of up to five inches were already reported in Texas on Thursday afternoon and the precipitation was expected to continue into Saturday, Freese said. Snow and rain was expected to spread over a wide area, including western Kansas and western Nebraska, before the system pushes north and east into the Midwest. The heavy downfall will help relieve the unusally dry conditions that have prevailed in winter wheat country since late autumn. ``This is the biggest rain event since September,'' said Katharina Zimmer, a grain-market analyst with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Inc. ``They are likely to get as much snow today, tonight and tomorrow as they usually get in January or February,'' Wheat futures settled 1{ cents to 3\ cents lower on the Chicago Board of Trade with the contract for delivery in March at $3.97} a bushel, its lowest close since Sept. 28. Corn futures finished { cent to 1} cents higher with March at $2.42 a bushel; oats were { cent to 1{ cents lower with March at $1.38\ a bushel; soybeans were 1} cents to 3{ cents higher with January at $5.60} a bushel. Expectations for a storm-related slowdown in cattle marketings helped to boost live cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where contracts for February and April delivery posted new life-of-contract highs. Live cattle settled .05 cent to .58 cent higher with February at 78.80 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .15 cent lower to .20 cent higher with January at 83.77 cents a pound; live hogs were .18 cent lower to .30 cent higher with February at 49.60 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies finished 1.35 cents lower to .08 cent higher with February at 55.52 cents a pound. Orange juice futures plunged on the New York Cotton Exchange amid profit-taking by speculators who participated in the market's spectacular 60 percent runup following the Christmas freeze in Florida's citrus belt. ``It's about time we have a correction after a 75-cent move'' to $2 a pound, said analyst Celeste Georkakis of Cargill Investor Services Inc. Frozen concentrated orange juice futures finished 1.7 cents to 5.5 cents lower with January at $1.907 a pound. Petroleum futures ended mixed in volatile trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange as crude and heating oil bounced back from Wednesday's losses. West Texas Intermediate crude oil settled 6 cents to 66 cents higher with February at $22.76 a barrel; heating oil was .56 cent to 1.32 cents higher with February at 61.84 cents a gallon; unleaded gasoline was .71 cent lower to .91 cent higher with February at 60.71 cents a gallon. Gold and silver futures sank on selling that analysts attributed to abundant silver supplies and perceptions of an industrial slowdown, which would reduce demand for silver in industrial applications. Gold settled $1.80 to $2.50 lower with February at $411.20 a troy ounce; silver was 5.4 cents to 6.8 cents lower with March at $5.24 a troy ounce.
AP880923-0148 	X	Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., said Thursday that a Taiwan court has found a book company in that country and two of its officials guilty of pirating Britannica's published works. In a statement, the Chicago-based Britannica said the Criminal Division of the Taipei District Court returned guilty verdicts Tuesday against the Tan Ching Book Company, its president, Tu Chich-hsiang and its chairman, Chang Yu-ping, for pirating the 10-volume Concise Encyclopaedia Britannica. The CEB, first published in Beijing, is a condensed Chinese translation of Britannica's Micropaedia, the ready-reference section of Encyclopaedia Britannica's 15th Edition, the company said. Tu and Chang each was sentenced to one year in prison and fined, Britannica said. ``We are gratified that the Taiwan court has upheld Britannica's ownership rights and respected its copyright by enforcing Taiwan law,'' said Frank Gibney, vice president of Britannica's Board of Editors, in the statement. ``This is a great step forward in protecting intellectual property rights on an international level throughout the Pacific Basin,'' he said. Last year, the company charged the Tan Ching Book Company with producing an unauthorized Chinese-language edition of the Britannica. The publisher not only refused to stop production, but advertised the edition heavily in Taiwan newspapers, Britannica said. Britannica filed a complaint against Tan Ching in February, and Taiwan police conducted a raid in which more than 56,000 bindings and thousands of complete volumes of a pirated verision of the Chinese-language CEB were seized. Britannica reached agreement in late 1987 with Chung Hwa Book Company of Taipei to publish the authorized version of the CEB in Taiwan, the company said, and Chung Hwa already has issued five volumes of the 20-volume CEB.
AP880527-0158 	X	Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will hold a news conference during his summit next week with President Reagan, a Soviet source said Friday. It would be the first time that a general secretary of the Communist Party submitted to such a session in the Soviet capital. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gorbachev's news conference would be on Wednesday, the same day that Reagan plans to take questions from the media. A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that no general secretary has held a general news conference in the Soviet capital in the past, but said he could not confirm the date that Gorbachev plans to face reporters. Gorbachebroad range of questions from reporters during his trips abroad, holding news conferences at the conclusion of his summits witv has fielded a h Reagan in Geneva, Reykjavik and Washington. The Soviet leader also has given a handful of private interviews to foreign reporters since he became Kremlin boss in March 1985. The Foreign Ministry spokesman, who did not want to be identified, said information about Gorbachev's summit schedule would be made public at a later date. On Thursday, Nikolai Shishlin, deputy head of the Central Committee's information department, was asked at a news conference wheteral owns a number of daily and weekly newspapers, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader, as well as several television stations and cable television operations.
AP880707-0148 	X	A grieving Indian man went from corpse to corpse, searching for five relatives in the dimly lit refrigerated warehouse used as a morgue for victims from the Iran Air jetliner downed by U.S. Navy missile fire. Iranian guides removed the lids from rough wooden coffins and unwrapped the plastic from around several bodies to display the corpses, many of them mutilated by the crash. ``Its a terrible thing that the superpower has done,'' said the weeping Indian to a group of Western journalists. He would give his name only as Farid. While morgue employees were preparing the bodies of at least 38 foreign victims to be returned home, those of most of the Iranian victims were flown to Tehran for a mass funeral Thursday. In Tehran, tens of thousands of people lined up behind the coffins, which were draped with Iranian flags and borne on pallbearers' shoulders to Martyrs' Cemetery. The streets reverberated with cries of ``Revenge, revenge!'' and ``Death to America!'' as the cortege wound through the city. To visit the morgue, reporters flew to Iran from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down Sunday while flying in the opposite direction. Several guides wore handkerchiefs around their faces to keep out the stench of death in the makeshift morgue. The refrigerators of the Mostaan Cold Storage Depot, which held 100 bodies, could not totally conceal the odor. As reporters talked with the Iranians, Farid looked at the face of each body. He finally discovered those of his sister and brother-in-law. He sobbed as he touched their faces and arms.
AP881007-0107 	X	A teen-ager who required 110 stitches after a shark attack in southeastern Australia said Friday that his surfing days are over. Murray Taylor, 15, said the ``huge shark'' dragged him from his surfboard and bit him repeatedly. Murray said he escaped by punching the shark on the nose and trying to gouge its eyes. The attack occurred Thursday at Moana Beach, 30 miles south of Adelaide. ``When he reached the shore he actually walked up the beach on his own,'' said Murray's mother, Wendy Richardson. ``Murray said he wasn't sure how big the shark was, but he said its head was at least a foot wide.'' The teen-ager was recuperating at Flinders Medical Center in Adelaide.
AP900418-0260 	X	For an image-obsessed outfit like the Walt Disney Co., the soiled Mickey Mouse disposable diapers scattered throughout garbage dumps don't exactly proclaim environmental activism. MCA Inc. is making points with a company recycling program and earth-friendly television shows, movies, videos and records. But some critics say the entertainment conglomerate is mismanaging Yosemite National Park, which an MCA subsidiary oversees. Industrial giants from Exxon Corp. to Union Carbide Corp. present fat targets for environmentalists. But the reach of the green movement has grown so much that even Disney and MCA, home of such squeaky clean characters as Snow White and E.T., now must answer to the ecological accountants. Not long ago, the world looked to Hollywood for escapism. In recent years, however, public pressure has led the entertainment industry to reexamine its depiction of alcohol abuse, violence toward women, birth control and bigotry. Now that the environment has become the hot issue, Hollywood once again is trying to set an example. NBC's ``ALF'' is among the most environmentally conscious TV shows. One recent episode had the furry alien battling chlorofluorocarbon polluters. NBC distributed note pads of recycled paper to advertise the show. The episode reflected well on NBC and its parent, General Electric Co. But GE isn't ranked too highly by environmental groups. At GE's annual meeting April 25, for example, shareholder activists have resolutions on the agenda urging the company to devise a plan to stop producing hazardous wastes and cut its own chlorofluorocarbon pollution. These days, the entertainment industry is not content generating ecological programs, such as The Disney Channel's presentation this month of anti-pollution shows. Instead, many Hollywood companies are practicing their own environmentalism. Disney and MCA, for example, say they're motivated by genuine concern. ``We're not out to publicize our efforts,'' said Garrett De Bell, MCA's environmental consultant. Last month Disney appointed a new environmental czar, Kym Murphy, who reports directly to company chieftains Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, and says they realize ``the amazing responsibility we have.'' ``Our ability to influence is remarkable, and the perception people have of us is really hard to live up to,'' Murphy said. Has Disney done so? Not entirely, he acknowledged. ``I think if you ask people, `Does Disney recycle,' they would say, `Gee, they must if anybody does.' '' In fact, Disney does not. Disney is anxious to start a better program, he said. One of Murphy's first chores was contacting the Procter & Gamble Co., which buys licenses rights to print little Disney characters on the adhesive strips that hold Disney Babies disposable diapers to infant bottoms. Disposable diapers are among the fastest-growing components of landfill rubbish. About 16 billion are dumped each year. Environmentalists say they can take decades to decompose. Murphy said Procter & Gamble researchers are ``pulling out all the stops'' to make their products more environmentally safe. His other chief environmental headache has been Disney's quasi-city government that exercises near-total power over 27,000 acres surrounding the company's Florida operations, home of Walt Disney World and other fun parks. For the past two years, Disney has come under heavy criticism from some local community leaders who say it doesn't pay the environmental costs generated by millions of tourists. Disney finally agreed to pay $14 million in additional property taxes, but then angered locals even more by announcing construction of seven more hotels, 29 new attractions, a fourth amusement park and 19,000 more workers. ``They can go out there and pave over anything they want to do without going through any kind of environmental review,'' said Bill Donegan, an Orange County, Fla. commissioner who'ss led an effort to make Disney more accountable. ``We don't know the real impact environmentally. We don't know how many woodpeckers' nests have been destroyed, how many eagles, how many ospreys.'' MCA has been trumpeting its attention to the environment, both on the Universal Studios lot and in film and TV. At MCA offices in Universal City, the company began a company-wide recycling program using containers decorated with a Woody Woodpecker logo. The staff at MCA subsidiary Universal Television met last fall with representatives of the Environmental Media Association, an organization that promotes earth-friendly messages in the entertainment industry. Andy Spahn, EMA director, said producers asked how recycling themes could be incorporated into storylines. ``This is not a problem that can be solved by government action alone,'' he said. ``Through film, television and music, the industry is in a unique position to reach millions of people and show them they can make a difference.'' Others say the real test of a company's commitment to the environment is not whether it makes shows about recycling. More important, they say, is whether a company's decisions do more for the planet than for profits. ``High profile companies cannot change the world single-handedly, but they can set an example,'' said Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways and a long-time environmental activist. ``It's so often people will talk about causes without doing something that actually affects themselves or their business,'' said Branson. Sleeves for Virgin's records (artists include Paula Abdul, Soul II Soul) are recycled paper. Virgin Atlantic says it will plant a tree for every passenger flying between London and Los Angeles in the next 12 months. At the Hard Rock Cafe chain, employees sort waste paper and beverage bottles, said founder Peter Morton. ``We're not suddenly converts to the environmental movement now that it's fashionable,'' he said, noting that the phrase ``Save the Planet'' has been part of the company's logo for 10 years. Despite earning millions of dollars at Yosemite on a concession fee of $600,000, MCA's Yosemite Park and Curry Co. is as committed to the park as it is to shareholders, the company says. Environmental consultant De Bell, who lives in Yosemite, said that when Yosemite switched from polystyrene cups to recyclable paper containers, it cost MCA about $20,000. ``We want to do good business and improve the environment as much as possible,'' De Bell said. Dan Jensen, executive vice president of MCA's Curry unit, said the subsidiary declined an offer worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from a automobile maker wanting to call itself Yosemite's official car. ``We would have been preying on the name Yosemite which is not ours to own,'' Jensen said. Environmental critics say MCA has spent too much marketing the California park and doesn't spend enough money maintaining it. De Bell said the criticisms have been blown out of proportion because ``Yosemite is a shrine of the environmental movement.''
AP900905-0004 	X	Jewish and Roman Catholic leaders from 16 countries have agreed that a major inititiative is needed to combat anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported in Thursday editions. The agreement came in Prague, Czechoslovakia, at the first formal meeting in five years of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. The four-day meeting was scheduled to end Thursday. Archbishop William H. Keeler of Baltimore told the Times the conference's closing statement would call for Catholic repentance and stress that anti-Semitism ``is a sin against God and humanity.'' It also will recognize ``the special problems of anti-Semitism in Eastern and Central Europe,'' said Rabbi Jack Bemporad, chairman of the Interreligious Affairs Office of the Synagogue Council of America. Open anti-Semitism is said to be on the rise in the region, as the fall of totalitarian Communist regimes allows people to express their views more freely. Participants at the meeting recommended that other Eastern European countries follow the lead of Poland and Czechoslovakia in setting up Catholic-Jewish liaison committees. It also urged rapid translation and dissemination of recent Vatican statements on Catholic-Jewish relations. Eastern European churches lacked either permission or resources to publish these documents. Also recommended by participants are systematic efforts rid textbooks of religiously or racially divisive material, establishment of seminary courses and training programs for priests to counter anti-Semitism, and new efforts to defend religious liberty and monitor any outbreaks of anti-Semitism. Vatican officials also reaffirmed their intention to prepare a major document on the church and the Holocaust, a project pledged in 1987 but delayed. Catholic-Jewish relations are ``back on track,'' Seymour Reich, chairman of the Jewish committee, told The Times. The Jewish committee was established in 1967 as an umbrella group for discussions with the Vatican. Its membership includes the Synagogue Council of America, B'nai Brith International and the World Jewish Congress.
AP880506-0147 	X	Convicted child-killer Arthur Gary Bishop, having fired his attorneys and abandoned appeals of his death sentence, expressed sorrow for his crimes Friday as a judge scheduled his execution June 10. Third District Judge Frank G. Noel signed the death warrant after Bishop read a brief statement explaining why he had decided to forego appeals of his convictions for the sex-related abductions and slayings of five boys from 1979 to 1983. ``In reflecting back on my life, I remember a lot of good things, but these are overshadowed by the things I have done,'' Bishop said. ``I wish I could make restitution somehow, but I don't see how I can.'' Bishop, 38, was allowed to fire his attorneys and drop appeals last month after he was found competent to decide his fate. Bishop, his hands shackled in front of him as he stood to read his hand-written statement, said his apology to his victims' families following his 1984 conviction may not have been as sincere as it should have been. Near the conclusion of the 10-minute hearing, he said he was restating his apology with ``heartfelt empathy. ... Again, I say I am truly sorry for all the anguish.'' ``I wish I could go back and change what happened, or that by giving my life these five innocent lives could be restored,'' said Bishop, his voice low but steady. Utah law provides for execution by lethal injection or firing squad. Bishop previously had indicated he preferred lethal injection. Bishop was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of sexual abuse of a minor following a six-week trial in 1984. In a confession to police, Bishop said he killed the boys, ages 4 to 13, to prevent exposure as a child molester. On Monday, the Utah Supreme Court lifted Bishop's stay of execution and remanded the case to district court for the setting of the execution date. Should Bishop change his mind about seeking execution, any federal appeals must be filed by late May, three months after the Utah Supreme Court's Feb. 29 denial of a petition for rehearing filed by Bishop's former attorneys.
AP901130-0070 	X	British army reinforcements arrived in Northern Ireland today to combat an expected Christmas season terrorist campaign, the army said. The army headquarters in Northern Ireland said the extra 600 troops were being deployed to help the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the province's police force. It is the first time in four years that reinforcements have been sent to the British-run province, the army said. ``This is not a reactive measure but part of a prudent management of security force activity,'' an army spokesman said. ``They will be retained in Northern Ireland as long as it is absolutely necessary.'' The constabulary said intelligence reports indicated that both the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is mainly Roman Catholic, and Protestant paramilitary groups planned an increase in attacks in the coming weeks. A spokesman refused to say where the troops will be based, but sources said they would be spread throughout the province, increasing patrols and roadblocks. Seventy-two people have been killed in terrorist incidents in 1990, 27 of them since October. In 1989, 62 people were killed. The reinforcements bring the number of British troops in Northern Ireland to about 11,000, the Ministry of Defense said. Britain sent troops to Northern Ireland when sectarian and political violence erupted in August 1969. Since then, nearly 2,900 people have died in the violence.
AP900802-0035 	X	The Soviet Union announced today that it will stop making a rail-based mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, but did not commit itself to removing those already in place. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze made the announcement after two days of talks in this eastern Siberian city with Secretary of State James A. Baker III and before reporters had learned of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Both officials told reporters outside a guest house where they met that their 10 hours of discussions produced no major breakthroughs on what had been expected to be their main focus, the 12-year-old civil war in Afghanistan. But the announcement about the Soviet SS-24 missile indicated they had made some progress on arms control. The meeting, the 11th this year between Baker and Shevardnadze, was the most informal. The diplomats cruised the Angara River and went fishing. Shevardnadze landed a trout, but Baker came away empty-handed. Shevardnadze, standing along with Baker on a patio, said the Soviet military would cease production of the missiles on Jan. 1. He said the Soviet military would continue to deploy until 1991 ``not many'' of the missiles it has already produced. The removal of missiles already in place, he said, was a subject of negotiations between U.S. and Soviet teams in Geneva. According to the 1989 edition of the annual U.S. Defense Department publication ``Soviet Military Power,'' the Soviet Union began deploying the rail-based version of the SS-24 missile in 1987 and had about 58 of them. The SS-24 carries 10 warheads and has a range of abut 6,200 miles. Limits on mobile land-based missiles were one of the outstanding issues in START talks on slashing the superpowers' stockpiles of long-range nuclear weapons. Other bigger sticking points in the negotiations are curbs on modernizing the Soviet Union's biggest strategic missile, the SS-18, and the Backfire bomber, and on transfers of missiles to third countries. Shevardnadze did not say why the Soviet Union was taking the step, but the Kremlin is under pressure to cut its defense budget so it can spend the money on solving chronic economic problems. ``We welcome the announcement,'' Baker said before flying to Mongolia for the last stop on his four-nation Asian tour. He added, however, that ``It doesn't at this point, at least, change our negotiating position in START.'' U.S. officials indicated earlier this year that they might offer to give up plans for a rail-based MX missile if the Soviets give up the SS-24. Baker and Shevardnadze discussed the war in Afghanistan on Wednesday night and this morning, but the Soviet envoy told reporters, ``I cannot say we can report any kind of breakthrough on Afghanistan.'' The Soviets arm the Afghan government, while the Americans supply the guerrillas fighting it with military aid. Baker told reporters there were two main stumbling blocks to a settlement: _The makeup of a commission to ensure ``free and fair'' elections. _Which powers the current government, headed by pro-Soviet President Najibullah, might transfer to an interim government during elections so candidates are ensured a ``fair shake.'' Baker said Soviet and American experts will try to resolve differences over these points when they meet in Washington. He did not say when the meeting would take place. U.S. and Soviet officials reportedly have been working on a plan for Najibullah to hand over some power to a council of Afghan forces as a run-up to a nationwide election. The composition of the council is now in dispute. U.S.-backed Afghan rebels disagree about who should be on the council. Baker alluded to that at the news conference. ``We are moving closer together on Afghanistan. Having said that, I don't think you should take that to mean necessarily that those whose interests we have been allied with in the past are necessarily moving together,'' he said. In three meetings, including one Wednesday night in a river-side fishing lodge in the Siberian wilderness, Baker and Shevardnadze also discussed preparations for a third summit meeting between Bush and Gorbachev. Shevardnadze said not date had been decided for the summit, but that it would be held in Moscow. He also announced that Baker, U.S. Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher and leading American businessmen would travel to Moscow in September for talks on U.S.-Soviet economic cooperation. Baker indicated this primarily would involve ways of stimulating U.S. business investment in the Soviet Union, in dire need of Western help to cure its ailing economy. A Soviet source said that during their Wednesday morning meeting, Shevardnadze gave Baker a 15-page outline of areas for economic and scientific cooperation. The envoys meet next in Moscow on Sept. 12.
AP880718-0051 	X	The government-besieged Teamsters union is celebrating an end to its 32-year marriage of convenience with Republican presidential candidates, and has chosen to dance with a new partner at the Democratic National Convention. Even though the union's new president is an Irish Catholic Bostonian who supported Michael Dukakis' opponents in previous elections, the Teamsters hosted a party here Sunday night symbolizing a return to the labor movement's half-century courtship with Democrats. William J. McCarthy's upset election last week to succeed the late Jackie Presser as the Teamsters' president had cast doubts among some union leaders that organized labor could unite behind the Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since 1956. McCarthy, 69, had supported Edward King in both his 1978 upset of the incumbent Dukakis for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts and had opposed Dukakis' successful challenge of King four years later. ``That sort of personalizes it,'' one official of another union commented. McCarthy is known among other labor leaders to have opposed the Teamsters' reaffiliation with the AFL-CIO last October. Implicit in the reunion was an understanding that the Teamsters would go along with the labor federation's Democratic presidential endorsement. Commanding a fourth of the delegates at this week's convention, labor leaders have openly wondered whether the new Teamsters chief would abide by Presser's promise to work with the rest of labor ``to create the biggest political giant this country has ever seen.'' With the largest political campaign chest of any group in the country, the question is not academic. At the end of March, the Teamsters' DRIVE (Democratic, Republican, Independent Voter Education) political action committee had $5.5 million _ $1.5 million more than the American Medical Association and $1.8 million more than the National Association of Realtors. Teamster political operatives sought to assure more than a dozen presidents of other unions here Sunday that McCarthy's upset election last Friday over Dukakis supporter Weldon Mathis, Presser's designated heir, will not return the union to the GOP camp. ``There's about as much chance of us endorsing George Bush as there is it snowing in Atlanta tomorrow,'' said one senior Teamster official. The Teamsters generally had courted Republican presidential candidates ever since Dwight Eisenhower's bid for re-election in 1956. Presser had been the only major labor leader in the country to support Ronald Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 elections, saying then the AFL-CIO was out of touch with workers in its endorsements of Democrats Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. But Presser, who died July 9, began grumbling about the Reagan administration more the four years ago, first over its appointees to the National Labor Relations Board and then over his indictment in 1986 on labor racketeering and embezzlement charges. The final straw, according to Teamster officials, was the government's suit to wrest control of the union from its leaders on a claim they are puppets of organized crime. McCarthy was notably absent from Sunday's reception. Teamsters and other labor leaders said that is characteristic of the low priority he places on national presidential politics. Upon taking over the union's reins last Friday, McCarthy said he would have no comment on a Teamsters presidential endorsement ``until after both conventions, Democratic and Republican'' _ the same position taken officially by the AFL-CIO. But a Teamster official noted that, despite his endorsement of Dukakis' opponent in Massachusetts gubernatorial races, McCarthy had served on the governor's labor-management council. And a senior AFL-CIO official acknowledged that the Teamsters were not alone in abandoning Dukakis at the end of his first time as Massachusetts' governor. ``About half the labor movement was against him then,'' the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. ``He messed up his first term.'' Another Teamster official also noted that Dukakis _ although he was the last of the Democratic presidential candidates to do so _ had spoken against a Justice Department suit to take over the 1.6-million-member union on a claim its leaders are puppets of organized crime. ``George Bush is the only candidate out there now who has not spoken against the suit,'' said Tim O'Neill, a spokesman for the union. Asked if the Teamsters planned a similar reception at the GOP convention next month in New Orleans, another official commented coldly: ``We see no reason to be there.''
AP881020-0093 	X	The failure of the world's second-largest diamond to sell at auction is no indication that the diamond market is weakening, officials at Christie's auction house said. The flawless golden-hued diamond, weighing 407.48 carats and the size of an egg, was withdrawn from the auction block by its owners Wednesday after they rejected a record bid of $12 million, officials said. It was the second time in as many days that a precious stone expected to sell for a record amount was pulled off the block. On Tuesday, Sotheby's was forced to withdraw the 48-carat royal red Mandalay Ruby, which carried a pre-sale estimate of $15 million, when a high bid of $7.6 million was rejected as insufficient by the gem's owner. The giant diamond was offered for sale by New York jewelry dealers Marvin Samuels and Louis Glick and the Zale Corp., a Dallas-based jewelry retail chain. Zale purchased it as an uncut 890-carat stone in August 1984. The $12 million bid, the highest ever at an auction for a gem, was made by Theodore Horovitz, a Geneva-based jeweler, according to Christie's. ``The fact that the diamond didn't find a buyer is no reflection on the state of the diamond market, which is extremely strong,'' Francis Curiel, head of Christie's jewelry department, said in a statement. The gem was described as the largest ever offered at a public auction. It is second in size only to the 530.20-carat Cullinan I, which is set in Britain's Imperial Sceptre as part of the Crown Jewels. Christie's had resisted estimating how much the diamond would bring, although Curiel noted that an 85.91-carat white diamond was auctioned April 19 for $9.31 million _ a record for any gem.
AP900118-0043 	X	Efforts to reshape South Korea's faction-ridden politics took a new turn today when President Roh Tae-woo's governing party indicated it would dissolve itself to form a new ``grand'' conservative party. The move by the governing Democratic Justice Party, coupled with strenuous efforts by the two centrist opposition parties to merge, made the country's political picture complex. ``We will actively respond to moves by the two opposition parties to merge,'' said the governing party's secretary general, Park Jun-byung. Another Democratic Justice official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, ``It is possible that we would consider forming a new pan-national, centrist party representing all democratic groups.'' If the new conservative party is formed, the governing party could be folded and its leader, Roh, would give up party membership and stay neutral, the same official said. Kim Young-sam, head of the No. 2 opposition group, said today that he would firm up plans next month to merge his Reunification Democratic Party with the No. 3 opposition group, the New Democratic Republican Party, led by former premier Kim Jong-pil. The two opposition leaders earlier agreed in principle to merge their parties possibly before local elections, scheduled in the first half of this year. ``It would not be a simple merger of two parties. The new party to be born would be a central force comprising all conservative groups,'' Kim Young-sam told reporters. Kim said his ultimate goal is to make the present four-party system into a bipartisan setup. If the two parties merge, it would become the largest opposition group, replacing Kim Dae-jung's Party for Peace and Democracy. The emergence of a centrist opposition party would be welcome news for the governing party, which has been trying to isolate and discredit Kim Dae-jung's liberal, pro-reform party. Kim Dae-jung, holding a news conference today, vehemently opposed the planned merger by his opposition rivals, contending an artificial restructuring of the present four-party system would only benefit Roh's governing party. He said the government camp would try to use the planned opposition merger to seek a conservative alliance, through which it would try to remain in power beyond 1993, when Roh steps down at the end of a single five-year term. Many politicians believe the government camp also favors a political realignment that would enable it to hold onto power as Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party does. If its plan to merge or seek alliance with opposition moderates is successful, the government camp, assured of enough votes in the Assembly, would propose a constitutional amendemnt to change the present presidential system into a Cabinet setup headed by a prime minister, they said. The governing party, with 127 seats in the Assembly, is currently far short of a two-third majority required for a constitutional amendment. South Korea's politics are currently controlled by four main parties, neither of which has a controling majority in the 299-member National Assembly. The three main opposition parties have a combined majority in the single house but intense rivalry makes it difficult for them to cooperate. At his news conference, Kim Dae-jung said he would try to rally support from ``centrist democratic forces'' to counter moves by his rivals to merge or seek alliance. However, his proposal lacked details. He also reiterated that his party would, if the government endorses the plan, send delegates to communist North Korea in the first half of this year to discuss national unification. If the dispatch of the party delegation is proven successful, Kim said he would visit Pyongyang with government approval to meet with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung He said President Roh responded favorably when he raised the issue last week. But presidential and government officials said the opposition plan to send delegates to the north was premature.
AP880414-0036 	X	Here is a chronology of major developments in the story involving Attorney General Edwin Meese's wife, Ursula, and the Bender real estate transaction. Aug. 8, 1984: Congress approves a Reagan administration plan to move some Justice Department workers from the Chester Arthur Building and to give up 37 percent of its space when the lease expires in March 1986. March 1, 1985: Howard Bender, a Washington real estate developer, heads a partnership which completes purchase of the Chester Arthur Building for $37.5 million, nearly twice the assessed value and three times its purchase price about five years earlier. June 6, 1985: The administration notifies Congress the Justice Department intends to stay in the Chester Arthur Building, instead of moving out some employees. June 1985: Officials of the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service, the major tenant in the building, forward complaints to the General Services Administration _ the government's housekeeper _ that the building's air system is causing illness among workers. Fall 1985: Officials at WWDC, a rock-and-roll radio station owned by the Bender family, offer Attorney General Edwin Meese's wife, Ursula, a position as a public affairs commentator. She declines the offer. Sept. 26, 1985: Assistant immigration commissioner James Kennedy formally requests an environmental inspection of the air system at Chester Arthur. October 1985: The Bender Foundation, a family-owned philanthropy, makes known that it is willing to donate money to pay Ursula Meese as a development director of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, where she has been a volunteer. Howard Bender's wife, Sondra, is president of the foundation and serves on the MS society board. Jan. 1, 1986: Mrs. Meese begins a $40,000-a-year job, under the Bender Foundation's three-year grant. July 2, 1986: Environmental inspectors report ``many offices in the Chester Arthur Building which exhibited high complaint rates and above-average sick leave occurences contained viable aero-allergens in concentrations which could easily produce these effects.'' May 14, 1987: The GSA signs a $50 million, 10-year lease for Justice Department workers to stay in the Chester Arthur Building after the Bender partnership promises to clean the air system. The rent jumps more than three-fold. May 27, 1987: The partnership headed by Howard Bender sells the Chester Arthur Building for $60.1 million cash _ a $22.7 million profit over two years _ to an Illinois-based partnership.
AP900628-0235 	X	President Bush on Thursday hailed a trade reform agreement with Japan as ``an important framework'' for reducing the $49 billion U.S. trade deficit with Tokyo. The president said he welcomed the joint report Thursday by U.S. and Japanese negotiators in Tokyo. In it the two countries identified internal economic practices that hinder open trade, took corrective actions, and ``made commitments to take further steps to resolve a wide range of structural problems,'' Bush said in a written statement. ``We expect that the structural policy actions to be taken will have a positive effect on our economies, encouraging open and competitive markets, promoting sustained world economic growth, contributing to a reduction in global payments imbalance, and enhancing the quality of life in both Japan and the United States,'' he said. Further, the president said in the statement, the U.S.-Japan agreement will benefit ``the entire world.'' Bush was expected to discuss the matter further on Saturday when he meets with Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu in Houston where both are attending the economic summit of industrialized nations. The agreement Thursday emerged from a series of complex negotiations called the Structural Impediments Initiative, or SII, involving the removal of barriers to open trading. The joint report in Tokyo followed Bush's acknowledgment this week that new taxes may be needed to reduce the U.S. federal deficit, a key factor in getting the agreement, officials said. The announcement that the president would consider such taxes was followed by a Japanese compromise Wednesday to increase planned public works spending. That might help reduce the trade imbalance by increasing sales of U.S. products and construction services in Japan and soaking up some excess Japanese savings and investment funds. ``As Japan tackles its structural problems,'' Bush said in his statement, ``so must the United States.'' The president said he wants to work closely with Congress in the ongoing budget negotiations to strengthen public and private savings and lower the deficit. ``Both our governments recognize that further effort will be necessary in order to address fully these structural problems and to maintain the momentum of our adjustment efforts,'' Bush said. Bush lauded Kaifu for his personal efforts in fashioning the agreement and for ``strong and courageous political leadership.''
AP900115-0195 	X	``Halloween 5 _ The Revenge of Michael Myers'' (CBS-Fox Home Video. VHS-Beta. Rated R. For rental market.) This is a really inferior film. Like others of the teen-age slice-and-dice genre, ``Halloween 5'' requires a knowledge of the series to know what's going on. It never really suggests what the heck it is Michael's avenging. No great loss, for the cinematic slaughter of sexually precocious teen-agers has become as stylized as Jacobean tragedy. ``Halloween 5'' is set in the curiously empty suburb that has more than its share of nubile teen-agers with too much disposable income. It opens with a flashback of Michael being run over by a car and blown down a handy abandoned mineshaft, his chest full of buckshot from the shotguns of the never-prompt police. ``One Year Later'' the subtitle says, and we dissolve to waiflike 9-year-old Jamie, a traumatic mute and inmate of the local home for disturbed children. She is reliving the psychological domination of Michael, her uncle and, um, psychic twin, that drove her to juke her step-Mommy in the bathtub. Her visitors are perky, attractive teen-age girls who are friends or relatives or something, blithely preparing for a teen Halloween party. That's right, a Halloween party in a town that has seen so much annual slaughter on the night that anywhere else the streets would be crowded with police, National Guardsmen and reporters angling for the ``Haddonfield: One Year After Slaughter'' story. Ah, but we're not here for logic. We're here for the numbingly predictable series of false starts, cheap frights and intermittent, painstakingly overdubbed stabbings that lead up to Michael's real horror. In ``5,'' as in ``1,'' ``2,'' ``3'' and ``4,'' Michael's task is to murder teen-agers who indulge in casual sex. That's the point of this movie, kids. Make love and you die. Kiss, kiss, hack, hack, stab, chop, die. This is the 1990s, though, and the socially responsible filmmakers of ``Halloween 5'' give us this line at an intimate moment: She says, ``I didn't ... BRING ... anything ...'' and he produces a condom. ``Halloween 5'' was written by Michael Jacobs, Shem Bitterman and Dominique Othenin-Girard, and directed by Othenin-Girard. Maybe Michael could go after them in ``Halloween 6.'' What's alarming about this unfrightening, stupid teen screamer, though, is that its real heroine is a 9-year-old girl. And that means the makers of this product are relying on cable and the ubiquitous videocassette to get ``Halloween 5'' before an even younger audience. Now THAT'S scary.
AP880630-0193 	X	A British man in custody here for allegedly trying to smuggle helicopters to Iran claims federal agents turned the single sale of one aircraft into a major crime, his attorney said Thursday. Colin Breeze, 33, of Manchester, England, is charged with violating U.S. export laws by trying to secretly deliver 10 military-type Sikorsky helicopters to Iran with the help of that nation's ambassador to Spain. Customs officials also said a suspect in the case is a man said to be a member of the Spanish royal family. In Spain, the Iranian Embassy said Thursday it had no information on the case, and that Ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour was unavailable for comment. Henry M. Bugay, a public defender representing Breeze here, Thursday blamed the U.S. Customs Service for trying to turn the small-time broker into an international smuggler. ``Breeze is a fixed-wing aircraft broker who works out of his home in Manchester,'' with no expertise in helicopter sales, Bugay said. Bugay said the case began when Breeze agreed to sell one helicopter ``for tourist, sight-seeing purposes'' to Juan Perez de Guzman, whom he identified as a nephew of Spain's King Juan Carlos II. Perez de Guzman, ``said to be a relative of the King of Spain, is a major suspect in the case,'' confirmed Patrick O'Brien, head of Customs here. However a spokesman for the royal household in Madrid told The Associated Press they have no record of Perez de Guzman, and O'Brien said Customs had not established if the man was indeed a relative of the king. Bugay said that when Breeze unknowingly approached a confidential informant for the Customs service about the helicopter, the informant pushed him to expand the deal, eventually raising it to 10 helicopters with Perez de Guzman's cooperation. Breeze ``was led down the garden path,'' said Bugay. ``The original deal was concerning one single helicopter ... the whole case, we believe, borders on entrapment.'' The attorney refused to say whether Breeze knew Iran was the eventual buyer of the helicopters, but acknowledged his client understood the deal was ``bordering on a gray area.'' Customs accuses Breeze of knowingly arranging the sale of the 10 Sikorsky helicopters to a European company secretly owned by Iran, and O'Brien said investigators have tapes of many conversations about the deal. The helicopters were on sale in Jordan for $6.8 million, but the final price for the sale and delivery to Iran was to be $30 million, Customs said. Soleimanpour was to take a cut of the deal, although at the last minute he delayed the sale by trying to raise his percentage, said O'Brien. O'Brien said although Breeze was unaware of it, Customs had discovered that the deal was falling through because someone else had made a higher bid. They arrested Breeze at the Fort Lauderdale airport Tuesday because they feared he would not return to the United States when he discovered the deal was off. Breeze is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center south of Miami, and goes before a magistrate Friday for a full bond hearing.
AP880523-0008 	X	We have a pretty good idea what remarkable images Americans will see during the upcoming Moscow summit: Reagan toasted in the Kremlin, embracing dissidents and Bolsheviks, chatting with Christian monks, talking shop with Russian filmmakers. Not to mention Nancy at the Monument to the Defenders in Leningrad. To capture this presidential tour de force, there will be more American TV technicians in Moscow than spies and diplomats combined. What with the eight-hour time difference, Reagan appearances will be beamed back to the United States in plenty of time for morning newscasts. Breakfast at Wimbledon? This will be breakfast at the Hall of Facets. But what about the Soviet people? What will Gostelradio, the Soviet radio-and-television monopoly, show of the summit? Will Reagan and the refuseniks lead off Vremya (the evening news)? Already, Soviet TV has taped a interview with Reagan for broadcast on Friday. But it was a simple ``talking head'' session, 30 minutes of question-and-answer _ with none of the adventure or significance of next week's Reagan tours around Moscow. American experts believe Soviet television will broadcast excerpts from the president's address at Moscow University in the Lenin Hills, as well as ceremonial exchanges between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin. If there are agreements to be signed, the klieg lights will be set up in Vladimir's Hall. And surely there will be footage from the Bolshoi, where the Gorbachevs host the Reagans for a 90-minute ballet sampler. But will Soviet officials air highlights from the Danilov Monastery, where Reagan will discuss religious freedom with monks who work restoring Orthodox icons? How much will be broadcast from Reagan's dialogue on artistic freedom with Soviet intellectuals at the Union of Writers club? And what of the first lady's visit to Leningrad _ will she be shown touring the Hermitage, much as Raisa Gorbachev was shown on American TV touring the Smithsonian galleries? Just what images will Glasnost permit? Will Soviet television let Reagan be Reagan? `It'll be very interesting to see what they show on television the week before the summit,'' former Ambassador Arthur Hartman said last week, wondering whether Gostelradio will ``show the bum on the grate.'' Soviet TV loves to broadcast pictures of hapless vagabonds reduced to sleeping on the heat grates near the White House; it's a sad and pathetic side of the American dream and many viewers of Soviet TV probably have come to believe it's an accurate snapshot of life in America. But certainly something is afoot on the Gostelradio side of Glasnost. Just last week, Soviet TV viewers got a glance of Michael Jackson's Pepsi performance, a glimpse of a Visa card and a sales pitch for the quality of Sony TVs. Never mind that you can't get a Sony TV in the USSR. Commercials for Pepsi, Visa and Sony were aired last week in the midst of a five-part Soviet series on life in the United States. Estimated audience: 120 million people. ``I expect we might get some angry letters from people saying, `Why are you advertising Sony TVs when we can't buy any?''' TV personality Vladimir Posner said at a news conference announcing his series. To hear him tell it, the decision to air the commercials was less Glasnost than Perestroika (the Gorbachev campaign for economic reform). ``We on our part can make some money out of this, which in our day and age when we are becoming economically self-supportive and self-sufficient, also makes sense,'' Posner said. Reports in the United States said the Soviet broadcast agency Gostelradio received $10,000 for each 30-second ad. Profit motive. That's the American way.
AP900420-0031 	X	Michael Dukakis was on the receiving end of the Andreas family's generosity on May 25, 1988 _ to the tune of $8,000. The eight $1,000 donations to the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign from members of the family came just a day after nine members contributed $1,000 each to another party cause, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Those checks would barely have time to clear before the Republican Party got a $35,000 share of the Andreas family's wealth. On June 1, seven family members made $5,000 donations to the Republican National Committee. For the Andreas family, the bipartisan generosity was not at all unusual. Led by Dwayne Andreas, chairman of the grain-trading giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., family members are prolific donors to campaigns and causes associated with both major political parties, giving more than $500,000 in the past decade alone. The family's coordinated approach to campaign contributions is a textbook example of how major donors can enlist their families to broaden their political impact. Critics of the campaign finance system complain that these coordinated donations allow rich donors to circumvent contribution limits adopted after Watergate to lessen the influence of the wealthy. Indeed, even with contributions flowing from other members of the family, both Dwayne Andreas and his wife, Dorothy Inez Andreas, in the 1988 election cycle exceeded the $25,000 limit on contributions to federally regulated campaigns, according to an Associated Press review of FEC records. The AP review of FEC records for the past decade shows Dwayne Andreas exceeded the $25,000 limit in the last four election cycles _ 1981-82, 1983-84, 1985-86 and 1987-88 _ and is nearing the cap with six months left in the current two-year cycle. Andreas and his wife are by no means the only wealthy Americans to exceed the $25,000 limit, exposing what critics call a glaring weakness of the FEC's enforcement efforts. ``It is a difficult provision of the law for us to monitor,'' said commission spokeswoman Sharon Snyder. ``We don't always have the resources for that kind of audit work, particularly in election years.'' In fund-raising circles, Dwayne Andreas ranks among the elite of the ``switch-hitters,'' influential donors who spread their contributions among both major political parties. In business circles, he is a legend for his friendships with Washington's power brokers, including presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and more recently his private meetings with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Asked for comment, Claudia Madding, an aide to Andreas said: ``We do not discuss personal donations made by members of the Andreas family.'' Andreas himself did not immediately return a telephone message Ms. Madding said she would forward to him. Dwayne Andreas, once a major backer of Democrat Hubert Humphrey, more recently has emerged as a major supporter of Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Dole's campaigns, political action committee and tax-exempt foundation. When Dole was seeking the presidency in 1988, Andreas, his wife, children and their spouses gave $10,000 to the Dole effort but also contributed $30,000 to six other presidential hopefuls. The contributions included $9,000 to fellow Greek-American Michael Dukakis and $1,000 to the man who defeated Dole for the Republican nomination _ George Bush. Andreas later was among the $100,000 donors to the GOP's so-called ``soft money'' campaign. Archer Daniels Midland's political action committee also gave to four of the presidential candidates. FEC records show Andreas family members donated at least $550,000 to House, Senate and presidential candidates and political party organizations involved in elections over the last decade. The giving appeared to cross party lines indiscriminately while perhaps favoring lawmakers in states where Archer Daniels Midland has major plants, such as Illinois. One of that state's favorite sons, House Republican Leader Bob Michel, was the Andreas family favorite last Sept. 6. Seven family members in three states each donated $1,000 that day to the Michel's 1990 re-election. Before the day was out, another $7,000 came into Michel's coffers in $1,000 donations from seven Archer Daniels Midland officials. Three weeks earlier, the company's PAC had donated $2,000 to Michel, whose district abuts ADM's headquarters in Decatur, Ill. For Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, his day as the family favorite would come two months after Michel's, on Nov. 10, 1989, when eight family members donated $500 each to his campaign. That $4,000 was dwarfed by the $14,000 received by Massachusetts Democrat Joseph Kennedy from the family on April 28, 1986. Kennedy, facing a primary race in his successful attempt to take retiring Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill's seat in the House, received $1,000 donations from 14 members of the Andreas family.
AP880628-0280 	X	Britain's commercial banks, heeding a signal from the Bank of England, on Tuesday announced a half percentage point increase in their base lending rate to 9.5 percent. A rise in the benchmark lending rate, the fourth this month, was expected following a government report Monday of a sharply wider, record merchandise trade deficit, which sent the pound and the London stock market reeling. The report, and the markets' reaction, fueled speculation that the government would push up interest rates to cool the economy's growth, by discouraging consumer buying, and to counter inflation. Some analysts had expected the central bank to go as far as signaling a one percentage point gain. Another half-point increase might follow shortly, analysts said. The central bank signaled the half-point increase at midday by raising a key money market intervention rate of its own. Major banks, such as Barclays Bank PLC, Midland Bank PLC, National Westminster Bank PLC and Lloyds Bank PLC, announced they were increasing their rate. The banks also increased the base lending rate half a percentage point on June 2, June 6 and June 22. Corporate borrowers can obtain loans at a percentage point above the base rate. Britain's merchandise trade deficit soared to a record 1.705 billion pounds, or $2.9 billion, in May, with imports running at their highest level since last summer, the government said in its Monday report. The pound, which plummeted 4 cents Monday to $1.7030 from $1.7430, was quoted at $1.7260 after the rate increases Tuesday. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was down around 3 points at the 1,838 level by midday Tuesday. It fell 29.8 points, or 1.6 percent, to 1,841.5 in the previous session.
AP881109-0073 	X	A Republican candidate for Potter County commissioner who died with his name still on the ballot won overwhelming election over both his Democratic opponents, one of whom faces vote fraud charges. Republican Paul Roberts died in September after the deadline for removal of names from the ballot had passed. He received 4,076 votes Tuesday, while Jay Kirkman II got 1,879 votes and write-in candidate Harold Cliver received 521 votes. County Judge Elisha Demerson will decide who must fill the dead man's seat, which had been vacated by a retiring Republican. Asked how he felt about finishing second to a dead man, Kirkman replied, ``I'm not dissatisfied. I think it's a trend down the whole ballot from the national ticket. Everybody voted straight Republican.'' Six days before the election, Kirkman was indicted by a county grand jury on charges of forgery and illegal acceptance and spending of campaign funds. If convicted, Kirkman faces a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine in each of three counts.
AP880601-0300 	X	Negotiators for Chrysler Corp. and the United Auto Workers will sign their new 66,000-worker, two-year contract on Monday, the last flourish on a pact that has been in effect since May 16. UAW President Owen Bieber, UAW Vice President Marc Stepp and Chrysler Vice President Anthony St. John, along with the elected 10-member UAW bargaining committee, will sign the contract in a 4 p.m. ceremony at Chrysler's Highland Park headquarters, company and union officials said. In ratification voting May 11, the contract was approved by a slim 54 percent of those voting overall and rejected by Chrysler's 10,000 skilled trades workers. But the contract was ratified later that week by the UAW's executive board following a skilled trades council meeting in Chicago because the skilled trades objections were not based on issues that applied solely to them. The contract has been in effect since May 16, replacing a three-year pact that would have expired Sept. 14, St. John said. Like the General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. pacts on which it is based, the contract guarantees a set number of jobs at each plant, warehouse or office except in cases of cuts in production volume because of slow sales. It also requires the corporation to recall or hire one worker for every two who quit, retire or die. In turn, UAW leaders agreed to end their resistance to plant-level agreements that organize workers into teams. Chrysler has begun taking its initial snapshot of guaranteed jobs at most locations; local union officials will be given lists of workers' names for approval and discussion, St. John said. Unlike the Ford and GM pacts, the Chrysler contract also covers salaried workers including engineers, office and clerical employees and nurses. The two sides began early negotiations April 18 in an effort to ease building tensions sparked by Chrysler's consideration of a $2 billion offer to sell its 28,000-worker Acustar Inc. parts subsidiary and Chrysler's decision to close a 5,500-worker assembly plant in Kenosha, Wis. Chrysler backed down from the sale and agreed to early talks in March. Despite several disruptions that nearly prompted the UAW to break off talks, Chrysler and the union reached a tentative agreement May 4. The early settlement eliminated the chance of a strike in September, which observers said would have been very likely because of the accumulating anger among Chrysler workers. The new contract expires in 1990, making it the first Chrysler contract in a decade to expire simultaneously with the Ford and GM pacts.
AP881205-0253 	X	Steel importers said today that the United States' steel quota program was preferable to the expense and uncertainty of trade lawsuits, and they proposed modifying it since the Bush administration seemed intent on renewing it. ``The current Voluntary Restraint Agreements on imported steel have, over the past four years, brought about market shortages and price increases, reduced net manufacturing employment ... and diminished the potential for the export of steel-intensive products,'' the importers said. But modifications were endorsed by the American Institute for Imported Steel, the Texas Association of Steel Importers and the West Coast Metal Importers Assocation. The institute says any renewed quota plan should be flexible enough to avoid the shortages steel users experienced for certain products under the current plan. They say the more flexible program could also lessen the sometimes sharp price hikes on some products. Meanwhile, steel-consuming manufacturers who complain about tight supplies and sharp price increases go further by saying American steel producers are looking a little too prosperous to be demanding an extension of trade protection. Those steel users are raising their voices in opposition to a renewal of the five-year Voluntary Restraint Agreements, or import quotas, due to expire in September. ``Our guys would kill to be making the profit on sales that they're making right now,'' said Greg Estell, spokesman for the 1,000 member companies of the Precision Metal Forming Association. The Cleveland-based association employs about 80,000 of the estimated 350,000 American workers who bend, stamp and cut steel into parts for cars, appliances and a variety of industrial and consumer equipment. That niche of the steel-using industries alone surpasses the approximately 170,000 employees of the nation's 300 steelmaking companies. ``We're not in the same situation here in 1988 that we were in 1984,'' Estell said about the steel industry. The numbers back him up. The 25 steel producers who represent 80 percent of the nation's raw steel production earned around $1 billion in 1987, the first full year of recovery after a gruesome recession. They more than doubled that figure, to nearly $2.5 billion, in the first nine months of this year, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. ``The steel industry has returned to substantial profitability and can look forward to another good year in 1989,'' said Inland Steel Industries Inc. Chairman Frank W. Luerssen. That is what's bothering steel users like Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co., who see steelmakers raising prices in line with tighter supplies while at the same time lobbying President-elect George Bush to extend the import quotas for another five years. Steel users say the quota program should be scrapped and a fair steel trade system negotiated either country-by-country or worldwide through the mechanisms of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade. Steelmakers say GATT does not work, and that the VRAs have proved themselves as the best solution to the predatory pricing that foreign producers employ because of excess world capacity. Caterpillar trade specialist William Lane suggested the steelmakers want to have their cake and eat it too. ``They're saying they need protection because of surplus world capacity, but the reason prices are increasing is tight world supply,'' he said. Estell said the metal forming association has tracked price increases of up to 40 percent for hot-rolled steel and 12 to 13 percent for cold-rolled. The users say the VRAs are at least partially to blame for higher prices because the import quotas reduce the supply in relation to demand. Steel producers say the VRAs have nothing to do with prices. The users also complain that delivery times were stretched and some mills were allocating shipments early this year because of tight supplies. In contrast to the tarnished reputation of American steelmakers when recession hit with vengeance after 1981, ``the U.S. steel industry is considered the low-cost producer in the world,'' Lane said. ``We would certainly agree with that. They've done a remarkable job of reducing costs and improving quality.'' ``They say they are world-class competitors, and we tend to agree, and if that's so then they should act like world competitors,'' said Estell. For the nation's steel forgers, higher prices are less troublesome than short supplies. They want their prime raw material, special quality bars and billets removed from the VRA program because ``forgers can't get what they need domestically ... and VRAs prevent them from getting it from offshore,'' the Forging Industry Association said. ``It is unfair for the U.S. government to support one segment of the U.S. economy to the detriment of other segments,'' the Cleveland-based group said. The American steelmakers say they deserve another round of quota protection because they have not fully recovered from losing $12 billion during a 5-year recession. ``It will take much more than a few quarters of profitability to offset the financial damage of the 1982-86 recession years,'' Washington-based AISI said. The U.S. producers also claim their prices in general have not risen drastically. Average steel prices rose about 3 percent from 1980 to 1987, while average prices of construction equipment rose 6 percent and the price of agricultural machinery rose about 20 percent, AISI said. By the second quarter of this year, prices were around 7 percent higher than they were in the fourth quarter of last year and roughly 2 percent higher than when the VRAs were instituted in late 1984. The AISI calls that ``hardly a spectacular increase, given the rate of inflation in the 1981-87 period and the tight supply-demand situation worldwide that existed in the first half of this year.''
AP880326-0095 	X	President Reagan should show his support of the Nicaraguan cease-fire agreement by refraining from pushing for renewed military aid for the Contra rebels, a House Democratic leader said Saturday. ``Old policies _ like old habits _ die hard. We must resist the temptation to say `we know better' by approving military aid before the peace plan has a chance to succeed,'' Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. Coelho, the assistant House majority leader, said: ``The burden on President Reagan is to recognize that diplomacy works ... and make peace his highest priority.'' The president, commenting Friday on the cease-fire accord reached Wednesday, said ``there is reason to have caution'' about whether Nicaragua's Sandinista government will abide by the pact. The Sandinistas ``have a past record that indicates that we should be'' cautious, Reagan told reporters. The administration is pushing for approval of a package of humanitarian aid to the Contras before Congress recesses for Easter. Coelho said House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas is ready to schedule a vote this week. ``If our Republican colleagues help us write and pass a plan, we can speed humanitarian aid to the Contras. And the chance for a truly bipartisan policy toward Central America would be at hand,'' Coelho said. Earlier this month liberal Democrats opposed to any aid for the Contras and conservative Republicans pushing for military aid teamed to defeat a humanitarian aid bill offered by Wright.
AP880913-0012 	X	The huge losses to 1988 harvests came mostly in June and July, when drought and searing heat shriveled corn and soybean yields across much of the nation, new Agriculture Department estimates show. Assistant Secretary Ewen M. Wilson, the department's chief economist, said total grain production this year is expected to drop to 191 million metric tons, down 31 percent from 1987. Total supplies of grain for 1988-89, which include inventories at the beginning of the season, are forecast at 366 million tons, down 24 percent from last year. Wilson said at a news conference Monday that ``crop development now has progressed to the point where production can be forecast with a reasonable degree of confidence.'' The corn yield, for example, was estimated at 78.5 bushels per harvested acre, down from 119.4 bushels last year, the largest drought-induced reduction in yield on record, he said. From 1965 to 1987, the September estimate overstated corn production on nine occasions and understated it on 14 occasions, Wilson said. In the case of soybeans, the September estimate overshot final production in 12 years and understated it in 11. Wilson said rainfall in the last month ``has improved the conditions of pastures and ranges, although more precipitation is needed to restore them to normal.'' Wilson said he is holding to an earlier prediction that consumer food prices will go up an average of 3 percent to 5 percent this year, with about 1 percent of the rise caused by drought. A further increase is expected in 1989. The new USDA estimates showed the corn harvest, which is under way, is expected to be at a five-year low of 4.46 billion bushels, down 37 percent from 7.06 billion bushels harvested in 1987. Even so, that was down by less than 1 percent from the forecast a month ago. In May and June, before the drought tightened its grip, USDA projected the corn harvest at 7.3 billion bushels, based on trends and an assumption of normal weather. Those projections were revised downward in July to 5.2 billion bushels, assuming farmers got normal weather the remainder of the season. In August, the forecast was lowered to 4.48 billion bushels, the smallest harvest since 1983, when drought and federal acreage curbs reduced output to 4.17 billion bushels. The soybean harvest was estimated at a 12-year low of 1.47 billion bushels, down 23 percent from 1.9 billion bushels produced last year but virtually unchanged from the August forecast. Estimates last spring called for about 1.88 billion bushels, and the July projection was 1.65 billion bushels. Production of all wheat was projected at 1.81 billion bushels, down 14 percent from 2.1 billion produced in 1987 and 1 percent below the August forecast. In May and June, USDA forecast this year's wheat output would be up slightly. The July projection was 1.84 billion bushels, and the August forecast was 1.82 billion bushels. Corn is the largest and most important crop grown by American farmers and, as a feed ingredient, is essential to the production of meat, poultry and dairy products. Soybeans, which provide high-protein meal and quality vegetable oil used in food processing, also are vital to U.S. food production. No new estimate of winter wheat production was included. Last month's forecast, which was carried forward into the September report, was 1.55 billion bushels, down 1 percent from last year. New estimates for spring planted wheat included durum, 49.2 million bushels, down 47 percent from 1987 production and the smallest harvest since 1961. The new estimate was also down 10 percent from August. Other spring wheat was estimated at 206 million bushels, down 54 percent from last year and 3 percent below the August forecast. Cotton production was estimated at 14.7 million bales, down 2 percent from August but only slightly below the 1987 crop. The crop was projected at 13.7 million bales in July. Overall, the department's Agricultural Statistics Board said U.S. crop production this year is expected to drop to 88 percent of a 1977 base used as a comparison. That would be the lowest since 1983. Crop production last year averaged 106 percent of the base year. The record was 117 percent reached in 1985, 1982 and 1981.
AP900525-0140 	X	The Washington attorney who ditched his plane in the Atlantic Ocean last summer was ordered Friday to show why he shouldn't be disbarred from practicing before the Federal Communications Commission. In the interim, Thomas L. Root has been suspended from practicing law before the commission, the FCC said. The commission said it had acted because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia entered an order April 12 disbarring Root by consent. FCC rules require that attorneys practicing before it not be under any disbarment order. Telephone calls to Root's office Friday went unanswered. In March, Root was indicted on 33 counts of fraud and other crimes involving radio stations he was representing before the FCC. The federal indictment accused Root of defrauding the government and five clients in FCC proceedings on permits to construct FM radio stations throughout the United States. Root gained notoriety last July when his single-engine plane ran out of fuel and plunged into the Atlantic off the Bahamas following a six-hour, 800-mile flight that began near Washington. He told authorities that he had been unconscious for most of the odyssey, but Navy fighter pilots flying alongside the plane reported seeing him move in the cockpit. When he was taken to a Florida hospital, Root was found to have suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Less than a week after the crash, Sonrise Management Services of Columbus, Ga., sued Root for $584,000, claiming he failed to perform work and double-billed a client. Root filed for bankruptcy court protection from creditors in October 1989, claiming he had $1.64 million in liabilities. The federal indictment charged Root with 20 counts of wire and mail fraud, seven counts of filing false legal documents with the FCC, four counts of using counterfeit and altered federal documents, and one count each of forgery and obstruction of the grand jury's investigation.
AP900509-0037 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 30,945.61, down 24.97 points, or 0.08 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Wednesday.
AP900508-0046 	X	Pope John Paul II has appointed Bishop Adam J. Maida of Green Bay, Wis., as the new archbishop of Detroit, the Vatican reported today. He succeeds Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, who was named to a top financial post at the Vatican in January. The 60-year-old Maida, born in East Vandergrift, Pa., was promoted to the Green Bay post in November 1983.
AP901029-0048 	X	Organic coffee and ``retro-chic'' appliances will be big hits in 1991, but the popularity of New Age religions and baseball doubleheaders will fade, ``The American Forecaster 1991'' predicts. Other anticipated hits are ``success surgery'' for executives, field trips for kids and ``gourmet'' ice. Home videos and the Southwestern interior design style will bomb. Kim Long, 41, of Denver, began compiling the book on what's in and what's out in 1983. It sells about 10,000 copies a year. Organic coffee, grown without pesticides, ``has all the makings of a major food fad,'' Long said. ``People are becoming a lot more literate about what they put into their mouths,'' he said. ``They're willing to spend more money for the details.'' He predicts that the boxy appliances that marked the dawn of the post-World War II era will reappear next year. ``It's the visual appeal, so solid and heavy - the beginning of the atomic era,'' he said. Long says more executives will have cosmetic surgery and workers will eat at their desks so they can be more productive, signs of Americans' intensified interest in their work. The ideal look will be ``relatively small noses, not a prominent chin, but a chinless look is unacceptable, and wrinkles would be out,'' he said. However, 1991 will not be the year for workaholics. ``I think the '90s is going to be a fun decade,'' said Long. ``Most people in the big `baby boom' age group will be in their 40s and 50s. They will have earned a living and raised families. I think that equates to a potential situation where people will look to do fun things, to worry less about what the neighbors think or families think.'' A trend that has hit Japan and is expected in the United States is the popularity of ``gourmet'' ice. The ice, reportedly up to 10,000 years old, is chipped from Alaskan ice floes and valued for its purity. Next year will bring a reduced interest in New Age religions: ``It won't die. But my observation is that it will just be less faddish.'' Long predicts a revival of interest in millenialism as the year 2000 approaches, generating a fascination with ``crackpot religions.'' Interest in home videos, a fad that soared this year with the success of television's ``America's Funniest Home Videos,'' will also wane, Long said. The Santa Fe fashion look, including laughing coyotes and cactus cutouts, has been overmarketed and will no longer be hip, the Forecaster says. Long, a newspaper columnist, said he researches trends by reading numerous newspapers and magazines, keeping files on particular topics, and monitors computer data bases.
AP901030-0159 	X	The defunct Mustang Ranch bordello remained in government hands after a federal judge on Tuesday denied the owners' request to sell the property to a group of private investors. The ruling by a federal bankruptcy judge clears the way for the Internal Revenue Service to auction off the ranch to pay off its owners' back taxes. Lawyers for the owners, Joe and Sally Conforte, sought permission from a federal bankruptcy judge to immediately sell the 440-acre ranch that once was America's best-known legal bordello. The IRS opposed a private sale, saying the property would bring a higher price later. An IRS auction is scheduled for Nov. 13-14. Earlier this month, Storey County commissioners revoked the Mustang's permit to operate as a brothel, which means it can't re-open as a legal house of prostitution no matter who gets title. Austin Cooper, one of the Conforte's lawyers, said they had a buyer willing to immediately put down $500,000 and pay a balance of $1.6 million within three years. He argued the property is depreciating rapidly and taxpayers would receive more from the sale if it went through immediately on the Confortes' terms. The IRS said the couple no longer had claim to the property. The 105-room ranch operated as a legal brothel for 35 years. ``We felt the auction was not properly advertised to maximize the number of bidders who might be interested,'' said Dierdre Pagni, an IRS manager. The Mustang closed Sept. 18 when it was forced into liquidation under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy code. For three days, bankruptcy trustees sought to reopen the bordello to recoup about $13 million in federal taxes owed by the Confortes, who did not attend Tuesday's hearing. The IRS seized and padlocked the ranch Sept. 21 when the trustees' efforts were hampered by cash flow and other problems. Rollin Thorley, representing the IRS, said the government will sell the property for a minimum of $1.8 million. The ranch will be divided for auction into real estate, a trailer park and personal property.
AP900510-0133 	X	Foreigners continue to own just under 1 percent of the nation's agricultural land, a level that has varied little over the years, the Agriculture Department said Thursday. The department's Economic Research Service made its 1989 year-end review of reports under a 1978 law requiring foreigners to register U.S. agricultural land holdings. As of Dec. 31, 1989, about 12.9 million acres of agricultural land were owned by foreigners, an increase of 263,273 acres from a year earlier. ``Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land remained relatively steady from 1981 through 1989, slightly above or below 1 percent of the privately owned agricultural land in the United States,'' said John Lee, administrator of the agency. Of the land owned by foreign interests, 46 percent was forest land, 18 percent cropland, 31 percent pasture and other agricultural land, and 5 percent agricultural land not under cultivation. Corporations, both U.S. and foreign, owned 81 percent of the foreign-held acreage; partnerships, 10 percent; and individuals, 7 percent. The remainder is held by estates, trusts, associations, institutions and others. Japanese investors owned 2 percent of the foreign-held acreage, while about 73 percent of the total was owned by investors from Canada, Britain, West Germany, France, the Netherlands Antilles, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the report said. Maine continued to have the heaviest concentration of foreign ownership, with holdings of almost 2.1 million acres. The report said that 93 percent of the foreign-owned acreage will remain in agricultural production, according to its owners.
AP881114-0083 	X	President Reagan, welcoming Andrei D. Sakharov at the White House, said today human rights will remain an irritant in U.S.-Soviet relations until all political prisoners are released. ``We've had great success,'' Reagan said as he praised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev as more cooperative than any Kremlin leader before him. But, Reagan said, ``We can only wait and see'' if Gorbachev makes good on a promise to release all political prisoners. Sakharov told the president as they posed for pictures that ``there are only individuals'' left in jails. The Nobel laureate and human rights activist spoke through an American interpreter. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that during their meeting, Sakharov ``was very thankful'' to Reagan ``for what he had done on behalf of human rights and for him and his wife.'' Sakharov, however, also voiced concern about the impact that Reagan's ``Star Wars'' missile defense program would have on efforts by the superpowers to negotiate a cut in long-range nuclear missile stockpiles. These statements led Reagan to talk about the ``insurance policy'' concept behind development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, according to Fitzwater, who also said that the president told Sakharov that while there is a treaty to ban chemical weapons, ``we still keep our gas masks.'' Sakharov says the West should worry more about the possibility that Gorbachev will fail in his bid to transform Soviet society, and less about whether the changes will strengthen the communist nation. Sakharov, the Soviet Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist and longtime spokesman for political prisoners and dissidents, told those honoring him Sunday at a National Academy of Sciences banquet that the effects of perestroika _ the ambitious economic restructuring pursued by Gorbachev _ will ripple throughout the world. He said some have suggested that the Soviet Union could pose an even greater threat to the West if the Soviet economy is strengthened. ``I always answer that question this way,'' he said through an interpreter. ``The threat (to the West) of perestroika doesn't consist of its success, but of its bloody failure. This would be a total calamity.'' The program pushed by Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary, includes greater freedoms and movement away from a centrally controlled economy. ``I believe we are undergoing historic events whose significance extends beyond our country to the whole world,'' said Sakharov. Sakharov, 67, was sent to internal exile in the Soviet city of Gorky in 1980 after criticizing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the immigration policies of his country. Gorbachev freed him two years ago. Sakharov first made his mark as a physicist whose original concepts in subatomic particles attracted world attention among scientists. He is considered the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Frank Press, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the banquet guests that Sakharov was inducted into the American academy in 1973 as an associate member. But unlike other members, Sakharov had never been allowed to come to the United States to sign the membership book. While guests applauded, the Soviet scientist strolled to the large, red-bound ledger and signed his name. Sakharov said that during his long years of exile, the American academy members ``supported me unequivocally.'' ``This is a fact I can never let myself forget,'' he said. The 100 guests who attended the banquet included other Soviet scientists, noted American physicists, physicians, arms control negotiators, human rights advocates and government officials. Sakharov is in Washington to attend the first meeting of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity. The foundation was organized by U.S. and Soviet scientists to address social and scientific problems that affect mankind.
AP880815-0154 	X	Elvis Presley's high school buddy said Monday he has the King's first recording, a highly sought two-song disc Presley made for his mother in 1953. Edwin S. Leek Jr., a retired airline pilot, said in a telephone interview that Elvis left the record at Leek's grandmother's house in Memphis 25 years ago. ``I saw him a few years later in Chicago, when he was first starting to make it, and I said, `I still have that first record of yours. It's going to be worth a lot of money some day.''' Presley's reply, according to Leek: ``Just hold onto it.'' ``I've been telling my wife, `What are we gonna do with it? All we've ever done it lock it away,''' Leek said. ``Now I'd like to find out what it's worth.'' Todd Morgan of Graceland, the Presley home and museum in Memphis, said the museum had long ``kept an eye open'' for the record, which he described as ``probably the single most valuable record in record collecting. It's the first record of the man who pioneered rock 'n roll.'' Presley's first recording led directly to his discovery, and one Elvis expert describes it as ``extremely valuable.'' The disc's existence was reported in this week's edition of Goldmine magazine, a journal for record collectors. ``It sounds like early Presley, slow, romantic _ it's not rock 'n' roll,'' according to Kit Kiefer, Goldmine managing editor, who said he had listened to tapes provided by Leek. ``The sound isn't CD quality, but it's surprisingly good.'' Asked if the magazine suspected a hoax, he said, ``I've heard a lot of Elvis imitators, and none of them go for the immature Elvis sound. Also, everything (Leek) said checks out.'' In 1953, Presley, an 18-year-old truck driver, wanted to make a record as a present for his mother. He went to the Memphis Recording Service, paid $4 and _ accompanying himself on acoustic guitar _ sang two ballads: ``My Happiness'' and ``That's When Your Heartaches Begin.'' The studio was owned by Sam Phillips, head of Sun Records, which shared the premises. One of the employees liked Presley's disc and called him to Phillips' attention. The first disc was long known to have been made, but no one has been able to determine what happened to it, Morgan said. Leek said that for years he kept the Presley disc with his wife's records, and later placed it in a bank safety deposit box after they moved to Key Largo, Fla. Leek said he will auction off the record if he can get a reasonable price. He also hopes to sell what he said was an autographed copy of Presley's first Sun release, ``That's All Right (Mama).'' Leek said he met Elvis in 1945 when they shared a class in high school. He said Presley frequently visited Leek's grandmother, who had a piano young Presley liked to play. Leek's grandmother expressed an interest in the record he'd made, and Presley brought it over and played it for her, Leek said. Presley forgot to take it with him when he left, Leek said.
AP880616-0110 	X	An enviornmental group on Thursday asked the European Economic Community to ban exports of toxic wastes to the Third World. Greenpeace claimed such exports have boomed over the past year because international regulations are too lenient. Ernst Klatte, the group's spokesman, called for the ban at a news conference in Luxembourg, were a meeting of European Economic Community environment ministers was being held. Greenpeace cited recent exports of toxic wastes from Europe and the United States to Africa and from the United States to Latin America and the Caribbean.
AP900505-0051 	X	Hooded gunmen opened fire on a crowd attending a wedding reception Saturday, killing seven people and wounding four others, the state-run news agency reported. The shooting occurred at 5 a.m. in San Carlos City in Pangasinan province, 100 miles northwest of Manila, the Philippine News Agency said. The agency quoted San Carlos police station chief Capt. Juanito Mangonon as saying the gunmen raked the wedding reception with automatic gunfire shortly after the groom and the bride left for the wedding ceremony at a Roman Catholic church, a few miles away. The assailants were apparently after one of the guests but opened fire on the people preparing the wedding reception after failing to find their target, Mangonon said. The gunmen fled on foot after the shooting.
AP881107-0210 	X	The world's largest newsprint maker, pressured by weak demand and resistance from American newspapers, said Monday it would drastically reduce and delay its latest announced price hike. Abitibi-Price Inc. of Toronto has told its customers it decided to increase prices for newspaper customers by $30 to $680 a metric ton effective Feb. 1 instead of the previously announced $695 a metric ton. But analysts said that unless two smaller U.S.-based newsprint makers announce price increases by next month, this latest rise might not occur. Last September, Abitibi announced it was raising its newsprint prices to $695 a metric ton, a 6.9 percent increase, effective Jan 1. Several other manufacturers, including Bowater Inc., the largest U.S. producer, followed suit. But newspaper officials balked, arguing that the price hikes were unjustified because of weak demand for newsprint. They said a fall in advertising meant they did not need as much paper to print their newspapers. They also said a buildup of inventories and increased capacity of paper mills starting next year meant a larger supply of newsprint would be available. ``We are obviously disappointed that our price announcement for both the U.S. and Canada have had to be modified or, I should say, has been modified,'' said Robert Johnson, senior vice president of marketing for Abitibi's sales and marketing unit in New York. ``But we are obviously aware of the realities of the marketplace.'' Canadian Pacific Forest Products Ltd. of Toronto was the first to announce last week that it was cutting its previously announced price increase. But analysts said Champion International Corp. of Stamford, Conn., and Kimberly-Clark Corp. of Dallas started the ball rolling on Nov. 1 when they did not notify their customers that they would follow the lead of Abitibi and other bigger newsprint companies that announced their price increases in September. Under terms of their customer contracts, both companies were required to give two months notice of price hikes. Most other newsprint makers operate under contracts that require three months notice to customers. ``The only way these companies can compete is in price,'' said one Wall Street analyst who did not want to be named. ``If one company increases its price and the next does not then (the company with the higher price) will lose market share.'' The analyst said the big newsprint makers boosted prices on the assumption that fourth-quarter demand would increase. However, that has not happened and ``that's why Champion decided not to increase prices,'' he said. Analysts said that the two companies have until Dec. 1 to meet the latest price hike for their customers. If they do not, that could mean even the lower prices might not take effect, they said. ``The handwriting is on the wall,'' said Eric Philo, an analyst with the investment firm Goldman, Sachs & Co. ``It looks like there will be excess capacity in the next few years.''
AP900527-0003 	X	Midnight EDT: 109.
AP900119-0052 	X	Efforts to establish a monument to the Free Speech Movement are meeting resistance from the same quarters on the University of California that opposed the movement to begin with. A coalition of faculty members has suggested a commemorative piece of artwork in Sproul Plaza, the location of many rallies by the student movement that helped kick off years of protest around the country. The initial 1964 protest concerned administration rules limiting political activity on campus. Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman said in a letter to faculty Thursday that he opposes the monument. ``I am troubled,'' Heyman said, ``in our establishing a monument in celebration of a movement which is viewed by many in the community with negative or mixed emotions.'' A group of faculty members conducted a nationwide design competition that attracted more than 1,000 entries. ``I think once we come up with a brilliant piece of art, there's no reason to believe it will not be passed,'' said professor Peter Seltz, former director of the UC Art Museum and chair of the Berkeley Art Project.
AP880725-0140 	X	President Augusto Pinochet and Chile's other military chiefs will meet Aug. 30 to choose a presidential candidate, expected to be Pinochet, whose name will be alone on a yes-or-no ballot later this year. A decree published Monday in the government bulletin said Gen. Pinochet, who is army commander, and the heads of the air force and national police last week set the date for their August meeting. Choosing the nominee Aug. 30 indicates the referendum will be in October. Under the 1980 constitution, the vote must occur no less than 30 days and no more than 60 days after the nominee is chosen. Pinochet said in a speech July 7 it would take place in ``no more than 90 days.'' The 72-year-old general has been president since the coup in September 1973 that ousted the late President Salvador Allende, an elected Marxist. Pinochet's fellow commanders are Gen. Fernando Matthei of the air force, Adm. Jose Merino of the navy and Gen. Rodolfo Stange, national police commander. Their decision on a nominee must be unanimous, the constitution says, and if they cannot agree within 48 hours, the nomination will be made by majority decision of an eight-member National Security Council. If a majority of voters ratifies the choice, the candidate chosen will begin an eight-year presidential term in March. If not, an open election will be held in 1990, when congressional elections are planned. Opposition politicians expressed no objections Monday to a vote in October. Ricardo Lagos, a Socialist, told journalists the opposition had expected the referendum to be held Sept. 11, the 15th anniversary of the coup, and a later date provided more time to campaign against it. Lagos is co-leader of a coalition working for rejection of the military candidate. It plans to make its own count of the vote with 20,000 volunteers serving as monitors at polling stations. Patricio Aylwin, president of the Christian Democratic Party, the country's largest, said announcing the nomination date so far in advance ``is good news,'' but he and Luis Maira of the Christian Left Party said the government must take other steps to ensure a fair vote. A specific step they mentioned was lifting the state of emergency that allows the government to limit political activity and press freedom. This will be the first vote for president since Allende won the office in 1970. More than 6 million of the 8 million eligible voters have registered to participate.
AP880713-0277 	X	Airlines' Tough Security Policies Spawn Cottage Industry
AP881206-0007 	X	A nightclub manager who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the beating death of jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius was sentenced to 21 months in prison and placed on five years' probation. Broward County Circuit Judge M. Daniel Futch Jr. agreed to the maximum sentence possible for Luc Havan. Pastorius, 35, of Fort Lauderdale, died Sept. 21, 1987, of severe head injuries received in a beating 10 days earlier by Havan, 26, of Oakland Park, police said. Investigators said Pastorius was drunk and tried to gain entrance to the after-hours club Havan managed. In his plea, Havan contended he pushed Pastorius as he tried to enter the club. Pastorius, a three-time Grammy Award nominee, was hailed for his innovative work on the bass guitar. He worked with such performers as Weather Report, Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock and Blood, Sweat and Tears.
AP880905-0153 	X	The country's largest labor federation says the hourly wage in Mexico has fallen to one of the lowest in the world in the past six years. Mexicans who earned the equivalent of $1.90 an hour in 1982 now earn 40 cents an hour, the Mexican Labor Federation said. The minimum wage, last raised in March, is 8,000 pesos a day, or about $3.50. The federation said high payments on the foreign debt were draining the economy. It warned that the loss of buying power generates discontent and could endanger the stability of the country. A government anti-inflation program has brought the increase in consumer prices down from a monthly rate of 15.5 percent in January to 1.7 percent in July. Inflation in 1987 was a record 159.2 percent.
AP880407-0038 	X	A technique for analyzing extremely small bits of genetic material shows promise for helping identify criminals from a single hair left at a crime scene, researchers reported today. The technique revealed which variant of a particular gene each of six people had, by analysis of a single hair each person had shed, the scientists wrote in the British journal Nature. John Hicks, deputy assistant director of the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C., called the work ``very exciting.'' The technique cannot yet prove that a hair came from a particular person, but in combination with other evidence its result can be seen as ``very, very significant,'' he said. Further refinements may let it make identifications with more certainty, The work was conducted by Russell Higuchi and Henry Erlich of the Cetus Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., and George Sensabaugh and Cecilia von Beroldingen of the University of California, Berkeley. It focuses on DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, which forms tiny thread-like structures called chromosomes in every cell of the body. DNA consists of sequences of chemicals. Some sequences form genes, which control the activities of a cell. Details of DNA sequences vary from person to person, and researchers have exploited that fact to help solve crimes by studying such ``DNA fingerprints.'' In February, for example, a Florida jury convicted a 24-year-old man of rape after testimony that his DNA matched that found in semen left by the rapist. Hair that has been ripped from the body, as in a struggle, often contains enough living tissue in its root area for conventional DNA analysis. But more often, police recover hair that has simply fallen off a person at the crime scene, and that hair contains far less DNA, experts say. The California researchers overcame that problem by using a laboratory technique called polymerase chain reaction that created 100 billion copies of a particular portion of DNA. The ability to analyze a single hair is important, said Hicks, because that is typically all that is available at crime scenes. In addition, multiple hairs from a crime scene may have come from different people, said forensic hair expert Skip Palenik at McCrone Associates in Chicago. At present, a shed hair is examined microscopically for its physical appearance, Palenik said. But because different people can have similar-looking hairs, the new DNA technique ``represents a very important first step'' toward firm identification of people from a shed hair, he said. In the study, the researchers reported using a test to determine which of 21 versions of the ``DQ alpha'' gene is present in an individual. The gene plays a role in the disease-fighting immune system. In tests of six people, the researchers reported, a single shed hair correctly indicated which version of the gene each person had. More recent tests show success rates of 40 to 70 percent, Higuchi said in a telephone interview, adding that researchers plan to try an improved testing procedure. He said the next step is testing for more genetic characteristics, to allow greater certainty in linking a hair to a particular person. If the hair and a person share characteristics that fewer than one in 1,000 people possess, that would greatly help in making the link in court, he said. Standard DNA fingerprint techniques offer more definitive matches, with the chance of two people sharing the same DNA characteristics described as one in several billion. Hicks said that with further development, the new technique could well ``approach the fingerprint-type identifying capability. That's what we'd be looking for down the road.''
AP900207-0251 	X	The stock market was broadly lower in early trading today, pressured by ongoing concerns about this week's Treasury's refunding. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was down 20.27 points to 2,586.04 at 10 a.m. EST, 30 minutes after the opening bell. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a margin of nearly 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 835 issues down, 178 up and 378 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 24.08 million shares. Analysts said weakness in the bond market kept stocks under pressure. The market's worries stem from the Treasury's quarterly refunding auction and whether yields will have to be forced higher to attract Japanese investors. The three-day auction, which began on Tuesday, comprises $30 billion in notes and bonds. Tuesday's refunding included $10 billion of three-year notes. Today's refunding will include $10 billion in 10-year notes and the final part on Thursday will comprise $10 billion of 30-year Treasury bonds. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks was down 1.47 at 180.86. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index stood at 354.01, down 0.73. Among actively traded issues on the NYSE, Harcourt Brace was down [ to 2, Pan Am was off [ to 3{, AT&T was down { to 39 and American Express had slipped { to 28}. Among the Big Board gainers, Baxter International was up [ to 23], IBM had gained [ to 101[ and Hong Kong Telephone had advanced \ to 20. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 16.21 to 2,606.31. Declining issues outnumbered gainers by about 3 to 2 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 578 up, 909 down and 499 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 134.07 million shares, only slightly ahead of the 130.95 million shares traded on Monday in the slowest session to date in the new year.
AP900403-0276 	X	Schering-Plough Corp. said it has agreed to sell its Maybelline cosmetics business for about $300 million in cash as part of its plan to concentrate on pharmaceuticals. The buyer is MBP Acquisition Corp., which consists of Playtex Family Products, members of Playtex and Maybelline management, the private investment firm of Thomas H. Lee Co. and certain of the Boston firm's affiliated investment funds, Schering-Plough said Tuesday. Merrill Lynch Capital Markets assisted Schering-Plough in the transaction, which requires government approval. The sale stems from Schering-Plough's decision to concentrate on prescription and over-the-counter drugs as well as personal care and vision care products, said Robert P. Luciano, chairman and chief executive officer of Schering-Plough. In July, Schering-Plough sold its two European cosmetics companies, Rimmel International Ltd. and Chicogo GmbH. Last December, the company announced it was seeking offers for Maybelline. In 1989, Schering-Plough recorded total cosmetics sales of about $300 million, most of which were generated by Maybelline, the company said.
AP880414-0197 	X	Shiite Moslem hijackers freed another hostage from a Kuwaiti jumbo jet Thursday after negotiators resumed their efforts to end the 10-day-old crisis. A man dressed in a white robe descended from the Kuwait Airways Boeing 747 at 9:45 p.m. (5:45 EDT), got into a car and was driven across the tarmac to the VIP lounge at Houari Boumedienne Airport. Algerian officials said the released hostage was a Kuwaiti named Djuma Abdelhak Chatti. The elderly, grizzled man was greeted by Kuwaiti officials and hustled inside the building. ``Praise to God, I am fine, but they had me tied all the time and I am tired,'' said Chatti, who gave his age as 70. ``They are not good people,'' he told reporters in the airport lounge. ``They beat me.'' After the release, the hijackers broadcast a message to the control tower in Arabic and English repeating their demand for the release of 17 pro-Iranian terrorists jailed in Kuwait. The statement said Chatti had been released for ``strictly humanitarian reasons.'' Kuwait has refused the demand of the gunmen, who seized the plane April 5 on a Bangkok-Kuwait flight and are holding at least 30 hostages. On Thursday evening, Kuwait's deputy foreign minister, Mohammed Al-Osaimi, reiterated that the 17 would not be freed. Al-Osaimi is head of a high-level Kuwaiti delegation on the scene. Another Kuwaiti official, speaking to reporters on condition he not be identified, said the Algerian authorities continued to put pressure on Kuwait to be more flexible in its position. ``You can see this from the fact that they are telling us that the ball is in our court,'' the official said. Negotiations between the hijackers and Algerian mediators resumed Thursday evening after a breakdown earlier in the day caused by the lack of progress, according to the official Algerian news agency. In Washington, lawmakers urged Secretary of State George P. Shultz to intervene because of reports that one of the hijackers might be responsible for kidnapping American journalist Terry Anderson in Lebanon. Kuwait's independent al-Qabas newspaper reported Wednesday that the alleged kidnapper, Imad Mughniyeh, was believed to have boarded the plane when it landed in Mashhad, Iran. Mughniyeh has been identified as one of the security chiefs in Beirut for Hezbollah, or Party of God, which is believed to be the umbrella organization for pro-Iranian groups holding foreign hostages in Lebanon. From Mashhad, the plane flew to Larnaca, Cyprus, where Palestine Liberation Organization officials negotiated with the hijackers. The gunmen have killed two passengers and freed 70. Among the remaining hostages are three members of Kuwait's royal family. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat accused Iran of being behind the hijacking and said some of the gunmen ``belong to the Iranian government.'' Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid echoed Arafat's comments Thursday in Cairo. In a radio call to the airport tower Thursday, a passenger who identified himself as Ahmed Zayed said: ``I ask my government to release the 17 Islamic Jihad prisoners. If not, they will kill us all.'' Islamic Jihad, or Holy War, is the group that holds Anderson, and it also is demanding the release of the 17 Kuwaiti prisoners. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, was kidnapped March 16, 1985. He has been held longer than any of the 22 foreign hostages in Lebanon. The hijackers, said to be armed with grenades and guns, have threatened to blow up the plane and kill their remaining hostages if their demands are not met. A ranking Algerian official said Wednesday that Kuwait's ``intransigence'' had created the standstill. Algeria's negotiating committee is divided into two teams led by Interior Minister Hedi Khediri. One team is responsible for contacts with the Kuwaitis, and the other with the hijackers. A doctor was allowed on board the plane Thursday to examine the hostages. ``I saw no sign of any illness that required hospitalization or major medicine,'' said Dr. Youssef Mahdi. He later told the official Algerian news agency that he prescribed some ``routine medicines'' that would be sent to the plane. ``The passengers I saw did not have their hands tied and displayed no signs of physical violence,'' Mahdi said. An airport crew also went aboard to clean up and serve hot food, the Algerian official said. In a letter Wednesday to Shultz, Sen. Daniel Moynihan and Rep. Louise Slaughter, both New York Democrats, wrote: ``We know the United States is not a primary party to the Algiers negotiations. But if Terry Anderson's chief kidnapper is on the Kuwaiti jet, the United States government must insure that the negotiators are aware of this fact.'' ``It would be a travesty for Imad Mughniyeh to go free while Terry Anderson remains a captive,'' they said. In Nicosia, Cyprus, government spokesman Akis Fantis said that the jetliner was refueled and allowed to leave for Algiers only after Algeria gave assurances that the remaining passengers would be freed on arrival there. The plane landed in Algeria on Tuesday night. It was moved early Thursday to the end of the runway so another jet could land. It was later returned to its original position about 400 yards from the terminal.
AP900602-0120 	X	Here, at a glance, are Saturday's developments in the summit talks between President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
AP900221-0286 	X	The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials closed down 13.29 points to 2,583.56. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by nearly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 550 up, 1,000 down and 439 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 159.24 million shares, against 147.30 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index dropped 0.30 to 181.07. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index fell 1.93 to 352.95.
AP900613-0133 	X	German officials in the East and West teamed up to capture the second top leftist terrorist suspect in a week, and news reports on Wednesday said more such arrests were expected. West German authorities hailed the joint effort that led to the arrest of 46-year-old Inge Viett, and East Germany's interior minister called it an example of ``success in German-German cooperation'' following decades of enmity. The East German minister, Peter-Michael Diestel, also promised to investigate the extent to which his country's former Communist government _ particularly its hated secret police _ had harbored West German terrorists. ``It's a perverse situation that in the past, terrorists were protected in the German Democratic Republic,'' Diestel told reporters in Bonn. The secret police, once virtually omnipresent, would have known the background of any West Germans resettling in East Germany. Many suspected the secret police, or Stasi, had provided the terrorists with new identities and other help. If so, Diestel said, it was a ``diabolical connection.'' The government-run East German news agency ADN said Ms. Viett, wanted in several attacks, was captured Tuesday night in the East German city of Magdeburg. It immediately led to speculation that other members of the Red Army Faction would turn up in East Germany, or that they once lived there. ``East Germany's chief prosecutor's office is optimistically looking forward to the speedy capture of other terrorists,'' said West Germany's ZDF television network. ZDF also said there are indications of ties linking East Germany's secret police and West German terrorists with Middle East terror groups. Law enforcement sources in Bonn, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, said there were indications that Ms. Viett had worked with Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s. Ever since the two Germanys started their rapid road to unification last fall, the question of terrorism has become increasingly important. Officials on both sides of the crumbling barriers have warned that East Germany could provide fertile territory for new leftist terrorist crimes. Joint efforts were stepped up to capture any Red Army Faction members who may have slipped across the border after a series of attacks that rocked West German industry in the 1970s and 80s. The West German federal police worked with their counterparts in East Germany to capture Ms. Viett unarmed in her apartment in Magdeburg, where she had lived for more than two years. Sources said Ms. Viett's neighbors notified authorities, after seeing West German wanted posters with her picture that had been put up throughout the city. East German police carried out the arrest, and West German authorities arrived in Magdeburg afterward. Ms. Viett's capture and the June 6 apprehension of another suspect, Sussanne Albrecht, represent some of the biggest successes against West German terrorists in years. The West German newspaper Bild said that officials in East and West were close to arresting terrorist suspect Silke Maier-Witt in East Germany. ``Every day, we are counting on seeing the news of her arrest,'' Bild quoted one unidentified West German official as saying. Bild is known to have close ties to government security officials in Bonn. Earlier, the Morgenpost newspaper of Dresden reported that Ms. Maier-Witt had lived in that East German city. She is suspected of having taken part in the 1977 kidnapping and murder of prominent West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer. Ms. Viett's alleged involvement in terrorism goes back to 1972, when she was accused of taking part in a bombing that killed one man at a boating facility in Berlin. West German authorities have accused Ms. Viett of taking part in the slaying of prominent West Berlin Judge Guenter von Drenkmann in 1974. Ms. Viett is also wanted in the kidnapping of West Berlin Christian Democratic leader Peter Lorenz a year later, among numerous other crimes. In 1978, she allegedly took part in helping Red Army Faction member Till Meyer escape from a Berlin prison. Ms. Viett in 1981 allegedly shot a French policemen, after being stopped by authorities in Paris. The policeman was seriously injured. West German officials announced plans to seek the extradition of Ms. Viett, as they are doing in the case of Ms. Albrecht. Ms. Albrecht is wanted in the 1977 murder of prominent West German banker Juergen Ponto.
AP880330-0066 	X	If you've ever dreamed of making it on to the cover of a Wheaties box, dream no more. General Mills Inc., the maker of the ``Breakfast of Champions,'' is inviting everyone to appear on a Wheaties box. But unlike recent box subjects like Walter Payton and the Minnesota Twins, the public will have to pay. The promotion, beginning next week, offers individualized Wheaties boxes for $18.95 and proof of purchase. Eight weeks after sending in the money and a black-and-white picture, people will receive a single, acrylic-sealed box with their picture on the cover, the company says. ``Customers have been writing letters to us for many, many years wondering how they could get their picture on the Wheaties box,'' General Mills spokeswoman Kathryn Newton said. The boxes also are offered for $13.95 and five proof-of-purchase coupons.
AP900510-0137 	X	China announced Thursday it had released 211 jailed pro-democracy protesters, including several prominent academics, in a move that appeared timed to head off possible U.S. trade sanctions. Those released include Dai Qing, a leading journalist; Cao Siyuan, director of a social science research institute; and Li Honglin, head of the Fujian Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. All signed petitions or otherwise showed support for the democratic reforms demanded last spring by hundreds of thousands of protesters in Beijing and other cities. The protests ended in June when the army opened fire on the demonstrators, killing hundreds and possibly thousands. The official Xinhua News Agency described those released as lawbreakers and said they were ``given lenient treatment and released upon completion of investigations.'' It inserted the word ``former'' before the titles of Ms. Dai and the others, indicating they were fired while in prison. ``Coming back home was like a dream,'' Ms. Dai said, contacted at home by telephone. She said she was let out Wednesday. ``After 10 months, my kitchen is like a stranger.'' She declined to speak further, saying she would be arrested again if she talked to a reporter without permission. ``We welcome this announcement,'' said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler. ``We are pleased that the official announcement provided the names of six of those released. We believe that the interests of all parties would be best served by a full public accounting of the number and identity of those detained as well as those released.'' Ms. Tutwiler added that the Chinese government has not provided information to date on how many people remain as detainees or as prisoners. According to unoffical estimates, 10,000 to 15,000 were detained nationwide at some point but most have been released, she said. ``The official announcement said 431 were still under investigation by Beijing public security organs but it is not clear whether all of these are imprisoned,'' she said. None of the six listed by Xinhua was a student. Xinhua did not say if any student leaders were among those released. Students at Beijing University said they knew of no students who had recently been returned to campus. Campus sources in Beijing have reported that several student activists were released in the past few weeks, but none was a top leader of the pro-democracy movement. Xinhua quoted an unidentified spokesman for the Public Security Ministry as saying only 431 ``lawbreakers involved in the turmoil and rebellion are still being investigated.'' It said some ``are being dealt with by judicial departments.'' The figures still leave hundreds of people unaccounted for. China previously announced the release of 573 people during the winter. Arrests reported by the official media last summer alone totaled more than 2,000, and arrests continued during the fall and winter. Few trials have been publicized, although 20 executions have been reported in the official press. Sources have reported that several leading dissidents still in jail have finally been charged after months of detention, despite Chinese legal requirements that charges be filed within 45 days. The releases came as debate begins in the United States over whether to renew China's most-favored-nation trade status. The status, given to all but a handful of nations, substantially reduces tariffs on goods exported to the United States. As a socialist country, China's status must be renewed each year. President Bush must issue his decision by June 3, and some congressmen have said they favor suspending most-favored-nation status as a protest of China's human rights record. China has said suspension would set bilateral relations back 20 years. It has insisted it will not yield to foreign pressure, but last week it ended 14 months of martial law in the Tibetan capital in what was widely interpreted as an effort to placate critics. Martial law had been imposed to quell demonstrations against Chinese rule. Prominent protesters from Beijing's democracy movement who remain in jail include Wang Dan, a Beijing University history major who was one of the top student leaders, and seven other students named on a student most-wanted list last summer. Five students on that list are known to have escaped China, and the rest are believed still in hiding. Also still in jail are Liu Xiaobo, a university lecturer who took part in a hunger strike during the last days of protest, and Ren Wanding, an accountant who gave pro-democracy speeches during the movement. He was also jailed four years in the early 1980s for having helped lead an earlier democracy movement.
AP900223-0073 	X	An opposition lawmaker said today the government should investigate a magistrate's decision to impose only a small fine on a white farmer convicted of beating a black worker who died the next day. The farmer, Wilhelm Rabe, was fined the equivalent of $40 on Feb. 12 for assaulting Ekati Xaba last year on a farm near the eastern border with Swaziland. Magistrate J.D. Jacquire accepted evidence that Rabe had beaten Xaba with an electric cord, but rejected testimony that the worker also was thrown to the ground and kicked. Jacquire said there was no proof that the beating caused the brain haemmorrhage and ruptured spleen that were blamed for Xaba's death the day after the beating. Lester Fuchs, a Parliament member for the anti-apartheid Democratic Party, said the sentence was excessively lenient and could cause negative publicity for South Africa at a time when the government is promoting racial reconciliation. He asked that Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee account for the magistrate's ruling. According to The Sowetan, the country's largest black-oriented daily newspaper, two people who witnessed the beating had given statements to police but were never called to testify in court. The Sowetan said Xaba's widow and six children were forced to leave the farm after his death and now live in a one-room cardboard shack. There have been at least two other similar cases in the past three years, in which white farmers avoided prison despite being convicted of fatal assaults of black employees. Several blacks convicted of murdering white farmers are on Death Row, facing hanging if the government lifts a recently declared moratorium on executions.
AP900621-0060 	X	The Australian Orchestra says it's honored to host the final performances of Dame Joan Sutherland, but watching the last show will be a costly proposition. Ms. Sutherland, 63, announced in London on Wednesday that the Australian Opera's performance of ``Les Huguenots'' in September will be the swan song of her 40-year career. All eight performances already are sold out. Tickets for the final show on Oct. 2 were snapped up at the beginning of the year and a premium seat cost $390 (U.S.). She was to have brought down the curtain for the last time at London's Covent Garden in December and January with Strauss' opera ``Die Fledermaus,'' but changed her mind due to the heavy demands of singing the part of the vivacious Rosalinde. Her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge, said Wednesday during a break in the Sydney rehearsals for ``The Gipsy Princess'' that ``Die Fledermaus'' was ``too hard on the legs _ a killer for her.'' ``It's a long, demanding role, involving dancing and costume changes,'' he said. ``She is on stage for the entire first act, most of the second and all of the third. ``By contrast, `Les Huguenots' is one of her old party pieces. She's on for one act and a bit in a five-act opera. Joan wanted to go out on top and not tarnish the public's memories of her earlier performances in `Fledermaus.' ''
AP880717-0002 	X	Record-breaking heat scorched both coasts Sunday, wilting several major league pitchers and sending residents in the normally cool San Francisco Bay area streaming to the beaches. The mercury soared to a record 103 degrees in downtown San Francisco. It was the city's highest temperature since record keeping began 125 years ago, exceeding the previous mark of 102 degrees set on Oct. 5, 1987. On the East Coast, Philadelphia hit a record high for the date of 102 degrees, which was also a record fifth day in a row of triple-digit highs. Downtown Baltimore set a record high for the date of 103 degrees. In California, the heat heightened the danger of fire and and led officials to close Mount Diablo State Park in Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco, and parts of Mount Tamalpais, northwest of the city, officials said. By noon, the parking lot at Marin County's Stinson Beach was jammed, and motorists inched along several miles of roads leading to the area. National Weather Service forecasters said tempertures won't fall to normal levels in the 80s until Thursday. Forecaster Daryl Williams blamed the heat on a high-pressure area over the southwestern United States, which he said is keeping cooler Pacific air out of the area. Temperatures also soared above 100 in the inland valleys of southern California, sending many to the beaches despite chilly and overcast coastal conditions. About 100,000 people hit the sands at Zuma Beach, where the temperature was about 70 degrees on the beach and in the water, said lifeguard John Renaud. Crowds also were heavy at Santa Monica, Venice, Will Rogers and Topanga beaches despite morning temperatures of around 69 degrees and fog that reduced visibility to a mere 100 years, said lifeguard Lt. Dick Heineman. ``It was so hot in the valley areas, they just came to the beach anyway,'' he said. In Baltimore, two major league baseball teams were able to score nine runs despite the searing heat, and the visiting pitcher refused to take off his long-sleeved undershirt during the game, saying he was superstitious. Frank Viola of the Minnesota Twins became the first American League pitcher to win 15 games this season by surviving the minimum five innings and leading his team to a 7-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. ``That was the hottest situation I've ever pitched in,'' Viola said. Starting pitchers in Oakland, Calif., and Boston also tired early in the heat. Other record highs were 97 at Allentown, Pa.; 100 at Charleston, W.Va.; 100 at Newark, N.J.; 98 in downtown Oakland; 97 at Raleigh, N.C.; and 107 at San Jose and 104 at Santa Rosa, Calif. ``Lemonade Lassies'' in shorts will be dispensing cool drinks on street corners in Bluefield, W.Va., again Monday after the Appalachian town sweltered through a weekend with highs of over 90 degrees. Bluefield bills itself as ``Nature's Air-Conditioned City'' and hands out free drinks whenever the mercury tops 90. The Chamber of Commerce has gone whole summers in past years without doling out a drop of lemonade, but this summer the heat is sending the civic group to the poorhouse, chamber member Eddie Steele said. ``We've had to do it about five or six times, which is the most we've had in 10 or 15 years,'' Steele said. ``It costs about $100 a time to serve it.'' Ohio officials blamed high heat as the likely cause of last week's death of a 2-year-old girl whose body was found in a sweltering attic. Lorain County deputy coroner Dr. Richard Buchannan said the body of Ashley Kasubienski was discovered by her parents Friday. Initial tests showed the child was ``severely dehydrated,'' and the death appeared to be heat-related, he said. In Pasadena, Calif., authorities confiscated dozens of rabbits, pigeons, chickens and geese after finding about 20 animals that had died after having been purchased at an auction and stuffed inside cardboard boxes for a sweltering truck ride, police said. Authorities were investigating possible animal cruelty charges against three unidentified people, police Sgt. John Olquin said.
AP880415-0260 	X	Safety violations discovered in six Eastern Airlines planes during an unprecedented federal inspection involved mechanical problems that occur daily, a spokeswoman for the company said. The Federal Aviation Administration forced Eastern to take the planes out of service Thursday, the second day of an inspection of the company's 267 aircraft. An FAA spokesman characterized the safety flaws as ``minor violations.'' ``We have 1,400 flights a day, and every day you're going to have so many mechanical problems,'' company spokeswoman Paula Musto said. ``They would have been found on this day or another day, and more than likely they would have been found by Eastern's own mechanics. But we have people looking over our shoulder now.'' In Minneapolis, an Atlanta-bound flight filled with passengers was unloaded because of a fuel leak. Eastern had cleared the plane for takeoff, but FAA inspectors refused to let it fly, NBC News reported. Two other planes were also taken out of service because of minor fuel leaks, said Bob Buckhorn, FAA spokesman in Washington. One plane was sidelined by cut tires and another by a problem with emergency escape path markings in the cabin, Buckhorn said. ``You're talking minor violations,'' he said. Late Thursday a sixth plane was taken out of service when an inch-long crack was discovered in the skin of a plane in St. Louis, said FAA spokesman John Leyden. He said it was not a serious problem. The airline can return the planes to service as soon as the problems are corrected. ``If (inspectors) find any irregularities, they bring them to the attention of the airline, who then takes the planes out of service until they fix them properly,'' said FAA spokesman Jack Barker in Atlanta. Barker said 54 other planes that had been checked as part of the inspection program were ruled safe for flying. Ms. Musto said she didn't know whether the planes cited for violations had been repaired. The 30-day inspection of all Eastern planes began Wednesday after the FAA fined the company $823,000 for safety violations. U.S. Transportation Secretary Jim Burnley said officials have been unsatisfied with Eastern's performance since its takeover in 1986 by Texas Air Corp., which will undergo a 30-day inspection of its operating practices. Texas Air, which commands a fifth of the nation's air travel market, also owns Continental Airlines, which has recently absorbed Frontier Airlines, People Express and New York Air. The government's financial probe will examine the corporation's management and business practices and the relationships between the parent and the two airlines, said B. Wayne Vance, general counsel for the Department of Transportation. Around Eastern's Miami home base, passengers and travel agents said the inspection and new fines were worrisome. ``Some of my customers already don't want to fly on Eastern anymore,'' said Isabel Chalen, owner of the Four Corners Travel Agency in Miami Beach. However, Eastern spokeswoman Karen Ceremsak said there has been no drop in bookings. The FAA said its unprecedented inspection of Eastern planes will include ``ramp checks'' of all of the carrier's aircraft. ``It's a visual inspection of the aircraft while it's parked at the gate. The inspectors also will look at the log book, to make sure the entries are correctly entered, they will check the emergency equipment and that's basically what we're looking at,'' said Roger Myers, an FAA spokesman in Atlanta.
AP900221-0067 	X	``We are not undertaking any biological war. Neither troops nor caterpillars will go in without prior request and consultation.'' _ Marlin Fitzwater, White House press secretary, on an Agriculture Department program that is researching development of voracious caterpillars to kill off drug-producing coca plants in South American jungles.
AP900515-0163 	X	The Bush administration said Tuesday that $18 million in food assistance is being provided to Haiti and it called on Congress to approve a bill that includes an additional $13 million for that country. State Department deputy spokesman Richard Boucher expressed support for the efforts of provisioal President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot to move Haiti toward free and fair elections later this year. The $13 million aid package includes $10 million for short-term needs such as fuel and food and $3 million to enable international observers to monitor the elections and to provide other types of electoral support. ``We encourage and will support her (Mrs. Trouillot's) efforts to overcome the serious obstacles she confronts in bringing genuine democratic reforms and a greater respect for human rights to Haiti,'' Boucher said. The $13 million assistance package is part of a broader aid bill that also includes help for Panama and Nicaragua. President Bush has made numerous appeals to Congress for approval of the legislation. In an interview published in Tuesday's editions of the New York Times, Mrs. Trouillot, who served previously on Haiti's Supreme Court, said she inherited a bankrupt country two months ago. ``I was very surprised to see all of the coffers empty,'' she was quoted as saying. ``Economically, the country is paralyzed. The state can't honor its debts or pay many of its employees.'' The final decision on the food aid was made on Monday. Haiti will receive $6 million of the $18 million over the near term and the remaining $12 will be delivered starting Oct. 1, Boucher said. Haiti has drifted from one political crisis to another since the ouster of President Jean-Claude Duvalier more than four years ago. Mrs. Troiullot, who assumed her duties in mid-March after the ouster of former President Prosper Avril, is Haiti's fifth president since early 1986. Mrs. Trouillot has made clear her intention not to serve as president beyond September, a deadline that some regard as unrealistic in terms of turning over power to an elected successor. For much of the past 2{ years, the United States has not provided government-to-government aid to Haiti but has delivered substantial aid through private voluntary organizations. This has been a reflection of U.S. dissatisfaction with the dictatorial methods of the presidents who preceded Mrs. Trouillot. The total being funneled through voluntary groups this year is $41.4 million, Boucher said.
AP881012-0270 	X	Hilton Hotels Corp. reported its profit rose 22 percent in the third quarter partly because of improved results in its casino operations. Hilton said Wednesday it earned $27.2 million, or 57 cents a share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from $22.3 million, or 44 cents a share, a year ago. Sales totaled $236.1 million, up 19 percent from $198.2 million a year earlier. Gambling revenue nearly doubled, jumping to $33.1 million from $18.5 million in the 1987 third quarter. The gain was partly due to better results at Hilton's Nevada casinos and to the company's interest in the Conrad International hotel-casino in Queensland, Australia. Operating revenue in the hotel sector declined 12 percent to $21 million. The drop was largely due to a one-time credit that boosted revenue in the 1987 quarter and a charge for taxes that depressed the figure for the latest quarter, said Roy Judge, a vice president and assistant to the chairman. Hilton said hotel occupancy increased to 71 percent, from 70 percent a year ago, while Nevada gaming occupancy reached 90 percent, against 83 percent in 1987. For the year to date, profit rose 17 percent to $95.7 million, or $1.99 a share, from $81.5 million, or $1.62 a share. Revenue in the nine-month period totaled $699.2 million, up 12 percent from $623.4 million.
AP900215-0164 	X	Thousands marching against government austerity measures fled in panic Thursday when police fired rifles and tear gas after hooded youths smashed store windows. Three people were injured, police said. The violence came 11 months after rioting left about 300 dead following protests over subsidy cuts on food and public transportation. About 8,000 union members and supporters marched in the capital while thousands of others marched across the country in protest of government reforms aimed at cutting a $34 billion foreign debt, fourth-largest in Latin America. The march in Caracas was interrupted when a group of adolescents overturned garbage cans and shouted insults at police. About 20 of the youths began breaking windows in Simon Bolivar Center, a complex on Plaza Caracas, where the march was to end. Police rushed in firing tear gas and shotgun blasts in the air. Three people were injured in the brief confrontation, including Rafael Calma, a photographer for a Caracas newspaper, hit by a bottle thrown by a bystander in the crowd, said police. Police did not say how the other two people were hurt. ``It was the same group of troublemakers. A small group. We acted responsibly,'' said metropolitan police sheriff L.B. Gomez, standing his ground as protesters chanted, ``Police off our streets! The streets are ours!'' ``It's the fault of the government's economic package,'' said a leftist congressman, Ricardo Guttierez, participating in the march. The march was called by the 4 million-member Confederation of Workers, CTV, Venezuela's largest umbrella labor group. The CTV has called on President Carlos Andres Perez to back off on austerity measures it says has hit poorer Venezuelans the hardest. Labor leaders have planned protests this month after Perez' year-old Social Democratic government planned to cut subsidies on gasoline. The economy last year contracted by 8.1 percent and inflation rose to 80 percent under the effects of the austerity measures. Unemployment is about 11 percent, according to independent estimates, up from 8.7 percent last year.
AP880812-0201 	X	A deactivated reactor from the nation's first nuclear power plant will be floated down the Ohio River in October on its way to a nuclear waste depository in Washington state, officials said. The reactor, to be removed from the deactivated Shippingport Atomic Power Station about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, is expected to be unloaded in February at the Hanford nuclear reservation in south-central Washington. The barge will go down the Ohio to the Mississippi River, into the Gulf of Mexico, through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast. Although the reactor has been emptied of its nuclear fuel, filled with concrete and enclosed in a neutron-shield tank, it's classified as nuclear waste since it has been contaminated by radiation. ``There has never been a plant this large decommissioned in this country,'' said David Ney, a nuclear engineer for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. ``It's probably the largest single shipment of nuclear waste in the nation's history.'' Mike Molloy, executive director of Disaster and Emergency Services in Kentucky, said Thursday that his agency hasn't received word of the shipment to Hanford. Mike McKernan, a technology transfer program manager for Westinghouse-Hanford Co., said the company would inform states along the route when the loading date approaches. Westinghouse-Hanford is the federal Department of Energy's technical support contractor for Shippingport. The concrete-filled reactor and its enclosing shield, McKernan said, together about 1,000 tons and measures about 45 feet high and 18 feet across. ``You can stand on it all day long and you wouldn't come in contact with more radiation than if you were standing out in the sun,'' McKernan said. The plant, commissioned in 1957, was the nation's first commercial nuclear power plant. The federal Department of Energy and Duquesne Light, the Pittsburgh-based power company, operated the plant as a demonstration project. They began taking the plant out of service four years ago. By June, the nuclear core was removed and the middle of the reactor, which served as a heat source for water that was converted to steam, was filled with concrete. The Department of Energy is charged with disposing of the reactor and converting the property, owned by Duquesne Light, to ``a perfectly usable condition,'' McKernan said. Pennsylvania officials are monitoring the process.
AP880317-0035 	X	Talk of a brokered convention is making some Democrats shudder, while former House Speaker Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill says he thinks it would be a lot of fun and other party leaders say the scenario probably will be avoided one way or another. ``A brokered convention is nothing,'' said O'Neill on Wednesday evening. He recalled the brokered 1952 convention that nominated Adlai Stevenson and said, ``It was enjoyable ... it makes it more fun.'' ``If I had my way _ they talk about the smoke-filled rooms _ we ought to open them up to the TV and the press,'' he said in an interview Wednesday night. Sen. Paul Simon's favorite-son primary victory in Illinois on Tuesday brought the brokered convention speculation to the fore, along with concerns that the Democrats could only be hurt by such a lack of unity. New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who some hope would emerge the nominee if there were a deadlocked convention, condemned the possibility as ``the best way to give this election away to the Republicans.'' He joined Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk in calling for the Democratic leadership to unify behind the front-runner when the primary season ends in June, rather than wait until the July convention in Atlanta. Simon, reviving his faltering campaign, took most of the delegates in Illinois, with the other home-state candidate, Jesse Jackson, coming in second and taking the rest of the delegates. Simon said no one will have enough delegates to lock up the nomination before the convention, and added, ``We're going to have to work out some kind of a compromise.'' Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who currently holds a slim lead in delegates, said the party should unite behind the front-runner at the end of the primary season, and that encouraging a brokered convention ``would be a very dangerous thing.'' ``I think there is agreement on the part of most Democrats across the country that somebody will come out of this primary process with, if not an absolute majority, a substantial plurality ... and that people will rally behind that person. Obviously, I hope I will be that person,'' the governor said in Boston. But other prominent Democrats, interviewed Wednesday at a congressional dinner, professed not to be worried about the deadlocked convention prospect, mostly because they don't think it will come to that. ``Nobody said the process had to end by March,'' said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But he said he thinks his candidate, Dukakis, will have enough delegates to take the nomination by June, and that ``the process is going to work its way out.'' Former Virginia Gov. Charles Robb, who opted not to seek the presidential nomination this year, said he doubts anyone will have a winning cache of delegates in June. But he predicted that the party would unite behind a candidate before the convention. Nonetheless, he added, ``I don't fear a brokered convention ... I don't think any harm comes from it.'' After Illinois, Dukakis had 464.5 delegate votes, Jackson 460.55 and Simon 171.5. Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee had 354.8 and Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri 145. Uncommitted delegates totaled 272.65 of the 2,082 needed to win the nomination. Boosted by his Illinois win, Simon plans to campaign vigorously for the upcoming Michigan caucuses March 26 and the Wisconsin primary April 5. Gore, who fared poorly in Illinois, said he is ``almost prepared'' to agree that the race will still be fluid at the convention. ``I still think this process is likely to produce a winner before the first ballot is over,'' Gore said. ``The results (from Illinois) ... make it more likely we will go to a second ballot.'' Gephardt, who skipped Illinois to try to resuscitate his campaign in Michigan, said the Democratic battle could go all the way. ``The race is wide open,'' he said in Kalamazoo, Mich. ``I think if I can get a good result in Michigan, which I think I can, I'm going to be back in the middle of this thing and have a great chance to be the nominee.'' House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas said Wednesday night he anticipated he would be involved in any discussions to unite behind a candidate before the convention if no one had the winning number of delegates in June. He said a brokered convention wouldn't be the worst thing, but added, ``All things considered, it would be desirable if it didn't happen.'' Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey on Wednesday signaled the likelihood that he, too, would help in early selection of a nominee. First, he told party leaders in his home state that he would endorse a candidate before the primary there June 7, with Dukakis the favorite for his backing. And he said party leaders should halt an effort to put together an uncommitted delegate slate for the state. Victory for such a slate, he said, could cause problems for the front-running candidate when the primary is held.
AP900718-0111 	X	Strong aftershocks jolted earthquake-devastated areas in the north today as crews worked to clear a road in this hard-hit mountain resort. More bodies were dug out, raising the death toll to 376. The number of dead was expected to rise sharply in Baguio, where hundreds of people were believed still trapped in rubble because of a lack of heavy equipment and emergency training. The city was cut off by landslides in Monday's quake. President Corazon Aquino flew in today to assess the damage. She ordered officials to give top priority to clearing the roads so medicine, food and heavy equipment could be brought in. She also ordered city schools closed for a month. At Baguio's Hyatt Hotel, which collapsed in the earthquake, Clarita Gonzales tearfully called out with a megaphone for her 5-year-old daughter trapped in the rubble with her nanny. ``If you are still alive please tap,'' Mrs. Gonzales sobbed. On Tuesday, Mrs. Aquino declared a state of emergency throughout the quake-stricken area north of Manila on the archipelago nation's main island, Luzon. Two aftershocks early today measured 6.3 and 5.8 on the Richter scale, according to the U.S. Geological Service in Golden, Colo. Two more were reported later but precise readings were not immediately available. No new damage was reported. Figures compiled by the Office of Civil Defense and the Red Cross showed 360 people were killed and 773 injured from Monday's earthquake, which registered 7.7 on the Richter scale. In addition, the Philex Mining Corp., reported 16 people were also killed at its residential compound in Benguet province, but they were not included in the official tallies. The company said 13 of the dead were children. Officials said at least 82 of the fatalities died in Baguio, where four luxury hotels and 23 other buildings were severely damaged. But presidential Press Secretary Tomas Gomez said Mrs. Aquino was told that 142 people died in Baguio, including two Americans, one South Korean, a Taiwanese and a Chinese. He gave no names. U.S. officials could not confirm the report but said an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development was missing. About 1,500 Americans live in the town. One Baguio funeral director, Filemon Relis, said his mortuary alone received nearly 70 bodies of quake victims. Bodies covered with blankets were lying outside his funeral parlor; there was no room inside. Monday's quake, the strongest to strike the Philippines in 14 years, damaged Baguio's airport and triggered landslides which blocked the four highways leading to the resort. Highway crews used bulldozers and dynamite today to clear some of the dozens of landslides blocking one of the roads to Baguio. Officials said they hoped to clear the debris later today so that much-needed supplies, including cranes, food and medicine, could reach the city. The city of 120,000 people had no electricity and was running out of food. Only one service station was open and gasoline was being rationed. U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager said a 14-member military search and rescue team arrived today from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., and would travel by helicopter to Baguio to join the search. He said about 20 people injured in Baguio and Cabanatuan City were flown to a U.S. military hospital at Clark Air Base. More than 50 people were killed in Cabanatuan City, 60 miles north of Manila, when a six-story school collapsed. Japan sent doctors, nurses and $180,000 in relief supplies, and Canada, Thailand, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and South Korea also sent assistance. In Dagupan, where 20 people died, firetrucks began delivering drinking water to 31 outlying villages whose water lines were destroyed by the quake. Officials in the city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, 100 miles north of Manila, said it also was without electricity and that food and drinking water were running low. Dagupan's business district sank one to two yards during Monday's quake, and mud and sea water were seeping out through fissures in the street. Col. Bienvenido Liclican, spokesman for the military rescue team, appealed over Manila radio stations for tools, blood plasma, medicine and doctors to care for the injured. Monday's quake was the worst to strike the Philippines since 1976, when a quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 8,000 people. The scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one number means a tenfold increase in magnitude. Thus a reading of 7.5 reflects an earthquake 10 times stronger than one of 6.5.
AP901004-0061 	X	Former Defense Minister Alexej Cepicka, who was expelled from the Communist Party in the 1960s for his support of Stalinist policies, has died, the state news agency CTK reported Thursday. He was 80. No cause of death was given for Cepicka, son in law of former Czechoslovak Communist leader Klement Gottwald. Cepicka died Sunday. He became defense minister in 1950, but was dismissed from the post in 1956. He was expelled from the party in 1963 for his role in the ``deformations of the 50s,'' CTK said, alluding to the Stalinist period in Czechoslovakia. Also Thursday, the urn with Gottwald's remains was removed from the National Memorial of Zizkov in Prague and given to the representatives of the Communist Party, CTK said. Government officials attended the act. The memorial continues to house the remains of most other Czechoslovak presidents of the Communist era, along with those of nationally renowned artists and literary figures. There was no explanation of why Gottwald's urn was the only one removed, but the move likely was related to his unpopularity among most Czechoslovaks. The country's first Communist president, Gottwald is widely blamed for the Stalinist repression of the immediate post-war years.
AP880627-0112 	X	The Duchess of York has signed a contract to write two children's books, scheduled for publication at about the time of her own child's first birthday, Simon & Schuster announced Monday. The 28-year-old duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson, is married to Prince Andrew. The couple is expecting their first child in August. The two children's stories, about a helicopter named Budgie, will be aimed at very young children and will be illustrated by one of Britain's top children's book illustrators, according to the publisher's announcement. The American company is planning to publish the books in August 1989 in association with Simon & Schuster Ltd. of London. The duchess has been working on the books with an editor in London for the past few months, according to the publisher. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
AP900820-0063 	X	Zulus fired assault rifles at Xhosas sleeping in a workers barracks early Monday, leaving 22 people dead and pushing the death toll to 364 in a week of tribal clashes, police said. Zulus and Xhosas, the country's two largest black tribes and longtime rivals, have been waging vicious battles since Aug. 12 in the townships surrounding Johannesburg. Police and eyewitnesses said Zulus armed with AK-47 rifles raided a Xhosa workers hostel early Monday in KwaThema township east of Johannesburg. At least 22 people were killed, many of them Xhosas shot in their beds, they said. Police in armored vehicles moved in after dawn to restore order. Enraged Xhosas set fire to a hostel used by Zulus before being driven off. Fighting also flared in nearby townships, resulting in several deaths. Looters continued to pillage hostels abandoned by Zulu migrant workers. People carted away refrigerators, stoves and anything else they could find. Johannesburg newspapers Monday reported five killings Sunday in the Soweto township by the ``necklace'' method, whereby youths put gasoline-soaked tires around the necks of victims and set them alight. Police on Monday raised the death toll for the fighting from the past week to 364 and said hundreds were injured. ``We just keep finding bodies. They're everywhere,'' said a police spokesman. The fighting appears to be mostly a tribal conflict with a long history, but it also has political overtones. Nelson Mandela and many other leaders of the African National Congress, the largest opposition movement, are Xhosas. The ANC's rival, Inkatha, is a Zulu-based organization headed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Both the ANC and Inkatha oppose apartheid, the system of racial segregation that allows 5 million whites to maintain political and economic control over 30 million blacks. But the two groups differ over tactics and plans for a future South Africa. ANC leader Walter Sisulu ruled out peace talks between Mandela and Buthelezi, saying it would be a capitulation. ``That means Inkatha launches a war in order to bring us to our knees. For that type of thing we are not prepared,'' he said in a weekend television interview. Mandela's wife, Winnie, warned the ANC may be forced to resume its armed struggle to protect is supporters. The ANC agreed Aug. 6 to suspend it largely ineffective guerrilla campaign. Mrs. Mandela accused the government of ``working hand-in-hand'' with the relatively conservative Inkatha movement in the fighting against Xhosas, the independent South African Press Association reported. Also, the government has revoked immunity from prosecution for three ANC leaders, including the head of the group's military wing, Chris Hani. The three men, Hani, Ronnie Kasrils and Mac Maharaj, also are members of the South African Communist Party, a close ANC ally. The government gave no reason for the decision. But it was seen as a signal that authorities are upset with militant statements made recently by some ANC leaders. The trio are among more than 40 ANC leaders granted temporary immunity three months ago so they could participate in peace talks. All but Hani, Kasrils and Maharaj have had their immunity extended until the end of the year.
AP901130-0212 	X	A federal judge said Friday he will approve a plan to liquidate the assets of Charles Keating Jr.'s American Continental Corp., the former parent company of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Under the plan, American Continental's assets would be liquidated over three years to provide partial payment to the company's 25,000 creditors, who are owed $365 million. More than 9,200 creditors participated in a recent vote on the proposal, and 95 percent approved it, said Donald Gaffney, an attorney for unsecured creditors. He said the plan also was accepted by all classes of creditors. The plan was opposed by Keating and some of his former top executives, who invested in the company's securities. They said it would push them to the end of the creditors' line and make it unlikely they would receive any money. But no one spoke against the plan when Gaffney outlined it to District Judge Richard Bilby. The judge said he would approve the plan but didn't specify when. ``You've accomplished the impossible,'' Bilby told lawyers in the case. ``It's like almost any settlement I've known. There ain't much in it for anybody.'' Lincoln Savings, based in Irvine, Calif., was seized by federal regulators in April 1989, just one day after American Continental and 11 Lincoln Savings subsidiaries filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Federal officials have said Lincoln's failure could cost taxpayers $2 billion. The case has become symbolic of the national S&L debacle. Keating and other Lincoln executives are the subject of a class-action lawsuit alleging they misled investors about the safety of junk bonds issued by American Continental. Nearly 18,000 investors lost $250 million, authorities allege. In addition, the Senate Ethics Committee is holding hearings on whether five senators - Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.; Alan Cranston, D-Calif.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; John Glenn, D-Ohio; and Donald W. Riegle Jr., D-Mich. - improperly intervened with federal regulators on Keating's behalf because of the $1.3 million he and associates contributed to their campaigns and favorite causes. Unsecured creditors of American Continental can expect to receive their first payments by the end of January, said Gaffney, who represents the Unsecured Creditors Committee. Some 22,000 unsecured creditors hold American Continental bonds. Gaffney said the bondholders' first checks probably will amount to ``pennies on the dollar'' on their investment. The timing and amount of later checks would depend on liquidation of American Continental assets, now valued at $9 million, and outcome of suits filed by creditors against Keating, Keating associates and legal and accounting firms which advised American Continental. A proposal approved by Bilby Nov. 16 to allow the Lincoln Savings subsidiaries to pay their creditors would go into effect with the liquidation plan. The subsidiaries' creditors will receive virtually all the $120 million they are owed. Under the liquidation proposal, Thomas Arnold Jr., a Phoenix consultant who was appointed by Bilby to head American Continental, and three other members of a steering committee would wind down the company's operations over a three-year period. The plan is a compromise between the creditors and the federal Resolution Trust Corp., the agency set up to handle the nation's S&L bailout. It includes an agreement by the RTC to pay $21 million into American Continental's bankruptcy estate in exchange for being allowed to become a party in civil lawsuits filed by bondholders against Keating and his associates.
AP900215-0175 	X	Thirty-five million Americans report suffering from arthritis, and 6 million admit they haven't seen a doctor about it, according to a survey released Thursday by federal health officials. ``This confirms our suspicions that people are seeing (pain-killer) ads on TV and treating their arthritis themselves _ and very possibly doing damage to themselves,'' said Steve Erickson, spokesman for the Arthritis Foundation, based in Atlanta. The highest incidence of arthritis was in Florida, 18 percent, while the lowest was in Alaska, 9 percent. More than 3,000 people were asked in 1987 if they had experienced various arthritic conditions in the past year, if they had consulted a physician about the condition and if their arthritis was limiting their work or their household lives, the national Centers for Disease Control said. Nationwide, the survey found, 14.6 percent of the population reported arthritis and 12.1 percent had consulted a doctor about it, leaving 2.5 percent _ about 6 million people _ who hadn't. The feeling that nothing can be done for arthritis, beyond taking over-the-counter pain medication, ``is a real big misconception,'' Erickson said. ``There are a lot of things you can do.'' The problem will probably get worse if pain relievers are the only treatment, he said. ``These findings indicate the need ... to determine why these persons have not sought medical care, and to identify approaches for overcoming barriers to care,'' the CDC said in its weekly report. Women reported higher rates of arthritis than men, 18 percent to 11 percent. Women also were more likely to have seen a doctor about their arthritis _ 15 percent to 9 percent _ and were more likely to report limits in their activity _ 4 percent to 2 percent. Overall, 3 percent said arthritis was limiting their activities. There was little racial difference in arthritis reporting: 15 percent for whites and 14 percent for blacks. As might be expected, arthritis rates increased with age. Eleven percent of respondents aged 35-44 reported arthritis compared with 23 percent of those 45-54; by the 75-and-over group, the rate was 53 percent, compared to just 3 percent in the under-35 group. The high rate of arthritis in Florida ``is due to its relatively large population of elderly persons,'' the CDC said. Alaska's low rate can be attributed in part to its high Native American and Pacific Islander populations, ``among whom the prevalence of arthritic conditions is low,'' the report said. Erickson said too few people are aware of the warning signs of arthritis, such as joint swelling, early morning stiffness, recurring joint pain or inability to move a joint that lasts for more than two weeks. People with those symptoms should see a doctor, the Arthritis Foundation said.
AP900524-0234 	X	A Japan Airlines order for 20 Boeing 747-400 airplanes is one of the top Boeing orders of all time and makes JAL the largest customer for the jumbo jet, Boeing officials said Thursday. The order, worth $3.1 billion, brings to 40 the number of firm orders placed by JAL for the 747-400s. JAL also has options for 34 more of the aircraft. If all options are exercised, the order would be worth more than $7 billion, said Tom Cole, spokesman for Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. The jet, which can seat 600 people, has a range to 8,400 miles and a computer-aided cockpit that requires a crew of only two. The JAL planes will be configured to carry 375 to 404 passengers in three classes and will be outfitted with General Electric CF6-80C2 engines. Following JAL in firm orders for the 747-400s are Singapore Airlines with 29 and All Nippon Airways Co. of Japan with 26, Cole said. ``We call the Pacific a `747 ocean,''' he said. ``We do expect the airplane to sell well. It really has no competition.'' The order brings to 1,002 the total number of orders for the 747 series jets, making it the fourth civil airplane type in history to surpass the 1,000-mark in sales, Boeing said. The other models are Boeing's 727 and 737 series and the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series. In dollar terms, the deal puts JAL in a four-way tie for fourth place among all Boeing orders with All Nippon Airways, United Airlines and Delta Airlines. The largest Boeing order ever was made by GPA Ltd. in May 1989, with 182 planes worth $9.4 billion. That order did not include any 747s, Cole said. Boeing has delivered 70 of the 747-400s since the model was first rolled off the assembly line in January 1989. A total of 279 of the jets have now been ordered. The JAL order brings to 138 the number of firm orders for Boeing planes this year, worth $11.4 billion, Cole said. The company sold a record 887 jets worth $46.7 billion last year, he said. Sumitaka Kawamura of JAL said that if the airline exercises all 34 options, its total investment in 747-400s will be nearly $12 billion. JAL plans to increase its fleet from 100 planes to 170 by 1999 to meet an expected increase in passengers. Kawamura said JAL had received five of the 747-400s planes by March, and would receive the rest by 1999 ``if our plans are not changed.'' Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) said the orders would help reduce Japan's trade surplus with the United States.
AP881028-0327 	X	The stock market recouped some of Thursday's broad losses with a modest rally in slackened trading Friday. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 24.35 on Thursday, rose 9.06 to 2,149.89. That left the average with a net loss for the week of 33.61 points. Big Board volume totaled 146.30 million shares, against 196.54 million in the previous session. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 7 to 5 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 858 up, 595 down and 519 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 146.30 million shares, down from 196.54 million in the previous session. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 173.07 million shares. Thursday's decline hit hardest among stocks that were known or rumored to be targets of takeovers and buyouts. The selling came as increasing numbers of analysts voiced concern over the amounts of debt being built up in corporate America. But once having delivered that message, investors seemed willing to look again today at individual deals that are likely to go through, presenting the opportunity for trading profits. Also, analysts said the overall market got a lift from General Motors, which issued a third quarter earnings report Thursday that was much better than expected. GM shares, up 2~ on Thursday, climbed another 3] to 83~ on turnover of more than 3.6 million shares Friday. Among big takeover targets, RJR Nabisco gained 3 to 85; Kraft was up 2 at 96{, and Pillsbury rose | to 59{. The investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a bidder for RJR Nabisco, said its plan does not call for the sale of large parts of the company and its financing is not conditioned on such sales. Rollins Environmental led the active list, tumbling 2} to 10~. The company reported earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 of 7 cents a share, down from 14 cents in the comparable period a year earlier. Teledyne rose 10[ to 333}. The company said directors authorized it to buy back as many as 1 million of the approximately 11.4 million shares it has outstanding. Coastamerica, which agreed to be acquired by American Hoist & Derrick for $10.50 a share, jumped 1{ to 10[. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market increased $10.83 billion, or 0.40 percent, in value. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks gained .62 to 156.79. Standard & Poor's industrial index rose 1.49 to 320.67, and S&P's 500-stock composite index was up 1.25 at 278.53. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market added 1.02 to 382.79. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 301.75, up 1.11.
AP880216-0094 	X	The discovery of two species of the daddy-longlegs insect family in Edgewood County Park may block a proposed 18-hole golf course. Both species are called the Edgewood Park harvestman, of Sitalcina minor. They live only in serpentine rock formations in the park's hills, and several conservationists want the habitate to be preserved. ``Constructing a golf course would wipe out the whole harvestmen populations,'' said Thomas F. Briggs, a science teacher at San Francisco Lowell High School. ``These are about the smallest daddy longlegs in the world,'' he added. Briggs discovered one of the species in 1983 and the other in 1985. Both have eight legs, and bright orange-red bodies that measure about 1 millimeter. Unlike spiders, daddy-longlegs do not spin webs. Along with Darrell Ubick, an entomologist, Briggs has submitted a proposal to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that the species discovered in 1983 be declared a federally protected creature, which could halt any development of their only known habitat. San Mateo County purchased the 468-acre site in 1980 from the state and has been attempting to build a golf course there for several years. ``This little spider is just another ploy to keep from having a golf course,'' said Barbara Kootz of nearby San Carlos, a golfer and leader of pro-development interests in the area.
AP901127-0136 	X	Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said Tuesday after meeting with boxing great Muhammed Ali that a number of Americans held in Iraq would soon be allowed to leave the country. In an interview with The Associated Press, Ali said the number of hostages Saddam promised to free was not specified but that he would remain in Baghdad until they could fly home. He met Tuesday with some of the Americans detained in Baghdad as ``human shields'' in case of attack by multinational troops. Ali, on a mission to Baghdad on behalf of a number of American peace groups, arrived in the Iraqi capital last Wednesday. He met Tuesday with Saddam for about 50 minutes. During the meeting, the president reiterated his stand on the need for a peaceful settlement to the Persian Gulf crisis, which began with Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. Ali said he told the Iraqi leader that a release would be ``good for maintaining peace in the area and good for the image of Iraq in the United States.'' Ali, 48, said Saddam gave him a brief review of the history of the area and that he was impressed with its important culture. ``This is the land of the Garden of Eden and the land where Abraham was born. How could it be bombed?'' he said. Ali said he found the president ``a man of conviction.'' The onetime world boxing champion converted to Islam in 1964, and changed his name from Cassius Clay. In Iraq at the invitation of the government, he has been staying in a government guest house and visited holy shrines in the towns of Kerbala and Najaf. He was mobbed by children wanting their picture taken with him wherever he went in Iraq. Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, marked by slurred speech and shaking limbs, used hand signals to communicate with Jaber Mohammed, who speaks for him. Ali won the championship with a first-round knockout of Sonny Liston on May 25, 1965. Ali then defended the crown eight times until he was stripped of the title in 1967 after being convicted of draft evasion for refusing induction into the Army. The New York State Athletic Commission returned his license on Sept. 28, 1970. He defended the title 10 times before retiring in 1981 with a 56-5 record.
AP901030-0098 	X	American soldiers in Saudi Arabia are suffering normal morale problems, but their spirits will rise when the Pentagon announces plans in November for replacing them with fresh units, a senior Army official said Tuesday. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the Army's vice chief of staff, said the service is taking numerous steps to improve morale, including the possibility of leasing large cruise liners in the Persian Gulf to give soldiers a break from desert training. ``It's tough. It's not an easy mission'' for the more than 100,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield to defend the desert kingdom against a possible Iraqi attack, Sullivan said in an interview in his Pentagon office. The four-star general said the Bush administration will announce within a couple of weeks its decision on when replacement forces would be sent to begin the rotation process. He said the Army had not been instructed to increase its total force in Saudi Arabia, but that extra troops, if needed, likely would come from combat units at U.S. bases in Germany that are scheduled to be closed next year. The Army also could tap the remaining three armored divisions based in the United States. On Monday, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said that as many as 100,000 more forces - beyond the roughly 240,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines already there - might be sent to the gulf area. He did not say when more forces would go. Sullivan said the full contingent of soldiers assigned to Desert Shield would be in place within a few days, and a shipment of several hundred top-of-the-line M1A1 main battle tanks also is en route to Saudi Arabia from Germany to replace older M1 tanks that are less capable of handling a chemical attack. The biggest psychological lift for the troops, some of whom have been in the Saudi desert for two months, will come when the Bush administration announces a timetable for a rotation of fresh forces, Sullivan said. The four-star general said the Army already has set in motion the arrangements for mobilizing the first fresh units from the United States and Europe, although no individual units have been alerted to begin moving to the gulf. Sullivan acknowledged that some soldiers are grousing about not knowing how long they'll be on duty in Saudi Arabia, where living conditions on the front lines are harsh, but he said he was satisfied that morale is not suffering unduly. ``The troops are in pretty good shape and they are not experiencing what I consider to be inordinate morale problems,'' he said. ``I don't see it.'' Recent news reports based on interviews with soldiers and other servicemen in the gulf area have portrayed the troops as losing patience with the nagging uncertainty of when they might go home and whether they'll be required to fight. Earlier this month, after complaining members of the Army's 24th Mechanized Infantry Division were quoted in the New York Times, the commanding general restricted access to reporters. Some private analysts say the tough conditions in the Saudi desert should not be a reason for poor morale. ``Morale is a leadership problem,'' said James A. Blackwell Jr., a former Army commander of combat units and now a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ``Good leaders will have good morale under the most distasteful and challenging circumstances.'' Sullivan said that rotating troops in Saudi Arabia is complicated by the fact that the Army intends to replace whole units at a time, not make piecemeal substitutions of individual soldiers. He said this would be the first time in history the Army has rotated whole units, a strategy designed to avoid the loss of unit cohesion that Army leaders saw during the Vietnam War.
AP880726-0117 	X	The House Judiciary Committee today approved 17 articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings of Miami, and sent the historic bribery case to the full House. Hastings, 51, is the first federal judge to face impeachment after his acquittal in a criminal trial on the same charges, and the first black to face removal from federal office under the impeachment procedure. In Miami, Hastings said that those who voted against him ``acted in blind ignorance. They could not have read the material.'' The committee voted 32-1 to approve all the 17 impeachment articles. A number of committee members said they had done considerable soul searching because they feared Hastings may have been correct in his assertion that he was the victim of racism. But those expressing such reservations said that factual circumstances of the case showed impeachment was warranted. Hastings would be removed from his lifetime office if the full House votes for impeachment and he is convicted in a Senate trial. Hastings is accused of conspiring to solicit a bribe from two defendants who appeared before him and of lying about the scheme to a federal jury. He also is accused of leaking information about a wiretap. William Borders, a Washington attorney accused of participating with Hastings in the bribery scheme, has been convicted of the charges. Hastings, in a separate 1983 trial, was acquitted. The first of the articles of impeachment, which are similar to an indictment, accused Hastings of engaging in a corrupt conspiracy to obtain a $150,000 bribe from two brothers. Other articles accused him of lying about the scheme at his trial by denying specific parts of the conspiracy; of leaking wiretap information; and of undermining the confidence of the federal judiciary. Eleven impeachment cases have come to trial before the Senate, and five defendants, all judges, have been removed from office.
AP901025-0075 	X	Wages, salaries and other benefits paid to American workers rose 5.2 percent in the 12 months ending in September, the government reported today. The Labor Department said its Employment Cost Index, considered one of the best gauges of inflationary wage pressures, was pushed ahead to a large degree by a sharp 6.8 percent rise in benefit costs for private industry workers. The government blamed much of the past year's steep increase on the rising cost of health insurance. Non-production bonuses, workers' compensation insurance and a rise this year in the Social Security tax rate also contributed to the rapid spurt in benefit costs, the Labor Department said. A year ago, benefit costs had jumped 6.0 percent for the 12-month period ending in September 1989. Wages and salaries for private industry workers climbed 4.2 percent, the report said, just under the 4.3 percent increase recorded a year ago. The 5.2 percent increase in all compensation costs for both private sector and government workers was just above the 5.1 percent gain of a year ago, the government said. Today's report was sure to add to analysts concerns over the inflation threat facing the nation and its impact on America's already struggling economy. Last week, the government reported that consumer prices surged 0.8 percent in September, the second steep inflation rise brought on by soaring energy prices that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. That inflation report showed that for the first nine months of the year, consumer prices have advanced at an annual rate of 6.6 percent, well above the increase for all of 1989 of 4.6 percent. Eventually, analysts expect the inflation brought on by higher oil prices to start showing up in wages and salaries as well, because workers will start demanding more compensation to make up for the drain on their wallets. Today's report showed that over-the-year pay gains were about the same in the service-producing industries, where wages rose 4.2 percent, as in the goods-producing industries, where wages rose 4.1 percent. Within the service-producing industries, wage and salary increases ranged from 2.6 percent in wholesale trade to 6.2 percent in hospitals and the insurance industry. Pay gains among the goods-producing industries ranged from 2.4 percent in construction to 4.6 percent in durable-goods manufacturing. Non-union workers received better wage gains than their union counterparts, continuing a trend that's been ongoing since 1983-84, the government said. Non-union workers' pay rose 4.4 percent while union workers saw gains of 3.6 percent. For state and local government workers, the 5.3 percent pay gains for the year ending in September 1990 were lower than the 5.5 percent increases of a year ago. This pattern of lower rates of pay increases compared to last year also was found in hospitals and schools, today's report said. The 5.2 percent increase in the employment cost index for all workers, including those in the government, over the 12 months ending in September was under the 5.4 percent rise in the 12 months ending in June.
AP881123-0001 	X	PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ Activist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Wednesday accused the Roman Catholic Church of plotting his ouster and also warned of popular unrest unless the Haitian government made democratic reforms. In a message transmitted over private radio and television stations, Aristide attacked the hierarchy of Haiti's Roman Catholic Church for not speaking up against an order to transfer him to Canada. Thugs attacked Aristide's St. Jean Bosco Roman Catholic Church on Sept. 11, killing 13 worshipers and wounding many more. It is believed the church attack was responsible for Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy's overthrow as Haiti's leader shortly after. Rank-and-file soldiers said they were tired of state-sponsored violence. Wednesday was the first time Aristide spoke out publicly since his Salesian Order superiors in Rome ordered him to leave Haiti on Oct. 17. The order prompted demonstrations by his followers and Aristide remains in Haiti. The Salesians have not acted since giving Aristide the October deadline. ``You are plotting against me, give me a chance to look at you straight in the eyes,'' Aristide said in his eight-minute message to Haitian bishops. The speech was transmitted by most radio stations except church-operated Radio Soleil. Aristide also lashed at the bishops for ``never commenting on the order to transfer me.'' He also warned Lt. Gen Prosper Avril, the Haitian president, to ``make a purge in the country and stop the uncertainty'' by Nov. 29 because ``the people are watching over you.'' Avril came to power in a Sept. 17 coup staged by non-commissioned officers who overthrew Namphy. Avril promised democratic reforms, including municipal and legislative elections. On Tuesday, Avril declared Nov. 29 a national day of mourning for dozens of voters massacred at polling stations nearly a year ago by armed thugs. Aristide accused Avril of ``playing like Francois Duvalier,'' the late dictator, by calling for elections before bringing to trial those known to have carried out atrocities such as the Election Day massacre. Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude ruled Haiti for 29 years. Aristide charged Avril's government had not cracked down on the remaining Tonton Macoutes, the feared secret police of the Duvalier regime, and brought them to trial.
AP900216-0181 	X	Rebels said Friday they had overrun three more government garrisons in southern Sudan and beaten back a military convoy trying to stage a rescue mission. In a clandestine radio broadcast, the Sudan People's Liberation Army said it captured Kologi in southern Kordofan province on Wednesday ``after seven days of heavy fighting preceded by a one-month siege.'' The broadcast said rebel forces also ambushed a 33-vehicle convoy, including four tanks, that was trying to reach Kologi and ``forced it to retreat with heavy losses.'' The rebels also claimed the capture of two smaller garrison towns, Bazia on Jan. 24 and Amati on Wednesday. The report could not be independently confirmed, but if true would bring to more than 15 the number of garrisons captured by the rebels the past three months.
AP880526-0023 	X	Two monasteries have been returned to Armenian church officials by the government, the Tass news agency said. The official news agency said on Wednesday that Armenian authorities returned to the church the Tateva monastery, built in the 9th century, and the Makaravank monastery, built between the 11th and 13th centuries. The government in Armenia, a southern Soviet republic that borders Turkey, also returned three mosques to religious officials, Tass said. It quoted Patriarch-Catholicos Vazgen of the Armenian church as saying the return of the facilities was an example of improved church-state relations. Tass said the monasteries had been under state protection for many years, but provided no other details about them.
AP901130-0204 	X	Poles lined up at banks Friday to buy shares in the first five state-run companies to be privatized under the country's post-Communist economic reforms. A Western-style advertising campaign with sophisticated graphics tried to educate potential buyers on how the investments work, where to purchase shares and what risks to consider. ``Learn the power of your money,'' the advertisements say. Five companies, considered to be the better run and more efficient from the beleaguered socialized economy, are being privatized in the first round of economic reforms. They are the Krosno glass works, the Kielce construction company Exbud, the Lodz textile company Prochnik, a Silesian cable factory and Tonsil, an audio equipment company. Share prices ranged from 50,000 zlotys, about $5, to 112,000 zlotys, or $12. The minimum purchase was five shares. Ultimately, some 7,000 companies, accounting for more than 80 percent of the Polish economy, are to be transferred from state to private ownership or otherwise liquidated in the drive to create a capitalist economy and an investment market. Government economists devised complex systems for selling off the companies, reserving up to 20 percent of shares for workers at lower prices, retaining some for the state treasury and limiting the portion that can be purchased by foreigners. By late January, the shares will be allocated to buyers, although the shares will be held by the national banks until a stock market is created. At two Warsaw banks, 1,500 applications for the first offring were received by 3 p.m., with the average purchase put at 10 million zlotys, or about $1,050, state television reported. Oversubscription was expected for most of the companies, although uncertainty caused by the presidential campaign now under way and the financial pressure of the holiday season might limit sales, said Grzegorz Meza, an economist in the privatization ministry. ``This is the worst possible time,'' he said. ``But even if people are not experienced in investment, we think Poles will think this is going to be good business.''
AP881101-0174 	X	Lloyd Bentsen pushed hard Tuesday to sell Michael Dukakis as someone who'll support a strong defense, and he worked to deflect any harm to the ticket from Dukakis' acknowledgment that he was a liberal. The Texas senator hopped into the cockpit of an F-16C jet fighter at the General Dynamics plant in Fort Worth, and told workers there the Dukakis-Bentsen team opposed the Reagan administration plan to reduce purchases of those planes next year from 180 to 100. ``Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen support a strong national defense,'' he said. ``The F-16 is an integral part of that,'' he said, pointing to the Democratic proposal for more conventional weapons instead of more spending on Star Wars and nuclear weaopons. Bentsen continued emphasizing defense at a rally outside the courthouse in Sherman, where he told several hundred spectators that Republican commercials in Texas claiming that the Democrats were going to shut down defense plants were ``absolutely untrue.'' The Democratic candidate stressed the same theme in Owensboro, Ky., telling a crowd of more than 2,500 in a tobacco warehouse that the Democrats support the creation of the best military in the world. ``I'll tell you what a second-best defense system is,'' Bentsen said. ``It has all the value of a second-best poker hand. All it does is cost you money.'' Joining Bentsen at the podium were Kentucky Gov. Wallace Wilkinson, Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., and Rep. William Natcher, D-Ky. The rally ended with the singing of ``My Old Kentucky Home,'' and a balloon drop that didn't work. The rope to release the balloons broke and they stayed netted to the ceiling. Bentsen, questioned by reporters, brushed aside suggestions by reporters that Dukakis hurt himself in Texas by calling himself a liberal. Most Texans, according to polls, consider themselves conservative. ``He said (he was a liberal) ... in the terms of Jack Kennedy and a Harry Truman and I don't think anyone ever questioned their being for a strong national defense,'' Bentsen said. ``You know, what you have to look at and read is how he stated it,'' he said. ``He talked about it in the terms of Harry Truman, in the terms of Jack Kennedy, in the terms of balanced budgets, in the terms of paying your own way.'' The Republican administration ``talks about fiscal responsiblity and hasn't given us a balanced budget yet,'' he said. Bob Slagle, the state Democratic chairman who helped introduce Bentsen in Sherman, said he didn't think Dukakis did much harm. ``I don't think it's really hurting him,'' he said. ``They don't really attach that much to a label,'' he said, especially since Dukakis identified himself with Franklin Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy. But Reggie Bashur, the spokesman for the Bush-Quayle campaign in Texas, said ``calling himself a liberal, he's really hurt himself in Texas.'' Evidence of that damage was already showing up in tracking polls, he said. In Texas, he said, the term liberal stands for the George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale school of Democrats. ``I don't know what his handlers were thinking'' when they let Dukakis say that, he said. After Owensboro, Bentsen flew to St. Louis, where he spoke to a charged-up crowd of about 2,000 students jammed into a quadrangle at Washington University. He came to the stage with the speakers blaring Aretha Franklin's version of the Rolling Stones' ``Jumpin Jack Flash'' and he urged the students to get out and vote. The Republicans, he said, were ``poppin those champagne corks but I'll tell you on November 9 they're going to have the worst hangover they've ever had,'' he said. Bentsen, a bomber pilot in World War II, clearly enjoyed the stop at the General Dynamics plant. Workers chanted ``Bentsen, Bentsen, and several employees yelled out in objection to George Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, calling him a draft dodger. There were also Bush supporters in evidence, but they did not heckle or disturb the tour of the mile-long plant, which manufactures about 300 jets a year. Bentsen squeezed into the single-seat cockpit of a new F-16C for the cameras and afterward declared it ``fits like a wetsuit.'' He joked to reporters that he'd fly it to the next campaign stop and meet his entourage there.
AP900731-0014 	X	In this city of bureaucrats, lawyers and computer nerds, how many good, old-fashioned macho men are left? You guessed it, folks. When the Kennedy Center announced auditions for ``macho he-men'' to perform as extras in the Australian Ballet's production of ``Spartacus'' this week, only 36 showed up. Worse, nearly half of them were politely ushered to the door as impostors. The audition fliers posted on bulletin boards at congressional offices, gyms and dance studios around town included a photograph of exactly the kind of guy the Kennedy Center was looking for _ a lean and mean Roman gladiator clad in a flimsy loin cloth, his rippling muscles straining to burst his leather chest straps. What shuffled into the rehearsal hall of the Kennedy Center Opera House on Monday evening fell roughly into two categories: health spa muscleman and your standard couch potato. They were short and tall, potbellied and trim, balding and longhaired, dressed in jeans, T-shirts and shorts. One wore a striped shirt and tie. Few seemed likely candidates for Hungarian choreographer Laszlo Seregi's balletic tale of a slave revolt in ancient Rome. One who didn't make the cut was Eugene Woodruff, 57, of suburban Annandale, Va., a supervisor at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who took his disappointment good-naturedly. Woodruff has been a supernumerary, or extra, with the Washington Opera a few times, mostly just standing around on stage, but never in a ballet. ``I'm not a dancer at all,'' he said with a smile. ``I don't take part in any strenuous athletics. For exercise, the only thing I do is rifle shooting. I also mow the lawn and saw some firewood.'' The lure for Woodruff couldn't be the money. The 19 extras selected to play Roman soldiers and slaves in ``Spartacus'' will receive $28 for four rehearsals and $40 for four performances starting Friday. The extras in opera productions are paid considerably less, but the pay for ``Spartacus'' is higher because there is ``lots of marching and escaping and running around on stage,'' said Steve Quinn, the Kennedy Center's liaison with the Australian Ballet. Colin Peasley, the touring ballet company's ballet master, chose 19 of the more athletic-looking candidates and began an intensive drill to whip them into shape as Roman soldiers and slaves. ``Left, right, left, right,'' he barked as the extras marched across the floor to piano music from Aram Khachaturian's score. Grabbing a wooden spear, Peasley said, ``These are held like you hold a thermometer, under your arm like this.'' He taught the neophyte guards how to sway without getting dizzy, and how to crouch without ``looking like you're sitting on the toilet.'' He held a Roman warrior's shield to his chest. ``You must be careful how you hold a shield or they begin to look like a handbag,'' he said. Woodruff enjoyed his past moments of glory in the operatic limelight, no matter how obscure, but he had no pretensions. ``I have no illusions about being a great actor,'' he said. ``I do it for the fun of it. It's a chance to do theater that's big-time, without having any real professional skills.''
AP901202-0038 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Sunday named former KGB general Boris Pugo as Interior Minister after relieving Vadim Bakatin of the job in a possible shakeup of the country's law and order ministry. Gorbachev ``released Vadim Bakatin from the duties of the Soviet interior minister in connection with his transition to another job,'' the state news agency Tass reported. Bakatin's replacement must be approved by the Supreme Soviet legislature, the report said. The report did not say whether the 53-year-old Bakatin was being promoted or punished. Officials have said there has been a sharp rise in economic and violent crime stemming from the nation's political crisis. Gorbachev has been threatening a crackdown for more than a month. He has also said that he planned drastic changes in the government structure, especially the Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov. The prime minister is widely blamed for the failure of the government's economic reforms. Pugo, 53, was first secretary of the Communist Party in the Baltic republic of Latvia in 1984-88, but was forced out due to the growing independence movement there. Pugo becomes the most prominent Baltic native in a Communist Party and government leadership that is dominated by Russians. He is not considered popular in Latvia, however, because he was deputy chief and chief of the KGB in Latvia from 1977-84, and has resisted the Baltic drive for independence. The three Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have declared independence this year, but Gorbachev has refused to allow them to leave. Pugo, chairman of the Communist Party's Control Committee since 1988 and strong Gorbachev supporter, was appointed to take Bakatin's place by presidential decree, Tass reported. He was named a non-voting member of the Communist Party Politburo in September 1989, but was dropped last July during reforms that drastically reduced the power of the party.
AP881017-0220 	X	Skull and Bones, the oldest and most secret senior society at Yale University, boasts many distinguished alumni but none more prominent today than a ``spook'' from the class of 1948 _ George Herbert Walker Bush. Little is known about the strange rituals and practices of the 156-year-old society, and that's the way its members want it. The rites are rumored to include placing initiates in a coffin and requiring them to plunge naked into a pile of mud. Some of the rumors come from rival societies, and may be suspect. No one but members really know what goes on inside the windowless, mausoleum-style structure of brown sandstone to which Bonesmen retreat. But as the Republican presidential nominee's own experience has shown, membership in the society forms powerful bonds of friendship that endure long after graduation. The vice president was one of 15 Yale juniors tapped for Skull and Bones in 1947. To this day, the Bonesmen who once heard him recount some of the innermost secrets of his life remain his good friends. Perhaps because of the pledge of secrecy that Bonesmen take, Bush did not mention his Skull and Bones membership in his autobiography, ``Looking Forward.'' The society has long been suspected of ritualistic thefts. A group of history buffs in El Paso, Texas, claimed that the skull referred to in the society's name belongs to Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, whose grave was robbed in 1926. Endicott Davison, a lawyer who says he speaks for Skull and Bones, said the society does not have the skull. The former chairman of the San Carlos Apache tribe in Arizona charged recently that Bush's father, Prescott Bush, stole the skull of Apache chief Geronimo years ago, and that it is still on display at Skull and Bones' inner sanctum. That claim was denied by the vice president's brother, Jonathan Bush. One thing is not disputed: Bush the Bonesman is in powerful company. Brothers of the order have included Henry Stimson, Averell Harriman, Henry Luce, Potter Stewart, McGeorge Bundy, Archibald MacLeish, William F. Buckley Jr. and William Sloan Coffin Jr. Prescott Bush, a Republican senator from Connecticut, was a member. So was Bush's oldest son, George W. Bush, and about a half-dozen other family members. Skull and Bones is arguably the most famous and influential secret society in the United States, having served as a model for others that followed at Yale and other institutions. It was founded by William Russell, a member of the Yale Class of 1833, apparently in reaction to the stripping of secrecy from Phi Beta Kappa, the honorary scholastic society, during the rise of a national anti-secrecy movement. Skull and Bones is a private organization incorporated as the Russell Trust Association. It pays taxes to the city of New Haven and owns Deer Island, a resort on the St. Lawrence River. Giving Skull and Bones the benefit of the doubt, Brooks Mather Kelly, in a 1974 history of Yale, wrote of the society: ``Its purpose and programs were not revealed when it was founded and have never since been known. But that like most Yale societies it pretends to some intellectual and educational purpose can probably be assumed.'' The society ``comes from a tradition of elitism of which Yale was at the center,'' said Dan A. Oren, author of ``Joining The Club,'' a book published in 1985 about the relationship between the university and Jews. Skull and Bones became the first of the secret societies to admit a Jew in 1937. During the 1960s, the society tapped a number of outspoken radicals. Even today, however, it remains steadfastly all-male. Of Yale's seven secret undergraduate societies, only one other _ Wolf's Head _ refuses to admit women. Having women as members would interfere with one of the ways Bonesmen become true brothers. By all accounts, Skull and Bones initiates must lay bare their souls, telling their sexual histories and life stories in graphic detail. ``The danger of secret societies and entering into the club world is it allows members to lose sight of the common folk who aren't part of the elite,'' Oren said. But he said that Bush's experiences in World War II combat worked the other way. ``For so many veterans, their fight was against the racists and the bigoted values of Nazi Germany, so when they came back, they were embued with a strong sense of egalitarianism,'' Oren said. Bush, 21 and already married, entered Yale in 1945 after his discharge from the Navy, which awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals for his wartime exploits. While on one combat mission, Bush's plane was shot down and he was rescued by a submarine. Two fellow crewmen perished. Bush recounted his brush with death for Bonesmen in 1947 with great emotion, says former Rep. Thomas W.L. Ashley, D-Ohio, another member of the Bones class of 1948. ``What comes to mind was, he was an awful young guy who had had an idyllic kind of childhood who suddenly found himself in an airplane that was on fire facing a lot of death around him and almost certain death himself,'' Ashley said. Ashley and other Bonesmen in his Yale class are still close friends of Bush. ``Obviously, we became fond of each other,'' Ashley said. ``This was something kind of special to us.'' He added: ``George Bush is exactly just as loyal to other friends as those who happened to be in the society with him. His friendship across the social range is known to everyone.'' Members of the Bones class of 1948 came to Washington in 1981 for a reunion that included dinner at the vice president's mansion and a tour of the White House Oval Office. ``His having been a member of Skull and Bones and his continued involvement as an alumnus means he would probably be likely to draw upon past connections for the White House,'' Oren said. ``But his choice of people _ James Baker III to be campaign manager, Dan Quayle as vice president _ shows he's willing to go beyond Yale,'' Oren said. ``He has always maintained close connections to Skull and Bones, but his world certainly goes beyond New Haven.''
AP881027-0011 	X	Equipped with a gun, a nightstick and a regulation-size teddy bear, police officers in this town boast they're ready for any emergency. The idea of driving around with stuffed animals may not inspire a new television series _ ``T.J. Teddy''? _ but Tewksbury police officers are receptive to the the idea if it means helping children deal with traumatic events. ``When you've got a little kid who has been in an accident and who is hysterical, it's a good idea,'' said Officer Donald Ryan. However, he added, the bears ``will stay in the trunk.'' The town's 13 police cars are equipped with two regulation, 7-inch teddy bears apiece. Police say the bears' first week on duty already has produced positive results. ``It calms the kids down a lot and creates a good feeling towards the police, too,'' said Deputy Police Chief Denise Rosen. ``A lieutenant gave one to a child of a mother being interviewed concerning some domestic problems at her house.'' The bears were donated to the force by the New England Telephone Pioneers, a charitable group whose members are current and retired phone company employees. The police department calls the group when a bear is given to a child so it can be replaced.
AP900301-0264 	X	Initial tests by a Washington apple grower have identified an organic chemical that may serve as a substitute for Alar, which was banned as a probable carcinogen last year after a national scare. But a scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday it was too early to tell if the grower's initial results will hold up, and that the chemical would require at least two more years of study. Eric Curry of the USDA in Wenatchee said such testing generally requires three orchards in three locations around the state for three years. Spray-N-Grow, a Houston-based company, said initial results on an orchard owned by a Yakima-area grower found trees treated with the chemical produced apples with a significant increase in uniformity of color, sweetness, firmness and harvest time over untreated apples. Bill Muskopf, president of Spray-N-Grow, said the chemical ``provides the same benefits (as Alar) while remaining completely organic and totally non-toxic.'' Alar was a synthetic chemical growers used for two decades before a private consumer group issued a report last year saying consumption of apples treated with the chemical increased cancer risk in children. The Environmental Protection Agency banned the chemical later in the year. Unlike Alar, Spray-N-Grow is an organic chemical, a micronutrient that has been proven non-toxic in private tests, company officials said. It has been used by commercial vegetable growers and home gardeners for several years, the company said. The Alar scare pushed prices for organic apples far above those for chemically treated apples. Organically grown red apples were selling for $1.29 at a Seattle market Thursday, compared to 39 cents per pound for other red apples. Alar's most significant benefit was retaining the internal firmness of apples during months of cold storage. That will be tested with the new chemical this year, Spray-N-Grow said.
AP900321-0041 	X	A Massachusetts company is making money out of garbage through new recycling methods for cities swimming in the refuse of a throwaway society. Public landfills are clogged with paper, glass, aluminum and plastic, and less than 10 percent of 160 million tons of garbage produced yearly in the United States is recycled, according to David Spencer, president and founder of wTe Corp. in Bedford. His company develops methods for processing waste to recover ferrous metal and other substances. The company also runs trash-to-energy plants under contract with cities, and joined with such companies as Dow Chemical Co. to develop plastics recycling technology. At a research station at the University of California at Berkeley, wTe hauls in barrels of trash to experiment with ways to separate components for recycling and energy conversion. Spencer, 44, believes recycling and recovery, which is the process of extracting certain components of trash, will become increasingly important as cities run out of land to bury refuse, long the cheapest and easiest disposal method. ``Everything we manufacture in this country finds its way into the waste stream. ... It all winds up on a trash truck,'' Spencer said in a recent interview. ``To look at the increase in garbage, just look at the GNP.'' Spencer acknowledged that recovery and recycling operations are costly for cash-strapped municipalities, which must weigh such expenses as housing for the elderly against recycling programs. It often may be less expensive in the short run to bury garbage in a landfill, but in the long run ``yesterday's landfill is today's superfund site,'' he said. Spencer, who has degrees in metallurgy and materials science, is a Philadelphia native who, after attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, founded Waste Energy Technology Corp. in 1981. The name was changed to wTe in 1987. Now a $20 million, privately held company with 220 employees, wTe's operations include a waste-to-energy plant and recycling facility in Akron, Ohio, waste-recovery projects in Dade County, Fla., and Columbus, Ohio, and, through a subsidiary, a polystyrene recycling project in Brooklyn, N.Y. In Bedford, the company runs the city's curbside recycling program. Columbus has wTe under contract to use a magnetic process to extract ferrous metal from the city's waste stream before waste is burned in the city's incinerator. That makes the burning process less abrasive and wearing on city equipment. It also reduces the toxic level in and the amount of ash left over, said Tim Barr, deputy director of Columbus public utilities. Ray Kapper, Akron director of public services, said wTe was brought in to run the city's waste-to-energy plant after problems with hazardous waste and an explosion in which three people died. Such plants burn waste to produce steam and other forms of energy. Under contract with Amoco Corp., wTe developed a process for the McDonald's Corp. chain to recycle polystyrene containers tossed away with half-eaten hamburgers and paper. The extracted material is turned into trays and other products for Rubbermaid Inc. Recycling methods can be environmentally benign. For example, discarded tires, long an urban eyesore, can be burned safely to create energy, Spencer says. The 300,000 to 500,000 tires discarded in Akron annually are shredded and fed into the waste-to-energy plant during winter, when people traditionally throw out less trash but energy needs are greater, he said. Spencer said his interest in recycling comes from a lifelong hatred of seeing anything go to waste. ``My mother used to get the squeak out of the pig, as they say,'' he said.
AP900323-0242 	X	Energy futures ended higher Friday led by strength in gasoline, after a choppy week of trading sparked by concern about seasonal demand weakness. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the May contract for West Texas Intermediate, the key grade of U.S. crude oil, rose 39 cents to finish at $20.39 a 42-gallon barrel after a 4-cent rise on Thursday. Contracts for later delivery also advanced. Among refined products traded on the exchange, wholesale unleaded gasoline for delivery next month, which fell 0.56 cent in the previous session, advanced 0.28 cent to 57.66 cents a gallon. May unleaded gasoline jumped 1.56 cents to 63.54 cents and June gained 0.98 cent to 62.77 cents. No. 2 heating oil for April delivery ended at 55.46 cents a gallon, up 0.45 cent, while May gained 0.70 cent to 53.67 cents and June rose 0.89 cent to 52.98 cents. Analysts said two consecutive weeks of lower gasoline inventories was bullish for the gasoline market and helped buoy the crude and heating oil markets. Tighter gasoline supplies around the Gulf of Mexico became more noticeable late Thursday, they said. ``Demand for gasoline is picking up in the Gulf. Apparently there's not as much available as people thought so gasoline led the market up,'' said Tom Bentz, director of futures trades for United Energy Inc. Analysts attributed the lower gasoline supplies partly to seasonal refinery maintenance, when big oil companies close refineries for annual repair. During the maintenance period, refineries use less crude oil and make fewer fuel products, such as gasoline. Oil prices have sagged in recent weeks due mainly to increasing supplies and slowing demand. OPEC is believed to be producing about 1 million barrels a day more of crude oil than the market can absorb.
AP880628-0112 	X	State Rep. Thomas Reed, the head of the state NAACP, pleaded innocent to federal bribery and extortion charges today, denying he accepted cash and restaurant equipment to help a convicted murderer get out of prison. Reed had no comment after his arraignment before U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, but attorney George Beck said Reed is ``going to prove he's not guilty.'' Thompson set trial for Aug. 8 before U.S. District Judge Joel Dubina. He gave the legislator's attorneys 10 days to file papers challenging the government's case. Reed is accused of accepting at least $15,000 in cash and restaurant equipment to try to secure the early release of a convicted murderer from the state parole board. He also has been indicted on related state felony charges, with arraignment pending. Reed broke the color barrier in the Alabama Legislature in 1970, later helped win state trooper jobs for blacks and recently made a high-profile bid to remove the Confederate flag from atop the Capitol. One of Reed's lawyers is Bill Baxley, a former Alabama attorney general who unsuccessfully prosecuted Reed on bribery charges more than 10 years ago. Baxley said he had no qualms about representing Reed in the pending case. Reed, a Tuskegee businessman who operates two fried chicken restaurants, is one of the first two blacks elected to the Legislature since Reconstruction. ``He's a pioneer in that progressive political process made by blacks in the early 1970s,'' says Tuskegee Mayor Johnny Ford. ``He was a role model and a great inspiration to many.'' As head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, Reed has moved to the center of controversy in the Confederate battle-flag dispute. The NAACP says the flag represents racism and oppression. It mounted a campaign last year to remove the banner from state capitols here and in South Carolina and from state flags in Georgia and Mississippi. Reed vowed to try to remove the flag himself from atop the building in which Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy in 1861 if Republican Gov. Guy Hunt would not. In February, Reed was among 14 black legislators arrested when they made a symbolic attempt to scale a fence that surrounds the Capitol. The demonstration led many to criticize Reed for his tactics. ``I was out speaking to different groups about the pressing problems of the state and all anybody wanted to talk about was the flag,'' said House Speaker Jimmy Clark. ``I'm not much on issues that attract public attention but are really not that serious.'' Attorneys for the 14 legislators maintain that the misdemeanor trespass charges they face should be dropped. Meanwhile, the flag still flies atop the Capitol. A few weeks before the aborted climb, Reed told a rally that God allowed former Gov. George C. Wallace to survive an assassination attempt so Wallace could suffer as ``a message to whites.'' The comment prompted some local NAACP leaders to say Reed should be removed as state president. Reed later apologized to Wallace. When Reed was indicted, some blacks suggested the charges were related to the flag dispute. Reed has not alleged a direct link, but said Monday that ``it is difficult for me to believe that there is no connection there.'' In 1977, Reed was convicted of offering a bribe to a white lawmaker who opposed Reed's efforts to gain approval for a dog track in rural, mostly black Macon County. The misdemeanor conviction was overturned by the state Supreme Court, and Reed was able to maintain his legislative seat. The track later was approved. In 1970, Reed and Fred Gray became the first two blacks elected to the Legislature this century, after a court-ordered reapportionment created two mostly black House districts. Two years later, Reed sued the state because it had never hired a black state trooper. Blacks now make up about a fourth of the trooper ranks. The state and federal charges allege that Reed, a member of the Legislature's Joint Prison Committee, accepted at least $10,000 in cash and $5,000 in restaurant equipment from an uncle of convicted murderer Anthony Dennis Chesser. In return, Reed allegedly attempted to use his position to persuade the parole board to give Chesser an earlier date for parole consideration and a work-release assignment. Chesser, serving a 40-year sentence, initially was given an earlier date for parole consideration at Reed's request, but the parole board later revoked that change and refused Reed's request to give Chesser a work-release assignment. On June 16, a federal grand jury in Montgomery indicted Reed on two counts of violating the Hobbs Act through extortion and three counts of violating the Interstate Travel Act to obtain the $10,000 in cash. Reed faces up to 55 years in prison and up to $1.25 million in fines if convicted. A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Reed on two related felony bribery counts June 20, each carrying a penalty of 1-to-10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. His arraignment on these charges is pending. Reed has remained free on bond.
AP900104-0076 	X	Rival Shiite Moslem militias armed with artillery and machine guns clashed in south Lebanon today despite the intervention of a Palestinian guerrilla peacekeeping force. Three people were reported killed. In Beirut, Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian leader, was entangled in a growing financial scandal caused by foreign news reports that he had $15 million stashed away in French banks. The Iranian-backed fundamentalist Hezbollah, of Party of God, and the secular, Syrian-backed Amal militia have been battling for 13 days in the latest campaign of their 2-year-old war for control of Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiites, the country's largest sect. Including today's toll of three killed and 11 wounded, police say 73 people have been killed and 263 wounded since fighting broke out Dec. 23. Police said 300 guerrillas from the Fatah movement headed by Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat deployed Wednesday across the strategic Hamade hill that Hezbollah captured Tuesday after a fierce battle. Hezbollah needs to hold the hill to protect the supply lines to its southern bases from the Bekaa Valley in east Lebanon, a Shiite stronghold where an estimated 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards are based. Zeid Wehbi, Fatah's political chief in the southern port city of Sidon, said the Palestinian deployment was aimed at ending the fighting. He said the guerrillas also sought to keep the fighting away from the Palestinian refugee camps of Ein el-Hilweh and Mieh Mmieh, a few miles to the north. Palestinian sources said Arafat fears that Hezbollah, which has gained the upper hand and captured five villages, would provide support for dissident PLO factions in the camps. Amal chief Nabih Berri appealed again today to Iran to stop sending military supplies to Hezbollah, saying Syria had discontinued the supply of arms and ammunititons to Amal after fighting erupted in the southern province. In Moslem west Beirut, newspapers gave prominent coverage to reports that Aoun has bank accounts in Paris. On Wednesday, the satirical Paris weekly Le Canard Enchaine published a bank statement showing two accounts in Aoun's name at the Banque Nationale de Paris, one with a balance of $500,00, the other with $14.7 million. Moslem-controlled radio stations said the reports have created a corruption scandal that could seriously damage Aoun's standing in the Christian community. The reports came amid efforts by the Syrian-backed government to force Aoun to end his defiance of President Elias Hrawi, who dismissed Aoun as army commander and interim prime minister in November. Aoun refuses to stand down, or accept a peace treaty approved by the Lebanese parliament. Aoun acknowledged having millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts. ``It's not a secret for anyone. It's an open secret,'' Aoun said in an interview Wednesady on France's state-run radio station France-Inter. He said he had accounts in other French banks, as well as in the United States and Lebanon. The general said the funds in the accounts came from donations and were not for his private use. ``If necessary, I can withdraw the money needed to resolve financial crises,'' he said. ``For the last year and three months, I have received no money from the central bank as concerns the army.''
AP880731-0004 	X	Former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan remained in critical condition early Sunday after she was found floating unconscious in her swimming pool, authorities said. ``She's been awake off and on through the night, but she goes right to sleep,'' said Sheryln Gembol, a nursing supervisor at Brackenridge Hospital. ``We're trying to let her rest. ``They're going to be running some more tests throughout the day today. They know it was not a heart attack or a stroke, but as far as what made her unconscious in the pool, they're not sure,'' she added. Ms. Jordan, who rose to fame during the Watergate impeachment hearings, was found in the pool about noon Saturday by a woman who lives with her. Ms. Jordan, 52, was taken to the hospital by helicopter. Paramedics ``said she had a pulse, was trying to breathe and they were able to help her breathe en route to hospital,'' said hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Boyle. At a briefing late Saturday, a doctor said Ms. Jordan was being treated for fluid in her lungs but showed no signs of heart or brain dysfunction. ``She has full recovery of her intellectual functions. Her vital signs are much better,'' Dr. William Deaton said. Though she remained in critical condition, ``the capital `c' is not so big as when she got here.'' ``She has to heal her own lungs, which she will hopefully do,'' added Deaton, a lung specialist. He said Ms. Jordan apparently lost consciousness while swimming alone in the pool, for unknown reasons. A lack of oxygen then caused the cardiac arrest, he said. Ms. Jordan has had medical problems for several years and has used a wheelchair to get to her job on the faculty of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Ms. Jordan has refused to discuss the illness, calling it ``a mobility problem'' and denying it was Lou Gehrig's disease or bone cancer. Deaton described it as a progressive loss of ``nerve function in her lower extremities'' similar to multiple sclerosis. In 1966, Ms. Jordan became the first black state senator in Texas. In 1972, she was the first Southern black elected to Congress since Reconstruction. She gained a national reputation during the House Judiciary Committee's 1974 hearings that ended with a vote to press impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon. She stirred television audiences when she declared, ``My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total.''
AP900719-0277 	X	Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. reported a 28 percent drop in second-quarter earnings Thursday, saying high interest rates have hurt its major markets. The supplier of construction and industrial materials said earnings for the quarter ended June 30 totaled $39 million or 92 cents per share, vs. $54 million or $1.28 per share during the year-earlier period. Second-quarter sales totaled $771 million vs. $721 million. The 1990 figures, unlike those of 1989, include results from Fiberglas Canada. ``These results reflect weakness in our major markets, including new housing construction, pleasure boats and automobiles,'' said William W. Boeschenstein, chairman and chief executive officer. ``They are all being hurt by continued high interest rates and cautious consumer buying.'' Owens-Corning said most areas of its Construction Products business were down during the quarter, thanks to declining new housing and commercial construction. But sales of insulation and roofing products for home improvements and remodeling held steady. Sales for the company's Industrial Materials Group were up slightly during the quarter because of the addition of the results from Fiberglas Canada. However, Owens-Corning said demand for industrial materials appeared to be weakening in North America and in Europe. For the first six months, Owens-Corning said earnings totaled $71 million, or $1.68 per share, compared with $89 million, or $2.10 per share, during the first six months of 1989. Sales totaled $1.5 billion vs. $1.4 billion.
AP880831-0174 	X	A federal magistrate has recommended that a contempt citation be brought against Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng for failing to fully obey a court order barring the USDA from calling in crop-storage loans. Magistrate Janice Symchych made the recommendation Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Harry MacLaughlin, who had issued a preliminary injunction July 21 against the Agriculture Department's loan-cancellation plan. Lyng has 10 days from Tuesday in which to file objections to the contempt recommendation. According to the Minnesota attorney general's office, which is a party to the suit against the USDA, the department did not comply with the injunction until July 29, when it announced that certain loans could be extended until Aug. 31. The announcement came after many farmers already had settled their loans with the USDA, the attorney general's office said. Symchych recommended all loans due and payable after July 22 be extended. For loans that matured on July 31 and were settled by farmers before any extensions were available, Symchych recommended that USDA restore those farmers to the position they would have been in had the federal agency obeyed the injunction. ``The court cannot allow defendants (USDA) to circumvent the purpose of the injunction by simply employing new tactics or strategies which achieve the same unlawful result,'' Symchych said in a report. The federal reserve program allows farmers to hold surplus grains off the market while receiving government price supports and storage fees. In effect, the grain is collateral for the loans. Because the drought has tightened grain supplies, the Agriculture Department is calling the loans in order to force the farmers to sell the grain. In addition to the contempt citation, Symchych recommended the USDA be fined $1,000 for each loan it canceled after MacLaughlin's injunction went into effect. Symchych also recommended the USDA be given until Sept. 30 to comply with the order. Lyng was on vacation and unavailable for comment, USDA spokesman Dave Lane said Wednesday. Richard W. Goldberg, acting undersecretary for international affairs and commodity programs for the USDA, said he would not comment on the matter because it is under litigation. Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III brought the suit against the department on behalf of Agriculture Commissioner Jim Nichols and seven Minnesota farmers. He contended that the Agriculture Department failed to go through the formal government rule-making procedures before it decided to stop extending the loans. The USDA, meanwhile, announced Tuesday that it would stop extending crop loans as of Wednesday, irrespective of MacLaughlin's injunction. The announcement came before Symchych's recommendation was issued. Humphrey and Nichols were expected to seek a court hearing this week to halt implementation of the USDA's new plan.
AP881227-0062 	X	The police chief arrested his brother on Christmas Day after he pulled the plug on the community's Christmas tree following a night of drinking. Chief Ralph August jailed his brother, Stephen, on public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges after he disconnected the tree's lights, refused to go home, followed the chief to a convenience store and shouted obscenities. He later set fire to a jail mattress, the chief said. ``He wanted to take me outside and beat my head,'' the chief said. ``This is normal.'' The 41-year-old chief said it was the fourth time he has arrested his brother. ``My brother has a habit of not liking the law to tell him what to do,'' he said Monday. August, 37, a construction worker, spent the holiday in jail and was released Monday after pleading guilty to the charges, agreeing to pay court costs and a $300 fine and promising to paint the fire-damaged cell.
AP880728-0247 	X	A late rally pushed prices into positive territory Thursday on the London Stock Exchange. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index rose 0.5 point, or 0.03 percent, to close at 1,841.3. Volume rose to 494.3 million shares from 363.9 million shares traded Wednesday. The market's attention was focused on speculative situations, giving selected stocks a sharp boost, analysts said. The lack of strong interest on the part of fund managers to enter the market, except in these special situations, also gave no incentive for players to pile into new equity positions, they said. The Financial Times 30-share index was up 1.9 points at 1,480.7 at the close. The Financial Times 500-share index rose 2.15 points to close at 1,050.63.
AP880524-0029 	X	Tens of thousands of striking school teachers converged on the capital to press demands for higher wages. The 40,000 teachers marched on the capital Monday, five days after beginning a nationwide walkout to demand a minimum wage of 640 australs ($90) a month for the country's 500,000 primary and secondary school teachers. An earlier strike that began March 14 at the opening of the Argentine public school year lasted six weeks until the government ordered teachers to begin work while negotiations continued. Negotiations later broke off. Union leader Marcos Garcetti and Labor Minister Ideler Tonelli negotiated for an hour on Monday without reaching an agreement, union sources said. About 7.2 million schoolchildren aged three to 18 have been affected by the walkout, which has generally not affected private schools.
AP900925-0059 	X	Iraq said today it will put President Bush on trial Oct. 15 for ``crimes against the peoples of the world.'' Iraq first announced its plan to put Bush on trial on Sept. 12, shortly after Western officials suggested Iraqi President Saddam Hussein be tried for crimes against humanity for the use of chemical weapons in 1988 against Iraq's minority Kurdish population. Baghdad accuses Bush of planning a war against Iraq, attempting genocide by sponsoring U.N. sanctions on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait, and committing aggression against Panama and Grenada, according to Hamid Al-Rawi, chairman of Iraq's bar association and head of a panel preparing for the trial. ``Bush has committed many crimes since he took office as president of the United States and also before that when he was vice president,'' the English language Baghdad Observer quoted Al-Rawi as saying in today's editions. He was quoted as saying the United States, which has sent more than 150,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to counter Iraq, had committed ``a crime against peace, punishable by international law.'' Al-Rawi said the trial would be an ``international process'' with witnesses from other countries and Arab and non-Arab jurists. It would be conducted on the same basis as the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II, he said. Other accusations against Bush include the enforcement by the United States ``of an economic blockade against the people of Iraq with the aim of starving children, women and elderly to death, and also preventing food, medicine and baby milk from reaching the country in violation of the the U.N. charter.'' ``This is a crime punishable by international conventions which consider this an act of genocide,'' Al-Rawi was quoted as saying. AlRawi did not say what the punishment might be if Bush is convicted during the three-day trial.
AP900108-0226 	X	Futures prices for grains and soybeans were mostly higher at the close Monday on the Chicago Board of Trade. ``There was a pretty good rally in soy oil that gave soybeans a good boost,'' said Joel Karlin, analyst with Research Department Inc. ``India bought into the palm oil market. African countries have shown some interest in vegetable oils, too.'' Corn was supported by a rumor that the Soviet Union might be interested in as much as 1 million tons, he said. Export news sent wheat prices higher, said Susan Leighty, grains analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed rumors that China had bid for 300,000 tons of the U.S. commodity, and rumors persisted that the Chinese would bid for 300,000 tons more. The Soviet Union was also said to be in the market for 500,000 tons of export bonus wheat, she said. Also firming wheat prices were weather reports calling for mild conditions in the next few days that might make the winter crop more vulnerable to a cold snap later, Mrs. Leighty said. At the close, wheat was 1 cent to 1{ cents higher, with the contract for March at $4.10} a bushel; corn was \ cent lower to { cent higher, with March at $2.37} a bushel; oats were { cent to 2{ cent lower, with March at $1.50}, and soybeans were 2 cents to 6{ cents higher, with January at $5.67 a bushel.
AP880929-0283 	X	The stock market staged a broad advance today, showing signs of life after the stalemate of the past several weeks. Analysts said there was no single development in the news to ``explain'' the rally. However, they said, it appeared some traders were bidding for stocks simply because the market hasn't sold off lately despite a long list of worries and uncertainties. Among those problems are the approaching first anniversary of Black Monday on Oct. 19, which is presumed to be casting a pall over the market. In addition, investors are said to be reluctant to commit themselves before they can get a clearer idea of where government economic policy is headed after the election of a new president. Nevertheless, brokers said money managers at some investing institutions seemed interested in adding stocks to their portfolios before they make reports to their clients for the third quarter, which ends with Friday's session. ``The market has been lifeless for so long. It started to move up, and gave traders a sense of direction,'' said Hugh Johnson at First Albany Corp. in Albany, N.Y. ``After that they jumped on board, with a little encouragement from the bond market.''
AP880402-0048 	X	Canale added that although he had no eyewitness and the evidence against Ray was largely circumstantial, he doesn't buy the conspiracy theory. ``I think he acted alone,'' he said, noting that the FBI had found Ray's fingerprint on the rifle discarded by the gunman near the scene of the crime. However, supporters of Ray's story say his fingerprint was on the rifle because he had purchased it. They also note that, while Ray is a lifelong non-smoker, Viceroy cigarette butts were found in the rooming house bathroom and in his car ashtray, and that two sizes of clothing were found in his trunk. Ray said the fact that Raoul often used his car may explain the butts in the ashtray and clothes in the trunk. ``As for cigarettes in the bathroom I can't say because I was never in that bathroom,'' he said. ``My prints were never found in there, you know.'' Then there were the two white Mustangs. The late Guy Canipe, whose amusement company was located next door to the flophouse, told investigators he saw a fleeing man ditch a rifle and a small overnight bag in front of his store and then drive away in a white Mustang, one of two that had been parked in front of the store that afternoon. He described the man as having dark hair and a beard. Ray, who was captured in London two months after King's death, says the fact that the gunman ditched the rifle and his bag _ which Ray says he had left in his room when he went to get the tire fixed _ shows somebody was trying to frame him. ``Why would I have dumped my stuff there for the police to find when all I had to do was put it in the car and drive away?'' he asked. After two years of hearings, ending in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations couldn't answer that question. The committee issued a report saying Ray probably had been part of a larger conspiracy. But while the committee couldn't say who else had participated in the plot, it did exonerate the CIA and FBI, both of which had conducted extensive illegal surveillance and smear campaigns against King throughout the 1960s. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was known to have hated King. FBI agents testified that no evidence could be found of conspiracies involving the Mafia, Ku Klux Klan or foreign communists. Some of King's friends, however, still feel that letting Hoover's FBI investigate King's assassination was like letting a hungry fox guard a henhouse. ``I have no proof but I feel in my heart that the government, probably the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover, and perhaps the CIA, were involved,'' says the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, who was with King when he died in a Memphis hospital an hour after the shooting. ``It's just a pity but, given the way things were back then, we'll probably never know the whole truth about one of the greatest tragedies of our time.''
AP880715-0086 	X	Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip are facing a cash shortage because of curfews imposed by the Israelis and strikes ordered by leaders of the Arab uprising, a United Nations official said today. The curfews also have disrupted food supplies to Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported today. But the U.N. official said there is no food shortage in the region, where 650,000 Palestinians live. An 18-year-old Palestinian, meanwhile, was shot in the left leg today when soldiers clashed with Moslem worshippers leaving a mosque in the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, a local reporter said. An army spokesman had no information about the clash. The youths hurled rocks at the troops, who tried to disperse them with tear gas and rubber bullets and finally used live ammunition, wounding the man, who was identified as Ayman Taha, the reporter said. An 11-year-old Palestinian was shot in the leg late Thursday in Gaza's Shati refugee camp, hospital officials and Arab sources said. They said the boy was shot when youths hurled rocks at soldiers, who responded with tear gas and live gunfire. But an army spokesman said the Israeli army was not involved in the incident. ``This is not an army matter. This is a local police matter, and that's all I'm going to say,'' he said. The Gaza police spokesman was not in his office for comment, but a policeman who answered the telephone at Gaza police headquarters said he knew nothing of the incident. Since the Arab uprising began seven months ago, 222 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed. In the occupied West Bank, a curfew on Nablus, where 120,000 Arabs live, entered its fourth day today. Curfews also continued in the town of Qalqilya, the Beit Sahour village and Aidah refugee camp near Bethlehem, and the Ein Yabroud and Anabta villages. The longest curfew is in Beit Sahour, where villagers have been restricted to their homes for eight days after a symbolic protest in which Palestinians returned their Israeli-issued identity papers. A United Nations official who spoke on condition of anonymity said similar restrictions were imposed on the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, where the army imposed a 15-day curfew last month after the local Arab municipality resigned. Workers were barred from leaving to work in Israel for almost six weeks, resulting in a cash shortage, the U.N. official said. Curfews have been lifted in all Gaza camps, but strikes ordered by underground Palestinian leaders also have prevented workers from reaching their jobs, the official said. Nevertheless, U.N. food trucks delivering basic food products were continuing to arrive as scheduled, the official said. ``There is no food shortage in Gaza; what you've got is shortages of money,'' the U.N. source said. The Ha'aretz newspaper quoted an Israeli reserve soldier as saying, ``In the past few days I have given out watermelons, cantaloupes and some even come and beg me for bread. We know there is a severe food shortage in the camps.''
AP901127-0086 	X	Students serenaded Barbara Bush with a Spanish version of ``America the Beautiful'' during her tour Tuesday of a local school and community center. Mrs. Bush visited a DIF center, one of a network in Mexico under the patronage of first lady Cecilia Occelli de Salinas that includes adult education, handicraft training to make items for home sale, a garden and a food kitchen for the elderly. A children's orchestra began playing ``The Yellow Rose of Texas'' as Mrs. Bush passed through the school. ``Oh, oh, there's my song,'' she exclaimed. ``They're playing my song.'' Mrs. Salinas hosted the event. Also on hand were Diana Negroponte, wife of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico John Dimitri Negroponte; Nickie Bennett, wife of Monterrey's U.S. Consul General John Bennett; Alma Rizzo, wife of Monterrey Mayor Socrates Rizzo, and Cristina Trevino, wife of Nuevo Leon Gov. Jorge Trevino. Mrs. Bush wore a light blue silk suit with thin horizontal white stripes and her trademark pearls while Mrs. Salinas wore a teal and black linen dress. Mrs. Bush was presented with a basket of handicrafts made at the training center by 9-year-old Jesus Eduardo Gonzalez Jimenez, who admitted beforehand that he did not know who she was. At the nearby school she was serenaded by students singing ``America the Beautiful,'' ``Cielito Lindo,'' and ``La Bamba.'' She also was given medals and a heart-shaped pecan arrangment with her picture in the middle.
AP900314-0143 	X	Marilyn Helding, 65-year-old widow of a Wisconsin vegetable farmer, thought the money from her husband's estate vanished like crops in the Dust Bowl when Windsor Capital Corp. went out of business. ``I nearly went crazy when they went under,'' Mrs. Helding said from her home in Franksville, Wis. ``I didn't know what to do.'' A few months after the small Milwaukee brokerage collapsed under apparent mismanagement in March 1988, Mrs. Helding regained her entire stock portfolio and $45,000 in cash the firm owed her. The message: If your broker goes bust your investment doesn't have to. With the recent collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., two other brokerage bankruptcy court filings in the last year and widely publicized problems at several Wall Street firms, the safety of customer accounts is drawing attention. An agency established by Congress after a rash of brokerage house failures in the late 1960s protects investors who may have thought their account went down the drain with the company that managed it. The Securities Investor Protection Corp. has a $485 million fund that insures individual accounts for up to $500,000, including up to $100,000 in cash. Large brokerages also have insurance for larger amounts. Tapping into the protection fund is a last resort. If a brokerage firm goes belly up, SIPC first tries to arrange a transfer of customer accounts to another firm. ``The basic intention is that a customer should not lose assets or property because the broker with whom (he is) doing business has encountered financial difficulty,'' said Theodore H. Focht, SIPC's president and general counsel. SIPC _ pronounced sippick _ covers all forms of stock and bond holdings but not commodities. It also does not guarantee the underlying value of a customer account. For example, if XYZ Co. is trading at $50 a share when a brokerage folds but falls to $5 at reimbursement time, the customer loses the difference. ``It does not insure you for market losses,'' said Irving Picard, a New York bankruptcy lawyer who has served as a court-appointed SIPC trustee in three liquidation cases. ``If you think the broker defrauded you ... that's not protected by the SIPC fund.'' In the 19 years since its creation, SIPC has handled 212 cases and paid $185 million to satisfy customer claims. If a firm can't immediately pay, SIPC will advance the money to customers and try to collect later. SIPC officials estimate that cash and securities worth $1.4 billion have been returned to about 240,000 investors, mostly through account transfers. A total of 305 claims worth $31 million have not been satisfied, primarily because of legal challenges. The SIPC fund, comparable to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for commercial banks, is fed by required contributions from the nation's 12,000 or so registered broker-dealers. The Washington-based agency also has $500 million in bank credit and a $1 billion line to the U.S. Treasury. Neither resource has been tapped. On top of that, about 25 firms have private coverage of up to $5 million per account. Before SIPC was signed into law by President Nixon on Dec. 30, 1970, self-regulatory organizations _ the National Association of Securities Dealers and the stock exchanges _ set aside funds to protect customers of collapsed firms. But in the late 1960s, Wall Street was hit with a rash of failures when the market slumped as firms spent large sums to computerize. When its customer protection kitty dried up, the New York Stock Exchange was forced to dip into a building fund to safeguard investors. Fearing the worst, the exchanges lobbied Congress for help. There were six SIPC cases last year _ five involved a total of under 50 claims. The most cases in one year was 40 in 1972, during a recession. A rash of financial fraud was partly responsible for 46 cases from 1981-85. SIPC's largest payout, $32.5 million, involved the 1983 criminal fraud-related collapse of Bell & Beckwith of Toledo, Ohio. The demise of Fitzgerald, DeArman & Roberts Inc. of Tulsa, Okla., involved the most customer accounts, 50,000. SIPC has doled out $5.5 million since that case began in June 1988. SIPC can get involved when a broker-dealer enters bankruptcy court proceedings, when a trustee or receiver is appointed to run a firm, when a firm fails to meet federal requirements or when it can't demonstrate compliance. A brokerage can request a SIPC-run liquidation or SIPC can ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to seek a court order for one. Drexel, for example, was not placed in a SIPC proceeding because only its parent company filed for federal bankruptcy court protection and the firm is liquidating orderly. Plus, Drexel sold most retail accounts to Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. last year and the rest went to Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. after the bankruptcy filing.
AP880613-0152 	X	One or more people associated with Jimmy Swaggart Ministries could be targets of a reopened investigation into the slaying of a woman who left part of her estate to the television evangelist's ministry. Vic Feazell, McLennan County district attorney, said Sunday his office is re-examining Ida Lee Baugh's slaying in December 1983 and that a National Enquirer reporter's new information could help him resolve ``unanswered questions.'' Feazell said the inquiry was not aimed at Swaggart but could involve ``one or more individuals connected with the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries at that time.'' ``What we are looking into right now is the possibility of violations of the Texas Penal Code that could include being a party to murder,'' Feazell said. Jacqueline Euna Warren was convicted in April 1984 of murder in the case and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Mrs. Baugh, 70, of McGregor, was found stabbed and beaten and died later at a Waco hospital. Her husband, Maurice Patrick Baugh, died of heart failure five days later. In their will, the couple left all but 25 percent of their cash, not to exceed $25,000, to the ministry in Baton Rouge, La. A Swaggart spokesman estimated the couple's total estate at between $500,000 and $800,000. Baugh's son contested the will, charging that associates of Jimmy Swaggart ministries exercised undue influence on his parents to change their will. Larry Neale Baugh alleged that two men working on behalf of Swaggart Ministries had recommended that Ms. Warren take care of Mrs. Baugh. Later, Larry Baugh dropped his charges. The Waco Tribune-Herald quoted a source familiar with the case as saying a settlement was reached between Baugh and Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. Feazell said a National Enquirer reporter approached him with new information he had developed independently. ``The information was believeable and parts of it have been substantiated,'' he said. Feazell said his office had investigated a possible connection between the murder, the will and Jimmy Swaggart Ministries at the time of Ms. Warren's trial. ``Lot of questions came to light in the spring of 1984 _ unanswered questions that weren't pursued,'' he said. ``I met with Jimmy Swaggart's attorneys at that time. After meeting with him, I decided to take no further action,'' he said. Feazell said that ``as material becomes available, it could be presented to the grand jury'' during the next few weeks. ``It might be something we can wrap up rather quickly, or we could take a long time with it.''
AP880606-0278 	X	The Federal Home Loan Bank Board today announced a record $1.35 billion cash payout to shut down two insolvent savings institutions in Costa Mesa, Calif. The bank board, which regulates 3,150 S&Ls, said it will begin on Tuesday to pay off deposits up to the insurance limit of $100,000 in the North America Savings and Loan Association and the American Diversified Savings Bank. M. Danny Wall, bank board chairman, said it was the largest cash payout ever for the agency. It is paying $1.14 billion from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. to American Diversified depositers and $209 million to North America depositers. After recovering some of its costs by selling the institutions' assets, the bank board expects ultimately to spend $931 million _ $798 million for American Diversified and $133 million for North America. Depositers who had funds above the insurance limit will share in the liquidation proceeds. Both institutions share the same headquarters and have been insolvent for some time. Prior to the closing in Costa Mesa, the largest payout was $300 million in 1984 to close the Empire Savings and Loan of Mesquite, Texas. However, bank board officials expect the cost of several previous bailout packages eventually to be higher than the cost of closing the two thrifts in Costa Mesa. Last month, the bank board said it was paying $2 billion in assistance _ in the form of notes and guarantees, none of it in cash _ to the Southwest Savings Association in Dallas to take over four ailing institutions. In November, it announced a $1.3 billion bailout of Vernon Savings and Loan in Dallas, $200 million of it in cash. The rest of the assistance came in the form of notes. Wall said the bank board prefers to pay a healthier institution to take over insolvent thrifts because it is cheaper for the insurance fund. But in this case, he said the two S&Ls had little value as going concerns because they lacked retail deposits and branch offices. Instead, they relied on high-cost, short-term deposits arranged through brokers. Wall hailed today's closings as the opening of a second front in the board's drive to remove institutions that have been driving up the cost of funds for all institutions. The first front is Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, which have the largest concentration of ailing thrifts. In order to attract money, North America had to offer an average deposit rate of 8.53 percent, 1.45 percentage points above the average for all thrift institutions. American Diversified was paying 8.64 percent, 1.56 percentage points higher than the average. ``So today we march forward in our drive to remove from the marketplace those high-rate-paying insolvent thrifts,'' Wall said in a statement. The bank board attributed the failure of North America, which was chartered in 1983, to ``unsafe and unsound'' business practices. It said the association grew rapidly by aggressively soliciting high-cost jumbo certificates of deposit that were then invested in high-risk real estate loan participations and time-sharing investments. It had been in the bank board's management consignment program since January 1987. A month after that, the insurance fund sued Janet McKenzie, executive assistant to the chairman, for $40 million. As of March 31, North America had $98.2 miilion in assets and $215.7 million in liabilities. It was losing an estimated $1.59 million a month. American Diversified, orginally chartered in 1980 as Tokay Savings and Loan Association, had been in the management consignment program since February 1986. FSLIC has filed suit against Ranhir Sahni, who in 1983 led the association into what it called an ``explosive growth policy.'' It is seeking $60 million, charging fraud, negligence and racketeering. As of March 31, American Diversified had $509 million in assets and $1.12 billion in liabilities. It was losing an estimated $8.3 million a month. Depositers may present their claims either in person through June 24 or by mail. The bank board said depositors will receive the necessary forms in the mail. Questions can be directed to FSLIC at 1-800-347-6660. More than 500 of the nation's federally insured savings institutions are insolvent. The bank board says it is too soon to tell if it has enough money to resolve the cases of all 500, but it says it has enough to resolve the 200 worst cases. Last year Congress authorized the board to raise up to $10.8 billion by selling bonds over the next three years, providing the agency with total revenue of about $20 billion. However, the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigating arm, estimates the cost of the cleanup at $26 billion to $36 billion. Some private analysts estimate the price tag at more than $50 billion.
AP900511-0153 	X	The University of California at Berkeley, recently disrupted by student protests demanding more minority teachers, has launched a new cultural studies program. Beginning with the freshman class of 1991, all undergraduates will be required to take one course on minority culture. Each of the courses will focus on three minority ethnic groups, said Ron Choy, assistant director of the new program. ``We're creating a whole new program from scratch,'' said Choy, assistant director of the new Center for the Teaching and Study of American Cultures. The center, planned for some time, opened Thursday. Choy said he expects students to welcome the courses, noting the ethnically diverse student body has a strong interest in race and minority reations. Some students boycotted classes for two days last month to protest the lack of ethnic diversity among the faculty. Out of 1,636 full professors, only 24 percent are women or members of minority groups. ``Frankly, this center was created partly to help get the faculty up to date,'' Choy said. ``We have to teach them, too.'' The 1989-90 student body is 45 percent white, 27 percent Asian, 13 percent Hispanic, 8 percent black, 1 percent American Indian and 6 percent undeclared, according to the school. The cultural studies center was created as part of a restructuring of Berkeley's 1960s-era ethnic studies programs, Choy said. ``Most ethnics studies classes just talk about one group,'' he said. ``We want to create new classes that will deal with at least three minority groups at one time in an integrated, comparative way.'' Such an overlapping picture of ethnic groups will better mirror society, he said.
AP880603-0157 	X	Democrat Michael Dukakis spent the morning in the hospital as his wife, Kitty, underwent delicate spinal surgery. Vice President George Bush arrived back in Washington from his summer home and immediately went to visit cancer-stricken Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte at an area hospital. The surgery on Mrs. Dukakis was begun early today and completed in the afternoon. ``Preliminary indications look good,'' said Martin Bander, a spokesman for Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Bush was to welcome President Reagan back from his Moscow summit trip late today. Before taking a helicopter to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Bush said of Duarte, ``I plan to wish him well and share our country's appreciation for all he's done for democracy.'' Bush, returning to Washington today after a week of strategy talks at his summer home, said he was convinced his campaign is ``on the right track'' despite a rash of recent surveys suggesting he trails Dukakis, the Democratic front-runner. ``I'm not going to be stampeded by polls that don't mean anything,'' the vice president told reporters on Thursday, as he was preparing to leave his oceanside retreat at Kennebunkport, Maine. Meanwhile, a poll in California gave Dukakis a substantial lead over Jackson, his only remaining rival, in Tuesday's primary. But it suggested Jackson, who has campaigned heavily in the state, was gaining ground. Dukakis cut short a California campaign swing on Thursday after his wife's doctors decided to perform ``urgent'' surgery on herniated discs pressing dangerously on Mrs. Dukakis' spinal cord. Dukakis, who was spending the night at the hospital, visited his wife late Thursday night and told reporters afterward: ``She's in good spirits, looks good and is anxious to get this over with.'' The governor said he hoped to resume campaigning this weekend if the surgery went well. Jackson was campaigning today in New Mexico and Montana, whose primaries on Tuesday have been largely overshadowed by big same-day contests in New Jersey and California. The four races, with a total of 466 delegates at stake, close out the Democratic primary season, and offer Dukakis a chance to clinch the nomiantion. Of the 2,081 delegates needed to nominate, the Massachusetts governor has nearly 1,800. Jackson trails with fewer than 1,000. In California, a poll conducted for the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco television station KRON indicated Dukakis led Jackson by 24 percentage points, 52 percent to 28 percent. In a similar survey two weeks ago, he led by 37 points. The poll, for which 600 registered Democratic voters were questioned on Tuesday and Wednesday, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points, the Examiner said in Thursday's editions. Jackson was expressing hopes that a debate with Dukakis could be arranged before Tuesday's primary. The two Democrats had been scheduled to debate Thursday afternoon in California, but Dukakis canceled out after his wife's doctors said they wanted to operate without delay. ``My impression is that when you have anything that involves the spinal cord, the faster you move on it the better,'' Dukakis said as he was flying home Thursday night. Bush, meanwhile, was returning to Washington today in time to greet President Reagan, who will be back from tonight from the superpower summit. Some Bush supporters, eyeing a series of public-opinion surveys last month that gave Dukakis double-digit leads, have been urging Bush to try to set himself apart from Reagan on a few issues. Bush has edged away from the president on a matters such as Panama's Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, under indictment on drug charges, and Attorney General Edwin Meese III, under investigation by an independent counsel. But he has refrained from any dramatic breaks with the president. ``We've got a game plan. We've staying with it,'' he said. ``You're not going to see any drastic change in campaign plans.'' On Thursday, he was asked about Reagan's suggestion that Soviet reluctance to issue exit visas stems from bureaucratic problems rather than Kremlin policy. Bush sidestepped the question. But he went on to criticize Soviet human rights policy in stronger terms than the president has used. ``I think we have very different views on human rights than the Soviet Union,'' he said. ``I would suggest that Soviet retaliation against us, saying we've got human rights problems, is mixing apples and oranges.'' The vice president added: ``We've got some problems, but they're not problems of human rights.'' Still, he hailed Reagan for raising human rights issues, saying: ``I think the Soviet Union should adhere to these high standards the president is talking about.'' Dukakis, too, made a point of praising Reagan for bringing up human rights during the summit trip. ``We take pride in the message of freedom and human rights that President Reagan brought with him to Moscow,'' the Democratic candidate said in a statement issued by his campaign.
AP880609-0265 	X	Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan says U.S. manufacturers are working so close to capacity that a further decline of the dollar in foreign exchange would not help them sell more goods overseas. The heads of the central banks of France and West Germany said they agreed with Greenspan that they saw no benefit in further depreciation of the dollar. The bankers' remarks, which came on the closing day of the 34th annual International Monetary Conference, were cited for helping the push the dollar higher against most major currencies on Wednesday in foreign exchange trading. In New York, the dollar rose to 125.62 Japanese yen from 125.52 yen late Tuesday, for instance, and to 1.7261 West German marks from 1.7113 marks. Speaking at a news media briefing at the close of the three-day conference, Greenspan said the ``adjustment process'' by which the dollar has depreciated over the past three years in an effort to enhance the U.S. trade picture ``has made significant progress.'' But, he said, ``the deterioration of the dollar will augment the dollar-denominated U.S. trade deficit rather than implement further progress.'' Greenspan said that because U.S. manufacturers already are running at capacity or near-capacity levels, further declines could not do anything to help them sell more goods overseas or anywhere else. Earlier, Greenspan and top central bankers from Japan, West Germany, Britain, France and Mexico, discussed a variety of economic concerns, including the U.S. federal budget deficit and capital adequacy requirements for banks. The bankers refused to disclose specifics, but many, including Bundesbank President Karl Otto Poehl and Bank of France Governor Jacques de Larosiere, agreed with Greenspan that they saw no benefit in the dollar depreciating further. Poehl, however, noted that the dollar's depreciation in the past had helped the West German economy. Poehl assured reporters Wednesday that recent reported dollar sales by the Bundesbank were not part of an effort to drive down the U.S. currency and boost the West German mark, but rather a routine effort to trim his country's dollar reserves. The dollar has lost half its value against such currencies as the West German mark and Japanese yen over the past three years, although for the last year its value has been fairly stable. It has fallen less against the currencies of such major trading partners as Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The stage was set for a drop in the dollar in September 1985, when the United States and its four major trading partners agreed to devalue the currency to help reduce the spiralng U.S. trade shortall and stave off protectionist legislation. Last year, however, that same group agreed that further decines in the dollar's value would be ``counterproductive.'' Although the dollar's depreciaton has failed to wipe out the huge U.S. trade deficit, which set a record $171 billion last year, there has been significant improvement recently. The deficit fell to $9.7 billion in March _ its lowest level in three years _ on the strength of U.S. exports. ``It (the trade improvement) is probably going at a pace about as fast as one should want it to go,'' Greenspan said. To continue that momentum, he and other central bankers said efforts should be made to reduce the huge U.S. budget deficit. The bankers also reiterated the need to keep inflation down as a way to continue economic growth worldwide. ``In order to continue the adjustment (of the trade imbalance) in the long term, that is obviously a necessary condition,'' Greenspan said.
AP880510-0175 	X	Sporadic sniper fire crackled in the Shiite Moslem slums Tuesday and rival militiamen fortified their positions, apparently convinced that a truce arranged by the Syrian army would not last. Families streamed out of the ramshackle 16 square miles of south Beirut, carrying mattresses, bundles of clothing and other possessions. About 250,000 Shiites lived in the slums before the battle began last Friday, but police said 60 percent had fled by Tuesday. The 18 foreign hostages in Lebanon, including nine Americans, are also thought to be held captive in the slums. Police reported five people wounded by sniper fire. Gone at least temporarily were the tank, mortar and rocket duels between the Shiite militias Amal and Hezbollah that killed at least 154 people and wounded 372 in the previous four days. Before dawn, 36 Syrian officers moved into the area with six committees to man truce observation posts. Police said each committee included an Iranian Embassy official, a representative of Amal and another of Hezbollah. Amal, a mainstream militia backed by Syria, and the radical, pro-Iranian Hezbollah are fighting for control of the slums. Amal is Arabic for Hope and Hezbollah means Party of God. Syria and Iran, allies in public, are competing behind the scenes for influence with the 1.2 million Shiites, Lebanon's largest sect. President Hafez Assad of Syria keeps 25,000 soldiers in Lebanon, including 7,500 in Beirut. After 13 years of civil war, he was the country's undisputed power broker until Iran began challenging the Syrian position. There still was no word Tuesday on the fate of the hostages, most of whom are believed held by kidnappers linked to Hezbollah. A police source said it was ``physically impossible'' for hostages to have been smuggled out because Amal and the Syrian army control the slum exits. The Syrians sent 7,500 soldiers to Moslem west Beirut in February 1987 to stop a factional war in which the two main elements were Amal and the Druse militia led by Walid Jumblatt. They drove Hezbollah militiamen from some outposts in west Beirut but have stayed out of the southern Shiite slums. Syria's military intelligence chief in Lebanon said Tuesday, however: ``It is impermissible to let the current state of affairs continue.'' When asked whether soldiers would be sent into the slums if the fighting did not stop, Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan said: ``We hope it won't come to that, but we shall not allow the bloodshed to continue.'' A Lebanese police spokesman, whose name cannot be revealed because of regulations, said the truce committees were ``trying to convince the warring factions to observe a cease-fire as a first step.'' The three-point truce plan announced Monday calls for a cease-fire, pulling militiamen off the streets and a return to positions held before the battle began. Hezbollah, which has gained control of about half the slum area since Friday, ``rejects the return to pre-Friday positions,'' the police spokesman said Tuesday. Militiamen of Hezbollah were seen fortifying their positions with earthworks in the densely populated districts Ghobeiri, Bir el-Abed and Hay Madi. Amal controls the Haret Hreik, Mreiji, Roweiss, Shiyah and Kasskass districts, plus the main gateways into the slums. According to the police spokesman, Amal moved in 1,000 more fighters from the Bekaa Valley in east Lebanon, a main base for the Syrian army. The ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa is a Hezbollah stronghold. ``It appears that both sides are preparing for another round of fighting,'' the police spokesman said. How many combatants have been involved on both sides is unclear. A police source said Hezbollah could put about 5,000 men in the field, but Amal is believed to be larger and has a broader following among the Shiites. Ibrahim Sarhan, a vegetable vendor, and his wife and four children walked out of the slums Tuesday carrying mattresses and clothes. ``We have been living in a basement since Friday,'' he said. ``I think this is the beginning of a long battle. We will come back when this is over.'' Mohammed Milhem, a 30-year-old grocer, was trying to patch a bullet hole in his car's gas tank. ``We need the car to get out of here,'' he said. His wife and three daughters were packing the car with mattresses, clothing, a television set and a sewing machine. Some of those who flee have family or friends elsewhere in Lebanon. Others camp out on the streets of west Beirut or take refuge in schools, mosques or sports stadiums.
AP880627-0130 	X	A strong earthquake jolted Northern California on Monday, causing San Francisco skyscrapers to sway and briefly halting commuter trains, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury. The state Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento said the quake hit 5.2 on the Richter scale, while the U.S. Geological Survey office in Menlo Park said the quake registered 5.0. The epicenter, USGS spokeswoman Pat Jorgenson said, was about 16 miles south of San Jose, along the San Andreas Fault. The time was set at 11:43 a.m., she added. There were no indications of injury or damage, San Jose police said. The quake was felt over a large area, extending from Santa Rosa, about 60 miles north of San Francisco, to the Santa Cruz area 70 miles to the south. The temblor lasted up to 10 seconds in many areas. The 38 trains running on Bay Area Rapid Transit lines were halted briefly to allow a check for track damage and then allowed to resume operation. ``It hit real hard like something going into the side of the building. Nothing fell, but light standards swayed back and forth,'' said Tom Honig, city editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Walt Glines, news editor of The Dispatch in Gilroy, said half the workers in the newspaper's city room ``didn't even notice'' the rolling quake, which he said seemed to hit that area in two waves. ``The first time, I thought it was a caffeine rush. But when the second one hit, I knew,'' he said. A South San Francisco police dispatcher, who identified herself only as Pat, said her department had received a few calls, but none reporting damage. ``I sure felt it,'' she said. ``There were two shocks.'' The Richter scale is a gauge of the energey released by an earthquake, as measured by ground motion recorded on a seismograph. Each increase of one number means the ground motion was 10 times greater. On Sunday, a moderate earthquake shook a wide area of Southern California, but there were no reports of serious damage. At least four people were treated for minor injuries. The temblor was felt in downtown Los Angeles and as far away as Saugus, some 70 miles northwest of the epicenter, and Palm Springs, about 70 miles to the east. It was followed by several aftershocks. The quake in Southern California, centered 3 miles north-northwest of Upland, struck at 8:04 a.m. and registered 4.5 on the Richter scale, according to Robert Finn of the California Institute of Technology Seismology Lab in Pasadena. Instruments at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., recorded a slightly higher reading of 4.7. Upland, in San Bernardino County, is a city of about 50,000 people located 40 miles east of Los Angeles.
AP880825-0173 	X	Two sports agents charged with racketeering and extortion in their dealings with college athletes pleaded innocent Thursday and a defense lawyer said they would fight the allegations. New York-based agents Norby Walters, 56, and Lloyd Bloom, 29, entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge George Marovich, who released the defendants on their own recognizance and set trial for Feb. 27. ``We will defend this case extremely vigorously, you can count on that,'' said Walters' attorney, Robert Gold. Walters and Bloom refused to discuss the case.``In every movie I've ever seen, they say, `Anything you say can and will be used against you,' so I'm not saying anything,'' Walters said. Walters and Bloom were indicted Wednesday on charges of racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud and extortion. They are accused of using money and gifts to entice dozens of players into signed agreements, some of them postdated, allowing the agents to represent them in professional contract negotiations. The National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibits college players from signing representation contracts or taking money while still eligible to compete. If the players tried to back out of the deals, they were warned that Walters and Bloom had friends who would visit them and break their legs, said U.S. Attorney Anton R. Valukas. An imprisoned mob figure was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. The indictment said Walters, who heads World Sports & Entertainment in New York, also used threats to sign acts in the music business, including the Jackson Five. Prosecutors said Walters and Bloom induced the athletes to defraud their schools by accepting cash and signing contracts in violation of NCAA rules, and then signing affidavits saying they had not broken any NCAA rules. If convicted, the two each would face up to 70 years in prison and $2 million in fines. Valukas said 43 college athletes who signed with Walters and Bloom avoided prosecution by signing pre-trial agreements to perform community service and to reimburse portions of their scholarships to their universities. Edward Bozik, athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh, said he was ``gratified'' by the indictments. ``This sends a strong message to the student athletes that they can be held accountable if they are involved in a fraud,'' he said. Three of the 43 athletes attended Pitt. The indictment named reputed organized crime figure Michael Franzese as an unindicted co-conspirator, alleging that Walters and Bloom used his reputation to coerce athletes into signing contracts. Franzese is serving a 10-year federal prison term in California for racketeering and tax violations. The indictment says Franzese was a silent partner in Walters' firm, and financed efforts by the two agents to sign college athletes. The Chicago Tribune, citing unidentified sources, said prosecutors obtained Franzese's cooperation in the 18-month investigation. In a related case, California-based sports agent Dave Lueddeke, 37, also was charged Wednesday along with Cris Carter, a 22-year-old wide receiver with the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles. Carter, who left Ohio State with a year of college eligibility remaining, was charged with obstruction of justice and mail fraud. Lueddeke was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from an alleged $5,000 payment to Carter. Lueddeke was indicted, while the charges against Carter were included in a criminal information filed by prosecutors. If convicted, Carter would face up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, while Lueddeke would face up to 15 years in jail and a $750,000 fine.
AP900118-0058 	X	President Bush hailed the ``superb job'' of Columbia's astronauts today as they headed for Friday's homecoming after taking control of their ship when a bad navigation signal from the ground sent it into a slow spin. In a radio-phone call from the White House, the president termed their rescue of a huge science satellite ``a very exciting grab,'' and he invited the five crew members to meet with him at the White House after the mission. Commander Dan Brandenstein said the retrieval of the satellite was a highlight among several important accomplishments of the space journey. ``Well done _ we're proud of you,''' Bush said. The president also mentioned the erratic spin imparted to Columbia by the faulty signal when he said, ``I'm calling to congratulate you and the crew _ after all those somersaults _ for doing this superb job up there.'' Brandenstein had been roused from sleep during the night to manually override the shuttle's navigation system. He stabilized the craft until Mission Control transmitted correct guidance signals. There was no danger to the five astronauts, but ``we had a little excitement tonight,'' said flight director Bob Castle. After analyzing data, controllers reported that Columbia had made four rotations in yaw (side-to-side), one rotation in pitch (up-and-down of the nose and tail) and three-fourths of a rotation in roll. At times, they said, all movements were taking place simultaneously. Each rotation took two minutes, too slow for the astronauts to sense while asleep. Another flight director, Lee Briscoe, said it appeared that ``a couple of words got dropped'' in the navigation program, ``so the vehicle thought it was around the center of the Earth'' instead of repeatedly passing back and forth across the equator at a 28-degree angle. The incident happened Wednesday night, about 2{ hours before their scheduled wakeup. A false fire alarm also got them out of their beds Wednesday. A third wakeup, at the planned time, was music to their ears: a rendition of Washington and Lee University's fight song. One of the astronauts, David Low, is a graduate of the school. ``Good morning, Columbia, after what must have been a restful, or restless, night,'' the control center radioed. Brandenstein and pilot Jim Wetherbee successfully tested Columbia's flight control systems to make sure they were in good shape for returning home. During the 10-day mission the astronauts have deployed a Navy communications satellite and retrieved an 11-ton science laboratory that had orbited for six years. Snow was falling this morning at the landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and about an inch had covered the desert before dawn. Briscoe said forecasters were watching the weather closely, but ``it still looks good for tomorrow.'' The pre-dawn landing is scheduled at 2:54 a.m. PST. Recent heavy rains have closed the public viewing area, and the space agency discouraged citizens from driving to the base to watch the touchdown. While Brandenstein and Wetherbee checked the shuttle's systems, mission specialists Bonnie Dunbar, Marsha Ivins and Low completed a series of medical and science experiments and began stowing them away. Castle said Columbia began its slow spin after an errant navigation signal from the ground caused six small steering jets in the shuttle's nose to fire on and off, the longest for two minutes. That sent the shuttle into an unwanted spin of about 3 degrees a second, or about one rotation every two minutes, Castle said. He said the navigation data had suffered radio interference during the transmission, but that an operator on the ground failed to catch it. Castle said that if nothing had been done, Columbia would have continued to rotate at that rate, but there would be no threat to the astronauts. ``I'm concerned about what happened because we have to find out what happened and correct it,'' Castle said. ``But I'm not real concerned. It was an error on the ground. Columbia did exactly what Columbia should have done.'' NASA spokesman Jack Kroehnke said the astronauts would not have felt the spin imparted by the six thrusters, part of a system of 44 steering jets on the shuttle. ``If we had not awakened the crew, they'd eventually have awakened themselves, I'm sure, and looked out to see the Earth view changing in the windows,'' Kroehnke said.
AP880302-0215 	X	The United Nations today voted 143-1 for the United States to submit to binding arbitration on whether it can shut down the PLO observer mission. The United States did not vote, and Israel cast the only negative vote. Assembly resolutions are expressions of international will but are not legally binding and there is no mechanism to enforce them. They are often ignored or defied. Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu said the Palestine Liberation Organization is a terrorist group that has no place in the United Nations. Netanyahu stalked out of the chamber when the PLO representative, Zehdi Labib Terzi, said Israel's vote showed contempt for the world body and ``the norms of civilized behavior.'' Soviet Ambassador Aleksander Belonogov said in an interview after the voting that the dispute with the United Nations was a ``self-inflicted wound'' on American prestige and peace efforts in the Middle East. The assembly also voted 142-0 for a resolution asking the World Court in the Hague for a ruling on whether the United States has the right to refuse arbitration. Neither Israel nor the United States voted on the measure. The arbitration would be conducted by an independent three-member panel, with the United States and the United Nations each appointing one member and the third appointed jointly. The United States, which has not yet moved to close the PLO mission, said it considered the emergency meeting of the 159-nation assembly ``premature and unnecessary.'' The United States has rebuffed arbitration on the same grounds. ``It remains the intention of this government to find an appropriate resolution to this problem in light of the charter of the United Nations, the headquarters agreement and the laws of the United States,'' U.S. Ambassador Herbert Okun told the assembly after the vote. The resolutions were sponsored by the Soviet Union, which accused the United States of ``lawlessness,'' several Soviet allies and satellites, members of the movement of nations professing non-alliance with either superpower and the Philippines, a U.S. ally. The resolutions say closing the mission would violate the 1947 treaty under which the United States became U.N. headquarters. The pact provides for binding arbitration. The PLO has non-voting, observer status in the General Assembly and exercises considerable influence at the United Nations, which regards it as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, many of whom live under Israeli occupation. The PLO mission, a four-story townhouse on Manhattan's fashionable Upper East Side, has a staff of three political officers and two secretaries. Scores of organizations and nations, including most of America's closest allies, said during the three-day emergency session that closing the mission would undermine the independence of the world body. Many said the move is further eroding the already diminished U.S. prestige at the world body. Others warned it could cripple American peace efforts in the Middle East. The State Department agrees with the United Nations that the anti-terrorism legislation ordering the mission closed violates the headquarters agreement. But Attorney General Edwin Meese III reportedly said he plans to enforce the measure anyway. He is expected to announce his decision later this month. The State Department closed down the only other PLO office in the United States, an information office in Washington, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to forestall the legislation. Underlying the bitter confrontation over the mission is the nagging question of what the United Nations can do to achieve peace in the Middle East. The world body has repeatedly called an international peace conference that would include the PLO and the Soviet Union, among others. The United States, which wants direct talks, and Israel, which refuses to deal with the PLO, resist this plan. Several speakers in the assembly debate noted that the United States has never accused anyone accredited to the mission of terrorism or expelled anyone attached to the mission. In December, the assembly passed a resolution 145-1 asking the United States not to close the PLO mission. Israel, which regards the PLO as a terrorist group bent on the destruction of the Jewish state, cast the only negative vote.
AP880417-0062 	X	Jose Tavarez brought the street smarts of New York City to a battle Sunday with a Soviet foe. The contest between the 15-year-old Harlem resident and Moscow teen-ager Andrei Krasavin last just 15 minutes. Krasavin took a last look at the chessboard and resigned, the victim of an unusual program to teach New York students English through the ancient game. Tavarez and his schoolmates, however, have enjoyed only mixed success in their chess matches in the chess-worshiping Soviet Union, homeland of world champion Garri Kasparov. ``The first day they played, they were sort of destroyed,'' said William Hall, their English teacher and chess mentor. The 11 students from Junior High School No. 99 in East Harlem, a crime- and drug-plagued area of Manhattan, came to the Soviet Union for two weeks to challenge counterparts at their favorite game. The trip was masterminded by Hall, who teaches English through chess to 40 pupils from Puerto Rico, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Hong Kong and other countries. The students belong to his ``Royal Knights'' chess club. ``I saw that kids who were having difficulty learning were intrigued by chess,'' said 52-year-old Hall, who has been teaching for 23 years. ``The motivation was so great that they improved their English faster.'' ``Do they have an egghead-nerd image?'' Hall asked. ``The answer is no, with a capital `N.' They play baseball, soccer, street hockey, and their drive to excel in chess carries over.'' The New Yorkers, clad in sneakers and blue jackets with their club's name, met their Soviet opponents Sunday at Pioneer Palace, a children's recreation center in Moscow's Lenin Hills. In a third-floor classroom used to teach the game to budding grandmasters, the Americans sat down at brown wooden tables inlaid with chessboards to test themselves against some of the Soviet capital's best young players. Previous showings by the Royal Knights, who arrived in Moscow April 10 and had played at the Spartak and Central Soviet chess clubs, ranged from disastrous to encouraging. ``The Russians know clever moves that we don't, and that gives them control of the center of the board,'' said Tony Pagan, 15, whose parents are from Ecuador. Tavarez, a club member of Puerto Rican origin who has played chess for only seven months, was one of the winners Sunday. ``He wants to take on the best,'' Hall said. ``On the way over here, his question was, `Does (Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev play chess?''' However, Avram A. Pismenny, trainer for the Pioneers chess club, said the Americans had studied the game less than his players. The tour began to take shape last year, when the Royal Knights placed 17th in a national scholastic tournament. Two club members playing at the Manhattan Chess Club met the women's champion, Maya Chiburdanidze of the Soviet Union, who suggested they visit her country. It took 11 months of planning and fund raising, as well as $20,000 in corporate sponsorship to make the idea a reality. The group was scheduled to leave Moscow on Monday for Eshera, a resort on the Black Sea. They will spend three days there, travel to Leningrad to visit that northern Russian city and play more chess, then return to New York on April 24.
AP880418-0050 	X	U.S. warships on Monday attacked two offshore Iranian oil facilities in the southern gulf in retaliation for a mine blast that ripped open the hull of an American frigate last week. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the warships first struck the Sassan platform at 9 a.m. (1:30 a.m. EDT). Twenty-three minutes later they blasted the Nasr platform on the nearby Sirri Island. IRNA, monitored in Cyprus, noted that the ``aggressive U.S. attack'' came after the United states had blamed Iran for sowing mines in the waterway one of which blasted the hull of the USS missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts. Gulf-based Western diplomats and shipping sources said the Sassan platform was ablaze after the attack, but said they could not immediately tell how many warships participated in the attack. In Washington, The White House confirmed at a news conference early Tuesday that the U.S. warships had shelled the Iranian offshore oil platforms in retaliation for sowing mines in the gulf. The shipping executives said a number of salvage tugboats were en route to Sassan and Nasr platfores. These tugs were requesting permission from the American warships to let them rescue survivors and help extinguish fires. The Americans, the executives said, told the tugs they may rescue survivors but they may not participate in any firefighting. The two targets were pounded shortly after a warning from the U.S. warships to Iranian workers to evacuate the platform and the island. Shipping executives said their monitors picked up a radio message at 9:00 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) from the U.S. warships to the Sassan platform telling workers to evacuate the facility, saying it ``will be shelled in five minutes.'' Sassan is sister platform to Rostam, which was wrecked by American gunners in October 1987 when the Iranians fired a Chinese-made Silkworm missile into the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil tanker. Eighteen persons were injured in the tanker attack, including the captain. U.S. officials have said there was ``substantial evidence'' that Iran planted a mine that heavily damaged the hull missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts in the central gulf last week and injured 10 crewmen. The injured crewmen were injured and flown by helicopter to a medical facility aboard the USS Trenton. The four most seriously injured were moved to Bahrain's Salmaniya Hospital and later flown aboard a special U.S. Air Force jet to West Germany for further treatment and reunion with families. The frigate was towed to the Dubai ship repair yard on Saturday, and knowledgeable sources said it was not in danger of sinking, despite enormous damage to the hull and engine room. ``Circumstances of the attack (Monday) on Sassan were very much similar to those that preceded the shelling of Rostam last October,'' said one Dubai-based maritime salvage agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``After a five-minute warning, the American guns blazed away at the platform,'' he said of the attack on Rostam. A multinational mine-sweeping effort has found six mines in the central gulf area where the Samuel B. Roberts was hit on Thursday, according to U.S. Navy sources. The mine sweeping task force included six U.S. ocean mine sweepers, four British units, two Belgium, two Dutch and four Italian. The USS Trenton, which is an amphibious transport ship, was accompanying the task force and acting as the overall command ship. U.S. defense officials suspect the mines are recently laid, Navy sources said. They said the mines looked clean and free of seaweed, indicating they had not been in the water for long. The sources said the explosives were contact mines, the same type of mines previoulsy located. The Roberts is part of the U.S. Middle East Force, which was bolstered in the gulf last summer when Kuwait registered 11 of its tankers in the United States to entitle them to U.S. Navy protection against Iranian threats. The Bridgeton, the first of the flagged tankers, struck a mine during the first U.S. escorted tanker convoy last July. The Navy then conducted at least 55 other convoys through the 550-mile length of the waterway between Kuwait and the Strait of Hormuz, outlet of the gulf, without incident. The Navy also spearheaded a massive minehunting operation with the help of its Western allies, and alone located and detonated 45 mines. The allies took care of about 20 more. The Western diplomats and shipping executives on Monday said there might be at least 10 mines in the area 55 miles northeast of Qatar, aside from the one hit by the Roberts and the two located by the Navy. The area is a major shipping lane for the U.S. convoys and is frequented by the warships and the tankers.
AP900521-0084 	X	A magazine Monday berated the British for their dress and manners, saying European neighbors regard them as the slobs of the continent. ``We go out without combing our hair, wear the same shoes two days running and throw rubbish out of our car windows,'' complained ``She,'' a monthly women's magazine. It said other Europeans consider British men ill-mannered and chided British women for dressing badly and shouting at their children in public. If the British want to join the ``nouveau European'' elite, the magazine said, their manners, attitudes, habits and appearance all need ``a complete overhaul.'' Tips offered by the magazine include never leaving home unless groomed immaculately, remembering to wish everyone good morning, afternoon or evening, and walking with ``dignity and grace.'' Other guidelines: spending more on personal appearance, displaying family loyalty, drinking more mineral water and never eating junk food in the street.
AP900626-0035 	X	Fang Lizhi's departure for a safe haven in Britain leaves China without a prominent dissident with the courage and stature to speak out against the government. A year after tanks crushed the pro-democracy movement, China has effectively silenced all open dissent through arrests, intimidation and forced exile. Fang refrained from speaking out during his year of refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. But as long as he stayed in China _ outside the grasp of a government that sought to try him as an instigator of unrest _ he remained a symbol of resistance to political oppression. Now the 54-year-old astrophysicist and his activist wife Li Shuxian join a growing list of dissidents who have escaped the country or been banished. Most have been frustrated by lack of funds, poor organization and an inability to make their voices heard where it counts _ at home in China. The decision to allow Fang and his wife to leave the country came one week after China similarly dispatched another well-known advocate of democratic reform, Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian. Hou, who defected to the mainland from Taiwan in 1983, played a key role in negotiating the evacuation of students from Tiananmen Square during the June 4, 1989 military assault theat crushed the pro-democracy movement. He hid in the Australian Embassy for two months before the Chinese promised he would not be arrested, emerging to become one of the few Chinese willing to openly criticize the government. Hou and two other companions from Tiananmen _ activists Gao Xin and Zhou Duo _ finally went too far when they tried to hold a news conference for foreign journalists on May 31 to call for the release of political prisoners. All three disappeared hours before the news conference. Police released Gao and Zhou, who had previously spent months in prison, after the anniversary of the June 4 crackdown had passed. But Hou was taken out to sea, put on a Taiwanese fishing boat and returned to Taiwan. Also Monday, China announced that another dissident arrested last summer, Wang Xuezhi, was being released from a Canton prison and allowed to go abroad to rejoin his French wife. China appears to have concluded that exiling dissenters such as Fang and Hou serves both to ease Western criticism of China's human rights record and diminish their ability to influence opinion at home. Those who left or escaped after the military crackdown _ people like student leader Wu'er Kaixi, political scientist Yan Jiaqi and entrepreneur Wan Runnan _ say they fear the world is gradually losing interest in China. Liu Binyan, a journalist and maker of film documentaries who has been living in exile in the United States for two years, said in a recent interview that he longs to return home, but thinks he might face arrest. ``This is a very important time in China,'' he said. ``I want to go back and experience everything myself. Even if I can't write about it.'' Those released from prison in recent months as China seeks to improve its image abroad have sought the safety of silence. Almost all, under police orders, have avoided political activities and stayed away from foreign reporters. ``Coming back home was like a dream,'' said journalist Dai Qing when she was freed in May after being imprisoned for 10 months. But Dai, one of the free spirits of China's tightly controlled mass media, said she could say no more. Speaking to a foreign reporter without permission would mean a return to prison.
AP900414-0068 	X	Cape Verde will hold its first direct presidential election and its first multiparty legislative balloting later this year, political leaders in the west African nation said. The announcement came late Friday at the end of a four-day meeting by leaders of the only political party now allowed in the 10-island archipelago, the ruling the African Party for the Indpendence of Cape Verde. Olivio Pires, a party spokesman, told the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, that the presidential election will be held on a non-party basis this year on a date to be announced later. Pires said President Aristides Pereira, who has ruled Cape Verde since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975, will have to step down from his post as the party's general secretary if he chooses to run for re-election. Pires said the legislative election will be held in December after the presidential balloting, Lusa reported from the Cape Verdian capital, Praia. Currently, citizens elect members of the Peoples National Assembly from lists of candidates put forward by the ruling party. The president is then elected by the assembly, the only legislative body. The new political structure was developed with the help of attorneys in Portugal and is modeled after the election plan in Portugal, which also chooses its president on a non-party basis. The reforms further advance Cape Verde's evolution from the single-party, Marxist-inspired system it embraced after independence to a democratic system. The country has gradually opened up its economy to private enterprise and recently introduced legislation that would result in greater freedom for the press. Some criticism of the ruling party is already allowed. Pereira also has won praise from Western governments, human rights groups and aid agencies for his pragmatism and tolerance of political dissent. Cape Verde, 385 miles off the Senegalese coast, is the second of Portugal's former African colonies to implement democratic reforms. Sao Tome e Principe announced last year that competition among political parties will be allowed in upcoming general elections.
AP881103-0046 	X	The American Medical Association moved to stop sales of a new ``smokeless cigarette'' being marketed by R.J. Reynolds Co., saying the product is nothing more than a delivery system for the drug nicotine. The nation's largest medical association filed petitions in two states Wednesday in an effort to halt distribution of the product, called Premier. R.J. Reynolds countered with a news release saying the AMA was both inaccurate and hypocritical. ``Premier smoke substantially reduces many of the chemical compounds that the critics of smoking have been complaining about,'' Reynolds' release said. ``Reynolds finds it difficult to understand how the AMA can in good faith suggest that Premier be banned. ``Premier is a cigarette ... not a drug-delivery system, as the AMA has alleged.'' The AMA's legal challenge was filed in petitions in Arizona and Missouri, where the product is being test marketed. In April, the association petitioned the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate Premier as a drug, although cigarettes currently are not regulated that way. That petition is pending. Premier contains nicotine, an ``addictive drug ... which has been implicated in cardiovascular disease, complications of hypertension'' and other medical problems, the AMA said. ``The scientific evidence is crystal clear about the adverse health effects of nicotine and carbon monoxide,'' Dr. Roy Schwarz of the AMA said at a news conference. The FDA currently does not regulate tobacco products unless they make a medical claim, spokesman William Grigg said. He said the AMA maintains in its FDA petition that Premier should be regulated because it makes ``an inherent health claim.'' The main difference between Premier and other cigarettes is that the tobacco in them is warmed, not burned, said Reynolds spokeswoman Maura Payne in Winston-Salem, N.C. She said the cigarettes contain a nicotine level of 0.4 milligrams and carbon monoxide ``at about the same level as a `lights' brand.'' The cigarettes also show a ``virtual elimination of sidestream smoke, or smoke off the lit end of the cigarette, the elimination of ash and no tobacco aroma,'' she said. But R.J. Reynolds, a subsidiary of RJR Nabisco, said it has treated Premier no differently than any other cigarette. The company began selling Premier in Tucson, Ariz., Phoenix and St. Louis around Oct. 1, but no date had been set for national distribution. Ms. Payne said the cost per pack would run about 25 percent higher than other cigarettes. Health officials in Arizona and Missouri said the issue in their states boils down to a question of jurisdiction. Dr. Robert Harmon, director of the Missouri Department of Health, said his state had been considering action against Premier for some time but he expected any decision was at least a week away. ``I agree that the product should be regulated as a drug and I wrote to the FDA on Feb. 25 asking it to do so,'' Harmon said. ``It is mainly a matter of state or federal jurisdiction.'' Joe Rowan, deputy director of the Arizona Board of Pharmacy, which received the AMA's petition, said the document ``has been taken to the state Attorney General's office.'' ``They will advise the board as to what action they can take or should take, if any,'' he said.
AP900723-0149 	X	President Bush on Monday said he would nominate David H. Souter, a little-known federal appeals court judge, to the Supreme Court. Bush said he acted without questioning Souter on abortion or other delicate judicial issues. If confirmed by a majority of the Senate, Souter, a 50-year-old bachelor from New Hampshire, would succeed William J. Brennan, who retired last Friday. Bush's quick decision took Washington by surprise and shifted the nation's attention to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is certain to examine Souter's record and explore his views on abortion and other issues. With Souter standing at his side, Bush described Souter as ``a remarkable judge of keen intellect and the highest ability.'' He chose his nominee after meeting him for the first time earlier in the day. The president said it would have been ``inappropriate'' to apply an abortion ``litmus test'' on his nominee. He said the selection was not geared to any single issue but to his ability to interpret the law. Souter has been on the federal appeals court for such a short period of time that he has not yet penned an opinion. Gordon Tiffany, like Souter a former New Hampshire attorney general, said it is hard to classify Souter's judicial philosophy. ``Whether it's liberal or conservative, it's not the issue in his mind. The issue in his mind is what was intended in the Constitution,'' Tiffany said. Conservatives hoped Bush would give them a nominee who would overthrow the 1973 Roe-vs.-Wade decision that legalized abortion. The nomination appeared to underscore the influence exercised by John Sununu, Bush's chief of staff, who as governor of New Hampshire had put Souter on that state's Supreme Court in 1983. Like Bush, Sununu is an outspoken opponent of abortion. Andrew Card, Sununu's deputy, said Sununu did not suggest Souter to Bush. At a news conference, a questioner noted that Bush and Sununu both have widely known views against abortion and asked why people shouldn't think that Souter's abortion view was known to Bush even if Bush did not question him about it. ``I told you it's not,'' Bush said. The National Right to Life Committee, a leading anti-abortion group, said it did not believe Souter had ever expressed an opinion on abortion. But the committee said it was pleased that Bush said he chose Souter because of his philosophy of not trying to legislate from the bench. Bush noted that Souter had won unanimous Senate confirmation when he was nominated in January for the appeals court, suggesting his hope that the nomination might not trigger a political free-for-all in the Senate. ``We're not bracing for some horrendous fight with the United States Senate,'' Bush said. But Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., a liberal member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it would be ``naive'' to think that Souter would not be quizzed about abortion. ``There will be a lot more known about him, I guarantee you that,'' said Leahy. In fact, pro-choice groups demanded that committee sound Souter out on his abortion views. ``The American people need to know where Judge Souter stands on the issues of individual and human rights,'' said Judith Lichtman, president of the National Women's Legal Defense Fund. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell praised Souter's experience but did not express an opinion on the nomination. Mitchell promised Democrats would conduct prompt and fair hearings. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he expected few if any fireworks over Souter's record ``because he just went on the court in April.'' When Bush nominated Souter for the appeals court, the American Bar Association's screening committee called him ``well-qualified'' _ its highest rating for judicial nominees. Bush said he decided on Souter earlier in the day. ``The excellence was just there,'' Bush said. The president praised Brennan as well, calling the court's long-time leading liberal, ``one of the greatest figures of his age.'' The 84-year-old Brennan, in frail health, resigned Friday. Appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he had served longer than most Americans have been alive.
AP881027-0236 	X	RJR Nabisco Inc. has broken off buyout talks with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., raising the possibility that the powerful investment firm might launch a hostile $20.3 billion tender offer for the food and tobacco conglomerate. The failure of the talks appeared to set the stage for a showdown between Kohlberg Kravis and Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., Nabisco's financial partner, over what would be the nation's biggest corporate acquisition. After a meeting of Nabisco's outside directors Wednesday, President F. Ross Johnson said the group concluded Kohlberg Kravis's proposal to acquire Nabisco for $90 a share was not in the company's best interest.
AP900612-0125 	X	If Fido goes into a frenzy over fast food, you can always pick up a dog biscuit shaped like a cheeseburger at a drive-through window that caters to canines. When Maggie Patterson opened her Doggie-Drive-Thru in April, her idea was met with skepticism. ``People told me I was crazy,'' Patterson said Tuesday. ``But now that I'm open, they tell me it's the greatest idea since sliced bread.'' Now besides her homemade dog biscuits in the shapes of french fries and cheeseburgers, she's trying to develop a pizza-shaped biscuit and a ``diet'' puffed rice treat for the pooch with a paunch. She mixes and bakes the biscuits using her own recipe of minced garlic, wheat germ, margarine, eggs, cheddar cheese, molasses, dry milk and whole wheat flour. She works with a veterinarian and a hospital dietitian. When the owner drives up, Patterson asks the dog's name and then offers a sample. If the dog seems too shy or aggressive, she'll have the owner give it the treat. After telling her biscuits' ingredients and the prices (45 cents for a cheeseburger biscuit the size of a large cookie), she gets the owner to talk about the dog _ something she finds people love to do. ``Meanwhile, the dog is freaking out. He's getting all the attention and nobody but him is getting anything to eat,'' she said. Sometimes, owners take their dog through as a birthday surprise, and Patterson accommodates by taking the dog's picture as a memento. On a busy Saturday, she said as many as 100 cars pull up to her window. The 9-week-old business has created such a craze, Patterson said, she has received dozens of requests for franchises. Patterson, 33, said she owes the idea to her three dogs and their love of fast-food _ the people kind. ``I used to give them cheeseburgers when we'd go through McDonald's, but they started getting fat,'' she said of her Labrador, cocker spaniel and poodle. ``But every time they'd see those golden arches they'd still go crazy.''
AP880617-0269 	X	The stock market moved higher early today in heavy trading after tumbling in the previous session on fears of higher interest rates. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, which slipped 37 points on Thursday, was up 6.93 points at 2,101.17 in the first half hour of trading. Volume on the Big Board came to 120.03 million shares. Gainers led losers by about 11 to 7 with 674 up, 444 down and 520 unchanged as of 10 a.m. on Wall Street. Traders kept a sharp eye on the credit markets, where sharply lower bond prices helped trigger Thursday's decline in stock prices. Rumors that West Germany and possibly Japan might be preparing to hike interest rates sparked fear that the Federal Reserve might be pressed to do the same to support the dollar. ``The bond market could drag us down again today like it did yesterday,'' said Peter Vandenberg, a trader with Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. Traders steadied themselves for the year's second ``triple-witching hour,'' in which groups of stock-index futures, stock-index options and options on individual stocks will expire today. ``There's some nervousness,'' Vandenberg said, ``but the last few expirations have been orderly, with no major problems.'' Among actively traded issues, Texaco was unchanged at 49{, IBM was up [ at 117\, Ford Motor was unchanged at 52[, and General Electric was unchanged at 43\. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks was up 0.30 at 152.74. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was off 0.40 at 306.67. On Thursday the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 37.16 points to close at 2,094.24. Declining issues outnumbered advances by about 5 to 2 on the NYSE, with 435 up, 1,089 down and 425 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 161.55 million shares, against 150.26 million shares in the previous session.
AP880906-0081 	X	Five people, including a village chief, were sentenced to death by firing squad for the ritual killing of a 38-year-old woman. Baffour Twene, 52, his wife and three co-defendants were convicted Monday of murdering Lamley Sampa on Feb. 23 and using parts of her body in a ritual ceremony. Mrs. Sampa was abducted in the northern region of Brong Ahafo. The details of the ritual were not described during the trial. Twene and the other defendants were tried before a regional court at Sunyani, 260 miles northwest of the capital of Accra. Courtroom spectators applauded the guilty verdict. Court chairman K.F. Otu-Essel called the killing barbaric and said such practices must end. Two weeks ago, four people, including a tribal chief, were sentenced to death by firing squad in a similar case in the western region of Sefwi Bekwai.
AP880303-0008 	X	The Senate should not revise the pending arms pact with the Soviet Union to bind future administrations to the current understanding of its intent, says the State Department legal adviser. ``I don't think it is necessary or desirable to do that kind of thing,'' legal adviser Abraham D. Sofaer said in an interview. The heart of the issue is not so much a treaty signed last December banning medium-range nuclear missiles from superpower arsenals as a treaty signed in 1972 which limits testing of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative missile defense system, known as Star Wars. Democratic Whip Alan Cranston of California has been holding discussions with senators from both parties, and an aide said he expects ``there to be language in the ratification resolution addressing the treaty interpretation issues.'' Cranston has predicted that the treaty will win the necessary 67 votes in the 100-member body to be ratified. Few senators have expressed disagreement over the meaning of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces pact signed at the Washington summit last December calling on the superpowers to destroy their nuclear missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,000 miles. The central controversy is an interpretation of the ABM pact written by Sofaer in 1985 which would allow wider testing of Star Wars components. Cranston's legislative aide, Gerry Warburg, said the language expected in the INF resolution ``would contain a more broad statement concerning the interpretation of treaties generally,'' including the ABM pact. Cranston, Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., of the Foreign Relations Committee, all oppose Sofaer's ``broad interpretation'' of the ABM pact. Warburg said they had been discussing the INF resolution with Secretary of State George P. Shultz. The senators contend that allowing the broad interpretation amounts to changing the rules in the middle of the game and would set a dangerous precedent in which any administration could duck treaty requirements simply by reinterpreting them. Sofaer said inclusion of restrictive language in a resolution ratifying the INF treaty would not be binding on the Soviet Union, and could complicate rather than resolve interpretation of the ABM pact. ``I know that they are not going to get a settlement of the ABM dispute this way,'' said Sofaer. ``It is a potential problem for INF ratification and I think overwhelmingly people support INF ratification.'' Sofaer noted that Shultz had sent the Senate the 31-volume negotiating record of the INF pact and had also agreed that any testimony by administration officials would be ``authoritative'' and reflect the president's understanding of the treaty. ``Those practical things have been achieved,'' said Sofaer, objecting to including in the ratification resolution any language that would commit future administrations to the current understanding of the treaty. ``If you want to go further, you might end up confusing or even harming international legal practice relating to treaty ratification,'' he said. While the Senate can bind the administration to a particular interpretation of either the INF or the ABM treaties, he said, it cannot bind the Soviet Union, unless the treaties are renegotiated. ``The treaty reflects two relationships,'' he said. ``It reflects a relationship between two sovereign nations, and then it also reflects the relations between the United States executive branch and the Senate. ``When you talk about the meaning of a treaty, you are talking about the international relationship. You are talking about what binds the two nations.''
AP900810-0224 	X	Inventor Howard O. McMahon, a former head of Arthur D. Little Inc., has died at the age of 75. McMahon, who lived in Cambridge, died of heart disease Sunday at Mount Auburn Hospital, said an Arthur D. Little spokesman. The Cambridge-based firm specializes in international management and technology consulting. McMahon joined Arthur D. Little as a research associate in 1943. He succeeded Gen. James M. Gavin as its president in 1964. In 1951 the scientist received the Franklin Institute's Edward Longstreth Medal for co-developing the Collins helium cryostat, which liquefies helium gas at minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit. The American Ceramics Society gave McMahon the Frank Forrest Award in 1952 for his research in thermal radiation. In 1979, he received the Samuel C. Collins Award from the Cryogenic Engineering Conference. McMahon earned a doctorate in physical chemistry and physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While still an undergraduate, a Canadian neon sign company paid him $100 for his patent on a bubbling Christmas tree candle. After becoming president of Arthur D. Little, McMahon began to organize programs at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in which the public, scientists and students discussed political and social issues. McMahon also began pushing corporations to conduct social audits, essentially the costs to their employees, customers and the community at large of their doing business. After retiring from Arthur D. Little in 1977, McMahon founded the Helix Technology Corp., which manufactures cryogenic refrigeration systems in Waltham.
AP900827-0147 	X	Myron J. Bennett, a combative radio host-turned-politician, died of cancer Aug. 19. He was 82. Bennett built a big following in the 1940s with his tart commentary on the city's politics on radio station KSO. In 1948, he was elected the city's public safety commissioner. He was charged during his first year in office with involvement in a conspiracy to collect kickbacks from tavern owners. The charges were later dismissed. He lost his city post in 1950 when Des Moines changed its form of government. A Republican, Bennett then switched his party affiliation and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor.
AP900802-0025 	X	President Bush, proposing an orderly, long-term reduction in the nation's military arsenal, is backing a 25 percent cut in the armed forces by the mid-1990s, administration and Pentagon sources say. Bush was slated to make the proposal in a speech today in Aspen, Colo., as his $307 billion defense budget for fiscal 1991 has come under severe attack on Capitol Hill. ``The president will lay out the broad outlines of his new strategy for the nation's defenses and how our military must respond, based on the changes in the world that have occurred,'' said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. In a speech to the Aspen Institute, Bush planned to offer support for two hotly debated weapons programs _ the B-2 stealth bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative _ and support a 25 percent cut in the armed forces by the end of 1995, the source said. A similar cut in the nation's arsenal of troops and weapons was laid out by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as an option for budget negotiators in June, but it was derided as ``overly cautious'' by critics seeking additional budget savings. Bush planned to make the address after conferring with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Aspen. It will be the fourth time Bush and Mrs. Thatcher have met in as many months. Bush's speech comes two days after the House Armed Services Committee cut $24 billion from the $307 billion the president had requested for defense spending in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The panel voted to halt production of the B-2 bomber and slashed almost $2 billion from Bush's request of $4.7 billion from the anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars. It also cut military personnel by 129,500 and scaled back on two nuclear missile programs. In June, Cheney said a 25 percent force reduction could save $8.6 billion over five years as the Pentagon retired six active duty Army divisions, 111 Navy ships and 11 Air Force tactical fighter wings, and removed 442,000 men and women from the military's 2.1-million-member active duty ranks. Appearing Wednesday evening on public television's ``MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour,'' the defense secretary hinted that even more changes could be in store. He said he had ``new base closings'' to announce, possibly as early as next week. But Cheney also complained that while the House wanted him to cut personnel, members were balking at closing unneeded bases. Bush said on July 20 at a Strategic Air Command base in Cheyenne, Wyo., that, ``We must have an orderly build-down, not some kind of a fire sale'' in defense. He indicated then that he could live with the $18 billion that the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to cut from his defense budget, but he implored Congress to ``hold the line at (that) already painful reduction.'' The senior American official said the president's remarks would follow along the lines of those made by Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both have called repeatedly for an orderly, planned reduction in troop strength so that the all-volunteer force is not gutted and morale destroyed. Powell has ordered a study to assess the ``base line force'' that the nation needs to be a superpower, another source said. Mrs. Thatcher is scheduled to address the closing session of the Aspen Institute conference on Sunday. Like Bush, she is under pressure at home to deliver a peace dividend reflecting the changing face of Europe and reduced East-West tensions. While the United States grapples with how to reduce the Pentagon budget, Mrs. Thatcher's defense secretary, Tom King, announced plans last week to reduce the size of the British army by 25 percent over five to seven years and cut its forces in West Germany in half. King also outlined cuts in the British air force and navy but said Britain would retain its nuclear arsenal. Cheney was flying separately to Aspen to attend the symposium at the non-profit institute, marking its 40th anniversary of bringing political, business and cultural leaders together to discuss global issues.
AP900309-0195 	X	The Idaho House voted Thursday to repeal the state's abortion ``trigger law,'' which sets criminal penalties of up to five years in prison both for physicians who perform and women who get abortions. In developments elsewhere, Cincinnati's archbishop asked abortion clinic operators to voluntarily refrain from Holy Communion, and Planned Parenthood said it would appeal a ruling upholding the federal government's right to bar family planning aid to foreign organizations that perform abortions. And in Alabama, a bill that would require pre-abortion counseling and an overnight wait prior to any abortion passed the House of Representatives 79-18 on Thursday. But the measure faces tough election-year opposition in the state Senate. With little debate, Idaho House members voted 54-28 to erase the so-called trigger law, which wouldn't take effect unless the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to outlaw abortion. The repeal measure was forwarded to the state Senate, where it was expected to pass. ``I don't think anyone in this House would like the women of Idaho to be subject to criminal penalties for having an abortion,'' said Rep. Gary Robbins, a Democrat who introduced the repeal measure. ``I think the women of Idaho are able to make their own choices, and if they do so I don't think they ought to be penalized.'' The law was adopted by the Legislature in 1973, shortly after the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision essentially legalizing abortion on demand through the first two trimesters of pregnancy. If it were to go into effect, the Idaho law would mandate prison terms of two to five years for physicians who perform abortions and one to five years for women undergoing them. The law couldn't take effect under provisions of Roe vs. Wade, hence the ``trigger'' desingation. If the high court were to overturn that landmark ruling, and allow states to once again ban abortion, the Idaho law would take effect on a proclamation by the governor. In the Idaho House debate Thursday, anti-abortion lawmakers argued that lifting the threat of criminal penalties ignores the rights of the unborn. ``Some of us are here to speak for those who can't speak for themselves. Do they not count for something?'' asked Rep. Elizabeth Allan-Hodge, a Republican. ``For those of us who believe it is murder to kill the unborn, we cannot possibly believe we should slap them on the hand and tell them it's wrong.'' In Cincinnati, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk said Wednesday that Roman Catholics who operate abortion clinics or promote abortion rights shouldn't receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. The head of the Cincinnati Archdiocese stopped short of excommunicating or forbidding Holy Communion to pro-choice activists. ``Catholics who obstinately persist in these activities, while perhaps not formally excommunicated, should not consider themselves properly disposed to participate in receiving Holy Communion,'' Pilarczyk said. Pilarcayk's statement was released after a meeting with abortion opponents who complained that Barbara Rinto, a Catholic who is the new director of Planned Parenthood of Cncinnati, violates church law by operating a clinic that performs abortions. Ms. Rinto has said that her feelings on abortion are ``between me and my God,'' and that her beliefs about birth control and reproduction are private. In New York, Planned Parenthood announced Thursday it would appeal a ruling by a federal judge there that upheld a federal policy _ instituted under the Reagan administration and continued under President Bush _ barring family planning aid to private foreign organizations that perform abortions. The policy, adopted by the Agency for International Development 1984, requires that foreign private health agencies, in return for American grants, certify that they didn't perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning. Planned Parenthood, which assists private foreign agencies, had charged that the policy was a violation of their First Amendment right to advocate abortion and interfered with the rights of privacy of people seeking family planning information.
AP900403-0064 	X	A bomb hidden in a motor scooter exploded in a crowded vegetable market in Punjab state today, killing at least 31 people and wounding 70 others as Hindus celebrated a religious holiday, police said. The bombing, which police blamed on Sikh separatists, raised to 39 the number killed since Monday in the northern state. Sikhs campaigning for a separate nation have killed more than 500 people so far this year in Punjab, a rich northern farming state where they hold a slight majority over Hindus. Soon after the blast in Batala, 25 miles north of the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, Hindu mobs hurled stones at a police station 150 yards from the vegetable market, senior police superintendent S.K. Goel said. Goel was unsure whether any policemen were injured. The violence prompted officials to impose an indefinite curfew on the city, he said, adding that ``the situation is very tense.'' Most of those killed were Hindus and the wounded included both Sikhs and Hindus, said Sanjeev Gupta, another senior police official. Thirty-two of those wounded were in serious condition. Goel said the bomb exploded during a march by about 100,000 Hindus celebrating the birth of Rama, a heroic warrior-king. Rama is extolled in Hindu lore as an incarnation of Vishnu, a member of the supreme Hindu trinity of gods. Witnesses, contacted by telephone, said portions of bodies were hurled across the market, which was covered with blood-soaked pieces of vegetables. ``Some people were crying for help. Those who were lucky to survive ran away in panic. Many shops, scooters and one car were destroyed,'' said one witness who spoke on condition of anonymity. Earlier today, a bomb exploded on a bus in another town near Amritsar, killing the driver and one passenger, both Sikhs, senior police superintendent Anil Sharma said. Police blamed Sikh extremists for the blast near Taragarh, 17 miles northeast of Amritsar. Sikh Extremists initially targeted only Hindus in their campaign but now have also turned their guns on Sikhs who don't support the separatist cause. On Monday night, Sikh militants shot and killed four members of a Sikh family in another part of Punjab, police said. At Salghowal, 95 miles southeast of Amritsar, five or six Sikh gunmen burst into the farmhouse of a Sikh constable Monday night, killing the policeman, his parents and a younger brother, senior police superintendent Baramjit Singh said. Police also blamed Sikh extremists for an attack on a bus Monday night in Uttar Pradesh state, which is separated from Punjab by Haryana state, news agencies reported. United News of India said one police guard was killed and 11 passengers were wounded when five gunmen stopped the bus. But a second police guard killed one of the gunmen and the others fled, according to United News. Press Trust of India said police recovered a Chinese assault rifle bearing the inscription ``Khalistan Commando Force.'' Khalistan, which means ``Land of the Pure,'' is the name Sikh militants use for the independent Sikh nation they want to create in Punjab. The bus was halted while traveling between Bijnore and Muzaffarnagar, about 75 miles northeast of New Delhi and about 95 miles from the Punjab-Haryana state line. Most attacks by Sikh extremists have occurred in Punjab. Nationwide, Sikhs comprise only 2 percent of India's 880 million people, while Hindus account for 82 percent. The militants say members of the Sikh faith, which has roots in both Islam and Hinduism, are discriminated against politically and culturally by the Hindu majority.
AP900710-0155 	X	Security forces opened fire on a crowd at a soccer game in Somalia after ``provocateurs'' began stoning the president, a Somali official said Tuesday. Diplomatic sources said at least 65 people were killed, but the Somali government said only three people died. Unofficial fatality estimates in Friday's shootings in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, range as high as 109, according to one diplomatic source, who said 65 people were confirmed dead at the city's Digfer Hospital. More than 100 people were seriously injured, another source said. But Abbudllahi Farah Barre, first secretary at the Somali Embassy in Rome, insisted only three people were killed in the stadium shooting. He said he did not have exact figures on the number of injured. He said security forces opened fire after ``some provocateurs'' began throwing rocks at President Mohammed Siad Barre. He said the security forces first fired in the air, then on the crowd as it continued to throw rocks and began to pelt security officers. On Saturday, the Somali Ministry of Labor, Sports and Social Affairs dismissed the incident as a ``chance accident'' and said it had sent condolences to the victims' families. It also said three people were killed. The ministry blamed the incident on crowding and said people had been hit by bullets when security forces fired ``high into the air'' to maintain peace. International telephone connections to Somalia were not working Tuesday and it was not immediately possible to contact anyone in Mogadishu. Somalia is an impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. In recent years, the government steadily has lost control of much of the nation's countryside to insurgencies and warring clans. Siad Barre has ruled the predominantly Moslem nation since seizing power in a coup in 1969.
AP880330-0141 	X	After searching three years for his son, Gerald Murphy finally met him only hours before the 21-year-old was sentenced to life in prison for murder. Murphy said he was a college student in 1967 when his girlfriend became pregnant and gave the child up for adoption. ``Today was the first time I made any physical contact with him _ to reach out and shake Murphy on Monday, after the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court sentenced Michael Gregory Woods to life in prison without parole. Woods was convicted of first-degree murder Jan. 19. ``What a tragic thing this is. I fehis hand,'' saidel deprived in a sense, but I'm glad I answered the question of what happened to him,'' Murphy said. On July 2, Woods shot and killed Michael Boyd, a 25-year-old National Security Agency employee. Boyd's wife Jody claimed her husband beat her and their three children. She asked Woods, a friend of hers, to kill her husband. In return, she promised to give him and his two teen-age conspirators her husband's $25,000 life insurance, according to court testimony. Michael Woods was the first man in Maryland to receive the life-in-prison- without-parole sentence. It went into effect July 1, the day before the murder. Murphy, 46, who has a wife and three children in California, flew from his home in Loworkbooks and sandwiches in an increasing number of school backpacks each day. It is a pill, no bigger than button candy, prescribed to help hyperactive youngsters get through their multiplication tables, spelling tests and geography lessons. Some parents describe Ritalin as a godsend, but its success may be leading to its excess. As many as 1 million children may take the drug, and happy results encourage more doctors to prescribe it, sometimes with less triumphant results. AM-R Is for Ritalin II, an AP Extra by Fred Bayles and Scott McCartney for Tuesday AMs, April 5, will move as b0484-b0485. With: AM-Ritalin and Tom, a personal look by AP Writer Strat Douthat, whose son takes Ritalin, b0486. AM-Ritalin-Expert Advice, what parents should ask, b0487. DETROIT _ Her school principal had urged her mother to make the four-hour drive from rural northern Michigan. Now 11-year-old Chrissie sat in a windowless office where a psychologist peppered her with questions. The morning would end with doctors at the Attention Deficit Disorder Clinic of Children's Hospital telling Chrissie her baffling problems at home and in school would mean treatment with the stimulant Ritalin. AM-R Is for Ritalin III-Clinic, an AP Extra by Lee Mitgang for Wednesday AMs, April 6, will move as b0488. WEST BIRMINGHAM, Mich. _ One pupil takes the drug Ritalin to calm his hyperactivity and help him pay attention. The teachers challenges a visitor to guess who. Chris was the obvious choice. The third-grader fidgeted in his chair, got up several times to sharpen his pencil, drummed his fingers, asked questions repeatedly and never seemed to hear the answers. The guess was wrong. The child on Ritalin was a slender boy with flaming red hair who calmly sailed through a reading comprehension quiz and listened attentively to a lesson on homonyms. AM-R Is for Ritalin III-School, an AP Extra by Lee Mitgang for Wednesday AMs, April 6, will move as b0489. With: AM-Ritalin-Utah, a look at the state with the highest Ritalin consumption, b0490. WARSAW, Poland _ A curious new program is going out over Poland's state radio every Monday morning. It's called ``The West Speaks,'' and it is composed entirely of excerpts of Polish-language broadcasts by Radio Free Europe, the Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corp. and other Western radio stations. AM-Poland-Radio, for Friday AMs, April 8, moving as b0475
AP901126-0060 	X	The Supreme Court today refused to become involved in a bitter divorce dispute between jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and his wife of 32 years. The justices, without comment, rejected arguments by Monica Getz that New York's divorce law violates the rights of women. Getz, 63, sued for divorce in 1981, after Mrs. Getz, 56, went to court alleging her husband - suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction - abused her. She sought a court order for family support payments and protection against Getz. The couple later made attempts at reconciliation before the divorce became final in 1987. A state jury ruled in Getz's favor in granting the divorce. He had accused his wife of infidelity and trying to poison him. Mrs. Getz said her husband had been repeatedly unfaithful and unpredictably violent, but said she stood by him when drugs and alcohol could have cost him his life. A state judge ruled that Mrs. Getz is entitled to half her husband's royalties from the beginning of their marriage in 1956 to 1981. That ruling was not at issue in the case acted on today. In her appeal to the Supreme Court, Mrs. Getz said the divorce decree against her is unfair. She said the case should have been resolved in New York's family courts rather than by trial courts that handle corporate disputes and other matters. She said the state law favors men by permitting them to wage ``legal wars of attrition'' against their wives, who often lack equal financial resources. Family courts are designed to expedite resolutions of divorce cases and spare the couple excessive legal fees, she said. Mrs. Getz said she has spent more than $600,000 in legal fees and will be forced to use the proceeds from the couple's mansion in Irvington, N.Y., where she still lives, to pay off the bills. In a legal brief in her behalf, Mrs. Getz's lawyer, Whitney North Seymour Jr., said, ``The wife's entire life has been left in shambles by this case. She has been branded an adulteress. She has become obligated to pay legal fees of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. She is being forced out of her home and to give up her old-age security.'' The case is Getz vs. Getz, 90-562.
AP880614-0044 	X	Here are brief profiles of four Bolsheviks who died in the Stalin purges of the 1930s and were cleared Monday by the Soviet Supreme Court: GREGORY Y. ZINOVIEV _ Joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and spent more than a decade in exile before returning with Lenin in 1917. He opposed Lenin on several issues during and after the revolution but was a full Politburo member and head of the Communist International until 1926. Stalin defeated Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Leon Trotsky for supreme power. In 1935 Zinoviev was convicted of complicity in the murder of Leningrad party chief Sergei Kirov and sentenced to 10 years in prison.The next year he was tried again and executed. LEV B. KAMENEV _ With Zinoviev, he opposed on tactical grounds the decision by Lenin to seize power in the Bolshevik Revolution. He remained a prominent party member, first joining with Zinoviev and Stalin against Trotsky and then uniting with Zinoviev and Trotsky against Stalin. He was expelled from the party several times and sentenced to five years in prison in 1935. He was retried in 1936 and executed. KARL B. RADEK _ Born in Poland, he joined Lenin's Bolsheviks in the early days. He fought in the Russian revolution and tried to organize a revolution in Germany. Radek was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 on charges of having supported Trotsky. He was rehabilitated and allowed to help draft the 1936 constitution and edit the government newspaper Izvestia. He was convicted of treason in 1937 and is believed to have died in prison about 1940. GREGORY L. PYATAKOV _ A leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Pyatakov set up a government in the Russian city of Kursk under orders from Moscow and invaded the Ukraine with Red Army soldiers. He was tried with Radek as a supporter of Trotsky in 1937 and was executed.
AP900622-0042 	X	A panel of experts says removing a cancerous tumor in the early stages of breast cancer gives as good a survival chance to women as more radical surgery in which the entire breast is removed. Mastectomies, in which the entire breast is removed, and lumpectomies, in which only the tumor is removed, both give ``excellent'' results for Stage I and Stage II breast cancer, the panel said. The committee of 15 experts was assembled by the National Institutes of Health to consider research on the survival of women with early stages of breast cancer and to develop a consensus on what therapy should be used to treat the disease. ``The therapies appear to be equivalent in survival,'' said Dr. William C. Wood, a Harvard Medical School surgeon and chairman of the committee. ``We believe it is preferable to preserve an organ.'' Mastectomy is still the most commonly used therapy for early stage breast cancer, Wood said. A lumpectomy is followed with radiation therapy, and Wood said some patients choose mastectomy because they ``prefer to lose a breast instead of have six weeks of radiation therapy.'' In its report, the committee said surgery in which the breast is saved, or conserved, ``is an appropriate method of primary therapy for the majority of women with Stage I and II breast cancer, and is preferable'' because the breast is preserved and the survival chances are the same as for mastectomy. Wood said that both mastectomy and lumpectomy involves the removal of nearby lymph nodes. If these nodes are cancer-free and the primary tumor is smaller than one centimeter, both methods of treatment have about a 90 percent chance of cure. About 150,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, the committee report said. Between 75 percent and 80 percent of this group will have Stage I or Stage II disease, and about two-thirds of these will have cancer-free lymph nodes. Stage I and II cancers have not spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes. But just how to treat this early-stage breast cancer long has been controversial. Traditionally, the preferred treatment has been a radical mastectomy in which the entire breast and much adjacent tissue is removed. During the past two decades, there have been a number of studies comparing the survival results of less extensive breast surgery, including lumpectomy. The committee found that, based on the studies, survival rates are virtually the same for the two types of therapy. The experts said the picture was less clear for follow-up treatment using chemotherapy or a drug that blocks the hormone estrogen. The studies show a trend that may suggest an advantage in taking the follow up or adjuvant therapy, but the committee said the drugs may be toxic or degrade the patient's quality of life. For patients with very small primary tumors _ one centimeter or less _ adjuvant therapy is not required, the committee said. The committee also said that the use of lumpectomy should be based on an individual evaluation of each patient and with the full understanding by the patient of all the options. Lumpectomies are not appropriate for all Stage I or II patients because of the size of the breast, or the distribution of tumors or calcified lumps within the breast, the committee said.
AP901115-0225 	X	Washington state's automobile-lemon law, designed to protect consumers who purchase defective new motor vehicles, was upheld today by a unanimous state Supreme Court. The law had been challenged by the Ford Motor Co., which contended it violates the equal protection and due process provisions of the state and U.S. constitutions. ``The state's interest in protecting consumers in the purchase of motor vehicles under the motor vehicles warranties law outweighs the due process considerations,'' Justice Charles Smith wrote for the court. The case stemmed from Ford's appeal to the King County Superior Court of a New Motor Vehicle Arbitration Board ruling in favor of Gary Barrett. Barrett bought a Ford Thunderbird from Mossy Ford in Bellevue in September 1985. He went to the arbitration board after the dealer was unable to repair a steering problem that caused the vehicle to pull to the left. The board ordered Ford to buy the vehicle back from Barrett. Ford conceded that the steering defect constituted a serious safety defect. But the automaker appealed, asking that Barrett's claim be denied on merits and contending the requirement that it repurchase the vehicle was unconstitutional. Superior Court Judge Patricia Aitken disagreed. She ordered Ford to pay Barrett $7,125, representing the repurchase cost less offset for use; $7,000 for Ford's failure to provide free use of a comparable loaner vehicle pending resolution of the appeal; and $1,750 for attorney's fees. In its appeal of tht decision to the state's high court, Ford contended that requiring it to pay attorney fees and a loaner-vehicle fee constituted the singling out of ``a class of litigants and subjecting them to onerous penalties as a condition of seeking redress within the court system.'' Ford also complained that if had prevailed in its superior court appeal, Barrett could not have been forced to pay attorney fees. The company said that represented denial of equal protection under the law for Ford and discouraged the filing of appeals. Smith noted, however, that the law designates two classes, manufacturers and consumers, and that the consumer class is not held liable for fees incurred in an appeal. Smith held that the separation of classes was rational. And he brushed aside Ford's argument that the law might discourage all appeals by manufacturers. He said Ford had not effectively demonstrated that the law was not rationally related to its purpose. ``Equal protection does not require that legislative efforts be perfect,'' Smith wrote, adding: ``The state's interest in (consumer protection) outweighs any deterrent effect on manufacturers.''
AP900702-0054 	X	The dollar was significantly lower in European trading this morning after falling sharply against the yen in Asian markets. Gold steadied after opening higher. The dollar was under pressure because of President Bush's statement last week confirming his support for a tax increase, and the smooth start of German monetary union, dealers said. In Tokyo, the dollar closed at 151.40 yen, down 1.45 yen from the finish Friday, when the dollar fell 1.57 yen. Later in London, the dollar was quoted at 151.20 yen. Other dollar rates in Europe, compared with Friday: _1.6535 West German marks, down from 1.6653 _1.4010 Swiss francs, down from 1.4155 _5.5570 French francs, down from 5.5945 _1.8605 Dutch guilders, down from 1.8737 _1,214.60 Italian lire, down from 1,222.50 _1.1623 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1657 In London, the British pound was quoted at $1.7570, up from $1.7450 late Friday. The mark was boosted by the early success of monetary union with East Germany. Moderate cash withdrawals by East Germans dampened fears of excessive consumption and subsequent inflation, dealers said. The dollar's low opening in Tokyo followed a decline on overseas markets. It fell further as securities and life insurance companies actively sold it, dealers said. ``Market players bought the yen mainly because short-term interest rates have been rising,'' said a dealer with Mitsui Taiyo Kobe Bank, speaking on condition of anonymity. Also pushing the dollar lower was speculation over lower U.S. interest rates. Gold dealers in London fixed a recommended price of $357.10 per troy ounce this morning, up from $353.25 bid late Friday. In Zurich, the metal traded at $356.90 per troy ounce, up from $352.00 bid late Friday. Silver bullion rose in London to a bid price of $4.91 a troy ounce, from $4.84 bid late Friday.
AP900323-0120 	X	He mumbles, pulls at his tie, looks uncomfortable when mobbed by celebrities and knows little about protocol. This, plus a simple moral message, is what endears Vaclav Havel to a world weary of made-to-measure politicians. When he made his first presidential journey abroad, to East Germany, his aides had to scramble to get him his passport. It had been confiscated by the ousted Communist bosses. Now, three months after his fairy-tale ascent from prisoner to president, Havel has visited 10 countries. This week it was France and Britain. As usual, he was watched with adoration. Havel is using his position as a platform to expound on a political philosophy developed over 20 years of writing. His voice is gravelly from years of chain-smoking, he sometimes mumbles or bumps into the microphone, but his words are clear, simple and direct: ``Totalitarianism deforms the human soul. People in Czechoslovakia are constantly asking me about ways to implement the new freedom. And I tell them, implement it in any way you wish.'' He is one of a kind, an artist-stateman and the darling of the intelligentsia: Kurt Vonnegut, Zubin Mehta, Paul Simon, Edward Albee in New York; in Paris, an all-star cast led by actor Alain Delon; Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Jeremy Irons among the guests at a reception given by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. ``In the United States we encountered almost embarrassing adulation,'' said Havel's spokesman Michael Zantovsky. ``They treated him as if he were some kind of modern prophet, and he is not particularly eager to become one.'' Instead he is modest, shy, prone to blush. He deflects attention with humor and irony. He stands behind tables and against walls, away from the center of the room. At one point he even managed somehow to hunch his short frame under a loudspeaker. Except for the suit and tie, there is little to distinguish Havel the harassed dissident from Havel the president. ``The reception he gets is something we have been absolutely unprepared for,'' Zantovsky said. ``It really is too much of a good thing.'' At the London reception Thursday night, in his own milieu of theater and art, Havel looked relaxed. With a cut-crystal glass of white wine and a cigarette in one hand, gesticulating with the other, he chatted with men in ponytails and earrings and women in men's suits. Havel clearly enjoys the drama of his situation and the theatricality of the presidency. The new uniforms he picked to replace the drab khaki of communism on the palace honor guard, for example, were created by the costume designer for Milos Forman's film, ``Amadeus.'' But Havel's performance abroad is unrehearsed and improvisation is not without pitfalls. At his Paris news conference he kept tugging at his tie as if it were a noose around a neck more accustomed to open-necked shirts. A British TV commentary described him as ``refreshingly naive.'' After shaking hands with Prince Philip on the stately steps of Buckingham Palace, he wiped his sweaty palm on his pants, apparently unaware that the nation would see it on TV. But if there were rough edges, they were always softened by Havel's polished and thoughtful words. Like all the speeches he has given over the past three months, they were a logical extension of the limpid essays he has written for 20 years. Introducing him to an audience of intellectuals on Wednesday, political commentator Timothy Garton-Ash called him ``an exceptional example of what I might call moral leadership through language.'' From a moral base built on years of fighting tyranny, Havel preaches political morality at a time when old political blocs and policies are crumbling. His watchwords are ``living in truth,'' preserving the sanctity of words, revering freedom. He insists he will serve as president only until Czechoslovakia has free elections, and these are scheduled for June. But already his impact looks permanent. His words, Ash said, have become ``letters to the world.'' Or, as The Times of London put it: ``Havel is an idea whose man has come.''
AP880804-0136 	X	The Senate inched toward bipartisan agreement late Thursday on a proposed aid package for Nicaragua's Contra rebels after Democrats promised to ensure a chance for a separate vote on military aid before Congress adjourns for the year. ``We're getting very, very close,'' said Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma, a pro-Contra Democrat, after a day of proposals and counterproposals between the two parties. A key to reaching agreement appeared to be a new letter from House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, promising to bring any request from President Reagan for weapons aid for the rebels to a quick vote. The letter, Boren said, would include a guarantee that Congress would not adjourn without acting on such a request first. Wright made a similar promise as part of an agreement on humanitarian aid for the Contras last March, but several Republican senators said they needed stronger assurances. ``There's a great deal of suspicion of Jim Wright,'' said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The negotiations, which included Reagan's national security adviser, Colin Powell, began shortly after the White House rejected a Democratic aid proposal that had been worked out a day earlier. Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas drew up a list of objections to the Democratic aid proposal, and Democrats said later they were willing to make some minor changes in an effort to win broader support for the measure. ``We'd love to see Bob Dole and the Republicans join us on this,'' said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. But Dodd added that Democrats would not budge on major aspects of the package because to do so would destroy the fragile agreement among Democrats that led to the proposal on Wednesday. The Democratic proposal, which defers action on lethal aid for the rebels until later this year, ``falls far short of getting any real hope for freedom and democracy in Nicaragua,'' said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. ``Humanitarian aid is too limited, too narrowly defined, to be of any real help.'' But Fitzwater noted that existing humanitarian aid doesn't run out until Sept. 30, leaving time to work out a middle ground on the issue. ``There's a good chance for Contra aid legislation to pass,'' he told reporters. ``Legislators on both sides of aisle and the White House seem to share the feeling of outrage about the Sandinistas and support for the Contras, so I think there's a very good chance of passage of some kind of legislation.'' Fitzwater referred to recent actions by the leftist government in Managua to crack down on opponents, shut down opposition media outlets and expel U.S. diplomats. The most vigorous objection from Republican senators to the Democratic proposal was to its provisions setting up a later congressional vote on whether to resume the flow of weapons aid to the rebels. The package worked out by Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., would require any presidential request for lethal aid to go for consideration first by the House, which has traditionally been more resistant to such aid. Republicans also argued that it would give undue influence to House Speaker Wright, an aid opponent. ``Nobody trusts the speaker,'' said Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., emerging from a meeting of Contra supporters. He said Wright has reneged on past promises as to when and how he would bring Contra aid to the House floor for a vote. Byrd characterized his aid package, worked out over two weeks of discussions with more than a dozen Senate Democrats, as one that would give incentives to both the Sandinistas and the rebels to revive and conclude their faltering peace talks. The proposal would provide an additional $27 million in food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies to continue current rates of such aid through next March. It also promises economic and trade assistance for Nicaragua if Managua goes along with ``a comprehensive final agreement to provide for peace and democracy in Nicaragua.'' Conversely, some $16.3 million worth of stockpiled weaponry could be released to the Contras if President Reagan certifies before Congress adjourns for the year that two of three conditions are met: the Sandinistas continue to violate terms of a regional peace accord; Nicaragua receives ``unacceptable'' levels of Soviet-bloc weaponry and the Sandinistas launch an ``unprovoked military attack'' on the Contras. But the weapons, withheld from delivery to rebel forces since the two sides entered a cease-fire earlier this year, would not be released unless both houses of Congress voted to accept Reagan's certification, with the House going first.
AP880603-0299 	X	Takeover specialist Carl C. Icahn, whose $60-per-share bid for Texaco Inc. has met a heavy dose of skepticism on Wall Street, says he will have little problem raising the necesary cash to finance the buyout. Meeting with securities analysts Thursday, Icahn said he would have to borrow $8.86 billion to complete his offer, made last week, to buy the 86.2 percent of the company's stock he does not already own for $12.4 billion. The bid put a total value on Texaco's 207 million shares of $14.6 billion. To complete the deal, Icahn said he would sell two subsidiaries _ Texaco Canada Inc. and the company's 50 percent interest in Caltex, among other provisions. He then would borrow against the $2.98 billion cash flow expected to be generated this year to obtain the remainder, Icahn said. Texaco later scoffed at the plan, calling Icahn's offer ``still illusory'' and dismissing the details he provided as ``sketchy, sloppy and wrong.'' Icahn, Texaco's largest shareholder, launched a proxy fight for five of the company's 14 board seats on Friday, after the board rejected his offer. He said he would have dropped the bid if Texaco had put it to a shareholder vote at the company's annual meeting later this month. If his five-man slate wins, Icahn said Thursday he is confident he would be able to persuade the board to sanction such a vote. As far as financing is concerned, ``We've had several banks tell us we would have no trouble raising that on the basis that (the takeover would be) on a friendly basis,'' Icahn said. On hostile terms, however, ``it would be just about impossible'' because of certain statutory requirements, he added. Texaco said in a statement issued from its White Plains, N.Y., headquarters that Icahn's $8.86 billion figure ``simply wished away or ignored more than $5 billion in debt and other obligations he would also have to immediately finance. ``Morgan Stanley & Co., our financial advisor, has informed Texaco that Icahn's plan is simply not financable in their opinion,'' the statement added. Securities analysts and the stock market have dimissed the offer as a ploy, either to lure other bidders into the ring, or to encourage Texaco's management to buy his shares or help him sell them to a third party. On the New York Stock Exchange, Texaco stock has traded just above $50 a share _ far below the $60 Icahn proposed. In late-morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange today, it stood at $50.37{ a share, down 25 cents. Icahn acknowledged that his own $60-per-share price was ``cheap,'' saying: ``If it were out for a vote, there's no doubt in my mind it would go higher, because there would be an auction.'' Asked what price he believed would be fair, Icahn replied: ``I'm not going to go into that.'' From the start, Texaco officials questioned whether Icahn could arrange financing for the deal, despite his pledge to put up $100 million that would be forfeited to the company if he failed to come up with the financing in time for Texaco's annual meeting June 17 in Tulsa, Okla. Icahn stipulated, however, that the $100 million would not be forfeited if another party topped his offer or if the Internal Revenue Service failed to assent to the plan. On Thursday, he said his message to shareholders was simple: ``Even if you don't like me, if you vote for me, I'm going to get you $60.'' And, he added, ``If I can't get you your $60, I'll resign and (Texaco) will get its $100 million.'' If his slate loses, Icahn said he would ``go away,'' and sell his shares ``in a secondary offer of some such thing.'' On another matter, Icahn also declined to comment on the interest in Texaco of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., an investment banking firm with a long record for conducting takeovers. In March Kohlberg said it bought 4.9 percent of Texaco's stock and asked permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission to up that stake to 15 percent. Icahn told reporters that he had spoken to Henry Kravis but stressed they were not collaborating. ``But that's not to say we have any deals with Henry Kravis, and we don't. We absolutely don't,'' he added. Icahn paid about $1.2 billion in building his Texaco stake, which is now worth about $1.8 billion. The amount he already has paid and the $12.4 billion he is offering for the remaining Texaco shares would put his total cost for acquiring the company at $13.6 billion _ the biggest sum ever paid in a corporate buyout. The biggest deal so far was the $13.4 billion acquisition of Gulf Corp. by Standard Oil Co. of California, now Chevron Corp., in 1984.
AP900807-0153 	X	Today is Thursday, Aug. 16, the 228th day of 1990. There are 137 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Aug. 16, 1977, the ``King'' of rock 'n' roll, Elvis Presley, died at Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tenn., at the age of 42. On this date: In 1777, American forces won an important victory of the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Bennington, Vt. In 1812, Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812. In 1829, the original ``Siamese'' twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston aboard the ship Sachem to be exhibited to the Western world. In 1858, a telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to U.S. President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid transatlantic cable. In 1861, President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy. In 1894, labor leader George Meany was born, in New York City. In 1896, gold was found at Bonanza Creek, Alaska. In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at the age of 53. In 1956, Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic convention in Chicago. In 1960, Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus. In 1978, James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he'd been set up by a mysterious man called ``Raoul.'' In 1984, a federal jury in Los Angeles acquitted former automaker John Z. De Lorean of all eight counts in a $24 million cocaine conspiracy indictment. In 1987, 156 people were killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from a Detroit airport; the sole survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan. In 1988, Vice President Bush tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate, calling him ``a man of the future.'' Ten years ago: Thirty-seven people were killed when an arson fire roared through two adjoining social clubs in London. South Korean President Choi Kyu-hah resigned, paving the way for the election of General Chun Doo-hwan. Five years ago: One day after South African President P.W. Botha's speech in which he refused to endorse sweeping reforms, blacks and some whites expressed disappointment, with many preicting an escalation of violence. One year ago: A rare ``prime time'' lunar eclipse occurred over most of the United States, although clouds spoiled the view for many. Today's Birthdays: Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (bay'-gihn) is 77. Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres (shee'-mohn) is 67. Actor Fess Parker is 65. Actress Ann Blyth is 62. Actor Robert Culp is 60. Sportscaster Frank Gifford is 60. Singer Eydie Gorme is 58. Actress Julie Newmar is 55. Actress Anita Gillette is 54. Actress Carole Shelley is 51. Actress Lesley Ann Warren is 44. Singer Madonna is 32. Actor Timothy Hutton is 30. Thought for Today: ``It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.'' _ Andre Gide, French author and critic (1869-1951).
AP900824-0027 	X	The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait _ the latest storm center of the growing Persian Gulf crisis _ is recalled by diplomats who served there as a cluster of modest buildings across a six-lane highway from the beach. It normally has a contingent of about a half-dozen Marines, who were withdrawn Thursday as today's Iraqi-set deadline for the closing of foreign embassies in Kuwait approached. ``It's not a very fancy embassy, but a very functional one,'' said Francois Dickman, a retired Foreign Service officer who was U.S. ambassador to Kuwait from 1979 to 1983. ``It's not one of the new fortresses that many American embassies around the world are increasingly,'' said another diplomat who has served in Kuwait, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Dickman, speaking by telephone from his home in Laramie, Wyo., said the embassy is in a compound surrounded by a wall eight or nine feet high. It is a rectangle running north and south with the east side facing Gulf Road, a six-lane highway. Just east of the highway is the Persian Gulf. ``It's not much of a beach,'' said Dickman. The compound is roughly two city blocks wide by four blocks long, the former ambassador said. Directly to the south is a Hilton hotel, seven or eight stories high. The only entrance to the compound is a steel gate on the west side, about 100 feet from the southwest corner. ``As you enter, you see the chancery,'' he said. ``The chancery is one story. It was a plain stone building with a corrugated roof.'' Dickman said the road then bends north to the site of the administration building, a brick structure that was destroyed in a terrorist bombing on Dec. 12, 1983. The building has since been rebuilt. Also in the compound are the two-story ambassador's residence, a warehouse, a parking lot and a garden just east of the ambassador's house, in which vegetables were grown in Dickman's day. There also is a swimming pool. In the 1983 bombing, Shia Moslem terrorists crashed a truck loaded with gas cylinders through the steel gates. It smashed into the administration building, demolishing it and also damaging the chancery and warehouse, Dickman said. Six people were killed, including the truck driver, but none were Americans. Since then the security system has been strengthened, according to the diplomat who spoke anonymously. ``I suppose a tank, like an Iraqi tank, could get through, but it has been reinforced, the wall has been upgraded and the entry gates,'' this diplomat said. Dickman said that when he was ambassador the Marines lived a block away from the embassy compound, but he later heard they were living within the enclosure. He applauded the decision to withdraw them. ``It makes sense,'' he said. ``These Marines can't do anything. There are only six of them. It is possible the number has been increased, but normally it is only a contingent of six.'' ``They don't really serve as guards,'' Dickman said. ``They man the entrance to the chancery and in the evening they make sure that things are locked up and provide elementary security.'' The diplomats obviously had pleasant memories of the place. ``The time I was there we had a little victory garden along the edge of the wall,'' said Dickman. ``I remember it being very green and pretty,'' said his colleague.
AP881130-0033 	X	The Air Force has dismissed ice buildup on the wings as the cause of a crash Nov. 17 of a B-1B bomber in South Dakota, and says there is no need to consider adding wing de-icing equipment to the long-range aircraft. ``We do not have any evidence that icing was a contributor to the B-1B crash at Ellsworth (Air Force Base),'' Pentagon spokesman Fred Hoffman said, downplaying a published report last week in the Chicago Tribune. The report said the B-1B ``may have been downed by excessive ice on its wings.'' Pentagon officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the ice detection system on the plane did not indicate the bomber had experienced a dangerous build-up of ice. ``There was some icing,'' one source said. ``There was ice on the wings of another B-1B that landed just before this one. But it wasn't a problem.'' ``Wing icing was not considered a potential problem when designing the aircraft and there never has been any operational evidence that wing icing is a problem,'' Hoffman added. ``We have no plans to study the addition of de-icing equipment,'' added Lt. Col. Rick Oborn, an Air Force officer and Pentagon spokesman. ``That hasn't even been considered.'' The $280 million B-1B, like many types of military aircraft, does not have any built-in de-icing equipment for its wings. It does, however, carry an anti-icing system for its four engines and an ice detection system for the wings. Capt. Jay DeFrank, an Air Force spokesman, said the rationale for leaving de-icing equipment off the B-1B was simple. ``The B-1B can fly at such high speeds at low altitude that it normally melts what would buildup on (the wings,)'' he said. ``And if you know you're facing icing conditions, you normally fly to another base or move to a different altitude. The plane has an ice detection system for the wings.'' The B-1B that crashed Nov. 17 was practicing instrument landing approaches. It was attempting to land shortly after another B-1B made a successful approach and for reasons unknown, came in too low and clipped a utility pole and power lines. The four crewmen survived after ejecting from the plane. In a related development, Hoffman said the Air Force would look into allegations by some Rockwell International Corp. employees that flawed parts might have been used in building the B-1B bombers. ``But the Air Force does not have any evidence at this time which corroborates the assertions by former Rockwell employees that substandard parts were used in the construction of B-1s,'' Hoffman said. ``However, the Air Force is investigating or is looking into these allegations.'' A copyright report Monday by WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio, quoted workers as saying substandard parts disappeared after being rejected by plant inspectors. The employees said they believe those parts subsequently were used in building the bombers to meet production schedules.
AP880516-0228 	X	GALVESTON, Texas _ It's graduation day Tuesday for some 1,100 Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, the most endangered sea turtle. Marine biologists hope the turtles, released into the Gulf of Mexico after being raised in captivity, will someday return to the Gulf's beaches to nest. Survival of the species is the goal. Tuesday's freedom for members of the species known as Lepidochelys kempi is the 10th annual turtle release, and experts still are waiting to see if the experiment to bolster the animal's population is a success. None of the 12,422 turtles raised and released by the National Marine Fisheries Service in Galveston since the so-called ``head start'' program began in 1977 has returned to the western Gulf of Mexico beaches to nest. ``You have to be patient to be a sea turtle scientist,'' Charles W. Caillouet, chief of the Life Studies Division at the service's Galveston laboratory, said Monday. This latest senior class spent its entire lifetime circumnavigating small circular tubs, one turtle to each container, stored in climate-controlled greenhouses. Early Tuesday, three truckloads of cardboard boxes carrying the 1-and 2-year-old turtles head to Port Aransas about 200 miles away, where they will be loaded on a boat and taken several miles into the Gulf off Padre Island. ``When that last turtle hits the water, it's like a lead weight has been lifted off our backs,'' said Tim Fontaine, a research fishery biologist. ``We've done our job.'' Fontaine has overseen the growth of the turtles since they were 3 to 5 days old, about the size of silver dollars and weighing less than an ounce. Today the year-old turtles weigh about 2{ pounds each. And for the first time this year, 98 2-year-old turtles weighing about 25 pounds each will be released. Biologists hope the more mature animals will stand a better chance of surviving. Scientists are looking for the answer to attract the turtle back to the western Gulf of Mexico beaches, its only known nesting area. Turtle eggs were taken a year ago to the North Padre Island beach and the hatchlings scurried across the beach into the water before they were captured and moved to Galveston. It's hoped when they reach sexual maturity, the turtles will return instinctively to the beach. ``That's the critical objective,'' Caillouet said. ``It's documented very clearly our turtles survive for a long time and mix themselves in with the natural stocks.'' Galveston-grown turtles marked with metal tags or special skin grafts or electronic and magnetic devices have been found as far away as Morocco, France and Newfoundland. The mystery, however, is what triggers the animal's nesting and a return to the Gulf. ``We don't know how long it takes for them to mature in the wild,'' Caillouet said. ``We would guess we are looking for 8 to 10 years for early maturity in the wild, but we really don't know.'' In the late 1940s, as many as 40,000 turtles nested in a single day near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, about 200 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Today, less than 600 turtles nest in the entire season from April through July or August, Caillouet said. There may be as many as 100 eggs incubating over 60 days in each nest. Upon hatching, the tiny turtles flee into the Gulf. The decline in population came as the beaches and turtles and eggs were exploited from the 1940s until the 1960s. ``That problem has been resolved, but we yet don't see any of the increase in the number of nesters,'' Caillouet said. ``So something's happening to the turtle at sea.'' Once they reach adult growth, the turtles only known natural predator is shark. ``They are the bulldogs of the sea,'' says Fontaine. ``They are a highly agressive animal.''
AP900424-0023 	X	A collection of political have-nots is out to accomplish collectively what its members couldn't do individually: Defeat the powers of congressional incumbency. ``Our country is suffering from an imperial, permanent Congress. It is a Congress that cannot solve the problems we have,'' complained Paul Jurgens, a Decatur, Ill., Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the House in 1988. He was one of more than three dozen past and current congressional challengers who gathered Monday on Capitol Hill to call for a political housecleaning. ``Our federally elected officials have so rigged the process that they are impossible to unseat,'' said Harold Coker, a Chattanooga, Tenn., Republican and losing candidate in 1988. That complaint was the central theme at a meeting of the Coalition to End the Permanent Congress, a grassroots organization formed out of frustration with the 1988 elections, in which 98.5 percent of House incumbents won re-election. Coalition members from at least 18 states advocated a long list of reform proposals. Among them were a ban on taxpayer-paid mass mailings by members of Congress; prohibiting lawmakers from accepting honoraria or speaking fees; eliminating political action committees, which contribute mostly to campaigns of incumbents; and imposing a 12-year limit on how long members can serve in the House and Senate. Lionel Kunst, a Kansas Democrat who helped found the group, urged coalition members to return to their states and vigorously push the issue of congressional reform among voters. ``This thing is hot right now. We can make a greater impact,'' said Kunst. The group has met about a half dozen times in other cities since its first gathering last year in Kansas City, Mo. The coalition's latest assault on incumbency came as the Senate prepared to consider legislation to overhaul the system of financing congressional campaigns. But Kunst denounced the legislation as ``pablum'' and said it would do little for challengers.
AP880330-0215 	X	Supermarkets, pharmacies and small shops opened for the first time in 10 days Wednesday as a nationwide strike aimed at toppling Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega began to fall apart. Despite the defections, Alberto Boyd, president of the National Council of Private Enterprise, said he and other strike leaders were not ending their effort to get rid of Noriega. In Washington, the Reagan administration said it was considering new sanctions to force out Noriega, but it appeared no action was imminent. The reopening of the capital's Gago, Rey and Super 99 supermarkets signaled the first crack in a work stoppage that closed an estimated 90 percent of the nation's business and industry. Later, the city's leading pharmacies reopened, as did some small clothing and other dry goods stores in the central business district. Traffic, extremely light for days, began to build again on Panama City's streets, with the usual jams of buses, taxis and private autos developing at major intersections. Grocery stores were doing a brisk but not extraordinarily heavy business. Customers were required to pay in cash and appeared to be buying mostly essentials. The government said some of the nation's banks, closed since March 3, would reopen Thursday, but only to process old checks. Even with a limited reopening of banks and some stores, there appeared to be no hope of a quick infusion of cash that would permit a return to normal commerce in the money-short nation. The cash crisis is due in part to U.S. economic sanctions against Noriega, who is charged in the United States with drug trafficking. As chief of the 15,000-member Defense Forces, Noriega is the real power behind Panama's civilian government. Some U.S. companies, including Miami-based Eastern Airlines and Harrison, N.Y.-based Texaco, Inc., this week paid the government $5 million owed for taxes, a diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wednesday. Owners of the reopened grocery stores could not be reached for comment, but Angelica Guinard, a leader of the opposition National Civic Crusade leader, said they had been under strong government pressure to reopen. She said the pressure included threats of confiscation of their goods and personal threats against themselves and their families. However, an executive of the Gago supermarket chain, the city's largest, said his company's stores opened ``because we have to pay our employees, and if we didn't open, we wouldn't have anything to do it with.'' He spoke on condition of anonymity. A woman leaving a Rey supermarket in one of Panama City's middle-class neighborhoods said she had bought only essentials: rice, milk, beans and soap. ``The kids don't understand,'' she said. ``They want to know why we don't have the kinds of things we had before.'' But she said the eldest, who turned 8 on Saturday, is catching on. ``He said, `Mommy, you can't throw a party for me because Noriega won't leave,''' she said. She wouldn't give her name. Felix Navarro, a wholesale fruit and vegetable dealer who closed down his own business in the strike, carefully studied prices on five-pound bags of rice before choosing one. Pointing to the rice and a container of cooking oil, he said, ``I had $100 in cash at the beginning of the month, and after I buy these, I'm broke.'' Panama's chronic cash shortage worsened last month when Noriega fired President Eric Arturo Delvalle, touching off a panic run on the banks that eventually forced their closure. The United States aggravated the crisis by imposing a number of economic sanctions, including the freezing of millions of dollars in Panamanian government funds held by U.S. banks. The Reagan administration continues to recognize Delvalle, who is in hiding, as Panama's president. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that ``other sanctions are being actively considered'' to force Noriega's ouster. Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato, R-N.Y., said Noriega's troops have harassed and beaten Panama Canal employees. ``There is a continuing pattern of escalation'' in Panamanian actions against the canal, he said in an interview on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' He did not elaborate. On Tuesday, Noriega condemned the presence of the U.S. helicopter carrier Okinawa on the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. It passed through the canal Tuesday on its way to its home port, San Diego. The U.S. Defense Department said in Washington that the passage was ``routine,'' but Noriega called it ``a threat and an aggression.'' There was no immediate indication how long the vessel would stay in the area.
AP901108-0243 	X	Some of the investment advisers who earn a living touting their picks on stocks and futures deals are now trying their luck at handicapping the date war might break out in the Persian Gulf. For example, anytime after midnight between Nov. 12 and Nov. 22 is ``the best time for an attack to occur,'' say Peter Beutel and Thomas Blakeslee, oil analysts with Pegasus Econometric Group Inc., in Hoboken, N.J. They say their theories are rooted in military analyses coupled with the lunar cycle. During the ``window'' for war picked by Beutel and Blakeslee, the Kuwaiti tide will be high after midnight, which they say would help commandos get closer to a potential beachhead, and the moon phase will keep the sky dark, making it easier to storm the desert. After weeks in which financial markets were rocked by news and rumors from the Gulf standoff, feelings that war was inevitable perhaps inevitably led some experts to making picks on the startup date. The picks have been gushing through the investing community, with varying amounts of credibility. The Pegasus analysts, who offer advice on oil trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange, have gone so far as to put their predictions in writing. They call Nov. 12-22 ``a time to play any short positions extremely closely. If there is any military action, expect the U.S. to lead with its strong aerial suit.'' They emphasize they're not predicting war, and don't want to convey the impression that there's a sure-fire profiteering opportunity. They are merely saying when and how they think war would be most likely. Other wartime picks are not being made as boldly, and some analysts say all of the guesswork is crazy, but they are cropping up by the hundreds. Many analysts picked the days after the elections on Tuesday, with some taking coming holidays into account. ``Another theory one hears about is the weather factor,'' said Ann-Louise Hittle, a senior oil analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. who emphasizes she is neither making nor touting any picks for a likely day that the war can begin. ``There's a cloudy season that starts up, an overcast season in February, that would make it difficult to stage an air strike,'' Hittle said. One stock market analyst has heard numerous Wall Streeters picking precise days for the attack, say, this coming Sunday. ``If I talk to 47 people, I get 47 opinions,'' said Sara Cerato of Nomura Securities International Inc. ``Each of these opinions seems to be an excuse not to get into the (stock) market right now. In the past, in a bull market, it paid to buy the market dips. Now, it doesn't seem to be working. The war seems to be the latest excuse'' to stay out. Early in the week, some oil traders were picking invasion days between Wednesday, which came and went with no war, and Friday. A Las Vegas oddsmaker said it would be possible to handicap the outset of war, just as people handicap anything else from football games to movies that might win an Oscar. But don't count on any Vegas sports books getting involved in war speculation. It's only legal for them to set odds on sporting events. Other oddsmaking is done only for promotional and entertainment purposes. ``We put out odds on whether George Steinbrenner would be banned from baseball,'' said oddsmaker Art Manteris of the Las Vegas Hilton. ``We put out odds on whether Pete Rose would be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.'' Manteris said handicapping war would be ``a business matter, not an entertainment matter.''
AP900928-0150 	X	Federal workers are being told to report for work Monday but to be prepared to go home if there's no agreement between Congress and the White House on how to pay them. The instructions to go to work as usual were contained in a memorandum from Budget Director Richard Darman to agency heads Friday. In the absence of legislation to keep the government operating beyond the start of the new fiscal year Monday, non-essential workers would be sent home within three hours if a government ``phase-down'' is launched, Darman's memo said. Federal workers complained earlier about the confusion surrounding what they should do. Before Darman's memo was released late in the afternoon, workers were being told to listen to the radio over the weekend. ``This is absolutely no way to run any kind of ship,'' said John Sturdivant, president of the 700,000-member American Federation of Government Employees. ``It's just ridiculous that we've always got to operate on the basis of crisis. People don't know whether they're supposed to go to work, whether they have a full-time job or what,'' Sturdivant said. About 1.1 million federal workers received notices a month ago that they might be furloughed up to 22 days if automatic Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction budget cuts kick in on Monday. The furloughs and the phase-down are two separate threats facing federal workers. Most of those furloughs probably won't start until later in the week if no budget accord is reached; The phase-down would occur Monday if Congress doesn't pass - or President Bush refused to sign - temporary legislation to keep the government in operation. If such legislation were signed but the Gramm-Rudman cuts took effect, the furloughs probably would not start until later in the week. Also Friday, the federation sued to exempt Social Security employees from the automatic budget cuts. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, contends those 60,000 workers should be excluded because their salaries are not paid out of general treasury funds. Instead, the suit notes, those workers are paid from the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Program, which is exempt from the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction act that will trigger $85 billion if no budget agreement is reached.
AP900126-0237 	X	Federal thrift officials said today they are seeking a cease and desist order against Neil Bush, one day after the president's son rejected a settlement over his role as a director of a collapsed savings and loan. Neil Bush's actions as a director of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association of Denver amounted to conflicts of interest, said the Enforcement Review Committee of the Office of Thrift Supervision in Washington, D.C. The case will be heard by an administrative law judge. If the order is granted, the younger Bush would be barred from practices that could constitute a conflict of interest if he ever serves again with a federally insured financial institution. Bush said Thursday the Office of Thrift and Supervision had proposed the cease and desist order, but he had rejected it because it would imply that he had acted improperly. ``In my view, a settlement agreement would leave an implication that I misbehaved as a director of Silverado,'' Bush said in a statement. ``As I have said in the past, I have nothing to hide and I have done nothing wrong,'' he said. ``Therefore, I have refused to consent to any agreement with the Office of Thrift Supervision and if they choose to bring action against me, I will fight the matter in court.'' Bush, 34, served as a director of Silverado from 1985 to August 1988, resigning two weeks after his father got the GOP presidential nomination. The collapse of Silverado, now operating as part of Columbia Savings, the largest thrift in Colorado, is expected to cost taxpayers up to $1 billion. Karl Hoyle, senior deputy director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said in Washington late Thursday that Bush's lawyers had told the agency Bush intends to contest the allegations of conflict of interest made by thrift regulators. Hoyle said the agency wouldn't seek a more severe penalty, which would ban Bush from ever working for a federally insured financial institution, because the office didn't believe it had grounds to seek it. That penalty has been imposed on five former Silverado officers. In a related matter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is considering whether to sue Silverado officers and directors, including Bush, for damages for losses to the taxpayers in the bailout. The Office of Thrift Supervision said examiners had expressed ``grave concern'' about Silverado's operations, particularly its heavy investment in Colorado's ailing commercial real estate market. They also have focused their investigation on what they said was ``an exceptionally large number of problem transactions'' between Silverado insiders and borrowers. Bush, who was a partner in an oil exploration firm, JNB Exploration, had business deals with two of Silverado's major borrowers, developers Bill L. Walters and Ken Good. ``Bill Walters had a passive 6.25 percent limited partnership interest in JNB Exploration,'' Bush said. ``Because I did not benefit directly or indirectly from any loan or transaction between Silverado and businesses controlled by Bill Walters, as an outside director I voted in 1986 with the other directors in unanimously approving the Walters loans and transactions brought to us by management. ``I voted because there was no conflict of interest under the federal banking laws and regulations or under the laws of Colorado,'' Bush said. Good, according to Bush, had a more active interest in the financing and management of JNB Exploration, and ``as a result, I abstained on all votes concerning Good. The other board members unanimously approved the transactions with Good,'' Bush said. He said both Walters' and Good's relationships with Silverado, as borrowers and preferred shareholders, were established before he became a director. ``Their relationships with my company, which began in 1983, also preceded my Silverado board appointment,'' Bush said. A former federal S&L examiner, James Moroney, has alleged that regulators dragged their feet on Silverado because of Bush's presence on the institution's board and other political connections. But regulators in Washington have said they investigated Moroney's allegations and found them invalid. Bush has said he never sought to use his political connections and wouldn't have if asked.
AP880604-0116 	X	Former Virginia Gov. Charles S. Robb, nominated by acclamation for the U.S. Senate, was shouted down during his acceptance speech Saturday by Democratic convention delegates who support Jesse Jackson's presidential candidacy. Robb was briefly surrounded by Jackson supporters as he walked down the center aisle of the convention hall to make his speech, amid shouts of ``Jesse.'' About midway through his speech, 60 Jackson supporters began shouting again. Robb continued speaking for a few minutes until the dissidents made their way toward the platform. By then, they were surrounded by Robb supporters shouting the former governor's name. ``Whoever said Democrats didn't have any life left in them?'' an obviously exasperated but still smiling Robb said. He then quit speaking. Saturday's floor incident came on the heels of a Friday meeting between Robb and Virginia leaders of Jackson's campaign. The session, which lasted more than an hour, was held in an effort to settle complaints that Robb has not supported Jackson for a position in likely nominee Michael Dukakis' White House bid. Robb, asked what the Jackson supporters wanted him to do, said, ``I'm not real certain.'' Convention delegates voted down a floor motion to open debate on allocating the party's 75 national convention delegates, 37 of which went to Jackson, 22 to former candidate Albert Gore Jr. and 16 to Dukakis. The three-way split reflects the outcome of the Super Tuesday primary in Virginia.
AP880426-0263 	X	Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities rose in the government's latest auction, with yields on six-month bills hitting the highest level in more than three months. The Treasury Department sold $6.4 billion in three-month bills at an average discount rate of 5.92 percent on Monday, up from 5.78 percent last week. Another $6.4 billion was sold in six-month bills at an average discount rate of 6.28 percent, up from 6.14 percent last week. The rates on three-month bills were the highest since April 11, when they sold for 5.98 percent. The rates on six-month bills were the highest since Jan. 19, when rates averaged 6.37 percent. The new discount rates understate the actual return to investors _ 6.09 percent for three-month bills with a $10,000 bill selling for $9,850.40 and 6.58 percent for a six-month bill selling for $9,682.50. In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages rose to 7.03 percent last week from 6.92 percent the previous week.
AP881020-0161 	X	Civil servants across the country staged a one-day strike for better pay Thursday, disrupting public services and presenting Premier Michel Rocard with the toughest challenge of his five months in office. There was no way to determine how many of the estimated 5 million civil servants participated. In Paris, subway and bus service was cut by one-half to two-thirds. Many commuters feared the worst and drove into the city, resulting in huge traffic jams. Some highways leading into Paris were backed up as much as 17 miles. Air France canceled 31 flights and major rail lines were running at one-half to two-thirds their usual number. Mail went undelivered and teachers didn't show up for classes in many parts of the country, and many public offices were closed. ``The worst thing that could happen would be that the government continue in its obstinacy,'' said Jean Kaspar, national secretary of the Socialist-run French Democratic Confederation of Labor, at a demonstration in central Paris. Andre Bergeron, head of the Worker Force union, said the government must ``concede something and come to an agreement next week or risk finding itself in an inextricable situation,'' perhaps involving more and longer strikes. Public service employees received a 1 percent raise in March and 1 percent in September. They have been offered a 2.2 percent increase for 1989. Inflation is expected to hit 2.8 percent in 1988, and the public workers see themselves losing 0.8 percent in purchasing power. Maintaining purchasing power is not the only demand of the seven different unions representing public workers, but it is far and away the most important one. Rocard has been criticized by the conservative opposition and by his own Socialist Party. Civil service workers in France traditionally vote left, and they are especially disappointed by the lack of sympathy they perceive on the part of the Socialists, who took over from the conservatives after spring elections. The government received a shock in August when the monthly trade deficit nearly tripled to $1.5 billion. With little prospect of the trade deficit improving much, officials are afraid any relaxation in austerity measures will increase inflation and lead to an even wider trade deficit. Alain Juppe, secretary-general of the conservative Rally for the Republic party, accused Rocard of failing to start consultations with labor soon enough. He criticized the premier for trying to deal with different types of employees on a case-by-case basis instead of working out an overall solution. Pierre Mauroy, a former premier who is now head of the Socialist Party, publicly castigated Rocard for his approach. In a radio interview Wednesday, Mauroy expressed his ``solidarity with the strikers'' and said, ``This situation cannot continue. They cannot be the only ones to see their purchasing power diminish.'' The workers believe that the French economy has been improving lately and that after years of austerity, they should now benefit. The government has pleaded for more time, six months to a year. Police and firefighters are public sector employees but they don't have the right to strike and did not participated in Thursday's action. Nurses in public hospitals can strike but are required to provide minimum service. Air traffic controllers also are public employees but, like nurses, are required to provide minimum service.
AP880216-0184 	X	Among the also-rans, Gary Hart and Bruce Babbitt failed in New Hampshire to extract themselves from the bottom of the seven-man Democratic heap, but Pete du Pont's slow-but-improved showing on the Republican side Tuesday gave him cause for hope. None of the last-tier candidates was counting himself out as votes from the nation's first primary rolled in. But in the days to come, New Hampshire still could send a few candidates packing before Super Tuesday rolls around March 8. Proving that in politics all things are relative, du Pont, who was running fourth in the five-man Republican field, said: ``This has been a terrific evening for us here in New Hampshire.'' He had finished fifth in a six-man field _ before the withdrawal of Alexander Haig _ in Iowa's caucuses a week earlier. Du Pont's showing was just shy of Jack Kemp and ahead of Robertson, according to partial returns. All three trailed front-runner George Bush and his main rival, Bob Dole. For the Democrats, Babbitt edged out Hart. Ahead of them were Jesse Jackson and Albert Gore, each of whom had solid organizations awaiting them in the South. Richard Gephardt and Paul Simon were in the strong second tier behind winner Michael Dukakis. Hart, who won New Hampshire when he ran in 1984 but whose candidacy has failed to catch fire since he re-entered the 1988 race, called his meager showing at the bottom of the Democratic pack this time ``disappointing ... but not discouraging.'' The former Colorado senator said he expects to be a candidate ``as far ahead in the future as I can see'' but he was pragmatic about the need to start picking up some solid support that would translate into the dollars and delegates needed to win nomination. ``I understand that there are standards that have to be met in terms of delegates and votes,'' he said. ``It will take at least 30 to 60 days to determine if I can put together a viable candidacy.'' Babbitt, who had said prior to the New Hampshire primary that its voters had the power of life and death over his candidacy, insisted he wasn't ready to start planning his funeral just yet. ``I'm going to move on for a couple of days to Washington in a couple of days and call and talk to my supporters all over the country and ask them this question: How ... can we keep this reform movement alive?'' Jackson said he met with Babbitt on Tuesday night and discussed getting his support. ``Our message has tremendous overlap ... I hope that in time we will work out some common ground in terms of our politics,'' Jackson said. Robertson failed to repeat his dramatic second-place showing from Iowa, but had never claimed he'd sweep New Hampshire. He had better prospects in sight in the South and plenty of money on hand to propel him forward. One of the also-rans from the Iowa caucuses never even made it as far as the New Hampshire primary. Haig last week bowed out and threw his support to Dole.
AP880809-0073 	X	The Interstate Commerce Commission today unanimously approved the sale of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Rio Grande Industries, creating a 15,000-mile rail system that covers 15 states from Portland, Ore., to New Orleans. Rio Grande Industries has agreed to buy the Southern Pacific from Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp. for $1.2 billion. The ICC in a 4-0 vote said the merger of the Southern Pacific and the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroads would have the best competitive results and be in the public interest. The commission last year ordered the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp. to divest itself of the Southern Pacific after the rejection of that railroad's merger with the Santa Fe. Santa Fe Southern reached agreement with Rio Grande Industries, but when permission for the sale was sought from the ICC, another railroad company, Kansas City Southern Industries, objected and sought to buy Southern Pacific as well. But the ICC in a series of votes today turned its back on the Kansas City Southern proposal and approved the sale to Rio Grande Industries instead. At a news conference, Philip Anschutz, chairman of Rio Grande Industries, applauded the ICC decision and said the combined railroads ``will operate under the banner of Southern Pacific.'' He said that senior officers of the Southern Pacific will be announced before the purchase is completed and that managers will be drawn from the ranks of both railroads. The Southern Pacific also has extensive real estate holdings in the West, but Anschutz said, ``We will be in the railroad business, first and foremost.'' The Southern Pacific operates up and down the West Coast and along the southern tier of the country with tracks stretching from Portland, Ore., through central California through El Paso, Texas, and as far east as New Orleans. It also operates from St. Louis to the Gulf Coast. The Denver & Rio Grande runs along a central corridor from Ogden, Utah, to St. Louis. Kansas City Southern could challenge the ICC ruling in court but the company's president and chief executive officer, Landon Rowland, said no decision has been made on what the next step, if any, would be. ``We're not ruling out anything. ... I don't know what our options are,'' Rowland told reporters after the ICC vote.
AP900821-0178 	X	Craftsmen are putting the finishing touches on a dream, spanning generations, of a restored Mormon mecca on the Mississippi. Completion of a log cabin and post office by Oct. 1 will cap the extraordinary rebirth of a city known in its heyday as ``Nauvoo the Beautiful'' _ the center of the Mormon world for seven years in the mid-19th century. The Mormons have spent more than $15 million over 28 years to restore more than two dozen homes and shops, and to build two visitor centers and a 700-acre farm dotted with 330 head of cattle. ``People come here because it's a historical setting,'' said Elder Loren C. Dunn, president of Nauvoo Restoration Inc. ``By telling the story of Nauvoo, we are also telling the story of the church. The people are coming in through the historical door.'' From 1839 to 1846, the swampland below a bend in the Mississippi River some 80 miles upstream from Hannibal, Mo., was transformed into a bustling city of 12,000. Mormons fleeing mob violence in Missouri and converts arriving from Great Britain were among the newcomers. A rival of Chicago as the most populous Illinois city, Nauvoo was where church founder Joseph Smith's vision of a theocracy achieved its fullest flowering. But just as before in Missouri, political, economic and religious differences with non-Mormon neighbors degenerated into armed conflict. Less than two years after Smith was slain by a mob in nearby Carthage in 1844, the ``City of Joseph'' stood a virtual shell. The Mormons under Brigham Young made their pioneering exodus to the Great Basin. The Mormons didn't forget Nauvoo. Decades after having left in sorrow, pilgrims returned seeking a sense of their past. One, making the trip after 78 years, put his thoughts to verse: ``In '46 I left Nauvoo ``Behind an old oxen team. ``Now I'm going back in a Henry Ford, ``To see how it will seem.'' J. Leroy Kimball, a Salt Lake City physician whose patients included several top officials of the Mormon Church, believed Nauvoo could be reborn. Kimball's powers of persuasion were a match for his healing skills. ``When you're there in a doctor's office with your clothes off, you're kind of forced to listen,'' recalls his son, James L. Kimball. ``Dad really pushed the idea that something should be done.'' Several of his captive listeners journeyed to Nauvoo in 1960 to see the home of Heber C. Kimball, a Smith associate and Kimball's great-grandfather. The doctor had purchased the house in 1954 and restored it. Kimball and others who had bought homes or property were prepared to donate them to the church. Mindful that any large-scale Mormon effort would drive up land values and inflame anti-Mormon sentiments, church leaders in 1962 established the non-profit corporation to do the restoration. The church's 1,250 acres of old Nauvoo includes 23 restored homes and shops. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which split with the Mormons after the Nauvoo period, has restored another 44-acre section that includes Joseph Smith's residence and grave site. The pastoral serenity, hard by the big river and down a verdant hill from the modern town of 1,100 inhabitants, verges on the mythic. A scholar of the city's story calls it ``a dreamscape, almost,'' a Nauvoo of the imagination. Locals boast that it is ``the Colonial Williamsburg of the Midwest.'' That's the problem, historians grouse. Although the project was carefully researched by archaeologists, architects and historians, it has drawn criticism from scholars who say its well-manicured grounds and brick structures bear little resemblance to the original. ``People who go to Nauvoo and think they have seen the real Nauvoo are sadly mistaken,'' said Robert Bruce Flanders, a Southwest Missouri State historian of the town. ``It's true of Nauvoo as of Williamsburg. It really doesn't look anything like Nauvoo did in 1845.'' Still, Flanders gives the church high marks for its restoration of individual buildings like Brigham Young's home and is unaware of any site where ``there is so little development overlaying an old settlement.'' Dunn has heard the criticisms and tries to put them in perspective. ``There are not any two historians that will agree what Nauvoo was really like,'' he said, ``and we've tried to restore it to the best of our ability.'' Dunn points out that the brick structures were the ones that survived in the best condition and, once restored, are far less expensive to maintain. Still, sensitive to the preponderance of brick, Nauvoo Restoration is erecting an authentic log cabin. And a detailed model and film in the visitor center seek to correct any false impression about what's outside. ``It's too clean and too beautiful and you are seeing it at its Sunday best,'' concedes Kimball's son, who is senior librarian for the church's historical department. ``But I think the Saints who left Nauvoo carried in their minds the vision of what it could have been, or will be again.''
AP881026-0185 	X	A former lawmaker from Italy's neo-fascist party was formally charged on Wednesday in connection with a train bombing that killed 16 people and wounded 266 in 1984. Massimo Abbatangelo, who served in the Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Social Movement from 1979 to 1987, was charged with causing a massacre, joining an armed band, bombing with terrorist and subversive ends, and possession of explosives. He was detained in Naples on Oct. 10 after a year as a fugitive, but the formal arrest warrant and charges were filed Wednesday by investigative magistrate Claudio Lo Curto. Nine other people are on trial for the bombing in Florence. The bomb exploded Dec. 23, 1984, on an express train traveling between Naples and Milan. Authorities say the bombing was carried out by right-wing terrorists and the Mafia in an attempt to destabilize the country.
AP900216-0080 	X	United Mine Workers strikers won concessions on health care and pension benefits and Pittston Coal Group got the ability to run its mines almost nonstop in a proposed settlement distributed to miners today. If approved by the UMW's rank-and-file in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, the settlement could resolve the union's bitter and sporadically violent 10{-month strike against the nation's largest coal exporter by next week. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposed contract from a source who insisted on anonymity. Since Pittston and the union negotiators reached agreement on New Year's Eve, they have kept contract details secret while both sides moved to dismiss lawsuits and fines stemming from the strike. UMW President Richard Trumka announced Thursday that union members would vote on the pact Monday, despite $64 million in fines pending in a Virginia state court for illegal strike activity. More than 2,000 union members packed into a building at the Russell County Fairgrounds this morning to receive copies of the 49-page contract, listen to pep talks by the union's top officers and receive a briefing on the terms. Trumka choked back tears as he congratulated the miners on what he said was a successful strike. ``I'm proud. I'm proud you did this,'' Trumka said as he raised the contract in the air to a round of applause. Some miners grumbled about terms in the contract but most gave it a favorable review. ``There's some good, some bad,'' said Jack Hale, a 48-year-old laid-off miner. ``We'll just have to weigh the good against the bad.'' The proposal in many respects mirrors health and pension benefits contained in the 1988 Bituminous Coal Operators Association contract, the industry's national labor contract. But it differs in two significant respects: Pittston won the ability to hire contract truck drivers and maintenance workers, as long as union miners are not laid off in the process. And the company would be able to run its mines around-the-clock and seven-days-a-week, except for Christmas and the Sunday day shift. Wages were not a major issue in the strike. But miners would receive a cumulative $1.20-an-hour raise at the end of three years. Top-scale hourly pay in selected positions would be $17.52. Pittston dropped out of the health-care plan negotiated between the union and the BCOA and spurred the strike by proposing payment of 80 percent of the covered medical expenses rather than 100 percent. The UMW won its demand to maintain 100 percent medical coverage for employees, pensioners and their families. The contract has a new health-cost containment provision in which Pittston issues $500 twice-a-year to each miner and pensioner under the age of 65 to cover their deductibles. After it dropped out of the BCOA, Pittston stopped contributing to the multi-employer retirement fund and promised to take care of its own retirees. It now has agreed to go back to the union pension fund. ``Pension benefits in the new contract are identical to those contained in the 1988 national agreement,'' according to a contract summary. The company wanted to be able to contract out work in five job categories but won the limited right in two areas: transportation of coal and repair and maintenance work. The company wanted to eliminate a provision that union contracts are not broken when a union mine changes hands or is conveyed from one subsidiary to another. But the settlement retains the successorship provision in the 1984 agreement and contains ``strengthened protection for UMWA members against internal company reorganization and shifting of coal lands,'' the contract said. Pittston's significant victory was its request to establish round-the-clock operations. During negotiations, the company dropped its original demand for a Sunday day shift, with four 10-hour shifts a week instead of five eight-hour shifts and the ability to call in workers for ``reasonable overtime'' with 12 hours notice, on a mandatory basis. The UMW wanted to stick with its traditional fixed five-day work week. The contract contains two ``flextime'' work schedules in addition to the regular work week. The flextime allows the company to work continuously. Pittston did not want to reinstate miners convicted of strike-related felonies. The UMW wanted all miners reinstated. A mention of the issue could not be found in the labor agreement.
AP900312-0017 	X	Timothy Busfield says he draws on his own personality in playing Elliott Weston, the yuppie jerk, in ABC's ``thirtysomething.'' ``That's who I am,'' Busfield said in an interview in the March 17 edition of TV Guide. ``I'm a jerk, first and foremost. I don't know the answers. I'm an idiot. I make mistakes. I stick my foot in my mouth. I'm insensitive when I don't want to be.'' But Busfield said he has more than an emotional identification to Elliot. Elliot has a failed business behind him and two small children he struggles to know. He chases other women and at one point separated from his wife. When the role was offered to him, Busfield was in the throes of his own failed marriage, had trouble connecting with his own young son and had watched his children's theater project go under. This season, Elliot has reconciled with his wife, is back working with his old partner and has reached an understanding with his children. And Busfield has remarried, has a second son and his children's theater company is thriving. He said he people he meets recognize him as Elliot. He gets Bibles in the mail from those offended by the character's philandering, and one time a woman walked up to him in a supermarket, said ``Oh, it's you!'' and slapped him. People are ``emotionally disturbed by Elliot, yet they're completely enthralled by the character,'' Busfield said. ``He gets under their skin.''
AP900103-0161 	X	Lawrence Alloway, an art critic and former curator of the Guggenheim Museum credited with coining the term ``pop art,'' has died at age 63. Alloway died of cardiac arrest Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. Born in Wimbledon, England, Alloway studied art history at the University of London but never earned a degree. From 1954 to 1957, he served as director of London's Institute of Contemporary Art, where he became known for his shows and critiques of avant-garde artists. In 1958, he won a grant to study art in the United States. Alloway served as curator of the Guggenheim Museum from 1962 to 1966, wrote art criticism for The Nation from 1963 to 1971 and taught art history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1968 to 1981. There he cofounded ``Art Criticism'' magazine with the critic Donald Kuspit. An early champion of postwar American art, he is credited with abbreviating the term popular art into ``pop art'' to denote new work by younger artists that dealt with consumer images. Alloway wrote several books, including a study of violence in American films. He is survived by his wife, painter Sylvia Sleigh.
AP880512-0124 	X	A leftist guerrilla attack on a hydroelectric dam north of the capital killed 16 soldiers, injured 15 and caused a nationwide power shortage. In San Salvador, a correspondent for the Soviet newspaper Pravda was expelled from the country, and a military judge was fatally shot outside his home. Rebels destroyed five transformers and a central control board during their pre-dawn attack Wednesday at the November 5th Dam, said Col. Carlos Eduardo Melendez of the government's Rio Lempa Hydroelectric Power Authority. The dam, 50 miles north of San Salvador, supplies 22 percent of El Salvador's electricity needs, Melendez said. ``The outage of the system of these five transformers practically leaves the dam out of service for a while. How long we cannot say,'' Melendez told a news conference. He said the attack would worsen an already severe electricity shortage caused by a drought and sabotage by leftist guerrillas, who have fought the U.S.-backed government for the last eight years. The power authority already had planned to start rationing electricity with three-hour daily cuts nationwide beginning Wednesday. The attack forced the authority to increase daily cuts to four hours, Melendez said. Melendez said the guerrillas have mounted about 2,000 attacks on electrical installations causing $51 million in damage since the civil war began in October 1979. The guerrillas' last major attack on the dam was in June 1984. The Soviet journalist, Yuri Stroev, was taken from the Hotel Camino Real on Wednesday by several men who said they were immigration officials, hotel employees said. He was the first Soviet correspondent to visit the country, according to the Foreign Correspondents Association here. The employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunmen asked Stroev to pack his luggage and accompany them. He was taken away in a vehicle driven by several plainclothes individuals, they said. An immigration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press today that Stroev was deported to Guatemala. He said the journalist had been told he could stay only if he received military accreditation. Stroev had told colleagues earlier that he had applied for accreditation at the Press Committee of the Armed Forces general staff, but officials there had told him they had run out of credentials. Stroev had arrived in San Salvador on Sunday. Also Wednesday, a man jumped from a jeep in a San Salvador neighborhood and shot Jorge Alberto Serrano, a military judge who handles cases related to the civil war. The jeep pulled up outside Serrano's home and the gunman fired four shots into the judge's car, witnesses said, speaking on condition they not be identified for fear of reprisal. The attacker escaped. Serrano, 45, died at the scene. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Serrano was one of three military judges in charge of national security cases linked to the civil war. Some cases involved people suspected of cooperating with the guerrillas and others involved military officers. In January, Serrano ruled that three men accused in the June 1985 shooting deaths of 13 people, including six Americans, should be freed under an amnesty program implemented in November. President Jose Napoleon Duarte overruled Serrano's decision in April.
AP900509-0044 	X	Some people never throw anything away, according to Scott Bruce, who came to this breakfast food mecca looking for old cereal boxes to add to his collection. Sound flaky? ``Cereal boxes represent heroes of popular culture _ the grain gods, I call them,'' said Bruce, a Cambridge, Mass., collector who once started a lunch-box collecting craze. ``When a kid sits down with a bowl of his favorite cereal, he becomes one with his hero. It's like a secular communion rite.'' Bruce, 34, is talking this week with cereal company executives as well as ordinary people who hoard cereal boxes, if there is such a thing. Rare boxes can fetch up to $1,000, said Bruce, who began his collection in 1988 and recently published a collector's magazine called Flake. Battle Creek is the home of Kellogg Co., the world's largest cereal maker, as well as Post and Ralston-Purina plants. ``The people here have cereal in their bloodstream,'' said Bruce. Old cereal boxes are all the more valuable because of the scarcity of people who allow them to hang around. ``The militant mom was the death to many collections,'' he said mournfully. ``But maybe I'll find that that odd citizen who has a Corn Flakes box with Vanessa Williams.'' Miss Williams, Miss America 1984, lost the crown when it was disclosed she had posed nude for Playboy. Bruce said he generally hunts for vintage boxes in good condition from the 1930s through 1970s. But he's even squirreling away some of today's boxes. ``The 1990 Batman cereal box from Ralston is an instant classic,'' he said. ``Just you wait.''
AP900321-0129 	X	The republic of Georgia postponed elections scheduled Sunday to introduce a multiparty system and give opposition parties time to organize their campaigns against the ruling Communists. The republic's ruling Supreme Soviet parliament decided late Tuesday to postpone the elections. A spokesman for the opposition People's Front, Valerian Khukhunasvili, said the decision was made after intense negotiations between the Communist Party chief and the head of the People's Front. The official Soviet news agency Tass said the elections would be held in October or November and that current legislators would continue in their offices until then. The Georgian Supreme Soviet also abolished an article in the republic's constitution granting the Communist Party a monopoly on political power, Tass said. The move echoed the national legislature's vote last week to end the unchallenged role of the Communist Party. The amended Georgian constitution gives all political parties and public organizations the right ``to take part in working out the policies of the government, in managing government and public affairs.'' The People's Front was instrumental in pressing for the change and has spearheaded the republic's fight for independence. On March 9, the Georgian parliament condemned what it said was the republic's forced annexation by the Soviet Union in the 1920s and demanded negotiations on restoring independence. Two days later, the Baltic republic of Lithuania declared itself independent, which the Soviet government refuses to accept. Pro-independence groups have scored significant victories in local elections this year in Lithuania and the two other Baltic republics, Estonia and Latvia. Pro-independence parties in Georgia, including the People's Front, have been pushing for secession for more than a year. The parties have used mass demonstrations to press for independence. On April 9, 1989, Soviet soldiers moved against a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in the republic's capital of Tbilisi, killing 19. A patrol later shot another person for violating curfew.
AP880601-0278 	X	It will be hard to top the color and drama of his fourth U.S.-Soviet summit, but President Reagan's aides and backers say he will have plenty to keep him busy until he leaves office 7{ months from now. There's just a chance that his schedule might include a fifth meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to sign a treaty reducing superpower arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles. ``I think what we are seeing is that Ronald Reagan has not yet reached the peak of his powers or his accomplishments,'' says Martin Anderson, the president's former top domestic policy adviser and author of a book about his administration. Reagan's agenda will include an economic summit meeting with leaders of the industrialized Western democracies and Japan, campaign trips on behalf of George Bush and other Republican candidates and a brief appearance at the GOP convention in New Orleans. He is also expected to squeeze in four more vacation trips to California before he turns over the reins to his successor at noon next Jan. 20. As they have for many months, the president and his aides also say that efforts continue to secure the freedom of nine American hostages held in Lebanon. Administration efforts to force Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega from power, which collapsed as Reagan was on his way to the summit, may also be resumed. On the president's immediate schedule are a couple of speeches in Washington in which he will report on his Moscow visit. Details of the speeches had not been announced as the president prepared to leave Moscow. Still up in the air was the future of a proposed treaty reducing intercontinental ballistic missile arsenals by 30 to 50 percent, which both sides had originally said they hoped might be signed during the meetings in the Kremlin. ``We are both hopeful that it can be finished before I leave office,'' Reagan told students at Moscow State University. ``But I assure you that if it isn't ... I will have impressed on my successor that we must carry on until it is signed.'' Anderson, interviewed by telephone at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is a senior fellow, said, ``I would predict that he and General Secretary Gorbachev are going to be working even harder to put together a reduction in the big weapons.'' ``They may not get to the full 50 percent but I wouldn't be surprised if they did get some agreement,'' said Anderson, who in his recent book, ``Revolution,'' depicted nuclear arms reduction as Reagan's overriding concern during his presidency. Gorbachev and Reagan, who first met in Geneva in 1985 and subsequently got together in Reykjavik, Iceland, and in Washington before their session in Moscow, have indicated they would be willing to meet again to sign such a treaty. With difficult negotiations still ahead, no concrete plans have been made, but some sources have suggested Budapest, Hungary, as a possible site. More immediately, Reagan will meet in Toronto June 19-21 with heads of government from Canada, Japan, West Germany, Britain, Italy and France for the 14th annual economic summit. With the exception of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he will have been in office longer than any of them. ``There are no burning issues,'' said one administration official. ``It's a `where we have been and where we are going' kind of thing.'' Reagan's speech at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans Aug. 15-18 is expected to be a brief drop-in enroute to his annual August vacation at his ranch north of Santa Barbara, Calif. He is also expected to visit the ranch in July and, as usual, spend Thanksgiving there and round out the year at the home of old friend Walter Annenberg in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The president is expected to make campaign appearances on Bush's behalf after the vice president's expected nomination at the convention. ``Nothing has been scheduled, but he will be doing campaigning for the vice president and a lot of campaigning for Senate and House candidates,'' Deputy White House Press Secretarty B.J. Cooper said. It does not sound as dramatic as meeting with refuseniks in Moscow, dueling with Gorbachev inside the Kremlin walls or answering barbed questions from Soviet students. But, as Reagan said in a May 2 speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reviewing his administration's accomplishments, ``We aren't at the end yet.''
AP881010-0091 	X	Two cars of an express passenger train derailed and slammed into a parked freight train at a station, killing at least 33 people and injuring 15, the state Tanjug news agency reported today. One passenger was quoted as saying the express train entered the station in eastern Yugoslavia at high speed, then slammed on its breaks. But the news agency said the driver obeyed all signals while entering the station. The crash occurred at 7:20 p.m. Sunday in Lapovo, 50 miles south of Belgrade. Rescue teams worked through the night to reach the victims, using blow torches to cut through the derailed coaches, Tanjug said. The train was traveling from the southern city of Skoplje to Belgrade when its last two cars jumped off the rails at the Lapovo station and rammed into an engine of a parked freight train, Tanjug said. A Belgrade radio report described the impact as ``tremendous.'' Initial findings suggest that technical failure, rather than human error, was the cause of the accident as the driver of the passenger train reportedly entered the station observing all signals, the agency said. ``I felt the train arrived in the station at full speed before braking suddenly. We kept on sitting for 15 minutes without knowing what was going on,'' Merima Cvetkovic of Belgrade told the newspaper Politika. Citizens offered their private vehicles to help ambulances transport the injured to hospitals. The government of Serbia today asked federal authorities to proclaim Wednesday a day of national mourning for the victims, but there was no immediate word on whether the request was approved.
AP901229-0074 	X	Police on Saturday fired on thousands of rioting prisoners demanding freedom, killing at least three and wounding more than 90, prison officials said. At least 33 prison guards were injured, 12 of them hospitalized, after prisoners stormed the prison's main gate with iron rods and sticks, said a police spokesman who could not be identified under briefing rules. About 5,000 convicts and detainees awaiting trial took part in the riot at Dhaka Central Jail, and some tried to scale the walls, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity. Police fired bullets and several tear gas shells. State television said three prisoners were killed. The state BSS news agency said the riot was continuing late Saturday, and some prison wardens were taken hostage. Hundreds of police surrounded the prison. Prisoners later waved blood-stained shirts from the roofs and threw two slips of paper with written messages for journalists standing outside the prison compound. In one message, the prisoners claimed that 20 to 50 prisoners were killed in police firing and between 100 and 300 were injured. The other message demanded that the prisoners be released because their crimes were small compared to those of Kader Siddiqui, an opposition political leader convicted of treason and sentenced in absentia for 12 years in prison. Siddiqui, who fled to neighboring India after the assasination of political ally President Sheik Mujibur Rahman in 1975, returned to a hero's welcome this month. The unrest started Friday when some prisoners who were jailed during the four years of martial law rule under former President Hussain Muhammad Ershad protested their detention and demanded they be released. Other prisoners joined in the protest. Ershad, a former army general, seized power in a 1982 coup and imposed martial law uptil 1986. He was arrested and placed under house arrest early this month following seven weeks of nationwide protests. Police have charged Ershad and several former ministers with corruption and abuse of power. Last week, the caretaker government that replaced Ershad freed 167 prisoners when it celebrated the nation's 19th year of independence from Pakistan.
AP880216-0198 	X	Here are Broadway's new and current shows. Ticket supply as of Feb. 19 is indicated as Difficult or Available. Credit card holders can order tickets by phone or by calling Telecharge, Teletron or Ticketron. Telecharge's number is 212-239-6200 unless otherwise indicated. Teletron's number is 212-246-0102. Ticketron is 212-977-9020. For 24-hour information on theater, dance and music performances, call the Theater Development Fund's New York City@On Stage, 212-587-1111. When calling theaters directly, use New York area code 212. Advance inquiries should be made, as ticket availability is subject to change. _ ``A Chorus Line,'' the longest-running musical in Broadway history, is about the hard life and struggles of chorus-line members. Shubert, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Available. _ ``A Walk in the Woods,'' Sam Waterston and Robert Prosky star in Lee Blessing's two character-play about nuclear arms control negotiators in Geneva. Now in previews, opens Feb. 28. Golden, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Available. _ ``Anything Goes,'' a revival by the Lincoln Center Theater of the 1934 Cole Porter musical. Vivian Beaumont, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Difficult. _ ``Breaking the Code,'' Derek Jacobi stars in a play about the man who broke the Nazi Enigma Code during World War II. Neil Simon, 757-8646. Teletron. Available. _ ``Broadway Bound,'' Neil Simon's autobiographical comedy about two struggling young writers. Broadhurst, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Burn This,'' John Malkovich and Joan Allen star in Lanford Wilson's contemporary romantic comedy. Plymouth, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Cabaret,'' Joel Grey stars in a revival of the landmark Harold Prince musical set in Berlin of the 1920s. Minskoff, 869-0550. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Cats,'' musical based on T.S. Eliot's cat poems, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber of ``Evita'' fame. Winter Garden, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Fences,'' Billy Dee Williams stars in a black family drama by August Wilson. Winner of the 1987 Tony award for best play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. 46th Street, 221-1211. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. _ ``42nd Street,'' hit remake of the 1930s movie-musical classic. St. James, 398-0280. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Into The Woods,'' Bernadette Peters stars in a Stephen Sondheim musical about what happens to several fairy tale characters after they live happily ever after. Martin Beck, 246-6363. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Les Miserables,'' a lavish musical retelling of the epic Victor Hugo novel. Winner of the 1987 Tony award as best musical. Broadway, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Ticketron. Difficult. _ ``Me and My Girl,'' Jim Dale stars in the 1930s English musical hit about a cockney scamp making it big in high society. Marquis, 382-0100. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. _ ``Oh! Calcutta!,'' long-running nudie musical that spoofs sex and swinging and such. Edison, 302-2302. Available. _ ``Penn & Teller,'' hip vaudeville and magic tricks from two young comedians. Ritz, 582-4022. Teletron. Available. Closes March 20. _ ``Sarafina!,'' a South African musical about high school students in a black township. Cort, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Available. _ ``Serious Money,'' Caryl Churchill's black comedy about high finance and dirty dealing. Royale, 239-6200, same number as Telecharge. Available. _ ``Starlight Express,'' an Andrew Lloyd Webber-Trevor Nunn roller-skating extravaganza about a train race across the United States. Gershwin, 586-6510. Teletron. Available. _ ``The Nerd,'' Robert Joy and Peter MacNicol star in Larry Shue's comedy about the limits of friendship. Helen Hayes, 944-9450. Teletron. Ticketron. Available. Advertising ``Last Weeks.'' _ ``The Phantom of the Opera,'' the lavish Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about a deformed composer and the young soprano he loves. Majestic, 239-6290, same number as Telecharge. Difficult.
AP881103-0264 	X	Here are the world's top manufacturers of color televisions. Companies are ranked by the consulting firm BIS Mackintosh according to the number of sets sold in 1987 (figures in millions). 1. Thomson Group, France (including GE-RCA), 7.3. 2. NV Philips, Netherlands (excluding Grundig), 6.8. 3. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Japan, 5.3. 4. Toshiba Corp., Japan, 4.0. Sony Corp., Japan, 4.0. 6. Hitachi Ltd., Japan, 3.6. Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Japan, 3.6. Samsung Group, South Korea, 3.6. Lucky Goldstar Group, South Korea, 3.6. 10. Sharp Corp., Japan, 3.0. 11. Victor Co. of Japan Ltd. (JVC), Japan, 2.6. 12. Grundig AG, West Germany, 2.2. 13. Nokia Corp., Finland, 2.1. Zenith Electronics Corp., United States, 2.1. Note: Philips owns 31 percent of Grundig.
AP880701-0178 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Friday night closed a national Communist Party conference on his program of ``perestroika,'' saying resolutions endorsed by the delegates lead the way to a ``democratic image of socialism.'' The four-day conference, the first held by the party since 1941, was unprecedented in the openness of criticism of past and present leaders. Gorbachev pointed out one key to the four-day conference _ the attempt to overcome the party's Stalinist legacy _ when he called for construction of a monument to the victims Josef Stalin. ``I think we must agree to this, and such a monument must be constructed in Moscow,'' he said in his closing address. ``This would be an honest step, and it will be supported by the entire Soviet people.'' Gorbachev spoke after the conference of 5,000 party members adopted resolutions in what the Tass news agency called an ``unusually stormy and long'' debate. The meeting, which was called by Gorbachev to pass judgment on his 3-year-old policy of restructuring Soviet society, formally closed after his address. The Soviet leader also engaged in a long critique of the work of former Moscow party boss Boris N. Yeltsin, who appealed earlier in the day to the conference to absolve him of blame for criticizing the pace of Gorbachev's reforms last fall. That criticism cost Yeltsin his job and his spot as a candidate member of the ruling Politburo. Summing up the work of the conference, Gorbachev said, ``Through democratization, economic reform and changes in the political system we willmake perestroika irreversible. We will reach a fundamentally new state of our society, a new human and democratic image of socialism.'' He called for the policy-making Central Committee and other organs to urgently settle questions related to political reforms so they can begin to be implemented at a fall session of the Supreme Soviet. Referring to his proposals to restructure the government's legislative branch and give the president new powers, Gorbachev said ``the conference will continue living in the society, in the discussions in the society, but now we know how we must transform the political system.'' Tass said the conference adopted a package of six resolutions, saying the debate on bureaucracy, inter-ethnic relations and Gorbachev's policy of ``glasnost,'' or more openness, were particularly thorny. It did not say what the resolutions said. The Tass report said there were several votes on amendments, and that the conference rejected proposals by space scientist Roald Sagdeyev on elections to government councils. An amendment calling for the Communist Party newspaper Pravda to be taken out of the hands of the policy-making Central Committee received only 56 votes, it said. Gorbachev praised the open atmosphere of the conference. ``One of the heroes of our conference was glasnost because our conference was a result of the atmosphere of sincerity that is being reflected in our society. We also discussed its limits,'' he said. He called on the Soviet media to ``publicize the real achievements of the real heroes of perestroika,'' and proclaimed that no one has a monopoly on the truth. In an apparent reference to the time of Stalin, he said ``the printed word was a servant of arbitrary totalitarianism.'' In contrast, he said the conference had showed how the interparty debate must be carried out. Before the conference debate ended, however, the long-simmering feud between Yeltsin and Kremlin No. 2 leader Yegor K. Ligachev broke into the open. Yeltsin was judged as being politically mistaken by the party, but he said Friday his only mistake was poor timing. Gorbachev said Yeltsin was chosen to run the Moscow party organization because of his experience and energy, but ultimately proved he could not handle the job. Ligachev, at whom much of Yeltsin's criticism was leveled, took the floor Friday evening to oppose his return, saying Yeltsin committed many errors and still hadn't learned his lesson. The 57-year-old Yeltsin, a leading reformer and former protege of Gorbachev, was fired from his Moscow job as head of the Moscow Communist Party after he attacked the slow pace of reform during a speech in October to the Central Committee. The speech has not been published. Yeltsin was reassigned as first deputy of the state construction committee, a ministerial-level post. He was dropped from the Politburo in February but retained sufficient status in the party to be chosen a delegate. ``I think my only mistake was that I spoke too early, before the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution,'' Yeltsin said. It was a time when the party was trying to display unity and celebrate its successes. ``Taking to heart what happened, I ask the conference to change the decision of the plenum of the Central Committee,'' Yeltsin told the delegates. ``If you find it possible to do this, you will rehabilitate me in the eyes of Communists.'' Yeltsin took the floor to answer questions from many delegates about the circumstances of his ouster and about his demand that Ligachev resign. He had told Western reporters during the U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in Moscow that Ligachev was the party official most responsible for holding back Gorbachev's reforms. Ligachev said Yeltsin had ``not drawn the necessary conclusions from his mistakes and the principled criticism of his party comrades.'' Other delegates also criticized Yeltsin, charging that he had been tactless on a visit abroad and gave interviews to foreign new agencies just to boost his own prestige. Some rose to Yeltsin's defense in an open debate. Earlier Friday, the nation's top environmental official demanded punishment for planners responsible for pollution disasters, and a reformist publisher defended the new openness of the press. At other times during the conference, delegates have openly disagreed on the concrete results of Gorbachev's drive for perestroika, which was launched after he took power in March 1985.
AP880713-0001 	X	A magistrate on Wednesday ordered the Coast Guard to turn over tapes of its seizure of a marijuana-laden cargo ship to attorneys defending the vessel's 18 crewmen. Defense attorneys had requested to see and hear hours of video and audio tapes to prove their claim that the Coast Guard boarded the ship and arrested the 18-man crew without probable cause. The attorneys began reviewing the tapes Wednesday afternoon after the order from U.S. Magistrate John Weinberg. The Coast Guard seized the cargo ship Encounter Bay on June 30 about 500 miles off the Washington coast. It was carrying an estimated 72 tons of marijuana with a street value of about $280 million, making it the largest maritime drug bust on the West Coast. Defense attorneys had asked to review all communications regarding the vessel's seizure, but Weinberg declined the request after Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Diskin said much of the material was classified. Among material not released was the first of two messages to the Boutwell indicating that the Panamanian Embassy in Washington, D.C., gave the Coast Guard permission to board the Encounter Bay, which was registered in Panama. Raul San Malo, Panamanian Embassy minister, told The Associated Press that permission to disable with gunfire, board and search the vessel had been granted by Ambassador Juan Sosa. Sosa is recognized as ambassador by the U.S. government, but not by Gen. Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian military leader who has been indicted on drug-related charges in Florida. If probable cause is found, crew members would face charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana, which carries a penalty of 10 years to life in prison, Diskin said. Diskin also began presenting arguments to continue to detain the crewmen, who include three Americans, one Englishman, one New Zealander and 13 from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. Jeffrey Bernard Press, 41, a British citizen who lives in Singapore, and Anthony Gilbert Sayers, 53, of Auckland, New Zealand, have a long association with the Encounter Bay as master and chief officer, respectively, Diskin said. Samuel J. Colflesh, 31, of Springfield, Pa., ``... admitted being the master at least on this voyage,'' Diskin said. As for Terrance Albert Nolan, 36, who gave an address in New Orleans, and Gary Robinson, 34, of Missouri, ``the reasons for their presence aboard the vessel is connected only with the contraband aboard because there's no evidence of them being part of the crew,'' Diskin said. Five of the Southeast Asian crewmen aboard the Encounter Bay appeared to have worked on the ship for years, Diskin said. The backgrounds of the other Southeast Asian crewmen was not known, he said. On Tuesday, Lt. Thomas Rogers testified the Coast Guard had information indicating that the high-grade Thai marijuana was loaded off Danang, Vietnam, during the first 10 days of June, and that the Vietnamese army was involved in the operation. No questions about Vietnam's alleged involvement were raised in court Wednesday, but in a telephone interview Tuesday night with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Be An, second secretary to the Vietnamese consul general in Mexico City, denied the Coast Guard account. ``The problem is this: Some people don't tell the truth,'' he said. ``They've been caught. They could say any old thing. ``Our government doesn't permit drug trafficking. We've never had an interest dealing with these drug (operations).''
AP900505-0143 	X	A man who won $10 million in a magazine contest last year notched another victory Saturday: He was elected mayor of this city of 50,000 residents. Bob Castleberry, 60, said he had thought about running for the non-paying job for years, but couldn't afford to until he won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes a year ago. He quit his job as a salesman for a business forms company in January to follow in the political footsteps of his father, who served on the Denton City Council. ``I grew up watching my father giving everything to the community,'' Castleberry said. ``Now I just want to do what I can.'' Castleberry beat two-term incumbent Ray Stephens, winning 50 percent of the vote to Stephens' 45 percent. Appearing in advertisements about the sweepstakes helped in the campaign by boosting his visibility in the community 35 miles northwest of Dallas, the new mayor said. Castleberry gets his $10 million in annal installments: He got $500,000 last year and gets $250,000 a year for the next 27 years, when a lump sum of $2 million is due. Castleberry used part of the money to set up scholarships at Texas A&M University, the University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University and to buy a $32,000 car. It wasn't immediately known how much he spent on the campaign.
AP880318-0105 	X	Police said today they recovered nearly all of the $8 million that disappeared last month from a plane carrying the money from the United States to Argentina. ``We're counting the money, and very little is missing,'' said Nilo Augusto Batista, the police official in charge of investigating the theft. One person was arrested before dawn in connection with the disappearance, and that arrest led to several others, Batista said. The official said all in custody were Brazilians and that their names would be released later. The money was part of a $52 million shipment from the Federal Reserve Board in New York to the Central Bank of Argentina that was stolen sometime between Feb. 4 and 5, said Marven Moss, a spokesman for Brink's Inc., based in Darien, Conn. The money was shipped through Brink's on a routine flight aboard a commercial airliner in 13 bags and was made up of new, consecutively numbered $100 bills, Moss said. The theft was discovered when the airliner arrived in Buenos Aires and authorities found only 11 bags. The two missing bags contained $8 million, Moss said. ``Apparently what happened is that some people who were working at the airport on a temporary basis took the bags and didn't realize what they took. They thought it was (music) cassettes. Then, they get home and realize they have $8 million,'' Moss said. Batista said the first break in the case came from the Narcotics Department of the Rio de Janeiro state police. ``Even though this case was, technically, not in the drug area, our people followed the tip, and the result was nearly total success,'' Batista said. He said the missing dollars were traced to several Brazilian states, where the thieves tried to exchange them, apparently for other American dollars or for foreign currency. ``They didn't get a chance to spend much,'' the official said. But Moss said Brazilian drug agents recovered virtually all the cash today during a drug but. Those who stole the money apparently used some of the cash to buy drugs, he said. The spokesman didn't have any more details on the arrest, nor the exact amount of cash recovered. The recovered money belongs to Brink's, since its insurance repaid the Federal Reserve Board for the theft, Moss said. The $8 million heist was the largest in Brink's history, Moss said.
AP901227-0022 	X	In 1968, Filipino seamen sailed a cast-off U.S. warship across the Pacific for service in their navy. In November, the 48-year-old vessel finally sank in a typoon. The saga of the patrol ship Nueva Vizcaya, which sank Nov. 14 off Cebu, typifies the problems facing the navy, the stepchild of a poorly equipped armed forces. Although a nation of 7,100 islands, with a longer coastline than the continental United States, the Philippines has the most primitive navy in Southeast Asia. ``Being an archipelago, we must become a sea power or we will be powerless,'' navy chief Rear Admiral Mariano Dumancas said in a recent interview. The reality makes Dumancas' words seem comical. The navy's inventory consists mostly of World War II hand-me-downs from the United States, including the Nueva Vizcaya, built in July 1942 and once known as the Altrus. The vintage ships have poor navigational equipment and inadequate anti-pollution maritime devices, according to a secret navy report obtained by The Associated Press. The report said Philippine warships average 41 years of age, compared with 19 for the Indonesian navy and 13 for the Malaysians. ``It's not safe or effective to have these floating coffins used,'' admitted a senior navy officer, who spoke on condition he not be named. The demise of the Nueva Vizcaya, which spent its last few years being towed from dock to dock because its engine was inoperable, left the navy 22 patrol ships, 21 transport vessels, 85 small craft and 14 aircraft. ``On the surface, this inventory looks huge,'' the classified report said. ``In reality... they have very limited operational capabilities, and have become very expensive to operate and maintain.'' The report admitted that ``in an honest-to-goodness encounter, the capacity of our men-of-war to sustain as a viable naval force is extremely doubtful.'' Among its other deficiencies, the Philippine navy has no capability against submarines, missile attack or mine warfare. While the U.S. Navy has a formidable fleet of carriers, destroyers and assault ships in Subic Bay, 50 miles northwest of Manila, Philippine sailors patrol their own waters with three wooden outriggers. Occasionally, the navy must borrow private boats for raids against pirates and smugglers, according to navy officers in Subic. ``Countries in this region are modernizing their navies and some are in good shape,'' said Joris Janssen-Lok, naval editor of the respected Jane's Defense Weekly in London. ``But this country is indeed deplorable.'' Since independence from the United States in 1946, land forces have traditionally received the largest share of the defense budget because of persistent internal security problems, including Moslem and Communist insurgencies. Meanwhile, Filipino officials grew lax in building an effective navy because there was no immediate threat and even if there were, they could always rely on the Americans. But the Mutual Defense Treaty obligates the United States to defend the Philippines against foreign aggression and not combat smugglers, pirates or incursions by foreign navies. ``The prolonged presence of the U.S. military in our country made us neglect to undertake the necessary long-term steps to build our external defense over the years,'' said Sen. Leticia Shahani, chief sponsor of a congressional bill to modernize the navy. Dependence on the U.S. Navy is often illustrated during typhoons, air and sea accidents and other disasters when Philippine authorities turn to the Americans because they lack the capability for their own search and rescue. ``We have become too dependent on the Americans,'' said Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, a former defense minister. ``We have neglected to modernize our navy.'' The psychological blanket that the U.S. presence provides has resulted in giving less priority to buying, repairing and modernizing ships. Last year, the navy received 16 percent of the defense budget with the army and the Philippine Constabulary receiving more than half. Realizing the need to modernize, the navy proposed an additional allocation now equal to $430 million to buy new ships over 5 years. But inflation and the falling peso are threatening to increase costs beyond those projections. ``There is an urgent need to upgrade the navy, but realistically, we cannot afford it,'' said Sen. Ernesto Maceda, chairman of the Senate defense committee. ``We have to subsidize rice, fuel, schools, buy medicines - basics first.''
AP880621-0134 	X	President Reagan has given his support to compromise legislation to strengthen enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in housing, a Republican leader said Tuesday. Rep. Robert H. Michel, R-Ill, the House minority leader, said Tuesday that Reagan told him from by telephone from the Toronto economic summit that he believes the agreement between congressional liberals and conservatives, as well as between civil rights groups and real estate agents, ``preserves the constitutional right to jury trials and (he) hopes the Congreess will move quickly on the legislation to strengthen fair housing laws.'' Michel made his comments at a news conference attended by congressional leaders, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Association of Realtors. The House should take up the fair housing legislation either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday. The Senate also is expected to act quickly after the House approves the measure. The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on April 27 which would authorize the Department of Housing and Urban Development to levy fines and issue injunctions against people who discriminate in the rental or sale of housing. Under current law, HUD can play only a conciliatory role, attempting to mediate housing disputes. Enforcement of the law depends on private individuals, who can take a discrimination case to court, and on the Justice Department, which has authority to prosecute if there is evidence of a ``pattern or practice'' of housing discrimiantion. The bill sets up a new system of administrative law judges who would hear cases of alleged housing discrimination. If a party were dissatisfied with the decision, he or she then could go to federal court. The Reagan administration and the Realtors contended that the process was constitutionally flawed because it would subject a defendant to fines without benefit of a jury trial, as required under the Constitution's 7th Amendement. The compromise, to come as an amendment proposed by Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr., R-N.Y., will provide that any party charged with housing discrimination can elect to have the accusation litigated in federal court. If no such election is made, the case will be handled by the administrative process. Rep. Don Edwards, chairman of the House Judiciary civil and constitutional rights subcommittee, said, ``We believe (the bill) will do the job of putting teeth into fair housing law. ``Besides putting teeth into fair housing laws, (it) provides anti-discrimination protection to individuals with handicaps and to families with children,'' Edwards told the news conference. ``These new classes need protection, as our long study of the matter has clearly pointed out. These provisions are an essential part of the bill.'' Nestor R. Weigand Jr., president of the Realtors, said the compromise was a milestone in the history of fair housing legislation. ``Our respective organizations have been able to overcome their disagreements of the past decade and come to an agreement that will ensure free and equal access to housing for all Americans, as well as expedite enforcement proceedings in fair housing disputes.'' Sens. Bob Dole, R-Kan., the Senate minority leader, and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, each said he expects the Senate to act promptly and complete action on the bill before Congress recesses for the year.
AP880401-0176 	X	Attorneys for inmates of the U.S. Penitentiary at Marion asked an appeals court Friday to end the prison's 4{-year lockdown, arguing that inmates are suffering physical and psychological brutality. ``Prisoners are chained to their beds, spread-eagle, sometimes for days at a time,'' attorney Nancy Horgan argued before a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. U.S. District Judge James Foreman, who heard the original class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Marion inmates, refused last February to grant an injunction ending the lockdown. Foreman's ruling followed a 1985 decision by U.S. Magistrate Kenneth Meyers that tight security at the prison dubbed the ``new Alcatraz'' did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment and was necessary to protect inmates and staff. The lockdown was imposed in October 1983, following a bloody week in which two guards and an inmate were killed in separate incidents. Since then, virtually all 350 inmates at the maximum-security penitentiary remain locked in 7-by-8-foot cells for 23 hours a day, although prisoners in certain tiers are given an additional four hours outside their cell each week. Family contact visits aren't allowed. Meals are delivered through a slot and are eaten by prisoners while sitting on the floor or on a bed because cells have no chairs or tables. Attorneys for the inmates argued Friday that the lockdown has become a permanent condition of imprisonment, and that Marion officials use a capricious, arbitrary system in assigning prisoners to tiers and doling out limited privileges. Prison officials counter that the lockdown is necessary because the prison houses the most unmanageable inmates in the federal prison system. ``Most of them come from the segregation units at other federal prisons,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Ralph Friederich told the judges. ``It is a place for inmates who have demonstrated an inability to control their conduct at other institutions.'' Marion was built in 1963. In 1979, it was designated by the federal Bureau of Prisons as the first Level 6 prison _ the system's most secure. It remains the only Level 6 institution. The roster of high-profile inmates who have been imprisoned there and several spectacular escape attempts have led to its comparison to Alcatraz, the fortress island prison in San Francisco Bay that was closed 25 years ago. Before Friday's hearing, about 50 demonstrators marched outside the federal building in support of the inmates, carrying signs reading ``Prison System Built on Lies.'' Stephen Wittman, a spokesman for the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown, which helped organize the demonstration and has provided legal and financial support to the legal case, contended the penitentiary was being used to silence political prisoners. ``They keep them as long as (they) can and each time we draw attention to an individual, they transfer them,'' he said. ``Equally important, they hold Marion over the head of all prisoners in the system,'' Wittman contended. ``They use the prospect of going to Marion to intimidate them into behaving the way they want them to.''
AP900601-0265 	X	Precious metals futures plunged Friday on the New York Commodity Exchange in the wake of weak May employment figures and amid uncertainty about whether a trade agreement will result from U.S.-Soviet summit talks. On other markets, grain and soybean futures fell; livestock and pork futures were higher, and energy futures were mixed. Peter Caudillo, an analyst with Josephthal & Co. in New York, said that the precious metals market was monitoring the progress of talks between President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Washington, D.C. ``If nothing positive comes of out of the summit, there are fears the Soviets will be forced again to sell gold in the open market'' to pay for overseas purchases, Caudillo said. He noted that gold has not been able to rally since mid-May, when heavy cash market selling of the metal sent prices tumbling. The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday that the nation's unemployment rate went fell 0.1 percenttage point to 5.3 percent in May while job growth amounted to a smaller-than-expected 164,000. ``The figures are indicating economic weakness, translating into a downward trend in inflation,'' he said. Gold is seen as a haven during inflationary periods. Silver futures were battered by gold's plunge, with the day's gains erased when investors liquidated near-month contracts. Gold settled $5.10 to $5.80 lower with the contract for delivery in June at $359.20 a troy ounce; silver was 2.8 cents to 4.4 cents lower with June at $5.046 a troy ounce. Grain and soybean futures were mostly lower on the Chicago Board of Trade as improving weather depressed prices. Soybeans dropped sharply when the July support level of $6.05 a bushel was breached and followthrough selling set in. National Weather Service forecasts called for dry conditions much of next week, which will facilitate planting of soybeans, said William Biedermann, an analyst with Allendale Inc. in Chicago. Soybean plantings had been delayed by soggy fields. Corn futures were pushed lower by progress made this week in planting the corn crop. Biedermann noted that sparce export business and a lack of progress in trade talks during the Bush-Gorbachev summit talks influenced corn futures. Fairly good weather, allowing for progress in the harvesting of the winter crop, pushed wheat futures lower. Wheat was 1 cent to 4{ cents lower with July at $3.29\ a bushel; corn was 1} cents to 2\ cents lower with July at $2.75} a bushel; oats were a { cent lower to 1 cent higher with July at $1.44 a bushel; soybeans were 5\ cents to 7{ cents lower with July at $6.02 a bushel. Energy futures were mixed on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The near-month contract for crude oil bounced back from Thursday's sharp selloff on belief that the drop was overdone, analysts said. Gasoline, while slightly higher, continued to be pressured from American Petroleum Institute inventory figures showing refinery runs increased sharply last month, while gasoline stocks also rose. West Texas Intermediate crude oil was 10 cents lower to 10 cents higher with July at $17.50 a barrel; heating oil was .15 cent to .78 cent lower with July at 48.73 cents a gallon; unleaded gasoline was .48 cent lower to .15 cent higher with July at 60.78 cents a gallon. Livestock and pork futures were higher in trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Live cattle were .17 cent to .52 cent higher with June at 74.47 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .20 cent to .72 cent higher with August at 84.37 cents a pound; live hogs were .35 cent lower to .25 cent higher with June at 65.75 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .85 cent to 1.42 cents higher with July at 65.05 cents a pound.
AP881223-0238 	X	The stock market eked out a modest gain today in light pre-Christmas trading. Wall Streeters were expecting a quiet day as many investors opted to get an early start on the long holiday weekend. Brokers also said money managers at investing institutions had pretty much finished their maneuvering for the year. However, stocks did attract a few nibbles from buyers as the market opened. There has been a lot of talk lately of accumulating stocks before New Year's to try to benefit from the so-called January effect. Academic researchers have published many studies about an evident tendency of stock prices to rise in the first month of the year. Whether that phenomenon will persist in 1989, of course, remains to be seen.
AP900824-0156 	X	Iowa police must release the names of most rape victims to the news media, the state attorney general's office said Friday, but newspaper editors and broadcasters said they would continue to protect the names. The opinion quickly drew the wrath of a victim services counselor, who said it would make sexual assault victims reluctant to report crimes. In response to a request by Gov. Terry Branstad, assistant attorney general Gordon Allen said state law does not permit police to keep the names of rape victims confidential. The only exception, he said, is when release of the name would jeopardize the investigation or put the victim in danger. Branstad will seek to change the law to assure confidentiality, said Richard Vohs, a spokesman for the governor. The issue came up earlier this year when The Des Moines Register challenged the practice by Des Moines police of routinely suppressing names and other information about rape victims. The department has since released the names, but none has been used in news stories. Although release doesn't mean the news media would use the names, Polk County Victim Services counselor Terry Shock said many victims won't understand that distinction. ``There will almost certainly be misconceptions,'' she said. She said society places a negative stigma on rape victims, as if the woman somehow brought on the crime, and most victims simply do not want anyone to know. ``Face it, people will be people. A lot of them will blame the victim. A lot of people aren't going to report the crime or won't even go to the hospital for fear that the hospital has to report it,'' Ms. Shock said. She also said that when reporters have the names, there's room for error that would allow the name to get in print. ``And somewhere or sometime, there's going to be journalists who simply don't care,'' she said. ``It's just very unfair to the victims.'' Allen said he was sensitive to arguments about not releasing the names, but he said the law makes no exception for rape victims. ``Due to the strong presumption in favor of disclosure of governmental records frequently reiterated by the Iowa Supreme Court, it is our view that (any doubts on the issue) would be resolved in favor of disclosure,'' Allen wrote. The law allows police to withhold information which ``would plainly and seriously jeopardize an investigation or pose a clear and present danger to the safety of an individual.'' But Allen said this exception cannot be applied to all rape cases. ``To the best of my knowledge, there is no other law in the nation that attempts to devastate victims' lives like that,'' said Anne Seymour, spokeswoman for the National Victim Center, based in Fort Worth, Texas, and New York City. ``I'm 99 percent sure.'' ``One of the critical reasons why victims say they don't report the crimes ... is the fear of exposure,'' she said from New York. The National Victim Center serves over 7,000 local victim service groups, Ms. Seymour said. Virtually all of Iowa's newspapers and radio and television stations have said they would not use the name of rape victims without permission from the victim. Mark Bowden, managing editor of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, said the opinion will not change his paper's policy of not publishing the names. But Bowden said mistakes leading to the broadcast or publication of a name could be made regardless of the law. ``You might have an inexperienced reporter, but is that any different than having a rookie at the police desk?'' he said.
AP881213-0019 	X	Major obstacles to an Iran-Contra trial of Oliver L. North were removed when the judge in the case sharply restricted the number of classified documents the former White House aide may use for his defense. By deciding to bar as evidence more than 90 percent of the classified documents North wanted to disclose, U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell greatly increased the chances that the case will go to trial, possibly late next month. Gesell's ruling diminishes the possibility that President Reagan's refusal to release virtually all the secrets sought by North would force dismissal of charges on the ground that the former National Security Council aide couldn't get a fair trial. The judge harshly rebuked North for demanding ``disclosure of masses of classified material which under no conceivable version of a defense could have any utility whatsoever.'' ``North, as a tactical matter, has taken an obdurate stand,'' Gesell said in an order issued Monday. ``If this tactic were permitted, there would be no trial.'' Gesell rejected a Nov. 14 list of 3,500 documents covering 30,000 pages of secrets that North had proposed as evidence under a provision of the Classified Information Procedures Act. But the judge denied independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh's request to bar North completely from disclosing any secrets, saying a blanket prohibition would ``too severely restrict the defense.'' Instead, Gesell gave North until Jan. 3 to pick 300 documents from the Nov. 14 list that he wants to use as evidence. The documents will be censored for sensitive references to secret information by an interagency task force that reviewed Walsh's exhibits. The defense will be required to show the ``relevancy and materiality of each item and generalities will not be accepted,'' Gesell said. Gesell granted Walsh's request to censor some of the 300 documents the independent prosecutor wants to use as evidence to prove that North conspired to divert U.S.-Iran arms-sale profits to the Nicaraguan rebels. North had objected to virtually all of the deletions of sensitive information. But Gesell approved many of the changes, such as censoring the names of CIA agents, foreign officials and the sources of U.S. intelligence. He also approved Walsh's proposal to remove sensitive information from the orders by President Reagan approving the arms-for-hostage initiatives. But the judge made clear that he wants public disclosure of as much evidence as possible, denying requests to delete the names of Central American countries, Israel and Iran from documents in the case. Gesell noted that an earlier evidence proposal by North, on Aug. 1, also was rejected after a check of some of the documents listed showed it was ``obviously submitted in bad faith.'' Since then the court has repeatedly reminded North that he must provide specific information about how a document would help his case. Despite those warnings, the Nov. 14 notice contains ``ample evidence of North's attempt to frustrate the prosecution,'' the judge said. ``North's unwillingness to pay token respect to the court's requirement to provide detail appears to reflect his mistaken view that he is entitled to use classified materials at trial without indicating in any way the significance of that material to the prosecution and the court,'' Gesell said. ``This trial does not concern the reaction of various Central American countries to congressional legislation, the life history of a potential defector, the precise distribution of Sandinista forces at a particular time among various villages,'' Gesell said, listing the type of secrets North proposed to disclose. ``This is a case charging fraud and deceit on the United States, its chief executive and Congress, involving the use of arms profits in a manner allegedly unauthorized by the president,'' the judge said. ``It must remain focused on these issues, rather than be derailed by the myriad unrelated issues'' raised by North. North still has until Dec. 19 to submit an additional list of secrets he wants to disclose in testimony or from other documents not covered in the Nov. 14 notice. But Gesell's order made clear that he would reject a list that was similar to those previously filed. North's lawyers, meanwhile, sought a one-month delay in filing the next notice and argued that disclosing defense testimony will violate the former White House aide's right to a fair trial. ``Never before in the history of American criminal law has a court granted the prosecution such a one-sided bonanza of information about the defense case,'' lawyers Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. and Barry S. Simon said in the pleading filed Monday.
AP900118-0285 	X	Pfizer Inc. said Thursday the strength of the dollar helped depress its net income by 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 1989 despite a 9.2 percent increase in sales. For the three months ended Dec. 31, the pharmaceutical company's net income fell to $133.3 million, or 79 cents a share, from $141.6 million, or 84 cents a share, a year earlier. Fourth-quarter sales rose to $1.49 billion from $1.37 billion. The dollar's strength against foreign currencies, increased marketing expenses for new products and continued high research spending contributed to an 8.1 percent decline in net income for all of 1989, even though sales increased 5.3 percent, Pfizer said. ``Although these investment expenses will again be high in 1990, the sales momentum of our new products is increasing,'' Chairman Edmund T. Pratt Jr. said in a statement. Pratt said a new extended release version of Pfizer's Procardia prescription drug for angina and hypertension tallied $40 million in sales in just three months on the U.S. market. The company expects to win U.S. regulatory approval this year to sell another angina and hypertension drug, Norvasc, which it currently sells in Britain and Ireland, he said. The dollar's strength reduced sales by two percentage points and turned what would have been a modest growth in profits into a decline, the company said. A strong dollar makes U.S. products more expensive, and therefore less attractive, overseas. For the full year, net income fell to $727.3 million, or $4.31 a share, from $791.3 million, or $4.70 a share. Full-year sales rose to $5.67 billion from $5.39 billion. If the dollar hadn't risen in value last year, sales would have been three percentage points higher and the profit decline would have been cut in half, Pfizer said. The company's sales of pharmaceuticals increased 11 percent in the latest year while sales of hospital products rose 3 percent. Consumer products sales rose 12 percent, specialty chemicals sales gained 6 percent and sales of animal health care products were up 9 percent.
AP881102-0271 	X	The Rales brothers have won a major victory in their hostile $2.7 billion bid for Interco Inc., with a court issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the furniture and apparel company's poison-pill takeover defense. But St. Louis-based Interco said shortly after Tuesday's announcement that it would appeal the Delaware Chancery Court ruling and seek a stay to prevent the Raleses from actually acquiring any shares under their tender offer until a decision is rendered.
AP901115-0196 	X	There is a growing perception within the Bush administration that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's power is ebbing, leading U.S. officials to open lines of communication to other levels of the Soviet system. Some U.S. officials are searching for ways to shore up Gorbachev's beleaguered regime, while at the same time trying to position the United States for a possible realignment of political power in the Soviet Union. ``The evidence is clear that power is now moving out of the central government to other levels, or even out of government altogether,'' said one U.S. official who agreed to discuss the issue on condition his name not be used. ``The focus now is in the republics.'' Another official said the administration is not worried - at least not at this point - about the Soviets' ability to live up to their international agreements or about any desire to change their strategic posture. International confidence in the Kremlin's peaceful intentions will be on display this week when President Bush, Gorbachev and the leaders of 32 other nations gather for the signing of a long-sought agreement to reduce conventional forces in Europe and end the military faceoff that divided East and West throughout the Cold War. The Bush administration doesn't doubt the Soviet regime's will, one source explained, but added: ``The danger is that Gorbachev may lose the ability to make decisions and carry them through.'' That official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States is now working with reform leaders in the Russian federation, the Baltics and elsewhere, partly in hopes of shoring up Gorbachev's political standing at home. ``By helping the reform movement at various levels, we help Gorbachev,'' the official said. ``It gives us other access, more information about what's going on, plus it's neutral-to-beneficial for Gorbachev because we're supporting Gorbachev. It doesn't undermine him.'' Fourteen of the Soviet Union's 15 constituent republics have declared sovereignty or, in a few cases, their intention to seek complete independence from Soviet rule. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian federation, which accounts for roughly half the Soviet population, is threatening to institute his own reforms that could establish an economic system independent of the central government. The deteriorating Soviet economy is at the root of much of the public's unhappiness with the central government. In one sense, the shift of power away from the center ``is quite consistent with democratization,'' which the U.S. government has supported wholeheartedly, one analyst observed. But he added that it complicates Western efforts to support reform. ``We recognize that imbalances and uncertainty can lead to instability,'' the source said. ``There is a potential for a very high level of frustration, public indignation, a volatile situation if economic deterioration continues.'' Demonstrators from both the left and right showed their anger with Gorbachev and the economic calamity in Revolution Day demonstrations Nov. 7 marking the 73rd anniversary of the Russian Revolution. John Hardt, a specialist in Soviet affairs at the Library of Congress, said Gorbachev does not appear in imminent danger. He retains control of the police, the military and the KGB, the secret police agency responsible for state security, Hrdt noted. ``The levers of power are quite clearly in Gorbachev's hands,'' he said, adding that the Soviet leader was able to implement massive military reductions and set a new course for Soviet policy in the Middle East, neither of which could be expected to garner strong support from the military establishment or government bureaucracy. But Hardt acknowledged that Gorbachev is threatened by crises rippling through Soviet society and that his popularity inside his own country is extremely low compared to his status elsewhere in the world. ``Gorbachev's power is becoming more diffuse,'' said a State Department official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. ``But we want to be careful not to sell him short. He's shown he can accomplish a great deal, even against tremendous inertia and resistance.'' ``Time will tell,'' the source said, ``whether this master of the old political system can master the new'' one he has installed. A source familiar with foreign policy strategy discussions at the top levels of the administration said there does not appear to be an imminent threat to Gorbachev. ``There is no apparent challenger, no alternative, no reason to expect military intervention,'' the source said. ``What is more likely is that it will become harder for him to exert influence. ``To a degree, that's a natural result of increasing pluralism, and we applaud that. But what's difficult is the institutional structures have not had much time to develop, and that makes for an unstable situation.'' The United States, several sources said, is continuing to support Gorbachev while trying to establish contacts at other levels, particularly where it can encourage economic reform and creation of market forces. ``Arms control agreements still have to be negotiated at the central government level,'' one source explained. ``But we can provide technical cooperation and support economic activity at both levels.'' The Soviet republics are in some ways similar to the states of the United States in that they have government structures that mirror the one in Moscow. Under Gorbachev's predecessors, the Kremlin dictated practically all policy to the republics, but it clearly can no longer do that. Today, under pressure from nationalists and malcontents in almost every republic, it is struggling to keep the union from splintering along republic or ethnic lines while it negotiates a new balance of power between the center and the republics. The shift in power complicates the effort to back Gorbachev and his reforms, one source said. ``No one has much experience in making changes of this sort.'' ``Gorbachev's ace in the hole is that he is the only Soviet leader who has made it on the world stage,'' said another official. ``True, that doesn't put food on the table, but many realize they need the West if they're going to improve and modernize their own situation. ``Much of the Soviet leadership recognizes this, even if they don't like it. So Gorbachev has a strong card to play in foreign relations.''
AP881208-0009 	X	President Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador has left a military hospital where he spent six days after falling ill during inauguration ceremonies for Mexico's president. Duarte, who suffers from incurable liver cancer, was released Wednesday. He was hospitalized with stomach pains shortly after Carlos Salinas de Gortari was inaugurated last week, and doctors said he was suffering from an intestinal infection. ``He's in high spirits, he feels good, and we'll be going to El Salvador soon,'' said Duarte's doctor, Jose Luis Saca. ``He's reacted well to a bland diet.'' He said Duarte might be able to return home today. In June, doctors diagnosed Duarte with cancer and gave him from six to 18 months to live. However, they have said recently that his condition has improved remarkably. At a brief news conference before leaving the hospital, Duarte said it would be hard to set up a Christmas truce with the rebel Farabundo Marti Liberation Front. ``The problem is that the terrorists have a concept of violent war, of reaching objectives via terrorism. That I can't agree with,'' Duarte said. In 1984, Duarte became his country's first democratically elected president in 50 years. Since then, his U.S.-backed government has fought leftist rebels in an eight-year struggle. More than 65,000 Salvadorans, mostly civilians, have been killed.
AP881208-0296 	X	In 1982, the median-priced existing home required a monthly payment of $702. In October 1988, the median-priced home required only $588 a month to carry. This is a story about the impact of interest rates _ and it is only beginning. The 1982 house cost $67,800, the 1988 house cost $88,100. That is, the lower-priced house cost $114 more to carry than the higher-priced one. The explanation for this otherwise strange situation lies in the interest rates that prevailed in the two periods. In 1982, the average interest rate was 15.38 percent. In October of this year it was 9.41 percent. Interest rates power housing markets. Consider this additional statistic: In 1982, when home prices were lower, monthly payments took 35.9 percent of median family income. In October 1988, the percentage was only 22.2. The significance of such figures, compiled by the National Association of Realtors on the basis of 20 percent downpayments, is becoming increasingly important now, the reason being that home mortgage rates are rising. It's bad news for a lot of people. While the immediate emphasis is likely to be on the growing difficulty of families to find affordable homes, the impact is more widespread. Sellers may have to wait longer for a sale. Agents may face reduced income and possibly lose jobs. Builders conceivably could have to lay off workers. No wonder, therefore, that the key forecasting tool of the entire housing industry is the level and direction of interest rates. John Tuccillo, NAR chief economist, believes the higher trend of rates will last through the winter. They'll continue higher for about five months, he says, ``and this will cause a further decline in affordability conditions.'' The potential homebuyer who won't be hurt, and might even be aided by these conditions, is the all-cash buyer. While such people are rare, they do exist; most of them probably are those who have just sold another home. For such people, the possibility exists that interest rates will drive down prices _ they already have to a slight degree _ or at least place buyers in a stronger negotiating position. Worst hurt by rising rates are first-time buyers. Trade-up buyers _ those who have owned and now wish to move up to a more expensive house _ at least have sufficient money for downpayments and closing costs. First-timers might have to count every nickel. For first-timers, the temptation might be to postpone buying in the hope of lower interest rates next spring. It's a risk that could prove correct. It could also boomerang, since lower interest rates at any time of the year generally push up prices _ and in the spring this impact is intensified. Based on October prices and rates, the NAR offers this rough affordability guide for those planning to buy: _For buyers with income of $20,000, the mortgage amount that can be handled is $50,000 on a home price of $62,500. _Income $30,000, mortgage $75,000, home price $93,800. _Income $40,000, mortgage $100,000, home price $125,000. _Income $50,000, mortgage $125,000, home price $156,300. _Income $60,000, mortgage $150,000, home price $187,500. _Income $70,000, mortgage $175,000, home price $218,000. Of course, all this could change radically. If interest rates rise, prices might fall, but in all probability they might not fall enough to offset the higher carrying charges. If rates fall, prices might rise, but most likely not enough to offset the better rates. Watch interest rates. They're the key to the housing market.
AP901104-0009 	X	On weekends by the Red Sea, women in head-to-toe black shrouds picnic discreetly beneath umbrellas. These days, however, some prefer bare knees as they blast along on jet skis. Times are changing for Saudi women, but those who will speak out on the subject disagree sharply over how much and how fast. The Persian Gulf crisis, most say, is accelerating a process already under way. ``We've been spoiled with an easy life and never thought about independence,'' said Faiza Ambah, a Saudi reporter for the Arab News. ``If war breaks out, we are going to have to depend on ourselves.'' She shares a newsroom with men but covers her hair and clothes with black wraps. Her bookshelf contains Danielle Steele's ``Changes,'' but she is careful to note she brought it in for a friend. In Saudi Arabia, women have equal rights but far fewer privileges than men. They cannot drive or expose their skin to public view. They can work but, with rare exceptions, not around men. Men and women together, in cars, on the street or in restaurants, must be married. Dating and parties are strictly chaperoned and only take place behind the walls of private homes. Transgressors risk at least a rap on the arm from an Islamic vice squad, if not a term in jail. Women began school only in the early 1960s, when Saudi Arabia also abolished slavery. ``You can imagine the pressure,'' said an Egyptian diplomat who knows Saudi Arabia. ``Girls come home from Berkeley with a drivers' license and a degree and cower from some old man with a stick.'' Well before the gulf crisis, major shifts were under way. Women nurses were allowed to work with men doctors in hospitals. Now half the medical students in Jiddah are women. Years ago, some banks opened all-women branches. Now there are banks operated by women that lend money at a burgeoning pace to women who are opening shops, cooperatives and small businesses. When U.S. troops arrived, a favorite topic was all the women in uniform, liberated professionals who slung rifles over their shoulders, manhandled heavy trucks and barked orders at men. But foreign troops have been kept out of sight, and women soldiers wear modest civilian dress when they have to appear among Saudis. More visible are nearly 100,000 Kuwaiti women, traditionally far freer and more outspoken. As refugees, some attempt to observe local customs, but their attitudes are not masked by veils. Opinions vary widely over the weight of these outside forces. ``Anything is possible as long as it is done discreetly,'' said a Saudia Airlines stewardess, explaining how women forbidden to drive can frolic on jet skis in prohibited swimwear. ``The religious police don't go out on the water.'' A young hospital worker, educated in the liberal climate of Egypt, wears eye-popping bodices under her black abaya on the rare occasions she gets out at night for dinner with friends. ``I don't think things will change much,'' she said, clearly distressed at the thought. ``The Saudis are used to it, and they like it.'' But Rabaa al-Khateeb, who teaches Shakespeare at Jiddah's Abdul Aziz University, argued in a ground-breaking article for the Arab News that it was time to rethink the role of Saudi women. She wrote that Saudi Arabia could not continue ``suppressing the talents and stifling the abilities of one-half the society.'' With or without a crisis, she said, Saudi Arabia will have to employ its women to develop and thrive. Later, in an interview, she took pains to assure that she was not urging full-blown women's liberation. ``We accept that we are different here,'' she said. ``This is our way of life.'' She said most Saudi women believed that restrictions on their activities reflected a male desire to protect them rather than to keep them in an inferior role. Nihal al-Omari, a Western-educated journalist, works with the Nahdha Philanthropic Society in Riyadh which marshals women volunteers for health and social services. She sees important recent strides but a long road ahead. ``All the changes that have been happening lately,'' she said, ``all could go back to before.'' Even among the younger generation, pressure for immediate change is cautious, often muted, and expectations are few. ``We feel safe here, taken care of,'' said Aisha, one of eight young women, mostly students, who gathered at a private home to tell an American reporter how they looked at their future. Aisha, raised in Detroit by Saudi parents, returned only three years ago but settled into the lifestyle of Jiddah. Although she still visits the United States, she prefers Saudi Arabia. She said she was comfortable with a system where fathers and brothers had a say in whom she married and forbid Western-style dating. Her father has two wives, and she thought that worked well. ``It's better than fornification,'' she said, looking around to see if that was the word she meant. A friend corrected her: ``Adultery.'' But Leena, also educated in America, wanted more job openings for women, a greater say in how she shaped her life. And, like most Saudi women interviewed, she wanted to drive. ``The crisis will make the process quicker,'' she said. ``It has opened things up.'' Asked about priorities, one woman said: ``Freedom of speech would be nice. Don't quote me.'' After an hour's debate, most agreed they were content but would welcome change. Leena explained, ``We want to take some of the best you have (in the West) -your way of thinking - but with the protection and stability of our way of life.'' Aisha said: ``Our rulers do what is right. I just wish they would do it a bit faster.''
AP901029-0170 	X	Eight theater companies will receive grants from AT&T to present three new works and three adaptations of classics next year in regional theaters in the United States and one theater in Europe. The grants were announced Monday by AT&T. Among the artists involved in the three AT&T OnStage Classics presentations are actress Diana Rigg, who will appear in a London revival of ``All for Love,'' a rarely produced Restoration tragedy by John Dryden, and Robert Wilson, who will design and direct a production of Henrik Ibsen's ``When We Dead Awaken'' in Cambridge, Mass., and Houston. ``All for Love'' will be presented by the Almeida Theater in London for a limited engagement beginning April 30, 1991. ``When We Dead Awaken'' will be performed at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., in February and the Alley Theater in Houston in May. The third classic adaptation will be a modern-day version of Shakespeare's ``The Winter's Tale,'' done by the Cornerstone Theater Company. The ensemble troupe that will tour 12 states and perform outdoors in such cities as New York, Washington, Boston and Miami next summer and fall. The amount to be spent on the classics presentations was not disclosed, but AT&T will spend $180,000 on new play development, the company said. Receiving grants under AT&T's ``New Plays for the Nineties Project'' were: - The Old Globe Theater in San Diego, $50,000, to present ``The White Rose'' by Lillian Garrett. The play, which opens Jan. 17, 1991, concerns a group of anti-Nazi students in World War II Germany. - The Denver Center Theater Company in Denver, $50,000, to present ``Back to the Blanket'' by Gary Leon Hill. The play looks at the 1890 Indian massacre at Wounded Knee. It opens May 17, 1991. - Center Stage in Baltimore and the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif., $40,000 each, to co-present a play entitled ``The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin.'' The play, written by Eric Overmyer and called ``a lyric theater poem,'' opens Feb. 20, 1991, in Baltimore. It will be performed in California next August.
AP901025-0055 	X	Governments in the Ivory Coast and Gabon will be tested on Sunday in elections that reflect growing demands for multiparty democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ivory Coast's octagenarian President Felix Houphouet-Boigny faces an opponent for the first time since independence from France in 1960. In Gabon, President Omar Bongo's Democratic Party - with 22 years of autocratic rule - is being challenged by several opposition parties in the last round of voting for the national assembly. The ruling parties are favored in both elections, but their supporters concede that it no longer will be possible to shut opposition parties out of the system. All but a handful of black Africa's nations were one-party states at the beginning of the year. When Communist regimes started to fall in East Europe, Gabon's state-controlled newspaper The Union commented: ``The great winds carrying democracy ... that have triumphed in the countries of Eastern Europe will not shake the coconut trees in Africa.'' Within weeks, one African country after another was hit by demonstrations demanding change. As in Eastern Europe, the collapse of economies was a major cause of Africans' dissatisfaction. By now, at least 13 governments have said they accept multiparty democracy in principle: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Zaire and Zambia. Some governments, including Kenya, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, have refused to concede any rights to opposition groups, equating criticism with treason. Although Houphouet-Boigny gave in to demands to legalize opposition parties following riots in February, his government has used every device at its command to block them. Opposition meetings were often banned or constrained by broad restrictions. Government-controlled television and radio rarely mentioned the opposition, except to accuse it of responsibility for damage caused during the riots. The media nightly broadcast lengthy reports on meetings of people who supported the president. After several demonstrations at the national television station, the opposition was granted 20 minutes nightly of air time, a concession made only two weeks before the voting. One night, the opposition broadcast was banned on grounds it contained lies. One government restriction may have backfired. Initially, it sought to encourage as many opposition groups to form as possible, diluting their strength. But only a week before the 10-day presidential campaign was opened, candidates were required to post the equivalent of an $80,000 bond. The bond would be forfeited if the candidate failed to gain at least 15 percent of the vote. Only one of the newly formed parties, the Ivorian Popular Front, was able to meet the demand. This reduced the election to a contest between Houphouet-Boigny and front leader Laurent Gbagbo, a 46-year-old history professor who had been jailed for two years for opposing the president. Although no opinion polls have been conducted, Gbagbo's party acknowledged it was having difficult building from its base of middle-class and educated Ivorians. It also lacked the staff of Houphouet-Boigny's Ivorian Democratic Party, whose control of the government for 30 years gives it broad leverage with the population. The opposition's main campaign theme has been that Houphouet-Boigny and his cronies have enriched themselves while the country's once wealthy economy has been brought near collapse. Ivorian officials said first returns from voting will be released Sunday night. Houphouet-Boigny, 85, Africa's longest-serving president, received 100 percent of the vote in 1985, according to the government. The situation is more complicated in Gabon, also a former French colony, where Bongo still has three years to serve as president. Even the legalization of opposition parties failed to stop unrest this year, and France was briefly forced to send in troops to evacuate Europeans from the oil center of Port Gentil. Bongo may have won some breathing space with the sharp increase in oil prices after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The party of the president, who claimed 98 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, was winning 62 percent of the seats before the final round of voting Sunday.
AP900123-0276 	X	The Federated and Allied department store groups may get quick approval when they ask a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge Thursday for permission to continue paying employee benefits, the U.S. trustee handling the case said Tuesday. The companies also hope for quick approval to use $700 million in interim financing from New York banks. U.S. Trustee Conrad J. Morgenstern said in his view the requests by Federated Department Stores Inc. and Allied Stores Corp. are necessary in order to assure continued funding of benefits that the companies' 100,000 employees nationwide are expecting. The benefits include health and education plans, disability insurance, workers' compensation, bonus plans, assistance for employees troubled by drug and alcohol abuse, and 401K retirement plans funded by payroll deductions which serve a total of 44,461 Allied and Federated employees. Also among the benefits to be paid are merchandise discount plans for 8,650 retirees who terminated employment with Allied or Federated before the Chapter 11 filings. Those plans generate additional sales for the companies, Morgenstern said. Morgenstern said he and his staff have been examining the proposals to ensure they are appropriate and adequate. ``I think all of these requests are entirely appropriate and necessary in order to have a company such as this, which is so people-oriented, keep functioning at the high level of morale they strive to achieve,'' Morgenstern said in a telephone interview from his Cleveland office. ``Our office will not be in opposition to those requests.'' Federated and Allied, the American retailing divisions of the Canadian company Campeau Corp., filed Chapter 11 reorganization petitions Jan. 15 in Cincinnati to obtain court protection from creditors. The Cincinnati-based retail companies listed $7.7 billion in debts. Under the Chapter 11 filing, the companies must obtain the approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge J. Vincent Aug Jr. for paying operating expenses and other bills. Morgenstern's office is assigned to assist federal bankrupcy courts in Ohio and Michigan. His staff is to attend Thursday morning's hearing in Cincinnati before Aug, along with lawyers for Federated, Allied and creditors. Federated and Allied also filed a motion Tuesday seeking Aug's approval to use interim financing money from banks. New York's Citibank is the chief source of Federated's $400 million in loans, while Chemical Bank of New York is the major lender providing $300 million for Allied. Carol Sanger, a spokeswoman for Allied and Federated, said the companies hope for quick approval. ``Most of this is housekeeping stuff,'' Ms. Sanger said. ``It's customary for debtors, soon after they file under Chapter 11, to ask the court for authority to pay certain prepayment claims,'' Morgenstern said. Morgenstern said he thinks Aug may give swift approval for the employee benefits, but may take longer to approve the financing requests. Aug has declined to be interviewed about the case, which represents the largest Chapter 11 filing in American retailing history. The parent Campeau Corp. and the retailers have been struggling with debt accumulated when Campeau bought Allied in 1986 and Federated in 1988.
AP880905-0035 	X	Flying across this nation, it is virtually impossible to discern the mighty rivers that normally ribbon the landscape. There are just vast seas of muddy brown water _ and millions of stranded people. Floods have inundated three-quarters of Bangladesh and cut transportation links from its major port to the capital and other interior cities, officials say, though adding today that flood waters on three major rivers were receding. In Dhaka, flood waters were at their highest levels in 54 years and covered three-fourths of the capital. Dhaka newspapers reported 60 more flood deaths today, bringing the toll to at least 1,007 since June, when rivers began overflowing their banks in annual monsoon flooding in this impoverished nation of 110 million people. The government count of 333 dead is widely considered low. Millions of the marooned are eating raw food and drinking muddy, probably contaminated water, and 83,000 people nationwide have contracted diarrheal diseases, said Health Minister Abdul Munim. He said 65 people have died of the diseases so far. ``It is a calamity,'' Information Minister Mahbubur Rahman told reporters Sunday night. ``It is a havoc-creating, menacing flood.'' Flying in an airplane across Bangladesh Sunday from the Indian border to Dhaka, even the civilian pilot couldn't differentiate between the rivers and the flood waters. ``I've never seen anything like it before,'' said Ghias Ahmad, who has been flying over his country for 19 years. The waters swallowed up entire villages. Occasionally, tin roofs glinted in the sunlight, the houses beneath them completely submerged. On a few high spots of ground or short stretches of paved road still above water, people milled idly, small boats beached beside them. The Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers and their dozens of tributaries flow from India and through Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. The rivers flood almost every year after the monsoon rains in Bangladesh and India. Last year, the flooding in Bangladesh killed about 1,500 people. This season, some refugees have found shelter in relief centers or relatives' homes, said government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. But they estimated that at least 20 million people were either stranded in their homes or marooned on small outcroppings of high ground with few supplies. Wells and pumps are flooded, officials said, and flood water, which is probably impure, is the only source of drinking water. The central government has appealed for foreign aid, including boats, helicopters and 3 million tons of grain. Officials today reported water levels falling on the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Meghna rivers. But relief officials cannot reach many parts of the country because transportation has widely broken down. ``Shortages of medicine, cooked food and drinking water is causing untold miseries to millions of marooned people,'' a relief ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The information minister said flood waters destroyed crops and could prevent planting of the winter rice crop. He said this might lead to a shortfall of 2 million tons of rice. The minister said Bangladesh needs 18 million tons of rice a year to feed its people. He said 16.5 million tons are grown at home and 1.5 million imported. In Dhaka, a city of 6 million people, gasoline has become scarce for the few motor vehicles still navigating the streets. Many gas stations are closed. Boats have replaced cars and bicycle-powered rickshaws in many parts of the city. River boats capable of carrying 100 to 200 people sail between partly submerged houses in low-lying neighborhoods flooded by the Buriganga, Turag and Sitalakhya rivers that surround Dhaka on three sides. Many of the capital's streets are knee-deep and waist-deep in murky black water that carries a strong stench of sewage, and adults and children alike wade through it. Over the last week, the price of rice nearly doubled, from 15 cents a pound to 28 cents, as those who could afford it started hoarding.
AP900620-0164 	X	President Bush on Wednesday announced his intention to name two members to the National Labor Relations Board: Atlanta attorney John N. Raudabaugh and board member James M. Stephens, who is to be reappointed and named chairman. The White House also announced Bush will name: _Earl Roger Mandle, deputy director of the National Gallery of Art, as a member of the National Council on the Arts. _Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-Va., as a member of the board of trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship. _Washington attorney Edwin D. Williamson as legal adviser to the State Department, succeeding Abraham Sofaer. _C.M. Schauerte, vice president for American General Corp., in Houston, as federal insurance administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
AP900105-0133 	X	Officials from both German nations announced a multibillion-dollar project Friday to renovate crumbling cities in East Germany and provide more and better housing for people on both sides of the border. Also Friday, East German's official news agency reported that ousted Communist leader Erich Honecker, who faces corruption charges, is too ill to be jailed and needs surgery to remove a kidney tumor. The first beneficiaries of the joint renovation project will be the East German cities of Meissen, Weimar, Brandenburg and Stralsund. Those cities and many other urban areas of East Germany require major restoration following damage during World War II. General neglect under a socialist system that gave priority to industry over living conditions, and the devastating effects of the brown-coal haze choking major cities, have contributed to their deterioration. West Germany's construction minister, Gerda Hasselfeldt, said Bonn will contribute $4 billion to the project in the next two years. Ms. Hasselfeldt and East Germany's minister for construction and housing, Gerhard Baumgaertel, said the reconstruction of the four cities will be the pilot project for cooperation between the German states. ``It is my hope that by pursuing all means of improving housing and construction in this country, that our housing market can be eased as well,'' Ms. Hasselfeldt said. East Germany suffers a serious housing shortage because many residential buildings are unfit for habitation. West Germany's housing problem is due more to a lack of space and the high cost of construction. Tens of thousands of apartments in East Berlin are empty because of last fall's exodus to the West of disgruntled East Germans. If the apartments were upgraded to Western standards, arrangements could be made to rent some of the space to West Berliners, who are short at least 50,000 homes in their crowded city of 2.1 million people. Ms. Hasselfeldt said more incentive for ``private ownership and individual responsibility'' was needed to ensure the joint projects succeed. She said West Germany was not putting any conditions on the financial and technical aid it will give to the renovation but said the projects ``cannot function successfully without structural changes'' in the East German economy. The new chairman of West Germany's Deutsche Bank visited East Berlin on Friday, but no details of the talks were disclosed. Deutsche Bank is expected to play an important role in turning around East Germany's stagnant economy after 40 years of socialist mismanagement. Communist Premier Hans Modrow has called for limited steps to attract foreign investment and encourage some private enterprise. His plan for guiding the nation out of its economic morass is to be disclosed next week. Modrow became premier during the pro-democracy movement that resulted in Honecker's ouster Oct. 18. Honecker, 77, has been in seclusion at a former Communist Party estate since Oct. 18, but he must be moved from the compound by the end of the month as it is to be converted to a state home for the handicapped. The official ADN news agency said Thursday that doctors had asked to examine him to determine if he could be imprisoned pending investigation of corruption charges. On Friday, ADN said Honecker was too ill to be jailed. Another new opposition group announced its formation Friday. The pro-Western party calls itself the Social Citizens Union of Germany and advocates reunification with West Germany and transition to a full market economy. Most other pro-democracy groups are pressing for closer ties with West Germany but retention of East German sovereignty. National elections are scheduled in May.
AP901120-0136 	X	Government supporters and foes fought with bombs, iron rods and sticks in Dhaka and at least 13 other cities during a daylong strike Tuesday and at least 260 people were injured, witnesses and news reports said. Two big opposition parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party called the strike to force President Hussain Muhammad Ershad to resign. A senior police official said several people were detained for rioting, but he refused to give a number or to allow his name to be used. Police burst tear gas shells and repeatedly fired in the air to disperse protesters throughout Dhaka, the capital city of 7 million people, witnesses said. At least 60 people were injured in political frays, including five who suffered bullet wounds, they said. The strike was the seventh opposition-sponsored shutdown the past month. It closed businesses and halted traffic in Dhaka and several other cities, the opposition claimed. Government offices were open, but few people went to them. At least 40 people were injured in political fighting in the port of Chittagong and at least 100 in Rajshahi, 120 miles northwest of Dhaka,, the United News of Bangladesh news agency said. The Bengali-language daily Sangbad said an additional 60 people were injured in clashes in 11 other towns. Abdus Salam Talkdar, secretary-general of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, told reporters three people raided the house of party president Khaleda Zia on Tuesday. He said Mrs. Zia was not at home, but the attackers assaulted her son and two servants. He said one raider demanded to know where she was and said repeatedly: ``I will kill her.'' Ershad, a 60-year old former army general, seized power in a bloodless coup eight years ago. He has promised elections next year, but the opposition has sworn to boycott all elections under Ershad. They say he must first step down and appoint a caretaker government. Ershad left for the Maldives on Tuesday for a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
AP900430-0073 	X	Actress Elizabeth Taylor, hospitalized three weeks with pneumonia, had a good weekend and has started poring over the thousands of cards and letters from well-wishers, her publicist said Monday. ``She's doing fine,'' spokeswoman Chen Sam said. Miss Taylor, 58, who was reported near death the previous weekend, was moved Thursday to a private room after an 10-day stay in intensive care at St. Johns Hospital and Health Center. Doctors gave no indication when Miss Taylor could leave the hospital and continue recuperating at her Beverly Hills home, Ms. Sam said. The Oscar-winning star has started to read messages from well-wishers. ``She's beginning to look at some of them, but the doctors are concerned that she get a lot of rest,'' Ms. Sam said. ``There is an unbelievable amount of interest. They (cards and letters) are coming in the masses.'' Last week, the hospital released a statement on Miss Taylor's behalf thanking fans and friends for their cards and letters during her hospitalization.
AP900201-0133 	X	Thousands of Iranians gathered at the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's tomb Thursday, the 11th anniversary of his return from exile, and his son preached continued hostility to America, Tehran radio said. On the first anniversary since the revolutionary patriarch's death June 3, Ahmad Khomeini said his father, known as the Imam, constantly defied ``global arrogance,'' an Iranian phrase for United States and its allies. ``We must always remain on the Imam's path,'' he said at a ceremony beginning a 10-day celebration of the Islamic revolution. Ahmad Khomeini said his father warned that, ``if we show the slightest bit of complacency, America will deliver its final blow against us. You, the people, must prepare for struggle against America.'' The radio the younger Khomeini, a leading radical, praised his father's successor as spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for ``treading the same path as the Imam.'' His exhortation for no compromise with the United States was seen as a warning to President Hashemi Rafsanjani, leader of the so-called pragmatist faction in Iran. Rafsanjani, who attended the ceremony Khomeini's golden-domed tomb in the Behesht Zahra cemetery, seeks better relations with the West in order to obtain help in recovering from eight years of war with Iraq. The first part of Rafsanjani's 5-year development plan, calling for up to $20 billion in foreign investment, got Parliament's approval Wednesday over opposition from radicals who want state control and no foreign involvement. Tehran television showed throngs at the cemetery chanting ``Death to America!'' and ``Death to Israel!'' Iranian officials paid their respects at the tomb and promised to safeguard Khomeini's ideological legacy, the radio said. ``At a time when the government was in the hands of the enemy, the Imam's coming from a safe place to the center of the danger was an act rooted in the immense power of the Lord,'' Rafsanjani said at the graveside, the radio reported. Khomeini returned from 14 years of exile Feb. 1, 1979, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to flee. Ten days later, the government he left behind collapsed and Khomeini proclaimed the Islamic republic, Rafsanjani said: ``The Iranian people have proved that if a nation is resolute in its stand, and if it has courage and spirit, it cannot be defeated.'' He said recent changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere were ``a small example of what the people of Iran achieved 11 years ago, and these popular rebellions are the legacy of the people of Iran.'' Khamenei, the nation's spiritual leader, told another gathering in Tehran: ``The future belongs to Islam, the Moslems and the freedom-loving nations of the world,'' the television reported. ``In the confrontation with the organizations of the satanic powers (the West), it will be Islam which triumphs.'' Despite the fiery rhetoric, this year's anniversary of the revolution differs from past observances. It reflects the more more relaxed character of Rafsanjani's government, formed in August, and an easing of Islamic rigidity. While Khomeini was alive, the anniversary was a time of rallies to show support for him, and of reruns on state television of bloody clashes between revolutionary zealots and the shah's forces. On Thursday, television showed film of Khomeini arriving in Tehran in 1979 on a chartered Air France jet, but comedy and children's shows dominated the morning programming. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said music would be part of the celebrations this year for the first time. Khomeini felt good Moslems should shun music.
AP880727-0153 	X	The crowd gave Yves Saint Laurent a standing ovation for his colorful couture show on Wednesday, which featured his flawless tailoring and technique, and his daring use of color. It's hard to imagine anybody else sustaining such interest through a series of 25 tuxedo suits. Each one was perfection, whether with short skirts, long skirts, long pants, spencers or long jackets with white satin wing lapels or black kimono lapels. The sparkly vineyard embroideries with bunches of grapes plastered onto bolero jackets and necklines of satin cocktail suits and evening gowns nearly brought the house down. The show in the Intercontinental Hotel ballroom attracted celebrity clients including first lady Danielle Mitterrand, Paloma Picasso, film star Catherine Deneuve and American socialite Lynn Wyatt. ``It was terrific, like watching an artist at work,'' said Liza Minnelli. ``His clothes are works of art. It's like going to a museum.'' The suits were classics, wearable anywhere. Shoulders were amply padded but not offensively so. Besides his favorite short and straight skirt, Saint Laurent has adopted another shape and length: a longer length to just below the knee, flared or pleated below the hip. Daytime trousers looked straightforward and sporty, although they could be dressed up by one of the mink or ruddy fox coats, or a taffeta coat, another great Saint Laurent item for winter. With raglan or puffed sleeves, these superb taffeta numbers sometimes had bright, contrasting linings. Saint Laurent's use of zingy color was a far cry from his sober looks of past seasons. Cerise and pink teamed often for day or evening, and brightly piped suede suits came on in turquoise and rust, red and green, rust and navy. It was a huge show _ 134 outfits _ and just about everything was totally elegant and wearable, from the beautiful Chanel-style dresses with touches of white and gold buttons to the marvelously draped chiffons with a feminine high-waisted look to emphasize the bust. Guy Laroche went colorful as well. The double-breasted cafe au lait smooth wool suit was excellently tailored and shown with a bright orange satin blouse. A violet leather fitted jacket with brown mink shawl collar and cuffs over a lean tobacco short skirt made a perfect dressy daytime outfit. Laroche used an original touch in some of the day and evening wear: Chinese-lantern puffs on the sleeves. Some of the evening wear was appealing, especially the beaded and embroidered black dresses. But short evening gowns with puffy skirts and plenty of fancy touches looked young and fussy. Lecoanet-Hemant, a youthful pair of designers celebrating their 10th haute couture season, showed they have all the technique it takes to make couture. But it seems a shame to waste so much fabulous fabric and detail on what sometimes ends up looking more like abstract sculpture than clothes. Topped by spiraling hats, the dresses and suits with tiny skirts, enormous stand-out basque bottoms on jackets, huge cone-shaped tops sometimes looked overladen with details, and too zany for comfort. Nevertheless, the miniskirts, draped and ``laced'' through rhinestone loops, the exotic cut-out patterns and the superb satins and rich Indian fabrics were well worth looking at, if hard to wear. Paco Rabanne also seems to concentrate more on showy art objects than clothes, and aptly showed at the Decorative Arts wing of the Louvre. He is famous for his chain-mail effects, and obliged an audience eager to be entertained. Rabanne's sequined dresses, too, were larger than life, often dazzling in all colors of the rainbow, reflected prism-like from the sequins. Not everything was impractical. Rabanne also showed some very attractive rubber raincoats and a good-looking reversible rubber bolero lined with sequins worn with a black corduroy jumpsuit.
AP881009-0011 	X	About 200 people have died and hundreds more have been injured in widespread rioting in Algeria over the past five days, police and hospital sources said Sunday. Most of the deaths came in clashes between the army and demonstrators in the southern and eastern suburbs of Algiers, in the western port city of Oran and in a dozen other provincial centers, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity. Rioters have been protesting the government's austerity policies and escalating prices. Interior Minister El Hadi Khediri said in a televised address Saturday night that members of the security forces were among the dead, but he gave no figures. Bachir Rouiz, the information minister, told a news conference Saturday that too many authorities were involved to give an accurate official list of casualties. The police and hospital sources gave casualty accounts amounting to at least 200 killed, with many hundred wounded. The largest number of casualties appeared to come from Kouba on the southern fringes of Algiers, where witnesses said the army shot directly into the crowd Saturday night after people ignored repeated calls to disperse. The army used heavy machine guns mounted on tanks and jeeps in Kouba, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hospital sources there later reported more than 60 dead. The government announced Friday night and later repeated that soldiers had orders to fire on protesters defying a ban on demonstrations under a state of emergency proclaimed Thursday.
AP880421-0162 	X	Michael Dukakis, the clear Democratic front-runner after beating Jesse Jackson and Albert Gore Jr. in New York, said today the party's runner-up after the primaries won't necessarily be the vice presidential choice. Gore, conceding ``things didn't turn out exactly as I planned,'' suspended his campaign but said he would hang on to the delegates he's won so far. ``I want no part of a stop-Jackson or stop-Dukakis movement. The only man I want to stop is George Bush and we're going to stop George Bush, Gore said, bringing applause from supporters at a news conference in a Senate office building. ``Technically, I shall remain a candidate for the nomination but only to enable my delegates to go to the convention so they can represent our point of view in our party's deliberations,'' he said. Gore, the youngest candidate in the race, joked that in the campaign, ``I was doing great until I turned 40.'' Jackson, in Pennsylvania, brushed aside surveys suggesting he faces an uphill fight in next week's primary in that state. ``I do not follow opinion polls, I mold opinion,'' Jackson told cheering supporters in Philadelphia. Gore's decision to merely suspend his campaign followed a similar action by Sen. Paul Simon earlier. Both Dukakis and Jackson were campaigning today in Pennsylvania, where 178 Democratic delegates are at stake on Tuesday. Dukakis was going on to Ohio, which holds its primary a week later. Dukakis, asked about a potential running mate during an interview with The Associated Press, said, ``I have spent literally zero time thinking about it. And I will not, unless and until I have either won the nomination or it looks as if it's pretty well in hand.'' Some Jackson backers were beginning to float the idea of Jackson as a possible running mate if Dukakis were the nominee. ``There would be lots of enthusiasm for that ticket,'' campaign chairman Willie Brown told The New York Times. But Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk said such a ticket was unlikely. Kirk, in comments published in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said, ``Only once in 19 elections since the turn of the century has the nominee turned to the person who placed second and asked him to run. It was 1960.'' Dukakis himself said, ``If I were to finish second, it wouldn't entitle me to anything more than consideration, period.'' He refused to discuss any individuals and tried to steer questions about the vice presidency away from Jackson. ``The nominee makes that decision _ as he (Jackson) himself said. And rightly so,'' Dukakis said. On the Republican side, Vice President George Bush continued his march to the nomination, with 1,052 of the 1,139 delegates needed to nominate. Bush was endorsed Wednesday by California Gov. George Deukmejian, who had initially pledged neutrality through the June 7 California primary. But Bush's only remaining competitor is Pat Robertson, who has all but halted his campaign. Simon's suspension of his Democratic presidential campaign earlier this month drew fire from Jackson, who complained bitterly about the Illinois' senator's decision to keep a lock on delegates that would otherwise have gone to him. Jackson campaign spokesman Bob Brosage brushed aside talk of Jackson as vice president. ``We're still running for president,'' he said. ``There are significant primaries to come.'' And Jackson himself gave no indication he's giving up his drive for the nomination. ``We have come a long way, and we will not turn back,'' he told an enthusiastic crowd of 3,500 at a Philadelphia rally. Jackson was also picking up the endorsement today of the Philadelphia Daily News. A survey commissioned by the newspaper, in concert with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, suggested this week that Dukakis had a 3-1 lead in the state. Even so, ``Jesse Jackson can win,'' the Daily News said in an editorial. Financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission indicated Jackson had his best fund-raising month ever in March, raising $2.8 million. But Dukakis, whose campaign has been well bankrolled all along, raised $3.4 million during the same period. Jackson's stops in Pennsylvania today ranged from a high school to a labor rally to a homeless shelter. Dukakis was heading for Pittsburgh tonight, after spending a day in Boston following the New York primary. New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, at a Democratic dinner in Washington Wednesday night, was eager to move beyond the raucous contest in his home state. ``I expect the campaign will be converted to an intelligent, civilized exchange of opinions,'' he said. Dukakis is comfortably ahead of Jackson in the delegate count, getting a boost Wednesday from the selection of congressional ``super delegates.'' The latest Associated Press delegate count gives Dukakis 1,063.15; Jackson 841.1; Gore 421.55; and uncommitted 613.75, out of 2,081 needed to nominate. But Dukakis was doing his best to dampen any talk of inevitability. When he was introduced at a Statehouse reception in Massachusetts as ``the next president of the United States,'' he grinned but quickly cautioned: ``Steady as she goes.'' In one respect, however, Dukakis was behaving as if he were the nominee, focusing attacks on Bush, who is all but certain to carry the GOP banner in the fall. ``I'm a doer,'' Dukakis said Wednesday, saying that characteristic stands in ``sharp contrast to the Republican nominee.''
AP881218-0069 	X	Singer Lou Rawls was host of a star-studded weekend telethon that raised more than $9.4 million in pledges for the United Negro College Fund. More than 50 stars appeared in the Ninth Annual Lou Rawls Parade of Stars featuring performances from celebrities including Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte, Neil Sedaka, Ben Vereen, Aretha Franklin and Bob Hope. Taped messages from Michael Jackson and President Reagan also were shown during the seven-hour telethon. The show was broadcast locally from 6 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday on KTLA-TV, but will not be shown in several cities, including San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, St. Louis and Baltimore, until Dec. 30. Telethon officials said telephone lines will be open until the show has been televised in all target areas. ``The beat goes on and I'm still going,'' Rawls said during a break in taping. ``These students are going to be the next politicians, lawyers, doctors, engineers. ... We've got to make sure they get it right in order for them to fulfill themselves and their destiny,'' he said. Contributions benefit 42 member colleges. The private schools enroll about 45,000 students. Last year's telethon raised about $10 million, said college fund spokeswoman Adrienne Rhodes.
AP880428-0081 	X	A rainstorm with winds of more than 60 mph battered northern Bangladesh, injuring more than 100 people and leaving an estimated 15,000 people homeless, police said today. Police at Rangpur, 80 miles north of Dhaka, said by telephone that the storm Wednesday destroyed at least 3,000 mud-and-straw huts, uprooted hundreds of trees and downed electrical lines. Thousands of acres of rice paddy were damaged, they added. Most of the injuries were caused by collapsing huts or flying tree limbs and other debris, they said. About 20 people were reported in critical condition. Police said 15,000 people, most of them poor farmers, were homeless. Rainstorms with high winds are common during summer months in Bangladesh. In the past two weeks, storms in several areas, including the capital of Dhaka, have claimed more than a dozen lives and injured several hundred people.
AP900324-0043 	X	A storm that moved across the Midwest today dumped more snow in Kansas and Missouri and threatened a winter redux in the Northeast. Snowfall accumulation early today had reached as much as 8 inches in northern Missouri and 7 inches in parts of central Kansas. Light snow also fell today south of Indianapolis, in southwestern Pennsyvania and in Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky. The storm front threatening southern Ohio was expected to bring up to 5 inches of snow overnight to West Virginia and between 2 and 4 inches to Philadelphia. Snow also was expected today in New York, New England and portions of South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Elsewhere, unseasonably warm temperatures were expected to extend across the Southwest, and thunderstorms were to scatter over the southern Plains. Forecasters predicted highs today in the 80s and 90s in the Southwest and Florida, and in the 40s and 50s across much of the nation's midsection. Thunderstorms produced inch-thick hail near the Oklahoma towns of Mountain Park and Meers on Friday. In the Florida Panhandle, some of an estimated 2,500 evacuees began moving back to their flood-damaged homes on Friday as swollen rivers began receding. The flooding stemmed from torrential rains in Alabama and Georgia a week ago. The nation's high Friday was 97 degrees at Borrego Springs, Calif. Other reports at 4 a.m. EST: _EAST: Albany, N.Y., 25 fair; Atlanta 56 fair; Boston 30 cloudy; Buffalo 23 snow; Charleston, S.C., 57 fair; Chattanooga 52 fair; Cincinnati 29 snow; Cleveland 29 cloudy; Detroit 23 fair; Hatteras 56 fair; Jacksonville 52 fair; Key West 71 fair; Knoxville 50 partly cloudy; Macon 58 fair; Miami 71 partly cloudy; New York 35 partly cloudy; Philadelphia 37 cloudy; Pittsburgh 30 cloudy; Portland, Maine 23 fair; Richmond 43 fair; Tampa 56 fair; Washington D.C., 42 cloudy. _CENTRAL: Birmingham 54 partly cloudy; Bismarck 14 fair; Chicago 29 cloudy; Denver 18 freezing drizzle; Des Moines 25 snow; Fort Worth 50 cloudy; Indianapolis 25 snow; Kansas City 20 snow; Little Rock 44 rain; Louisville 32 snow; Memphis 46 fair; Nashville 45 cloudy; New Orleans 59 fair; North Platte 16 cloudy; Oklahoma City 29 windy; Omaha 24 cloudy; Rapid City 12 snow; St. Louis 24 snow; Minneapolis-St. Paul 18 partly cloudy; Sault Ste. Marie 11 fair; San Antonio 63 cloudy. _WEST: Albuquerque 49 fair; Anchorage 25 fair; Boise 33 fair; Casper 07 snow; Fairbanks 22 fair; Great Falls 03 fair; Honolulu 72 partly cloudy; Las Vegas 64 fair; Los Angeles 57 foggy; Medford 40 fair; Pendleton 35 cloudy; Phoenix 71 fair; Portland, Ore., 40 fair; Reno 43 fair; Salt Lake City 44 partly cloudy; San Diego 56 hazy; San Francisco 49 fair; Seattle 41 fair; Spokane 30 partly cloudy. _INTERNATIONAL: Calgary 12 fair; Montreal 18 fair; Ottawa 19 fair; Regina 09 fair; Toronto 19 fair; Winnipeg 10 fair; Merida 72 fair; San Juan 73 fair.
AP900111-0082 	X	The re-election of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Parliament has been challenged in court by the candidate he defeated in voting marred by violence and fraud charges, news reports said today. Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, filed a petition Wednesday in Lucknow saying the former prime minister's campaign workers resorted to terror, bribery and abuse of power during November's balloting, according to reports in The Statesman and other newspapers. ``My petition alleges that the election was conducted in defiance of all rules and regulations and of every democratic norm,'' The Statesman quoted the losing candidate as saying when he left the court building in Lucknow. The two Gandhis are not related. The challenger asked the High Court of the state of Uttar Pradesh to declare the poll invalid and hold new elections. No date was given for further court action. After an investigation of the Nov. 24 voting in the two candidates' Amethi constitutency, the Election Commission threw out thousands of ballots and ordered a partial repoll in the poor rural district 60 miles southeast of Lucknow. The revote was ordered after Rajmohan Gandhi and his Janata Dal Party complained of widespread voter fraud and intimidation by supporters of Rajiv Gandhi and his Congress Party. In the most dramatic confrontation, a local Janata Dal leader was seriously wounded when he was shot in the stomach during a dispute with Congress Party workers on election day. In the final vote count, Rajiv Gandhi won 270,471 votes to Rajmohan Gandhi's 69,099. Nationwide, the elections were the most violent in India's 42 years of independence. At least 140 people died across the country during the voting. The Congress Party lost control of the goverment, and V. P. Singh of the National Front alliance came to power as prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi was relegated to the role of opposition leader in Parliament.
AP880724-0039 	X	This year's college graduates received higher salary offers than last year's graduates, especially in business fields, but the number of job offers declined slightly, according to a survey released Sunday. The largest increase was in accounting, with graduates receiving salary offers 10.9 percent higher than last year. The average monthly offer rose from $1,812 to $2,010, for an average yearly salary of $24,120. Job offers in accounting were down slightly from 5,478 to 5,264, according to a College Placement Council survey released Sunday. The data included offers made to students graduating between Sept. 1, 1987, and Aug. 31, 1988. Placement offices at 154 colleges and universities participated in the survey. Acceptances were not reported because August graduations were included. In business administration, the average salary offer rose 4.1 percent from $1,701 to $1,772, or $21,264 a year, but offers fell from 1,788 to 1,285, the survey said. In banking, salary offers dropped 3.9 percent from $1,889 to $1,815, or $21,780 a year, but the number of jobs increased from 395 to 527. Non-technical graduates received 48 percent of the job offers made to graduates with bachelor's degrees, while technical graduates received 52 percent of the offers. For non-technical graduates, 40 percent of the job offers came from public accounting employers, while the electrical and electronic machinery and equipment industry provided 16 percent of the job offers to technical graduates. The average monthly salary offered to non-technical graduates was $2,045, or $24,540 a year, according to the survey. Technical graduates averaged monthly offers of $2,465, or $29,580. For master's of business administration candidates with non-technical undergraduate degrees, starting offers increased 5 percent to $2,791, or $33,492 annually. Inexperienced MBA candidates with technical undergraduate degrees attracted offers of $3,192, or $38,304, an 11.8 percent rise. Technical and non-technical MBA graduates with previous experience garnered increased salary offers between 4 percent and 16 percent, the survey said. The engineering field provided 42 percent of the job offers to graduates with bachelor's degrees and was followed by business with 40 percent, sciences at 10 percent, humanities and social sciences at 6 percent and communications at 2 percent. However, for master's degree candidates, business disciplines made 52 percent of the offers; engineering, 36 percent; sciences, 8 percent; and humanities and social sciences, 4 percent. The survey reported men received slightly higher salary offers in business administration, marketing and distribution, economics and several science disciplines. Women received slightly higher offers in engineering.
AP900311-0054 	X	James Wesley Coldsmith, former editor and publisher of newspapers in Alexandria, Va., died Saturday at his home of leukemia. He was 60. Coldsmith was an editor or publisher of newspapers in the northern Virginia city from the 1960s through the 1980s and ran twice for the city council as a Republican. He expanded an advertising flyer into what became The Journal group of newspapers in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs near Washington. Coldsmith earlier had been editor and publisher of the Alexandria Port Packet and the Alexandria Gazette. Born in Parsons, Kan., Coldsmith worked for The Associated Press in Tokyo, Denver and Chicago, before moving to Virginia in 1966. Earlier, he served in the Army and was news editor of the Stars and Stripes in Tokyo.
AP881006-0108 	X	A woman suffering from tuberculosis who repeatedly refused treatment was arrested by authorities, who suspect she spread the disease to family members and acquaintances. The woman, Margaret Allen, 29, was taken Wednesday to Montabello Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore for treatment. Elin Gursky, director of epidemiology and disease control for the Prince George's County health department, said Allen was arrested by sheriff's deputies under a little-used provision of Maryland law that requires public health officials to control the spread of contagious diseases. Tuberculosis, which causes coughing, night sweats and profound weight loss, can be cured but can cause death if not treated, Gursky said. Health officials cannot force Allen to receive treatment for the disease, but they can incarcerate her to prevent its spread, Gursky said. Allen was described as being in a highly infectious stage of the disease, and if she leaves the hospital, Gursky said, she can be jailed. Health officials repeatedly tried to persuade Allen to be treated for the disease and then obtained a court order in a civil proceeding before seeking a criminal warrant for her arrest, Gursky said. Several members of her family have tested positive for tuberculosis, and are expected to receive treatment. ``I don't want people to think we go around arresting people who have communicable diseases because we don't,'' Gursky said. ``This was an extreme case.'' Tuberculosis is caused by an airborne strain of bacteria that can be transmitted by sharing a close space with an infected person, she said.
AP900606-0293 	X	A federal appeals court Wednesday gave states the authority to regulate new telephone services such as voice mail and computer access, a move one Baby Bell company said could raise costs to consumers. The decision could force the seven regional Bell telephone companies to set up separate corporate entities to handle their regulated telephone services and their newer, unregulated services, officials said. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion vacated a 1985 Federal Communications Commission rule that had required the Baby Bells to keep finances separate for regulated and unregulated services but not create separate corporations. Seven lawsuits had been filed to overturn the rule. The court's ruling allows each state to decide whether to require separate corporations. The California Public Utilities Commission, which filed three of the lawsuits against the FCC, heralded the decision. The plaintiffs had contended that the Baby Bells could have subsidized unregulated services by charging higher prices on regulated phone service. ``It properly gives the states greater freedom to promote the development of enhanced services and the terms and conditions upon which those services are provided,'' Commission President G. Mitchell Wilk said. Steven Harris, director of planning and policy for Pacific Bell, said the company supports state regulation but fears state control could lead to a costly corporate division of regulated and unregulated services. ``It's not clear that we are going to have to split off,'' Harris said. ``It's up to the states. But we strongly believe that independent subsidiaries are not necessary and would make it more difficult to provide the services to the public.'' An FCC spokeswoman said the opinion is a setback for the communications industry. ``We adopted the rules because we believed they would be in the public interest,'' said spokeswoman Jane Mago. ``So, of course, we're disappointed in the outcome. We have to start from scratch.'' Unregulated communications services have developed rapidly in the past 10 years into a multi-billion-dollar industry that ranges from voice and electronic mail to automatic teller machines, Harris said. The appeals court ordered the FCC to develop new rules to help regulate new telecommunications services offered by the Baby Bell companies. Those companies had been prevented from providing information services under a court decree that stripped AT&T of its local operating companies in January 1984. Later that year, the FCC allowed the Baby Bells to offer unregulated services through separate subsidiaries. But in 1985, the federal agency dropped the requirement for separate subsidiares. The court said the FCC arbitrarily and capriciously reversed itself without showing that cost-shifting between unregulated and regulated services wouldn't occur and raise the bills of ``captive telephone customers.'' ``The record yields no evidence that the (Bell Operating Companies) power to extract monopoly rents from local telephone customers has diminished,'' the court said.
AP900512-0137 	X	Pope John Paul II declared Saturday that the Mexican government should not consider the Roman Catholic church a constitutional enemy, but rather an ally in the fight for a more moral society. ``In a state of law, the full and effective recognition of religious freedom should be the fruit and guarantee of civil liberties,'' John Paul told Mexico's bishops in his strongest call yet for legal recognition of the church. Despite being overwhelmingly Catholic, Mexico has harsh restrictions on church activity that date to 1859. The church was for many years considered a reactionary force by the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, but the rules, which include bans on a church role in education and participation in political life, have been winked at in recent years. ``A theme that certainly concerns us, as pastors of the church in Mexico, is the present civil legislation about religious material,'' the pope said. ``The church in Mexico wants to be considered and treated not as something strange, nor as an enemy that must be confronted and fought, but as an ally of all that is good, noble and beautiful,'' John Paul said. He made his remarks in an address dedicating a new headquarters for the Roman Catholic Episcopal Conference of Mexico in this industrial suburb 15 miles north of Mexico City. The pope said the church could help the Mexican government by strengthening family life and giving young people _ the majority of the population _ deeper moral values. John Paul also expressed ``profound satisfaction for the climate of greater understanding'' with the government, illustrated by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's recent naming of a personal envoy to the Vatican. The move was seen as a step toward re-establishing diplomatic relations broken in 1926. John Paul also reviewed for the bishops many of the themes that he had already touched on during his stay in Mexico. He said the bankruptcy of communism showed the futility of building a society without God, but he also criticized capitalism for its materialism. He said family life should be strengthened with faith, attacked artificial birth control and praised the bishops' work in dealing with workers who migrate to ``El Norte'' _ the United States _ ``full of illusions about making progress that corresponds to their own expectations.'' Later, the Polish-born pope attacked the mixing of Marxism and Catholicism in so-called ``liberation theology'' before both the bishops and in a later address to an audience of 10,000 priests, nuns, seminarians and students at Christopher Columbus College, a Catholic instituion in Mexico City. Referring to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, he said it was ``incomprehensible that some sons of the church in these lands (Mexico) persist in presenting as viable models whose disaster is obvious in other parts of the world.'' In a final address to a gathering of 1,500 members of Mexico's intellectual and cultural community at the National Library, the pontiff took up the theme again, saying that while communism had been discredited, the culture of materialism in the West has not yet ``assured a civilization that dignifies man.'' Earlier in the day, during a visit to the central Mexican farming region of Zacatecas, the pope expressed sympathy for the hundreds of thousands of workers who migrate to the United States each year. ``I want to remember also those who, for different circumstances, have had to emigrate from this land, obliged to seek their living elsewhere,'' the pontiff told a flag-waving crowd of over 200,000 spread across a rocky, red-clay mountainside. ``The Lord also suffered the injustice of having to abandon his land.'' John Paul spoke in a region of north-central Mexico once known for silver mines but now dominated by farms and grinding poverty. In recent years the state of Zacatecas has become one of the centers of illegal migration to the United States. The pope told hundreds of thousands of people gathered for a Mass on a rocky, red-clay mountainside outside Zacatecas that manual work had dignity. He denounced exploitation and said workers needed ``adequate forms of association to defend your rights,'' referring to unions. The pope was scheduled to leave Mexico Sunday morning, stopping briefly on the Caribbean island of Curacao before reaching Rome on Monday. It was John Paul's 47th trip outside Italy since becoming pope and his 10th pilgrimage to Latin America.
AP880217-0008 	X	ABC only got a silver in the ratings the first week of Winter Olympics coverage, but ABC's ``World News Tonight'' was golden for the first time since August, snapping CBS' 20-week win streak. The first two nights of the Olympics, Saturday and Sunday, varied widely in the A.C. Nielsen Co. ratings, but according to ABC averaged higher than the first two nights of the 1984 games. An estimated 25 million viewers saw Sunday night's coverage, featuring pairs figure skating, putting it in the top 10 with a 19.7 rating and a 30 share. But Saturday's coverage of hockey was in the bottom 10 with a 9.9 rating and 17 share. The rating is a percentage of the 88.6 million households with televisions. The share is a percentage of sets in use that are tuned to that program. The first two nights of the 1984 games were a Tuesday and a Wednesday, and had a combined rating of 13.8 compared to 15.5 for this year, said ABC. ABC's highest rated show of the week wasn't the Olympics, but the conclusion of the two-part miniseries ``Elvis and Me,'' the highest-rated miniseries so far this season. But NBC handily won the week ending Feb. 14, with an average prime-time rating of 16.2. ABC was second with 14.9. CBS was third with 14.2. After winning 19 of the 21 weeks so far in the season, NBC has an average rating of 16.4, and CBS and ABC are tied with 13.6. The 10 top-rated shows of the week were: ``The Cosby Show'' NBC, ``A Different World'' NBC, ``Elvis and Me, Part 2'' ABC, ``Cheers'' NBC, ``Golden Girls'' NBC, ``Growing Pains'' ABC, ``Night Court'' NBC, ``Who's the Boss?'' ABC, ``L.A. Law'' NBC and the Winter Olympics Sunday coverage on ABC. NBC's new ``Sonny Spoon,'' starring Mario Van Peebles as a chameleon private eye, premiered last Friday with so-so numbers, ranking 49th. The lowest rated shows of the week were: ``Our House,'' Winter Olympics Saturday coverage, ``West 57th,'' ``The Law and Harry McGraw,'' ``Decision '88 _ The Iowa Caucus,'' ``Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,'' ``The Thorns,'' ``48 Hours in Israel,'' ``Sledge Hammer!'' and ``The Charmings.'' For the week ending Feb. 12, ABC's ``World News Tonight'' had an average rating of 11.8 and a 20 share. The ``CBS Evening News'' had an 11.1 and 19. ``NBC Nightly News'' had a 10.9 and 19. Network analysts had no immediate explanation for ABC's showing. However, last week's ratings could have been affected by coverage of the Iowa caucuses, the first results from the 1988 presidential race. ``We tend to do well with major stories, be it Challenger or coverage of Chernobyl, and with live programming like the Iran hearings and political coverage,'' said ABC News spokeswoman Elise Adde. ABC's prime-time special on Iowa ranked a respectable 44 out of 68. It followed the conclusion of ``Elvis and Me.'' NBC's Iowa coverage ranked 63rd. CBS delayed its coverage of Iowa until 11:30 p.m. EST, after prime time. The last time ABC was first in news ratings was the week of Aug. 10, 1987.
AP881109-0212 	X	Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan's victory over an incumbent senator caps a political career that began when he was elected president of the student body in high school. ``We're ecstatic,'' Bryan exulted after he defeated GOP Sen. Chic Hecht. ``This has been a real tough campaign.'' Bryan has been a well-regarded governor and has demonstrated considerable media savvy. Hours after a rocket plant exploded in Henderson earlier this year, he appeared at Las Vegas television stations to explain what had gone wrong. He is something of an independent among Democrats. He supports strong defense spending, opposes the Equal Rights Amendment and favors aid to the contras in Nicaragua, all of which put him outside the Democratic mainstream. He has opposed plans to locate a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, and he took a drubbing from Hecht when Gov. Michael Dukakis said he stood by Congress's decision to locate the dump there. Neither Bryan nor Hecht were shy about spending money: Bryan's victory came after the most expensive race in Nevada history, in which the candidates spent an estimated $6 million. Bryan collected 50 percent of the vote to Hecht's 46 percent. Libertarian James Frye received 1.6 percent and 2 percent of the voters selected ``none of the above.'' Bryan joins Sen. Harry Reid as Nevada's second Democratic senator. His win elevates Lt. Gov. Bob Miller to acting governor to serve out the final two years of Bryan's term. Bryan, 51, was elected governor in 1982 to fulfill a dream he had since serving as president of his sophomore and senior classes at Las Vegas High School and student body president his senior year at the University of Nevada-Reno. Despite an image his detractors said was bland, Bryan successfully fought for diversification of Nevada's tourism-dependent economy and won significant reforms in the state's educational system.
AP880930-0021 	X	Swedish army Maj. Wilbert Algotson was 39 when he packed his wife and two small children into the family car and drove off to the battlefield, to a war not his own. The Algotsons headed for Central Asia, where he helped supervise the India-Pakistan cease-fire as a U.N. observer. Fifteen years later, the 36-man U.N. Observer Group in India and Pakistan is still on duty along the disputed Jammu-Kashmir frontier, and Algotson, along with thousands like him, has a small share of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1988. The prize was awarded Thursday to the United Nations peacekeeping forces. Algotson will never see any of the $390,000 in prize money, but, in a telephone interview, he sounded satisfied all the same. ``I'm very pleased and also proud of having been part of it,'' he said. An army veteran, Algotson, like all other U.N. peacekeepers, volunteered for the job. In neutral countries like Sweden and Finland, which regularly contribute men and money to peacekeeping efforts, such duty is usually the only chance to see action. ``I knew it could be dangerous, too. There were still exchanges of fire over the line of control, in spite of the peace accord after the Bangladesh war,'' he said. At that time, in 1973, making the drive was a popular thing to do for the Finns, Danes, Swedes and other Europeans on the force, he said. It was partly for the adventure, partly because of the money involved. Algotson was entitled to an airline ticket for himself, but not his family, so driving was the most economical way to get there. The policy has become more generous in recent years. The plan, he said, was to do his job along the cease-fire line while his family lived in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Getting there was trouble enough. The drive took them through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, a French family traveling ahead of them was murdered during an overnight stop. During his one-year tour, Algotson served in several field stations along the dividing line between hostile Indian and Pakistani troops. ``We were out for three to four weeks with the Indian or Pakistani units and then had a week or so off,'' he said. After a year, he and his family drove back to Sweden. Algotson said he felt that people at home were interested and felt positively about the United Nations and its work. He said there were a few extra allowances, but on the whole financial rewards were few. ``My economy took a slight turn for the better. But at that time the state didn't pay for the family, or for home leaves, so all in all it probably was about the same,'' he said. ``The (1988 Nobel Peace Prize) choice was well motivated, since everyone enlists to serve peace,'' Algotson said. ``It would be very troubling if the U.N. role became so weak that this working process was no longer possible.'' Algotson said it was gratifying to know that he helped prevent the spread of a regional war. But of the conflict itself? ``I see no end to it,'' he said. At 54, and still on army duty, Algotson said he was considering volunteering again. ``If something comes up in Namibia I might go for it,'' he said. U.N. officials are considering sending a peacekeeping force to Namibia, or South-west Africa, pending successful negotiations between South Africa and Angola.
AP881007-0264 	X	Arco paid the state nearly $172.3 million Friday to settle most of the legal battle over the amount the oil company owes in state income taxes for 1978 through 1981, the state Revenue Department announced. Los Angeles-based Arco and the department resolved 14 major issues in the case, department spokesman Royce Weller said in a news release. The issues involve the amount of taxable income from the production of oil and natural gas from Prudhoe Bay and Cook Inlet, allowable tax deductions for exploration, development and operation of the oil and gas fields, and disagreement over the company's pipeline income, Weller said. Arco and the state agreed to pursue litigation of two remaining issues involving a potential tax liability of $57.3 million, Weller said. Those issues involve the amount of interest the company can deduct in computing taxable income as an owner of the TransAlaska Pipeline System, and a dispute over how federal entitlement regulations are to be applied under the state's oil and gas corporate income tax, Weller said. Arco's 1988 profits will not be affected by the settlement because the company's financial reserves are sufficient to cover the issues in dispute, the news release said. Gov. Steve Cowper was briefed on terms of the settlement and approved it, Weller said. William E. Wade Jr., president of Arco Alaska Inc., said the settlement avoided a costly and protracted legal fight. ``The agreement reached with the state of Alaska is a reasonable resolution of complex and difficult issues,'' Wade said. Alaska Attorney General Grace Berg Schaible said the state decided to pursue litigation on the other issues because they involve legal precedents that will affect the entire petroleum industry. ``To the extent the remaining litigation falls in the test-case category, this settlement today marks the end of a long tax dispute,'' she said. ``This settlement reflects a reasonble assessment of what we would have recovered and serves the best interests of the state.'' State Revenue Commissioner Hugh Malone termed the settlement ``just and fair.''
AP880217-0012 	X	A city official says transit agency employees are suspected sabotaging safety devices on train doors. ``This appears to be an insider problem, someone who obviously knows enough about cars to disable them,'' said Frank Wilson, the Chicago Transit Authority's senior deputy executive director in charge of maintenance. Inspectors at a rail yard discovered the vandalism, involving the air-filled rubber edges that prevent doors from closing on passengers, Wilson said. Over the weekend, 25 doors on 18 cars were vandalized, he said. Air hoses either were disconnected or cut cleanly where they connect to a compressor, Wilson said Monday. On Tuesday, crews found 11 new cases of apparent tampering, including five instances of damage to cars that had been repaired since the weekend, he said. There were no passenger injuries linked to the faulty doors. Wilson has been very outspoken about the agency's problems since coming to Chicago a month ago from a similar post in Philadelphia. Last fall, the transit authority suspected employee sabotage when fuses necessary for emergency brake systems were missing in 100 cars. An investigation failed to produce any suspects.
AP900605-0155 	X	A Christian Scientist accused of manslaughter for not seeking medical help for his son's fatal ailment testified Tuesday that he had believed prayer was helping the boy. Special Prosecutor John Kiernan cross-examined David Twitchell in an effort to uncover inconsistencies in prior testimony about the severity of the five-day illness of Twitchell's 2{-year-old son Robyn, who died four years ago of a bowel obstruction. Both Twitchell and his wife, Ginger, both 34, are accused of manslaughter. The Boston-based Christian Science Church teaches that disease, like sin, can be healed by spiritual means alone. Twitchell testified he was concerned over his son's health but believed that prayer was working for Robyn, even during the last few hours of his life. Kiernan again questioned Twitchell on whether he made a mistake in not taking his son to doctors when he began vomiting and gesturing at his stomach. ``If they could hawhy you didn't call a doctor for Robyn, because you wanted to maintain your spiritual purity?'' Kiernan asked Tuesday. ``Absolutely not,'' Twitchell replied. Under questioning by defense attorney Rikki Klieman, Twitchell testified about his knowledge of legal obligations for a Christian Scientist. For example, he said, Christian Scientists were not exempt from required prenatal blood tests, such as one given to his wife, but that school children did not have to be immunized. Prosecutors have emphasized they are not putting the Christian Science faith on trial, but that they are seeking to protect children placed at risk by parents who rely solely on spiritual healing.
AP900309-0207 	X	Timbuktu was lucky last year. It rained, the locusts stayed away and, with some help from the outside, farmers produced one of the best harvests in half a century. Farmers in nearly all the countries that hug the southern Sahara Desert's harsh border produced similar bumper crops that filled graneries and children's bellies from Senegal east to Niger. The good fortune of 1988 and 1989, welcome as it is, also illuminates the profound problems facing these poor nations struggling to feed themselves _ problems that range from a birthrate that outpaces production to a marketplace that stacks the deck against even the hardest-working farmer. Experts note that, even with the bountiful harvest in most countries, sub-Saharan Africa imported nearly 9 million tons of cereal grains in 1988. ``Nonetheless, the 500,000-ton grain surplus is spectacular news,'' said U.S. Ambassador Robert Pringle. ``Now everyone is wondering how to export what they have grown.'' Abduleh al Kalifa, hip-deep in a field of emerald-green wheat rippling in a desert wind near Timbuktu, doesn't worry about exporting. He just wishes he could sell his surplus 30 miles away, in Timbuktu. ``Five years ago there was no rain, nothing to eat,'' said Kalifa, 36, already middle-aged in a nation where the average life expectancy is 49. ``Foreigners gave us everything. These last two years, the harvests were good. We have hope and two warehouses are full. ``We have more than we can eat, more than we can store and we can't sell the rest,'' he said. ``How can we get our grain to town if there are no roads? How can we compete with grain from other countries? How can we earn enough money to buy food when there is another drought?'' Mali's last drought left its mark on the children. Two-year-olds are solid and round, but children born in the drought of 1984-1985 are spindly, apt to suffer from chronic malnutrition. ``If you are malnourished, a few good meals will make you feel better, but you are still malnourished,'' said Leo DeVos, director of the United Nations Children's Fund in Mali. ``The whole country is like these children. It will take more than a couple of good harvests to put the country back on its feet. ``Still, it's nice to see the green,'' he said. ``It is the color of hope.'' When UNICEF arrived five years ago with emergency food, the government was in chaos, people were starving and huge numbers of refugees arrived in cities each day from the barren countryside. Enormous need remained when the crisis ended, so UNICEF and others stayed on to help. The United States, which spends about $30 million a year in Mali, now helps entrepreneurs and small farmers. West Germany built warehouses for reserves and a highway that spans a nation as large as Texas and California combined. France, Italy and others fight the advance of the desert, dig wells, organize cooperatives and help in dozens of other ways. UNICEF has concentrated on Timbuktu, a once-mysterious oasis that still evokes romance and adventure. Centuries ago, Timbuktu was a crossroads of caravans, a center of learning and a garden in the desert, where the river ran deep and trees hung heavy with fruit. Now, the advancing desert has tied a noose of dunes around it and many donors have written the city off as a lost cause. With funds donated by Italian labor unions, UNICEF installed pumps to make use of Niger River water and drilled wells to tap ground water for irrigation. ``We wanted to set an example, to show what could be done in even the most precarious situation,'' DeVos said. One result of the five-year project was the field where Kalifa and his neighbors grew a 15-ton grain surplus, little of which can be sold. The Malian government used to have price controls, which kept food costs down and made urban voters happy, but discouraged farmers because of the low return on their labor. Controls were abolished at the insistence of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. International donors and lenders also demanded that Mali eliminate protectionist measures and subsidies to farmers. Their message was simple: No open markets, no aid. ``We have a long-term commitment to food aid, in return for which we ask that the entire cereal market be freed,'' said Dennis Brennan, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Bamako. With the market wide open, rice from Thailand and Louisiana costs less in the Timbuktu bazaar than grain grown down the road. ``The little guy works like crazy to grow something, pulling grain from soil that is poor, in primitive conditions and in a climate that is never favorable, even when there is no drought,'' said Giovanni Fiore, director of UNICEF's Timbuktu project and an Africa veteran. Then, when the farmer produces a surplus, there are no buyers. No one in the villages has any cash and consumers in Timbuktu buy whatever is cheapest. ``It comes from Europe or the United States where farmers receive subsidies,'' Fiore said. ``How can a Malian compete? He has no subsidy. All he has is taxes and the high cost of the pump, gasoline, oil, fertilizer, all of which has to be imported at double, triple, 10 times the cost to an American. ``Meanwhile, the donors tie aid to an open market in which farmers from developed countries can sell their surplus. So our farmers eat what they can, store a little, which will last a year or two, and when there is another extended drought, there will be famine.''
AP880624-0312 	X	Bond prices advanced Friday in quiet dealings as the dollar extended its recent gains in foreign-exchange trading. The Treasury's bellwether 30-year bond rose half a point, or $5 per $1,000 in face value, as its yield fell to 8.85 percent from 8.92 percent late Thursday. Analysts said the price increase was due to another rise in the dollar, which has gained ground steadily this week against other major currencies. A higher dollar increases the yields available to foreign investors on dollar-denominated securities, such as U.S. bonds and notes. Most of the gains occurred early in the session, and trading was described as relatively light. In the secondary market for Treasury bonds, prices of short-term government issues rose 5-32 point, intermediate maturities rose by between 7-32 point and 13-32 point and 20-year issues rose ] point, according to figures provided by Telerate Inc., a business-information service. The movement of a point is equivalent to a change of $10 in the price of a bond with a $1,000 face value. The Merrill Lynch Daily Treasury Index, which measures price movements on all outstanding Treasury issues with maturities of a year or longer, rose 0.27 to 110.13. The Shearson Lehman Hutton Daily Treasury Bond Index, which makes a similar measurement, rose 3.01 to 1,153.19. Corporate bonds were little changed. Moody's Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index, which measures price movements on 80 corporate bonds with maturities of five years or longer, rose 0.60 to 284.19. In the tax-exempt market, prices edged up 1-16 point, according to the Bond Buyer Municipal Bond Index. Yields on three-month Treasury bills fell 4 basis points to 6.49 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. Six-month bills were unchanged at 6.76 percent and one-year bills fell 3 basis points to 6.98 percent. The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, was quoted late in the day at 7| percent, down from 7 9-16 percent late Thursday.
AP900522-0134 	X	African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela accused the South African government Tuesday of massacring demonstrators and causing black-on-black violence. Mandela also charged the government with defaming his wife, Winnie, in a murder and assault trial involving one of her former bodyguards, and said the ANC is not satisfied with reforms introduced by President F.W. de Klerk. Mandela, speaking to reporters after returning from an eight-nation African tour, said de Klerk has no control over the police force. He accused police of ``slaughtering'' black people involved in political demonstrations. He alleged it was government policy to keep ANC supporters fighting members of the Inkatha political organization in Natal province, where more than 5,000 people have died in the past five years. ``It is quite clear that the government does not want this violence to end,'' Mandela said. ``If the government continues to massacre our people while they are talking of negotiations, that we cannot permit. We will have to address that question specifically in relation to whether these negotiations shall continue.'' De Klerk is hoping to begin formal talks with black leaders on constitutional changes that would give the black majority a voice in national affairs _ something denied them under the current system of apartheid. Since taking office in August, de Klerk has made a number of reforms, including legalizing the long-banned ANC; freeing Mandela from a life prison term; and ending segregation of beaches and hospitals. Mandela said the ANC is not satisfied. ``We have got basic demands,'' he said. ``The most basic of these is the demand for everybody to have the right to determine his own affairs.'' Mandela said the government has deliberately besmirched his wife's name by linking her to the alleged crimes of one of her former bodyguards, Jerry Richardson, but not charging her. Richardson is charged with murder, kidnapping, attempted murder and assault. Eight other bodyguards are facing lesser charges in separate trials. Three men have testified in court that Winnie Mandela whipped them, beat them allowed her bodyguards to keep them captive in her home and assault them in December 1988 and January 1989. One of the alleged victims, 14-year-old black activist Stompie Seipei Moeketsi, was found dead Jan. 6, 1989. Mrs. Mandela denies wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. ``When my wife is not charged and the whole case centers on her, she has no way of defending herself,'' Mandela said. But Mandela said he was not calling on the government to prosecute his wife. ``I am saying that the way the case has been conducted is intended to defame my wife without her having the opportunity to defend herself,'' he said. It was the first time Mandela had spoken publicly on the matter in South Africa since he was freed Feb. 12 from a life prison term for sabotage and plotting the overthrow of the white-minority government.
AP880913-0243 	X	A federal judge has ruled that United Airlines and American Airlines did not conspire to fix fees on their computerized reservation systems as several other carriers had charged. In handing down his decision Monday, U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie held that the airlines had no evidence to support any inference of conspiracy, but were relying solely on speculation. The plaintiffs, including Continental Airlines, USAir Group Inc., Northwest Airlines, had sought more than $1.1 billion in recovery of such fees paid to American and United from 1984 to 1987. Chicago-based United is the nation's largest airline, while American, based in Fort Worth, is the second biggest. ``American considers this to be a major victory,'' Anne H. McNamara, the airline's senior vice president and general counsel said Monday. ``We feel totally vindicated by the decision, because the judge recognized the conspiracy charges for what they are _ absolute speculation.'' In their antitrust complaint against American and United, the plaintiffs contended the defendants participated in a conspiracy spanning several years to raise the other carriers' cost of doing business. Specifically, plaintiffs accused the two airlines of illegally agreeing to fix the price of ``booking fees'' charged by SABRE and Apollo _ the American and United computerized reservations systems, respectively, beginning in November 1984. At that time American announced it would charge other airlines $1.75 per booking for the SABRE service. United later established a price of $1.85. The plaintiffs also alleged the two defendants unlawfully forced other carriers to pay what the industry terms ``interline ticketing fees,'' which are paid when one airline issues a ticket on its own internal ``ticket stock'' for travel on another airline, such as when a passenger's itinerary involves two or more carriers for a single trip. The court found American and United had met their ``procedural burden'' of showing each had independently decided on the level of booking fees after November 1984 and on establishment of a reimbursement charge for interline ticketing services. On Aug. 12, Rafeedie granted American's and United's motions for summary judgment on two of three of the plaintiffs' principal monopolization theories: that SABRE and Apollo are ``essential facilities'' and that the defendants engaged in ``monopoly leveraging.''
AP900123-0215 	X	This will be an active week, as every week is, for short-term interpreters of stock market action, the folks who explain to you at the switch of a microphone why the market rose or fell. There is plenty of resource material this week, as there always is, and it will not matter that yesterday's reason for the market falling might be put into service again to explain a subsequent improvement. Negatively, losses at the Bank of New England are making that industry look bad, the bankruptcy of Campeau Corp. might depress retailing, the uprising in Baku might fuel speculation about Mikhail Gorbachev's future. As usual, the negatives make up an endless list. Relatively new to the list this week are renewed fears of rising interest rates, a spread of pessimism from Tokyo stocks to New York, and maybe a worsening of the budget deficit. Of use in explaining strength in the market would be any sign whatever that the Federal Reserve might consider the White House plea for lower borrowing rates, peace in the Soviet Union, or evidence of a pickup in corporate profits. All these are underlying possibilities, but they are not really immediate causes. Triggering them will be the usual statistical confetti from government and industry. This week's list includes an announcement about the federal deficit for December, the weekly money supply figures, and a really big one, an estimate of fourth-quarter gross national product. In addition, there will be the mid-January report of automotive sales, reports on new jobless claims and employment costs, and the level of durable goods orders during December. In action, these triggers can be wonderfully imprecise. Some lend themselves to ambiguity, and that makes them ideal for ambidextrous analysts, the kind with a predisposition to the phrase ``on the other hand.'' The same statistics can, and often have been, utilized by different interpreters to support opposite conclusions. It is entirely legal to use the same set of statistics negatively one day and positively the next. Moreover, government statistics often can be employed more than once, because the initial announcement often is revised. While revisions seldom are of major consequence, they are there to serve the interpreters, if necessary. Daily, in fact hourly, explanations are unusually complicated in recent weeks by a dichotomy in the ranks of economists and securities analysts. It is this: Is a strong economy good and a weak one bad, or is it the reverse? Specifically, a gross national product gain of 3 percent to 6 percent on an annual basis usually would be welcomed, because it would suggest economic strength and good corporate profits. But this week it might be bad news for stocks. The explanation lies in the attitude of the Federal Reserve Board, whose primary goal in the past year has been to restrain inflation. Therefore, an unexpectedly large gain might suggest an economy rising too fast, and provide sufficient reason to abandon any immediate plans to let interest rates find a lower level. The fourth-quarter report to be announced this Friday isn't likely to show any such gains; the consensus seems to suggest a gain of less than 1 percent. It could be good for the securities markets _ or it could be bad.
AP881201-0153 	X	A defense manufacturer is suing ABC News to regain what the company said were stolen documents used for a story on reputed parts overcharges for a U.S. Army vehicle. ``We don't know how they got the documents,'' said Pat Brozowski, spokeswomen for FMC Corp., the Chicago-based builder of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The ABC World News Tonight segment, which aired Oct. 20 quoting unidentified former FMC employees, accused the company of overcharging the government for spare parts on the vehicle, which resembles a tank. ``We have not seen the lawsuit and cannot comment at this time,'' spokeswoman Elise Adde of ABC News said from New York. An in-house investigation of the television story ``turned up the fact that the documents were missing from our files,'' Ms. Brozowski said. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. FMC also said it has told the government's General Accounting Office it will cooperate with any investigation of prices charged on the Bradley parts, according to the statement.
AP880907-0206 	X	Rebels ambushed a jeep east of Managua on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding one, the government said. The attack occurred at 7:45 a.m. in Comalapa near Juigalpa, the capital of Chontales province, 95 miles east of Managua, according to a statement issued by the Defense Ministry. Armando Montoya, political secretary of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front Party in Comalapa, and Danilo Corrales, a municipal governent finance official, were killed in the attack. Two Sandinista police officers also were killed and a third was wounded, the ministry said. In another statement, the ministry said 11 rebels were killed and five wounded in clashes with troops between Aug. 30 and Sept. 6. It said the attacks took place in northern and eastern Nicaragua but did not say if government forces suffered casualties. The ministry said rebel forces killed one civilian and wounded two during that period. It provided no details. The leftist Sandinista government and the U.S.-supported rebels, known as Contras, agreed to a truce in March, but failed to negotiate an end to the 7-year-old civil war. Talks broke off June 9, and each side has accused the other of violating the truce.
AP880706-0184 	X	Barbership quartets are upbeat about a resurgence of interest in their music, and they're singing out loud and clear on the 50th anniversary of their international society. More than 10,000 people have registered for this week's international convention of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. ``I think we are gaining some respect again across the country,'' said James Warner, a Memphis attorney and international president of the 38,000-member organization. ``We are developing programs for young men in some high schools and it's found increasing acceptance,'' he said. ``We're not using it as a recruitment device, but as an attempt to reach out to young men in that area,'' he said. Barbershop quartets, which popped up mainly on the East Coast at the turn of the century and were popular during the vaudeville era, use four-part harmonies to carry tunes. The lead singer carries the melody. A tenor harmonizes and a baritone and a bass carry the lower chords. There is no instrumental accompaniment. Competition begins Thursday with 51 quartets battling for five finalist positions. Sixteen choruses comprised of 50 men also will vie for five finalist positions. The finals are scheduled for Saturday with one gold, one silver and three bronze medals being awarded in each category and the gold medal winner becoming the international champion. ``This is the Olympics of barbershop singing and all of them have had to battle on the local level to get here,'' Warner said. ``It will be a tough competition because there is a lot of prestige that goes with the medals.'' On Wednesday, crooners warmed up, gathering in hotel rooms and hallways to belt out such barbershop classics as ``Sweet Adeline.'' Greg Zinke, 27, a member of the Northeast Extension of Pemberton, N.J., said he began singing in a quartet after being around his father's group. Zinke, who works in a tool and die shop in High Bridge, N.J., said he opted for barbershop quartet singing instead of rock 'n roll because of the selection of clean, simple old songs. ``You don't have to be a fantastic singer to do this. I think that's what makes it so nice for the guy off the street who admires the music. He can come sing it, too,'' he said. For a long time, barbershop quartet singing was in a decline, as the vaudeville era came to an end with the advent of motion pictures and other forms of music after World War I. In 1938, Owen C. Cash, a tax attorney in Tulsa, Okla., and Rupert Hall, another Tulsa businessman, formed the society to preserve the old music. Their group helped revive interest, and there are now 2,000 quartets and 800 choruses divided into 16 regions in the United States and Canada and other groups in England, Sweden, West Germany, Holland and New Zealand. Doctors, lawyers, researchers, plumbers, electricians are among the barbershop quartet singers, but ironically, few barbers are members of the organization, Warner said. ``It' easy to sing and it's portable,'' said 35-year-old Roger Payne of Manhattan. ``All you have to have is your pitch pipe and three other guys and you don't have to call anybody to move your piano. It interacts with the audience in a real entertainment-kind of way.''
AP880511-0201 	X	The official Tass news agency on Wednesday called the founders of a new Soviet political party liars and scandalmongers whose actions hamper Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's reform drive. It the first attack by the state-run media on the new Democratic Union, Tass accused members of ``slanderous, anti-social activity.'' The toughly worded dispatch indicated that officials would not tolerate any challenge the new party might mount to the ruling Communists. Past attempts to challenge the Communist Party have been crushed. About 70 people met Monday outside Moscow to create the new party, which seeks multi-party elections, independent trade unions, a new constitution and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe and areas seized by the Soviet Union in World War II. Members of the Democratic Union expressed the hope that if Gorbachev is serious in his campaign for a more open society, he will allow the party to seek supporters and take part in elections, which are tightly controlled by the Communist Party. Tass said the Democratic Union's platform was a ``provocation with a political flavor'' that was so anti-constitutional it touched off arguments among group members and exposed its authors to criticism from the group itself. ``The group is nothing more than a bunch of scandalmongers deliberately smearing honest people and hampering perestroika and efforts to foster good relations between people,'' the Soviet news agency said. ``Perestroika,'' which means ``reconstruction'' in Russian, is the name given to Gorbachev's ambitious reform program for economic and social restructuring. Tass did not say why the Democratic Union's ``Declaration of Principles'' was unconstitutional, but the 1977 Soviet Constitution enshrines the Communist Party's monopoly on power, calling it the ``leading and guiding force'' of the country. Tass also defended the jailing of Sergei Grigoryants, the founder of the independent human rights journal ``Glasnost,'' who was arrested Monday. Grigoryants, a former political prisoner, had offered to let the Democratic Union group use a country cottage outside Moscow that he rents for their Monday meeting. But police surrounded the building, arrested Grigoryants in the yard, and broke down the cottage's doors to arrest others, associates of Grigoryants told a Moscow news conference Tuesday. The Tass account of Grigoryants' arrest said: ``On May 9 ... he kicked up a violent row on a trip outside Moscow and has been sentenced to seven days in jail by the People's Court of Ramenskoye in the Moscow region.'' Grigoryants, a former political prisoner, was convicted on a charge of resisting authorities. Andrei Babitsky, a fellow editor of ``Glasnost'' who was also detained at the cottage but later released, said Grigoryants had been falsely accused. Lawyer Valentin Yelisyenko, who also spoke at the dissidents' Tuesday news conference, said police had no arrest warrant for Grigoryants or any of the others arrested and had search warrant to enter the cottage.
AP880814-0042 	X	As George Bush approaches the high noon of his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, he is striving to move out of the shadow cast by President Reagan while seeking to capitalize on Reagan's enormous popularity. Reagan's shadow has already shortened for Bush. These days he is seldom dogged with questions about distancing himself from the president. Instead, the questions now center on whether his candidacy is exerting too much influence over the Reagan White House. Both Bush and Reagan in recent days have fended off suggestions that some presidential decisions have been motivated by an effort to help the Bush campaign. And confronted with public opinion polls showing Bush far behind among Democrats who voted for Reagan, Bush advisers have now switched strategy to make sure that the Reagan shadow doesn't disappear altogether. After first planning no contact at the Republican National Convention between Reagan and his vice president, a joint rally is now scheduled for Tuesday in New Orleans. It follows an upbeat joint appearance between Reagan and Bush at a rally last Friday for senior administration officials at the Old Executive Office Building, during which Reagan lavished praise on his vice president. If all goes as planned, Bush's transformation into his own man will be complete when he accepts the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night at the Republican National Convention, according to aides and GOP consultants. By the end of the convention, ``all the emphasis is going to be on George Bush and his vice presidential nominee,'' said his chief of staff, Craig Fuller. Lee Atwater, Bush's campaign manager, said that Bush ``has made a conscious decision for seven years to be secondary to the president.'' ``And now that he's running for the president himself, he's talking about how he feels, what he believes in, and where he wants to take the country,'' Atwater said. To be sure, there are some areas in which Bush does not want to put much light between himself and Reagan _ largely the current economic expansion, now in a peacetime record of 69 months, and the fact that most of the world is at peace. The vice president has been inching away from his close identification with administration policies since he and aides huddled for a week in late May at his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. The consensus from his advisers was near-unanimous: he had to do more to establish his own agenda. Since then, Bush has hinted that he would be more aggressive in dealing with the Soviets, would enforce civil-rights laws more vigorously, would spend more on education and do more to clean up the environment than the president he has served for the past 7{ years. He has also proposed many of his own initiatives, including a $2.2 billion child care program, a ban on offshore ocean dumping, and a reorganizaton of the anti-drug effort under the office of vice president. He also has proposed a new White House ethics office and a ``flexible freeze'' on federal spending. But most of Bush's moves away from the administration have been cautious, for fear of appearing disloyal. ``I'm not going to change just to emerge from a shadow,'' he has said. In a recent interview, Bush said he will differ with Reagan when he feels he has a different set of goals. ``I have every intention of saying, here is what we've done and and here are my priorities. ``But I'm not doing that to quote distance myself, to show my own identity,'' he continued. ``I'm doing it to say, look, here is what we've done. Here are the successes, and here are the shortcomings, and here's what George Bush will do.'' Still, Bush's close identification with the administration continues to pose problems for him as Democrats keep driving home their ``Where is George?'' slogan. When the general election campaign heats up after Labor Day, Bush is expected to be hit repeatedly by Democrats for his role _ still vague _ in some of the less popular Reagan administration decisions, including arms-for-hostages dealings with Iran and past support for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Meanwhile, the impact of Bush's candidacy has already been seen in a number of recent presidential decisions _ including Reagan's selection last week of a Hispanic, Lauro F. Cavazos, to be education secretary _ fulfilling in advance a Bush campaign pledge. Reagan filled two other Cabinet vacancies with people on close terms with Bush, naming former Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburgh to succeed Edwin Meese as attorney general and Wall Street investment banker Nicholas F. Brady to follow James A. Baker III as treasury secretary. Baker resigned to run Bush's campaign. The president also yielded to Bush's urgings in deciding to allow a plant-closing notification bill to become law and in the president's veto of a $299.5 billion defense authorization bill. Reagan also has picked up on some of Bush's campaign themes, including advocating the death penalty for ``drug kingpins.'' ``I don't think it's as much a matter of Bush disagreeing or separating himself from Reagan as much as demonstrating that his agenda is a little different,'' said GOP consultant Charlie Black, who is a Bush convention adviser. And John Sears, another Republican consultant, said: ``The real moment of truth is when Bush accepts the nomination.'' ``He can campaign on the virtues of what eight years of the Reagan administration have brought to the country. And he can prove himself presidential. In his acceptance speech, he can do it all,'' Sears said.
AP900317-0002 	X	One of China's largest blast furnaces collapsed in an iron and steel mill in a northwest province, killing 19 people and injuring 10, an official daily said today. Officials were investigating Monday's disaster at the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company in Gansu province, the People's Daily said. Metallurgical Industry Minister Qi Yuanjing led rescue and fire control operations, the daily said. The furnace, constructed during the Great Leap Forward period of rapid industrialization in 1958, was one of the largest in China, it said. The report gave no further details.
AP901019-0148 	X	A government prosecutor Friday challenged a local judge's decision to postpone until February the trial of Winnie Mandela and seven of her former bodyguards on charges of kidnapping and assault. Mrs. Mandela, wife of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, has denied any wrongdoing. She and the others are accused of abducting and beating four young men at her house in the Soweto black township. The leader of her bodyguards, Jerry Richardson, earlier was convicted of murdering one of the four and was sentenced to death. The eight defendants appeared Sept. 24 in magistrate's court in Soweto, where her attorney argued that the original Oct. 30 trial date left Mrs. Mandela insufficient time to prepare. Magistrate T.F. Veldman postponed the Supreme Court trial until Feb. 4. Transvaal Attorney General Klaus Von Lieres on Friday asked the Supreme Court to rule that a magistrate lacks the power to change the Supreme Court trial date Von Lieres set. The delay in challenging the postponement was not immediately explained. The Supreme Court reserved judgment. The charges stem from a December 1988 incident that killed 14-year-old Stompei Seipei. During Richardson's trial, the three other alleged victims testified they were abducted by members of the Mandela United Football Club - Mrs. Mandela's bodyguards - and taken to her home. They said Mrs. Mandela whipped them and that the others also assaulted them. If convicted of the charges against them, the defendants could receive punishment ranging from a suspended sentence to the death penalty. Lawyers said the death sentence has never been imposed for kidnapping in South Africa. White and black leaders fear Mrs. Mandela's trial could strain relations between the ANC and the government as they try to start talks on ending apartheid. Youths on the soccer club Mrs. Mandela formed played few matches and were accused of terrorizing the Soweto neighborhood where she lived. According to testimony at Richardson's trial, the bodyguards accused Seipei of being a police informer and the other three of having homosexual relations with the white minister at their church home. No evidence was presented that Seipei, a well-known anti-apartheid activist, was a police spy. The Methodist Church cleared the minister of any misconduct.
AP881004-0249 	X	All of Honda's 1988 model NX650 motorcycles are being voluntarily recalled to repair a defect that could cause loss of front-wheel braking, the company announced. American Honda Motor Co. Inc. said Tuesday that its dealers would replace front wheel hubs free of charge on all 2,032 of the motorcycles sold. This is the first year the model has been produced. Under severe use, one or more of the bolts securing the front brake disc assembly can loosen, the company said, posing a potential danger of front brake failure. The rear brakes are unaffected and Honda hasn't had any reports of accidents blamed on the defect, the company said. Owners of the bikes will be notified, or can take the machines back to their dealers.
AP900223-0182 	X	An Army deserter who spent 30 years in East Germany said Friday he was only there a few weeks before he realized he must try to escape that country's grim conditions and danger. ``I feel like I threw 30 years of my life away,'' Arnold Kephart, 53, said in an interview here at the home of his brother-in-law, Arlo Dunbar. Speaking with a heavy German accent, Kephart said the country he's returned to is ``a different world'' and he never thought he would see anything like the rapid liberalization of Eastern Europe. ``It was like you were locked up all the time. I never really ever felt at home,'' he said. As an Army private in 1959, Kephart wrecked an Army truck and, fearing punishment, fled to East Germany. While there, Kephart said, he had 14 or 15 jobs, married twice and had four children, including a son he brought back with him. When he returned to the United States last month, Kephart was arrested at the airport before upset relatives who had been waiting for the reunion. A week later, the Army granted him an other-than-honorable discharge. A deal for a television movie of Kephart's life has just been closed, according to his attorney, James Martin Davis. He wouldn't reveal details. Kephart, who earned his living as a truck driver in East Germany, said he regretted his spur-of-the-moment decision to go absent without leave a few weeks after settling in Schmalkalind, the town where he lived for 30 years. Travel restrictions were so tight that only two opportunities to escape come along before East Germany opened its borders last year. The first attempt came in 1973 or 1974, Kephart said. His first marriage _ which produced a daughter, Kitty _ had ended in divorce. Kephart said he met two men ``in a beer joint'' who asked him if he wanted to get out. ``Maybe we had too many beers, but this one said he knew where there was a hole in the fence,'' Kephart recalled. He and his companions set out. He said he doesn't remember where they were headed, except that it was out of town. One of the men was walking near the border about five minutes ahead of Kephart and the other man when Kephart heard a noise. ``We thought maybe he stepped on a mine,'' Kephart said. ``We just turned around and headed back to town. ``Two or three days later, I heard that they'd found a person on the border _ dead,'' Kephart said. ``There's no way that couldn't have been the guy we were with.'' Before the second attempt 1975, Kephart drank ``enough beer to get my courage up and so I'd have an excuse if I got caught,'' he said. Kephart said three guards grabbed him as he approached the border, beat him, and sent him back to town. ``After that, I didn't think about trying the border again,'' he said. He met his second wife, Brigitte, a year after he was beaten. She is the mother of Frankie, now 12 and in the United States with his father, and Kephart's 8-year-old twin daughters, Katharina and Kathleen. The family lived in a small house, Kephart said. Their diet was meager: bread with some bologna-like meat for breakfast, soup and potatoes for lunch. Dinner was a reprise of breakfast, he said. ``You could seldom get eggs,'' said Kephart, who added that he is enjoying foods he sorely missed in East Germany. ``I always loved chili,'' he said. ``And pork and beans. They just don't have anything like that over there.''
AP880525-0240 	X	A 24-year-old computer wunderkind was in serious condition along with his mother Wednesday after what may have been a double suicide attempt following the seizure of his company, police said. Tex Zachary Hildreth fled the Braintree, Mass., area just before his 5-year-old computer services company, Massdata Corp., was closed by authorities and its assets seized Tuesday. Hildreth left behind about 30 angry employees and investors. He was arrested as a fugitive from justice in Manchester on Tuesday after an employee at the Holiday Inn called police to report a bloodied man wandering in the lobby. Police said that when they arrived just after 2 p.m., they found Hildreth's mother, Rose Hildreth, 50, lying injured in the hotel room the two shared. Police Lt. William Bovaird said both Hildreths were taken to Elliot Hospital, where, according to hospital spokeswoman Ann Williams, they were listed in serious condition Wednesday. Bovaird said both Hildreths were ``incoherent'' when police arrived at the hotel. He gave only sketchy details about their injuries but said it appeared that Hildreth may have slashed his wrists. He said a bottle of non-prescription pills were found in the hotel room along with what appeared to be suicide notes. Bovaird declined to elaborate, saying the case was still under investigation. On Monday, Rockland Trust Co., owed more than $400,000, tried to seize the company's assets, but the office was closed at the time, according to senior vice president John O'Connor. County authorities and state police secured the company offices Tuesday night. Mike McGorty, a spokesman for the Norfolk County district attorney's office in Massachusetts, said Wednesday that his office began to investigate Hildreth Tuesday after receiving complaints about him from several people who said they did business with him. McGorty said Weymouth police had charged Hildreth with larceny over $250 Tuesday after receiving a complaint from another person. McGorty said the investigation into Hildreth's business dealings was expected to be ``lengthy.'' Hildreth's sudden fall came after a meteoric rags to riches tale. Hildreth was an overweight, unhappy teen-ager who transformed himself into a computer whiz and budding millionaire just a few years out of high school. Hildreth's company turned profitable in 1987 and expected sales of about $4 million this year, the Boston Globe reported in April. As recently as last month, Hildreth was profiled in an article that began with a description of him stepping out of a limousine with a beautiful woman to attend the fifth reunion of his Braintree High School class in November. ``This was my revenge for four years of hell,'' Hildreth said at the time. After buying his first computer at age 16, Hildreth began writing software programs. The confidence he gained as a computer whiz prompted him to lose 115 pounds in less than two years. With the help of a mentor in the Braintree area, Hildreth rented office space at the age of 20 and went into business as a computer consultant. He gradually built up the business, hiring young computer experts from other companies. He began to rapidly acquire the signs of success: a $220,000 Weymouth condominium, a $32,000 BMW and a 50-inch, $4,000 color TV. His mother, who once worked as a lunch matron at her son's school, was made clerk of the company. Last week, employees became suspicious when the president of Massdata told them their paychecks were being withheld because Hildreth had not signed them. Hildreth had collapsed in his office two days earlier, suffering from what was described as an aneurysm, a dangerous weakening of a blood vessel.
AP900525-0177 	X	A Greyhound bus driven by a replacement driver crashed Thursday, injuring eight passengers, authorities said. The driver told investigators a tractor-trailer forced him off the road, but at least three witnesses indicated he may have fallen asleep at the wheel, said patrolman Steve Kelso of the highway patrol. Investigators from the National Transportation and Safety Board went to the scene. Greyhound has reported at least 30 incidents of violence against the company, including shootings of buses, since its drivers began a nationwide strike March 2. Kelso said the Greyhound bus carrying 46 passengers went off Interstate 80 just east of Wamsutter early Thursday when it failed to make a curve. The bus crossed the median and went into a drainage ditch. All 46 passengers were taken to Carbon County Memorial Hospital in Rawlins, and eight were being held for overnight observation and treatment, Hospital Administrator Dick Mills said. All eight were in stable condition, said Mills, who did not know the extent of their injuries. The driver, 50-year-old Bobby Williamson of Chicago, was not hurt. Kelso said Williamson told him a large truck had played ``highway tag,'' repeatedly passing the bus, then slowing to make the bus pass until the bus was finally forced off the road. However, the patrolman said, there were reports from at least three witnesses who were awake either during or immediately before the accident that Williamson had been drowsy and was crossing lanes. Greyhound spokesman Bill Kula said the driver had fulfilled the rest quota prescribed by the Department of Transportation before getting behind the wheel in Cheyenne. ``The driver had had a 13-hour rest and break period which more than met DOT requirements,'' Kula said. ``He had all the rest he needed. It would not have impaired his driving ability in the least.'' George Gravely, another Greyhound spokesman, said the company was investigating whether the bus was forced off the road. ``I don't want this to sound like we've lost confidence in the driver or support everything he said. But typically, we will review everything he says.'' Williamson is a replacement driver who began driving for Greyhound when members of the Amalgamated Transit Union went on strike, Gravely said.
AP900217-0004 	X	Leftist guerrillas demanded negotiations for the release of two U.S. citizens they kidnapped this week to protest President Bush's visit to Colombia, a news report said. One other American was also reported captured by the guerrillas to protest Bush's one-day visit Thursday for a regional drug summit. Authorities said they had no word on the third American, a Roman Catholic priest from Rochester, N.Y. Parishioners prayed for his return. The television program 24 Hours said Friday night that relatives of James Donnelly, one of the captives, were contacted by the abductors. It said they demanded a committee be formed to negotiate the terms to release Donnelly and fellow captive David Kent. The abductors did not provide details on the conditions they would put forward during such talks, the report said. It also was not clear who the abductors wanted on the committee. Donnelly, a 65-year-old mechanical engineer from Detroit, and Kent, a 40-year-old school teacher from Indianapolis, were separately kidnapped in the northwestern city of Medellin on Tuesday. The pro-Castro National Liberation Front made public Friday night a communique claiming responsibility for their abductions. Officials also blame the group for kidnapping the priest, the Rev. Francisco Amico Ferrari. He was abducted Thursday in the southwestern city of Cali. The guerrillas said the summit in the Colombian resort city of Cartagena between Bush and the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia was part of a design for ``the military control of our (Colombian) territory.'' The summit approved a joint fight by the four nations against drug trafficking. A police spokesman contacted in Medellin by telephone said the police knew nothing of the guerrillas' demands. Roman Catholic Church bishops in Cali issued a statement calling for the abductors to release Amico. The bishops also condemned guerrilla bomb attacks Thursday at two Mormon temples run by American pastors. Damages were estimated at $12,000, but no injuries were reported. Medellin and Cali are homes to the drug cartels named after them. The cartels are blamed for more than 80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States.
AP901227-0131 	X	About 2,000 Soviet Jews are arriving in Israel daily, setting a record pace that could push the number of immigrants from all countries to more than 200,000 this year, officials and news reports said Thursday. On Thursday, 2,000 Soviet Jewish immigrants poured into Israel, surpassing last weekend's high rate of 1,500 a day, said Yehuda Weinrab, a spokesman for the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency. The organization helps resettle immigrants. Israeli officials have attributed the surge this month to increasing uncertainty about the political climate in the Soviet Union and better Israeli-sponsored transportation arrangements. Israel army radio said the latest surge likely would push the overall December immigration total to 35,000 and the year-end figure to 205,000. The totals include Ethiopians and other nationals, but Soviets make up about 90 percent. About 1 million Soviets are expected by the end of 1992. While Israeli officials encourage the immigration, it is causing major housing shortages and unemployment problems.
AP880407-0162 	X	The bulk of one of the world's most important private art collections will hang in Spain for at least 10 years under an agreement signed Thursday. The arrival of 700 to 800 of the $2 billion Thyssen collection's most significant paintings will cement the Spanish capital's reputation as a leading world art center. The agreement was signed by collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Spanish government. The ceremony took place across the street from Prado museum in the 19th-century Villahermosa Palace, which Spanish authorities are refurbishing to devote exclusively to the new works. The collection is expected to open to the public in November. Thyssen said his decision to chose Spain over museums in the United States, Switzerland and West Germany was ``completely objective'' but stressed that his ties to Spain played a deciding role. The Baron's fifth wife, Spanish-born Carmen Cervera, was an important factor in the final decision, according one of the plan's chief architects, the Duke of Badajoz, who also is the brother-in-law of King Juan Carlos. Cervera, a former beauty queen and widow of ``Tarzan'' actor Lex Barker, ``has a great influence over her husband,'' he said. The duke said Thyssen had not yet completed the choice of which paintings would make up the Madrid collection, but the agreement stipulates they include ``the most significant paintings'' of the Thyssen collection. The duke said the 10-year loan agreement paves the way for a second pact to make Spain the collection's permanent home. ``It takes away a bit of the tension,'' he said. ``Now we can proceed with calm to work out the definitive agreement.'' A beaming Culture Minister Javier Solana said the collection ``is going to fundamentally improve the cultural life of our country.'' The Swiss-based Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Trust, headed by the baron, owns 1,600 paintings from the 13th to 20th centuries, including 570 old masters. The collection was started by his father, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, a German steel baron who died in 1947. News that Thyssen was looking for a bigger home for the bulk of the paintings currently housed at his Villa Favorita residence in Lugano, Switzerland, elicited offers from Spain, the Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif., and museums in several West German cities. The 10-year loan is to be administered by a private foundation set up by the Spanish government and Thyssen, and chaired by the baron. The agreement stipulates that the pieces on loan to Spain will be able to travel freely to other museums without prior approval from Spanish authorities.
AP881121-0234 	X	Arleen Auger, Anne Sofie von Otter, Michael Chance, Howard Crook, John Tomlinson; The English Concert and Concert Choir, conducted by Trevor Pinnock. (Archiv). Kathleen Battle, Florence Quivar, John Aler, Samuel Ramey; the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, conducted by Andrew Davis. (Angel-EMI). Kiri te Kanawa, Anne Gjevang, Keith Lewis, Gwynne Howell; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. (London). Judith Nelson, Emma Kirkby, Carolyn Watkinson, Paul Elliott, David Thomas; the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Christopher Hogwood. (L'Oiseau Lyre). Margaret Marshall, Catherine Robbin, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Robert Hale, Charles Brett, Saul Quirke; the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, conducted by John-Eliot Gardiner. (Philips). Kaaren Erickson, Sylvia McNair, Alfreda Hodgson, Jon Humphrey, Richard Stilwell; the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus, conducted by Robert Shaw. (Telarc).
AP900606-0099 	X	The script called for President Fernando Collor de Mello to set fire to a pile of seized cocaine and marijuana to promote his anti-drug campaign, but it didn't work out that way. Instead, TV viewers saw the gas-soaked pile of drugs explode in flames as Collor dropped a torch onto it, and the president cover his face and run back. Fortunately, the heat only singed Collor's right ear, hair and forearm, and he was not seriously hurt, the government news agency said Wednesday. Federal police chief Romeu Tuma said the explosion occurred at a ranch in remote western Brazil on Tuesday because ``the wind shifted.'' The ranch is in the Pantanal region, a transit point for illegal drugs near Brazil's border with Bolivia.
AP900621-0046 	X	The prestigious British wine fraternity that honors top-ranking wine connoisseurs is extending its cachet to Americans and other foreigners _ if they can pass a grueling four-day exam. The Institute of Masters of Wine, a staid club of British wine merchants, is actively soliciting foreign winemakers, wine stewards, teachers and others in the fermented grape business who aspire to use the coveted letters ``MW'' after their names. Nine out of 10 candidates fail the rigorous written exams and blind tastings. But for the successful few, MW is the wine world's equivalent of academia's Ph.D. The club has only 131 members and all but 14 of them are men. ``We felt that we were becoming a rather introverted little club,'' said executive director David Stevens. We would rather become an ``internationally recognized body with prestige, weight and influence,'' he said. ``We took a very dramatic decision, for us, to throw open our doors to anyone in the world who could actually come and sit and pass this exam. '' The first step was to open membership to eligible journalists and wine writers. Only one, British wine writer and broadcaster Jancis Robinson, has passed muster. Then, foreigners, including Americans, were allowed to take the exam. So far, no U.S. palate has been admitted, although eight Americans took the annual exam in London last month. Stevens wouldn't give their names, but said they included wine teachers, wine wholesalers and retailers, and sommeliers. They will learn on July 17 whether they have joined the tiny group of foreigners in this unique professional body founded in 1953: Olivier Humbrecht from the Alsace region of France, Australian wine consultant Michael Hill-Smith and winemaker Michael Brajkovich from the Kumeu River winery in New Zealand. ``I think the examination is now much tougher than it used to be, for the very simple reason that the wine industry has become far more complicated,'' Stevens said. He passed on his first try in 1961, when ``basically, if we knew about the wines of France, Germany, a little bit about sherry, port, that was about it. Now you have to know about the wines of the world.'' This year's blind taste included wines from California, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Lebanon, plus the produce of the more traditional wine regions of France, Germany and Italy. Candidates had to identify the grapes from which the wine was made, where they were grown, and the wine's vintage. Then they had to comment on how the wine was made and aged. Whenever possible, the judges sneak in a bad wine to test their ability to detect imperfections. Stevens said he feels education standards have declined, and that many potential masters of wine are unaccustomed to writing short essays required to test their knowledge of growing and harvesting grapes and the chemistry of winemaking. ``I think that Americans are not used to an examination where they have to express themselves in the written word,'' he said. ``They are much more used to answering multiple-choice-type questions, a tick in the box. To have to produce a very long, reasoned written answer in written form they do find difficult.'' The essay questions test knowledge of all aspects of the wine industry, from planting and harvesting to winemaking chemistry, storing and maturing bulk wine, changing consumer tastes and the trend toward mergers and takeovers in the industry. The open-ended questions range from ``Are bubbles worth a premium?'' to ``The Chardonnay grape has been described as the perfect artist's palette. Discuss and compare methods used in different wine regions to produce the various styles'' and ``How much should a wine reflect the personality and aims of the producer as opposed to the character of the vineyard?''
AP881111-0034 	X	President-elect George Bush has been given the glum news that the budget deficit in the next fiscal year will be $21 billion higher than the Reagan administration had previously estimated. That information means that Bush will be facing an even bigger budget headache when he takes office on Jan. 20. The new deficit estimate was presented to Bush and President Reagan during a Cabinet briefing Thursday on the administration's final budget submission to Congress. Joseph Wright Jr., director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the OMB now estimates that the deficit for the 1990 fiscal year, which begins next Oct. 1, will be $132 billion, substantially higher than the $111 billion deficit estimate OMB made just three months ago. Officials said the main factors boosting the deficit estimate were the drought, which slowed economic growth this year, and higher-than-expected interest rates, which raised the cost of financing the $2.6 trillion national debt. The Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law's deficit target for 1990 is $100 billion, which means that $32 billion in budget cuts will be needed to close the gap between revenues and spending. Achieving such sizable cuts in the face of congressional opposition to further reductions in domestic programs will present Bush with major political problems. During the campaign, Bush sidestepped specifics on how he would deal with the budget deficit by touting a plan for a ``flexible freeze.'' Bush said he would allow government spending to grow only enough to match inflation. Within the overall freeze, selected programs could grow while others would be cut. However, Bush avoided providing details on what programs he would cut in order to free funds for increases that he promised to make in education, child care and health care for the poor. The budget document Reagan sends to Congress on Jan. 9 will reflect his decisions, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. However, officials said it was likely that Bush would rewrite at least part of the document once he takes office, just as Reagan did in 1981 when he submitted his own budget to Congress in place of the budget left behind by President Carter. Officials refused to comment on reports that the final Reagan budget will call for substantial increases in defense spending and steep cuts in domestic programs as a way of providing Bush with the opportunity to present a ``kinder, gentler'' budget blueprint once he takes office. OMB spokeswoman Barbara Clay said that Reagan's final budget would not include any tax increases, something the president has consistently opposed, or seek to trim Social Security benefits as a way of meeting the $100 billion Gramm-Rudman deficit target. ``We have some difficult choices ahead'' on where to cut spending, she said. With estimates on future deficits rising, many private economists are convinced that Bush will be forced to accept some type of tax increase despite his oft-repeated opposition to new taxes during the campaign. As examples of pressure for increased spending, they point to public demands that the government do more in the fight against drugs, and to estimates topping $50 billion for the cost of bailing out hundreds of insolvent savings and loan institutions. House Speaker Jim Wright on Thursday said that the first signal on whether Bush is serious about reducing the budget deficit is likely to come from his appointment of two members to the National Economic Commission, a bipartisan advisory group created to come up with a blueprint for eliminating the budget deficit. Bush criticized the commission during the campaign as a device for raising taxes, but Wright said if Bush is serious about dealing with the deficit, he will weigh carefully his appointments, which are expected to be made soon. ``Will they be pragmatic people, will they be realistic people, will they be people dedicated to finding a true solution to this enormous budget crisis?'' Wright, D-Texas, asked. ``I think that may be his first signal.'' Also providing hope to some that a resolution can be reached in the seven-year budget deadlock is the widespread expectation that Bush will name Richard Darman as the new budget director. Darman, a longtime aide to former Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, is considered a pragmatist who would seek to work with Congress in crafting deficit-cutting solutions. Wright repeatedly refused to offer his own view on how to make the needed budget savings although he said he had many questions about how Bush's flexible freeze would work. ``I have an open mind and I'm willing to listen to the president's refinement of exactly how he interprets the meaning of that phrase,'' Wright said.
AP880812-0237 	X	House-passed legislation to withdraw all U.S. investment from racially segregated South Africa and impose a near-total trade embargo faces a possible Republican filibuster in the Senate and a likely veto by President Reagan. The House adopted the disinvestment bill Thursday evening on a 244-132 vote. Supporters hailed the dramatic measure as a last-chance opportunity to bring strong economic pressure to bear to help end South Africa's apartheid system of racial separation by expanding the less sweeping sanctions adopted in 1986. But Republicans said the bill represents a ``scorched earth'' policy that amounts to declaring economic war against South Africa, a war they said would hurt the blacks it is designed to help by causing millions to lose their jobs.
AP901217-0068 	X	NASA's poor maintenance practices have caused a fire in a mission control room, falling concrete in a space shuttle building and a steam line explosion, according to a government report issued today. The General Accounting Office report says the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is working to correct the shortcomings. Congress appropriated $141 million for maintenance in 1990 and more has been asked for future years. The GAO recommends that the space agency develop a comprehensive maintenance strategy, spend more money on upkeep and do annual surveys to determine which of its centers most need repairs. ``People and facilities are critical to mission success,'' said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who released a summary of the report today. ``We can't afford breakdowns on the ground if we're going to have spectaculars in space.'' The report said launch pads and the space shuttle processing facilities are generally well-maintained. But it said that eight NASA centers visited by GAO inspectors all have deteriorating facilities such as leaking roofs, peeling paint and leaking steam lines. Many of NASA's buildings are 30 to 50 years old. The report said NASA rated its own facilities as marginal. ``An example of deterioration is concrete falling from the roof of the 52-story building where the shuttle is joined with the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. ``NASA installed netting beneath the roof deck to catch the concrete,'' the summary said. Other incidents included a cooling tower that partially collapsed under the weight of ice that formed because water valves malfunctioned, the report said. Experts at the National Research Council recommend that agencies spend at least 2 percent to 4 percent of their facilities' replacement value on maintenance, the report said. The percentage for most of NASA's facilities between 1985 and 1989 was between 0.9 percent and 1.5 percent, it said. Mikulski said this year's federal budget includes a special $20 million fund to start rehabilitation and major maintenance at NASA's field centers. The space agency's facilities include 2,700 buildings and 3,200 other major structures encompassing 36 million square feet.
AP880430-0061 	X	Tamil rebels hiding behind bushes opened fire on a bus and its army escort Saturday, killing 10 people and injuring six others, officials said. The military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said five Sinhalese soldiers and five civilians were killed in the attack in dense jungle near Vavuniya, about 135 miles north of Colombo. More than 50 guerrillas fired from both sides of the road, the officials said. ``The soldiers were escorting the civilian bus, and they died fighting the attackers. We believe the attackers suffered heavy casualties, but we don't have details,'' one official said. He said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the largest Tamil militia, was responsible for the attack. The ambush came a day after President Junius R. Jayewardene's United National Party won a majority of seats to four new district councils. The elections were boycotted by major opposition parties. Tamil militants have been fighting the Sinhalese-dominated government for a separate homeland in northern and eastern provinces for five years. In July, India and Sri Lanka signed a peace accord aimed at ending the ethnic war by granting some autonomy to the minority Tamils. The accord has been rejected by the Tamil Tigers, who control major areas of Northern Province. India has sent more than 50,000 troops to its island neighbor to disarm the Tigers and enforce the accord. The predominantly Hindu Tamils, who are 18 percent of Sri Lanka's 16 million people, say they are discriminated against by the Buddhist Sinhalese, who form 75 percent of the population and control the government and the military. India, also predominantly Hindu, intervened at the request of its own large Tamil minority.
AP901009-0253 	X	The U.S. dollar weakened in European trading today after a U.S. deficit-reduction accord refocused attention on prospects of lower U.S. interest rates. Gold prices rose. Dealers said doubts over the deficit-reduction accord had eased in recent days but news of the program still raised the probability of an easing of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Despite suggestions during Tokyo trading that the Bank of Japan might be prepared to intervene to slow the dollar's slide, dealers said they doubted that major central banks would be prepared to coordinate dollar purchases. In Tokyo, the dollar fell 0.10 yen to a closing 129.95 yen. Later in London, it was quoted at 130.30 yen. At midday in New York, the dollar was trading at 130.44 yen. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Monday's rates included: 1.5245 German marks, down from 1.5355; 1.2765 Swiss francs, down from 1.2840; 5.1005 French francs,ddown from 5.1400; 1.7185 Dutch guilders, down from 1.7315; 1,143.25 Italian lire, down from 1,150.75, and 1.1507 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1515. In London, the British pound was quoted at $1.9705, compared with $1.9745 late Monday. In New York the pound was quoted at $1.9729. Selected midday dollar rates in New Yo`Where is the rest of corporate America?'' But Hawkes says there are changes blowing in the wind. He said even the big corporations, which do not have a primary agenda of social change, are seeing that such practices sell. ``It's a neat example of capitalism,'' he said. ``Some of it is going to be shallow, of course, but we ought to welcome even the most greedy enterprise that puts stakes in a service to society.''
AP880504-0105 	X	Families of the 16 people killed in Amtrak's deadliest passenger train crash will share a $58 million settlement reached with Conrail, but relatives said they could never be compensated for the loss of loved ones. ``No it's not fair, but maybe it's as fair as things get. I'd just as soon see them bankrupt. The fact is, what you want is your kid back. After that, nothing is fair,'' said Ann Finkbeiner, whose 17-year-old son, Thomas C. Colley, was killed in the collision Jan. 4, 1987, at Chase. More than 175 people were injured when three linked Conrail engines skidded through a stop signal into the path of a 660-passenger Amtrak train traveling about 120 mph. The tentative settlement of the families' lawsuits, announced Tuesday, is subject to the approval of Consolidated Rail Corp.'s board of directors and various courts. The (Baltimore) Sun in today's editions quoted an unidentified attorney as saying some families will get more than $1 million based on factors that jurors would have considered had the cases gone to trial. ``Some of the victims had no economic dependents, some were wage earners with families. Some were trapped for 11 hours and some were killed instantly,'' the lawyer said. But Roger Horn, whose daughter Ceres, 16, died in the collision, said, ``It could be $580 million and there still would be no satisfaction in it. Would I rather have my daughter back at the dinner table at night? Of course.'' Horn said the image of ``lawyers with sharp pencils coming up with some horrible measurement of the worth of a life makes me just want to throw up every time I think about it.'' Horn said he hoped attention on the settlement would not distract from the continued effort for improved rail safety. ``I know there will be public interest in this settlement, and that's not bad or inappropriate. But what is really important is not the lawsuit, but reform legislation in Washington. And here we are, 16 months after the accident and we don't have a single line of reform legislation passed yet,'' Horn said. He and other relatives of those killed have pushed unsuccessfully for legislation to require rail, bus and airline workers in critical positions to be randomly tested for drugs. Post-accident tests showed traces of marijuana in the blood and urine of the Conrail engineer and the brakeman. Conrail agreed to settle the cases without conceding liability or the amount of damages incurred. The $58 million is in addition to $7.5 million Conrail agreed to place in an escrow account as a part of a proposed settlement of a class-action suit brought by those injured in the collision. A separate lawsuit is pending in which Conrail is seeking to force Amtrak to cover all amounts paid by Conrail for passenger injuries and deaths arising from the accident. Former Conrail engineer Ricky L. Gates, who missed a track signal and drove three linked Conrail locomotives through the track switch, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Gates still faces federal charges for conspiracy, obstruction of an agency investigation, and lying to investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board about drug use.
AP900125-0006 	X	Reputed mob boss John Gotti was described as ``God's gift to the underworld'' in tapes secretly recorded by law enforcement agents and played Wednesday to jurors at his assault and conspiracy trial. Prosecutors say Gotti, 49, became boss of the Gambino crime family, largest of New York's five Mafia factions, in December 1985 after then-boss Paul Castellano was gunned down in front of a steak house. Transcripts of the tapes, which were released to the news media, show Gotti concerned about keeping underlings, including lifelong friends, in their place. At least once on the tapes, Gotti uses the term ``Cosa Nostra' when he is apparently telling an unidentified man that mob soldiers should not address him directly on business matters but should go through their ``capos,'' or captains. The tapes also indicate a relationship with the Westies, a vicious Irish-American gang that operates on Manhattan's West Side. The Westies are a key factor in Gotti's trial with associate Anthony Guerrieri, 60, on charges of assault and conspiracy in the 1986 revenge shooting of John F. O'Connor, former vice president of a Carpenters Union local. Gotti is accused of commissioning the Westies to shoot and wound O'Connor because the union leader had thugs trash a restaurant owned by Gotti associate Philip ``Philly'' Modica. The transcripts show at least one mention by Gotti of the restaurant and several comments on the Westies. At one point Gotti says ``...they're doing something for me them Irish guys...,'' but does not say what. At another point, Gotti refers to James Coonan as ``my friend'' who is ``the leader of the West Side gang, Irish guys.'' He also says, ``He's on the payroll, and he gets it legitimately ...'' The tapes were introduced by Edward Wright, an investigator with the state's Organized Crime Task Force. Wright said the alleged mobsters, suspecting they might be under surveillance, turned on hair dryers, flushed toilets, whispered and used other means to try to make conversations inaudible. The tapes were made from listening devices placed in Gotti's hangout in the borough of Qeens and monitored by police between June 19, 1985, and Feb. 26, 1986. More than 1,000 cassettes were recorded, prosecutors say. One 1986 tape shows Gotti in a telephone conversation quoting someone who praised him: ``When they say God's gift to the underworld, you are it. ``He speaks with his heart,'' Gotti said on the telephone. ``He means it. I tell ya something, I love the guy.'' On another tape, Gotti expressed annoyance with lifelong friend Angelo Ruggiero for his familiarity during business hours. ``I told Ange, `You gotta forget them liberties you take. Take `em when we're alone,''' Gotti said. Gotti apparently had just made Ruggiero a ``caporegime,'' or crew captain, according to the tape transcripts, and was not satisfied that his friend was acting like a leader. Ruggiero, a defendant in the O'Connor case with Gotti, died of natural causes last month.
AP900910-0034 	X	When Pvt. Michael Durnell began basic Army training, the Persian Gulf was a faraway chapter from geography lessons and Iraq hadn't invaded Kuwait. Eight weeks later, Durnell and his buddies say they can handle fighting in the Gulf _ or whatever the Army hands them. ``Nobody looks forward to going into a possible war situation, but I'm definitely ready to do the job,'' said Durnell, 21, of Kansas City, Mo. He was among 560 new soldiers, all in their teens or early 20s, who graduated last Thursday from basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. The 64,000-acre post in the Ozarks has prepared soldiers for a half-century. At seven other Army posts across the nation, Army recruits have the same regimen _ up at 4:30 a.m., in bed by 8 p.m., six days a week. Don Moore of Atlanta watched with other parents during the graduation ceremony as the teen-agers turned young men marched with heads held high and chests puffed out. ``I'd hate to lose him, but you take an oath to protect your country. We have to protect ourselves. Freedom is not free,'' Moore said. The prospect of war in the Middle East was not emphasized during training. All recruits face months of specialized training before getting their first assignment. But Lt. Col. Stephen Rasmussen, commander of the graduating battalion, acknowledged the Persian Gulf crisis in his speech. ``If I could ask an Iraqi general what these men have done, he would say they've worried him a lot,'' he said. Army officials here say they won't change training to suit the desert. That training includes three weeks of weapons training, 80 miles of marching, and millions of push-ups. Capt. Mike Presnell watched as 150 of his recruits crawled, dodged and ran along a 400-yard tactical training course in 100-degree heat. ``My job is to prepare soldiers to serve in any type of combat, to graduate combat-ready soldiers,'' said Presnell. Behind him, recruits in full combat gear trained to stay alive with a sensor device on the helmet and chest. The device is activated by an infrared beam fired by someone in hiding. The beam sets off a beep to denote a kill. ``They love this. They like testing their skills. You provide them exciting training and they'll be motivated,'' Presnell said. ``It's better they learn their lessons here when it's only a beep.'' Gone are days of filling the ranks with high-school dropouts and those in trouble with the law back home. Now, if you don't have a high school diploma, forget it. ``The soldier of today is a hell of a lot better than the soldier of 14 years ago. We're getting better men to begin with,'' said Maj. Harold Von Fischer-Benzon, a brigade training officer. The failure rate in basic training is about 5 percent, he said. Gone, too, are the screaming, shouting drill sergeants training by fear and intimidation. ``Profanity is out. Harassment is out. It's a modern Army. They volunteered to come in. You don't need vulgar language anymore,'' said Staff Sgt. Gregory Wolf.
AP900803-0224 	X	Stock prices sold off sharply in a convulsive session Friday as the market reacted to Middle East oil worries and mounting recession fears. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down more than 120 points at its midsession low, closed with a 54.95-point loss at 2,809.65. Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 5 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 264 up, 1,457 down and 305 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board reached a 1990 high of 292.36 million shares, against 253.09 million in the previous session. Selling also pounded the over-the-counter market, where technology stocks showed steep losses. The Labor Department reported Friday morning that nonfarm payroll employment fell by 219,000 in July, surprising analysts who had been looking for a modest increase. The civilian unemployment rate jumped three-tenths of a percentage point, to 5.5 percent. Those figures reinforced concern in the financial world that economic activity was weakening more than had been thought just a few weeks ago. Many observers fear the economy's problems could be compounded by a jump in oil prices arising from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait this week. Selling intensified as reports reached Wall Street that Iraqi forces were near the border of Saudi Arabia. It subsequently let up a bit when a Soviet official said Iraq was expected to withdraw from Kuwait in the near future. After the close in New York, Iraq confirmed that it planned to begin pulling back forces from Kuwait on Sunday. The session marked the second time in the last two weeks that the Dow fell more than 100 points intraday before recovering some of its loss. On July 23 the average plummeted in the first hour, then finished with a net deficit of 56.44 points. Among the blue chips, International Business Machines dropped 1| to 108[; Procter & Gamble 2\ to 80; General Motors { to 43]; General Electric ~ to 69}, and American Express \ to 27}. In the energy sector, by contrast, prominent oil issues climbed in early trading and then turned back. Exxon dropped [ to 53[; Texaco 1\ to 64|, and Mobil ] to 66~ even as oil prices kept climbing. In the over-the-counter market, Apple Computer fell 2\ to 41\; MCI Communications 1 to 35}, and Intel 1 to 39\. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 345.20 million shares. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market lost $66.55 billion, or 1.99 percent, in value. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped 3.54 to 188.82. Standard & Poor's industrial index fell 8.23 to 407.06, and S&P's 500-stock composite index was down 6.62 at 344.86. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market tumbled 11.43 to 417.46. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 346.63, down 5.52.
AP900929-0040 	X	China is still holding hundreds of prisoners detained during last year's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, a U.S.-based human rights group says, The group, Asia Watch, on Friday issued the most comprehensive list to date of prisoners of conscience held in Chinese jails. Most of the 1,000 prisoners profiled in the report were arrested after the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators on June 4, 1989. Sidney Jones, executive director of the New York-based organization, said the aim of the report was to keep the prisoners from being forgotten. ``We are concerned that human rights in China as an issue is going to fade from public view. ... We want to make sure that these names become very much in the public eye,'' she said in a telephone interview. Asia Watch also hopes the report will help gain the release of those listed, she said. The group planned to try to give a copy to Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen when he attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Chinese government did not immediately respond to the report. It generally rejects criticism of its rights record as interference in its internal affairs. Thousands of Chinese nationwide were detained or arrested immediately after last year's student-led democracy movement was put down. The Asia Watch report lists the names and backgrounds of those whose cases are known. It also enumerates other arrests and executions reported by the official Chinese media without giving names. Only 226 of the 1,000 prisoners in the report have been tried. Sixty-seven were sentenced to death or executed. Called ``Repression in China Since June 4, 1989,'' the report is far more comprehensive than those issued previously by Asia Watch and other international rights groups. It includes people from every segment of society - students, intellectuals, peasants, workers, and government officials - from all 29 of China's provinces and regions. ``The focus has been on Beijing when people think about (the crackdown), but it's been widespread throughout China,'' Jones said. The government has announced the release of 881 people in Beijing and Shanghai the past year, but it has refused to say how many remain in jail nationwide for political offenses. Among those named in the report are such well-known figures as Liu Xiaobo. He is a literary critic who was on a fellowship at Columbia University when the democracy movement began, and he rushed back to China to take part. The report mentions Wang Dan, the bookish student who became one of the main protest leaders. He has been held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison outside Beijing. The report also includes hundreds of other people who were caught up in the pro-democracy protests that spread to more than 80 cities throughout China. The report also includes dozens of Tibetans and Moslems imprisoned for separatist activities, and Christians arrested for conducting religious activities outside the state-run churches. Asia Watch plans to present the report to Congress next week during a hearing on a bill that would link future renewal of China's most-favored-nation trade status to its rights record, Jones said. President Bush extended China's preferential status for one year in June. Some legislators criticized his decision, but it is not expected to be overturned.
AP900904-0001 	X	Here is a list of Irene Dunne's films. ``Cimarron'' (1930) ``Consolation Marrige'' (1931) ``Back Street'' (1932) ``Ann Vickers'' (1933) ``Roberta'' (1935) ``Magnificent Obsession'' (1935) ``Theodora Goes Wild'' (1936) ``The Awful Truth'' (1937) ``Joy of Living'' (1938) ``Love Affair'' (1939) ``My Favorite Wife'' (1940) ``Penny Serenade'' (1941) ``A Guy Named Joe'' (1943) ``The White Cliffs of Dover'' (1944) ``Over 21'' (1941) ``Anna and the King of Siam'' (1946) ``Life With Father'' (1947) ``I Remember Mama'' (1948) ``The Mudlark'' (1950) ``It Grows on Trees'' (1952) ``Show Boat'' (1936)
AP880328-0273 	X	USG Corp. urged its stockholders Monday to reject a slate of board candidates recommended by Desert Partners LP and repeated its opposition to the Texas group's $1.9 billion hostile takeover attempt. In a letter accompanying its proxy statement for the May 11 annual meeting, USG asked its stockholders to elect the slate of candidates nominated by the USG board to fill six spots on the 15-member panel. Desert Partners, meanwhile, announced it had extended until April 8 its $42-a-share cash tender offer for up to 21.5 million shares of USG stock. The offer was set to expire Monday at 11:59 p.m. EST. Desert Partners, a limited partnership led by Texas oilmen Jack E. Brown and Cyril Wagner Jr., had also offered to buy the remainder of USG's outstanding shares with securities valued at $42 a share. Chicago-based USG, a leading producer of gypsum wallboard and other building materials, told its stockholders that Desert Partners had reserved the right to cancel its tender offer unless all of the many conditions set forth in Securities and Exchange Commission regulations were met. If Desert Partners were to win the proxy fight, then drop its tender offer, ``Desert Partners would have obtained control of 40 percent of USG's Board without paying anything to USG stockholders or committing to do so in the future,'' wrote Robert J. Day, USG's chairman and chief executive officer. Day stated that Brown and Wagner had proposed takeovers of at least three other public companies in the past but had not yet acquired any of them. Day's letter said Desert Partners' proxy materials did not disclose whether its board candidates had any experience in overseeing a large public company ``and did not disclose what the Desert candidates would do if elected other than support the Desert Partners takeover campaign.'' Desert Partners announced the extension of its cash tender offer in a statement. The Texas group also said it was negotiating for additional financing in hopes of increasing the number of shares in the cash tender offer from 21.5 million to 39 million. Desert Partners owned a 9.9 percent stake in USG when it launched the tender offer, and said a ``nominal number'' of shares had been tendered through the end of last week.
AP900309-0113 	X	Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze will meet in Washington with Secretary of State James A. Baker from April 4-6, the State Department announced Friday. The talks are designed to further preparations for the summit meeting President Bush will hold here with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sometime in June. Shevardnadze and Baker are expected to concentrate on arms control issues, hoping that a treaty to reduce U.S. and Soviet long-range nuclear missiles would be ready for signing at the summit. They will also discuss regional issues and human rights, among other subjects, Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Department spokeswoman, said.
AP901218-0077 	X	Poland's government-in-exile will hand over its historic symbols of authority to Lech Walesa at a ceremony Saturday after his inauguration as president, a spokesman for Walesa said today. Parliament Speaker Mikolaj Kozakiewicz has called the National Assembly into session on Friday and Saturday. The assembly is to formally approve the election results Friday and witness Walesa's inauguration Saturday. Andrzej Drzycimski, a Walesa spokesman, said representatives of the government-in-exile were in Warsaw to discuss a ceremony to be attended by Ryszard Kaczorowski, president of the London-based government that dates to World War II. The transfer of symbols means the government-in-exile will cease to exist. Walesa, who won election Dec. 9, is expected to receive the insignia of power from Kaczorowski at Warsaw's Royal Castle, former seat of the presidency, after being sworn into office as president. On Monday, Polish authorities said they are investigating three generals and five colonels in the 1970 shootings of striking workers along the Baltic Coast that left at least 45 people dead. Walesa, then an unknown electrician in Gdansk, was among the leaders of the 1970 strike over food price increases that prompted the crackdown by security forces. The protests helped pave the way for the birth of the Solidarity free trade union movement a decade later. Justice Minister Aleksander Bentkowski did not name the officers under investigation, but said the initial order to shoot the workers was given by the late Wladyslaw Gomulka, then the Communist Party leader. A final decision on whether to put the eight officers on trial will be made by March, Bentkowski said. ``At present we have enough evidence to present charges against eight persons - three generals and five colonels who were directly involved in the events,'' Bentkowski told state television Monday night. ``I think that revealing their names is not proper now as the investigation is under way. We plan to end the proceedings by the end of March,'' he said. The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper reported today that the military prosecutor had already presented preliminary criminal accusations against the eight. The newspaper said that unless the accused prove that they were acting in self-defense or out of higher necessity, they could be charged with homicide or abetting homicide. Official Communist accounts say 45 people, including 28 in the cities of Gdansk and Gdynia, were killed by security forces in the December 1970 anti-government protests, which began when workers went on strike to protest food price increases. Many people believe the death toll was higher, and investigations are being conducted to see if names of additional victims can be found. Victims of the 1970 shootings were buried secretly, often without family members being informed. Bentkowski said that so far 160 witnesses have been questioned in the case. He said Gomulka's order to shoot the protesters was relayed by the late Prime Minister Jozef Cyrankiewicz to Gen. Grzegorz Korczynski, the army commander in Gdansk. The strikes led to Gomulka's replacement as party leader by Edward Gierek, who remained in power until he was toppled after the August 1980 strikes that resulted in the founding of Solidarity. Walesa, who led the 1980 strikes, insisted that those who died in 1970 should not be forgotten. At Solidarity's insistence, a monument to the slain workers was unveiled in December 1980. On Sunday, the 20th anniversary of the killings in Gdansk, Walesa returned to the monument to pay homage to the slain workers. ``Solidarity was born from their blood,'' said Walesa.
AP881203-0133 	X	Four Soviet gunmen who seized a busload of children in southern Russia and then traded them for a $3.3 million ransom and a plane to Israel were sent home Saturday with the airplane crew they held hostage. The four hijackers left in two planes with the eight-member Aeroflot crew that brought them to Israel and a 19-member Soviet delegation that arrived Saturday to arrange the return, officials said. Preparations for the departure were shown live on Israel television, with soldiers guarding the runway at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. The Soviet Union's Tass news agency later reported that the planes landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-1 airport at about 6 p.m. EST. Tass said the ransom money was returned to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had requested extradition of the hijackers, but ultimately Israel deported them as illegal immigrants. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alon Liel said this helped ``shorten the process.'' As a condition for returning the hijackers, Israel received assurances the four men would not face the death penalty, Liel said. Israel radio reported that one of the hijackers requested political asylum in Israel, but Liel said he could not confirm that. Originally, there were believed to be five hijackers. However, it was determined that the wife of one of the hijackers was not part of the plot. Tass identified her as a hostage. Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron, Israeli army chief of staff, called the hijackers Friday ``simple criminals with a lot of money who wanted to flee the Soviet Union.'' The saga began Thursday, when the four gunmen seized a bus carrying 30 schoolchildren on an excursion in Ordzhonikidze, a city 900 miles southeast of Moscow in the Russian Republic. After hours of negotiations, the gunmen traded the children for an Aeroflot jetliner out of the country, a flight crew of eight and a ransom of $3.3 million. A teacher on the bus, Natalya Efimova, told state-run Soviet television that one of the gunmen announced to the children, ``I will release anyone who will burn his red scarf.'' The teacher said the children, who wear the scarves as part of their school uniforms, stuffed them in their pockets to reduce the provocation. The Aeroflot jet landed in Israel Friday evening and the Soviets surrendered soon afterward. They were immediately taken to a prison near Tel Aviv. The released crew spent the night in a Tel Aviv hotel. The deportation Saturday ended two days of unusual diplomatic contacts, during which U.S. officials played a role in getting the hijackers to Israel and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze thanked the Israelis for returning them. Liel said Shevardnadze met with an Israeli consular delegation in Moscow on Saturday ``to express the thanks and deep appreciation of the Soviet government and Soviet people regarding the noble way the government of Israel has dealt with this barbaric act.'' Relations between the two nations have gradually been warming over the past few years. Moscow severed diplomatic ties in 1967 after Israel captured land from its Arab allies during the Middle East war. Israel television quoted Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as saying he hoped Israel's handling of the incident would lead to greater understanding between his country and the Soviet Union. Early in the drama, the United States acted as an intermediary to help the two nations compensate for the lack of formal diplomatic ties, Defense Ministry spokesman Eitan Haber said. Two of the Soviets were sent back on the Ilyushin-76 that brought them to Israel. The other three were returned in a Tupolev airliner that brought the Soviet delegation to Tel Aviv on Saturday. Soviet officials also were given the ransom money and the weapons carried by the hostages after signing a receipt for them, Israel television reported. Army radio said the five were taken blindfolded from Abu Kabir jail in Tel Aviv to Ben-Gurion about two hours before their departure. In Moscow, Vitaly A. Ponomarev, deputy KGB chief, identified the ringleader of the group as 38-year-old Pavel L. Yakshiants. Ponomarev said the man was a drug-user who first asked to go to Pakistan.
AP880308-0160 	X	Both races were marked by accusatory campaign commercials on a scope that was unprecedented for a presidential campaign. Dukakis aired a commercial featuring an acrobat doing somersaults as he tried to depict Gephardt as a man who flip-flops on the issues. Dole ran commercials saying Bush had approved arms-for-hostages swaps during the Iran-Contra affair. Thus ended what amounted to a Southern regional primary campaign, an idea hatched by Democratic officials who wanted to give a moderate-to-conservative contender a boost toward the party's 1988 nomination. The idea was to help nominate a Democrat who could run strongly across the South in the general election campaign in the fall _ and bolster the prospects of Democratic candidates in local elections. But whatever the theory, the result was a struggle carried out largely through costly television commercials with no particular Southern cast. The candidates, trying to campaign in an impossible number of areas simultaneously, often were reduced to staging appearances at airports so they could leave as quickly as possible for the next stop. But the commercials were eye-catching, particularly on the Democratic side. Voters who didn't see the ads would read about them in the paper or see clips on the television news. Gephardt attacked Dukakis for raising taxes while governor of Massachusetts and mocked Dukakis for once suggesting that farmers diversify their crops by growing Belgian endive. He also aired a spot seeking to portray Dukakis' campaign as guilty of a string of dirty tricks. Dukakis returned fire with ads featuring an acrobat doing somersaults, while the announcer attacked Gephardt as flipflopping on critical issues. Gore retooled his message in mid-campaign with a populist appeal designed to siphon off some of Gephardt's support. His final flurry of ads attacked Gephardt and Dukakis. In one commercial he even added a mild jab at Jackson. As much as anything, Super Tuesday was a test of Gore's Southern strategy for gaining the nomination. Alone among the contenders, he ignored the Iowa caucuses and spent months collecting endorsements and campaigning in his native region in hopes of jump-starting his campaign at home after others had left the field. However, among the original Democratic candidates, only Bruce Babbitt was gone by Super Tuesday. The Democratic idea for a regional primary suited the Bush forces fine. The vice president's aides quickly spread the word that they had erected a ``Southern fire wall'' that would contain any damage resulting from defeats in earlier contests. And when Bush finished a poor third in the Feb 8 Iowa caucuses, it looked like the theory would get a test. But then came Bush's victory in New Hampshire's primary, followed by his convincing triumph in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. And instead of merely hoping to hold his own, the vice president spent the last two days campaigning and advertising heavily in Dole's strongest state in Missouri in hopes of pulling off a sweep. Dole suffered through a difficult period as his campaign manager fired two senior aides in an internal struggle for control. Even as the polls opened on Super Tuesday, the contenders were looking ahead to the next round in the nominating wars. Dole had begun airing television commercials in Illinois, a contest his aides said he had to win to sustain his candidacy.
AP880808-0057 	X	The USS Vincennes, the cruiser that mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner last month, rescued five Iranian fishermen over the weekend who apparently had been drifting in a dinghy for more than a week, defense officials said today. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said the guided-missile cruiser was on a routine patrol in the Gulf of Oman, just below the entrance to the Persian Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz, when it spotted the five fishermen in a small dinghy on Sunday. The men were quickly taken aboard and treated for what was described as minor injuries, primarily dehydration and hypothermia, the officials added. ``The five identified themselves as fishermen whose boat sank while working in the Gulf of Oman,'' said one source. ``They had apparently been adrift for several days, possibly up to eight days.'' The sources said the men were still aboard the Vincennes today, awaiting arranfements to be made for a return to Iran. The Vincennes took up patrol duties just outside the Persian Gulf not long after it accidently shot down an Iranian Air Bus on July 3, killing all 290 aboard. The guided-missile cruiser had just emerged from a battle with Iranian gunboats when its radar operators detected what crew members thought was an Iranian F-14 fighter. According to a Pentagon report which has not been released publicly, the stress of first-time combat contributed to crew errors in tracking and targeting the ill-fated airliner.
AP900517-0262 	X	PacifiCorp, the Portland, Ore.-based utility giant, today increased to $1.82 billion its offer to acquire Arizona's largest utility, Pinnacle West Capital Corp. PacificCorp also agreed to assume all of the debt of Pinnacle West and its subsidiary Arizona Public Service Co. as part of the offer. Steve Carr, a Pinnacle West spokesman, said the company's board of directors would ``seriously consider'' the offer. Pinnacle West's board rejected three previous offers from PacifiCorp.The last offer, worth about $1.7 billion, was rejected in March as inadequate. Under the new offer, Pinnacle West shareholders would received $21 in cash for each share of stock they hold at the time of the acquisition. Pinnacle West stock sold for $12.75 at the close of trading Wednesday. ``We think it is time to bring to a conclusion PacifiCorp's expressions of interest to you ...,'' PacifiCorp President and Chief Executive Officer A.M. Gleason said in a letter delivered Thursday to Richard Snell, chairman of Pinnacle West. ``Our offer remains the same with regard to customers of Arizona Public Service: Rate increases limited to 2 percent per year for four years. ``This is significantly less than the rate relief requested in APS's most recent filing with the Arizona Corporation Commission: Rate increases of 6.5 percent per year for three years.'' PacifiCorp has said it wants the Arizona utility so that it could conduct seasonal transfers of excess power between Arizona, where power use peaks in the summer, and the Pacific Northwest, where power use peaks in the winter. Gleason said the deal would delay into the next decade any need for PacifiCorp to build additional power plants to meet peak demands. PacifiCorp has electric utility operations in seven Western states. Prior to receiving the offer Snell was not enthusiastic about a deal. ``If there's another offer, we'll take a look at it,'' Snell said. ``But our position is that this is not a good time to sell, and the company is not for sale. ``On the other hand, we've given serious consideration to the other offers, and we will again if one comes our way.''
AP880729-0299 	X	The first big failure of a leveraged buyout failed to stir the junk-bond market Friday, and analysts predicted the bankruptcy filing by drugstore chain Revco D.S. Inc. would concern few holders of other high-risk corporate bonds. Revco, which announced its filing Thursday, is the only major company to seek protection from its creditors after going private in a junk-bond financed buyout. ``Many people had expected it (the Chapter 11 filing),'' said Robert Waill, managing director and junk bond analyst at L.F. Rothschild & Co. in New York. ``There had been a general understanding from investors that this was risky ...'' The Twinsburg, Ohio-based company failed to make a June interest payment on about $700 million in outstanding debt that was used to go private 19 months ago. The company sought protection from creditors after talks with bondholders broke down. ``There was no ripple effect,'' said Robert Levine, director of high-yield bond research for Kidder, Peabody & Co. in New York. As a result, traders said, prices of most junk bonds remained fairly firm in the secondary market Friday, including some of Revco's securities. Junk bonds are high-yield, high-risk notes commonly issued to fund leveraged buyouts and other types of corporate takeovers. In a leveraged buyout, a company is acquired mainly with borrowed funds that are repaid with the company's cash flow or sale of its assets. Some traders and analysts even predicted that Revco bonds might rebound after the chain files its reoganization plan with the bankruptcy court and gets back on its feet financially. All of Revco's debt had been considered speculative grade, or ``junk,'' a category assigned by the big credit-rating services for companies considered more likely to default on their bonds due to a variety of reasons, including tough economic conditions in a particular industry. Junk bond yields are generally three- to four percentage points higher than comparable Treasury bonds to compensate for their low rating, making them attractive to some investors. The majority of junk bond buyers are large sophisticated institutional investors, rather than individuals, who diversify their portfolios enough to compensate for future risks. Revco's problem resulted from the heavy debt load incurred as a result of its leveraged buyout in December 1986. The company listed its total debt as $1.5 billion in the bankruptcy filing. Chairman Boake A. Sells said Thursday that the company's investment adviser planned to propose a recapitalization that would have swapped equity in Revco for debt, but he said discussions with major bondholders broke down even before the plan was proposed. Sells maintained that most of Revco's 2,000 drug stores were profitable but that the company was not generating enough cash to both operate its business and make millions of dollars in annual interset payments. Revco is the only leveraged buyout company that has failed to meet its obligations to bondholders, according to Gail I. Hessol, a managing director of Standard & Poor's Corp. In all of 1987 there was a record $9 billion in corporate defaults, she said. As of June 21, there were $2 billion in defaults. Waill said as a result of the Revco filing, ``I don't think people would say that this teaches us a lesson (that) we should be more careful of LBOs.'' ``Investors tend to look at this as an isolated, separate event which was determined by its own particulars,'' he said. ``Unlike high-grade bonds, each of these (junk bond) companies lives its own life.''
AP900516-0192 	X	Word of Sammy Davis Jr.'s death from throat cancer drew friends and associates to his gated hilltop home Wednesday. Actress Loretta Swit and others who identified themselves as Hollywood producers and executives passed through a crowd of reporters and television crews to pay a visit to Davis' widow, Altovise. ``You never met anybody who lived life so fully as he,'' said actor Roscoe Browne. ``He took the whole thing and went for it.'' Early in the day, Davis' business manager, Shirley Rhodes, came outside the gate to confirm to reporters that Davis had died. By her side was one of Davis' sons, Mark. Asked how the family was doing, Mark Davis said, ``Pretty good.'' ``We're just trying to get it all together, trying to get our thoughts and nerves together,'' said Ms. Rhodes. She said Davis' three sons and wife were at his side when he died in his sleep at 5:59 a.m. The death of the entertainment superstar created a commotion on the quiet, twisting street lined with gated mansions. Television news vans and reporters' cars parked under ``No Parking'' signs along the two-lane street. Reporters milled under a ``No Trespassing'' sign in front of Davis' home. Two Star Line Tour vans drove slowly past the home as tourists snapped pictures through the windows. Gardeners and city workers slowed down to ask reporters what was going on and residents drove by in the Mercedes-Benzes, Porsches and Rolls-Royces, shaking their heads in disgust at the crush. A half-dozen curiosity-seekers arrived at the home. Florist trucks arrived throughout the day with deliveries.
AP880408-0172 	X	City officials are trying to shut down an advertising agency that has found a legal loophole allowing it sell babies to adoptive parents. ``For You Too: A Child from the Third World for 12,000 marks ($7,270),'' reads an advertising flier from the Frankfurt-based Hamel and Keller agency. Strict laws bar private adoption agencies. ``We are completely legal,'' Uwe Hamel, 32, told The Associated Press. ``All we are doing is breaking through the monopoly of state-run offices that put couples wanting to adopt through the torture of long waits and tests before they get a child.'' To circumvent the adoption law, Hamel says, a prospective adoptive father declares himself the father of an illegitimate child and signs a contract with the baby's mother, who is paid to verify his claim. The adoptive father then applies to a West German court for the child to be declared his legitimate offspring, Hamel said. Hamel said he makes about $3,000 as the go-between, with the rest of the fee going to the mother. ``There is nothing in our law that forbids this,'' he said. The agency sends its advertising fliers to prospective adoptive parents and gynecologists. ``I can arrange immediately for a child. The prices: 30,000 marks ($18,000) for a child from the Middle East; 15,000 marks ($9,000) for a child from the Far East; 45,000 marks ($27,000) for a German child,'' one flier said. Frankfurt city officials are working to shut down Hamel's office ``because it is morally and ethically wrong to profit by selling human beings,'' city spokesman Stefan Lauer told the AP. Last year, Frankfurt won a court order to shut down United Families International, an information office for the Infertility Center of Michigan, Inc. The Michigan office is operated by American lawyer Noel P. Keane, who gained fame in the ``Baby M'' surrogate motherhood case. ``We closed down the Keane office last year, and in this case we also think it is morally and ethically wrong to make a profit by trading in children,'' Lauer said. The case has been getting heavy publicity. The Frankfurter Rundschau published an article about Hamel's operation under the headline, ``Businessman Deals in Babies from the Third World.'' The Frankfurt Abendpost newspaper wrote: ``Frankfurt Office Takes Advantage of Law's Loopholes for Scandalous Baby Trade.'' Different prices does not mean the agency considers one baby more valuable than another because of race, Hamel said. ``In West Germany a mother is entitled to as much as 2,000 marks ($1,480) per month to support herself and a child. ``A Third World mother can often support herself and a baby for about 200 marks ($120) per month, depending on which country she's from,'' he added. Hamel said he has so far arranged the adoption of nine babies. His office has been operating for two months.
AP881122-0030 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 29,430.12 points, up 145.86 points, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Tuesday.
AP880217-0063 	X	For the sixth straight year, a British woman has defeated her American counterpart in the Shrove Tuesday international pancake race. Marcia Strieff, who sprinted 415 yards carrying and flipping a pancake in a frying pan, crossed the finish line Tuesday in 67.7 seconds to lead the field of 13 American women here. But it wasn't good enough _ Leslie Byrne covered a similar course in Olney, England, in 62.9 seconds. Mrs. Strieff, 30, has won the Liberal leg of the trans-Atlantic race all three times she entered it. The rules prevent her from participating again. ``It's time for someone else to take a turn,'' Mrs. Strieff said. ``... It would have been nice to have beat them at least once.'' According to legend, the race has been run in Olney since 1445, when a forgetful housewife left for church on Shrove Tuesday with her frying pan still in her hand. Liberal made it an international event in 1950 by adding its own race after seeing reports of the English competition. Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, is the day English women traditionally make pancakes to use up cooking fat before Lent. The teams have 19 victories apiece. They tied once. ``I didn't think of the pancake, I just ran,'' said Mrs. Byrne, a physical education teacher. ``I haven't done any training, though sometimes when I take the dog out for a walk, I have a little trot.'' At Olney, about 700 spectators lined the twisting route as Mrs. Byrne outpaced 19 other women in the dash from the market square to the 14th century church in the town of 3,300 about 40 miles northwest of London. A crowd estimated at 3,000, including Gov. Mike Hayden and his wife, Patti, lined the route in Liberal, a community of about 17,000 just north of Oklahoma. Even more spectators turned out later for the Pancake Day Parade, said Rosalee Phillips, the secretary for the annual event. Mrs. Byrne received her prize of 100 pounds, or $175, in cash, various gifts from town merchants, an inscribed silver tray from the town of Liberal and a kiss from Clive Coverley, a ceremonial official known as the town verger. At Liberal, Mrs. Strieff got the kiss of peace from S. Norman Lee, British consul from Chicago, along with roses, a crown, a $500 savings bond and other prizes.
AP900201-0043 	X	The Mexican government promised an ``exhaustive inspection'' of a Cuban-owned freighter that drew machine-gun and cannon fire from a Coast Guard cutter after refusing to stop for a drug inspection. The 250-foot Panama-registered freighter, the Hermann, took several hits from the cutter Chincoteague as the vessels steamed across the open Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard spokesman Joe Gibson said. The ship was hit 50 times by Coast Guard fire, but there were no injuries, a Mexican official said. The vessel escaped into Mexican waters, but two Mexican navy ships seized the Hermann and escorted it to Tampico, about 300 miles south of the U.S. border. ``The situation is not over. There's action still being taken,'' Coast Guard Lt. Steve Koska said late Wednesday. ``I can't go into it, but there are things we can do. We can go through diplomatic channels.'' Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that authorities began the ``exhaustive search'' of the vessel in Tampico. The inspection, expected to take at least 24 hours, was to include a search for drugs and an examination of the ship's navigation diary, said Javier Trevino, a spokesman with Mexico's embassy in Washington, D.C. The Cuban government, which had demanded that the United States not attempt to board the ship, has made a formal complaint to the State Department over the incident, said a Cuban diplomatic representative in Washington. The official called the incident a provocation. ``This deed demonstrates once more that the United States intends to behave as owner of the world and with its proverbial barbarism appears willing to obstruct normal commerce between Cuba and Mexico,'' said an official quoted by Cuba's official news agency, Prensa Latina. Secretary of State James A. Baker III disagreed. ``It was not an attack and a provocation,'' Baker said. ``We were engaged in a legal law enforcement activity.'' State, Defense Department and National Security Council officials held three meetings before giving permission to use disabling fire against the Hermann, said Jack O'Dell, a Coast Guard spokesman in Washington. The Coast Guard obtained permission from Panama to fire on the ship, Gibson said. He said it is protocol to request permission to stop a vessel from its country of registry. The Hermann has a Cuban crew, is owned by a Cuban company and originated from a Cuban port, Coast Guard officials said. Koska said the decision to board the ship was made because the vessel fit the profile of a narcotics-smuggling ship, but he declined to elaborate. ``The profile of a vessel that is engaged in illegal activity is when you ask them to stop and they don't stop,'' he said. ``Wouldn't you say that's a pretty good indication?'' Cuba's news agency, monitored in Mexico City, said the ship had a 12-man crew, a cargo of 10 tons of chromium and was operated by the Guamar Shipping Co. of Cuba. The incident lasted from early Tuesday, when the Chincoteague spotted the freighter, until 5 a.m. Wednesday, when the shots were fired about 45 miles east of Tampico. The Coast Guard cutter, a 110-foot patrol boat with a crew of 16, is based in Mobile, Ala. It has two M-60 machine guns and one 20mm cannon.
AP881130-0116 	X	The Soviet Union on Tuesday stopped jamming Radio Liberty broadcasts for the first time in 38 years, officials said today, as thousands of jamming transmitters blocking most Western broadcasts into the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were silenced. Jane Lester, spokeswoman for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, said the service monitored all of its broadcasts overnight and found no jamming except for Radio Free Europe transmissions to Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. ``This is really a momentous event,'' said Stanley Leinwoll, U.S. engineering director for the services in New York City. He said between 2,000 and 2,500 jamming devices were shut down in the Soviet Union, along with others run by Eastern European governments. The lifting affected most Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Afghanistan services of the U.S. government along with most Israeli KOL transmissions and West German Deutsch Velle broadcasts beamed toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, said Beth Knisley, a spokeswoman for the Voice of America. Radio Liberty, run by the U.S. government, broadcasts in native languages to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from Munich, West Germany. VOA also broadcasts to those areas but operates separately from Radio Liberty. Only the VOA and West German broadcasts into Afghanistan and U.S. broadcasts into Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria remained jammed last night, Ms. Knisley said. She said the Soviets have not said why the jamming was stopped but added, ``It saves them a lot of money, though.'' The Soviets stopped jamming nearly all broadcasts by VOA, which transmits in 43 languages throughout the world, in May 1986. Last Jan. 1, Polish jamming of VOA also stopped. The Soviets have been jamming Radio Liberty continuously for more than three decades. Ms. Knisley said one listener who talked to a VOA researcher said Tuesday he had picked up a broadcast for the first time since the 1950s. She said she did not know where the listener lived. VOA is part of the United States Information Agency, but Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty operates as a separate government radio service. ``The jamming stopped as of last night about 9 p.m. (4 p.m. EST),'' Radio Liberty spokesman Bob Redlich said in Munich. Radio Liberty transmits news, music and information programs to the Soviet Union in more than a dozen languages. Radio Free Europe transmits to the other Soviet Bloc countries, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in their own languages. Radio Free Europe began operating in 1950; Radio Liberty started its tranmissions to the Soviet Union in 1951.
AP900709-0134 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev has won another political victory, gaining Communist Party approval to restructure the Politburo that once ruled the country. The Politburo now promises to play second fiddle to the separate government structure he also leads. The vote by the 28th Communist Party Congress on Monday also marks a new effort to reduce the ethnic unrest that is tearing the Soviet Union apart by including party leaders from the 15 Soviet republics on the Politburo, the party's ruling inner circle. The new body will have up to 23 members, nearly twice the 12 voting members on the old body, and many if not most of the faces should be new. The expansion and restructuring will accelerate the process that Gorbachev began after he was elected to a strengthened presidency in March, transferring power to a newly created Presidential Council _ a development that has angered such hard-line Politburo members as Yegor K. Ligachev and could squeeze them out of their jobs. Unlike the Politburo, whose members are elected by the party, members of the Presidential Council are appointed and dismissed by the president, along the lines of a Western-style cabinet. The Politburo, which formerly met once every Thursday, has been meeting only once a month since March, and has been concentrating on Communist Party rather than government issues. Since most of the Politburo members will reside in their home republics, the Politburo will continue to meet relatively infrequently and will not exercise as tight control over national affairs as the body has traditionally done. The duties of the government council have not been fully defined. The 16-man body consists of six voting members of the Politburo, including the prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister, the KGB chief, and Gorbachev's right-hand man, Alexander Yakovlev. Other members are the chief law enforcement official, a reform-minded economist, a crusading environmentalist and a workers' rights activist. Significantly, whereas nine of 12 men on the old Politburo were members of the ethnic Russian majority, the new Politburo will include a majority of non-Russians. And the Presidential Council contains five non-Russians. The new Politburo will include the heads of the party organizations in the 15 republics, most of whom are clamoring for greater control over political and economic decisions affecting their regions. Shortly after becoming general secretary of the Communist Party five years ago, Gorbachev sought to centralize his authority, but he has been driven to support greater regional autonomy by the independence drives of the three Baltic republics. Moreover, the largest Soviet republic, the Russian Federation, last month proclaimed its intent to seek greater control of its affairs under the leadership of its populist Communist president, Boris N. Yeltsin. Mostly recently, Gorbachev has embraced the idea of reconstituting the Soviet Union as a looser confederation of republics. The Politburo has had its ups and downs since it was created on the eve of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that swept the Communists to power. The first two Soviet leaders, Vladimir I. Lenin and Josef V. Stalin, exercised virtual one man rule, appointing aides and allies to the Politburo. Under Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled for 18 years until his death in 1982, the Politburo was a coalition that made all the key decisions. As Brezhnev and the other Politburo members weakened with age, the country lapsed into what Gorbachev has labeled the period of stagnation. The first Politburo consisted of seven Bolsheviks, among them Lenin, the founder of the Red Army Leon Trotsky, and the lesser-known Stalin. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin eliminated Trotsky and other rivals from the ruling body. By the height of his power in 1952, he had expanded the membership to 25 voting members, all loyal aides. It also included 11 non-voting members. Nikita S. Khrushchev, who rose to power after Stalin's death in 1953, whittled the body to 15 voting and nine non-voting members. Although he instituted reforms, he tried to keep a tight personal grip on power, angering Politburo colleagues who tried unsuccessfully to oust him in 1957 and succeeded in 1964. Brezhnev, Khrushchev's successor, used the Politburo to forge a coalition among Soviet interest groups, such as the armed forces, the KGB, other government ministries and major industrial sectors, who held most of the dozen slots. He also included seven heads of republic parties as non-voting Politburo members, allowing them to run their regions in return for loyalty. Gorbachev and his allies argue that Brezhnev's system led to widescale corruption and blocked the transformation of the country into a modern industrial society.
AP880921-0077 	X	Frustration over having to draw up an unemotional report on the homeless and then go into streets where people were ``ravaging garbage cans'' prompted dissent by most of the report's authors, one of them said today. Phyllis Wolfe, executive director of a private health care program for the homeless in the nation's capital, said that while gathering information for the report, panel members became outraged at conditions they found. ``It could just not be left in dots and dashes and graphs and figures,'' Ms. Wolfe said on ``CBS This Morning.'' Ms. Wolfe joined eight other members of the committee formed by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in issuing a supplementary statement that the institute refused to include in its report published Monday. The published report, ``Homelessness, Health and Human Needs,'' calls the growing number of homeless children ``a national disgrace.'' It recommends such measures as changing food stamp programs, increasing Medicaid services and expanding programs that help pre-school children. The authors of the supplementary statement said recommendations in the report were too limited. They said the country should supply more low-income housing, raise the minimum wage, offer more support services and guarantee homeless people adequate health care. Nine members of the 13-member panel signed the supplementary statement saying the main study ``fails to capture our sense of shame and anger about homelessness.'' The original report estimates that families with a total of 100,000 children are homeless on any given night, in addition to countless children who have run away from home or been kicked out by their parents. It says those under 18 are the fastest growing homeless group, and homelessness is increasing in many rural areas as well as in the nation's cities. Ms. Wolfe said the committee's work on the report was ``very structured,'' but members found themselves ``leaving committee meetings and walking by and seeing people ravaging garbage cans, seeing people suffering on the street.'' The supplementary statement itself expresses the same sentiment: ``We have reviewed the demographic and clinical data and then, walking home, passed men asleep on heating grates or displaced people energetically searching in garbage piles for a few cents' income from aluminum cans,'' it says. ``We analyzed mortality data for the homeless but lacked any platform from which to shout that our neighbors are dying needlessly because we are incapable of providing the most basic services.'' ``We can no longer sit as spectators to the elderly homeless dying of hypothermia, to the children with blighted futures poisoned by lead in rat-infested dilapidated welfare hotels, to women raped, to old men beaten and robbed of their few possessions, and to pepole dying on the streets with catastrophic illness such as AIDS,'' the supplementary report said. It said the committee members who dissented against the report's limited nature endorsed its long list of recommendations, but ``felt continuously uneasy because of our inability to state the most basic recommendation: homelessness in the United States is an inexcusable disgrace and must be eliminated.''
AP881129-0262 	X	Wall Street broke free of the doldrums Tuesday, rallying on strength in the dollar and Treasury bonds. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 20.09 to 2,101.53. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by a margin of about 12-to-7 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 938 issues up, 551 down and 478 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the NYSE came to 127.42 million shares, up from 123.48 million in the previous session. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trading at regional exchanges and on the over-the-counter market, totaled 155 million shares. Wall Street began the day where it left off on Monday, drifting aimlessly for several hours, but the market picked up steam in the afternoon. Analysts theorized the market's oversold condition made stocks ripe for gains, and improvements in the dollar and Treasury bond prices were reason enough for investors to start buying. ``I think the negatives are all on the table,'' said Ralph Acampora, a market analyst with Kidder, Peabody & Co. ``Everyone who wanted to sell, sold.'' With those negatives _ such as rising interest rates _ discounted by investors, the market had a better tone, Acampora said. Analysts said program buying also added fuel to the rally, but Tuesday's low volume was evidence that traders were still mistrustful. ``No one believes it,'' Acampora said. ``They won't believe it until it has muscle.'' Many investors were on the sidelines, waiting for Friday's unemployment figures from the Labor Department that might give some clue as to whether the Federal Reserve Board will tighten or relax credit. Michael Metz, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., said the market expected the Fed to raise its discount rate. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that the economy, as measured by the gross national product, expanded at a moderate 2.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter. That was up from the government's preliminary estimate last month of 2.2 percent growth, but analysts said the report had a muted effect on Wall Street. RJR Nabisco, which rose 1~ to 90~, was the most actively traded issue on the NYSE as investors jockeyed for position in advance of Tuesday's 5 p.m. EST deadline for takeover bids for the food and tobacco giant. Among blue-chip winners, General Motors was up 1| to 83~, Ford Motor picked up 1] to close at 51\, Procter & Gamble jumped 1[ to 81| and Coca Cola rose 1 to 43. IBM closed up { at 119] after arbitrators ordered Fujitsu Ltd. to pay the computer giant hundreds of millions of dollars for the use of information about the software that runs IBM mainframe computers. The market, which had bid IBM stock up 2~ on Monday, expected the company to receive a much larger award. Among the decliners, AT&T slipped ] to 29 and Control Data fell { to 17{. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market rose $19.819 billion, or 0.75 percent, in value. The NYSE composite index of all its listed common stocks rose 1.18 to 152.43. Standard & Poor's industrial index rose 2.54 to 311.96, and S&P's 500-stock composite index picked up 2.27 to 270.91. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market rose 2.06 to 368.15. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 0.53 to 292.20.
AP880728-0159 	X	The most comprehensive banking bill since the Great Depression cleared a House committee Thursday after 16{ grueling hours of debate, but it faces an uncertain future with little time left in Congress' legislative year. The bill, approved by the House Banking Committee on a 30-20 vote, grants banks broad new securities powers but restricts their ability to enter real estate and insurance and imposes new obligations on them to serve the poor. The bill now is headed for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where the chairman, Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., is known to be skeptical of letting banks into the securities business. Depending on how long House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, allows for Dingell's review, the powerful Michigan Democrat could kill the bill through delay or exact concessions by threatening delay. Congress is preparing to leave town for its summer recess on Aug. 12 and won't be back until Sept. 6. Then, it plans only a month-long session before adjourning for the fall election campaign. ``There's a real question whether this bill is going to pass the House. It's a very controversial bill and there just isn't much time,'' said Edward Yingling, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association, the industry's largest trade group. Aides to Dingell, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Wright has not yet decided on a deadline for the Energy and Commerce Committee, but they indicated that Dingell is not inclined to act quickly. The Banking Committee, after a session that began 10 a.m. Wednesday and ended 2:30 a.m. Thursday with only short breaks, approved the measure with all but three Democrats in favor and all but three Republicans opposed. The hodgepodge of compromises struck to get it through has created some odd political coalitions. The banking industry and the securities industry, normally bitter opponents, are both opposing it for different reasons. Consumer groups are supporting it, along with the real estate and insurance industries. But, the alignment could change _ with banks on one side and all of the other groups on the other _ if Dingell, as expected, tightens the restrictions on how banks are permitted to exercise the new securities activities. ``The likelihood of the bill being improved by the Energy and Commerce Committee is very small,'' Yingling said. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., whose Energy and Commerce subcommittee on finance gets first crack at the securities provisions, said Thursday his panel needed to make ``major changes'' in the bill. ``There simply are not adequate safeguards for the banking system,'' he said. The bill would, if enacted, represent the first crack in the barrier between investment and commercial banking that was erected as part of the reforms stemming from the 1929 stock market crash. It allows bank holding companies to underwrite virtually every type of security except corporate stock. The securities industry had unsuccessfully sought to keep underwriting of corporate bonds, mutual funds and corporate debt convertible to stock away from banks. But, the House bill includes those powers as well as the underwriting of commercial paper, municipal revenue bonds and securities backed by mortgages and other consumer debt such as auto loans. Other sections require banks: _To serve poor people by providing low-cost ``lifeline'' checking services for accounts between $25 and $1,000. _To offer special accounts for the cashing of government checks such as Social Security and welfare checks, with a cashing charge of no more than $2. _To have a good record of serving poor communities in their lending area before getting permission from the Federal Reserve Board to exercise new powers. _To cease further expansion into the real estate business for two years. _To stay out of insurance underwriting and to limit the number of additional institutions that can sell insurance underwritten by other companies. The chairman of the banking committee, Rep. Fernand J. St Germain, D-R.I., in a statement Thursday, hailed the bill as ``a major step forward in providing a sane restructuring of the financial industry and establishing a solid framework of protections for consumers.'' Republican opposition to the consumer sections had threatened committee passage of the bill until an hour-long negotiating session behind closed doors after midnight. Democrats agreed to accept some watering down of the consumer provisions and, in exchange, three Republicans _ Steve Bartlett of Texas, John Hiler of Indiana and Thomas Ridge of Pennsylvania _ voted in favor of the bill. Rep. Chalmers Wylie of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the committee, had argued that the consumer provisions would, in effect, give the federal government the power to allocate credit. Also, because of their expense, they could impair the soundness of the banking system, he said.
AP900116-0041 	X	The Tokyo Stock Exchange's key index followed up its worst single-day drop in more than two years with a slightly larger plunge today, while the dollar edged up against the Japanese yen. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average fell 666.41 points, or 1.8 percent, closing at 36,850.36, its lowest level since the 36,881.53 closing Nov. 27. The market was closed Monday for a national holiday. On Friday, the Nikkei lost 656.36 points, then its worst one-day plunge since 731.91 on Nov. 19, 1987, following a crash on Wall Street. So far this year, the Nikkei has lost nearly 2,000 points, or 6.8 percent. ``The market was marred with sell orders all day long,'' said Ichitaro Watanabe, a dealer at Nikko Scurities Co. ``It was the result of a combination of unfavorable factors hitting the market all at once.'' With investors dumping issues, the index began its dive as soon as the market opened today, and quickly fell below the 37,000-point level, dealers said. ``Nobody was buying,'' said Yoshio Shimoyama of Nikko Securities. ``Everybody was watching and waiting.'' Dealers and analysts have said the Nikkei's recent fall has resulted largely from falling government bond prices caused by the weakening yen. The yen's weakness also has intensified existing pessimism in the stock market, they said. ``But over the weekend, the regional conflict worsened in the Soviet Union and the New York market fared poorly overnight, aggravating the market's pessimism,'' said Keiichi Nishida, a dealer at Kidder Peabody. Dealers said the fall in bond prices is likely to stop soon because yields are approaching an appropriate level, around 7 percent, but a recovery in stock prices is unlikely before Japan's general elections in February. ``Right now, market players see no encouraging sign to buy issues,'' said Yoshiro Inoue, an analyst at Nomura Securities. In currency dealings, the dollar closed at 145.75 yen, up 0.40 yen from Friday's close of 145.35 yen. It opened at 145.85 yen and ranged between 145.65 yen and 146.07 yen. Traders attributed the U.S. currency's strength in Tokyo to its rise against most major foreign currencies Monday, while the New York and Tokyo markets were closed for holidays. The central bank's dollar-selling intervention kept the dollar from rising more steeply, said a trader with the Bank of Tokyo, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kyodo News Service said the bank sold more than $400 million. The bank does not comment on its exchange market activities. The Bank of Tokyo trader said the lower stock and bond prices prompted market players to sell yen. Chizuko Satsukawa, a trader with Chemical Bank in Tokyo, said the yen will remain weak for the time being. ``Concerns over the election are prompting market players to get rid of the yen, which helps the dollar become stronger,'' she said. But a sharp plunge by the yen is also unlikely while the Bank of Japan is actively selling dollars, Ms. Satsukawa said.
AP901002-0235 	X	President Bush asked Americans Tuesday night to support a $500 billion package of tax increases and spending cuts that demands sacrifice from all. ``Everyone who can should contribute something,'' the president said. Claiming rare unity with leaders of the Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush said in a 10-minute televised speech from the Oval Office that the package was written in ``eight months of blood, sweat and fears - fears of the economic chaos that would follow if we fail to reduce the deficit.'' ``It is the best agreement that can be legislated now,'' Bush said of the compromise. ``This deficit reduction agreement is tough, and so are the times.'' Bush's address from the Oval Office was nationally televised, but his message was primarily aimed 16 blocks away: at Congress, where an initial vote on the plan may be held as early as Thursday. Although the package generally has support among Democrats, lawmakers from Bush's own party - particularly in the House - have balked at its tax provisions. Bush himself had to abandon his ``no new taxes'' pledge in the face of the growing deficit. ``I'm not, and I know you're not, a fan of tax increases,'' Bush said. ``But if there have to be tax measures, they should allow the economy to grow, they should not turn us back to higher income tax rates and they should be fair. ``Everyone who can should contribute something. And no one should have to contribute beyond their fair share.'' Bush pointed out that the agreement had been hammered out by a bipartisan group. ``The Democratic and Republican leadership tonight all speak with once voice,'' he said, and he urged people to tell their congressmen they support the package. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, joined Bush in urging passage of the fragile package, saying the future of the nation ``is more important than partisan differences.'' In a televised response, Mitchell acknowledged that Democrats and Republicans had ``deep differences over values and priorities'' that delayed an agreement for months. The Democratic leader called the agreement ``imperfect,'' and warned that the compromise budget cuts and tax increases will demand ``sacrifice from all Americans.'' ``But, if enacted, it holds the promise of restoring a sound economy, from which all Americans will benefit,'' Mitchell said. ``Everybody who can should contribute something,'' Bush said. ``Everyone will bear a small burden. But if we succeed, every American will have a large burden lifted.'' The alternative, Bush said, is recession. Wavering Republican lawmakers had told Bush earlier in the day that the plan was in trouble, and that a presidential address to the nation endorsing the package might be helpful if he expected GOP support for the package with congressional elections just a month away. Bush also planned to push for the three-day-old package, which the White House negotiated with congressional leaders, in a series of upcoming speeches around the nation. The budget package would raise taxes on gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes, boats and furs while trimming benefits to farmers and Medicare recipients. It also would reduce tax deductions for people who earn more than $100,000. Bush earlier Tuesday had pressed his case with skeptical and wavering House Republicans. He seemed to be making some headway and by late Tuesday, House GOP leaders were beginning to feel more optimistic about their chances of rounding up support from most of their members. ``We've made significant progress,'' said House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill. One opponent, Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., agreed, saying, ``I'd guess right now it would be narrowly defeated. By tomorrow, it would be narrowly passed. ... People are being moved, one-by-one.'' Bush said the budget deficit was ``a problem that has lingered and dogged and vexed this country for far too long.'' Likening the budget crisis to the Persian Gulf stalemate, Bush said ``our nation is standing together against Saddam Hussein's aggression ' while at home ``another threat, a cancer, is gnawing away at our nation's health.'' The president said that ending deficit spending was simple ``common sense.'' ``No nation can continue to do business the way the federal government has been operating and survive,'' he said. ``When you get a bill, that bill must be paid,'' he said. Bush said that the plan was not ``a magic act'' but contained true deficit savings and would put the nation on the path toward lower interest rates and a balanced budget. A congressional study released Tuesday showed that the poor would be hit hardest by the package, the rich would feel its increases the least. The increased taxes and reduced benefits would take an average 2 percent of the earnings of Americans with the lowest incomes, according to the survey by the House Ways and Means Committee.
AP881021-0167 	X	Authorities have banned unauthorized public gatherings in Prague following recent demonstratrations that were broken up by police, it was reported Friday. The Prague National Committee ruled that ``the right to organize public gatherings in the historical center of Prague is limited to the organs of the National Front and organizations associated with it,'' according to the daily newspaper Svobodne Slovo. The National Front is a communist-dominated organization comprising officially recognized political and social groups. ``In view of frequent disturbances in this area, the decree includes a ban on unauthorized actions and gatherings,'' the Communist Party newspaper Rude Pravo said in a report on the National Committee meeting. The report referred to recent unofficial demonstrations on Wenceslas Square that were broken up by police and resulted in arrests. The largest such rally took place Aug. 21, the 20th anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Unauthorized events had been tentatively scheduled Oct.28 to commemorate 70 years of Czechoslovak independence and Oct.29, when a discussion club was to convene. Both events were to take place downtown in Wenceslas Square.
AP880518-0192 	X	Fathers who are on the road a lot have to work extra hard to maintain good relations with their children, say actor-singer Kris Kristofferson and ball player Willie Randolph, two of eight men honored Wednesday by the National Father's Day Committee. Kristofferson, who has six children by three wives and three adopted Salvadoran orphans, said he felt ``totally unqualified'' to be named one of the 1988 fathers of the year. ``I had the good taste to select mothers who would raise them,'' he said, ``all I've done is love them.'' Apparently love was enough, because all nine children now live with him and his current wife, Lisa, at their Malibu, Calif., home. ``It's a great pleasure for me that all of them have come back and are living with me, even the 26-year-old,'' Kristofferson said. Randolph, the New York Yankee second baseman who spends half the baseball season on the road, says he has to work at keeping communication lines open with his four children. ``We have conferences,'' Randolph said. ``We dim the lights and just talk. You'd be amazed at the off-the-wall stuff. They can say whatever they want.'' He started the family rap sessions about four years ago to try to bring the family together. Now, if they go more than a week without a chat, one of the kids will say, ``It's time for a conference, Dad,'' Randolph said. Another honoree, NBC White House correspondent Chris Wallace, who also travels often as part of his job, said the notion of quality time is a myth. ``It's also a matter of quantity time; you gotta be with them,'' Wallace said. Other fathers honored were FBI Director William Sessions, Fox Television sportscaster Bill Mazer, Tennis Hall of Famer Arthur Ashe, hero cop Steven McDonald, and broadcast personality Larry King. In 1971, Congress resolved that Father's Day would be observed on the third Sunday in June, which this year falls on the 19th.
AP880723-0167 	X	President Reagan accused Democrats Saturday of ignoring the accomplishments of his Republican administration and ``singing the same sad song they sang four years ago.'' ``To them, it's midnight in America,'' Reagan said in his first comment on the Democratic National Convention that ended Thursday in Atlanta. ``To listen to the rhetoric, you would never guess the American economy is the strongest it has been in a decade,'' he said. Reagan commented in his weekly radio address, delivered from his mountaintop ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains north of here. The president and first lady Nancy Reagan will return to Washington on Sunday after a week-long vacation. While campaigning in Modesto, Calif., Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was asked if he had any response to Reagan's remarks. ``No,'' he said. ``We want to stress a positive message. ... That's the idea. ... They know we're going to have a chance.'' Later, Dukakis told reporters in Minot, N.D., ``If the Republican Party thinks the way to win an election is basically to tear the other guy down day after day, believe me (running mate) Lloyd Bentsen and I can respond and will respond.'' Dukakis said he dislikes ``ugly'' campaigns, ``but I also know from painful experience that if the other side essentially runs a negative campaign ... you have to respond and, believe me, Senator Bentsen and I will respond. We're tough campaigners,'' Dukakis said. In his radio address, Reagan said, ``When their party left the White House eight years ago, inflation was at one of the highest levels in American history. Now, it's under control. Do they want to turn that around?'' Saying that his administration has improved American competitiveness in world markets and improved American-Soviet relations, he repeated, ``Do they want to turn that around, too?'' ``They said America can do better,'' the president said. ``with that, I wholeheartedly agree. But the people also know that the last time our opponents were in charge, America did a heck of a lot worse.'' Reagan also said the Democrats are ``covering their tracks'' this year because they have found that the liberal policies they have pursued in the past are unpopular. ``You will never hear that `l' word `liberal' from them,'' he said. ``They've put on political trench coats and dark glasses and slipped their platform into a plain brown wrapper.'' ``While they are saying that government needs to do more of this or more of that, will they also pledge not to raise taxes?'' he asked. The president challenged the Democrats also to go forward with the missile defense system known as the strategic defense initiative or ``Star Wars,'' which he called ``the one practical way of reducing the threat'' of nuclear weapons. ``And while they are talking about the war on drugs, will they also support the death penalty for drug kingpins?'' he asked. Rep. Beryl Anthony Jr., of Arkansas, delivering the Democrats' response to Reagan's address, said the party's convention enthusiasm was ``spreading like wildfire across the prairie.'' ``After eight years of a Republican administration fueled by selfish and sometimes unlawful motives, the American people are looking for a return to the basic values of common respect, compassion and concern for all,'' Anthony said. He cited the plight of workers whose plants have been shut down and farmers who have lost their farms and said Democrats in Congress have been ``the safety net for the American people.'' Reagan opened his radio address by saying that ``this week there was a certain meeting in Atlanta, and maybe, like me, you just couldn't help hearing a few things about it and shaking your head.'' ``Some people just don't seem to learn,'' he said. ``The American people want to hear straight talk about where our leaders plan to take the country, not personal attacks.'' ``To hear them talk, you would never have guessed that we are in the longest peacetime economic expansion on record,'' the president said. The Reagans have been at their Rancho del Cielo since Sunday, enjoying generally sunny and pleasant weather. The White House said their son, Ron, and his wife, Doria, had dinner with the president and his wife on Friday and spent the night at the ranch.
AP880928-0270 	X	A state judge has blocked Warner Communication Inc.'s $1.18 billion acquisition of Lorimar Telepictures Corp., ruling that the merger violates terms of a 1984 agreement between Warner and its largest shareholder. Warner said today that it planned to appeal the decision. The ruling handed down Tuesday by New York Supreme Court Judge Walter Schackman was a victory for Chris-Craft Industries Inc., a broadcasting and manufacturing company that controls 23 percent of Warner's voting stock. Chris-Craft claimed in a suit filed in July that since Lorimar owned six television stations the acquisition violated a four-year agreement prohibiting Warner from owning any TV station so long as Warner owned 25 percent or more of Chris-Craft's BHC Inc. broadcasting subsidiary. Warner acquired a 42.5 percent stake in BHC in exchange for Chris-Craft getting the 23 percent interest in Warner's voting stock. In his 13-page decision, Schackman said that ``as a matter of law the pending acquisition of Lorimar by Warner will be a breach of the shareholders agreement.'' Schackman said Warner could not acquire any Lorimar stock until the televison stations were sold or it reduced its stake in BHC. Since the Chris-Craft suit three Lorimar television stations have been sold and Warner reportedly is negotiating the sale of one of the remaining three.
AP901223-0025 	X	The 22nd and possibly decisive game of the world chess championship between defender Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov was postponed a second time, the organizers announced Sunday. A technical time-out was called so the game would not be played on Monday, Christmas Eve. Karpov took his third and final time-out on Saturday, pushing the 22nd game to Monday. Kasparov has used all his time-outs. With Christmas approaching, the president of the International Federation of Chess, Florencio Campomanas, reached an agreement with both players to put off the 22nd game until Wednesday. Regulations permit a technical time-out. Kasparov leads the series 11.5 to 9.5 and needs only a draw to gain the 12 points needed to win and retain the title. He will play white in the 22nd game, with Karpov defending with the black pieces. Kasparov has won the last three times he has played white in the nine games in Lyon. Karpov needs to win the final three games to take the title. He has won twice in the 21 previous games of this series. The two have played to a draw five times in the French portion of the championship. They drew 10 times in the 12 games played in New York between Oct. 8 and Nov. 7. Even if Kasparov clinches the title by reaching 12 points in the series, the two Soviet grandmasters will continue playing to see who wins the majority of the $3 million purse. If the overall series ends in a 12-12 draw, the prize money will be split. Kasparov won the title from Karpov in 1985 and defended it in 1986 and 1987. Karpov took the championship in 1975 when American Bobby Fischer refused to defend the title he won in 1972.
AP900111-0201 	X	The following are the most popular videocassettes as they appear in next week's issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1990, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
AP900903-0014 	X	Endangered species pop up in the strangest places. Like flowerbeds. Plant-protection activists say some species of bulbs bought to decorate American and European gardens are being collected by the millions in the wild, threatening to wipe out those flowers in their home turf. ``The world would lose an irreplaceable treasure,'' said Marjorie Arundel of Warrenton, Va., an adviser to the Garden Club of America's horticulture committee. ``They're the ancestors of all of our spring bulbs today.'' Mrs. Arundel and other activists are urging American gardeners to buy only commercially propagated plants, which experts say make up at least 99 percent of the flower trade anyway. ``Wild-collected flowers are a small percentage of the trade, but a large percentage of certain kinds of plants,'' said Faith Campbell, director of the plant conservation program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Working with the World Wildlife Fund and the Garden Club of America, the NRDC has produced leaflets calling on gardeners to avoid most kinds of cyclamen, sternbergia and galanthus, or snowdrops, which they say are collected in the wild in Turkey. Those three species are listed as endangered in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. But this treaty _ effective in fighting trade in some endangered animal skins, horns and tusks _ has had little effect on the flower trade, Ms. Campbell said. Snowdrops are greatly depleted in Turkey's Mediterranean regions, forcing traders to seek out sources in more remote regions. The popular ``Angel's Tears'' narcissus are being collected in the wild, but experts are not sure if the source is Portugal or somewhere else. Other wildflowers, such as trillium, are being collected from the wild in the United States and Canada. Japan, China, India and the Soviet Union appear to be the sources for still other rare flowers. Some species of these plants may be produced by growers in the United States or Europe, but buyers are being counseled to check the origins as carefully as they can. This may become easier, as a result of the decision last May by the Dutch Commodity Board for Ornamental Horticultural Products to require exporters to use a ``Bulbs from Wild Sources'' label to identify wild-collected plants. Under the negotiated agreement, Dutch exporters will also label their cultivated bulbs, beginning in 1992 for minor species and in 1995 for such major bulb varieties as tulips and hyacinths. Because the Netherlands has long dominated the world flower trade, the action by the Dutch regulatory body should have a major impact, Ms. Campbell said. It is not binding, though, on dealers in the United States or other countries. Also, the agreement was reached too late for most of this fall's catalogs. So even if American gardeners order from Dutch dealers covered by the rules, they might not know they were buying wild-collected flowers until the bulbs arrive in the mail, labeled ``wild sources.'' ``We can just hope they won't order those again,'' Ms. Campbell said. ``It is a messy phasing-in.'' The long-range solution, she said, could be in helping people in Turkey and elsewhere who make money from collecting wild flowers to start propagating the rare flowers in or near the native habitat, she said. Gardeners shouldn't think they're aiding nature by keeping alive a species that might be disappearing in its native habitat. ``We don't consider that a contribution to conservation in any way,'' Ms. Campbell said. ``It's not playing its role in the ecosystem in which it evolved.''
AP900606-0140 	X	Janet Elaine Adkins spent 13 years teaching hundreds of immigrants and refugees to become self-sufficient and independent _ the very qualities she knew were being stolen from her by Alzheimer's disease. Unwilling to relinquish her self-determination, the 54-year-old Portland woman instead chose to give up her life. On Monday, hooked to an intravenous device in a van at a campground near Detroit, she pressed a button that released a lethal drug into her veins and died within minutes. She told Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist who invented the device and was with her: ``You just make my case known.'' ``I have decided for the following reason to take my own life,'' Mrs. Adkins wrote in a short statement made public by her husband. ``This is a decision taken in a normal state of mind and is fully considered. I have Alzheimer's disease and do not want to let it progress any farther.'' People who knew Mrs. Adkins, even briefly, remarked on her enthusiasm and zest for life. She was a strong, decisive woman, family members said. ``She has a real joie de vivre, a real spirit for life,'' said her son Neil. Mrs. Adkins, a native of Longview, Wash., was the mother of three grown sons, Neil, Norman and Ronald, and had three grandsons. She was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's almost a year ago. ``She was an exciting person. She loved philosophy. She loved reading good literature. She was a good musician, loved playing the piano. And really, she loved life and to the fullest,'' said Ron Adkins, her husband of 34 years. ``She was always coming up with ideas of new places to go. ``She was an adventurer. She climbed Mount Hood. She went to the Himalayas and to Nepal and she went up in gliders and in a hot air balloon. And we did travel, we lived in Europe. She spoke French. She taught at the community college ... which she dearly loved. This was a woman that was a very, very special woman.'' As a teacher of English as a second language at Portland Community College, Mrs. Adkins helped Southeast Asian refugees and others gain the skills to survive in America, department chairman Joe Ponce said. She graduated in 1972 from Portland State University, where she majored in English and minored in French. She received her teaching certificate in 1979 and joined the English as a second language program in 1980, he said. In addition to her duties at the college, she had taught workers at Tektronix Inc. in Beaverton and did summer work at Wilson High School. She resigned in June 1989 because she wanted to pursue other personal interests, he said. ``She was a very fine teacher. Anyone who works with the refugee or immigrant programs has to have a lot of personal skills and has to care a lot,'' Ponce said. ``She was enthusiastic, she had a good sense of humor. She certainly enjoyed her work. I think that's a marked sign of a successful teacher, someone who finds the job enjoyable continuously _ certainly for that many years.'' Neil Adkins said his mother also had been an accomplished musician on the piano and had played French horn in college. In recent years, however, she had stopped playing the piano and had trouble reading. Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible degeneration of the brain cells leading to severe memory loss, dementia and death. ``The bomb, as we called it, was dropped on us in June of last year, and it was really very devastating to Janet,'' Ron Adkins said. ``She was very much aware of Alzheimer's and what happens.'' He said his wife knew exactly what she was doing this week and insisted upon it. ``Right up to the very end when she left me and we said our last goodbye, she was holding me up,'' said Adkins. ``And she was very up and very happy with the doctor that she was able to have this way of delivering herself.'' Mrs. Adkins had asked that she be cremated after death, with her ashes to be flown home and dispersed in the Pacific off the craggy Oregon coast. A memorial service was scheduled Sunday. Mrs. Adkins was a member of the National Hemlock Society, which advocates death with dignity, before her illness was diagnosed. ``She felt it was unfair that other people could tell you when to die,'' her husband said. ``She was a wonderful wife and great inspiration to family and friends ... But she didn't want to end up losing her dignity.''
AP900302-0171 	X	Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government on Friday offered an eventual treaty guaranteeing Poland's western border after German reunification but said Poland must abandon any claims to war reparations. Such a pact also would be linked to Poland's pledge to protect the rights of its German minority, according to West German government spokesman Dieter Vogel. Polish Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki said he was ``especially astonished that the question of the German minority has been brought up. We have settled this matter, and we keep our word.'' In his his remarks on West German television, the premier added, ``There are mutual obligations here, which also concern the Polish minority in Germany.'' Earlier, Polish government spokeswoman Malgorzata Niezabitowska told Polish television news, ``Poland did not wish to link the problem of treaty regulation of the border on the Oder and the Neisse with any other problems.'' ``But if the West German side wishes to broaden these subjects, we will raise the problem of compensations for over a million Polish citizens who were forced to work in the Third Reich during World War II,'' she said. Kohl has come under intense criticism abroad and at home for his stance on lands east of the Oder and Neisse rivers ceded to Poland after Nazi Germany's 1945 defeat. Poland wants reassurance that a reunited Germany will not seek to reclaim those lands, which make up one-third of present-day Poland. Kohl repeatedly has said Germans have no designs on that property, but has insisted that, legally speaking, final say can only come from a future united German government. Kohl has been reluctant to run the risk of angering arch-conservative voters needed to help his Christian Democrats win re-election in federal elections this December. But at the same time, his statements have drawn negative responses in Poland and a number of other countries, including the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Britain. Kohl for the first time on Friday openly said a treaty would be possible recognizing Poland's western border after a united Germany government comes into being. But at the same time he demanded that Poland's 1953 decision on war reparations be an element of such agreement, as well as Poland's assurance last year that the ethnic rights of its German minority would be guaranteed. In the statement delivered by Vogel, Kohl again carefully avoided stating outright that a united Germany would never lay claim to land ceded to Poland. According to Vogel, Kohl reiterated his support for both German parliaments passing an identical declaration pledging to respect the current borders after East Germany elects its first freely chosen parliament on March 18. Vogel said ``such a declaration must at the same time make clear that the Aug. 23, 1953, declaration of the Polish government, in which reparations against Germany are renounced, continues unchanged.'' The Western powers ended reparation collections from West Germany in 1952. The Soviet Union did the same for fellow Communist state East Germany a year later, while Poland said it, too, would not seek reparations. Vogel said that on the basis of such a border resolution by the German parliaments, ``a treaty between an overall German government with the Polish government should be concluded and be ratified by a united German parliament.'' In Poland, meanwhile, hundreds of people demonstrated in several cities Thursday and Friday to support Mazowiecki's demand that Poland be allowed to take part in international talks on a reunited Germany. Poland says in order to win an ironclad guarantee of its western border, it needs access to the so-called ``two-plus-four'' talks involving West Germany and East Germany as well as the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France. In Madrid, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher reiterated that the borders of a reunified Germany would be those fixed at the end of World War II. ``We have no claims as far as Poland is concerned, not now or in the future,'' Genscher said. Genscher, in Madrid to allay Spanish concerns about plans for German unification, also said he and Kohl were in ``total accord'' on the issue. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Secretary of State James A. Baker III sent a letter to all NATO foreign ministers inviting their views on German reunification. ``As you know, all of us have agreed that Germany's continued membership in NATO, including participation in NATO's integrated military structure, and the continued commitment of NATO forces to the security of Germany is of enduring importance to stability and security throughout Europe,'' she said.
AP880516-0075 	X	Production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities shot up 0.7 percent in April, the biggest gain in six months, the government reported today. The Federal Reserve said the April advance followed increases of 0.4 percent in January and 0.2 percent in March and no change at all in February. It was the largest advance since a 1.1 percent surge last October. The increase was in line with expectations as economists had predicted a strong showing based on a pickup in production at auto factories. Autos were assembled at an annual rate of 7 million units last month, up from a rate of 6.6 million units in March. With the latest improvement, overall industrial production is now 6.4 percent higher than it was a year ago, a further sign of the resurgence of the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has enjoyed booming export sales because of the decline in the value of the dollar. The Reagan administration is counting on further reductions in the U.S. trade deficit to contribute almost half of the expected growth in the overall economy this year. The April advance in industrial output followed a period of generally sluggish activity in the first part of the year as production gains slowed while manufacturers, particularly in the auto industry, tried to work down an overhang of unsold goods. Still, the production slowdown was much less severe than had been feared immediately after the October stock market collapse. At that time, some economists believed that a drop in consumer spending would force such steep cuts in production that the country would be pushed into a recession. Instead, the overall economy expanded at a moderate 2.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, as measured by the gross national product. The April report showed that output in the manufacturing sector climbed 0.7 percent in April, reflecting an increase of 0.9 percent in the production of durable goods, items expected to last three years or more, and a 0.4 percent rise in non-durable production. Output in the mining industry jumped 1.3 percent in April, following a 0.7 percent March increase. The strong gains in both of those months followed a string of declines. This sector, which includes oil and gas drilling, has been depressed because of falling oil prices. Output at the nation's utilities fell 0.8 percent in April, following an even larger 1.1 percent drop in March. The various changes left the industrial production index at 135.6 in April, up from 134.7 in March.
AP901024-0123 	X	President Bush faces key decisions in the coming weeks that could signal whether he anticipates a lengthy standoff with Iraq's Saddam Hussein or wants American forces prepared to attack. Among the questions facing Bush: -Whether to add more troops and firepower to the U.S. deployment in the Mideast, now at 220,000 and scheduled to peak at 240,000 in three weeks. -Whether to withdraw some units that are not essential to defending Saudi Arabia, a decision which could serve to assuage growing public concern about the prospects of war without diminishing the force's defensive capabilities. -Approving a Pentagon troop rotation plan, now in the draft stages, that sources said should be ready for White House review in a week or so. -Whether to use his authority to extend 90-day Reserve call-ups for another 90 days. The U.S. deployment reached a symbolic juncture Wednesday with the arrival in Saudi Arabia of the final elements of the 11th Air Defense Brigade from Fort Bliss in Texas. It was the last combat unit scheduled for deployment in the region, Pentagon sources said. The only remaining troops scheduled to be sent to the area are in support units. They should all arrive in the next three weeks, bringing the total deployment to 240,000, said the sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity. ``As of now we're not planning for any additional buildup. We're planning to sustain the force that is present,'' one of the Pentagon sources said. But Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has discussed with ground commanders the possibility of changing the force size. He is due back from Saudi Arabia late Thursday. If Powell recommended, and Bush approved, adding to the force, Pentagon sources said the likely additions would be heavy armor units from the United States, Europe or both. Such orders also would necessitate sending several additional support units into the region as well, the sources said. ``That would ratchet up the pressure on Saddam and give the president the option of surprise if he decided to go on the offensive,'' one of the sources said. ``If a decision has been made to kick him out, then adding to the force first would make it more efficient in terms of loss of life.'' But, barring some development in the crisis that would prompt United Nations support for an offensive, Pentagon sources and military analysts think it far more likely that Bush will tinker with the force - but not dramatically, signaling continued resolve to allow economic sanctions against Iraq to take hold. ``We would have to double the force there to make an offensive palatable from a military standpoint,'' said Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant defense secretary for manpower in the Reagan administration. ``I don't think that is very likely at all.'' By bringing some non-essential units home, Bush could ``show that we are prepared to stay there for the long haul'' as long as he articulated the reasons for the moves, Korb said. ``Saddam is waiting to see how long we can hold both the support of the American Congress and our U.N. coalition together. I'd set up a rotation plan but basically keep my troop level about where it is.'' If Powell recommends withdrawing forces, the sources said the 82nd Airborne Division, the first ground unit to reach Saudi Arabia, likely would be the first unit brought home. Such a move would not affect the defensive capability of the U.S.-led multinational forces, the sources said. But withdrawing the paratroopers ``would signal that we are going to hunker down and wait right along with Saddam,'' the source said. The withdrawal of even a few thousand troops from the Mideast could also help Bush, whom Korb said ``is obviously not as popular as he was when he started this.'' Said one of the Pentagon sources: ``We'd look good bringing some people home for Christmas, even if in the big scheme of things it didn't amount to much.'' At the same time, ``We have to be very careful about what kind of signal we send because perception is as important as reality in that part of the world and it's easy for things to get confused in translation,'' this Pentagon official said. ``Whether the decision is status quo, reduce or add, the White House is going to have to explain that and ensure that the diplomatic signals that are connected with the decisions are properly read by Saddam Hussein.'' The Pentagon sources said draft rotation plans call for six-month rotations for most units, which would mean the first large-scale substitutions beginning in February. Some units that are harder to replace ``may have to spend more time in country than we or they would like,'' one of the sources said. The sequence of the rotations is still under discussion, this source said. ``We know the soldiers and families are waiting with bated breath but there are some very complicated questions to be resolved.'' When heavy armor units are rotated, the Pentagon would have to decide whether to leave tanks and other equipment in Saudi Arabia or bring them home with the troops. Current thinking is to bring the equipment home, a huge logistical headache, because otherwise the troops would be unable to train at their bases for possible return to Saudi Arabia. Overall cutbacks in the military further complicate rotation planning. For example, the Army alone has to plan for 1.1 million moves in the next 12 months in a force numbering just over 700,000.
AP900516-0101 	X	The Senate, pushing aside objections by Sen. Jesse Helms, is moving toward a vote on a $600-million-a-year bill to help states and cities cope with the costs of AIDS. Passage was assured, both sides said, as more than two-thirds of the Senate's members, 67, were cosponsors of the bill. The Senate voted 95-3 on Tuesday to limit debate, a procedural step made necessary to proceed after Helms, R-N.C., erected parliamentary roadblocks. Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, tentatively scheduled a vote for today as the Senate resumed considering amendments. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called the overwhelming vote Tuesday a clear signal the Senate intends to approve the measure. A similar bill was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and awaits floor action. It contains some different provisions and would authorize the spending of more than $800 million a year. The Senate agreed to a series of amendments to the bill, including one dedicating it to Ryan White, who died April 8 at the age of 18. His six-year struggle against the disease and the discrimination it brought won him widespread attention and admiration. ``The spirit of this brave and gallant young person is very much a part of this legislation,'' Kennedy said. White's mother watched from the Senate gallery as the Senate debated the bill. Jeanne White of Cicero, Ind., later said she was angered by a charge by Helms that homosexuals were cynically exploiting her son's death to push their own causes. ``I was very irate about it,'' she said. ``Ryan didn't feel like that at all. I felt he was putting words in my mouth and in Ryan's mouth,'' she said. ``Ryan always felt he did not blame anybody, so why should you.'' White contracted the disease through a blood transfusion. Homosexual contact and illegal intravenous drug injections are primary methods of transmitting the disease. Helms, acknowledging his objections would be futile, charged that too much money as being spent on AIDS at the expense of other diseases, and that the money would encourage homosexuality. ``What originally began as a measured response to a public health emergency has become a weapon, frankly, for the deterioration if not the destruction of America's Judeo-Christian value system,'' he said. Kennedy charged Helms with misrepresenting and distorting the bill. The Senate agreed to an amendment requiring states or local governments to receiving money under the measure to carry out what they decide is an appropriate program of notification of partners of people testing positively for the AIDS-causing virus. It rejected on a 65-33 vote an amendment offered by Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., that would let states with fewer than 100 cases of AIDS to spend their share of the money on other diseases. Supporters of the bill criticized Helms' arguments that AIDS was spread through ``immorality.'' ``We don't reject the cancer patient who didn't try to stop smoking,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Helms' home state of North Carolina is a major producer of tobacco. Only Sens. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., and Steven Symms, R-Idaho, joined Helms in voting against the debate limitation. Supporters described the measure as emergency relief for communities and public health systems overburdened by patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The bill provides $300 million for metropolitan areas with the largest number of AIDS patients: Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; New York; Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; San Francisco; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C. Those areas have reported 60 percent of the nation's AIDS cases, sponsors said. The money would be used to care for AIDS patients and for support programs. Another $300 million would go to states to develop comprehensive AIDS care programs.
AP901107-0051 	X	PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - The field of presidential candidates stood at 14 today, with a leftist champion of the poor favored, after the Electoral Council barred former President Leslie Manigat and 11 others from running. Among those disqualified from the Dec. 16 elections was Dr. Roger Lafontant, the former chief of the Tonton Macoute militia, the private army of the brutal Duvalier family dictatorship. Lafontant claimed he was wrongfully eliminated and would appeal to the Supreme Court. An outstanding warrant charges Lafontant with conspiring against national security. The army, long the country's leading political force, has never served the warrant. The Tonton Macoutes terrorized this impoverished Caribbean nation of 6 million people for 29 years until a popular uprising forced Jean-Claude Duvalier, son of the late Francois Duvalier, into exile in 1986. But the country has been plagued by political turmoil and violence ever since. The caretaker government of President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, appointed in March, is the fifth since Duvalier's ouster. Another former Duvalier official disqualified from running for president was Claude Raymond. The former army chief of staff has been publicly accused of participating in the massacre of voters that thwarted 1987 general elections. In the massacre, armed thugs in collusion with troops killed at least 34 people. Twelve Duvalierists had been barred from running for president in that balloting. A new constitution drafted earlier in 1987 barred criminal supporters of past dictators from running for office until 1997. The Electoral Council said the 10 candidates disqualified Monday, including Lafontant and Raymond, failed to comply with filing procedures. It said Manigat, disqualified Tuesday night, was barred under a constitutional article that specifies the ``president may not be re-elected'' unless five years have passed between terms. Manigat, who was widely viewed as a puppet of the military, gained the presidency in a controversial election in January 1988 and was ousted six months later in a coup. The council on Tuesday night also disqualified Duvalierist banker Clemard Joseph Charles, saying he was wanted as a fugitive in the United States but giving no details. The Rev. Jean Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest, spokesman for the poor and ardent foe of Haiti's dictatorships, is given the best chance of winning the Dec. 16 vote - if it is free and fair. Dr. Louis Roy, chief of the Council of State that rules alongside Ms. Pascal-Trouillot, said Aristide's campaign may lose momentum with Lafontant's disqualification - ``But he remains the leading contender because he enjoys the backing of the impoverished masses.'' Also still in the running are major candidates Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official; former preacher Silvio Claude, and businessman Louis Dejoie Jr. The council's disqualifications this week were welcomed by many leading Haitians. ``I foresee a relatively normal unfolding of the electoral process now,'' said Jean-Claude Bajeux, a human rights activist and leader of the Congress of Democratic Movements, a socialist party. About 800 observers from the United Nations and the Organization of American States will monitor the vote.
AP900730-0080 	X	A series of Irish Republican Army bombings has highlighted the group's ability to get around security in England, where fear of terrorism is balanced against a determination to live normally. Police believe the bomb that killed Conservative Party lawmaker Ian Gow Monday was planted by the IRA, which has recently struck against the British army, the Stock Exchange and a London club favored by Conservatives. No group, however, immediately claimed responsibility for the slaying of Gow outside his home in Southeastern Hankham. Metal detectors at the House of Commons and a barrier guarding the prime minister's home testify to the threat, but most of London remains a relaxed and open city. Politicians and experts on terrorism argue that intensive security and fear would indicate a victory for the IRA, which has waged a terrorist campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland for two decades. Gow, killed by a bomb stuck beneath his car, had been warned he was on an IRA hit list. But his telephone number was listed and neighbors said his gate was often open. ``Mr. Gow was determined not to live in a castle and be protected,'' said Jonathan Graves, parish priest in Gow's village. ``He lived an open life.'' Peter Bottomley, another Conservative lawmaker, expressed the feeling of many politicians on increased security: ``We need to take obvious and sensible precautions. ... But the idea that each of us can have four bodyguards around us would mean that the IRA had won.'' The recent attacks, however, have prompted appeals for a return of the tight security following the death of six people in an IRA bombing at Harrod's department store in 1983. For a time, bags and parcels were searched at shop entrances. Scotland Yard recently distributed 13,000 posters advertising a toll-free hotline for reporting suspicious activities. A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard said a surge in notifications of suspicious parcels indicated heightened public concern. Late last year, a gate and a retractable concrete barrier were installed at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's official residence, No. 10 Downing Street. But terrorism expert Ian Geldard said increasing security for all politicians _ who now rely on mundane precautions such as checking beneath cars _ would not necessarily be the best solution. ``You can never have total security,'' Geldard said. ``The terrorists always have the advantage because they can choose the time and the place.'' Geldard, editor of Terror Update, a privately circulated newsletter, said the IRA clearly has targeted specific establishments and individuals. ``It would not be particularly sensible to increase security for everyone. The amount of disruption would be a victory for the IRA,'' he said. An unidentified IRA leader discussed the group's strategy in an interview published in the June 28 edition of Republican News, the weekly newspaper of the IRA and its Sinn Fein political wing. The IRA intends to ``surprise the enemy, give them no rest, continually pressurize them and of course to hit them where it hurts, preferably at the central nervous system,'' the leader said. He gave as an example the attack on the Carlton Club, a facility frequented primarily by members of the Conservative Party. There was no warning before that bombing or before Gow was killed. But eight warnings preceded the explosion in the visitor's gallery at the Stock Exchange on July 20. Mrs. Thatcher on Monday urged lawmakers to take warnings seriously. ``Many members of Parliament, indeed all of them, will have been given advice to have special regard for safety,'' she said. ``I make one plea, that they take that advice very seriously indeed, for themselves and their families and their staffs.'' Government security advisers refuse to detail arrangements, but it is widely believed lawmakers are advised to vary their daily routine. Mrs. Thatcher Monday told lawmakers to check under their cars and examine all parcels arriving by mail.
AP900113-0014 	X	A group of prominent scientists, including five Nobel Prize winners, wants the ``super collider'' built as originally envisioned even though the cost of the giant particle accelerator could rise by more than $1 billion. The Energy Department's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel agreed Friday with a subcommittee's findings that significantly reducing the size or power of the collider to contain costs would ``unacceptably increase the risk of missing important new physics.'' The panel said it was told that keeping the Texas project as originally envisioned, however, could increase the $5.9 billion pricetag by 20 percent to 30 percent. As designed, the super collider will smash beams of protons into each other in a 53-mile circular tunnel at 20 times the energy possible with the most powerful existing accelerators. It would take a reduction of beam energy of 25 percent to hold costs to the original figure, the advisory panel's report said. But it said the project's mission to learn more about ``such issues as the origin of mass,'' the best efforts of theoretical physicists indicate the original energy ``is about the minimum energy needed to have confidence that these phenomena, in whatever form they may take, will be seen.'' A 25 percent reduction in beam energy means ``broad agreement that this confidence would be lost,'' the report said. A decision on collider spending recommendations is expected from Energy Secretary James Watkins later this month, officials said. The collider is expected to be completed by 1998. Congress last year approved $225 million to begin initial construction and President Bush is expected to request about $393 million for the next fiscal year. The department is reviewing cost estimates by SSC Laboratory in DeSoto, Texas, on how various design changes would affect the price. Officials of the SSC Lab, which contracted to build the accelerator at a site south of Dallas, recommend an increase of about $1 billion to keep the project essentially as it was envisioned in 1986. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said he believes a compromise would be reached but would not speculate on the new cost estimate. ``It's important that we try not to build a Cadillac,'' Gramm said. ``We don't have the money, and to attempt to do that would put us in a position where we would have no machine at all.'' The subpanel said the cost increases would give new ammunition to Capitol Hill opponents of the giant machine, which if completed will be the largest, most complicated scientific instrument ever built. Congressional opponents of the collider fear it will draw resources from other scientific projects that would deliver more immediate payouts benefitting the nation's economy and international competitive position. The additional costs would have to be absorbed by U.S. taxpayers or could come from foreign sources. While some members of Congress favor letting foreign sources provide in-kind equipment and services, others fear those countries would gain immediate technological benefits for their industries, at U.S. expense. James F. Decker, acting director of the department's office of energy research, said the collider should ``provide a substantial new physics capability when it comes on line. ``The United States should not spend this large amount of money for a facility that would be only marginally better than some other existing facility,'' Decker said.
AP900124-0195 	X	A junk dealer questioned in the mail bomb deaths of a civil rights lawyer and a federal judge who ruled against him insisted Wednesday the FBI has found nothing linking him to the slayings. A law enforcement source in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier in the day that Robert Wayne O'Ferrell is considered a suspect and had failed a series of lie detector tests administered by the FBI. O'Ferrell, who has seen his home, junk business and other properties pored over since the FBI converged on southeast Alabama Monday, once complained in a legal brief that America's court system ``is corrupt.'' O'Ferrell, who has denied any part in the mail bomb deaths, said agents have not found a typewriter that reportedly links typewritten court correspondence he filed in 1988 with typed material sent by the mail bomber. ``You can't keep looking when you don't find nothing,'' he told reporters as he fed dogs and horses at his rural home. O'Ferrell confirmed he took several polygraph tests this week, but said, ``I have not been told I am a suspect and have not been told I failed a lie detector.'' No charges have been filed against O'Ferrell, and FBI agent Chuck Archer, who has declined to use the term ``suspect'' in referring to O'Ferrell, said no suspects have been taken into custody. Agents are searching for clues in the package bomb deaths of Judge Robert Vance of Birmingham, who died Dec. 16, and black lawyer Robert Robinson, of Savannah, Ga., who was killed two days later. Vance was a member of a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that ruled last year against O'Ferrell, who was sueing his former employer, Gulf Life Insurance Co. An Atlanta TV station received a letter signed ``Americans for a Competent Federal Judicial System'' that claimed responsibility for the mail bombings and included racist comments. The legal brief O'Ferrell filed in 1988 against Gulf Life included a typwritten document that says in part: ``The law and court system in these UNITED STATES is corrupt, that I have had anything to do with. But I know you can help clean it up.... If anyone has been mistreated by Gulf Life ... the Courts, and two Attorneys, I really believe that I have.'' The capitalization and grammar is as it appears in the document. But the court documents O'Ferrell filed do not mention racial topics, considered by many the motivation for the two killings. According to the law enforcement source, O'Ferrell gave answers considered deceptive by a polygraph expert when he failed the lie detector tests. Results of polygraph tests are not always reliable and are inadmissable in criminal trials. It could not be determined what questions the FBI asked O'Ferrell. Agents have searched O'Ferrell's home, junk warehouse, abandoned downtown store and two septic tanks, and more locales were on a list to be searched. ``They are obtaining more (warrants) and will be searching further,'' said Charles Steinmetz, a spokesman at FBI headquarters in Washington. At O'Ferrell's salvage business Wednesday, agents pumped out a septic tank and removed items from the tin-covered building onto a rented truck. Men wearing FBI jackets hung green tarpaulins on the front of the structure, and stacked up boxes to block the view of dozens of reporters and news cameras. The contents of the warehouse's septic tank, located in an adjoining shed, was pumped out after firefighters clad in bright yellow containment-suits tested for any build-up of flammable methane gas in the underground tank. The FBI also has canvassed town businesses asking for information on O'Ferrell's buying habits. O'Ferrell's father, J.C. O'Ferrell, said the FBI questioned him about the activities of both his sons, Wayne and James ``Buddy'' O'Ferrell. ``They were trying to say my two sons had something to do with that bombing up in Birmingham,'' the father told the Birmingham Post-Herald. ``They asked had I ever heard either one talk bad about colored folks, or if my sons ever made threats on any judges. I said, `No, my children weren't raised that way.'''
AP900130-0018 	X	Catherine Comet, music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony in Michigan, has been named music director of the American Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Comet, who studied with the late Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Boulez, will assume her new job for the fall season. The New York-based orchestra was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski. Its previous music director, John Mauceri, left in 1986. ``We've used the last couple of seasons to try out people,'' said General Manager Raymond T. Grant.
AP900804-0015 	X	Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher indicated the United States may soon lift the trade embargo against Vietnam. He made his remarks Friday before U.S. businessmen, who urged him to renew the trade ties that were cut when the Communists won the Vietnam War in 1975. Mosbacher said lifting of the embargo was ``still over the horizon but, depending on the talks, it could appear shortly.'' In a letter addressed to him, the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand said U.S. companies are ``losing out on the potential Vietnam offers on many economic fronts.'' Washington has said a settlement of the Cambodian war must be reached before relations are normalized with Vietnam, which backs Cambodia's Communist government. However, the United States reversed a longstanding policy last month, announcing it would enter into direct negotiations with Vietnam on Cambodia.
AP880318-0106 	X	Military commanders say their troops around this strategic southern garrison town have repelled three major offensives since December by combined South African and UNITA rebel forces. The officers also told reporters visiting the front that they were confident of holding the region despite daily long-range shelling by South African artillery. The officers said Wednesday that they expect more than 7,000 enemy troops to mount another major offensive soon from positions about 15 miles south of Cuito Cuanavale. The town is 190 miles north of the border of South Africa-ruled South-West Africa, also known as Namibia. Enemy troops include guerrillas of the National Union for the Total Independence on Angola, or UNITA, black soldiers from South-West Africa and South African soldiers. Angolan commanders said fighting has died down since their forces pushed back the South African-led army early this month. Angolan troops now respond with artillery fire to regular barrages of South African shells. A group of foreign reporters was caught in one such barrage on Wednesday when it visited a badly damaged steel and wooden bridge over the Cuito River, a mile south of town. ``Fighting picked up around Cuito Cuanavale in December,'' said Lt. Col. Ngueto, the town's military commander. ``Then the South Africans brought in mechanized units for their most recent offensive from Feb. 25 to March 1.'' ``The enemy has not given up the idea of taking Cuito Cuanavale,'' he said. ``The same units are still here.'' Government forces were everywhere in the former farming community, manning anti-aircraft batteries, tank positions, defensive trenches and sophisticated radar and communications equipment. Ngueto said the main objective of the South African and UNITA forces was to capture Cuito Cuanavale's military airport, a key facility for ferrying government troops and heavy equipment to the southern front from Luanda. The Angolan capital is 590 miles to the northwest on the Atlantic coast. UNITA, backed by South Africa and the United States, has been fighting an increasingly effective bush war since 1975 against Angola's Cuban- and Soviet-backed government. ``This airfield can handle an awful lot of traffic and they want to control it to launch attacks further north in Cuando-Cubango province and up to central Angola,'' Ngueto said. He said South African and UNITA patrols already had traveled north along narrow corridors through the bush to launch attacks in the Cuemba region of central Bie province. Cuemba, 190 miles north of Cuito, is the farthest South African troops are thought to have penetrated into Angola since 1976, when they fought alongside UNITA in the civil war that broke out after independence from Portugal the previous year. Pock marks on the walls of buildings in Cuito indicated they had been sprayed by small arms fire, but the town has not been taken by South African or rebel forces, despite long months of siege. In December, South African forces blew up two sections of the Cuito River bridge, which is made of heavy timbers and reinforced concrete pilings. The Angolans have replaced them with makeshift ropes and planks that sag down to water level. After speaking to government sentries on the east bank of the river Wednesday, reporters were heading back across the bridge when the first shell hit about 40 yards away, sending up spray from the marshy bank. Seven more shells exploded as the party scrambled back to an armored vehicle and drove back through the town. ``The South Africans shoot here off and on every day,'' Maj. Armindo Moreira said as the shells went off. He added that some residents have had to move away from the river. Angolan soldiers and Cuban support troops were seen on the road out of town for about 15 miles, supporting government statements that Cuban troops are in the area at the rear of Angolan lines, about five miles from the front. About 40,000 Cuban soldiers are based in Angola, supporting the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
AP900502-0267 	X	Ford Motor Co.'s new president acknowledged Wednesday that improvements in the auto industry have followed government regulations which were not always received gracefully by the industry. Philip E. Benton, who became Ford president and chief operating officer March 1, also said he expects the world auto industry in 10 years to include only about a half dozen dominant companies, down from about a dozen today. ``Critics of the U.S. auto industry viewed us as fighting just about every regulatory initiative that Washington and the state capitals could come up with'' in the 1960s and 1970s, Benton said in a speech. ``We clearly gained a reputation for intransigence.'' He said the industry often sought only to alter timetables or the stringency of particular standards, and did not oppose the principles behind government initiatives. Automakers now have gone through a tough transition from focusing on consumers and competition to ``worrying about regulatory complexity and compliance,'' he said, ``And, in some instances, we didn't make it very gracefully.'' But Benton said Ford is pleased with its progress in installing airbags, manufacturing full-sized cars that get as much as 25 miles per gallon, reducing auto exhaust emissions and beginning to phase out chlorofluorocarbons _ all the result of government regulation. ``We've invested heavily and aggressively in the technology and human resources that have allowed us to come this far toward resolving environmental and safety concerns, and we're prepared to do our part in the future in cooperation with government,'' Benton said. He said changes are creating a new world which will no longer be defined by military strength but by the ``economic strengths and interrelationships'' of North America, Europe and Asia. Benton said he did not believe in ``Japan bashing'' or in ``the habit of some to bash the home team.'' But he said the U.S. auto industry has been shaken up by the entry of Japanese companies. ``As a result, the stability of the North American market (once dominated by Ford, Chrysler Corp. and General Motors Corp.,) for the time being, is gone, and North America is up for grabs,'' he said. Worldwide consolidation will likely occur with more partnerships, purchases and absorptions, he said. He noted that Chrysler bought American Motors in 1987, General Motors bought about half of Saab's car business last year and this year Ford bought Jaguar while Renault and Volvo announced a far-reaching alliance. Ford will be one of the surviving strong half-dozen companies, Benton said, declining to predict who the others might be.
AP880315-0272 	X	Demand for higher-priced California premium wines surged as the four-year boom in wine coolers deflated in 1987, dragging down the overall U.S. wine market, an industry observer says. Some California wineries even had to go to Washington State for their chardonnays because the growing demand for premium table wines coincided with a short crop, according to a year-end industry report by Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, the nation's leading wine business consultants. The report was released this week. The premium segment of the industry was worth $740 million in sales last year, up 21 percent from 1986. Fredrikson pointed out that the premiums represented only 20 percent of all California table wine gallonage but 45 percent of table wine revenues. Burdened by a weak dollar that forced importers to raise prices, sales of foreign wines plummeted 21 percent last year, on top of a 25 percent decline the year before. Ironically, one of the few bright spots in the import picture was Italy's Riunite, scoring a 110 percent improvement on its cooler-type peach drink. At the same time, California's jug wines _ a $4 billion-plus segment with more than 80 percent of California wine sales _ continued downward for the fifth straight year as the U.S. trend toward better wines continued to rise. Fredrikson, who a couple of years ago could see no halt to the cooler phenomenon, described last year as a ``meltdown.'' From a few gallons in 1981, shipments of the fizzy blends of white wine, watgger and fruit juices rose to 8 million gallons in 1983, 34 million in 1984, 88 million in 1985, and 120 million in 1986, but then added only 2 million more last year. But for all their fiscal flatness, coolers accounted for more than 21 percent of the 423.8 million gallons California vintners sold last year. The ``cooler wars,'' as Fredrikson put it, saw the lead change from the originator, California Cooler, to Gallo's Bartles & Jaymes, and now to Seagrams with 31 percent of the market. There were two major growth areas in the champagne category, despite a 6 percent overall dip in sales. After its 48 percent surge in 1986, Guild's Cook's Champagne posted a 17 percent improvement last year with 1.3 million cases. Korbel continued the market leader with another record year, up 16 percent on shipments of more than 1.3 million cases. The showing also reflected the increasing popularity of the expensive ``methode champenoise'' way of making champagne _ fermentation in the individual bottles rather than bulk in stainless steel vats. The top five California wine companies start with Gallo, the world's largest wine producer with 39.9 percent of California's total wine sales, followed by Heublein, 10.2 percent; Vintners International, 9.1 percent; California Cooler, 5 percent, and Guild, 4 percent. Prices were mostly up last year in the heavily consumed chablis category. The top average price paid for the popular 1.5-liter case was $14.27, while the favorite bar item _ the 18-liter box _ went for $15.25 each. At $1.50 to $2.50 a glass, the bar makes up to 1,400 percent profit on each box.
AP900502-0002 	X	A minister pleaded with mourners at a funeral Wednesday for one of three teen-age suicides to put aside questions about what led to their deaths, and focus instead on avoiding the same path. Thomas Smith, 17, was the first of three suicides among Sheridan High School students in two days, and counselors for their classmates were on 24-hour call. About 80 students missed classes Wednesday, about 30 more than usual, school officials said. Some of the absentees were among about 250 people packed into the Buie Funeral Home chapel to hear the Rev. Dennis Moon urge them to cling to God as they grieved over Smith's death. ``Bringing back Tommy is beyond our control, but going with him ... is still our choice,'' said Moon during the 20-minute service. ``We don't need to ask God why he would let this happen,'' said Moon, of the Landmark Baptist Chruch. ``We need to ask God what would he want us to do.'' A graveside service followed at a cemetery in Grapevine, some 23 miles from Sheridan. Five members of the school's ROTC, of which Smith was a member, stood at attention about five feet from the casket. A man walked up to each youth, removed a white flower from his uniform lapel and set it in the youths' white gloves. As the gathering broke up, four young men approached a reporter and three photographers and demanded their film. The photographers refused; two of the youths threw rocks at the car as it left. On Monday, Smith stood in front of his American history class, told a female classmate, ``I love you,'' pulled a gun out of his pants and shot himself. Later that day, Chidester, 19, of the Grapevine community, a friend of Smith's, died of a gunshot wound. He left a note that said ``I can't go on any longer,'' according to police. On Tuesday, the body of Jerry Paul McCool, a 17-year-old sophomore, was discovered in his home by his father. McCool, who also had been shot, knew Smith and Chidester, but wasn't close with them, officials said. All three deaths were ruled suicides, said Grant County Sheriff Cary Clark. In addition to those deaths, a 17-year-old classmate shot himself to death March 28. And three other county residents _ ages 22, 40, and 82 _ have killed themselves since Jan. 23. Hours after the latest shooting, parents and students packed the school's 1,000-seat auditorium to discuss the suicides. Some held hands. Some cried. About 60 counselors and clergymen from around the state had arrived at the normally quiet bedroom community 30 miles south of Little Rock. School Superintendent David Robinson said students met with counselors in group sessions and one-on-one Wednesday. ``Obviously school, as such, is not occurring at the moment,'' Robinson said. ``Actually, it's more like a massive counseling session.'' Later Wednesday, he said the mood had improved. ``The bottom line is we feel pretty good about how people are recovering. The kids have told us they're ready to try to get back to normal.'' Some said the atmosphere was less somber at the school Wednesday than earlier in the week. Lisa Deal, 18, a senior and president of the student council, said even though the mood had improved, the community had a long way to go to get over the series of deaths. ``It's scary knowing your friends ... would go to these extremes,'' she said. Ms. Deal said she was an acquaintance of Smith and Chidester. ``The students really opened up here today,'' she said of the counseling sessions. ``Yesterday was bad for us because it was newer. Everybody had just heard about it.'' Robinson, who held a news conference Wednesday morning, said he also felt the situation was getting better. ``I think the fact that our students were involved in a kind of organized session this morning and were able to express their feelings helped,'' he said.
AP880325-0050 	X	Subway gunman Bernhard Goetz and his girlfriend attended the opening of a murder trial of a woman who claims she stabbed her abusive boyfriend to death in self-defense. ``This trial should not be happening,'' Goetz said after opening arguments in state Supreme Court, the state's trial-level court, in Manhattan on Thursday. Damian Pizarro is accused of killing her boyfriend, Emerson Gaylor, on Aug. 19, 1986. Her attorney, Peter Neufeld, said Gaylor began abusing Ms. Pizarro after she became pregnant with his child in 1984. Goetz' girlfriend, Lisbeth Theisen, said the couple decided to attend ``to show support'' for Ms. Pizarro. Goetz is free on bail while appealing his conviction in the shooting of four teen-agers on a subway train in December 1986. Goetz, who maintained he fired because he felt threatened, was convicted last June on a weapons charge.
AP880512-0002 	X	A year after a military coup ended democratic government in Fiji, the South Pacific nation is still reeling in the aftermath of a conflict that arose over Fijian fears of domination by the Indian population. The economy is shaky, and skilled professionals and civil servants, mostly Indians, are leaving for Canada, Australia and New Zealand at a rate of 500 a month, double the precoup figure. Sugar production, the country's major cash crop is down 20.3 percent; tourism has dropped 26.9 percent, the currency has been devalued 33 percent, inflation has tripled to 6 percent, unemployment has reached 7.5 percent and the gross domestic product is down 11 percent. The coup of May 14, 1987, was led by Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka who claimed that a newly elected coalition government dominated by the decendants of immigrants from India threatened the future of ethnic Fijians. The Indians outnumbered Fijians 348,704 to 329,305 at the time and controlled trade and commerce. The election of an Indian-controlled government led to the army coup. Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra, a Fijian, and his Cabinet were arrested. The Constitution was suspended and rule by decree was put in force. Since then ethnic Fijian fears of Indian political supremacy have eased. But the coup virtually ended organized political activities, but the country is now seeing factional and clan rivalries among Fijian chiefs in a feud over a Fijian king. It was to solve just such rivalries that King Seru Cakobau handed over the islands, then known as the Cannibal Isles, to Queen Victoria of Britain in 1874, after first having tried to interest the United States. Ratu Sir George Cakobau, grndson of the king and a former prime minister, now claims the royal title, which had been vacant since the British took control. But other chiefs and clans are disputing Cakobau's claim to the title. Bavadra, the ousted prime minister, said he feared squabbling among the chiefs could provoke a violent reaction from Fijians feeling the effects of the economic downturn since the coup. Watching the tribal feuds with interest is the 39-year-old Rabuka, who is a commoner. He has become a cult figure to many ethnic Fijians who regard him as the savior of their culture. He is the minister for home affairs in the interim government he appointed to run the country until a new constitution is drafted and elections held. A new book, ``Rabuka _ No Other Way,'' giving Rabuka's account of the coup, became an instant best seller. Also in demand is an autographed color poster of Rabuka in an army T-shirt and bearing the slogan, ``Fiji. In God's Hands.'' A documentary film titled ``Operation Surprise,'' the code name for the coup, has been showing to packed houses. Fiji has has no television. One of the first acts by Rabuka, a Methodist lay preacher, former rugby star and veteran of the United Nations Middle East peace force was to make the religious observance of Sundays compulsory. No shops are allowed to open, no sports can be played, public transport halts and the populace is expected, but not yet compelled, to go to church. But the Sunday observance law has become so unpopular that even the Fiji Council of Churches has called for its repeal. In the best-selling book, written by a Fijian and an Australian, Rabuka says the majority of Fiji's Indians are heathens and should be converted to Christianity. Most of the Indians are Hindus. ``I don't think they will resent it,'' Rabuka is quoted as saying, ``because all we are trying to do is the same thing that missionaries did here in Fiji when we were cannibals and heathens.'' In the year since the coup, Indian leaders have fled or taken a low profile. But one Indian who remains prominent is Irene Narayan, 56, Rabuka's minister for Indian affairs. She said in an interview the Indian community is now without a political leader, but added she saw little likelihood of communal violence between Fijians and Indians,. She expressed the view that while some Indians have left, the majority will remain and probably accept their loss of political rights. ``If Fijians want dominance and they are happy with it, perhaps that's not high a price for Indians to pay,'' Mrs. Narayan said. Meanwhile, Fiji's relations with traditonal friends and neighbors are taking time to mend. Australia, New Zealand and the United States condemned Rabuka's coup. They called their ambassadors home and suspended aid, but the envoys of all three have since returned. Australia and New Zealand have resumed non-military aid, but relations remain chilly.
AP900407-0100 	X	Here is a chronology of the Iran-Contra affair from the kidnapping of the first American hostage in Beirut to the conviction Saturday of former National Security Adviser John Poindexter: 1984 March 7 _ Cable News Network correspondent Jeremy Levin is kidnapped in Beirut. Levin, freed 11 months later, is the first of 16 Americans to be taken hostage. Five were either freed or escaped. University librarian Peter Kilburn and CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley were murdered. Among the eight still held is Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press. Summer _ Iranian purchasing agents put out a call for weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles. 1985 July _ An Israeli official suggests a deal with Iran to then-National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, saying the transfer of arms could lead to release of the hostages in Lebanon. McFarlane takes the message to President Reagan. Aug. 30 _ The first plane load of U.S.-made weapons is sent from Israel to Tehran. McFarlane and Donald Regan, White House chief of staff, later disagree on whether Reagan approved the shipment. Reagan says he doesn't remember. Sept. 14 _ A second arms shipment is sent to Tehran. Sept. 15 _ An American hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, is released. Dec. 4 _ McFarlane resigns as national security adviser and is succeeded by Rear Adm. John Poindexter. Dec. 5 _ Reagan signs a presidential ``finding'' describing the operation with Iran as an arms-for-hostages deal. Poindexter later testifies that on Nov. 21, 1986, he tore up the only copy of the finding. Dec. 5 _ In discussions with Israeli officials about Iran arms shipments, North mentions plans to use the profits to support the Contras. 1986 Jan. 17 _ Reagan signs a secret intelligence finding authorizing CIA participation in the sales and ordering the process kept secret from Congress. February _ The first direct shipment of arms from Pentagon stocks is sent to Iran. April _ North writes a memo outlining plans to use $12 million in profits from Iran arms sales for Contra aid. May 25 _ North and McFarlane fly to Tehran with shipment of spare parts, expecting hostages to be freed. Negotiations break down. Sept. 26 _ Iranian middlemen deposit $7 million into a Swiss bank account. More spare parts and TOWs are prepared for shipment. Oct. 5 _ North flies to West Germany to meet with an Iranian contact who says he can obtain release of one hostage for 500 TOWs. Nov. 2 _ American hostage David Jacobsen, held since June 1985, is freed. Nov. 4 _ A pro-Syrian news magazine in Beirut breaks the news that McFarlane had flown to Iran to meet and negotiate with officials there. Nov. 13 _ The White House admits selling arms to Iran, despite a public policy of supporting an international arms boycott of the nation, which it has branded a terrorist state. Reagan denies the administration has bargained with terrorists or sold arms for hostages. Nov. 21 _ CIA Director William Casey briefs the Senate Intelligence Committee on the arms deal, but makes no mention of the diversion of funds. North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, shred, alter and remove documents from his office. Nov. 25 _ Reagan announces North has been fired and Poindexter has resigned. Attorney General Edwin Meese discloses that $10 million to $30 million in arms-sale profits were diverted to Contras. Nov. 26 _ Reagan sets up the Tower Commission to review the role of National Security Council. Dec. 1-3 _ The Senate Intelligence Committee begins an inquiry by questioning McFarlane. North and Poindexter, meanwhile, invoke the Fifth Amendment. Dec. 19 _ Lawrence Walsh is appointed independent counsel to investigate the deal. Both houses of Congress select investigating committees. 1987 Feb. 18 _ The Tower Commission rebukes Reagan for failing to control the national security staff. March 4 _ Reagan acknowledges in a televised speech his Iranian initiative deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages deal. ``It was a mistake,'' he says. April 29 _ Carl ``Spitz'' Channell pleads guilty to illegally raising funds for the Contras. He was sentenced to two years probation. May 5 _ Congressional Iran-Contra hearings begin with testimony from retired Air Force Gen. Richard Secord, who describes how $3.5 million in proceeds from arms sales to Iran were diverted to Contras. May 6 _ Casey dies. May 11 _ McFarlane begins four days of testimony, during which he says Reagan instructed his staff in 1984 to find ways around the congressional ban on U.S. military aid to Contras. July 7 _ North testifies that he had authorization from his superiors to divert arms-sale money to the Contras, and that Casey knew of it all along. North says he always assumed Reagan knew about it. But he says he never discussed the plan with the president or received written presidential authorization for it. July 15 _ Poindexter testifies he never told Reagan that the arms sale proceeds were being diverted to the Contras. Poindexter says Reagan authorized a straight arms-for-hostages swap in December 1985. Nov. 18 _ The final report of House and Senate investigating committees concludes Reagan bears ultimate responsibility for the Iran-Contra affair because he allowed a ``cabal of the zealots'' to seize control of policy and bypass the law. Committee Republicans dissent, saying the mistakes amounted only to errors of judgment.
AP880314-0188 	X	The Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling Monday to extradite to Argentina a former major and his wife accused of kidnapping two children born to mothers held during the ``dirty war.'' The couple's lawyer, Fatima de Bustaller, told reporters he will appeal to the Supreme Court. The Roman Catholic radio station Caritas said former Maj. Atilio Bianco and his wife Nilda Susana Wehrli face charges filed by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group of abducting a boy and girl and falsifying their birth papers during Argentina's ``dirty war'' of 1976-83. The children, Carolina, 12, and Pablo, 10, were quoted this month in the independent daily newspaper Hoy as saying they don't want to be separated from the major and his wife. ``We don't know anything about those supposed parents we have in Argentina,'' the children were quoted as saying. The Grandmothers group says Bianco, a bone doctor at a military hospital in Buenos Aires, abducted the children shortly after their birth and falsified the attending physician's signature to make them appear to be his and his wife's offspring. Neighbors say Ms. Wehrli was not pregnant at those times. At least 9,000 people suspected of being leftist subversives were abducted by military and paramilitary agents and vanished without a trace during what became known as the ``dirty war'' under military rule in Argentina, officials say. Human rights group say the number is closer to 30,000. The Grandmothers group, an offshoot of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo group that includes relatives who lost loved ones in the ``dirty war,'' says 72 of the 182 children taken from their parents were recovered. According to local reports, Bianco submitted to a blood test in Asuncion last month to determine if he was the father of the two children. Results were never announced. The cases of two other couples also accused of having fled to Paraguay with children suspected of having been born to mothers held in captivity in Argentina are pending, authorities say. Raul Alfonsin was elected Argentina's president in 1983, ending nearly eight years of military rule.
AP900221-0273 	X	The Supreme Court today reinstated a $6.1 million award against the Arthur Young & Co. accounting firm won by investors in the Farmer's Cooperative of Arkansas and Oklahoma. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, ruled that the promissory notes held by the co-op's investors are ``securities'' as defined by federal law. A federal appeals court had thrown out the award after ruling that the notes were not securities. Sold for many years by the co-op to thousands of farmers, the notes were uninsured, payable on demand and yielded only interest. When the co-op filed for bankruptcy protection in 1984, about 1,600 of its 23,000 members held notes they had purchased for more than $10 million. Among other legal actions, investors filed a ``class action'' lawsuit against Arthur Young & Co., which had audited the co-op's 1981 and 1982 financial statements and issued reports on those statements. The suit alleged that the accounting firm fraudulently had misled investors about the co-op's financial strength, in violation of a federal security law's anti-fraud provisions. A federal jury awarded the investors about $6.1 million in compensatory damages, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the award when ruling that the notes were not securities. In disagreeing with the 8th Circuit court, Justice Thurgood Marshall noted ``Congress' broader purpose ... of ensuring that investments of all descriptions be regulated to prevent fraud and abuse.'' He was joined by Justices William J. Brennan, Harry A. Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Byron R. White, Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia dissented. The case is Reves vs. Ernst and Young, 88-1480.
AP881111-0047 	X	Share prices soared today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, pushing its main price index to a new high while the U.S. dollar lost ground against the Japanese yen. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues, the most widely followed price index of the exchange, gained 323.15 points, or 1.15 percent, to close at 28,489.57. The dollar closed at 123.70 yen, after opening at 123.80 yen and moving in a range of 123.63-123.88 yen. Thursday's close was 124.10 yen. Securities dealers said the Nikkei index's strong showing was a reflection of bullish sentiment prevailing in the market. ``There is no outstanding factor which is pushing share prices up,'' said Keiichi Nishida, a dealer at Kidder Peabody's Tokyo office. ``Most investors are feeling it is about time share prices should start picking up. I think we can say the market is turning bullish.'' Nishida said the strong performance of financial and food shares ignited the market bullishness across the board. In the currency market, dealers said general sentiment toward the dollar remained bearish, but investor anxiety about intervention by the Bank of Japan was holding up the currency. ``It is unlikely that the dollar will go below 123.50 today because the Bank of Japan is likely to intervene,'' said an exchange dealer at a U.S. bank in Tokyo. The Bank of Japan reportedly has been buying dollars intermittently in recent sessions to help keep the currency from falling further.
AP881115-0181 	X	William E. Ahearn, managing editor of The Associated Press, was appointed executive editor Tuesday, to succeed Walter R. Mears, who will become Washington vice president and a political columnist for the news cooperative. President Louis D. Boccardi announced the appointments, effective Jan. 1, 1989. Ahearn's successor as managing editor will be Martin C. Thompson, who has been AP chief of bureau in Los Angeles. Mears, whose Washington career spanned 23 years before he became executive editor, asked to return to the capital and to the political writing that was his specialty. Boccardi said the change was in line with a plan established when Mears came to New York five years ago. ``He has been a great help to me and an asset to the AP in his time here, and he will continue those contributions from the city that has been his professional home,'' the AP president said. Mears, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for his political reporting, will write three analytical columns a week for the AP in the new assignment. Charles J. Lewis remains in his post as Washington bureau chief. Boccardi also announced that Charles J. Hanley, who has been assistant managing editor, will become deputy managing editor. Julie Dunlap was named assistant managing editor@features, and Mike Silverman was appointed assistant managing editor@national news. Mears, 53, became executive editor in January 1984, after serving as Washington bureau chief for seven years. He has been an AP special correspondent since 1975 and a vice president since 1978. He first joined the AP in Boston in 1955 while still a Middlebury College student, returned in 1956 and became Montpelier, Vt., correspondent later that year. Mears was reassigned to Boston in 1960 and transferred to Washington in 1961. Ahearn, 45, has been managing editor since 1985. He joined the AP in 1971 in New York as a broadcast news writer after serving with the Army as an infantry officer in Vietnam. Ahearn moved to the New York General Desk, the AP's main news desk, in 1972. He was named enterprise editor in 1979 and assistant managing editor in 1981. He was graduated from the University of Bridgeport in 1965, worked as a copy editor on the Bridgeport Post-Telegram, then attended graduate school at Boston University. Thompson, 50, has been chief of bureau in Los Angeles since 1986. He was chief of bureau in San Francisco for 11 years prior to that. He joined the AP in Seattle in 1966; was named correspondent in Reno, Nev., in 1968; and then transferred to the AP's San Francisco bureau in 1970 where he served as news editor. Thompson joined the AP after serving as a newsman for radio station KEDO in Longview, Wash., and then was news director of radio station KREW in Sunnyside, Wash. Thompson is a 1960 graduate of the University of Washington. Hanley, 41, joined the AP in Albany following graduation from St. Bonaventure University. He transferred to the Foreign Desk in New York in 1976 where he was an editor and a special writer who traveled extensively on foreign assignments. He was named assistant managing editor in 1987. Dunlap, 40, has been the AP's senior feature editor for six years. She joined the AP in Philadelphia in 1974 and transferred to the General Desk two years later. Following a year as an editor at The New York Times, she returned to the AP and became enterprise-special assignments editor with responsibility for AP's six-member regional reporting team and five-member national writing team. She is a graduate of Penn State University. Silverman, 44, joined the AP in San Francisco in 1971 and transferred to the General Desk five years later. In 1985 he was named AP's senior national editor, responsible for coordinating daily coverage of national news. Silverman is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Stanford University.
AP880411-0089 	X	The owner of two Indian elephants says he'll agree to sell the 3{-ton animals if their former owner, who apparently has been hiding the pachyderms for four years, will return them. Richard Drake, owner of a now-closed Tehachapi, Calif., animal farm, said Sunday he wants to get fair market value for the 27-year-old female elephants, appraised at $70,000 apiece. Drake said he has spent ``thousands and thousands of dollars'' crisscrossing the country searching for Arlan Seidon, the man who fled with the elephants, Tory and Duchess. Seidon, who raised the elphants from infancy, contacted The Star Ledger of Newark several weeks ago from an undisclosed location and said he would return to face charges of third-degree theft if the elephants were not given to Drake. Seidon sold the elephants to the Drakes for $80,000 in 1981 but said he repossessed the animals for non-payment. The Drakes successfully fought the action and in May 1984 Superior Court Judge Peter Thomas awarded them $107,000 in damages. Seidon also charged that Drake, 50, and his son, Edward, 30, abused the animals. The Drakes deny that charge. Seidon, 58, fled with the elephants from a farm in Colts Neck Township while the animals were with a circus in New Jersey. He has been on the lam ever since. ``It's been at a standstill for four years,'' Drake said from his sister's Far Hills home. ``We have to do something.'' Drake said Sunday he had contacted Seidon's attorney, Isabelle Strauss of East Orange, and was awaiting an answer to his proposal. Ms. Strauss, an animal activist, was not in her office today for additional comment, a secretary said. She told The Star Ledger on Saturday that Seidon, who phones her periodically, would not allow the elephants to go to animal brokers who would sell them to other people. Ms. Strauss said a Vermont businessman is interested in the animals and that she is trying to work out a deal. Ms. Strauss has said she does not know where or how Seidon has been concealing the elephants. Seidon has said he left his farm at Fordland, Mo., and his career preparing animals for circus and television appearances to care for the elephants, which eat about 200 pounds off hay a day. He said he hasn't seen his four children or met his only grandson since he took off with the animals.
AP900618-0215 	X	The NASDAQ Composite Index at 11am was 464.44 down 3.11 from the previous day's close.
AP900918-0100 	X	A judge reversed himself Tuesday and released a 77-year-old woman from prison, conceding that her eight days behind bars failed to force her to reveal the whereabouts of her daughter and granddaughters. ``I can't imagine what will be more coercive than what the court has done in the past few days,'' Superior Court Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer said. ``I hope somehow you can look into your heart and your conscience and understand what is being done here.'' Mary Pigeon has insisted she does not know where to find her daughter. Her daughter, Elaine Yates, disappeared after a dispute with her husband five years ago. ``I feel much better,'' Mrs. Pigeon said after Pfeiffer's decision. ``I would win everything if my daughter and grandchildren would come home.'' She then went to her Warwick home. Mrs. Pigeon returned to court Tuesday on a request by the Corrections Department to confine her to home rather than keep her in prison. The request became moot with her release. Pfeiffer did not revoke his earlier order requiring Mrs. Pigeon to provide information about her daughter and granddaughters Kimberly, 8, and Kelly, 5. Mrs. Pigeon's son-in-law, Russell M. Yates Jr., believes Mrs. Pigeon knows where Mrs. Yates took the children when she disappeared from their Warwick home. Mrs. Yates left in 1985 after she found her husband with another woman aboard the family's boat. Yates, who did not attend Tuesday's hearing, has acknowledged hitting his wife and cutting her forehead with a ring, and that he had an affair with another woman. He won custody of the children when Mrs. Yates failed to show up to contest it. He sued Mrs. Pigeon after the custody hearing in an effort to find his daughters. After Pfeiffer concluded Mrs. Pigeon knew where her daughter is, he ordered her to pay a $23,000 fine. She has yet to pay it, but did comply with a later order to do 150 hours of community service. The judge's decision last week to send Mrs. Pigeon to prison provoked widespread criticism from women's groups, Gov. Edward D. DiPrete and others. Neil Philbin, Yates' lawyer, said he disagreed with the judge's latest decision but added, ``I'm confident Judge Pfeiffer ruled as his conscience guided him.'' Pfeiffer said he would listen to any ideas from Philbin about further penalties, but added he didn't know what else could be done.
AP880315-0195 	X	Farm lawmakers drafting a compromise trade bill agreed Tuesday to expand by more than $1 billion an export subsidy program designed to spur worldwide sales of U.S. agricultural commodities. ``With this action, Congress has demonstrated that it will continue to fight European Economic Community subsidization and give American farmers a fair chance to compete in world trade,'' Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. The decision to expand to $2.5 billion the Export Enhancement Program came at a subcommittee session of the House-Senate conference committee that is seeking a compromise version of 1,000-page trade bills passed by both houses. Under the program, which was first established by the 1985 farm law, grain exporters are provided with government bonuses in the form of surplus commodities in return for shipping American farm goods. Proponents say the bonuses offset the difference between U.S. prices and lower price tags abroad. But the panel put off action on the most controversial issue it faces, a Senate plan to prod the European Community to drop export subsidies with the threat of a so-called marketing loan program for wheat, corn and soybeans. Marketing loans represent a form of subsidy that provides producers with the U.S. price while selling the commodities abroad at world prices. The government makes up the difference. Marketing loans established by the 1985 farm law sent exports of American cotton and rice skyrocketing while stemming a surge in honey imports. Being weighed by the panel is a so-called ``triggered marketing loan'' that would be put into effect only if current negotiations under the 92-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade failed to produce an agreement on eliminating agricultural export subsidies by the 1990 wheat marketing year. Supporters of the concept said a congressional visit to the GATT talks in Geneva last week found European negotiators dug in over the subsidy issue and added that American negotiators want the ``club'' of a triggered marketing loan to hold over the heads of their counterparts. ``If you were talking to some of the people we have to negotiate with, then you might think we need it, too,'' said Leahy. He said the attitude of some of the Europeans has become ``arrogant.'' Critics said however that such a plan would strain the budget. ``This is potentially a huge amount of money we're talking about in agricultural programs,'' said Rep. Sam Gibbons, D-Fla., whose export-minded home-district citrus producers have traditionally been as wary of import curbs as they have of barriers to their products overseas. Gibbons distributed a letter signed by Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng, U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Beryl Sprinkel and James Miller, director of the Office of Management and Budget. It described the triggered marketing loan as a concept that could bring about a presidential veto of the trade bill. It was designed to counter claims that American negotiators in Geneva are encouraging the proposal. Rep. Leon Panetta, D-Calif., whose home district includes numerous fruit and vegetable producers, described the concept as one that could boomerang on the lawmakers politically. ``I can see us passing a $600 million marketing loan and the administration saying on the record that they don't want it,'' Panetta said. ``We get attacked on that point and there's no mention that this was a bargaining chip for the GATT negotiations. I sense that coming.'' Wheat Belt lawmakers countered that the proposal would cost the treasury nothing because it would merely serve as ammunition to hasten agreement on subsidy reductions. ``We're not asking you to take her home,'' said Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. ``We're just asking you to dance with her. Then when it's closing time, you can go out the back door.''
AP901015-0121 	X	Five American airlines have been authorized to open passenger and cargo service to Tokyo and other cities in Japan, the Department of Transportation announced on Monday. Three air carriers - United Air Lines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines - were authorized to serve Tokyo. Delta, America West Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines were authorized to serve two other Japanese cities, Nagoya and Fukuoka. The route awards were granted under a November 1989 agreement which laid the foundation for a major expansion of air service between the United States and Japan. In making the announcement the department noted that the U.S.-Japanese market currently generates more than $6 billion in revenue for both countries. Last year the Japan market ranked third in numbers of passengers, after Canada and Great Britain, and was first in passenger revenue. Monday's announcement is the last of several awards authorizing new flights to Japan. In July, Federal Express, which had been providing all-cargo service to Tokyo, was permitted to serve Nagoya as well. In August, United Cargo Service was selected to operate a new all-cargo service to Tokyo. And in September the department allotted the 450 charter flights authorized by the agreement. Patrick V. Murphy, deputy assistant secretary for international affairs, made the following new selections: -Chicago-Tokyo authority to United with backup authority to American if United does not choose to fly the new route. -Los Angeles-Tokyo authority to Delta with backup authority to American. San Jose-Tokyo authority to American with backup authority to Continental Airlines for Houston-Tokyo service. -Honolulu-Nagoya authority to America West with backup authority to Continental. -Honolulu-Fukuoka authority to Hawaiian Airlines with backup authority to Continental for Los Angeles-Nagoya service. -Portland-Nagoya authority to Delta with backup authority to Continental for Seattle-Nagoya service. Nine air carriers submitted 23 proposals for the new routes, the department said.
AP880623-0221 	X	A bank robber turned jailhouse journalist was released Thursday from solitary confinement, where he was put after reporting the federal prison where he is an inmate had become a ``caldron of fear, hatred and violence.'' Dannie M. Martin, 48, was released from the isolation unit at Lompoc federal penitentiary in Southern California where he was placed Wednesday ``for his own protection,'' said Warden R. H. Rison. Rison said the article in Sunday's edition of the San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner, which accused him of a ``gulag mentality,'' created ``a degree of tension in the prison's inmate population'' and required segregating the inmate-writer until an investigation was completed. ``I could care less about criticism of this administration,'' said Rison. ``But I have had inmates say that Martin is not their spokesman, and I'm obligated to make sure he doesn't get himself hurt. He walks around here rather freely.'' The article had the potential to set off a riot, Rison said. Associate Warden Paul Hofer said an investigation found no threat to Martin. ``There was some grumbling about the article, but it was not significant enough to keep Dannie in confinement,'' said Hofer. While he still was held in the 120-man isolation ward at the maximum-security prison, Martin said in a telephone interview arranged by Rison that he was confined in retaliation for his article. ``There is really no threat to my safety,'' said Martin, who has written 20 articles for the San Francisco newspaper's Sunday Punch section in the last two years. ``I haven't encouraged any group demonstration. I just depict things as they are ... As long as my articles have veracity, I should be allowed to depict people. The public is entitled to a viewpoint other than the stereotype put out by the Bureau of Prisons.'' Rison said that unless the newspaper allows him to tell his side in print, he will transfer Martin to another federal prison rather than risk anger among the inmates. ``It is obvious from the prison officials' comments that they are angry about the content of an article in the Chronicle,'' said Peter Sussman, editor of the Sunday Punch section. ``If Dannie Martin is being punished for that reason, it is a serious violation of the First Amendment.'' The Sunday Punch section publishes feature stories and opinion columns, such as Martin's, Sussman said. Rison has never called the newspaper asking to comment, but the newspaper would be willing to grant him space, Sussman said. In his articles, Martin ``has never attempted to glamorize or apologize for the criminal,'' said Sussman. ``In the 20 or so articles Dannie has contributed to this section, I have found him to be a sensitive observer and a fresh, powerful writer with a deep commitment to justice,'' he said.
AP880906-0141 	X	Presidential rivals George Bush and Michael Dukakis encountered loud, hostile demonstrators Tuesday as Oregon shipyard workers shouted ``union buster'' at the Republican candidate and anti-abortion activists called the Democratic nominee ``baby killer.'' ``Do not gamble on another liberal Democrat coming out of nowhere,'' Bush said, shouting to be heard over the boos of workers at Northwest Marine Iron Works in Portland, Ore. In the Chicago suburb of Niles, Ill., Dukakis was interrupted for several minutes by the anti-abortion protesters early in a speech on economic policy. ``I just hope as the campaign goes on we can address the real issues that face the campaign and that face the country and do so in a way that's respectful of each other,'' he said afterward.
AP900223-0102 	X	PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said in a letter released today that he has approved the participation of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in peace talks with Israel. It was the first formal statement by the PLO leader that he has approved terms for Israeli-Palestinian talks, although there have been hints from Cairo that he was moving in that direction. Arafat said in the letter that the PLO would prefer an international peace conference and ``guarantees that can only be provided by the great powers and the United Nations.'' But he added: ``The PLO once more leaned over backward and approved the idea of a dialogue between representatives of the Israeli government and representatives of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and the diaspora.'' He said that such talks would have to be part of a process ``aimed at a comprehensive and final settlement'' and that its agenda ``could cover all the conceptual ingredients of that process, including the elections and the 10 Egyptian points.'' The ``10 Egyptian points'' were recommendations put forward by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to try to get a concensus with Israel on preliminary peace talks. Mubarak, backed by U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III, has offered to host an initial Israeli-Palestinian dialogue aimed at reviving stalled Middle East peace efforts. Those talks are expected to help clear the way for Israeli-proposed elections in the occupied territories leading to limited autonomy of the areas' 1.7 million Palestinian residents. Hundreds of Palestinians and more than 40 Israelis have been killed in the Palestinian uprising in the territories. Efforts to get the talks under way have been stalled by Israeli concerns over the composition of the Palestinian delegation and the agenda. Israeli, which refuses to deal with the PLO as a ``terrorist group,'' has not yet agreed to participate in the prelimintary talks urged by Mubarak. Arafat's letter was sent to a meeting in Jerusalem by Jewish peace activists called the Special Emergency World Jewish Leadership Peace Conference, which concluded Thursday. Rita Hauser, a New York peace activist who attended the conference, told reporters that the letter was received ``through a circuitious manner, via fax'' on Thursday but that conference leaders had been unable to ``get it fitted in'' amid the conference's heavy schedule. It was presented at a board meeting today of the Tel Aviv-based International Center for Peace in the Middle East, which sponsored the conference. Ms. Hauser, an attorney and head of the center's American branch, met with Arafat in Stockholm in December 1988. Hauser said she had been in fax contact with the PLO since that meeting. Shortly after their meeting, Arafat made a series of historic announcements recognizing Israel's right to exist and renouncing terrorism. Those statements led, in turn, to the United States resuming contacts with the PLO for the first time since 1975. Arafat's letter to the Jerusalem meeting of Jewish peace advocates was dated Feb. 17 and came from Tunis, where the PLO is headquartered. There was no explanation for the delay in its transmittal to Jerusalem. In the letter, Arafat repeated the PLO's call for creation of an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories, which were captured by Israel from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war. ``We remain deeply convinced that the only real security guarantee for Israel lives in a peaceful settlement based on the termination of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories and the acceptance of the two-state principle,'' he wrote. Arafat noted that Israel has been fearful of dealing with the PLO, and said that Palestinians had similar concerns about dealing with the Jewish state. ``Watching the convoluted maneuvers the Israeli government has engaged in and the massive obstacles with which it has littered the path to peace, the Palestinian people are not filled with confidence in the good intentions of the Israeli leaders,'' Arafat wrote. He continued: ``To them, the only guarantee of their own security and their political future lies in the full participation of the PLO in all stages of the peace process.'' Such a role has been ruled out by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. In an interview published today in The Jerusalem Post, Shamir was asked what the PLO could do to make itself an acceptable negotiating partner. ``The only thing it should do is dismantle itself,'' Shamir replied. ``Because its minimal demand is a Palestinian state, and a Palestinian state cannot co-exist with Israel.''
AP900424-0155 	X	President Bush said Tuesday he will nominate James S. Halpern, a partner in a Washington law firm, as a judge on the U.S. Tax Court. If confirmed by the Senate, Halpern would succeed Meade Whitaker. In other personnel decisions, Bush: _Said he will nominate Ming Hsu to be a federal maritime commissioner for the remainder of a term expiring June 30, 1991, succeeding Elaine L. Chao. She is director of the New Jersey Commerce Department's division of international trade, and is the governor's special trade representative. _Reappointed Andrew Camp Barrett to the Federal Communications Commission. _Accorded the rank of ambassador to Robert L. Barry of the State Department during his service as special advisor for East European assistance. _Said he will nominate Steven E. Steiner, onetime director of defense and arms control for the National Security Council, as ambassador during his service as the U.S. representative on a commission dealing with arms verification.
AP900620-0020 	X	At least 100 people, some armed with guns or baseball bats, converged on a low-income neighborhood Tuesday night, apparently to protest police handling of a teen-ager's death, authorities said. Shots were fired, and bottles and bricks were thrown, but no serious injuries were reported in this city of nearly 40,000 people on Lake Michigan, police said. ``We've had shots going off all night,'' said policeman Mike Elkins. `No shots have been fired by us. We're in full riot gear.'' About 20 people had been arrested by 10:30 p.m., three hours after the disturbance by at least 100 people began in a four-block section of the neighborhood. State and county police and state prison officers were dispatched to help city police control the crowd, Elkins said. ``I know there were problems up there last night,'' said LaPorte County sheriff's Sgt. Mark Ludlow. ``I don't think its fair to call it a riot, maybe a civil disturbance.'' There were minor injuries, but it was not immediately known how many people had been hurt, Ludlow said. The disturbance was apparently a protest of the death late Monday of Chris Crawford, 16, and the wounding of his cousin Michael Cain, 17. Cain, who was shot in the left side, said he and Crawford were standing near a video arcade when they were approached by an unknown man who fought with them. Cain said his cousin was forced into the street, then hit by a car and killed. Cain said he was shot as the vehicle passed. He was taken to Memorial Hospital, where he was treated and released. Residents of the neighborhood, which is near a housing project, said police were less responsive to crimes in their area than in more affluent neighborhoods. Police took more than an hour to reach the scene of Monday night's violence, said resident Vince Woodard. ``We called them on 911 and they didn't come,'' Woodard said. Elkins disputed allegations that police were slow to respond Monday. ``I'm sure in a case like that we were there right away,'' he said. The officer said police dispatchers received the call at 11:39 p.m. and arrived at the scene within a minute. ``We're only a couple of blocks away,'' Elkins said.
AP900626-0057 	X	Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and forced labor have robbed many of the boys and girls in India's capital of their childhood, according to a United Nations report issued today. ``Why should we call them children?'' asked the UNICEF report, titled ``The Invisible Child.'' ``These children are grown-ups. These children are old.'' Citing statistics on child labor, health care, infant mortality and education, the report describes a life of grinding work and abuse for a child in New Delhi's slums. It also highlights the plight of India's urban poor, often forgotten in this largely agricultural nation of 880 million people. More than half of New Delhi's 8 million people inhabit the shantytowns, squatters huts and slums of this sprawling metropolis. While the average per capita income in the city is about $410, in the slums the people make one-tenth that amount, the report said. According to the report, more than 500,000 children, 80 percent of them illiterate and many underfed, are forced to work in New Delhi. About 40,000 work as laborers, 20,000 in car repair shops, 30,000 in restaurants and 30,000 as shop assistants, the report said. Tens of thousands more work in one-room factories where labor safety regulations are not enforced. Others scratch by as rag pickers, shoe shine boys, newspaper sellers and porters. Child labor is only outlawed in India for certain hazardous jobs. Many of the children are bonded labor, latter-day slaves, the report said. The pervasiveness of such servitude makes it difficult to wipe out. ``The children have to put up with long working hours, eight to 12 hours a day,'' the UNICEF report said. ``They face verbal, physical and sexual abuse from most people who deal with them.'' The necessity of work makes going to school impossible. The report said a survey of parents in the slums indicated that less than 5 percent wanted their children to stop working. They just wanted labor conditions to improve. Girls usually face the worst treatment, the study said, citing long-standing beliefs that girls are less valuable and provide less income to the family than boys. Girls are yanked from school faster than boys, fed less and forced into wedlock early, the report said. ``I work like a machine,'' says Parvati, a 13-year-old girl interviewed by UNICEF. Her parents leave her at home every day to look after her three siblings _ an 11-year-old brother and two sisters, 8 and 3. The family, economic refugees from Bihar, India's poorest state, lives in a hut near a construction site where their father was recently employed. Parvati has to prepare food, care for her siblings when they get sick and help her mother as a maid. At dinnertime, Parvati is allowed to eat only half the food of her brother. ``The only thing that makes me sad is when someone beats me,'' she says. The environment surrounding New Delhi's slums is also miserable. In many such areas, there is only one toilet for every 150 people and just one household in every 156 has access to potable water, the report said. ``The very notion of childhood is eroded by a hostile environment of poverty,'' the report said. The report urged the Indian government to recognize the rights to literacy, health care, play and vocational training of New Delhi's children.
AP880630-0219 	X	Hog farmers are continuing to expand production in the face of rising feed costs prompted by the drought, an Agriculture Department report showed Thursday. As of June 1, the U.S. inventory of hogs and pigs was estimated at 56.2 million head, up 8 percent from a year ago and 15 percent more than two years ago. Industry analysts had expected a smaller increase. The number of breeding hogs, at 7.53 million head, was up 7 percent and 17 percent from June 1 of 1987 and 1986, respectively. That indicated further production increases in the months ahead. Officials said the June 1 inventory of market hogs _ animals headed for slaughter and the consumer market _ totaled 48.7 million head, up 8 percent and 15 percent from the previous two years. The pig crop during the first half of the hog marketing year that began last Dec. 1 was estimated at 46.6 million head, a gain of 8 percent from a year ago and 15 percent from two years ago. Looking at future prospects, the report said hog farmers surveyed intend to have 6.2 million sows give birth in the June-November period, a 7 percent increase from the same six months of last year and 14 percent more than two years ago. But the report cautioned that the farrowing intentions ``do not reflect conditions after the June 1 survey date.'' Leland Southard of the department's Economic Research Service said in a telephone interview the industry had expected the total inventory to be up only about 4 percent as of June 1. But Southard said ``a spike in feed costs'' has raised doubts about further expansion, however. ``I think there is a question whether producers will carry through with these farrowing intentions to the extent that they've indicated (in the June 1 survey),'' he said. ``We can blame that on higher feed costs ... costs of production.'' The following list shows the June 1 inventory in the 10 leading hog states, which account for about 79 percent of the nation's pork. The first number, in thousands, is the total number of hogs in the state, the second is the June 1 figure's percentage of a year earlier.
AP901207-0070 	X	Here are the unemployment rates in November for 11 major industrial states as reported Friday by the Labor Department: -California, 6.7 percent, up from 6.0 percent in October. -Florida, 6.3 percent, up from 6.2 percent. -Illinois, 6.0 percent, up from 5.9 percent. -Massachusetts, 7.0 percent, up from 6.3 percent. -Michigan, 7.7 percent, up from 7.4 percent. -New Jersey, 5.5 percent, unchanged from October. -New York, 5.4 percent, down from 5.6 percent. -North Carolina, 5.1 percent, up from 4.6 percent. -Ohio, 5.5 percent, down from 5.9 percent. -Pennsylvania, 6.0 percent, down from 6.1 percent. -Texas, 7.0 percent, up from 5.7 percent.
AP901017-0114 	X	Republican gubernatorial candidate Pierre Rinfret claims his report of a 1977 trip to the Middle East prompted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic peace mission to Israel. Cyrus Vance, U.S. Secretary of State at the time, on Wednesday called Rinfret's claim ``rubbish.'' Rinfret is challenging Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo's bid for a third four-year term. A recent independent poll found Cuomo had a 45-point lead. Rinfret's August 1977 report, titled ``The Geopolitics of Israel and Surrounding Arab States,'' discussed Israel's military preparedness in case of war The report said Israel would try to destroy the economic base of each enemy country and would target the Suez Canal, electric power stations, factories and dams. Rinfret, an international economic consultant, said Israeli secret service officials told him that the disclosure of Israel's military intent convinced Sadat to visit Israel, according to campaign spokesman Ted Kavanau. Sadat's surprise visit to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in November 1977 led to the historic Camp David peace accord between Egypt and Israel two years later. ``The Israeli secret service took the report and gave it to Sadat,'' Kavanau said. ``When he got it - this is Pierre Rinfret talking - he made the decision instantly to go to Israel. ``The Israelis were using Rinfret to deliver a message to the Egyptians that they would fight,'' Kavanau said. Vance said Sadat decided to visit Israel on his own. ``I was in very close touch with Sadat all along and Rinfret was never mentioned,'' said Vance, a New York City attorney who served during the Carter administration. Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Sadat was assassinated by Moslem extremists in 1981. Begin, 77, resigned as Israeli prime minister in 1983.
AP900129-0192 	X	In South Africa, feminism is viewed with suspicion as a foreign philosophy, even among many women. With racial discrimination the overriding social issue, sexist practices go unchecked in both white and black communities. There are few protests, for a variety of reasons.
AP901015-0017 	X	Republicans are trying to turn veteran Rep. Frank Annunzio into a casualty of the nation's savings and loan crisis. The 75-year-old Illinois Democrat has rolled over his competition in 12 re-election bids. But now he faces a tough challenge from a former Chicago cop who is hitting hard at Annunzio's dealing with the S&L crisis. Republican state Sen. Walter Dudycz contends Annunzio, who heads a House subcommittee that oversees thrifts, looked the other way while the crisis was brewing. Annunzio, meanwhile, points his finger at the GOP. He blames the Republican policies of the White House for the nation's S&L problems. He was among those who raised questions about the role of President Bush's son Neil as a director of the failed Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Association in Denver. Annunzio proudly displays banners and buttons declaring, ``Jail the S&L Crooks.'' Dudycz has responded in kind. His buttons say, ``Jail Annunzio's S&L Friends.'' Analysts are predicting a close race and see the contest as a test case for voter reaction to the S&L disaster. ``People are looking to see if politicians will be blamed for the S&L scandal,'' said political analyst Don Rose. ``It's an issue that's at a low simmer in some places in the country, waiting to boil over.'' Dudycz questioned Annunzio's ethics when it was revealed that the congressman over the past decade had accepted more than $50,000 in campaign contributions tied to S&Ls. Annunzio contends there was no conflict of interest. ``This is truly a David vs. Goliath race - Frank Annunzio and the good-old-boy Democratic Party vs. Walter Dudycz and the taxpayers,'' said Dudycz. Annunzio insists it's the other way around. He said Republicans are exploiting Democratic crossover voting patterns to try to oust him from the 11th District, which includes part of northwest Chicago and suburban communities. ``The National Republican Party has earmarked me for defeat,'' Annunzio says. ``They thought I would play dead because of my age, but I'm not going to roll over.'' The National Republican Congressional Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission claiming that Annunzio filed to provide employment information about 20 contributors who were associated with a Maryland thrift. Annunzio's camp maintained the complaint was GOP retribution for an S&L-related ethics complaint the Democrats filed against Republican Rep. Denny Smith of Oregon. Annunzio also has been criticized for reports that two of his sons-in-law once worked for the savings and loan industry's chief lobbying group, the U.S. League of Savings Institutions. And he admits he once tried to get one of them a position with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Chicago. He contends there ws nothing improper about the request and stresses that the position was non-paying. Annunzio has attacked Dudycz for being on the Cook County sheriff's payroll as a deputy while he was a state senator working primarily in downstate Springfield. Both men say their ties to the community will make the difference. Each uses ethnic working-class roots to seek support from a constituency composed of police officers, firefighters and other blue-collar residents who are first-generation Americans born of Eastern European parents. Annunzio - a senior citizen in a community with the highest median age of any Illinois district - casts himself as a champion of the elderly. He voted against recent federal budget bills because they contained cuts in Medicare. Dudycz, 40, is a relative newcomer to the political scene who calls himself an ``American's American.'' He attracted attention in 1989 when he led daily rallies at the Art Institute of Chicago to protest an exhibit displaying the U.S. flag on the floor. The self-styled populist has railed against increases in state income taxes and property taxes. He's counting on radio advertising and door-to-door canvassing to increase his name recognition. Annunzio, who has spent most of his recent time in Washington, is trying to make up for his absence with advertising bought from an $800,000 campaign war chest. ``We've basically had to change from a '60s type of campaign to a sophisticated marketing strategy - go from zero to 60 in 6.3 seconds,'' said Kevin Tynan, one of Annunzio's sons-in-law and his campaign manager.
AP900509-0119 	X	Pope John Paul II stepped off a raised, fenced-off platform and plunged into a jammed prison yard today in an unscheduled display of compassion as a convict chorus sang Beethoven's ``Ode to Joy.'' The pontiff then told about a thousand prisoners that ``the worst prison is a closed heart,'' and urged them to keep up their hope for a better life because ``Christ never loses hope in his creatures.'' The pope had been scheduled to greet only one prisoner _ a man who had killed his wife _ before his brief speech, but John Paul conferred with several assistants when he reached a platform that had been set up in the prison yard. The prisoners were confined behind a high Cyclone fence, but the pope descended from the platform, ordered that a gate be opened, and strolled into the yard, greeting and blessing prisoners for 20 minutes. One prisoner showed off an injured foot, and others appeared to be shaking with nervousness or joy as the pope approached. A prison band played Mexican tunes, then broke into the ``Ode to Joy'' in Spanish as the pope toured the yard. The ``Ode'' is the choral finale to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The state prison in Durango holds about 1,200 prisoners, authorities said, including convicted murderers and drug traffickers. The pontiff was scheduled to address a crowd of businessmen on their social responsibility during the afternoon. On Tuesday night, in a speech to diplomats in Mexico City, 450 miles to the southeast, the pope called for a moral as well as an economic approach to the ``imprisoning'' foreign debt crisis. ``Technical measures are not enough to resolve the great problems that menace international equilibrium,'' the pope told the diplomats. ``I feel the obligation to underline ... the ethical dimension of this imprisoning crisis,'' which, the pontiff said, was hindering development in many poor nations of the world. John Paul met the diplomats after celebrating a Mass for young people near a shrine at San Juan de los Lagos, 250 miles northwest of Mexico City. There, he encouraged Mexico's young people not to be disheartened by injustice and inequality and to use Christ as a defense against despair. He said loss of hope in today's world was symbolized by ``evasion, abandon, hedonism, discotheques, drugs, indifference, pessimism, the artificial paradises in which so many find refuge.'' ``Young people, don't lose hope! You are the pilgrims of hope,'' the pontiff cried. More than 200,000 people packed the slopes of a hill outside San Juan for the Mass on Tuesday. Many waved flags in papal white and yellow or in green, the town's colors, and interrupted the pope frequently with cheers and chants. Priests wore white robes and yellow baseball caps to ward off the harsh sun. The town was one of the centers of a guerrilla war waged in the 1920s by Catholic conservatives opposed to the government's tight religious restrictions, and memories of the conflict are still strong. A large banner on a building facing the altar read ``Viva Cristo Rey'' _ Long Live Christ the King _ the battle cry of the Cristero rebels. In a morning address to teachers, the pope issued a veiled call for a lifting of constitutional prohibitions on religious schools, a prohibition that is ignored by many schools and even universities. ``Open the world of teaching to Christ!'' the pope said in a speech at the airport in Aguascalientes, about 50 miles north of San Juan de Los Lagos. Church-state relations are now at their best in 50 years, and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari recently sent a personal representative to the pope. The move was seen as a step toward possible re-establishment of the diplomatic ties severed in 1926. ``I have observed with great satisfaction the significant and important gesture of the president,'' the pope told the diplomats on Tuesday evening. John Paul's eight-day trip is his 47th outside Italy since becoming pope. He first visited Mexico in 1979.
AP880516-0169 	X	A teen-ager told his mother, ``I'm a Crip and nobody messes with me,'' just before she stabbed him to death during an argument over less than $100, police said Monday. The killing was one of five gang-linked deaths over the weekend despite 125 arrests by a 200-officer anti-gang task force. The deaths pushed last week's countywide gang-related death toll to 10, and increased the 1988 total to 123. Sammie McGee, 37, told police she stabbed her son, Bluefus Davis, 18, in the heart with a steak knife Saturday night after an argument over money loaned him on Mother's Day, said police Sgt. Jon Rygh. Ms. McGee remained in custody on Monday, booked for investigation of murder, said Detective Steven Hooks. He confirmed her son's statement about being a member of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles street gang. The amount of money the two were arguing over ``is varying back and forth, depending on who we talk to,'' Hooks said. ``It was probably under $100 and over $50. There is no exact amount.'' Hooks said Davis did not live with his mother. ``From the indications we have, he just pretty much came over and started arguing,'' said Hooks. Detectives were still trying Monday to find out what the loan was about. ``We're still trying to sort through it. It's not a clear cut case,'' he said. Prosecutors ave until Wednesday to decide whether to file charges. ``You get mad enough to think you want to kill your kids, but to actually do it _ that's something else,'' said police Sgt. Alfonso Rodriguez. ``She nailed him,'' Rodrugues said. ``It wasn't just to scare him _ somebody will do that when they're mad, scratch his arm or something. But this was once right in the vital area.''
AP880513-0152 	X	The Reagan administration, contending that many Contra rebels inside Nicaragua are desperately short of food, will begin sending them cash at the rate of about $1 a day per rebel for food purchases, it was announced Friday. State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley brushed aside complaints from House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, that the rebels might use the money illegally to buy weapons. ``They already have weapons. What they need at this moment desperately is food, and we're confident that they will naturally use these small funds to provide for their basic survival,'' she said. An agreement signed between the Contras and Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government on March 23 permits humanitarian aid for the rebels, but no shipments have been made thus far because of a dispute over how the assistance should be delivered, among other reasons. Meanwhile, many Contras inside Nicaragua were said to be suffering from an inadequate diet. As an interim measure, the administration about three weeks ago began arranging deliveries by truck and air drop of food to rebel camps in Honduras near the Nicaraguan border. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Contras have fled Nicaragua for Honduras in search of food in recent weeks. Officials from the Agency for International Development, in a preliminary discussion with reporters of the plan announced Friday, had said Monday that most of the aid will be in the form of Nicaraguan currency delivered by Contra couriers based in Honduras. Some food also will be delivered, but the emphasis will be on cash transfers because of limits on the amount of food that can be carried. AID was designated to manage the $48 million humanitarian aid program approved by Congress in late March, a week after the Contras and the Sandinistas reached a truce agreement that allows for such aid to the rebels. The secretary general of the Organization of American States, Joao Baena Soares, has criticized both deliveries of food to Contra camps in Honduras and the cash-for-food plan. Baena Soares, a member of a verification commission assigned to ensure compliance with the Contra-Sandinista agreement, has said that neither plan falls within the limits of what the two sides have approved. But an administration official said Wednesday that the other member of the commission, Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, has raised no objections to the cash-for-food plan. The administration has accused the Sandinista government of using delaying tactics during negotiations in a bid to starve the Contras into submission. But Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramirez said Thursday his government is willing to allow immediate delivery of humanitarian supplies to rebels in Nicaragua. He denied that the government is trying to starve the Contras. ``We are in full disposition to accept that the Contra forces could receive humanitarian aid inside Nicaragua tomorrow, if possible,'' Ramirez told reporters after a 1{-hour meeting with Wright and other Democratic congressional leaders. Ramirez did not discuss his views on the cash-for-food plan. Wright has described the plan as a ``last resort'' because there are no guarantees the money won't be used to buy weapons. He also expressed concern that the cash might be used to buy weapons in violation of both the Contra-Sandinista agreement and the terms of the $48 million aid package. The package provides for food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies as well as treatment for children who are war victims. Money also was set aside to finance the work of the verification commission.
AP900803-0027 	X	Union pilots who struck Eastern Airlines are entitled to replace trainees hired to help the carrier rebuild, a federal judge said. Thursday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Davis apparently affects only those who were in training when time the pilots ended their walkout, said E.J. Breen, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association. Still, Breen said, ``It's clearly a major victory.'' All but 200 of the 3,600 union pilots walked off the job in sympathy with Machinists who struck the Miami-based airline in March 1989. Pilots ended their sympathy walkout in November, but fewer than 50 have been called back to Eastern, pilots association officials say. The Machinists are still striking. At least 404 pilots were in training when the pilots returned to work, the pilots association says. The airline estimates only 180 jobs are affected by the ruling, Eastern spokeswoman Karen Ceremsak said. Further hearings likely will be determine the exact number of affected jobs, Breen said. Eastern said in a statement it would appeal the decision. The airline predicted the ruling wouldn't immediately affect current employees or operations. Many pilots took jobs with other airlines after the strike began March 4, 1989, but about 1,400 former Eastern pilots may still be interested in returning, pilots' association spokesman Lou Baldwin said. Davis' ruling stems from the association's challenge of Eastern's claim that the formerly striking pilots were not needed. Davis agreed that the federal Railway Labor Act guarantees returning strikers job rights ahead of newly hired trainees. Davis said Eastern violated the Railway Labor Act by hiring pilot trainees not already qualified to fly regular flights. The act was devised to provide ``uninterrupted transportation service,'' the ruling said. Eastern sought bankruptcy protection five days after the strike began. It presently operates about 800 flights, down from its pre-strike service of 1,040. Ms. Ceremsak said she does not believe Davis' ruling must receive bankruptcy court approval. If the ruling is upheld on appeal, all returning pilots would need to go through several weeks of recertification training under the Federal Aviation Administration, Eastern officials said. Eastern currently has about 1,900 pilots, including those trained before the strike was settled, pilots hired from other airlines and union pilots who later crossed picket lines. Baldwin said the Eastern pilots trainees' annual pay is about $27,000. The average pre-strike pay at Eastern for fully accredited pilots was about $65,000, he said.
AP900518-0057 	X	Marlon Brando's eldest son, Christian, may have killed his half-sister's boyfriend in self-defense, says lawyer William Kunstler, who will defend the younger Brando. ``I understand there may have been a struggle over the gun, and some beating going on of Marlon's daughter,'' the radical attorney said Thursday. Kunstler, a friend of Brando's from civil rights struggles, said he received a call from him at 2 a.m. Thursday just after the shooting. Christian Brando, 32, was scheduled to be arraigned today in the slaying of Dag Drollet, 26, of Tahiti, who had been staying at the Brando estate. Kunstler was reportedly flying to Los Angeles from New York for the arraignment. Police said the shooting was sparked by an argument over Drollet's treatment of 20-year-old Tarita Cheyenne Brando, Christian's pregnant half-sister. ``There were allegations that there was physical abuse, a beating,'' Lt. Ron Hall said. ``There was no indication there had been a physical altercation prior to the shooting,'' said police Detective Steve Osti. The actor's son was arrested Wednesday night and booked for investigation of murder, said Hall. He was held without bail pending arraignment. ``He admitted to the shooting,'' the lieutenant said. Drollet was a family friend who had been a guest in the home for 10 days, police said. He died instantly from a .45-caliber bullet to the head, police said. Coroner's office spokesman Bob Dambacher said an autopsy was planned today. Marlon Brando, 66, placed the 911 emergency call to report a shooting inside his Mulholland Drive estate Wednesday night, police said. Christian Brando was alone with Drollet when the shooting occurred and the Oscar-winning actor, his wife and daughter were in another wing of the sprawling mansion and didn't witness the shooting, Hall said. Tarita Cheyenne is the daughter of Brando and his current wife, Tarita Teriipia, a Tahitian actress who played his love in the 1962 remake of ``Mutiny on the Bounty.'' Brando's two other sons, Miko and Simon, were not at the estate at the time. Officers recovered the pistol used in the killing and confiscated other weapons, including an M14 carbine, a shotgun and an Uzi assault rifle. ``I don't want these guns here. Take these guns out of here,'' Marlon Brando was quoted as telling police. Christian is the son of the actor and his first wife, Anna Kashfi. The couple was divorced in 1960, and their troubled son was the subject of a bitter custody battle. The 32-year-old high school dropout struggled to find a role of his own in life. He learned artistic welding, attempted to start a tree trimming service and tried acting. In October 1987, the younger Brando worked on his first _ and apparently only _ movie. He played a hit man in an Italian film produced under the Italian title ``La Posta in Gioco'' that was called both ``Up for Grabs'' and ``The Stakes'' in English. Except for traffic tickets, Christian Brando has no police record. Marlon Brando won best actor Oscars in 1954 for ``On the Waterfront'' and in 1972 for ``The Godfather.'' He was nominated for Best Support Actor for his 1989 role in ``A Dry White Season.''
AP880804-0007 	X	A judge sentenced a former state highway patrolman to 25 years to life in prison for strangling a motorist and throwing her body off a 65-foot-high bridge while on duty. In handing Craid Peyer, 38, the maximum sentence Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman said the former patrolman violated society's trust, but added the California Highway Patrol ``bears some blame for this tragedy.'' Huffman noted that the agency received a complaint about a month before the Dec. 27, 1986, death of Cara Knott, 20, that could have tipped them off to Peyer's habit of pulling young women over at a dark, isolated Interstate 15 exit ramp. ``Whether or not Mr. Peyer would have remained a highway patrolman after that is another issue. But what is true is that Cara Knott would be alive and Craig Peyer would not be on his way to state prison,'' the judge said. Peyer's conviction is being appealed, defense attorneys said. The 13-year patrol member was the second officer in the agency's 58-year history to be convicted in the on-duty slaying of a motorist. Peyer was convicted June 22 of first-degree murder in his second trial. His first trial ended in February when the jury deadlocked 7-5 in favor of conviction. Huffman issued the sentence, which included a $1,000 fine, after hearing impassioned pleas from the families of the victim and the defendant. ``My husband was a friendly, vibrant, well-loved person ... and in my heart and in my family's heart we all know that you have the wrong man,'' Peyer's wife, Karen, told the court as her husband sobbed. Samuel Knott, the victim's father, was unmoved. ``It is our fervent hope that this predator will never walk the streets again ... the punishment must be the maximum the law will allow,'' he said. Huffman denied a defense request for bail pending an appeal, saying he was a threat to the community. Peyer was remanded to the custody of sheriff's deputies for eventual transfer to state prison. He could be eligible for parole in 17 years, 8 months, Deputy District Attorney Paul Pfingst said.
AP881222-0171 	X	The Defense Department should not have to cannibalize existing nuclear weapons for their tritium, but the next administration faces unspecified ``hard choices,'' Energy Secretary John Herrington said Thursday. And cannibalization of some warheads to build or upgrade others is something ``that we must look at to keep our options open,'' Herrington said in a speech at the National Press Club. But as things now stand, ``I do not anticipate the need'' to resort to such methods. Tritium, used in thermonuclear weapons and as a booster in some plutonium-powered weapons, decays rapidly and must be replenished from time to time in bombs or warheads. Half of any amount of tritium becomes inert helium in 12.6 years. Tritium has been made in three nuclear reactors at the department's Savannah River plant in South Carolina _ reactors that have been closed for safety upgrading since last summer or earlier. Herrington has said it will be spring or summer before the reactors can be restarted, and there have been some estimates that production could not be resumed until the end of the year. An advisory committee has refused to approve the department's restart plans, and Herrington disclosed that he had accepted the panel's recommendation in one principal area of concern. Piping at the three reactors will be subjected to ultrasonic tests for cracks, he said. Asked after his speech how much time those examinations might add to preparations for restarting the reactors, Herrington said: ``I don't know. It depends on what we find.'' The recommendation, he said, ``is reasonable, and I had pretty much concluded myself that we ought to do it.'' In recent weeks, cracks have been discovered on piping of two of the reactors. A headquarters team has been in Savannah River this week assessing the significance of those findings. Herrington has been granted an additional $900 million for nuclear waste cleanup activities in the budget being submitted to Congress next month, but the White House turned him down for $360 million more, ordering him to use unspent departmental funds to bridge the gap. ``We are still working inside the department'' to figure out how that will be done,'' he said. ``The amount of money being given to us is reasonable and a good start,'' he said. ``I do not say that without saying this: There are going to be some hard choices,'' and the Bush administration will have to review Reagan's budget decisions. Herrington has estimated that $110 billion will be necessary to clean up weapons plant waste over the next 40 years, and some other estimates range up to $170 billion. Asked if the press had fallen down in not spotlighting environmental and safety concerns before, Herrington said, ``On the local level, the press has been extremely diligent'' in following congressional developments, hearing testimony and congressional reports for almost four years. But it probably took an unexplained power surge at one of the Savannah River reactors last August to draw national attention, he said. On civilian subjects, Herrington said it was ``an outrage'' that the nation had two completed but unused nuclear power plants in an area vulnerable to electricity brownouts, the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire and the Shoreham plant on New York's Long Island. ``I speak as a citizen concerned about energy independence, as a taxpayer concerned that New York is going to issue tax-free bonds to buy the plant and tear it down. The plants would replace oil-burning plants, help counter the ``greenhouse effect'' global warming that results from fossil fuel use and help reduce emissions of pollutants that cause acid rain, he said. ``I think it's an outrage. I want to see those plants operate. ... I guarantee you, if we don't turn this around we will be importing Japanese reactors.'' The two plants have been unable to win federal approval of emergency evacuation plans because of opposition from state governments _ the Massachusetts government in the case of the New Hampshire plant. But the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recommended approval of a 25 percent power license for Shoreham, and may grant a testing license to Seabrook in the next several weeks.
AP880614-0070 	X	Battling Southern Baptists headed toward a showdown decision that would either curb rule of their 14.6-million member denomination by fundamentalists, or perpetuate it for the next generation. More than at any time since the fundamentalist tide began rolling nine years ago, moderates seemed to feel they had an even chance of breaking it at this year's convention, which meets today. ``They have a chance because they have a good candidate,'' said Toby A. Druin, of Dallas, assistant editor of the weekly Baptist Standard, referring to the prospective moderate nominee for the denominational presidency. The Rev. Richard Jackson, the moderate from Phoenix, Ariz., is expected to be pitted against fundamentalist candidate Jerry Vines, a minister from Jacksonville, Fla. The nominations and voting for president of the denomination, the nation's largest Protestant body, come this afternoon. ``It's going to be neck and neck,'' said the Rev. Albert McClellan of Nashville, Tenn., retired long-time denominational executive. Through successive presidencies, whose appointments gradually determine ruling trustees of the denomination's far-flung operational network, fundamentalists nearly have completed their takeover. Their timetable says one more year would seal the process. But moderates see signs that many who have supported fundamentalists before think they have gone to excess in newly restrictive measures on institutions and agencies, driving out some widely respected personnel. Indications also have arisen of links between fundamentalist strategists and the religious right on social-political issues. That gives the conflict a broad political tinge rather than it being an intramural difference over Bible interpretation, as it often has been pictured. ``People are becoming alarmed,'' McClellan said. ``There's a definite swing against these extremes.'' However, some peculiar back-stage maneuvering has gone on that possibly could scuttle the expected contest between Jackson and Vines. The Rev. John Bisagno of Houston suggested that to dampen the head-on conflict, only one of the two be nominated as a consensus candidate this year, the other two years hence. That seemed unlikely, but the possibility was discussed that Bisagno himself might be nominated, which probably would reduce chances of the moderate-backed Jackson. A hint of fundamentalist strength also came in a preconvention pastors conference Monday afternoon when a fundamentalist, the Rev. Ralph Smith of Austin, was elected president. He defeated a moderate, the Rev. Paul Powell of Tyler. The presidency of the pastor's conference has been a stepping stone to the convention presidency for the last decade. Among the fundamentalist engineered steps that have intensified controversy during the last year: _ Endorsement of Judge Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court, contrary to long-time denominational policy against siding for or against specific candidates. The conservative Bork later withdrew from the nomination. _ Adopting mission board policies against women clergy and divorced ministers in most cases, and instituting screening of personnel to assure that they took a literalist view of the Bible. _ Moves that drove from office the Rev. Randall Lolley as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and the Rev. Larry Baker as head of the denomination's ethics agency, the Christian Life Commission. _ Ouster of the Rev. George Sheridan as head of a regional New Jersey interfaith unit because he contended that God's covenant with Jews remained valid. _ Pushing right-wing causes for capital punishment, prayer in public schools, aid to religious schools, and against all abortions except to save the mother's life.
AP880401-0132 	X	Authorities have recovered 39 bodies from an avalanche that buried a northern mountain village earlier this week, it was reported Friday. Another 11 people were still missing in the Arundu village high in the remote Korakoram mountain range, according to the government-run news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan. Seven people were rescued after the snow slide destroyed the village, the agency said.
AP881129-0155 	X	An attorney for 13 Cuban detainees argued Tuesday they have a constitutional right to petition for political asylum before being sent back to the homeland they fled in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Lee Ochoa of Miami, an attorney for 13 of 15 Cubans convicted of crimes ranging from burglary to first-degree murder, told U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon that some of the Cubans were afraid to go home because they did not know how they would be treated by Fidel Castro's government. Clemon said he will rule Monday on whether to allow the Immigration and Naturalization Service to fly the 13 back to Cuba. Clemon said he wanted to give attorneys for the Cubans time to support their request for a preliminary order blocking the deportation. The INS on Nov. 17 notified 15 Cubans at at the Federal Correctional Institution at Talladega that they would be deported within 72 hours. However, the next day the government promised Clemon it would not send them home until their attorneys had a chance to study their files. Leo Ochoa of Miami, attorney for 13 of the 15, told Clemon that they have a constitutional right to petition for political asylym and to due process. ``In this country we want to do things fairly and properly,'' Ochoa said. But Lauri Fillppu of the INS said that the Cubans' only claim for asylum is that they might be harmed in Cuba. He said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta already had rejected that argument. Fillppu questioned what he called ``a last-minute tactic'' by the Cubans, claiming there was no new evidence.
AP900529-0160 	X	``Hydrogen Jukebox,'' 21 poems by ``beat'' poet Allen Ginsberg set to music by Philip Glass, was splendidly sung but difficult to understand in its staged premiere at the Spoleto Festival. It's presented as an ``acted'' song cycle, with much arm moving, walking and rolling around the stage by six splendid singers. Few words are understandable, far fewer than in most new operas in English. In an opera, when words aren't understood, the audience can get the gist of what's going on from the plot. But in Ginsberg's poems of free association, symbolism, fanciful happenings, inside allusions and non sequiturs abound, and one line of poetry often has no relation to the line before. The work desperately needs surtitles. We saw Monday night's performance, the third, in the Sottile Theater. We were able to realize there are anti-war poems, many references to India, nature, politics and industry, with appropriate back-wall projections. Glass' music was usually a melody, which the singers _ James Butler, Richard Fracker, Suzan Hanson, Thomas N. Potter, Linda Thompson and Darynn Zimmer _ sang over repetitive figures instead of chords. Each singer has a fine, distinctive voice, and they blended beautifully. Following the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., ``Hydrogen Jukebox'' will be performed at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy June 27 through July 15. A year from this fall, there are plans to tour ``Hydrogen Jukebox'' to 40 or 50 American cities. In great contrast was Mozart's ``The Marriage of Figaro'' from 1786, in the Dock Street Theater. Gian Carlo Menotti, artistic director of Spoleto Festival U.S.A., staged it. It became the hit of last year's festival and was repeated eight times this year, quickly selling out. The production is warm and friendly. Spiros Argiris conducted so briskly that some singers, especially Hilda Harris as Cherubino, had difficulty. Renee Fleming from Indiana, Pa., is probably the best Countess we've ever heard. Also fine were Erich Parce, Figaro; Young Ok Shin, Susanna, and Christopher Trakas, the Count. Menotti's grandson, Claudio, nearly 3, made his stage debut Saturday night as the son of the Count and Countess, with notable stage presence. Our biggest surprise at the festival was the sold-out ``Birth of an American Avant Garde'' concert at the College of Charleston. Host, composer John Kennedy, said that no piece on the program had been played more than a handful of times. The hit was William Russell's ``Four Dance Movements,'' three written in 1933 and one in 1990, and his 1936 ``Made in America,'' first performed in 1990. The concert, which included playing a suitcase, was at its most fun when Kennedy donned goggles and one glove and hammered a bottle to bits over a metal garbage can. Peter Garland was inspired by Indians and Johanna M. Beyer by a one-string instrument called a lion's roar, both at too much length. A 1971 James Tenney early minimalist piece completed the program. Old festival hands were saying there was the most experimentation ever this year. A sold-out chamber music concert at the Dock Street Theater, hosted in laid-back, knowledgeable, amusing style by Charles Wadsworth, sandwiched the premiere of Frazelle's ``String Trio'' between Bach and Vivaldi. The Memorial Day weekend streets of Charleston were crowded with people walking among 11 theaters, some going to concerts morning, afternoon and evening. Menotti said Tuesday that his greatest joy is introducing the arts to people who've never experienced them before.
AP881028-0109 	X	Michael Dukakis rallied supporters at a church today with a declaration that ``11 days is an eternity'' and time enough to catch George Bush before Election Day. Bush suggested Americans would wake up to a gloomy morning if Dukakis should be elected. Bush celebrated like the front-runner he is Thursday night at a party at Bob Hope's house. But Dukakis also was upbeat at a rally early today at a Baptist church in Kansas City, Mo.. ``In politics, as you all know, 11 days is an eternity,'' Dukakis said. ``There is time to do it.'' He was introduced by the Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield, who said that during the Reagan administration there have been ``a few at the head of the table who refuse to pass the bread.'' Dukakis, who opened his remarks by saying ``I've got a little preaching to do,'' promised Hartsfield things would change in a Dukakis White House. ``We're not only going to pass the bread, but you're going to be at the table,'' he told the predominantly black audience. Dukakis, who hosted a town meeting Thursday night in nearby Independence, Harry Truman's hometown, said he was inspired by the visit and confident he could, like Truman, pull off an upset. To win he will have to defy the polls much as Truman did in 1948. The newest batch of surveys _ including one Thursday showing a nine-point Bush lead _ range from eight to 15 points. Bush said Thursday night that he would not be ``talking on the negative side'' in the closing days of the race, but that didn't seem to last long. He told a business group in Los Angeles today that Dukakis ``wants to torpedo the prosperity we've worked so hard to achieve.'' Bush said, ``Peace means you can sleep at night knowing the world will still be there in the morning; prosperity means you can sleep at night knowing that opportunity will still be there in the morning. ``You know about our mornings,'' Bush said. ``But I ask you to consider: What kind of morning would electing the liberal governor of Massachusetts bring? Will it be gloomy? Will the dark clouds of pessimism and limited possibility obscure our vision?' Thursday night, at a stop in Kansas City, Dukakis sat for a 14-minute interview with Dan Rather on the CBS ``Evening News'' where he conceded that GOP advertising had hurt his candidacy. ``There's no mystery about why they put those ads on. They have done damage. There's no question about that,'' he said. Dukakis suggested that Bush resorted to the commercials ``to divert public attention from the fact that this administration has probably had more corruption and malfeasance than any in recent memory, if not in history.'' The Democratic nominee was continuing his campaign in Missouri today before heading to Michigan and later Boston. Dukakis' running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, was focusing on California _ and its electoral prize of 47 votes _ before returning to his home state of Texas. Bush was also targeting California before traveling to Nebraska where he planned a joint appearance with Sen. David Karnes. The Republican candidate faces an uphill battle with former Nebraska Gov. Bob Kerrey for the Senate seat. Republican vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle was touring the ``Pennsylvania Dutch'' region and scheduled a series of appearances at the state's high schools. The Republican ticket, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, leads Dukakis-Bentsen 51 percent to 42 percent, considerably closer than the 17 points in a similar poll done just after the Oct. 13 debate. The survey, conducted among 1,285 likely voters, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. As he campaigned in the West, Bush said the Pacific nations represent ``huge and growing markets'' for American goods, ``if we don't turn and run away.'' ``I will make sure that our trading partners continue to understand that our markets are vital to their growth as well,'' Bush said. ``Free trade must be fair trade. A Bush administration will keep the heat on.'' But Bentsen, in a speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said that under the leadership of the Reagan administration, the United States had become an international debtor, dependent on foreign investors as it battles huge trade and budget deficits. ``The United States must be able to compete not only militarily but economically,'' Bentsen said. Dukakis, in the CBS interview, reiterated his populist view that the Democratic ticket favors average Americans while Bush is the candidate of the privileged class. ``I want the government of this country to be on the side of average Americans and I think that's a fundamental difference between me and George Bush,'' the Democratic nominee said. Meanwhile, the Dukakis campaign announced that it is doubling its budget for Hispanic ads, targeting seven states with large Hispanic voter populations. The campaign also is spending about $3 million _ 10 percent of its media budget _ on black-oriented television and radio ads which began three weeks ago. In five of the radio ads, former Democratic candidate Jesse Jackson tells listeners, ``We have the power to make Mike Dukakis president. Let's use it.''
AP901102-0255 	X	BUSINESS EDITORS COMPOSING ROOMS The Associated Press will conduct another test transmission from its new market computer system on Sunday beginning at noon Eastern time. The test will be conducted on both Digital and Dataspeed circuits. This is only a test. We ask those receiving the transmission to respond Monday by calling the AP in New York at 212-621-1568.
AP880519-0041 	X	U.S. and Soviet diplomats met to talk about efforts to end Angola's 13-year civil war and lead South-West Africa to independence. Chester Crocker, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, met on Wednesday with Anatoly Adamishin, deputy foreign minister, at the U.S. Embassy. U.S.-sponsored mediation seeking peace in Angola and neighboring South-West Africa, also known as Namibia, was stalled for years over demands by each side that the other withdraw its forces from Angola first. However, talks progressed in recent weeks after a joint Angolan-Cuban proposal in March for phased withdrawal of Cuban troops. Angola's Marxist government and its Cuban supporters are fighting rebels for control of the former Portuguese colony. The rebels are backed by South Africa and the United States. South Africa rules Namibia in defiance of a U.N. resolution. Referring to Wednesday's talks, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Susan Clyde said in Lisbon: ``They're here to discuss the (southern African) regional issues _ certainly the Angolan and Namibian points.'' Reporters were not allowed into the embassy complex, and Ms. Clyde said neither Crocker nor Adamishin would make any public statements. The discussions followed a meeting of delegations from Angola, Cuba and the United States on May 2-3 in London. South Africa held a second meeting with the Angolans in Brazzaville, Congo, last week. Both envoys to Wednesday's session were to leave today to report to their governments before the Moscow summit beginning May 29 between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
AP900124-0138 	X	Lithuania's Roman Catholic cardinal has called for independence for the Soviet republic and said the church there is still not free, it was reported Wednesday. Cardinal Vincentas Sladkevicius told the weekly Roman Catholic magazine Il Sabato that he did not want to create problems for Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, but Lithuanians would not accept the Soviet occupation of the Baltic land. ``We say this only: let perestroika go its way, and let us go ours,'' the cardinal said. ``The church has promoted for more than 50 years the cause of national independence, and it will continue to do so. The annexation of 1939 is based on a villanous pact between the Soviets and Nazis, it cannot be defended in any way on the legal plane. Even Moscow has recognized this. We want to separate from the Soviet Union,'' Sladkevicius said, according to the excerpts of the interview released in advance by the magazine. The cardinal said a law on conscience being prepared by Soviet officials was new ``only in name'' and that ``the church in Lithuania is not yet free,'' the magazine reported. Lithuania, an independent country before World War II, was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and has been considered a stronghold of nationalism. An estimated 2.5 million people, or 80 percent of Lithuania's population, are Roman Catholics.
AP901011-0147 	X	An offer of free potatoes for anyone who helps gather them has enticed thousands of city dwellers into the fields and reduced the chances of hunger this winter, Soviet officials said Thursday. Two weeks ago, newspapers and television broadcasts warned that the harvest was proceeding very slowly and Moscow had stockpiled only 7 percent of the potatoes it would need to get through the winter. Fear of hunger spread through the capital, and consumers emptied grocery shelves, stashing sacks of potatoes in closets and basements. Since then, emergency measures - including ordering soldiers into the fields and offering to let volunteers keep half the potatoes they dig up - has doubled and even tripled the rate of the harvest in many areas, according to official reports. ``True, the weather has brightened up a bit, but the main thing is the massive turnout of (voluntary) helpers,'' Gennady Kulik, deputy prime minister of the Russian republic, said on the main television news program, Vremya. Vremya reported 160,000 Moscow residents, including 40,000 soldiers, were working in the fields. It showed city dwellers pulling potatoes from the soil and placing them in buckets - one for the state, then one for themselves. The TV report appeared aimed at reducing the crisis atmosphere as the country heads into winter amid economic confusion and shortages of many essential goods, ranging from gasoline to sausage, tobacco and paper. After weeks of debate, the national legislature is still trying to reach consensus on a plan to switch from central planning to a market-based system. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev initially endorsed a radical 500-day plan, then hesitated on whether to allow private ownership of farms, which he said should be decided by a national referendum. Thursday's upbeat TV broadcast said 75 percent of the Soviet Union's potato plantations have been harvested, and 40-50 percent of the planned allocation has been sent to industrial centers. Kulik said several cities, including Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Perm, already have filled their vegetable storage facilities and are fully provisioned for winter. He said Moscow has nearly finished stockpiling beets and is likely to get more carrots than planned. The city also has received 50,000 of the 165,000 tons of cabbage it is expected to use during the winter, and the cabbage harvest ``is going well,'' he said. The TV report did not say what percentage of Moscow's potato allocation was in hand. But Kulik said deliveries were arriving from across Russia, the largest of the Soviet Union's 15 republics, and ``measures are being taken to fully provide the capital'' with potatoes. A bumper crop of wheat also is being harvested, but much of it is expected to rot or go to waste because of poor transportation and inefficient bakeries. Last month, bread was in short supply in Moscow for the first time since the early 1960s. A crash program to raise bakers' wages and put bakeries back in operation eliminated the bread lines within weeks.
AP880504-0333 	X	Eastern Airlines said Wednesday it has canceled its contract with Orion Air Inc. to provide strike-replacement pilots, but pledged to remain flying in the event of labor troubles. Eastern, preparing for tough negotiations with the Machinists union on its expiring labor pact, had contracted with Orion in case its own pilots refused to cross picket lines, Eastern spokeswoman Karen Ceremsak said. But U.S. District Judge Barrington Parker in Washington ruled in March that the deal with Orion violated the existing contract between Eastern and its pilots union. Replacements cannot be trained until a strike begins, the judge said. Orion, based in Raleigh, N.C., is one of the largest U.S. operators of aircraft for the small package industry. Miami-based Eastern, the nation's sixth-largest airline, is a subsidiary of giant Texas Air Corp. The Transport Workers Union filed a similar suit in April, accusing Eastern of using its planes to train Orion flight attendants to break a strike. Ms. Ceremsak refused to attribute the cancellation of the Orion contract to Eastern's legal setbacks, however. The contract was terminated ``for sound business reasons,'' said Ms. Ceremsak. ``Beyond that I can't elaborate.'' The decision to end the contract does not mean that financially troubled Eastern will shut down if the Machinists walk out, the spokeswoman said. ``We do have plans to operate in case of a strike,'' she said. ``But our first priority is still reaching a settlement'' with the Machinists. J.B. Stokes, a spokesman for the pilots union at Eastern, said the federal court decisions against Eastern left the carrier with no choice. ``This is just the inevitable recognition that you have to obey court orders,'' said Stokes. ``The judge said you cannot train (replacement) pilots in any capacity until such time as there is a strike.'' The cancellation will cost Eastern about $5.5 million under a provision of the Orion contract, Stokes said. Ms. Ceremsak refused to comment on any provisions of the contract or its cancellation.
AP900605-0065 	X	cicomment
AP900714-0093 	X	Following is the text of Nicholas Ridley's letter of resignation, released by the prime minister's office.
AP880514-0111 	X	The deal between French and English Canada to recognize Quebec as a ``distinct society'' and bring it back into the Constitution has bogged down in arguments over minority and women's rights and the future of the nation's political system. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and other critics want last year's agreement scrapped. Trudeau, a leader in creating the nation's new Constitution in 1982, says the pact could lead to the breakup of Canada's federation of provinces. Others want the accord renegotiated. Women's groups, the country's 500,000 Indians and Eskimos, and language minorities in several provinces want their rights enshrined in the Constitution. The Northwest Territories and Yukon claim the deal makes it virtually impossible for them to become provinces. The accord's importance stems from Quebec's refusal to sign the 1982 Constitution because it failed specifically to protect the province's French culture. Despite all the critics, Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa thinks he can persuade the country to ratify the agreement, which was signed by the federal government and the 10 Canadian provinces a year ago at Meech Lake, Quebec. But his chief provincial ally, Ontario Premier David Peterson, says there's only a 50-50 chance. ``I wouldn't bet the family farm on it,'' he said recently. However, Peterson warned that ``the political consequences of not signing this could be very severe. ``It will be an enormous political risk for the country to refuse it. We don't need it to survive, but we do for political stability,'' he said. The risk of unrest isn't always apparent in Quebec. The mainly French-speaking province has evolved in the past decade from a bastion of French separatism into a prosperous society of 6.6 million people. The turning point was the rejection, by a 6-to-4 margin, of a 1980 referendum to open talks on a limited form of independence. Robert Maule, the U.S. consul general in Montreal, describes today's sprawling city of 2.9 million as one of entrepreneurs and yuppies, not political extremists. He said the 81-percent French-speaking majority feels more secure about its fate on an English-speaking continent. First posted here in 1976, Maule said: ``In those days, if you went into a store and said ``hello'' to someone, they'd glare at you. Now, if they greet you first in French, they apologize and say `hello' right back.'' Yet it doesn't take much to revive the old Anglo-French antagonisms. About 25,000 French Quebecers marched through the streets last month to proclaim the inviolability of the province's French-only language law. The protesters reacted after Bourassa wavered over an election promise to permit bilingual business signs and after two Western provinces diluted French minority rights. Today's French-speaking Quebecers, who number about 5 million, descend from settlers who followed on the heels of 16th and 17th century French explorers. Once called New France, Quebec came under British control after a defeat of French soldiers on the bank of the St. Lawrence River in 1759. All parties initially hailed Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's skillful negotiation of the Meech Lake accord, and the deal was ratified Oct. 26 by the House of Commons. The pact has been approved by four of 10 provinces: Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island. But with a June 1990 deadline for unanimous assent, New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna opposes the pact, a minority government in Manitoba lacks the votes to pass it, and four other provinces have delayed ratification. Meanwhile, the country's main opposition Liberal Party is sharply divided over Meech Lake and seeks amendments. In addition to the ``distinct society'' clause for Quebec, Meech Lake gives provinces new powers in the appointment of Supreme Court judges and senators and the right to opt out of national shared-cost programs. Trudeau says such a scenario could shatter the Canadian federation. Other critics say the phrase ``distinct society'' is ill-defined and will cause endless litigation over the division of federal and provincial powers. Mulroney says objections can be taken up at later constitutional talks. ``Meech Lake will pass the way it is. This is an undertaking we gave to the people of Canada and the people of Quebec,'' he said. But Peterson did not close the door to changes. ``I'm prepared to look at anything,'' he told reporters. This pledge upset Bourassa, who argued that unanimous consent for change is now impossible. He said native rights and other matters can be dealt with separately and that a constitutional provision requires consent from only seven provinces or those representing 50 percent of the population. ``In reopening the deal, they will kill the deal and keep Quebec outside the Constitution,'' he said.
AP900411-0191 	X	President Bush is prodding Mikhail S. Gorbachev to show the same restraint in Lithuania as he did in Eastern Europe, praising the Soviet leader as an apostle of ``peaceful change and the evolution of democracy.'' Bush said Tuesday that Gorbachev's tolerance of democratic freedoms in Warsaw Pact nations had demonstrated ``a commitment to reform and openness that's remarkable. ``So give him credit and deal openly'' with him on problems such as Lithuania, the president said. ``But when you have difficulties like we have today, talk frankly with him about it.'' Today, Bush planned to talk about Lithuania with a group of leaders of Baltic-American groups.
AP881224-0104 	X	The owner of The Miami News has reached an agreement in principle to sell the 93-year-old daily newspaper, which is scheduled to shut down Dec. 31, the paper reported Saturday. Cox Enterprises has ``conceptually agreed'' to an amended offer from an out-of-state investor group. Cox hopes to close the deal before its self-imposed Dec. 31 deadline for selling the paper or folding it, a Cox official said. Cox might consider keeping the paper open for a short time after Dec. 31 if a deal appears imminent, said David Easterly, president of the Atlanta-based Cox Newspapers division. ``We have conceptually agreed to what was submitted _ we did that (Friday) _ and the next move is up to the bidder,'' Easterly said. ``There has been no contract signed and no earnest money put forward. ... There is a lot still to be done. We are trying to get this bidder to come in and make a deal.'' Easterly would not discuss details of the amended offer. Friday's developments came a day after the U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating whether the planned closing of The News violates antitrust laws. Easterly said the impending probe had no effect on the negotiations. Easterly confirmed that a different offer was received late Wednesday from the sole active bidder. Easterly declined to identify the bidder, but Chicago newspaper consultant John R. Malone said recently that it's an investor group he represents. On Oct. 14, Cox officials announced that The News would be closed by next Saturday if it were not sold. They cited financial and circulation losses. Under a joint operating agreement signed in 1966 with The Miami Herald Publishing Co., The News' printing, circulation, advertising and promotion services are provided by The Herald. The Justice Department probe centers on whether an amendment to the agreement, which would allow Cox to close or sell The News now _ nine years before the original pact was to expire _ and continue collecting a share of Herald profits for the next 33 years, violates antitrust laws. Facilities being offered for sale by Cox include the newspaper's name, subscription list and some newsroom equipment. Since the agreement with The Herald went into effect, The News' circulation has declined from 112,000 to 48,000, Cox officials said.
AP880224-0082 	X	The dollar was mixed in dull European trading today as dealers waited for new factors to get the market out of the doldrums. Gold prices fell in London following a large sell order from the Middle East, which had a big impact because the market was so thin, dealers said. Traders said last Friday's remark by Swiss National Bank President Pierre Languetin that the dollar was poised to move lower again had put a very tight lid on any upward movement of the U.S. currency. Dealers said Tuesday's congressional testimony in Washington by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan failed to give the market new directions and they didn't expect his repeat performance for the Senate Banking Committee today to have much more impact. The release later today of fourth-quarter U.S. trade figures isn't likely to have a major impact on the market either because the figures are already known, dealers said. ``I honestly don't know what could help the dollar move,'' said one senior trader in Milan. But another dealer said Thursday's report of the first revision of U.S. fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth could possibly have an effect on the dollar. In Tokyo, where the business day ends as Europe's begins, the dollar rose 0.25 yen to a closing 128.75. Later, in London, it was quoted slightly higher at 128.85 yen. Other dollar rates at midmorning, compared with late Tuesday's rates: _1.69225 West German marks, down from 1.6945 _1.3905 Swiss francs, up from 1.3895 _5.72675 French francs, up from 5.7240 _1.89775 Dutch guilders, down from 1.9000 _1,247.00 Italian lire, up from 1.246.60 _1.2673 Canadian dollars, down from 1.2712 In London, the dollar fell against the British pound. It cost $1.7665 to buy one pound, more expensive than $1.7655 late Tuesday. Gold opened in London at a bid price of $441.70 a troy ounce and at midmorning, the city's five major bullion dealers fixed a lower recommended price of $438. Both were down from late Tuesday's bid of $442.50. In Zurich, the bid price was $438.50, down from $442 late Tuesday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold fell $2.60 to close at a bid $444.20. Silver also fell in London where the bid price was $6.28 a troy ounce at midmorning today compared with late Tuesday's $6.33.
AP900124-0025 	X	A wide range of bills newly introduced in Congress would cut Social Security taxes, free billions of dollars for the nation's highways and cash in on the thaw in East-West relations by cutting Pentagon programs. Many of the bills introduced as lawmakers returned to work Tuesday after their winter recess would address the massive federal budget deficit and the gimmicks used to disguise the government's red ink. Also introduced were bills that would raise the Environmental Protection Agency to Cabinet status and allow women to serve in combat. The largest political storm has already formed over Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's proposal to cut Social Security taxes. Moynihan was derided by the White House earlier this month when he announced the plan, which he formally introduced Tuesday. He would roll back Social Security payroll tax rate from the 7.65 percent it reached Jan. 1 to the previous 7.51 percent. That would save workers $7 billion this year and $55 billion in fiscal 1991. ``We must end the shameful practice of using Social Security revenues to finance budget deficits,'' said Moynihan, D-N.Y. The surplus in Social Security reserves is counted in the budget, making the deficit appear smaller than it actually is. The surpluses are the result of efforts to build up reserves for the Baby Boom generation when it ages and will dwindle after the turn of the century. But the Bush administration calls the move part of a Democratic plot to raise other taxes. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., meanwhile, rolled various tax proposals _ including his perennial call for a national sales tax _ into a Tax Reform and Competiveness Act. The legislation embraces some of President Bush's proposal to lower the capital gains tax and includes Moynihan's Social Security proposal and a plan by Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, to restore the tax deduction for Individual Retirement Accounts. This is the fifth straight year Hollings has introduced legislation for a value added tax, as the sales tax is known. On another budget front, Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., introduced legislation he said would release more than $10.5 billion in highway money being held in the federal Highway Trust Fund. The money represents the accumulated difference between revenues _ larely from the 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax _ and federal highway authorizations. Critics say the money is deliberately underspent to keep the deficit low and provide a cheap source for government borrowing. ``Over the last decade the federal government has used the money collected by the federal gas tax as a deficit-reduction gimmick,'' Bryan said. Legislation to elevate the Environmental Protection Agency to Cabinet level status was introduced in the House and Senate, with supporters saying they hoped a bill could clear Congress within several months. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, said the EPA needs more clout and higher visibility because of the importance of environmental issues in the next decade. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Alan Cranston, D-Calif., moved to translate changes in the Soviet Bloc into less military spending, introducing legislation to cancel the B-1 stealth bomber program after the 15 bombers now in production are built. ``Recent events have made the argument against the B-2 even stronger,'' said Leahy. He said taxpayers would save $40 billion as a result. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., introduced a bill she has been touting since the U.S. invasion of Panama last month that would remove existing prohibitions on women serving in combat. Cranston, under investigation for his role in the scandal over the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan, introduced legislation that would allow the 23,000 holders of worthless junk bonds sold through Lincoln to sue federal regulators for approving the sale. Cranston is one of five senators under an ethics inquiry for receiving contributions from Lincoln owner Charles Keating Jr. and intervening with federal regulators on Keating's behalf. A bill introduced by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., would bar senators from taking honoraria and limit outside earned income to 15 percent of salary. The measure would bring Senate rules in line with those approved by the House last year. Sens. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., and Gordon J. Humphrey, R-N.H., introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit senators and members of the House to 12 years in office. Humphrey said the amendment would ``go a long way toward restoring a truly representative Congress.'' In other legislation Tuesday: _Reps. Silvio Conte, R-Mass., and Joseph Brennan, D-Maine, introduced separate bills to raise low-income energy assistance subsidies after a cold snap and low inventories sent heating oil costs skyrocketing 50 percent last month. _Banks and thrifts that launder drug money would lose their charters under a bill introduced by Rep. Frank Annunzio, D-Ill, chairman of the House Banking financial institutions subcommittee. _And Rep. James Trafficant, D-Ohio, introduced a bill to repeal the 1985 Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law, calling the law ``that turkey that should be shot down.''
AP880405-0042 	X	His governorship gone, his ailing auto dealership sold, Evan Mecham faces a future in which one of the few certainties is his role as defendant in a criminal trial. But for Arizona, the future looks brighter without the shadow of Mecham's embarrassing impeachment trial hanging over the state, said Rose Mofford, who became governor with Mecham's removal. ``Today we have reached the end of some difficult times in Arizona,'' Mrs. Mofford, a Democrat, said Monday. ``I know the decision made by the Senate today was not reached lightly. It is time to put all that behind us and move forward.'' ``Today none of us are Republicans, none of us are Democrats,'' she said. ``We are all Arizonans. Let us go forward together as Arizonans.'' The impeached first-term Republican was stripped of his office Monday when the Senate convicted him of trying to thwart an investigation of an alleged death threat and misusing the governor's protocol fund. The end of the trial did not heal the divisions that arose during Mecham's turbulent 15 months in office. Predictably, the verdict was praised by Mecham opponents and condemned by supporters. Some legislators received police protection Monday night after getting threatening phone calls that were prompted by the vote, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Allan Schmidt. ``They've been all types of intimidating-type threatening statements ranging from voter response to the ultimate,'' Schmidt said. Mecham's future troubles could include a maximum 22-year prison sentence if he is convicted on charges of concealing a $350,000 campaign loan. He faces trial April 21 in Maricopa County Superior Court on six felony counts of fraud, perjury and filing false documents. His brother Willard, who was his 1986 campaign treasurer, faces three similar counts. The Senate threw out an impeachment count based on the $350,000 loan issue. Although the Senate did not bar Mecham from holding public office again, his lawyer, Jerris Leonard, indicated after the impeachment vote that Mecham may decide to bow out of politics. ``I think there is doubt,'' he said of whether Mecham would try to appeal his case to voters in a recall election May 17. It was not clear whether the ousted governor could remain on the recall ballot given him impeachment conviction. The matter probably will be decided by the courts, said Attorney General Bob Corbin. Leonard said, ``I think the decision of where we go from now is dependent on whether or not the governor himself wants to stay in politics and that's something that he's got to decide overnight.'' After Monday's conviction, Mecham left the Senate chamber smiling. Asked what he planned next, he said, ``We'll decide tomorrow or the next day ... We're keeping all our options open.'' After he was impeached by the House of Representatives on Feb. 5, the 63-year-old Mecham hinted he might give up politics. ``If I can be of service, fine,'' he said. ``If not, I'd enjoy private life. The best person doesn't always win. Politics is not my favorite pastime.'' Mecham ran for governor five times before being elected in 1986. Although Mecham's son, Dennis, testified last week that their Mecham Pontiac dealership in suburban Glendale was thriving, he announced a day later that they'd been forced to sell it for $4 million because of dwindling sales. Dennis Mecham said bad publicity surrounding his father's political battles had driven customers away. The dealership was sold last week.
AP900417-0098 	X	No definite plans have been made for an expected visit to the Soviet Union by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney because the Soviets haven't suggested a date, the Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. At the end of an October tour of U.S. military facilities, Defense Minister Dimitri Yazov invited Cheney to visit the Soviet Union. There have been ongoing exchanges in recent years between the two nations' military and defense leaders. The trip was expected to occur sometime this summer, but no date has been announced. Last month, the Bush administration called off a scheduled visit to the Soviet Union by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Carl Vuono, calling the trip inappropriate amid the tensions over Lithuania. Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams, queried at a briefing about Cheney's invitation, told reporters that no firm date had been offered by the Soviets and that there were no plans for Cheney make such a trip ``on the near horizon.'' However, Williams added, ``We are eager to do so.'' Besides meeting with Cheney at the Pentagon, Yazov visited Camp Pendleton, a Marine training base north of San Diego; Luke Air Force Base in Arizona; and Fort Bragg, home of the Army's 82nd Airborne in Fayetteville, N.C.
AP900512-0006 	X	The late teen rocker Ritchie Valens, whose life was portrayed by actor Lou Diamond Phillips in the movie ``La Bamba,'' has been honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Valens star, the 1,913th dedicated along the celebrated walkway, was the first given to a Hispanic rock 'n' roll star. ``Ritchie left a legacy of love,'' said Phillips, who joined members of Valens' family and about 400 fans at Friday's unveiling on Hollywood Boulevard. Valens became a 1950s sensation with the hits ``La Bamba'' and ``Donna,'' but died in a 1959 plane crash with rockers Buddy Holly and J.P. ``The Big Bopper'' Richardson. ``Today, we lift a star higher into the heavens _ a star who represents few of the known Hispanics in our community,'' said actor Esai Morales, who was also in ``La Bamba.'' Valens grew up as Richard Valenzuela in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima, 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
AP900320-0048 	X	A parliamentary committee today approved a bill that would allow all Soviet citizens to travel abroad freely, sending the measure to the Supreme Soviet for debate, the official news agency Tass said. Under provisions of the bill, permission will not be required for Soviets to leave and return, either for short trips or permanent residence abroad, Tass said. ``A passport for traveling abroad will be issued for a period of five years to whoever applies for it,'' Tass said. ``The time abroad will be determined by the citizen himself.'' Only state security considerations, criminal proceedings or incarceration could prevent a person from being issued a passport, the news agency said. Additionaly, access to classified materials would allow the Soviet government to deny an individual a passport for only five years, Tass said. ``A citizen may lodge an appeal with any authority, up to the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet, against a refussal to issue a foreign travel passport,'' Tass said. The bill was introduced by Fyodor Burlatsky, a Supreme Soviet deputy and well-known political commentator, who called it ``a major indicator of democratization in the Soviet Union.'' Committee members said they would insist that the bill be adopted at the current session of the Supreme Soviet legislature, which ends in late April. Members also warned against delay in solving issues related to the passport bill, including rules on exchanging money and buying airline tickets. Unless flying on the state-run airline Aeroflot or its joint ventue partner Pan Am, Soviets seeking to travel abroad must pay in hard currency. Under newly introduced tourist exchange rates, a $1,000 airline ticket would cost a Soviet traveler about 6,000 rubles on a foreign airline. The Aeroflot and Pan Am flights are sold out for more than a year in advance. Last year, 235,000 people left the country for permanent residence abroad and that 2 million Soviets took short trips abroad, including 300,000 travelers to the West, Burlatsky said.
AP880217-0154 	X	``The Last Emperor,'' a panoramic drama of modern China, scored top honors with nine nominations Wednesday in an Oscar race that included Cher, Robin Williams and Michael Douglas but overlooked directors Steven Spielberg and James L. Brooks. ``Broadcast News,'' the comedy-romance set in a television news bureau, followed with seven nominations including those for stars William Hurt, Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks. James Brooks was nominated as producer and writer, but surprisingly, not as director. Spielberg's ``Empire of the Sun'' tied ``Fatal Attraction'' and ``Moonstruck'' with six nominations, but Spielberg was not mentioned for his direction, nor did the film make the best movie list. In 1985, Spielberg's ``The Color Purple'' collected 11 nominations, but none for the director. Joining ``Broadcast News'' and ``The Last Emperor,'' the life story of China's last monarch, as contenders for best picture were ``Fatal Attraction,'' ``Hope and Glory'' and ``Moonstruck.'' Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director of ``The Last Emperor,'' said in Rome that ``even if I've been making films for 25 years, today for the first time I feel like I passed my exams with flying colors, the sensation of becoming an adult.'' Of the best picture nominees, ``Fatal Attraction'' was the only one to place among the Top Ten money makers of 1987., It was third with a gross of $129,358,990, behind ``Beverly Hills Cop II'' and ``Platoon,'' which won the Oscar for best picture last year. But most of the nominated films opened near the end of the year and are still selling tickets. Two-time winners Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep were nominated as best actor and actress for their roles as Depression-era low-lifers in ``Ironweed.'' Best actor nominees also included Douglas for ``Wall Street''; Hurt, ``Broadcast News''; Marcello Mastroianni, ``Dark Eyes''; Williams, ``Good Morning, Vietnam.'' Douglas learned the news watching television at his New York apartment. He said, ``It made me not only proud of our film `Wall Street,' but it reminded me of what a wonderful part Oliver Stone created.'' Joining Streep on the best actress list: Cher, ``Moonstruck''; Glenn Close, ``Fatal Attraction''; Miss Hunter, ``Broadcast News;'' and Sally Kirkland, ``Anna.'' ``I'm ecstatic to be nominated,'' said Miss Close at her country home in New York. ``I'm especially thrilled that so many connected with the film have been nominated.'' Sean Connery, who never was nominated as James Bond, placed among the nominees for supporting actor with his role as the steely Chicago cop in ``The Untouchables.'' Others in the race: Albert Brooks, ``Broadcast News''; Morgan Freeman, ``Street Smart''; Vincent Gardenia, ``Moonstruck''; Denzel Washington, ``Cry Freedom.'' All of the supporting actresses were first-time nominees: Norma Aleandro, ``Gaby _ A True Story''; Anne Archer, ``Fatal Attraction''; Olympia Dukakis, ``Moonstruck''; Anne Ramsey, ``Throw Momma from the Train''; Ann Sothern, ``The Whales of August.'' The directors branch of the Academy neglected Spielberg and Brooks to reward five foreigners: Britons Adrian Lyne, ``Fatal Attraction,'' and John Boorman, ``Hope and Glory''; Bertolucci, ``The Last Emperor''; Canadian Norman Jewison, ``Moonstruck''; and Swede Lasse Hallstrom, ``My Life as a Dog.'' James Brooks was reached at the Berlin Film Festival by his publicist, Pat Kingsley, who reported: ``I'm sure that he was disappointed at not getting the nomination (for his direction). But he was so thrilled for the actors, and he was thrilled for the screenplay nomination.'' Brooks was nominated for best original screenplay, along with Louis Malle, ``Au Revoir Les Enfants''; Boorman, ``Hope and Glory''; John Patrick Shanley, ``Moonstruck''; Woody Allen, ``Radio Days.'' Both Malle and Boorman based their scripts on their boyhood experiences in World War II. A fourth Huston entered the Academy ranks. Tony Huston was nominated for his adaptation of James Joyce's ``The Dead.'' If he wins an Oscar, he would be following in the footsteps of grandfather Walter, father John and sister Anjelica. Tony Huston was awakened with the news by his publicist Sheila Barr. He told her of his late father's advice when an Academy nominee once asked what he should say to the press. ``Don't say _ listen,'' instructed John. ``Tony said he had gotten this far collaborating with his dad, and he thinks he should take heed of his advice,'' said Miss Barr. Also nominated for screenplay adaptation: James Dearden, ``Fatal Attraction''; Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford, ``Full Metal Jacket''; Mark Peploe and Bertolucci, ``The Last Emperor''; Hallstrom, Reidar Jonnson, Brasse Brannstrom, Per Berglund, ``My Life as a Dog.'' All of the foreign language film nominees come from Europe: ``Au Revoir Les Enfants'' (France); Babette's Feast'' (Denmark); ``Course Completed'' (Spain); ``The Family'' (Italy); ``Pathfinder'' (Norway). The nominees for best song: ``Cry Freedom'' (title song); ``(I've Had) The Time of My Life'' from ``Dirty Dancing''; ``Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now'' from ``Mannequin''; ``Shakedown'' from ``Beverly Hills Cop II''; ``Storybook Love'' from ``The Princess Bride.'' Nominations for the 60th Academy Awards included other notable omissions besides those of Spielberg and Brooks. Pioneering star Lillian Gish was overlooked for ``The Whales of August,'' but the acting branch saluted Miss Sothern, who started her film career in 1929 in ``The Show of Shows,'' for her role as a compassionate neighbor in ``Whales.'' Steve Martin received critics' raves for his Cyrano in ``Roxanne,'' but neither his performance nor the script he wrote won an Academy mention. But the manic Williams won a nomination _ rare for a flat-out comedy performance _ for ``Good Morning, Vietnam.'' Academy voters resisted the high-pressure campaign for ``Nuts.'' Stars Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfus were not among the nominees. Also among the missing: John Lone, ``The Last Emperor''; Elaine Stritch, ``September''; Maggie Smith, ``The Secret Passion of Judith Hearne''; Faye Dunaway, ``Barfly''; director Hector Babenco, ``Ironweed.'' The Academy Awards return to the Shrine Auditorium on April 11 after a 40-year absence. The ceremonies will be televised on the ABC network.
AP881103-0026 	X	Police say they have broken up a theft ring that allegedly dealt in more than $11,000 worth of cow gallstones stolen since July at a meat packing plant. The gallstones, which are considered in the Orient an aphrodisiac, are the most expensive part of a cow, selling for more than $600 an ounce. Mike Sherman, president of the Cornhusker Packing Co., said Wednesday that the company sells the gallstones to a Japanese export firm. In a two-month period earlier this year the company sold 19 ounces for $13,000, Sherman said. Police on Wednesday charged four Omaha men with receiving stolen property valued at more than $1,000. A fifth Omaha man was charged Tuesday with theft by taking property valued at $300 to $1,000. Sgt. Charles Prokupek said four of the men are employees of Cornhusker Packing. The fifth is a local representative of Hyclone Laboratories, an Ogden, Utah, company that buys fetal calf blood from the packing plant, Sherman said. Sherman said the gallstones usually are collected by employees who work on the plant's kill floor and are supposed to be turned in at the office. The gallstones _ ranging in size from the tip of a pencil to an egg _ are sold to Japanese Export Co. of Minneapolis, he said.
AP881109-0323 	X	Stock prices closed lower after flipflopping most of the day, pressured by a weaker dollar and concerns about the economy under a new administration. Some analysts said they were surprised by the selling activity that erupted at the opening bell. They said the weaker dollar was only partly to blame. ``I guess the market is saying it's worried more about the economy than about the election,'' said Carter Randall, money manager for The Randall Co. in Florida. Other observers said the bearish sentiment was to be expected as investors put the election behind them and began to question life under a George Bush administration. ``The market is back to thinking about fundamental questions about the economy,'' said Alfred E. Goldman, vice president of A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis. ``The big question is how is he going to handle the federal budget deficit particularly since he painted himself into a corner by saying there wouldn't be any tax increases?'' The market reversed its slide before midday but continued its decline in afternoon trading, influenced by the continued slide in the dollar despite several attempts by the Federal Reserve to support the currency. The dollar weakened further at one point in the day after remarks by economist Martin Feldstein, a Bush adviser, that the dollar had to go lower to extend the economic recovery and help the U.S. trade deficit. The fall in the dollar sent bond prices tumbling. ``The bond and dollar have combined to put pressure on the market,'' Goldman said. ``The softer dollar conjures up fears that the Fed will have to come in and support the dollar by raising interest rates.'' A weaker currency also erodes the value of dollar-denominated securities.
AP900222-0128 	X	Columnist and author Victor Lasky died Thursday of cancer at Georgetown University Hospital. He was 72. Lasky, who began his journalism career as a copy boy at The New York Journal American, covered World War II in Europe for Stars & Stripes, the soldiers' newspaper. After the war, he joined The New York World-Telegram and helped write a Pulitzer-Prize-winning series on Communist infiltration of American institutions. He covered the trial of former State Department official Alger Hiss and co-authored a book about the case, ``Seeds of Treason.'' He wrote several biographies, including ``J.F.K: The Man and the Myth,'' ``Robert F. Kennedy: The Man and the Myth'' and books about Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, actor George Murphy, Jimmy Carter and Henry Ford II. In 1952, a documentary he wrote for MGM, ``The Hoaxters,'' was nominated for an Academy Award. Lasky, who was born in Liberty, N.Y., was graduated from Brooklyn College in 1940. In his later years, he was critical of journalistic misconduct and wrote for Accuracy in Media, a watchdog organization. He is survived by his wife, Patricia, of Washington and two sisters.
AP900725-0152 	X	Violent summer weather including heavy thunderstorms and tornadoes hit problems in Florida, Arizona, Texas, Nebraska and Minnesota. Three tornadoes were reported at New Port Richey, Fla., but there were no reports of injuries or serious damage from the storms. Thunderstorms continued Wednesday in the Southwest, with locally heavy rain causing some floods. Flooding was forecast for the Santa Cruz River north of Tucson, Ariz., and, a flood warning was posted until Thursday along the Rio Grande River from Presidio, Texas, through the Big Bend National Park. The Rio Grande River at Castolon, Texas, was 2{ feet above flood stage at 11 a.m. Wednesday, and rising. More than four inches of rain fell near Sutton, Neb. Up to 3 inches of rain fell over east-central Nebraska, causing urban flooding at Fremont, Valley and Blair. Rainfall from morning thunderstorms caused flooding at Pipestone, Minn., where storms also brought strong, gusty winds and small hail. Hail an inch in diameter also fell at Scribner, Neb. during the early morning. Rain and thunderstorms continued into Wednesday afternoon from eastern Georgia and Florida though South Carolina, and across eastern New England. Charleston, S.C., received 1\ inch of rain in a half an hour. Showers and storms also extended from central Mississippi through Arkansas, southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and south central Colorado into northeast New Mexico. Rain and thunderstorms reached from central and eastern Nebraska across parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Rainshowers and thunderstorms were scattered over Montana, the Idaho panhandle, parts of Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. The low temperature for the Lower 48 states Wednesday was 33 at Truckee, Calif. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EDT ranged from 54 at Spokane, Wash., to 100 at Palm Springs, Calif.
AP880224-0115 	X	Lawyers for the Bible Speaks Church have filed notice they plan to appeal a federal judge's decision upholding the $6.6 million claim of an heiress who charged she had been duped into donating money. The notice, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, said the fundamentalist church plans to ask a federal appeals court in Boston to overturn U.S. District Judge Frank Freedman's decision in the case. In January, Freedman upheld a U.S. Bankruptcy judge's ruling supporting a $6.6 million claim against the church by heiress Elizabeth Dovydenas. Mrs. Dovydenas, of Lenox, maintained that she was duped into donating the money by church founder and president Carl H. Stevens. Meanwhile, a trustee appointed by the Bankruptcy Court said Tuesday he hoped to receive additional bids for the church's Lenox headquarters before a Feb. 28 deadline. Trustee David Ferrari said the only bid he has gotten for the 65-acre campus with 28 buildings has been a $2.5 million offer from Woodland Properties, a Pittsfield-based real estate company. Andrew Kelly, an executive with Woodland Properties, has declined to discuss his plans for the property. The campus closed a few weeks after Mrs. Dovydenas prevailed in Bankruptcy Court. She was the high bidder at a November auction of the church headquarters, but the Bankruptcy Court rejected her $1.8 million bid as too low. The campus has been appraised at $6 million. Her claim is the largest of the hundreds of creditors, who claim they are owed a total of $7 million by the church.
AP900910-0277 	X	Oil prices shot up Monday in a late rally fueled by rumors of hostilities in the Persian Gulf, after falling in the morning on the belief that the Bush-Gorbachev summit made Mideast war less imminent. ``This is such a strange market,'' said Stephen Smith, an analyst with Bear Stearns & Co. ``You're down a dollar and a half, and then you're up a dollar and a half.'' Light sweet crude closed up $1.26 at $31.30 per barrel for October contracts in light trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil had opened down $1.49 as traders were calmed by the weekend summit in Helsinki, Finland. President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed that Iraq should get out of Kuwait, but Gorbachev indicated an unwillingness to resort to a military solution to the crisis. Crude fell another 20 cents before beginning a steady climb in all contract months. Unleaded gasoline and home heating oil also fell in the morning and rose across the board in the afternoon. On October contracts, gasoline closed up 1.50 cents at 94.56 cents per gallon, while home heating oil closed up 1.91 cents at 85.89 cents per gallon Natural gas futures were mixed. The swings in oil prices sent stocks moving in opposite directions. The stock market opened higher and closed lower. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, up about 30 points at its peak of the day, finished with a 3.96 loss at 2,615.59. After oil opened with its sharp decline, the price began rebounding on news that Iraq and Iran were re-establishing diplomatic ties for the first time since their extended war of the 1980s. The conciliatory move was viewed as a bid by Iraq to try busting the international embargo of its oil that was put in place after it invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. The markets paid brief attention to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's announcement that he would provide free oil to Third World countries as a gesture of good will. But Saddam said the recipients would have to pick up the oil themselves, which would force them to get past the U.S. Navy. ``When he came out with his statements, they were construed as bearish,'' said Ed Kevelson, a trader with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. ``Initially, he came out with `free oil,' so people said, `Sell it.' Then they started thinking you had to transport it. That was pretty much discounted throughout the day as Hussein gibberish.'' The late afternoon rally was spurred by rumors that did not turn out to be valid, according to Ann-Louise Hittle, a senior oil analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. ``Some people were trading on a rumor that Iraq had moved troops into Jordan,'' Hittle said. ``Another rumor was some Saudi rigs were hit. Another one was some shots were fired.'' Officials in Washington said there was no information to confirm any of the rumors.
AP881004-0277 	X	Former General Electric Co. executive Anthony L. Craig will succeed Joe M. Henson as president and chief executive officer of Prime Computer Inc. after a transition of a few months, Prime said Tuesday. The company also said its board of directors has approved a stockholder rights plan aimed at thwarting any hostile takeover attempt. Henson, 55, has been chief executive of the Natick-based computer maker since November 1981. Company officials described his departure as amicable, voluntary and expected, saying he had informed the board privately last year of his intention to leave. Craig, 43, has been president of GE's Information Services Division. He is stepping in immediately as Prime's chief operating officer, executive vice president and a member of the board. After a transition of a few months, he will assume Henson's posts, according to Prime spokesman Richard Eckel. Henson said he had no personal plans except to take a long vacation and possibly to pursue interests in government and community service. Prime has been facing some problems and has not been immune to the uncertainties affecting the industry as a whole. Prime's profits rose 38 percent to a record $64.8 million in 1987, but the company stumbled this year when aggressive pricing by its competitors forced it to pull out of the mini-supercomputer market and take a $5 million charge against earnings. In addition, Prime's $435 million takeover of Computervision Corp. in February has brought pressure from Wall Street to reduce operating costs. Henson announced in May that Prime would eliminate 700 jobs _ about 5 percent of its worldwide workforce of 13,000 _ through attrition and layoffs. Prime also has been caught in an awkward position in the industry-wide battle between AT&T's UNIX software and a new software standard under development by a coalition of rival computer makers, including International Business Machines Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp. Prime's products are built around the existing UNIX standard, and Henson termed the industry battle unfortunate. ``I'm hopeful that the industry will resolve this debate before long,'' he said. ``Today, clearly, our products support the only available Unix standard, which is AT&T's system 5. But we have expressed an interest in supporting a unified industry standard. What we don't want to see happen is a fragmentation.'' Craig did not signal any major changes in corporate direction. He said he would continue to pursue Prime's current strategy, which he defined as ``focusing on integrated solutions that deal not just with hardware, but go beyond that to the applications...and deal with the support, the design, the training of personnel ... to bring more value to our customers.'' Craig has been president of GE's information services business since September 1986. He joined that division in 1983 as vice president of international sales after 17 years as a product manager and marketing executive for IBM. Taking over Computervision, which is based in Bedford, Mass., has made Prime second only to IBM in the market for computer-aided design and manufacturing systems. Prime is projecting revenue this year of $1.6 billion, up from $961 million last year, with much of the increase resulting from the Computervision merger. Computervision reported earnings of $19.4 million on revenue of $564 million in 1987. Prime reported earnings of $21.7 million on revenue of $772.1 million for the first six months of this year. Prime said its new takeover defense would provide stockholders rights to purchase additional shares in the event of a hostile takeover. A dividend of one purchase right was declared for each outstanding share of common stock, payable to stockholders of record on Oct. 18.
AP880609-0274 	X	An Interior Department official told a House subcommittee today that the best way to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is to authorize exploration and development of its potentially rich oil deposits. ``The greatest risk to (the refuge) is to prevent exploration and development in a sound and orderly way,'' said J. Steven Griles, assistant interior secretary for land and mineral management. Griles and other advocates of opening America's biggest wildlife refuge to oil rigs said that the refuge could be hurt if a nation faced another oil crisis that forced Congress into a crash program to find new sources of domestic petroleum. He appeared before the House Interior Water and Power Resources subcommittee, which is taking up the administration's controversial refuge-drilling proposal as time is running out in the 100th Congress. On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Donald Hodel announced that he was shelving one of the more controversial aspects of the push to open the refuge. Put on indefinite hold was the proposal to trade away taxpayer-owned mineral rights on 166,000 acres of the refuge on Alaska's north slope. The announcement was made by Interior Secretary Donald Hodel on the eve of hearings by the House Interior water and power resources subcommittee into the larger question of allowing drilling on the refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain. The Interior Committee is one of the final congressional battlegrounds for the outgoing administration in its 18-month-old struggle against the calendar and environment-conservation lobby over the future of the refuge. Hodel said the plan to trade the mineral rights for 891,000 acres elsewhere in Alaska was being put on hold at least until after Congress decides whether to open the refuge to petroleum development. In a prepared statement, Hodel said he was indefinitely delaying publication of a legislative environmental impact statement (LEIS) on the trade, the necessary study document that would be used to justify the deal. Hodel and other Interior officials have pushed the trade as a way of acquiring valuable fish and wildlife property owned by Aleut, Eskimo and other native corporations, which are anxious to get in on the possible oil rush. ``From the start, it has been our position that Congress first must approve legislation to allow oil and gas leasing in the ANWR coastal plain and second must adopt legislation to ratify the agreements before the proposed exchanges could take effect,'' Hodel said. ``Therefore, I believe it would be premature to publish the draft LEIS on the proposed exchanges until Congress clarifies its intent on ANWR,'' said Hodel, who has gotten drilling legislation approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries committees. Facing strong opposition from environmentalists and conservationists, the administration and oil industry have argued that the refuge offers the best hope of finding a new major source of domestic petroleum. Bob Walker, an Interior Department spokesman, said the Fish and Wildlife Service was ``right at the brink'' of issuing the land-exchange LEIS when Hodel ordered the delay. ``The process is on hold and the LEIS is on the shelf,'' he said. Walker said the decision had nothing to do with a soon-to-be-released assessment by the congressional General Accounting Office that reportedly concludes the proposed trade is a bad deal for taxpayers. He said the decision was made because ``we didn't want the land trade muddying the waters on whether to develop the refuge. ... The fear was, once we put out the LEIS, it would appear we were bulldozing ahead.''
AP900115-0007 	X	A woman is suing the city for allegedly violating the air space above her property by building a five-story-high pedestrian bridge. ``In the olden days, your property ran to the center of the Earth up to the heavens,'' said Michael Martinis, attorney for Ann B. White. ``Now it is interpreted to be the usable air space above your property.'' The lawsuit filed Friday in Marion County Circuit Court demands that the city recognize her right to use and enjoy the space above her land. It seeks no monetary compensation except attorney fees. ``We want a judge to sort out everybody's rights,'' Martinis said. If the defendants recognize White's right, the lawsuit would be dropped, he said. The walkway connects a garage to Capitol Center, an office building owned by Salem Historical Associates, a limited partnership based in California. The bridge passes high above a parking area behind the Tahiti Restaurant and Lounge, which White owns and leases. David DeMartino, deputy city attorney, said he had not seen the complaint and could not comment. He could not recall the city previously being sued for violation of air space.
AP880603-0136 	X	A man who looks after the pottery and porcelain in the British Museum is going to break a prize exhibit _ the 2,000-year-old Portland Vase from ancient Rome. Art dealers estimate the value of the vase at around $21 million. The 10-inch-high, four-pound glass artifact is regarded as one of the finest pieces of early Roman glass. Nigel Williams, the museum's chief conservator of ceramics, said the vase must be broken and reassembled because the glue holding the blue and white cameo-glass pieces together after two earlier breakages has become yellow and extremely brittle. ``It is the most difficult restoration I have attempted in 27 years,'' Williams told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. He said he expects the task to occupy about 40 percent of his time for the rest of this year. He hopes to have the vase back on display by the end of December. It was made by a sculptor named Dioscourides and depicts men and women in a leafy glade _ probably the courtship of Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis, who became the parents of the mythical Greek warrior, Achilles. ``It is one of the very few surviving Roman cameo vases and has always been the subject of great academic debate as to who is represented on it,'' said museum spokesman Andrew Hamilton. The vase was formed by inserting a gob of cobalt blue glass into a cup of opaque white glass and then blowing both together. The white outer layer was then carved to produce the white cameo relief on a blue background. The vase is believed to have belonged to the Emperor Augustus and was discovered in 1582 in a tomb near Rome. It came to Britain in the 18th century via Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy in Naples and husband of Lady Emma Hamilton, later the mistress of Adm. Horatio Nelson. In 1785, the vase was sold to the wealthy Portland family for roughly the equivalent of $1,875 dollars in today's money _ a vast sum in those days. The Duke of Portland loaned it to the British Museum in 1810. While on display in a showcase at the museum, the vase was deliberately smashed into about 200 pieces on Feb. 7, 1845 by William Lloyd, an Irishman who had been drinking heavily for a week. ``I have no doubt that the man who broke the vase, whoever he is, is mad,'' the duke replied when the museum wrote to him to express regret. The vase was glued together by the museum's restorer, John Doubleday, and put on display again. Doubleday's glue had become so weak and discolored after a century that in 1948 the vase was dismantled and rebuilt by conservator James Axtell, who also incorporated three of the 37 small chips that Doubleday had found too difficult to replace. ``I will be using more advanced techniques than were available to Axtell, including epoxy resin fused by ultraviolet light,'' said Williams. He also intends to replace the 34 glass chips Axtell left out. ``The vase should hold together comfortably for another 200 years after that,'' Williams said.
AP880601-0057 	X	Gun owners have filed petitions to block Maryland's pioneering ban on sales of cheap handguns and to force a public vote on the gun control law in November. Fred Griisser, chairman of the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban, submitted petitions Tuesday to the secretary of state that he said contained signatures of more than 22,000 voters. The committee will need 33,044 valid signatures by the end of June to force the law to referendum. Griisser said his group believes the law has the potential to ban all handguns. The law allows the state to ban guns that are cheaply made of poor quality materials and are so inaccurate that they can't be used for sporting purposes or defense. It also bans those that can't be detected by metal detectors.
AP900305-0179 	X	She was an astrophysicist in the Soviet Union, but couldn't find scientific work in Israel and offered to take a job cleaning Professor Herman Branover's lab. Branover, a Soviet-born physicist who immigrated in 1972, told the story to illustrate what he sees as a major problem in settling the thousands of Soviet Jews arriving in Israel: the lack of jobs, especially for the well-educated. He said the woman was desperate for work and, when told there was no scientific job, offered to clean the lab because she would feel at home there and might be able to do some reasearch on her own. He turned her down. The Science Ministry estimates 60,000 scientists, engineers and physicianss will arrive in the next two or three years because of Moscow's more liberal emigration policies. ``We are going to have to make jobs for these people if we are going to keep them,'' Branover said, and that has given him a cause. He owns a factory that employs Soviet immigrants and has become a champion of developing new private industries for the ``army of scientists'' arriving in Israel. ``The government is still talking about how to build housing for the immigrants,'' he said. ``I've never heard of anyone who didn't come to Israel or who left because of bad housing, but there are thousands who left because they couldn't find jobs.'' Officials estimate the government will need $3 billion in the next three years to help resettle the Soviet immigrants, most of it for housing, education and Hebrew instruction. Only $400 million is earmarked for job placement and retraining. Government resettlement plans are built largely on the theory that a growing economy will produce jobs, but the economy is stagnant and two years of recession have pushed unemployment to nearly 9 percent. Universities and research institutions have few openings, and some new arrivals find the work available is neither in their field nor to their liking. In a Tel Aviv suburb, two physicians were among several dozen Soviet immigrants packing matzo bread for shipping. Dr. Anatoly Roeburg, a cardiologist from Moldavia, told reporters: ``Israel is a great place, except we can't find proper work. If this goes on, I am not going to stay here.'' In the 1970s and early 1980s, Israel could cope with immigration easily because few Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union. Only 202 Soviet Jews arrived in all of 1986, but now 1,200 land in Israel every week. Israeli towns, especially those in rural areas whose populations have drained away to the cities, are eager to take the immigrants but unable to offer them work. Safad, in northern Israel, has 400 government-owned apartments standing empty, but few jobs. ``What we need now is investment in industries and other work-producing enterprises,'' the town's mayor, Zeev Perel, told The Jerusalem Post. Branover, a physicist at Beersheva University, agrees with Perel. He lobbies the government and business groups to create high-tech industries for the newcomers, and practices what he preaches. Two years ago, with a $2.5 million investment from Australian industrialist Joseph Gutnick, Branover started a high-tech company in Jerusalem called SATEC. It employs 35 immigrant Soviet scientists in electronics, hydrometallurgy and heating. Sales were $1.5 million last year and are expected to double in 1990. Branover is seeking new capital to expand into medical engineering and start another company for 30 Soviet scientists at Beersheva, in southern Israel. Even if th new ventures pan out, Branover noted that the total number of jobs involved in his operations would be fewer than 80 and many more were needed. ``We want other investors, other industries to try,'' he said. ``We must not miss this opportunity.'' His experience with SATEC indicates it takes ``$60,000 per scientist and two years' time'' to get a profitable business going, Branover said, then declared: ``If you go this route, you can not only satisfy those people who come, but it is also a vital thing for Israel. We can make out of Israel a Japan.''
AP881017-0019 	X	Fish farmers don't believe their crops are for the birds, but try telling that to a hungry duck, blackbird or heron. ``Birds are a costly problem where fish are cultured,'' says researcher Vickie D. Martin in a new Agriculture Department report. ``Waterfowl frequently blamed for heavy losses of fish at aquacultural facilities include diving ducks, herons, egrets, terns, gulls, kingfishers, blackbirds, ospreys and anhingas.'' These birds _ the diving ducks include grebes, cormorants and mergansers _ were described as ``voracious fish eaters'' that not only cause property loss and damage but can transmit diseases to fish stock. ``Due to fecal contamination and the fact that some of the fish they consumed are diseased, predatory birds may transmit diseases from pond to pond,'' she said. Moreover, when fish farmers attempt to guard against the airborne marauders, they can be frustrated because a majority of the birds are legally categorized as migratory and are protected under federal and state laws. Martin, a student at Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley, Ga., worked as an intern for the department's Economic Research Service the last two summers. Although there are no figures documenting bird predation by fish species and location, she said losses to birds have been reported on baitfish, catfish, shellfish, tropical fish and trout, and are greatest in the largest aquaculture states: Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, California and Georgia. ``Baitfish, particularly minnows, are lost to blackbirds in the winter, cormorants in the fall and winter, and herons in the summer,'' Martin said. ``In the Northeast, herons prey on baitfish in the fall, while trout are harassed by grackles, kingfishers, herons, ospreys and occasionally owls during the spring, late summer and early fall.'' She added that diving ducks are the main bird threats to shellfish, although swans occasionally are problems. ``Catfish in the Southeast are preyed upon most by anhingas (locally called water turkeys) and kingfishers during the spring and summer months,'' Martin said. ``Herons and cormorants cause problems year-round. Crawfish and shrimp are prone to predation by purple grackles, herons, egrets, ibises, gulls, diving ducks and kingfishers.'' Fish ponds can be protected somewhat by barriers such as perimeter fencing, netting, overhead wires and other devices, including fireworks, exploders and similar items used to frighten birds. Some chemicals, such as Avitrol, a registered ``frightening agent'' for use on herring gulls and blackbirds, have also been effective, she said. But state and federal permits are required to use this chemical on gulls, because they are legally protected. After ingesting the chemical, the gull ``will behave erratically and emit distress calls,'' which frighten away the other birds, she said. Some migratory game birds may be shot during the hunting season, and other permits are available for some species. Local state and federal wildlife authorities should be contacted. Still, Martin said, some fish farmers believe ``birds are uncontrollable and that all frightening tactics are futile, no matter what method of control of prevention is used.''
AP900628-0247 	X	Assets of the nation's 513 money market mutual funds fell $444.9 million in the latest week, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday. The decline, to $384.99 billion in the seven-day period ended Wednesday, followed a revised $1.32 billion increase in the funds' assets the previous week, according to the Washington-based mutual fund trade group. The previous week's increase originally was reported as $988.6 million. The funds' assets hit a record high $392.14 billion in the week ended March 21, 1990. The Investment Company Institute said that in the latest week, assets of 250 general purpose funds rose $27.7 million to $133.99 billion, assets of 102 broker-dealer funds dropped $356.4 million to $159.17 billion, and assets of 161 institutional funds declined $116.2 million to $91.83 billion. The seven-day average yield on money market mutual funds was 7.67 percent in the week ended Tuesday, unchanged from the previous week, according to Donoghue's Money Fund Report, a trade journal based in Holliston, Mass. The 30-day average yield also was unchanged at 7.67 percent, Donoghue's said. The average maturity of the portfolios held by money funds was 44 days, unchanged from the previous week, Donoghue's said. Separately, the newsletter Bank Rate Monitor said its survey of 100 leading commercial banks, savings and loan associations and savings banks in the nation's 10 largest markets showed the effective annual yield available on money market accounts was 6.18 percent as of Wednesday, unchanged from a week earlier. The North Palm Beach, Fla.-based newsletter said the effective annual yield available on special savings accounts, called Super NOW accounts, also was unchanged, at 5.04 percent. Bank Rate Monitor said the effective annual yield was 7.91 percent on six-month certificates of deposit, unchanged from the previous week. Yields were 8.10 percent on 1-year CDs, unchanged; 8.10 percent on 2{-year CDs, unchanged; and 8.17 percent on 5-year CDs, unchanged.
AP880911-0080 	X	Children under 17 were more than twice as likely to die violently in Detroit than in other major U.S. cities in recent years, according to a study. Detroit's juvenile homicide rate jumped to more than three times the overall rate in the nation's 10 largest cities by 1986, according to a study commissioned by the Detroit Free Press. Guns alone have accounted for 37 deaths of Detroit youths so far this year, compared with 35 fatal shootings for all of 1987. Drugs, crumbling families and inattention to children drew much of the blame for the juvenile homicide rate in the nation's sixth-largest city, which declined in only one year between 1979 and 1986. ``We don't love our children enough,'' said Dr. Rosalind Griffin, a Detroit psychiatrist. ``With a homicide rate like this, it can be said that we don't cherish or think of them as the future.'' The Free Press, citing a computer study it commissioned of FBI crime statistics from 1979 through 1986 and related research, said Detroit's juvenile homicide rate during that period was 2.7 per 100,000 residents. Chicago was second at 1.9 per 100,000, followed by Los Angeles with 1.6 per 100,000. The overall rate for the nation's 10 largest cities was 1.3 per 100,000. Detroit's juvenile homicide rate reached 4.1 per 100,000 in 1986, the latest year for which figures were available. That rate was more than three times the 1986 rate in the 10 largest U.S. cities, 1.3 per 100,000. Detroit also had the highest overall homicide rate, 47 per 100,000 residents, among the 10 largest cities in 1979-86. Dallas was a distant second with 31.7 murders per 100,000, the newspaper said.
AP900412-0104 	X	The school superintendent has removed her personal tanning chair from her office after protests that it was in poor taste, giving an appearance of luxury while the school and town face severe budget problems. The chair, with an ultraviolet lamp attached, also took up space that had been used by a town agency. Superintendent Concetta Verge said she had the equipment at school because her husband would not allow her to use it at home. She said he considered it harmful to her health. Ultraviolet light has been linked to skin cancer. ``It's gone. It's been removed,'' she said Wednesday. ``This is silly'' she said of the furor raised over the tanning equipment. ``People who have talked to me aren't too happy,'' said Joseph Bilotta, chairman of the selectmen. ``Things are tight and people take offense.'' Marcella Collier, a member of the School Committee, said the tanning equipment did not enhance the superintendent's image in the conservative north-central Massachusetts town. ``I requested to go see it and make sure it was going to be removed,'' she said. ``I'm totally outraged,'' said resident Mary Alatalo. ``It's more than bizarre because the town is squeezing every department for everything they've got.'' Massachusetts has a $2.3 billion budget deficit and has had to sharply cut aid to local governments, forcing schools to make deep cuts. At one point, Lunenberg had to close its town library. Mrs. Verge said she had been keeping the equipment temporarily in the school until it could be moved to a relative's home. The chair was in a hallway alcove adjoining her office and was walled off on three sides by doors that were propped up against it. The space had housed a desk, file cabinet and telephone belonging to the town Conservation Commission. But last fall, Mrs. Verge said the School Department needed the space and the commission had to truck its gear across town to a Parks Department garage.
AP901210-0138 	X	Communist leader Ramiz Alia agreed on Monday to meet with striking students, a day after police engaged in fist fights with student demonstrators. A diplomat in Tirana reached by telephone earlier in the day reported there some people were hurt and many were arrested in Sunday's rare show of public defiance against the Communist regime. ``The situation at Tirana University continues to be in disorder,'' the official ATA news agency said late Monday in reporting on what appeared a full-scale protest of university students in the Albanian capital. It said most students boycotted classes, gathering instead at dormitories to draw up a demand for a meeting with Alia ``to express to him their problems and troubles.'' Alia is both head of state and chief of the Communist Party. ATA said Sunday that the students were infuriated by a power outage that left dormitories without heat and light. It said demonstrators tried to exploit the situation for ``political ends.'' The brief dispatch appeared to be the first instance that official news media reported on a confrontation between police and demonstrators before foreign media. This was in line with recent moves to slowly open Albania to the outside world and ease controls on the country's 3.2 million citizens. Albanian leaders have rejected multiparty democracy of the kind that has replaced orthodox Marxist rule in other East European countries. ``It was learned that Comrade Ramiz Alia accepted ... (the students') request to meet and discuss with a students' representation, recommending the others to pursue regularly classes at the university,'' ATA said Monday. But it said that by Monday night no meeting with Alia had taken place - ``because the students have not yet chosen their representatives.'' ATA said Education Minister Skender Gjinushi transmitted Alia's message to striking students, a clear sign of how seriously the protest is being taken. The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sunday's demonstration started at 10 a.m. and lasted until police dispersed protesters at 1 p.m. He said ``a great many students'' took part but gave no estimates.
AP881109-0143 	X	The violin was made in 1676 by Austrian Jakob Steiner. It may be as valuable as a Stradivarius. And it was left behind by burglars in a run-down apartment raided by police. Police believe the violin was stolen from the home of a family that has owned it for five generations and values it at $800,000. Detective Tom Ryan said Tuesday he found the violin as he searched an apartment in neighboring Daytona Beach for jewelry, guns and other items taken in a string of house burglaries in the last two weeks here and in adjoining Ormond Beach. Two men arrested last week tipped off police to the apartment, which they said also had been used by two other men as a stash house for stolen property. Ryan said he suspects the other men took the violin in an Oct. 20 burglary. Violins made by Steiner, who died in 1683, may be even rarer than those of the Italian Antonio Stradivari because Steiner made fewer of them, according to some collectors. According to library records, Stradivari made about 650 violins. The series of about 18 burglaries netted the crooks between $35,000 and $50,000 in jewelry and guns, police said. The two arrested, Jason Lee Signore, 18, and Edward Revas, 20, were picked up in an unrelated burglary, detectives said.
AP880419-0066 	X	High-ranking government and rebel delegations agreed on a 10-day suspension of direct peace talks after a fourth day of negotiations failed to produce a definitive cease-fire pact. Also Monday, President Daniel Ortega warned that Sandinista troops would continue fighting the U.S.-backed rebel forces if rebel negotiators bowed to pressure from their top military commander not to sign an accord. A joint communique issued at the end of Monday's talks said the government and the Contras, as the rebels are known, would next meet in Managua April 28-30 to continue negotiations to end their 6{-year-old civil war. The statement described talks between Sandinista officials and leaders of the Contras' Nicaraguan Resistance organization as ``frank and cordial,'' and said the two sides had entered into ``permanent session'' to reach an accord. Contra leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro told reporters that government and rebel officials had agreed ``that at any moment we can renew the negotiations to give continuity to this process.'' ``We are certain the negotiations will end in success,'' said Nicaraguan Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, who headed the government's negotiating team. President Ortega, the defense minister's brother, charged that Col. Enrique Bermudez, the Contra military commander, and the United States were pressuring rebel negotiators to avoid a cease-fire agreement. According to Ortega, Bermudez threatened the Resistance directorate saying rebel military forces ``would liquidate them'' if they signed an agreement with the government. ``If this happens, it would leave us no other road but to achieve a total victory in the military field,'' Ortega told thousands of government supporters gathered in Managua's Plaza de la Revolucion on Monday evening. Alfredo Cesar and Adolfo Calero, leaders of the Resistance directorate, denied Ortega's claim. The directorate's six members arrived in Managua on Friday for the first time since the civil war began in November 1981. They left the country Monday evening. Officials from both sides declined to provide details on the latest round of talks. Humberto Ortega said they were ``an advance and not a failure,'' while Calero, the highest-ranking Resistance official, told reporters that both sides were ``on the road to an understanding.'' Negotiations reportedly stalled over the issue of when the Sandinistas would introduce democratic reforms in Nicaragua. Arriving in Miami on Monday night, Calero said that would be the top issue when talks resume. The Sandinistas insist the rebels sign a permanent truce immediately. They say Contra delegates would then be allowed to take part in a ``national reconciliation dialogue'' with leaders of Nicaragua's 14 legally recognized political parties. Contra leaders demand the Sandinistas first carry out a series of democratic reforms, or at least pledge to do so, before they will sign a pact. The two sides signed a provisional agreement on March 23 which provided for a temporary cease-fire while they negotiated a permanent truce. A 60-day cease-fire went into effect April 1. The Contras on Monday proposed that the temporary cease-fire be extended another month while both sides seek agreement. There was no immediate government response.
AP901221-0198 	X	Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter says 1990 will go down as ``the most hectic year for a secretary of agriculture in the history of the United States.'' Yeutter noted the months of debate and negotiation as Congress wrote a new farm bill, the wrangling and eventual action on cutting the federal budget, and, of course, the multilateral trade negotiations. Except for the trade talks that are still to be resolved, 1990 stacked up as a pretty solid chapter in Yeutter's book. ``We would make a few changes if we had an opportunity to do so,'' Yeutter said last week. ``But considering the complexities of what's happening and the rapid changes in the world, I feel pretty good about the year.'' Yeutter, a hard-driving 60-year-old, gave his year-end appraisal during a telephone interview with farm broadcasters and later with a group of news reporters here. Despite Yeutter's enthusiasm for his job and accomplishments, there are critics who contend the new farm law is a blueprint for disaster. Yeutter disagrees. ``In my judgment, we emerged with a farm bill package that is certainly respectable and probably a lot more farmer-friendly than most of our farmers around the country now believe or realize,'' he said. ``I think it'll turn out to be a bill that will serve American agriculture very well over the next five years.'' A favorite bone chewed by critics involves the budget-cutting plan approved by Congress in October, which will hold down federal spending by about $496 billion over five years. The Agriculture Department's share of the cut was $13.6 billion. Many farm interest groups, and some members of Congress, complained that agriculture was hit with too much. Meanwhile, Congress finished a five-year farm bill that includes provisions to carry out the spending cuts assigned USDA, mostly in the commodity programs that provide price supports and deficiency payments to farmers. The new farm law will mean smaller subsidies going to farmers in the next five years. Other provisions, including special assessments on some producers, tighten the outlook further. ``A lot of folks pay attention to this supposed $13 billion cut over five years ... which is a somewhat misleading number,'' Yeutter said. ``And they make a simplistic evaluation of the bill that is not really an accurate reflection of a lot of its good features.'' The deep-seated concern of Yeutter's is the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations launched four years ago under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Yeutter, who was U.S. trade representative in the Reagan administration, is a gung-ho advocate of liberalizing GATT rules so that countries can produce and trade to the fullest of their abilities. The U.S. view on agricultural trade is for fewer protective import barriers, a reduction in domestic price supports and a phaseout of export subsidies. Many countries sided with the United States during what was supposed to be the windup of talks in Brussels earlier this month. But the push wasn't enough to convince the European Community to compromise meaningfully on reducing farm subsidies, and the Brussels meeting collapsed. Another attempt may be made in mid-January. Yeutter and other advocates of freer trade have painted optimistic pictures of long-range prosperity for farmers under liberalized GATT rules. But there is a measure of ambivalence among U.S. farm organizations and individuals regarding the Uruguay Round. A few condemn the talks outright as a sellout of longstanding protection for small farmers. Others favor parts of the package, while some go along entirely with the U.S. negotiators. The National Family Farm Coalition, which represents about 40 farm and rural advocacy groups, joined thousands of European farmers who protested the GATT talks in Brussels on Dec. 3. Randolph Nodland, president of the coalition, said the U.S. government ``negotiated a deal behind closed doors that trades away American agriculture for what they hope will be gains in other sectors of the economy.'' The European farmers objected proposals that would reduce EC subsidies and protection from imported commodities. Harvey Joe Sanner, president of the American Agriculture Movement, a member of the coalition, said that ``unelected free market zealots'' like Yeutter and Carla Hills, the U.S. trade representative, have misrepresented the needs of rural America. Both Nodland and Sanner accused the Bush administration of trying to use the 1990 farm bill to eliminate federal farm programs. The National Farmers Union, while not a member of the coalition, is asking the new Congress to change the 1990 farm law to prevent a decline in farm income when its provisions take effect. ``The 1990 farm bill is simply a disaster where rural America is concerned,'' said NFU President Leland Swenson. ``We want a 1991 version of the bill that revitalizes rural America.'' Yeutter said the NFU's campaign for another farm bill was ``a big mistake'' and that the next time around Congress might provide even less money. The way it looks now, Yeutter will have a busy year in 1991, too.
AP881214-0130 	X	A fire believed to have been started by squatters living in the Grand Central subway station stopped rush-hour service for an hour Wednesday morning and inconvenienced an estimated 125,000 riders. The fire burned rubbish and generated thick smoke in an unused circuit-breaker room in the station in midtown Manhattan, said John Mulligan, a Fire Department spokesman. Two Transit Authority police officers were treated for smoke inhalation, but no other injuries were reported, TA spokesman Bob Previdi said. Investigators who checked the 12-by-30 foot circuit-breaker room found shopping carts and personal belongings of squatters, said Previdi. Operations of the Metro-North commuter railroad, which uses the nearby Grand Central Terminal, were not affected, Previdi said.
AP881208-0211 	X	The planes left Dakar, Senegal, earlier Thursday and were bound for the Moroccan city of Agadir when they came under fire from ground-to-air missiles, the embassy spokesman said. Moroccan government officials said the two planes were fired upon while they were flying at 10,000 feet to 11,000 feet in an international navigation corridor over Bir Moghrein, Mauritania. The embassy spokesman said the second airplane arrived in Sidi Ifni, about 240 miles south of Agadir. The planes were being used by the U.S. Agency for International Development to fight the locust plague in North Africa. The source of the attack was not immediately known and an investigation had been launched, the spokesman said.
AP881214-0081 	X	A Tuscarora Indian who fled to a reservation after being indicted on charges of taking up to 20 people hostage at a North Carolina newspaper says he will fight extradition from New York, where he was arrested. ``I think I'd be safer up here,'' Timothy Jacobs said Tuesday, according to his attorney, Lewis Pitts. Jacobs was arrested Tuesday near Oneida, N.Y., after state police tried to stop him for speeding and he crashed his car into the back of an empty school bus, authorities said. No one was hurt, said Sgt. Josephine Townsend. North Carolina authorities said extradition proceedings would begin immediately. Pitts said he would fight extradition ``tooth and nail.'' He said he hoped to get Jacobs released on bail and returned to the Onondaga Indian reservation south of Syracuse, where police said Jacobs had lived since last week. Jacobs, 20, was indicted Dec. 6 in the takeover in February at The Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton. Eddie Hatcher, 31, who was indicted on the same charges, was arrested the day the indictments were returned. A jury acquitted the two Tuscarora Indians Oct. 14 of federal hostage-taking and firearms charges, despite their admission that they used two sawed-off shotguns to take over the newspaper office for 10 hours. During the trial, they argued they had to take over the newspaper to save their lives because of evidence they had of official corruption in Robeson County and of law enforcement involvement in drug trafficking. The siege ended after Gov. Jim Martin agreed to form a task force to investigate their allegations. Later, however, the task force said there was little evidence to substantiate their charges.
AP900725-0072 	X	Travelers on France's superhighways will soon be able to dine on hamburgers at roadside fast-food restaurants. Burger King, in cooperation with the French restaurant and hotel company Elitair, announced plans Wednesday to open the first two fast-food restaurants at rest stops along the national highway network. One will be near Evry, southeast of Paris, on the A-6 highway. The other, a drive-through restaurant, will be near Bordeaux on the A-10 highway. Burger King also said the first fast-food hamburger restaurant at a French airport will open next month in a shopping area at Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.
AP901207-0112 	X	Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter on Friday named an Oregon forestry economist as his new deputy assistant secretary for natural resources and the environment. John Beuter, who works for a forestry consulting company in Portland, Ore., will become the top assistant to Assistant Agriculture Secretary James Moseley. The appointment is expected to be criticized by environmental leaders, who earlier this year accused Beuter of exaggerating timber-industry job loss tied to protection of the northern spotted owl. Beuter, 54, will help Moseley manage the U.S. Forest Service and Soil Conservation Service. Moseley led a White House task force on the threatened northern spotted owl earlier this year. Yeutter made the announcement while attending international trade talks in Brussels.
AP880401-0169 	X	Sixteen Americans will receive literary awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the academy announced Friday. In addition, the academy announced that Blake Morrison of London will receive the E.M. Forster award, given to an English writer for a stay in the United States. Nine of the 16 awards include $5,000 purses given to encourage writers in their creative work. Those nine are William Barrett of North Tarrytown; David Bottoms of Marietta, Ga.; Rosellen Brown of Houston, Texas; David Cope of Grandville, Mich.; John Clellon Holmes of Old Saybrook, Conn.; John McCormick of Princeton, N.J.; James Seay of Chapel Hill, N.C.; William Weaver of Arezzo, Italy; and Norman Williams of North Ferrisburgh, Vt. Holmes died Wednesday of cancer in Middletown, Conn., and the prize money will go to his estate, the Academy said. Holmes had been told of winning the prize. The other seven are Andrew Hudgins of Montgomery, Ala.; Kaye Gibbons of Raleigh, N.C.; Edward Hirsch of Houston; Thomas McMahon of Wellesley, Mass.; Andre Dubus of Haverhill, Mass.; Jonathan Evan Maslow of Mobile, Ala., and Clement Greenberg of New York City. The awards will be given May 18.
AP900205-0058 	X	Eddie Murphy and his assistants ran up $5 million in expenses during the making of the movie ``Coming to America,'' which has made no profit despite $350 million in ticket sales, according to studio records. Last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Art Buchwald and producer Alain Bernheim won a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures in which they said the studio took the concept for the 1988 movie from an idea by Buchwald. Paramount was ordered to pay Buchwald and Bernheim 19 percent of the movie's net profits. A financial audit is scheduled during a forthcoming phase of the trial to determine how much money Buchwald and Bernheim should receive. The financial documents released to the Los Angeles Times by court order Saturday were sealed during the trial at Paramount's request, but studio officials had testified that the movie was still in the red. The amount of money Paramount absorbed during the making of the movie could become an issue in the accounting phase of the suit. According to the documents, weekly charges to production made on Murphy's behalf included: $4,920 for a limousine and driver kept on call around the clock, $2,200 for a special motor home for Murphy, $1,592 to the motor home's driver, $1,500 for a personal trainer and $650 for a valet. None of those expenses came out of Murphy's $8 million salary, his 15 percent share of the film's gross receipts, his own travel and hotel expenses or his $5,000-a-week living allowance, according to the documents.
AP900525-0117 	X	A beleaguered Soviet premier appealed to consumers Friday to stop their panic buying of food, triggered by his announcement of plans for sharp price increases, and urged lawmakers to quickly approve economic reforms. Opposition deputies in parliament demanded a no-confidence vote aimed at bringing down Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov's government, but he got one important voice of support for his program: from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. ``I'm hoping in the end, after all the debates _ and they won't be simple _ we'll agree that we have to move toward a market. I'm sure of this,'' Gorbachev said at a news conference. Ryzhkov's plan, broadcast on national television Thursday, proposes tripling the price of bread and other flour-based products on July 1 and increasing the prices of most other consumer goods in January. It envisions a five-year gradual shift to a government-regulated market economy by freeing most prices, raising taxes, selling off state property, and reducing central control of industry. Announcement of the plan triggered immediate rushes to stores for macaroni and bread, Ryzhkov told reporters at the Kremlin. ``Now this wave for bread and bread products has already rolled through half the country, and it's gotten to Moscow,'' he said. ``I am appealing for restraint and calm,'' said Ryzhkov, looking haggard and with his voice ragged from fatigue. ``Tension is growing. We're getting a lot of telegrams expressing concern: `How are we going to live?''' Ryzhkov told the Supreme Soviet parliament that must approve his economic plan. The premier, who bears responsibility for the economic program, indicated that if it led to a vote of no-confidence against his government, he would abide by the outcome. ``If there is no confidence in the government, then what?'' he asked. ``A new government will work.'' Opposition deputies in the Supreme Soviet have already demanded a no-confidence vote after the legislature votes on the economic plan. They have said they expect it to fail, but believe they have to make the political gesture. Deputy after deputy, both conservatives and radicals, took the podium Friday to attack the government plan. Ryzhkov said the criticism had helped the government see ``the weak sides'' of the program and should continue into next week, but urged a quick decision on whether bread prices should rise as planned. ``You have to decide, because this question is so difficult for us and for the people,'' he said. Bread is the staple of the Soviet diet, virtually the only product that's always readily available and remains cheap at about 32 cents a loaf. In the Ukraine, long known as the Soviet Union's breadbasket, the republic's prime minister said his government would fight Ryzhkov's plan, Ukrainian activists reported. Miners in the Ukraine's Donetsk coal region will consider calling for a countrywide coal strike to protest the plan when they meet June 11, according to the Rukh Press, an arm of the Ukrainian popular front. Supreme Soviet deputy Mikhail Bronstein warned that the entire country would need a ration card system to make it through the transition period. Ryzhkov indicated after his report Thursday that increased rationing might be needed. Most regions of the country already have some form of rationing. Radical economist Pavel Bunich told the Supreme Soviet the government had rejected more severe ``shock therapy'' reforms only to offer ``shock therapy without the therapy'' _ reforms that will hurt without leading to a real market system. Bunich proposed putting the whole plan back on the government drawing board. Ryzhkov acknowledged that the country will ``have to live through a pretty hard period,'' as the market reforms take effect. But he pledged government support for low-income families and other measures to cushion the bumpy economic ride ahead, in which economists have predicted millions of unemployed. Announcement of the economic program has already prompted Muscovites to stock up. At Food Shop Number One on Gorky Street, a shop assistant, who asked not to be identified, said panic-stricken buyers ``are literally clearing full shelves for hoarding.'' At another food shop near the center, an unusually long line of 25 to 30 people were packed into the grocery department. ``This is the first time I saw people lining up like this for some cheap cereals,'' a regular customer said. At the Novoarbatsky supermarket, however, manager Valentina Aramasova said the situation was normal, the same as the days before the economic program was announced.
AP900908-0052 	X	Mother Teresa, the frail and aging Nobel Peace Prize winner, gave up her retirement plans today when nuns from around the world re-elected her to head their order, a church official said. ``If this is God's will, I will serve in the capacity in the best way possible,'' the 80-year-old nun was quoted by Monsignor Francis Gomes as saying. He supervised the election. The Vatican gave its blessing and approval today to keeping Mother Teresa as head of the order she founded in the late 1940s. In March, Pope John Paul II bowed to Mother Teresa's wish to retire and accepted her resignation. He had rejected her earlier requests to step aside, even though she pleaded old age and ill health. The ballots were cast by 103 delegates representing the Missionaries of Charity around the world. The vote came after eight days of religious instruction, reflection and devotions conducted behind the walls of the Kennedy Center, a home for retarded women and children near Calcutta's Dum Dum Airport. The nun, known as the ``saint of the gutters'' for her work with the destitute and dying, suffered a nearly fatal heart attack a year ago. Sister Priscilla Lewis, spokeswoman for the order, said Mother Teresa's agreement to stay on was ``greeted with great joy and clapping.'' Gomes, who announced the result after a three-hour meeting, said the nuns felt that ``with so much opening up in the Western world and in the Eastern Europe they need someone who can face the challenges.'' Until the balloting outcome was announced, Mother Teresa had not changed her mind about stepping down, Gomes said. After the result was announced, Gomes walked to the center's front gate to give the news to a small group of reporters. Mother Teresa's re-election settles, for the moment, one of the biggest questions facing the Missionaries of Charity: who besides Mother Teresa has the worldwide recognition, coupled with the indefatigable determination and charisma, to open the political and financial doors needed to accomplish their work? At the height of the Israeli siege of West Beirut in 1982, she walked between the guns of the Israeli army and the Palestine Liberation Organization to rescue children trapped without food and medicine in a front-line hospital. The shooting stopped until her rescue mission was completed. Pulling herself from her sickbed only a few months after suffering a heart attack in September 1989, Mother Teresa headed for Moscow and Eastern Europe to open new missions. Her ministry to the poor and helpless began in earnest 43 years ago in the gutters of Calcutta. She gave up a comfortable teaching job at a Roman Catholic school to succor those whom no one else would touch. Rescuing dying people from the streets of the teeming metropolis, Mother Teresa went on to found a series of homes in Calcutta and eventually throughout the world for society's castaways. Today, the Missionaries of Charity operate 430 homes in 95 countries for lepers, cripples, abandoned babies and others with no place to turn. The order has about 3,000 nuns. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Mother Teresa was born in Skopje, Yugoslavia, daughter of an Albanian contractor.
AP900616-0106 	X	Lithuania on Saturday proposed that its parliament compromise with the Kremlin and impose a moratorium on its declaration of independence, officials said. The proposal from the republic's Council of Ministers appeared to coincide with a compromise offered Tuesday by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and the official news agency Tass said it ``could mark the beginning of the solution of all the so-called `Lithuanian problems.''' Also Saturday, Soviet authorities began pumping natural gas to a fertilizer plant in Lithuania, partly easing the 2-month-old blockade of fuel they imposed to pressure the Baltic republic into renouncing its March 11 declaration of independence. The Lithuanian government suggested the declaration remain valid but its implementation be frozen while negotiations were under way with Moscow, said Algis Cekuolis, a consultant for the Baltic republic. However, Cekuolis said it was unclear whether the compromise would have enough support to be passed by the republic's legislature, which will probably consider it Monday. ``It will be received in parliament by very strong opposition,'' he predicted. The Lithuanian government, under Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, is considered far more disposed to compromise with the Kremlin than the parliament, which is led by President Vytautas Landsbergis and dominated by members of the pro-independence Sajudis popular front. Gorbachev proposed compromises Tuesday in a meeting with the leaders of the three secessionist Baltic states. He told the national Supreme Soviet legislature earlier that day that ``if Lithuania will suspend the implementation of this act of independence, we may start to talk. That means suspend its implementation at least for the duration of the talks.'' Saturday's proposal by the Lithuanian Council of Ministers suggested exactly that, government spokesmen said. ``Our act of independence would remain valid,'' said council spokesman Gentaras Jatkonis. ``But we are postponing the realization of it.'' Similar proposals have gone back and forth between the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and Moscow in telegrams and informal talks ``like a ping-pong game'' for weeks but ``this is the first time it's on an official level,'' Cekuolis said. A spokesman for the Lithuanian parliament, Aidas Palubinskas, said he was told on Saturday by a pipeline dispatcher that natural gas was again flowing from the Soviet Union to the Azotas fertilizer plant in the city of Jonova. ``The plant will be getting 3.5 million cubic meters daily,'' Palubinskas was told by dispatcher Alexander Mishikov. Restoration of the gas supply fulfilled a promise made to Mrs. Prunskiene on Wednesday by Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov that 15 percent of the republic's daily natural gas supply would be restored. Politburo member Yuri D. Maslyukov told a news conference in Moscow on Friday that the restoration of fuel to the Lithuanian plant was a goodwill gesture from the Kremlin and a ``reiteration of the Soviet government's interest in speeding negotiations.'' More than 26,000 people have lost their jobs because of the Kremlin's blockade of all oil, most natural gas and some raw materials. Palubinskas said that restoration of gas supplies to the Azotas plant would mean 1,600 employees could return to work by the end of this week. At the beachfront resort of Jurmala in Latvia, leaders of the popular fronts of Latvia and Estonia and the Sajudis movement of Lithuania opened a conference to discuss the future of their movements under democratically elected governments. The delegates, 50 from each of the pro-independence movements, condemned the economic sanctions against Lithuania and discussed ways of increasing cooperation among the Baltic states and with other Soviet republics, Tass reported. ``Nobody has a right to demand either abrogation or halting the acts of independence,'' Tass quoted delegates as saying. ``A retreat will harm the democratic movement.''
AP901026-0131 	X	Thousands of students, some hurling eggs and others breaking windows, marched nationwide Friday in the largest protests in two weeks of strikes over violence and overcrowding in French high schools. Premier Michel Rocard promised to create thousands of new jobs to improve crumbling, crime-ridden high schools. But a student leader said Rocard had failed to address basic demands for more teachers and security guards. ``What we are asking for is to have toilets where we can go without being hassled by five guys,'' said one Paris student, a 16-year-old girl. Most of Friday's protests unfolded peacefully. But in Mulhouse, near the Swiss border, about 200 students threw eggs and paint at Albert Schweitzer High School and threatened a teacher with a knife. Police made two arrests. In Dijon, students broke four windows at a school. As he received a delegation of student leaders, Rocard issued a statement pledging to create 6,000 new slots for teacher assistants and 3,000 monitors. He also promised 1,000 new maintenance posts. In addition to their concerns about violence and overcrowding, the protesting students have complained about rundown schools. Rocard said he had instructed Education Minister Lionel Jospin to organize committees of student and teachers to ensure that conditions improve. However, one student leader shot back, ``Basically, we haven't won anything.'' ``We'll stay in the street. We'll keep up the pressure after vacation,'' the student said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He spoke on the eve of a weeklong break for the nation's students. Despite the strikes, some students have been attending classes, while others have boycotted them. Jospin said Wednesday that 100 security guards would be added to schools most troubled by a wave of violence that touched off the strikes two weeks ago. But student leaders in Paris derided the step as insufficient and organized a march Friday on the the city's Left Bank. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000; students said 30,000 took part. Sympathy strikes sprang up Friday in smaller cities. In Lyon, about 6,000 students shouted, ``Jospin, you're finished, the students are in the streets!'' Police reported 7,000 demonstrators in Toulouse; 6,000 in Lille; 5,000 in Valenciennes; 4,000 each in Amiens, Saint Etienne and Limoges; 3,000 each in Strasbourg, Metz and Bourg-en-Bresse; 2,000 each in Dole and Forbach; and 1,500 each in Avignon, Saint Avold and Montpellier. Regional authorities near Montpellier, in southern France, said four demonstrators fell off a staircase Friday and were injured. Two were hospitalized. The marches began last week with a few hundred students in low-income Paris suburbs. The violence that sent them into the streets included the rape of a girl in a bathroom, assaults on several teachers, and cases of extortion. The hardest-hit schools are those built in the 1960s near high-rise projects hastily erected to house immigrant workers and poor French families.
AP901029-0141 	X	``The Godfather Part III'' will be released this Christmas, Paramount Pictures said Monday, ending speculation that the troubled sequel to the Corleone family saga would not come out this year. After a weekend screening of an unfinished print of the last chapter in writer-director Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy, senior Paramount executives elected to release the film Dec. 25 to approximately 1,800 theaters nationwide. ``The Godfather Part III'' originally was to open Thanksgiving, but a variety of production delays forced its postponement. The first two installments in the trilogy won nine Academy Awards and grossed $800 million. The latest film, expected to cost about $50 million, is the most anticipated holiday release. The sequel, which picks up the Corleone family two decades after 1974's ``The Godfather Part II'' left off, stars Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia and Coppola's own daughter, Sofia. In the film, Don Corleone (Pacino) attempts to legitimize his family's investment businesses, which once hinged on gambling. The original ``Godfather'' opened in 1972. In a statement, Coppola said: ``After one of the most intensive production schedules in my career, I am deeply satisfied that `The Godfather Part III' has come together in a way that gives me great pride.''
AP880829-0010 	X	The cease-fire between Iran and Iraq is less than two weeks old, but the battered city of Basra already is showing signs of recovery. Over the weekend, men and boys in white galabia robes sat atop sandbags lining the Shatt-al-Arab waterway and cast lines baited with sesame paste into the murky green waters clogged with sunken freighters. Not far away, young swimmers did backflips into the canals that cut through the city toward the Shatt-al-Arab, which forms the southern border with Iran. A welder patched a gate at the Sheraton Hotel, heavily damaged by artillery shells. In the city's main square, sandbags fortified the walls of the Al-Hamdan Hotel and its lobby was covered with jagged shrapnel holes. But the staff said all the rooms were taken, booked by a teachers convention and Kuwaitis returning to examine the city where they once spent vacations. Such signs of recovery are noteworthy in a city only 15 miles from Iran's border, which came under relentless artillery and missiles fire. The attacks on Iraq's only port city during the eight-year war damaged virtually every building in central Basra, where the pounding was so intense at times that dozens of shells landed every minute. The city was nearly captured in February 1987 when Iranian fighters poured across the border and came within six miles of Basra. In the fierce fighting that followed, the Iranians were decimated and, according to U.S. defense analysts, suffered 25,000 casualties, including 15,000 dead. Hundreds of thousands fled the city of more than 1 million peope at the height of the shelling and missile attacks from December 1986 to February 1987. Basra Governor Anwar Sayid said recently that the shelling killed 1,000 civilians and wounded 2,000. The attacks stopped earlier this year when a series of Iraqi victories pushed the Iranian guns out of range. Iraqis soon began returning to the city, and the population is now back to about 1 million, Sayid said. Many have begun rebuilding homes, but reporters touring the city this weekend found a few areas still nearly deserted. Even the pristine Basra airport, reopened hours after the Aug. 20 cease-fire, resembles a massive mausoleum with its granite floors and marble walls. So far, only one flight a day arrives and departs. The shrapnel-scarred Shatt-al-Arab Hotel was reopened after eight years to serve as sector headquarter for United Nations truce observers. ``There have been no problems up to now,'' Danish Maj. Jaspar Boysen said as he sat in the 1930s-era lobby beneath a twirling ceiling fan. Other observers sank into the worn armchairs nearby, chatting and working at postcards to escape the heat in their poorly air-conditioned rooms. Sandbags and coils of barbed wire lined the Shatt-al-Arab waterway outside. By its banks, scores of rusting freighters trapped eight years ago by the war were anchored two abreast. The governor said it would probaby take two years to clear the Shatt of built-up silt and sunken hulks. The governor said many people are returning and rebuilding, carrying truckloads of belongings back to their damaged homes. Sayid said the government is financing home repairs, rebuilding schools and hospitals, working on a new water system and planning to renovate the electrical grid. ``I am sure that if you visit it after two months, you could never imagine the city experienced the war,'' he said.
AP901204-0030 	X	With PM-Gulf-Hearings, Bjt
AP901031-0137 	X	Unless the 1991 rainy season is wetter than last winter, water supplied to California farmers for irrigation could be reduced by half to two-thirds, state and federal officials say. Urban water users who rely on state reservoirs could suffer cuts of 13 percent if the drought runs into a fifth year, officials said. Federal deliveries to municipal customers could drop 25 percent to 50 percent. In an annual drought-outlook conference titled ``What if ... 1991 is Dry?'' state, federal and local officials said Tuesday that another critically dry winter could be catastrophic for many sectors of California's economy and the environment. ``I hope we don't have to experience the `what if' situation,'' said Chet Bowling, drought coordinator for the federal Central Valley Project, the largest water supplier in California. A draft report released Tuesday by the state Department of Water Resources said a fifth drought year would leave California as bad off as it was in 1977, the driest year on record. This year, the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project cut farm deliveries by 50 percent, and the CVP cut municipal supplies by 25 percent to 50 percent, depending on each city's contract. It was only the second time in the history of both projects that deliveries were disrupted - the first time was 1977. Agriculture suffered an estimated $480 million in drought-related losses in 1990. If the drought continues, the State Water Project estimates reductions to agriculture of 63 percent, while the federal project cuts would be about 50 percent. The state report said San Francisco and some other Bay area cities could be forced to cut water use by half. Some cities in southern California already are curtailing some water uses. Most of California's available water - 82 percent, according to the U.S. Geological Survey - is used for irrigating crops. California leads the nation in water use, at 30.3 billion gallons a day. Agriculture accounts for more than $16 billion of the state's $300-billion- plus annual economy. While the drought that began in 1986 is less severe than 1976-77, the state report said it poses an unprecedented threat to fish and wildlife. ``California's population of 30 million people and their needs for water and space has combined with the drought to create what is truly a natural disaster,'' the report said. Although water authorities acknowledge that it is too early to forecast what kind of winter California will have - most of the state's rainfall is recorded in December, January and February - the report said there were some disturbing historical trends. ``Looking back in history, dry years and wet years seem to cluster slightly more than would be expected by chance. But no one so far has been able to develop a predictive model for California for next year from these irregular patterns.'' Storage in California's major reservoirs as of Oct. 1 was about 60 percent of average.
AP880303-0078 	X	An explosion rocked a dynamite factory early today, killing at least four people and leaving one missing, local officials said. The explosion at the factory in Ablon, near this port city in the Calvados region of Normandy, was the third there since 1985. Today's blast occurred shortly after the factory opened at 9 a.m., police said. The regional prefecture said the explosion apparently occurred during the handling of nitroglycerine. An explosion at the factory in March 1985 killed three people. An explosion in March 1987 destroyed a storage area where nitroglycerine was kept but caused no injuries. The factory was closed for several months following that blast.
AP901124-0006 	X	American officials plan to file a formal protest over Swiss security officers who jabbed a U.S. diplomat with a machine gun and roughed up a news photographer traveling with President Bush in Geneva. ``It's so strange - supposedly a peace-loving nation gave us the most vicious treatment I've ever seen,'' White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One en route home from Switzerland. Fitzwater said the U.S. government would file a formal protest over a number of incidents that occurred when Bush arrived in Geneva for a three-hour stop and again on departure. He also said White House chief of staff John Sununu was ``verbally attacked'' when he complained. ``I've never seen that kind of brutal and vicious treatment by a security force in the last 10 years,'' Fitzwater said. American chief of protocol Joseph Reed was poked in the abdomen with a machine gun in one of the airport incidents. Fitzwater said Reed would summon Swiss Ambassador Edouard Brunner and lodge a formal protest next week after Bush returns from a trip to Mexico. ``They pulled a machine gun on Ambassador Reed ... and verbally attacked the chief of staff (Sununu),'' Fitzwater said. Officers clashed with newsmen and photographers in the president's party on arrival in Geneva, pushing and shoving them as they sought to approach the ramp on which Bush would leave the plane. Fitzwater said that at a hotel in Geneva later Sununu brought up the airport incident with the chief of security. He said Sununu was met with verbal abuse. Guards lined up shoulder to shoulder prevented reporters and photographers from approaching the president's ramp on departure. No one could see Bush at the base of the ramp, though he and Mrs. Bush were visible when they climbed the ramp to board the aircraft. White House press aides tried to get the Swiss officers to move out of the way, and a shouting match followed. It was then that Jerome Delay, a Washington-based photographer for the French news agency Agence France-Presse, was roughed up and the machine gun shoved into Reed's abdomen, Fitzwater said. Reed was trying to reboard the plane, Fitzwater said. There was no immediate word on whether Delay was hurt. The Washington bureau of the news agency said it had no word of any injuries. Fitzwater said he had not discussed the incident with Bush. There was no answer at the Swiss embassy in Washington Friday night. No separate number is listed for the ambassador.
AP880714-0270 	X	The Singer Co. on Thursday said it will sell its Electronic Systems and HRB divisions for a total of $455 million as part of Florida investor Paul Bilzerian's plan to finance his buyout of Singer. Plessey North America Corp. will acquire Singer's Electronic Systems Division for $310 million and the Hadson Corp. will acquire the company's HRB Division for $145 million, Singer said in a statement. The Electronic Systems Division, headquarterd in Wayne, N.J., produces airborne computers, radar navigation systems, tactical electronic equipment and other advanced electronic systems for the defense industry. It employs about 3,400 people and had revenues of $166 million in 1987. Plessey, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Plessey Co. of London, also produces electronic systems for defense and commercial use. ``The involvement of Singer Electronic Systems in advanced technologies used by the free world's defense forces adds important new business capabilities to Plessey,'' said Plessey Chairman and Chief Executive John Clark and Bilzerian, Singer's chairman and chief executive, in a joint statement. ``Singer Electronic Systems, in turn, will benefit in the worldwide defense electronics industry and is committed to growth in that field,'' they said. Singer and Plessey expect completion of the deal within 60 days. The HRB Division, based in State College, Pa., develops signal interception, processing and analysis systems, principally for U.S. government intelligence operations. It employs about 1,700 people and had revenues of $119 million in 1987. Hadson, based in Oklahoma City, Okla., is involved in defense, intelligence and space systems through its subsidiary, Ultrasystems Defense and Space Inc. The company is projecting revenues of $800 million in 1988, compared to $16.7 million in 1984. Singer and Hadson expect to complete the sale by the end of August. Singer will receive $137 million in cash and 2 million shares of Hadson common stock, representing 5.4 percent of Hadson's total common shares outstanding. ``We elected to take part of HRB's purchase price in Hadson shares because of the exceptional fit between the company's defense operations and HRB,'' Bilzerian said. ``We are convinced that this acquisition and the company's other plans for growth give Hadson a brilliant future. Therefore, our investment in Hadson's common stock is totally supportive of its current management,'' he added. The divisions are the fourth and fifth to be sold since Singer was acquired earlier this year by a partnership headed by Bilzerian. In making the acquisition, Bilzerian said at least part of the company's operations would be divested.
AP880728-0245 	X	Officials of First RepublicBank Corp. said federal regulators could decide the fate of the financially troubled bank holding company this week, but executives dismissed as speculation rumors that the bank would be declared insolvent. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which rescued First RepublicBank with a $1 billion loan in March, said Wednesday it was considering all options to resolve the company's financial crisis. An announcement could come Friday. Management of First RepublicBank, which had a net loss of $2.3 billion in the first six months of the year, is competing with three outside bidders for control of the institution. But the FDIC could declare the company insolvent and run the institution itself until a suitor is selected in a so-called bridge-bank transaction. The FDIC received final proposals to buy First RepublicBank on Monday from Citicorp of New York; NCNB Corp., a regional banking company based in Charlotte, N.C.; and San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. First RepublicBank's management, led by Chairman Albert Casey, submitted a plan to the FDIC to remain independent. In a memo to First RepublicBank managers Wednesday, the company said it expected an FDIC decision by the weekend. Spokesman Joe Bowles said the memo was prompted by speculation that a bridge transaction was imminent. ``As the decision time grows near, we expect to see more of this speculation,'' Bowles said. The FDIC would ultimately shoulder close to $2 billion of the cost of any deal, FDIC Chairman Wiliam Seidman has said, including an initial recapitalization of as much as $5 billion. Creation of a bridge bank would eliminate bondholder and shareholder claims and nullify all current lawsuits against First RepublicBank. The FDIC can control the bridge bank for up to two years.
AP900719-0011 	X	All children with severe measles should take vitamin A supplements to sharply reduce the risk of complications and death, a study published today concludes. Measles kills about 2 million children worldwide each year and leaves many more blind or afflicted with lung disease. The research conducted in South Africa found that the vitamin reduced the death rate by more than half and the duration of pneumonia, diarrhea and hospitalization by about one-third. The results ``indicate a remarkable protective effect of vitamin A in severe measles,'' the doctors wrote. Earlier research has turned up circumstantial evidence that the vitamin helps. As a result, the World Health Organization three years ago recommended that young measles victims take vitamin supplements anywhere that vitamin A deficiency is common or that more than 1 percent of measles cases are fatal. The study published in today's New England Journal of Medicine was conducted by Drs. Gregory D. Hussey and Max Klein of the University of Cape Town. The study randomly assigned 120 milligrams of vitamin A or identical-looking placeboes to 189 children who were hospitalized because of measles complicated by pneumonia, diarrhea or croup. Of the 12 children who died, 10 were taking placeboes. ``All children with severe measles should be given vitamin A supplements, whether or not they are thought to have a nutritional deficiency,'' the doctors wrote.
AP881216-0260 	X	Grumman Corp. plans to lay off about 10 percent of its workforce or 3,100 employees by the end of 1989, including 2,500 from its main operations in Long Island, the military contractor announced today. The layoffs will begin in early January, with notices sent to 1,800 workers from various managerial and personnel departments, said Grumman spokesman Bob Harwood. According to Harwood, the company will eliminate any unnecessary jobs not directly involved in production. He said some production people will be affected but most of the layoffs will be in overhead and managerial positions. ``We are going to eliminate jobs we (Grumman) don't need in areas such as security, personnel, public relations, business operations,'' Harwood said. Harwood said all layoffs within the past two years have been caused by declining defense spending, which has increased pressures to cut costs. ``For us to stay competitive we have to cut cost and cutting cost translates to cutting people,'' he said. ``Our whole industry is facing flat or declining budgets,'' said Grumman Chairman John O'Brien. In the past two years Grumman has been bumped from three major military aircraft contracts. According to Harwood, in 1987 a contract to produce the Navy's Advanced Tactical Aircraft was awarded to McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics in St. Louis. Grumman also was shut out from producing the Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter. During that time, the company fired 1,400 Long Island employees. According to Harwood, the ATA would eventually replace the A-6E, a Navy bomber which is one of Grumman's most-produced aircraft. This year, the government stopped development plans for an upgraded version bomber, the A-6G. That plan would have generated 1,000 new engineer positions and brought in a quarter-of-a billion dollars annually. Out of the company's 32,000 workers, 21,000 are employed on Long Island.
AP900425-0259 	X	Existing home sales in March remained below 1989 levels for the second straight month as mortgage interest rates stayed in the double-digits, a real estate trade group reported Wednesday. The National Association of Realtors said resales of single-family homes totaled a seasonally adjusted 3.40 million units, unchanged from the number of sales in February but down from the 3.52 million rate in January. The annual rate for a particular month represents what the total number of sales for the year would be if the pace were maintained for 12 consecutive months. During all of 1989, actual sales totaled 3.44 million units. Realtors chief economist John A. Tuccillo said the 3.40 million pace, the slowest since a 3.38 million rate last July, was sustainable for the rest of the year. The Commerce Department is scheduled to report new home sales for March next Monday. New home sales rose 3.1 percent to an annual rate of 607,000 units in February after plunging 6.8 percent the previous month. But the pace of sales remained below the 649,000 new homes sold in 1989 and analysts placed the blame on mortgage rates and declining consumer confidence. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. reported that 30-year conventional fixed-rate mortgages averaged between 10.22 percent and 10.34 percent during March, high when compared to the single-digit rates at the end of 1989. The Realtors said the high rates had a dual effect on the existing home market. Consumer uncertainty triggered purchases by prospective buyers fearing higher rates in the future while it curbed sales by others hoping for lower rates in the months ahead. ``The rate-watchers who are making their move now tend to be in less expensive markets,'' said Realtors president Norman D. Flynn. ``Those who are holding back in hopes of rate declines tend to be in the higher-priced markets.'' The Realtors said the national median price of existing homes was $96,100 in March, up $900 from February. The median price of a new home in February was $130,000, according to the Commerce Department. The median means that half of the homes cost more, half less. Existing home sales in the Northeast continued to be sluggish in March, falling 16.9 percent to an annual rate of 490,000 units. The median price there was $148,200, up 3.3 percent from the previous month. Sales also fell in the West, down 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 640,000. The median price was $143,300, the same as February's. Sales were unchanged at an annual rate of 890,000 units in the Midwest where the median price was $72,900, down 1.6 percent. The South posted the only sales gain, up 3.8 percent to 1.36 million units. The median price was up 0.9 percent to $86,000.
AP880830-0228 	X	Chrysler Motors Corp. on Tuesday named Thomas Stallkamp chairman and Forest Farmer president of its Acustar Inc. parts subsidiary. Stallkamp assumes the title previously held by Bob Lutz, chairman of Acustar and of Chrysler Motors, the automaking arm of Chrysler Corp. Lutz remains chairman of Chrysler Motors and a member of the corporation's board. Stallkamp joined Chrysler Motors in 1980 as a general purchasing agent and moved to Acustar last June as vice president for marketing and procurement. Farmer succeeds Lee H. Runk, who resigned Monday to become president of the St. Louis-based Harvard Industries, an auto parts supplier. Farmer has been with Chrysler for 20 years and has held a number of managerial positions. He most recently was general plants manager for car and truck assembly operations. Acustar, created last year as Chrysler spun off its parts operations, employs about 28,000 hourly and salaried personnel and runs 30 factories nationwide.
AP900813-0058 	X	Time was, being a lifeguard was a dream job: sitting atop a white tower, a bronzed Adonis for the bikini-clad teen-age girls to admire. These days, it's hard to find people interested in the job. Because of chronically low wages and costly and more rigorous certification lessons, potential candidates, especially in the Northeast, are drawn to easier, better paying jobs _ like flipping burgers in fast-food restaurants. Some beaches and pools in New England and the mid-Atlantic states have closed for lack of lifeguards, according to the U.S. Lifesaving Association. ``Not too long ago we had waiting lists of applicants,'' said Tim Hall, lifeguard coordinator for the Maine Bureau of Parks and Recreation. ``Now we have to go out and recruit them. The booming economy of the late '80s made summer jobs more available to college students. Work as chambermaids, waitresses and construction workers paid more.'' Those who do sign up, from California to Florida, are frequently much younger than in years past and not always as conscientious, longtime lifeguards said. ``Anyone can put on an orange suit but these young guys don't know what to look for,'' said Rian Wilkinson, a veteran lifeguard from Newport, R.I. ``They just sit on the stands and there aren't any older guys around to keep them from goofing off.'' Part of the shortage stems from tougher and more expensive training. In 1982, the Red Cross introduced a national lifeguard certification program to replace the simpler lifesaving courses designed for the general public. ``Now kids have to pay $75 or $80 for certification when it used to be free, and so they'd rather work somewhere else,'' said Joe Pecoraro, president of the U.S. Lifeguard Association and general supervisor of beaches and pools for Chicago. ``It used to a be a glamour position,'' said Donald Cotter, recreation director in Foxboro, who began recruiting lifeguards in January and did not sign up his last one until a week before the season opened. ``Young kids just don't want to do the training.'' Many in the profession say the tougher requirements are part of a plan to ensure that lifeguards are better trained and more professional. ``What we call the `beach mystique' is still there,'' said Hall. ``But the lifeguard's image has basically changed and that's good. We're not looking for people who want to smear suntan lotion on their bodies and look for women. We're looking for people who are interested in someday being policemen, firemen, paramedics _ who'll see lifeguarding as an emergency service provider.'' John Crisp, 42, assistant chief for lifeguards in the Daytona Beach, Fla., area, said Volusia County takes lifeguards at 16 in the hope they ``stick with us through high school and college and turn into a real professional.'' ``When I first came on here in 1972, it was party time, something to do to kill a few years,'' said Crisp. ``But now we're trying for a more professional image.''
AP900714-0039 	X	A team of U.S. experts will travel to Cambodia July 24 to examine the remains of what may be U.S. servicemen unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, says Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va. Robb, a Vietnam veteran, visited Cambodia earlier this year to appeal for cooperation in obtaining an accounting of the 83 Americans missing and believed dead in that country. The visit is the first of its kind since the communist triumph in Cambodia in 1975. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of leading senators, fearing a return of the Khmer Rouge to power, has drafted a letter urging President Bush to change the administration's policy toward Cambodia. ``The president's policy in Cambodia is indefensible,'' Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, a leader of the petitioners, told reporters this week. ``How can we, the United States, which has already enacted into law a prohibition on aiding the Khmer Rouge, engage in a policy which does precisely that?'' said Mitchell. A draft of the letter urges Bush to open the door to some contacts between the United States and the government of Hun Sen in Phnom Penh. The United States supports a coalition of groups that are fighting the Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge, who slaughtered more than a million Cambodians when they ruled the country in the 1970s. The United States has received cooperation from Vietnam and Laos on the MIA issue. All told, the 2,302 missing Americans are believed to be in those two countries and Cambodia. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he did not know how many sets of remains the American experts will be invited to examine in Cambodia. He said the mission was strictly humanitarian in nature. But a senior State Department official, asking not to be identified, said the gesture by the Cambodian government apparently was aimed at achieving increased international recognition. There has been no American presence in Cambodia since the U.S.-backed government was ousted by the Khmer Rouge rebels in April 1975. The Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnamese forces in 1978 after 3{ bloody years in power. Boucher said that if any of the remains appear likely to be those of Americans, a U.S. Air Force plane will repatriate them to Hawaii for further analysis. ``We appreciate the support of the Phnom Penh authorities for this undertaking, which we consider an important humanitarian endeavor, and, if successful, will help alleviate the continued uncertainty of the families of the missing Americans,'' Boucher said. Robb, who had met with Hun Sen and other officials in Phnom Penh, made the announcement in a speech Friday to the National League of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, which is holding its 21st annual meeting in Washington. ``This is obviously only the beginning of a process which we hope will allow for the accounting of every missing American,'' Robb said.
AP880502-0282 	X	The stock market meandered in a narrow range today, resuming its sluggish trend of late last week. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 4.64 to 2,036.97 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. But losers outnumbered gainers by about 7 to 4 in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 544 up, 940 down and 449 unchanged. Evidence that the economy continues to grow at a moderate pace has lately been met with little enthusiasm by investors. The government reported this morning that factory orders increased 1.6 percent in March. The market also hasn't shown much response to generally strong corporate earnings reports for the first quarter. Analysts say individual investors and professional money managers continue to shy away from stocks, with memories still fresh of the crash last fall and controversy continuing over the effects of computer program trading. Energy stocks were mostly lower on news that oil-producing nations hadn't reached any agreement to restrain production. Amoco dropped | to 77{; Mobil { to 46\; Atlantic Richfield 1] to 87\; Occidental Petroleum ] to 26|, and Chevron | to 47]. Atlantic Richfield reported sharply higher first-quarter profits. At the same time, airline stocks rose on the prospect of lower fuel prices. AMR added 1[ to 44\; Allegis 1{ to 83{, and Delta Air Lines 1[ to 49|. USG gained { to 41{. Desert Partners, which is offering $42 a share in a hostile takover bid for the company, said it was willing to raise the price tag to $45 a share if USG negotiates a merger agreement. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped .36 to 147.51. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 1.20 at 301.94. Volume on the Big Board came to 116.19 million shares with an hour to go.
AP901010-0221 	X	Silver futures prices plunged sharply Wednesday on New York's Commodity Exchange as the market continued to be burdened by abundant supplies. On other markets, oil prices declined on a market influenced by rumors; grain and soybean futures were mostly lower; gold prices fell; and livestock and pork futures retreated. Silver settled 18.4 cents 20.7 cents lower with the contract for delivery in October at $4.409 a troy ounce. The 18.8 cent plunge for the December silver contract dropped the metal to a 13-year low. ``The (reason) for the overall weakness of silver is simple. There is a lot of silver around. The supply is enormous,'' said Peter Cardillo, an analyst with Jesup, Josephthal & Co. Inc. in New York. Analysts noted that production of silver is increasing as demand from automakers and the photographic industry is decreasing. Adding to the weakness of silver is the perception it is a base metal and is prone to recession and inflation concern. ``Silver was once considered the poor man investment,'' Cardillo said. ``In the past, silver would react to international turmoil. Unfortunately, in recent years that has disappeared. It is not considered the safe haven that it once was.'' Profit-taking fueled a selloff of energy futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange in trading that saw prices influenced by rumors. Reports that U.S. troops have invaded Kuwait sent prices higher in early trading. But prices fell after the State Department denied military action was taking place, and slipped lower on rumors of the death of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Those rumors were also proven false. Profit-taking was the primary factor behind the drop in prices, said Andrew Lebow, an analyst with E.D. & F Man International Futures Inc. He noted there was little fresh news from the Middle East to influence the market. Light sweet crude was 41 cents to $1.71 lower with November at $38.69 a barrel; heating oil was 1.87 cents to 5.10 cents lower with November at $1.010 a gallon; unleaded gasoline was 2.70cents to 4.66 cents lower with November at 93.60 cents a gallon. Gold futures were pushed lower due to weakness in energy market, analysts said. Cardillo noted that gold has not reacted strongly to the crisis in the Middle East because producer nations continue to unload their gold supplies. Gold was $1.60 to $1.80 lower with October at $388.10 a troy ounce. Grain and soybean futures prices closed mostly lower on the Chicago Board of Trade. Corn futures were influenced by slack demand from overseas. It received some support from reports the Soviets would eventually make a purchase. Slack sales by farmers also gave a boost to corn prices. Overall, the market was pressured by forecasts the rains of the past few days will be ending. That will allow farmers to get on with the harvest, said Joel Karlin, an analyst with Research Department Inc. in Chicago. Trading was cautious in anticipation of the release Thursday of the U.S. Agriculture Department's October crop production report. Wheat was 1 cent to 3{ cents lower with delivery in December at $2.76\ a bushel; corn was a { cent to 1{ cents higher with December at $2.35{ a bushel; oats were a { cent to 1 cent higher with December at $1.23 a bushel; soybeans were 4{ cents to 9{ cents lower with November at $6.25 a bushel. Livestock and pork futures were lower in trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Pork prices were pressured by a drop in cash prices. Slack demand for beef products pushed livestock futures lower. Analysts said the market also was pressured by concerns that the U.S. economic outlook is weak. Live cattle were .37 cent to .88 cent lower with October at 79.20 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .25 cent to .85 cent lower with October at 87.70 cents a pound; hogs were .15 cent to .50 cent lower with October at 56.57 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were 1.10 cent lower to .20 cent higher with February at 63.40 cents a pound.
AP880617-0292 	X	Stock prices inched higher today amid record volume attributed to moves to capture dividends and the quarterly ``triple-witching hour,'' the simultaneous expiration of futures and options contracts. There was a crush of activity as the opening bell sounded, with volume exceeding the previous first-hour record in just 45 minutes. Trading in Occidental Petroleum accounted for almost a third of the day's volume, with most of the activity related to the company's impending quarterly dividend. In addition, traders said volume was typically heavy as the quarterly triple-witching hour got underway. Some stock-index contracts expired at the opening, while others expired at the close of trading. Analysts found nothing unusual in the heavy volume, considering the double-pronged effect of the triple-witching hour and the dividend plays. They noted, however, that such activity distorted the real motivation in the market. Alfred Goldman, director of technical market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis, said the triple-witching hour rendered the market's movements ``meaningless'' and nearly impossible to analyze. ``It is totally controled by non-market, non-economic factors,'' he said. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials opened slightly higher but was off more than 16 points before moving back into plus territory shortly before the close.
AP900406-0021 	X	The assailants who massacred six men and boys in a reputed crack house may have been stoned on drugs or seeking revenge for a deal gone bad, officials said. City Councilman Gilbert Hill, former head of the police department's homicide division, said he saw little difference. ``Most of the time it's not a turf battle, just thugs robbing each other,'' Hill said. ``Some of these guys walking around with Uzis and .44 Magnums, they have the brain of an ant. I don't think it's part of any organized conspiracy.'' The Wednesday night attack was the worst multiple murder in Detroit since June 1971, when seven members of a heroin ring were found shot to death in a west side apartment. No arrests had been made by Thursday night, Officer Thomas Martinelli said. The victims ranged in age from 15 to 32. According to accounts from witnesses, a woman and two men burst into the house, forced the victims to lie on the floor and started shooting them. Four of the dead were found on the second floor of the bungalow. Each had been shot in the head, Buck said. The two other victims, one of whom died shortly after arriving at a hospital, were shot trying to run downstairs and were found in the basement. Buck declined to discuss a possible motive, and calls to the department's homicide, narcotics and special crimes units weren't returned. A neighbor said the bungalow where the shootings occurred was one of a number of crack houses in the area. ``It's a drug deal gone bad,'' said Alonzo Johnson, 26. ``They are dealing drugs on every other house on every other street in this neighborhood. It's bad.''
AP901009-0193 	X	Lois Anne MacKay Scripps, wife of Charles E. Scripps Sr., the chairman of the E.W. Scripps Co., died Monday after a two-year illness. She was 62. She married Charles Scripps in 1949 and moved to Cincinnati, where the newspaper and broadcasting company has its headquarters. Mrs. Scripps was active with her husband in causes promoting literacy and, through the Inter American Press Association, worked to promote a free press throughout the Western hemisphere. Mrs. Scripps served as trustee of Thomas More College and Cincinnati Technical Center, and was a horticulturist who developed the grounds of her home, built on former vineyard slopes overlooking the Ohio River.
AP880416-0117 	X	Sen. Roberto Ruffilli, a close friend and adviser of Premier Ciriaco De Mita, was shot to death Saturday at his home in northern Italy. An anonymous caller said Red Brigades terrorists were responsible. Investigators told Italian news agencies the body of the 51-year-old Christian Democrat senator was found on a couch in his living room at Forli, 40 miles southeast of Bologna. They said he was shot in the back of the neck. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said an anonymous telephone caller to the Bologna office of the Rome newspaper La Repubblica asserted responsibility on behalf of the Red Brigades. The spokesman quoted the caller as saying, ``We have killed Senator Ruffilli, attacking at the heart of the state. Red Brigades for the Formation of the Fighting Communist Party.'' President Francesco Cossiga said: ``Our institutions and all the forces that are alive in the country will know how to act with firmness for the defense of liberty and of right. ``The assassination of Sen. Roberto Ruffilli is a horrendous crime against the most sacred of human values _ life. It is an abominable attack on the parliamentary and representative institutions which are the fulcrum of our democratic state.'' Maurizio Laudi, a magistrate who has investigated the terrorist group, was quoted by the news agency AGI as saying the Red Brigades for the Formation of the Fighting Communist Party is the most dangerous and active group in what remains of the Red Brigades. He said it also is the most difficult to penetrate. AGI said Ruffilli had received threatening phone calls in recent days. He led the Christian Democrat committee on problems of the state and was working with the premier on institutional reform. Ruffilli also was on the parliamentary commission that investigated the P-2 Masonic Lodge scandal. Premier De Mita convened a special meeting Saturday night of Interior Minister Antonio Gava and the chiefs of the Italy's police forces. ``The criminal warning of the terrorists could not have been any clearer,'' he said. ``It has the same clarity with which 10 years ago through the person of Aldo Moro they aimed at his political program.'' Red Brigades terrorists kidnapped and killed Moro, a former premier, in 1978. According to the news agency ANSA, investigators at Ruffilli's home found the door open and no signs of forced entry. State-run RAI television said the assassins fled on foot after the shooting at about 1 p.m. In a dispatch quoting government sources it did not identify, AGI said the car bombing that killed five people and wounded 17 at a Naples club for U.S. military personnel Thursday night may have inspired terrorists to kill Rufilli. An American servicewoman and four Italians were killed in the blast. The murder of air force Gen. Licio Giorgieri in Rome on March 20, 1987, was the last terrorist act for which a branch of the Red Brigades claimed responsibility. A month before that, the Red Brigades for the Formation of Fighting Communist Party claimed responsibility for an armored car robbery in Rome. In December 1981, Red Brigade terrorists disguised as plumbers kidnapped U.S. Brig. Gen. James Dozier, who was with the NATO command in Italy, from his home in Verona. He was rescued 42 days later by a special police unit in Padua. In February 1984, terrorists in Rome fatally shot Leamon Hunt, a U.S. diplomat and director-general of the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai. The Red Brigades claimed responsibility.
AP880521-0081 	X	Secretary of State George P. Shultz urged Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to accept an international peace conference and give up occupied territory for Middle East peace. ``The agenda, as we see it, has to be territory for peace,'' Shultz said in an interview broadcast today by Israel radio. ``If you say no ... then there is no Arab partner that wants to come and negotiate, because they say, what is there to negotiate.'' Shultz was interviewed Friday in Washington. The army imposed a curfew on parts of Gaza City this morning after Palestinians demonstrated, a military spokesman said. He did not elaborate. An Arab reporter said there was a full general strike throughout the Gaza Strip and scattered stonethrowing clashes between soldiers and protesters. He said at least three Palestinians were beaten by Israeli troops. Both the military spokesman and reporter spoke on condition of anonymity. Since anti-occupation unrest broke out Dec. 8 in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers have killed 191 Palestinians. Two Israelis also have been killed. Shultz stopped short of directly criticizing Shamir, but he said the United States and the Israeli leader disagree on the need to give up territory captured during the 1967 Middle East war in exchange for peace. Disputes remain on the international peace conference and the timetable of negotiations. ``Everybody has views that they hold and ... which we discuss,'' said Shultz. ``Some of the things that the prime minister feels about the proposals we've put on the table of course we don't agree with.'' Shultz urged the Israeli government to accept his peace proposal, which includes a call for an international peace conference and negotiations on Palestinian demands for self-rule. ``The status quo is not stable, is not satisfactory,'' Shultz said. Shultz has visited the Middle East twice since drawing up his peace proposal and is due back again in June. Israel's coalition government is split on the proposals. Shamir's right-wing Likud Bloc opposes the plan, while the leftist Labor Party, led by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, supports it. Shultz has failed to budge Shamir. So far, Egypt is the only country to officially endorse the plan. But Shultz said he would keep trying. ``It's not my initiative or the U.S. initiative that's in trouble,'' Shultz said. ``It's the region that's in trouble. And that's why I keep coming back.'' Peres returned Friday from Washington, where he met with Shultz and President Reagan. In an airport interview, he said the Soviet Union has agreed to join an international peace conference on the Middle East but continues to insist on Palestinian self-determination. Peres said Soviet officials told him they now agreed the international conference would not have the power to impose its views on Israel and its Arab negotiating partners. Both Shamir and Peres reject establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Peres met with Soviet officials in Madrid and Washington, including Moscow's U.S. ambassador, Yuri Dubinin.
AP900530-0054 	X	May 26 Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., on the estimated $300 billion cost of the savings and loan bailout: How much is $300 billion? Look at it with all its 11 zeros: $300,000,000,000. Counting once a second, it would take you 9,520 years to count to 300 billion. About 9,500 years ago human beings were just discovering the wheel. ... Federal bank regulators have sent 20 fraud cases to the Justice Department for prosecution in recent weeks and they are preparing 100 more. ... Now if only those key members of Congress and the Reagan administration who let the S&L mess fester for so long could be put on trial too. They share blame with unscrupulous bankers for this unprecedented fiasco.
AP880622-0327 	X	The dollar took a sharp step upward Wednesday as a wave of fresh bullish sentiment erupted in early trading overseas and spilled over to propel the U.S. currency higher. Gold prices slipped. Republic National Bank of New York quoted a bid price of $448.80 for a troy ounce of gold as of 4 p.m. EDT, down from $451.70 late Tuesday. Currency traders expressed some surprise at the jump in the dollar, after its slightly weaker finish in Tuesday's trading. They attributed the move to momentum that gathered force when currency trading began in Tokyo. ``There was a groundswell of (dollar) buying in the Asian trading session,'' said William Sullivan, director of money-market research at Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. That set the stage for the dollar's continued strong showing as currency trading followed in Europe and New York. Traders appeared very satisfied with the outcome of the economic summit meeting of the seven major industrialized countries in Toronto. They focused on the communique the leaders issued Tuesday at the meeting's conclusion, which hinted that there is room for the dollar to continue its upward move. ``That statement gave the market a signal to buy dollars,'' said Earl Johnson, a vice president at Harris Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago. ``This was a big jump considering the quiet trading of the past couple of weeks,'' he added. The economic environment has been ripe for a stronger dollar, considering the better-than-expected U.S. trade report for April as well as rising interest rates. Curtis Perkins, a trader at Chemical New York Capital Markets Group, noted that there was some profit-taking during the session. ``The dollar still finished on a strong note, even though some profit-taking took it away a bit from the top,'' he said. Bullish sentiment is likely to prevail, at least in the short term. Traders say that if corporations decide the dollar has bottomed out, they could step up their dollar purchases and give the currency a further lift. The dollar rallied strongly in European dealings. In Frankfurt, West Germany, currency dealers said limited sales of dollars by that country's central bank failed to halt the dollar's rise, which they interpreted as a sign that the Bundesbank tolerated a further rise in the U.S. currency's value. But European dealers late in the day said they noticed some signs of nervousness about whether the dollar could hold at its current, elevated levels. In Tokyo, where the business day ends before Europe's begins, the dollar jumped 1.27 Japanese yen to close at 127.60 yen. Later in London, it was quoted higher at 128.52 yen. In New York, the dollar closed at 128.95 yen, up from 126.42 yen late Tuesday. Tokyo traders speculated that the Bank of Japan is unlikely to intervene to support the yen until the dollar threatens to climb above 130 yen. In London, a long-awaited half-percentage point rise in British interest rates was announced, but the move had only a modest impact on the pound, dealers said. By late in the trading day, the dollar had edged up against the British pound, which was quoted at $1.7710, down from $1.7855 on Tuesday. In New York, one pound cost $1.7658, cheaper than Tuesday's $1.7903. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Tuesday, included: 1.7818 West German marks, up from 1.7550; 1.4747 Swiss francs, up from 1.4581; 6.0025 French francs, up from 5.9223; 1,320.75 Italian lire, up from 1,301.75, and 1.2102 Canadian dollars, up from 1.2063. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Tuesday, included: 1.7740 West German marks, up from 1.7548; 1.4720 Swiss francs, up from 1.4623; 5.9747 French francs, up from 5.9245; 1.9975 Dutch guilders, up from 1.9755; 1,314.50 Italian lire, up from 1,304.00, and 1.2100 Canadian dollars, down from 1.2079. Gold bullion declined on the Commodity Exchange in New York. It finished at $449.50, down from $451.80 late Tuesday. Gold also fell overseas, retreating in London to a late bid of $448.50 a troy ounce, down from late Tuesday's $451. In Zurich, Switzerland, the bid was $448.50, down from 451.50 late Tuesday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold fell $1.29 to close at a bid of $451.46. Silver was unchanged on New York's Comex, closing at $7.177 a troy ounce. In London the metal was quoted at a bid of $7.06 a troy ounce, down from Tuesday's $7.19.
AP881103-0029 	X	Officials of the world's top tobacco-consuming country have proposed restricting foreign cigarette imports and limiting the tar content of domestically-produced cigarettes, the official China Daily said today. The proposals, made by the State Tobacco Sales Monopoly Bureau, were announced in the national legislature this week along with Ministry of Public Health plans to draft China's first anti-smoking law, the daily said. The daily did not specify the possible scope of the law or when it might by completed. Some Chinese and foreign doctors estimate that if strong measures are not taken, 2 million Chinese will die annually of smoking-related causes by the year 2025. According to the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, China has 250 million smokers, about a quarter of the population. It says 70 percent of Chinese suffer the ill effects of smoking if passive smokers are included.
AP880711-0243 	X	House Speaker Jim Wright said Monday he hopes that a relief package with disaster payments of up to $100,000 for drought-stricken farmers will win committee approval and be ready for floor action in Congress this week. ``The relief shall be targeted to those who need aid the most _ primarily family farmers,'' Wright, D-Texas, told reporters. He also said that ``there should be no windfalls for major corporations and wealthy individuals'' in the package being fashioned by the House and Senate Agriculture committees. He said disaster payments should be capped at $100,000 for each individual. Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., called for expedited action but added that he remains uncertain about just what features should be included or what snags might exist. ``If we can agree on a bipartisan drought package, I would like to see us do that this week,'' Byrd said. But Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told reporters following a White House meeting with President Reagan that Congress should not rush legislation through recklessly. ``I don't think anybody should put artificial deadlines on it,'' he said. ``The important thing is that you tell people that are about to go bankrupt that there is hope, that there will be planting and raising herds next year. ... I think we're all agreed that that's going to be the goal. It's going to be a bipartisan piece of legislation and one that the president can sign.'' ``We would like to have this bill ready for House consideration bfore this week expires,'' Wright said. ``If this should prove impossible, we shall plan to vote during the week of July 26.'' ``The drought of 1988 is one of the hottest and driest spells of continuous weather on record,'' Wright said. ``It affects almost all agricultural regions of the country, particularly the Northern Plains states, the Corn Belt and the Mississippi Delta.'' He said the relief bill being drawn up would make farmers in more than 1,880 counties in 37 states that have been called disaster areas eligible for payments from the government. As outlined by Wright, government-held hay and feed grains would be made available to livestock producers up to a value of $50,000 per individual. The drought has wiped out a substantial amount of hay in the Farm Belt and, as a result, feed is now at a premium. Under the bill, Wright said, drought-stricken farmers would not be required to refund to the government so-called deficiency payments they have received in advance. Deficiency payments are income supports provided to farmers by the government. They represent the difference between market prices and congressionally set target prices, which are adjusted annually by the secretary of agriculture. As estimates of this year's harvest have grown smaller, crop prices have increased accordingly. As a result, the gap between market prices and target prices has diminished and the size of deficiency payments for many farmers also has shrunk. Forty percent of these payments, however, have already been made in advance. As things stand, some of these farmers would be obliged to refund to the government a portion of their advance deficiency payment at a time when the drought has robbed them of a crop to take to market. Wright said the legislation would encourage the Farmers Home Administration to restructure loans and delay collection from drought victims. Wright cautioned that consumers should be protected under the legislation and livestock producers should be provided with immediate relief. ``The bill cannot be a budget buster,'' Wright said. ``To the extent possible, it should be paid for out of the savings the government is anticipating from lower deficiency payments.'' Tentative provisions sketched in by congressional sources said the measure would cancel the 50-cent cut in dairy price supports scheduled for next year. Payments for wheat, feed grains, cotton and rice farmers would equal 65 percent of expected earnings for any losses greater than 35 percent of yields. For example, corn growers would be paid at a rate of 65 percent of the target price of $2.93 a bushel or $1.90 a bushel. Payments would start once a farmer suffered a loss of more than 35 percent of the historical yield that he has established with the Agriculture Department. A corn grower with 100 acres and a historical yield of 100 bushels would receive a payment of $12,350 as a disaster payment if his crop were wiped out. It remains unclear, however, just how much might be saved in deficiency payments as a result of the drought. And the savings will not merely be from smaller deficiency payments. Heightened demand is emptying government grain bins, thus lowering substantial storage costs borne by taxpayers. Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn., said Friday that budget savings due to the drought would be at least $5.3 billion through fiscal 1990 and could top $10 billion. Lawmakers have been talking about recycling some or all of these savings to distribute to drought-stricken farmers as disaster payments. The extent of the drought damage remains uncertain. Lawmakers, farmers and policy-makers are awaiting Tuesday's official crop production estimates from the Department of Agriculture. They should offer the best available guide to the magnitude of the destruction caused by fierce heat and lack of rainfall in the midcontinent.
AP880907-0211 	X	A giant mudslide smashed through five villages in a remote mountain area and at least 76 people were feared dead, officials and news reports said Thursday. A relief operation was under way but heavy rain and the isolation of the area was hampering rescuers. Papua New Guinea, with a mainly Melanesian population of 3.3 million, is just north of Australia. Minister for State John Giheno said the slide occurred Tuesday morning and swept through Mitsing, Malafan, Zumara and Tari villages in the mountainous Kaiapit district of Morobe province, some 185 miles north of Port Moresby, the capital. The Australian Associated Press reported a fifth village, Marafau, was destroyed. It quoted one horrified villager as saying the mudslide turned Marafau into a mass graveyard, which ``fell away like a sliced piece of meat.'' ``It was all over in about five minutes,'' AAP quoted the witness as saying. AAP said many children were orphaned and left homeless by the slide, which it said covered an area about 12 miles long. The news service said children were away at school when the slide hit. Giheno said one body had been recovered and that 615 other villagers had been accounted for. ``At this stage 75 people are missing, presumed dead,'' he said. The villages are about 4,950 feet above sea level. Houses in the area are mainly flimsy traditional grass-thatched structures built on stilts. Villagers barely make a living by raising pigs and farming sweet potatoes. Giheno flew over the stricken area by helicopter early Thursday and then launched an emergency appeal for clothing, blankets and cooking utensils. Officials from the National Disaster and Emergency Center were flying to the area to assess the situation, he said. ``Reports indicate the area is still very unstable,'' he said.
AP900716-0247 	X	Stocks hit record levels again Monday and the Dow Jones industrial average reached its third straight all-time high, tantalizing Wall Streeters by closing within a hair of 3,000 for the first time. But trading was light in what some strategists regarded as an uncertain market. Many investors didn't participate and some expressed cynicism about an obsession with the behavior of the Dow index, which can move sharply if any one of its 30 big-name components rises or falls in one large trade. The best-known stock barometer, which has risen nearly 100 points this month and briefly forayed aboved 3,000 for the first time Friday, remained in that territory for much of the session Monday. But it weakened in a bout of selling in the late afternoon and finished at 2,999.75, up 19.55. ``It's just another number, another barrier,'' said Peter J. DaPuzzo, head of world equities for Lehman Brothers in New York. Philip Rettew, a vice president at Merrill Lynch & Co., called the Dow-3,000 barrier ``about as important as your 50th birthday.'' Strategists said buying was largely motivated by the influences that drove the market last week and pushed the Dow index to record closes Thursday and Friday: indications that the Federal Reseve was easing interest rates to forestall a recession, and an improved outlook for corporate earnings. International Business Machines's announcement of higher-than-expected second-quarter earnings Monday bolstered the optimism and set the tone for much of the day. Some other leading companies also reported strong earnings results. ``The market's come a long way. It barreled ahead, got tired and backed away,'' said Lawrence Wachtel, a senior strategist for Prudential Bache Securities Inc. ``And then there's the Dow 3,000, oh boy,'' he said. ``Some people feel 2,999.75 is the pits, but 3,000.15 would be salvation. There's too much hype about it.'' Some brokers said events that could have hurt the market, like a weakening dollar and word of a drastically higher federal budget deficit, had little or no influence on stock prices, an indication of market strength. But others said the market's indecisive move higher, as reflected in the Dow average's inability to close above 3,000, showed that many investors are nervous and unwilling to commit money to stocks. ``The only thing that worries me is the lack of volume,'' said Blake Stephens, vice president of over-the-counter trading at Interstate Johnson Lane Securities in Charlotte, N.C. ``If it closes above 3,000 with good volume, you'll see come money come out of the woodwork.'' Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 4 to 3 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 868 up, 678 down and 495 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 149.43 million shares, down substantially from the 215.60 million traded the previous session. Among the most prominent issues was IBM, which announced before the market opened that second-quarter earnings rose 5.2 percent from a year earlier, better than many had expected. IBM finished at 122], up 1]. Other technology stocks also did well on strong second-quarter earnings results. NCR, which said earnings advanced 5 percent to a record, jumped 3~ to 68. Banking stocks, considered vulnerable because of the weak real estate market in much of the country, also did surprisingly well on better-than expected earnings results. J.P. Morgan rose 2[ to 37~, and NCNB rose 1} to 36{. But Chase Manhattan, one of the biggest banking companies, fell { to 20} in heavy trading after reporting a 62 percent drop in second-quarter results. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 183.86 million shares. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market rose $12.67 billion, or 0.36 percent, in value. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks rose 0.80 to 201.13. Standard & Poor's industrial index rose 1.99 to 437.37, and S&P's 500-stock composite index hit a record 368.95, up 1.64, eclipsing the 367.40 record set June 4. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market rose 1.16 to 469.60. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 1.59 to 365.58.
AP900409-0050 	X	Three Israeli soldiers have testified that they were told army orders to break the bones of Palestinian detainees came from the upper echelons of the military. The soldiers _ reserve Sgts. Guy Neeman, Amiram Avirosh and Ronen Ferber _ were called as defense witnesses in the court martial of Col. Yehuda Meir, the former commander of Israeli troops in the Nablus area of the West Bank. Meir, 38, who left the army last year, is charged with ordering soldiers to break the limbs of Palestinians taken into custody in the West Bank villages of Beita and Hawwara in January 1988. The trial began last month. Col. Menashe Finkelstein, the army's chief prosecutor, suggested in cross-examination that orders to break bones originated from officers in the field. But last month, Meir was quoted by the Hadashot newspaper as suggesting the orders originated from someone with a higher military rank. ``The entire leadership of the Israeli defense forces from the defense minister through the chief of staff and other commanders ... will have to answer questions they may wish to silence,'' he was quoted as saying. At the third session of his trial, Meir sat impassively, often smiling to himself, as the three soldiers detailed the brutal actions in Beita on Jan. 19 and in Hawarra two days later. According to Avirosh, the Beita incident began when soldiers went to investigate a firebomb attack. He said Meir appealed to village leaders for calm, but gangs of youths blocked the roads and hurled stones. He said the soldiers rounded up 12 Arabs who were handcuffed and in some cases blindfolded, put on a bus and driven out of town. After several miles they were ordered off and ``beaten very badly,'' he said. He said the company commander, identified only as Eldad, told the soldiers after the incident, ``it was not easy for him to give us this order.'' Avirosh recalled Eldad said ``it was immoral, but the order came from high up, I think he said from the defense minister.'' Avirosh referred to Yitzhak Rabin, who resigned as defense minister last month when the Labor Party pulled out of the ruling coalition and brought down the government. On Jan. 19, 1988 Rabin told a news conference the army had orders to quell riots with ``force, power and blows.'' He has denied he authorized soldiers to break prisoners' bones. Rabin's spokesman, Eitan Haber, said Rabin gave permission only to beat demonstrators during pursuit. ``He never said that we should break bones,'' Haber said. ``To beat, to hit, but not to break. He never said break.'' Ferber said the next day the company commander told the unit:``we are going someplace for an unusual action for the purpose of breaking arms and legs. ``He said this was part of a new iron-fist policy and these were not his orders but came from further up. I felt that he himself was unhappy with them.'' According to the testimony, the village leader in Hawwara rounded up Palestinians wanted by the army. Then, enroute to the detention center, the detainees were taken from the bus and beaten with sticks and rifle. Afterward, Ferber said Eldad told the soldiers ``all the other methods that were tried before hadn't worked so we thought that breaking arms and legs would be a longer-lasting deterrent.'' The next day, the unit was told the policy had been nullified.
AP880313-0097 	X	Their confidence undermined by the collapse of their favorite stocks last October, to say nothing about the destruction of pet theories, some analysts are reaching into history for guidance. And those who do so have a tendency to remain bearish. The reason for this isn't difficult to discern, because a retracing of prior declines, such as in 1929, isn't unusual for subsequent rallies. Often, however, those rallies lead only to further collapses. At its post-crash high of 2,072 points a week ago, the Dow Jones industrial average had risen more than 320 points, or 20 percent, from its Oct. 19 bottom of 1,738. The comparison with 1929 is as hard to avoid as it is painful to recall. Four-and-a-half months after the debacle of October 1929 the industrial average had recovered 43 percent of its late 1929 decline, and a bit more than one month later it reached its high for 1930. But, Wright Investors' Service reminds us, ``within seven months all of that recovery was lost, and the downward spiral which would last until July 1932 was resumed.'' While the year 1929 is imprinted on every schoolkid's mind, the further collapse from early 1930 to mid-1932 was several times larger, and at some points along the way the descent was just as precipitous. But history can also be a treacherous guide; while it teaches, it can deceive, too. The years 1929 and 1987 have certain similarities, especially in regard to economic excesses, but the differences are probably more numerous. To begin with, the economy currently shows few signs of collapse, even in spite of some enormous and unpredictable excesses in matters such as budget deficits, credit extension and trade balances. Wright and others point out that today's economy is still creating jobs at a strong level, the service sector is growing, manufacturing has been gaining strength, and after years of decline the nation's exports are increasing. There are few signs of recession. The Conference Board economic model released today shows gross national product rising only 2.1 percent this year, compared with 2.9 percent in 1987. That's anemic to be sure, but still growth. Albert T. Sommers, economic adviser at the board _ an independent group supported largely by business _ says the economy has simply entered an inevitable retrenchment, ``but does not seem poised for a recession.'' In the market itself there are signs of heightened activity, especially regarding stocks of companies that are takeover targets. Merger mania has gripped the marketplace once more, and some of the premiums offered for companies seem beyond reason. Less obvious, however, have been areas of underpricing in the market. Business Week magazine calls the over-the-counter market, where many smaller companies are traded, a bargain-hunter's paradise for undervalued shares. These stocks, some of which could be tomorrow's blue chips, failed to rise to the sky during the industrial average's long ascent. Moreover, they fell more sharply than blue chips during the October collapse. Now, many of these stocks are selling far below their net cash value and so have begun attracting the interest of what Wright suggests are rather sensible investors. It might, says John Wright, be a good sign for the entire market. While conceding that such activity might not continue, it suggests to him that for the moment, at least, ``rational investors are regaining some control of the market.''
AP900630-0049 	X	officials said today. To Western eyes, the picture _ which appeared in all of Japan's major newspapers today _ might have seemed to capture a spontaneous and tender gesture by a new bride. But officials of the Imperial Household Agency, the caretakers of the royal family, were horrified. Prince Aya, 24, the youngest son of Emperor Akihito, married graduate student Kiko Kawashima, 23, in an elaborate ceremony on Friday. At an official picture-taking session after the wedding, the newlyweds were preparing to pose with Aya's parents, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. The prince's hair was a little ruffled, and the princess smoothed it. Photographer Toshiaki Nakayama, one of two palace-authorized photographers present, snapped a picture of the fleeting gesture before taking the official portrait. Palace officials called it a betrayal of trust. ``To make an extreme analogy, it's only natural, for instance, that one wouldn't take a picture (of the prince) with his pants down,'' said an agency official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The agency said it was ``uncalled-for to release a picture that was taken by mistake.'' But Nakayama defended the photo. If it was taken ``at the wrong time,'' he asked, ``why didn't the chamberlains standing at my side say something then?'' Nakayama was barred from covering official post-wedding events today, and the agency said the ban may be permanant. Although Nakayama works for the Kyodo news service, the Imperial Household Agency says it considers photographers authorized to take pictures of the royal family as ``semi-employees'' of the palace. Since 1959, the two authorized photographers have been selected from the Tokyo Press Photographers' Association, an organization made of Japan's 11 largest newspapers and wire services. No foreign organizations are members. The palace-authorized photographers take pictures at locations and times dictated by the Imperial Household Agency, and are required to turn over their negatives to the agency. But the agency allows the pictures to be distributed before it checks the negatives. By the time palace officials saw Nakayama's offending photo, it was too late. Nakayama said the photo was the first commemorative picture of the royal family in more than 30 years with the subjects not standing fully face front. Emperor Akihito, who ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne after the death of his father Emperor Hirohito last year, has been credited with trying to soften the rigid and formal image of Japan's imperial family. Princess Kiko, the daughter of a college professor, is only the second commoner ever to marry into the imperial family.
AP881216-0025 	X	A woman physician who has been jailed for 16 months for refusing to allow her ex-husband to visit their daughter has lost a bid to be released. Superior Court Judge Herbert B. Dixon said Thursday that additional jail time may yet convince Dr. Elizabeth Morgan to change her position. ``This court is convinced that the coercion has only begun,'' Dixon said. ``As each day passes, the waste of Dr. Morgan's personal and professional life becomes more apparent.'' Dixon jailed Morgan on contempt of court charges in August 1987, when she hid her then-5-year-old daughter, Hilary, rather than allow her to go on a court-ordered visit with her father, northern Virginia oral surgeon Eric Foretich. Morgan alleged that Foretich had sexually abused Hilary repeatedly in the past and would do so again. Morgan's attorneys argued that because Morgan firmly believed Foretich would abuse the girl, the ``coercive'' intent of jailing her clearly had failed. Dixon, however, noting that Morgan's plastic surgery practice has been closed, said the personal costs of further incarceration might convince her to allow Foretich visitation rights under one of several compromises issued by his attorney. ``She has the opportunity to break this impasse, but as time passes that opportunity may be lost,'' Dixon said. ``She holds the keys to her freedom.'' Dixon said that at some undetermined future date, he might free Morgan if he concludes that the coercive intent of the contempt jailing has failed. ``That could be in a month, that could be in a year,'' Dixon said. ``But it could be more than that.'' Morgan, dressed in bright orange prison coveralls, sat motionless as Dixon read his ruling. Afterward, she quietly thanked her attorneys before being led off by a U.S. marshal. ``I think what we saw here today is the ugly face of the law,'' said Stephen Sachs, one of Morgan's attorneys. Hilary remains hidden at an undisclosed location. During the two-day hearing that preceded Dixon's ruling, Morgan rebuffed numerous questions about the child, saying only that she was ``healthy, happy and healing.'' Morgan said she decided to hide Hilary only after the girl repeatedly complained of being abused and told therapists she was considering suicide. While she has been in jail, Morgan's home has been sold to pay some of her legal costs. She faces legal debts of about $1.5 million.
AP880714-0220 	X	This is one of a series of periodic reports by Associated Press correspondents on people, places and things in other countries.
AP900805-0031 	X	The cocaine and perjury trial of Mayor Marion Barry has focused attention on race relations in the nation's capital, a city with a 70 percent black population and little recent history of racial strife. ``I think that there is a perception with a substantial number of the population that he is being picked on unfairly,'' said Kenneth Robinson, a local attorney who consulted with Barry's counsel. Robinson is white. ``I think the Barry trial is just another indication that people are very, very sensitive to race and how people are treated,'' said Ethelbert Miller, a poet who teaches at Howard University. Miller is black. A U.S. District Court jury began deliberating the Barry case Thursday afternoon. Two members, both men, are white. One of them has been chosen jury foreman. Barry admits that the trial has brought to the surface ``a simmering amount of polarization and racism that was already there.'' Some blacks agree with Barry's claim that he was the target of overzealous white prosecutors. Others feel betrayed by the mayor, who had claimed repeatedly that he didn't use drugs. ``The majority of whites are just plain annoyed and angry and just want this guy to go,'' D.C. Councilman Jim Nathanson said before the trial began. Nathanson, who is white, represents a predominantly white district. For all the talk about racial polarization, Barry is the one who was often credited with cooling the tempers that erupted after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Ten people died, 1,191 were reported injured and 7,650 were arrested in the city's worst riots. Washington was then 63 percent black. Some black leaders, Jesse L. Jackson among them, have suggested that the climate exists for a resurgence of racial violence in Washington if Barry is convicted. Barry himself said it will not. ``Those who would even talk about that don't represent me, don't represent what I stand for,'' he told reporters last week. ``You obviously don't realize that we have grown as a people the last 20 years. We will not destroy that which we have worked so hard to build up.'' ``To equate this to the violence that would occur when a white man killed Martin Luther King is asinine,'' Robinson said. ``People will talk about it in bars and on the street, but I just don't believe that it is going to happen.'' ``Some of the noise that you hear is sort of par for the course,'' said Sam Smith, the white publisher of the Progressive Review, a Washington opinion journal. ``It's just that more people are paying attention to it now.'' The presiding judge in the trial, Thomas Penfield Jackson, is white. One of the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Retchin, is white. The other, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Roberts, is black. Barry's lawyer, R. Kenneth Mundy, is black. Barry has called the case ``a political lynching'' and a case of ``satanic, dirt-like tactics.'' Jackson called it part of an ``ugly pattern'' of ``white judicial leadership attacking black political leadership.'' NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks voiced a similar complaint. U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens said he believes in trying cases ``regardless of who the person is or what the political priorities are.'' The mayor and his allies have also sharply criticized news media coverage of the case. Abdul Alim Muhammad, a Muslim who is running for Congress in suburban Prince George's County, Md., said, ``What we are witnessing in D.C. is like an electronic lynching. In some respects, the media are no better than the red-necked tobacco chewing members of the Ku Klux Klan.'' Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, has shown his support for Barry by attending the trial despite efforts by the judge to have him barred as ``potentially disruptive.'' Barry, who broke into politics as a street organizer in the civil rights movement, has been mayor for 12 years. He is not seeking re-election, and six candidates are running to succeed him. When one of them, City Council Chairman David Clarke, was introduced at a rally for black South African leader Nelson Mandela, he was booed by members of the mostly black audience. Clarke is white. Although he still has a loyal following, especially among poor blacks, Barry is increasingly viewed as an embarrassment by members of Washington's large black middle class. Long-time civil rights advocate and educator Roger Wilkins, a past political supporter of the mayor, wrote recently in The Washington Post: ``Marion Barry used the elders and lied to the young. He has manipulated thousands of others with his cynical use of charges of racism to defend his malodorous personal failures.'' Robert Woodson, president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, said Barry ``has certainly created a racial situation out of something that I do not think was. He is exploiting tensions and in some cases creating tensions that otherwise would not have existed.'' Woodson, who is black, was a member of a White House council on private sector initiatives in the Reagan administration. The Rev. James Bevel, a Barry supporter who conducted prayer meetings in a tent outside the courthouse through much of the trial, said; ``It is not affecting basic race relationships or hostilities in black folks toward white people. I don't see that in the people I'm around.'' The Rev. A. Knighton Stanley, the black pastor of People's Congregational Church, said he avoids raising the issue of possible violence. ``Am I uneasy? My answer is yes,'' said Stanley. ``My judgment is we will not have it, and my prayer is that my judgment is right.''
AP880706-0275 	X	Prenatal care, which regularly checks an expectant mother's pulse, blood pressure, weight and nutrition, costs $800 to $1,200. After birth, a month's stay in a neonatal intensive care unit can cost $300,000. Marjorie Gish, a registered nurse at the Lamb's Church prenatal care clinic, said the plight of the city's homeless, pregnant women reminded her of her Peace Corps days in a Mayan village in Belize, where shoeless women walked through open pigsties and bathed in a stream. There, however, the chief, convinced of the need, ordered pregnant women to get regular checkups _ a power that no authority wields in the largest city in the world's wealthiest nation. ``Care was more readily available in the village. The homeless and pregnant in New York are probably worse off than the women receiving care in Third World countries,'' said Mrs. Gish. The children who survive have dim prospects of a normal life. ``They are the closest things you can find to refugee populations in underdeveloped countries,'' said Dr. Irwin Redlener of New York Hospital, which provides pediatric care for the homeless through donations by singer Paul Simon and New York Yankees slugger Don Mattingly. ``They are disenfranchised, cut off and undernourished. A lot of kids are not going to recover from the psychological trauma they've experienced,'' Redlener said. ``You end up with a lost generation of children,'' said Stephen Banks, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society. The average homeless, pregnant woman is 27 years old, a high school dropout who has two or three kids already. Sixty-seven percent are black; 27 percent are Hispanic. Like all homeless, they qualify for Medicaid. Patricia Smith, four months pregnant, has an 8-year-old daughter and 6-month-old son. Everyone in her family has asthma. She had just spent three nights in three different hotels. ``I'm a walking zombie,'' said Mrs. Smith, 37, clutching a dog-eared prayer book to her bosom. ``It's like you're falling and there's no bottom and there's nothing to catch on to. ``It makes me feel like I'm a failure. People treat you like you're nothing,'' she said. ``I'm always petrified. I've chased rats as big as alley cats away from my children. But I have no place else to go.'' Frustrated social workers offer prenatal care but expectant mothers don't actively seek it. Some skip sessions to keep their Medicaid appointments, which can take two weeks to reschedule. Others loathe standing in line for hours and filling out forms at hospital clinics. ``We knock on doors in the hotels,'' said Barbara Conanan, director of the homeless project at St. Vincent's Hospital, which has a van to drive patients to clinics or gives them transit tokens to make it easier to get care. ``You have to reach out. Some don't understand the need for prenatal care. Many of them never sought it for their other children. There's a real lack of education,'' Ms. Conanan said. In a pilot program, a team from Bellevue Hospital identifies and registers pregnant women at the Prince George Hotel. The city then pays their way to and from the hospital for checkups. In addition, the city's Department of Health has clinics inside three hotels, which offer convenience but lack such amenities as private exam rooms found in a hospital or doctor's office. The state Bureau of Reproductive Health also has a $100,000 medical van that dispenses prenatal care at five sites. Living in a hotel may sound downright cozy, especially when a room costs taxpayers an average $2,000 a month or $23,725 a year; that's enough to rent a spacious apartment or make a down payment on a house. Half the bill is paid by the federal government; the other half is split by the city and state. In New York, however, the money most commonly rents space in warehouses of despair such as the Martinique, Prince George, Holland and Allerton hotels. Expectant mothers and children are especially vulnerable in these hostile incubators. Drug dealers recruit homeless children as lookouts and couriers, according to city council's Select Committee on the Homeless. Other kids sit in hallways at night while their mothers deal sex for crack, hotel residents said. Some hotels are brothels, the committee said. By day, hookers rent rooms by the hour. When business drops off at night, the homeless move back in. The beds are called hot sheets because nobody stays on them too long. Jacqueline Macklin, 31, a hotel resident since 1984, sent her 11-year-old twin daughters to live in Philadelphia with their grandmother in 1987 after they saw a security guard shot dead by another guard in the Holland Hotel. ``There's nothing a kid doesn't see in here,'' said Mrs. Macklin, herself a recovering crack addict. ``It's a picture of the worst of our civilization,'' said Robert Hayes, founder of the Coalition for the Homeless. ``It's an abandonment of the most fragile people to the most devastating of environments, and then we wonder why these kids are so irreparably harmed,'' Hayes said. ``It's insane as well as cruel to leave a woman in a situation that will result in a sick baby.''
AP900531-0088 	X	A court-appointed trustee overseeing the sale of Jim Bakker's bankrupt empire today asked a judge to approve a $7 million bid by a California minister for the PTL television network. Morris Cerullo, head of Worldwide Evangelism Inc. of San Diego, agreed to purchase PTL's remaining assets if he could be guaranteed the cable network, trustee Dennis Shedd told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Thurmond Bishop. Cerullo, 58, an Assemblies of God pastor, has an organization with branches in Great Britain, Canada, Israel and Zimbabwe. In 1978, he unveiled plans for a $100 million ``world outreach center'' in San Diego, but unlike Bakker's Heritage USA complex 10 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., it never materialized. Earlier this month, evangelist Oral Roberts signed a $6.45 million contract that gave him the right to buy the cable network unless someone else bid more or agreed to buy all of PTL's assets as a package deal. In urging Bishop to approve the sale of the network to Cerullo, Shedd did not mention whether Cerullo had signed a contract for other PTL assets. The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reported today that Cerullo signed a $52 million contract Wednesday that included Heritage USA, PTL's former religious theme park and retreat in Fort Mill. Also Wednesday, Cerullo deposited $7 million in an escrow account for the network, said Brad Leggett, an attorney representing Shedd. Shedd has said that any offer he accepts must be paid in full at the time of the sale, not paid over time. It was not clear whether the reported $52 million price included the $7 million for the television network. Shedd would not answer questions during a recess called so he could confer with attorneys. Cable television's Home Box Office had asked the Bankruptcy Court to block Shedd's deal with Roberts, because it doubted Roberts could make the $242,000 monthly payments for the use of a satellite HBO provides for PTL. PTL has been in bankruptcy proceedings since June 1987, three months after Bakker resigned in the sex-and-money scandal that led up to his 45-year federal prison term for fraud and conspiracy. Although the PTL network still carries other evangelists' taped programs, Heritage USA, where Bakker had his studios and church, has been closed since September. The 500-acre retreat near Fort Mill also has five restaurants, a $10 million water park and two 500-room hotels, one of them unfinished. It includes about 1,700 undeveloped acres. Last year, Toronto businessman Stephen Mernick failed to close on a $65 million deal to buy PTL with bank financing. The lenders wanted title insurance for Heritage USA, and Mernick could not obtain it because of a Catawba Indian lawsuit claiming 144,000 acres of land, including the Heritage USA site, was illegally sold to the state in 1840.
AP900512-0139 	X	The Air Force's stealth fighter, cloaked in secrecy for years, dazzled about 50,000 people Saturday afternoon at an air show. The $42.6 million fighter, designed to fly undetected by enemy radar, opened the show by soaring over the Westmoreland County Airport, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. ``It's nice to see your tax dollars at work,'' said John Sarver, 38. ``I'd paid for it,'' said William Alexander Jr., 65. ``I wanted to see what I'm paying for.'' The dark-colored aircraft passed over the crowd, banked to the right, circled over nearby St. Vincent College, then returned to the airport's main runway with it landing lights on. It dropped to about 500 feet above the main runway, engines screaming, before climbing and circling once again. The fighter, known as an F-117A, repeated the maneuver before disappearing into an overcast sky southwest of the airport. Air Force officials said the appearance of the aircraft contributed to a near-record, one-day attendance. The fighter was flown from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Stealth fighters are scheduled to appear at several air shows this summer, including Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Langley and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, said Capt. Kevin Baggett, spokesman for the Air Force Tactical Air Command at Langley. The F-117A costs more than $100 million a copy, according to a recent report by the General Accounting Office. The Air Force gave a figure of $42.6 million _ the so-called fly-away cost of one plane, without counting development costs for the program.
AP901130-0120 	X	The resignation of Bulgaria's Socialist premier calmed raging anti-Communist sentiment, but it hasn't done anything to solve the country's deep economic and political crisis. Unrelenting pressure from the opposition in Parliament and from strikes and street demonstrations forced Premier Andrei Lukanov and his government of former Communists to leave office on Thursday. Tens of thousands of people cheered in the streets of Sofia, an opposition stronghold. But Lukanov's demise may prove a Pyrrhic victory. The main opposition group, the Union of Democratic Forces, must now prove it can help solve Bulgaria's social and economic woes. ``Not even Jesus can fill Bulgarian stores,'' Lukanov said in a recent speech. A new coalition government probably will be announced next week. So far, nothing has been revealed about who will head it, whether it will be a collection of nonpolitical experts or draw in equal numbers on opposition parties and the still-powerful Socialists. The Union of Democratic Forces opposition had long criticized Lukanov for mismanagement, demanding that he step down. But it is questionable whether anybody could manage Bulgaria's economy, which is so dependent on the collapsing Soviet bloc that it can only reflect the chaos of that disintegrating alliance. The opposition case against Lukanov always seemed to rest more on a desire to get the former Communists out of office. The opposition, and many of its Western supporters, seemed convinced it would win June elections. When the Socialists won, the opposition formally accepted the result, but has seemed unable to live with it since. Street demonstrations got under way almost immediately, with students around the country occupying universities to force the resignation of Socialist President Petar Mladenov. Mladenov bowed to the pressure in early July. Then it took three weeks of Byzantine political wrangling to get Zhelyu Zhelev, formerly the opposition leader, appointed president. Lukanov, seen by observers as one of the few capable politicians in Bulgaria, was widely credited with persuading the Socialists to accept Zhelev. But the opposition never came through with the tacitly implied second part of the deal: agreement to join the former Communists in Lukanov's government. Backed by some Western diplomats, the opposition apparently felt the Socialists were a spent political force bound to disintegrate. For his part, Lukanov refused to break with the Socialist Party, arguing that it stood for his social democratic ideals. Lukanov eventually appointed an all-Socialist government but continued to battle for broad support, arguing this was vital to a vague but sweeping program of economic reform. Meanwhile, the economy and society slid into chaos. Electricity and food rationing began in Sofia and other cities in September. Stores have grown barer since. Power is now shut off two hours in every four in the capital. The worst outburst of violence came in late August, when an angry crowd invaded Socialist Party headquarters, burning and pillaging several offices. Last week, the opposition took the decisive step of walking out of Parliament. A general strike by the main opposition union this week proved the final blow to the Socialist government. Although the political parties are said to have agreed on a transition government until new elections are held in May, there is virtually no evidence of political unity. The Socialist Party draws on 100 years of tradition and is even older than the Soviet Communist movement, but remains severely split. The unwieldy opposition coalition of 16 parties also is deeply divided, and boasts few figures of Lukanov's caliber. On Friday, Sofia returned to its bitter reality. The shoppers glumly queuing for food know the new government is unlikely to make life much better. ``Even though I am stepping down, my economic and social program has no alternative,'' Lukanov told the Grand National Assembly in his farewell speech Friday. In his last weeks before resigning, Lukanov pushed for radical market-oriented reforms including an austerity budget that would jack up many state-controlled prices, close down unprofitable firms and introduce guarantees for foreign investments. If Bulgaria does not carry out radical reforms soon, it could find itself lagging far behind ``the European train'' of change, Lukanov told reporters. ``I'm afraid we have already missed the train,'' he added. --- EDITORS: Veselin Toshkov, AP correspondent in Sofia, has worked in posts in Bulgaria and abroad for 15 years.
AP901212-0092 	X	Scores of former American hostages are giving the U.S. government valuable information about conditions inside Kuwait and Iraq over the past four months, officials say. One former hostage says he made a diagram of the strategic site in Iraq where he was held as a ``human shield.'' About three-fourths of the hostages have voluntarily submitted to debriefing sessions with officials from the State Department and the military. ``Hundreds have been interviewed and hundreds more have agreed to be interviewed,'' Joe Reap, a State Department spokesman, said Tuesday. Another U.S. official said the government is interested in information on the Americans remaining in the two countries, and ``anything else they might have seen while they were there and they might want to pass on.'' Miles Hoffman, 33, of Roswell, Ga., said he spent eight to 10 hours earlier this month with Air Force intelligence officers who quizzed him about his captivity in Kuwait and Iraq. Hoffman, a money manager in Kuwait, was evacuated in mid-November because he needed a bone graft on his arm, which had been hit by a bullet. He said he had been one of the ``human shields'' confined to two strategic sites in Iraq. ``I diagrammed the actual site,'' Hoffman said. The State Department said the debriefing sessions are voluntary for the returning hostages who are private citizens. They have no obligation to submit to interviews with the government. On the airplane home, the evacuees were handed a piece of paper asking if they would like to provide information to the U.S. government. Special teams are sent to question those who agree. Some former hostages, however, said they have had no contact with the U.S. government. Bobby Parker, 49, of Vidor, Texas, said he was a ``human shield'' at a military installation about 25 miles north of Baghdad. Parker arrived in Houston on Sunday on a flight arranged by former Gov. John Connally. Parker said the installation was teeming with soldiers, rockets, helicopters and other military equipment. ``I think it was a repair facility,'' he said in a telephone interview. But Parker, who worked for Kuwait Drilling Co., said no one has approached him to tell his story. He received a call Sunday from Rep. Charles Wilson, D-Texas, who helped arrange for Parker's son, Eric, 25, to return home for a temporary leave from his assignment in Saudi Arabia with the Army. Dawn Bazner of Palm Desert, Calif., said U.S. officials were keen to talk to her about the ``attitude of the Iraqis'' and other Americans when she left the country in September. But she said her husband, Mark, hasn't talked with anyone since he returned Sunday. About 510 American citizens, most of them children with dual citizenship, have opted to remain in Kuwait and Iraq, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said today. The final American chartered flight is scheduled to leave early Thursday, with about 15 Americans from Iraq on board, including the last remaining person who was a ``human shield.'' The State Department has not made a final decision on whether five diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait will be on the flight, he said. That will be made when officials determine there are no other Americans who want out in Kuwait. After the U.S.-chartered flight end, Americans could presumably get out of Kuwait on regular Iraqi airways flights that have begun between Kuwait City and Baghdad, he said. Since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, the U.S. government has evacuated 2,520 American citizens and their family members on 13 chartered flights. Americans whose paychecks were halted after the invasion are eligible to apply for financial aid from the U.S. government. Congress passed a $10 million aid plan in October. The former hostages can draw the equivalent of $24,705 a year, pro-rated for the length of time they had been held captive. In addition, they and their families were granted federal health benefits and life insurance for the duration of the hostages' stay plus one year. The State Department released the regulations on how to apply for the money last week.
AP900306-0039 	X	Nicaragua is shopping for international aid for its incoming democratic government, and U.S. officials say they'll have a proposal ready to send President Bush within two weeks. Representatives of President-elect Violeta Chamorro, declaring their intention to seek aid from Japan and Western Europe, said Monday the Soviet Union has agreed to continue the economic assistance it gave to the Sandinista regime of President Daniel Ortega. Pedro Chamorro, son of the newly elected Nicaraguan leader, told reporters at the State Department: ``The Soviets assure us that they are going to help Nicaragua; they are going to honor their commitments.'' Commenting after a meeting with Secretary of State James A. Baker III and other ranking officials, Chamorro said that while Soviet arms are no longer needed or wanted, continued imports of Soviet oil are vital to Nicaragua's recovery. Chamorro and other political and economic advisers to Mrs. Chamorro plan further talks with government officials and with representatives of international lending institutions. Bernard Aronson, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, said a package of recommendations will be sent to Bush within the next two weeks, spelling out what the United States can do to help. The U.S. economic embargo imposed against the Sandinista regime likely will be lifted before Mrs. Chamorro's inauguration as president on April 25, Aronson said. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that to clear the way for U.S. aid to Nicaragua, Congress must agree to waive a law barring new assistance to a nation already in debt to the United States. He said there will be concerns about setting a precedent but added: ``I think there is a general recognition in both houses of Congress and in both parties that Nicaragua needs some immediate help.'' Chamorro and two other advisers to the new government _ Alfredo Cesar and Francisco Mayorga _ said no requests were made for a specific level of U.S. aid. Dollar figures will be discussed later, they said. Chamorro and Mayargo said the situation is complicated by the fact that the Sandinista government held economic data as a state secret. As a result, the full dimensions of Nicaragua's needs may not be known for some time, they said. Mayorga said, however, that ``hundreds of millions of dollars'' will be sought from all sources, including the United States. ``We expect the entire international community to contribute,'' he said. The Bush administration made clear that it also expects substantial help for Nicaragua from the international community, including Japan and Europe. ``The aid question is being worked on currently,'' said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. ``We have optimism that the European allies, as well as the Soviet Union and Japan, are willing to help.'' Mrs. Chamorro's government _ which defeated Ortega and his leftists at the polls on Feb. 25 _ will replace the Sandinistas, whose overthrow the United States was unable to accomplish with military support for Contra rebels. Although the administration has pledged meaningful U.S. aid levels for Nicaragua, the final scope of the assistance package likely will be dictated by budget constraints and the needs of other fledgling democracies emerging in Eastern Europe. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles foreign aid, told reporters: ``There is a long line forming outside the door on that score. ... We need to be cautious about the kind of direct financial investments we are going to be asked to make at a time when we have limited resources.''
AP881224-0057 	X	An oil tanker with 34 men aboard broke its mooring and drifted for five hours in the stormy North Sea today before two tugboats chased it down and began towing it back to Scotland. The tugboats attached lines to the tanker about 200 miles east of the port of Dundee, a coast guard spokesman in Aberdeen said. The tanker's engines were removed when it was permanently moored in the North Sea as a storage facility where smaller tankers picked up oil, so it drifted in strong winds and turbulent seas. The vessel was moored at a loading point in the Fulmar oil field when it broke from its mooring about 5:30 a.m. in 15-foot waves and 60 mph winds and began drifting to the southeast, said the spokesman, who demanded anonymity.
AP900525-0243 	X	National Semiconductor Corp. said Friday it signed a pact with NEC Corp. to sell one of the Japanese company's leading edge computer memory chips and explore deals in marketing, manufacturing and technology. The initial agreement between the two electronic giants covers Tokyo-based NEC's high-volume SRAM chips _ a static random access memory device with 256,000 bytes of memory. ``This agreement broadens our memory products portfolio to include SRAM products required by manufacturers of a variety of communications products,'' said John Hekking, vice president of National Semiconductor's memory division. Hajime Sasaki, vice president of NEC's semiconductor group, said the agreement will contribute to the company's memory products business, ``but more importantly, it will promote NEC's policy of international cooperation.'' National Semiconductor said it would begin offering the NEC memory devices in July. ``It's just one more step in the partnering in the semiconductor industry,'' said analyst Daniel L. Kleskin of Prudential Bache Research in San Francisco. ``Texas Instruments and Intel also are selling Japanese chips. It's a recognition by them, and others, that a semiconductor company can't be all things to all people. But they need to provide a full line to their customers, so it makes sense to work with other companies to provide products they don't have.'' Kleskin said the National Semiconductor-NEC pact ``can be a win-win deal.'' ``There's not a high margin of profits for National because NEC has to make a profit, but the risk is minimal because they don't have to build a plant to make the chips,'' he said. ``For NEC, which is about a $5 billion company, it's a very small deal ... But it shows a willingness to work with American companies.''
AP881007-0105 	X	A message the opposition says was sent by the office of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski to Communist Party leaders in factories restates the authorities' public stance against legalizing Solidarity. But the telexed message left open the possibility of changing the trade union law after talks this month between Solidarity leaders and the government. The message was dated Sept. 26. A Solidarity spokesman today said he was not concerned about the message and Solidarity would enter the talks anyway. He said it was significant that it was addressed to party cells and not to factory managers. ``We are not running away from a discussion about the shape of the union movement, but we think that it must take into account the fact that the union question is an element of a broader problem of the functioning of the political system,'' the message said. Government spokesman Ryszard Straus said today he could not confirm or deny the authenticity of the text, read over the telephone to Western news agencies by Solidarity activists late Thursday. But the official PAP news service later ran a one-sentence report saying the ``secret document'' quoted by Western news agencies ``does not exist.'' The text contained nothing new on the government's position regarding Solidarity, but it underlined the degree of concern over Solidarity chapters springing up openly in many factories on the eve of the promised talks. It urged party leaders to draw pro-Solidarity activists into officially sanctioned unions, giving them proportional representation in official union leaderships and making the official unions reflect workers' demands. At the same time, the message warned against allowing the opposition to make gains of its own on the factory floors. ``The main real danger ... is the rebirth of Solidarity structures as they existed in 1981, that is, as a party of strikes and confrontation. This is what we must all focus our attention on,'' the message said. The government and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa agreed to the talks on Poland's future during a wave of strikes in August. The talks are expected to begin around Oct. 17. The opposition has stressed that the talks must result in recognition of Solidarity, suppressed by authorities since a Dec. 13, 1981, martial-law crackdown. The government has said repeatedly that it will not agree to any arrangement that would bring divisions on the factory floor and that it supports the principle of one union in one workplace. According to the text read by Solidarity, the telex was from Stanislaw Domagala, the head of the chancellory of the party Central Committee secretariat, and was addressed to first secretaries of party committees at the nation's factories. Solidarity spokesmen did not disclose how they received the document.
AP881219-0066 	X	Two American Peace Corps volunteers were killed when their car crashed down a mountainside in South Africa, U.S. officials said today. Juanita Quiton, 39, of Portland, Ore.; and Brenda Sue Crawford, 27, of Frostburg, Md., were killed Friday afternoon while on their way to a vacation in Zimbabwe, said Peace Corps officials who held a memorial service for them today. They had worked in Swaziland, a small mountain kingdom bordered on three sides by South Africa and on the fourth by Mozambique. Zimbabwe is to the north. The service was in Mbabane, the Swaziland capital. Two American men were traveling in the car with the women, but embassy officials did not have their names and did not know who was driving. The men were not injured. Officials said the car failed to complete a turn on a moutain road and plunged 450 feet down the hillside near the South African town of Belfast. Miss Crawford had worked since June 1987 with the Swaziland Department of Land Utilization and Natural Resources as an urban planner. Miss Quiton arrived in October 1987 and promoted home-based industry at the Sithobelo Rural Education Center. An embassy official said the bodies were expected to be flown home Tuesday.
AP900402-0100 	X	The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether skyrocketing punitive-damage awards in personal-injury and other cases can go so high they become unconstitutional. In a case of enormous importance to American business and consumers, the court agreed to hear arguments in an Alabama insurance-fraud case that yielded a jury award of over $1 million. The court must decide whether punitive damages aimed at punishing wrongdoers and deterring similar misconduct may be so large in some cases that they are fundamentally unfair. A ruling is expected sometime in 1991. In other action, the court: _Refused to expose car manufacturers to product-liability lawsuits for not installing air bags. Suits against General Motors, Honda and Nissan Motor Corp. were thrown out by lower courts and the justices declined to review them. _Left intact a ruling that airlines say could impede mergers. The justices, in a case stemming from Delta Air Lines' acquisition of Western Airlines in 1986, refused to shield Delta from binding arbitration in a dispute with the union that had represented Western's flight attendants. _Turned down an appeal by a Massachusetts church that said its religious freedom will be violated if state approval is required for the curriculum of a school it runs. The court last year ruled that huge awards in civil lawsuits, often millions of dollars, do not violate the Constitution's ban on excessive fines. But the justices left open the possibility that such awards may be so disproportionate to the actual harm suffered that they violate due-process rights. The Constitution says states may not deprive anyone of property without due process of law. Those seeking to limit awards say due process prohibits unlimited discretion by judges and juries. Business leaders for years have clashed with lawyers and consumer groups over the legitimacy of huge judgments in civil cases. Those who oppose the big-money awards say they squelch American competitiveness and development of new products, particularly new forms of medical treatment, by discouraging risk-taking. They say juries capriciously penalize the wealthy to help those who have suffered serious injuries, particularly if the wrongdoer is a giant corporation. On the other side, consumer activists and trial lawyers say punitive damages are a powerful deterrent to corporate greed that can threaten public safety and well-being. They say smaller compensatory awards may be viewed by larger corporations as an acceptable cost of doing business. Recent studies show the size of punitive damages has climbed dramatically in recent years. Some state legislatures, reacting to soaring insurance rates, have put caps on how much money can be recovered in personal-injury cases. Those laws are not at issue directly in the case acted on Monday. The justices will hear an appeal by Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co., found by a jury to have been responsible for fraud by one of its agents, Lemmie Ruffin. The company denied it had sanctioned Ruffin's conduct. Lower court records said employees of Roosevelt City, Ala., paid health insurance premiums to Ruffin, which he pocketed. Cleopatra Haslip, a city worker who had been paying premiums, learned her insurance had lapsed after she incurred $2,500 in hospital and medical bills in 1982. The hospital demanded $600 before agreeing to discharge her, and her doctor eventually turned her case over to a collection agency. Her credit also suffered from her inability to pay the bills. Mrs. Haslip and other members of the insurance plan sued Pacific Mutual and Ruffin. A jury in 1987 awarded her $1,040,000. Three other Roosevelt City employees were awarded a total of $38,000. It is not clear from records filed with the Supreme Court how much of the money was intended to compensate the workers for actual losses and how much was designed to punish the insurance company. The Alabama Supreme Court upheld the awards last year, saying, ``Jury verdicts are presumed correct, and that presumption is strengthened when the presiding judge refuses to grant a new trial.'' Pacific Mutual said its constitutional rights were violated because the jury was allowed to award damages ``as a matter of moral discretion without adequate standards as to the amount necessary to punish and deter.'' The company also contended it is the victim of unfair discrimination because Alabama law imposes a cap on punitive damages in some cases.
AP900314-0189 	X	Sotheby's Holdings Inc. said Wednesday its earnings for 1989 climbed 82 percent from a year earlier, while another fine arts auction house, Christies International PLC, reported a 61 percent earnings increase. Sotheby's, which announced its earnings in New York, said its net income came to $113 million, or $1.96 a share, in 1989 compared with $62 million, or $1.10 a share, in 1988. Sotheby's said its revenue rose 40 percent to $445 million from $317 million in 1988. For the fourth quarter, net income increased 94 percent to $62 million, or $1.07 a share, from $32 million, or 56 cents a share, a year earlier. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 48 percent to $200 million from $135 million. Michael Ainslie, Sotheby's president, said in a statement that the results showed ``we have further strengthened our leadership postion in the international art market.'' Sotheby's auction sales rose 62 percent to $2.95 billion for the year and 76 percent to $1.49 billion for the quarter. Christies said in London that its net profit for the year came to 40 million pounds, or $64 million, compared with 24.8 million pounds in 1988. Earnings per share came to 23.4 pence, or 38 cents, compared with 14.8 pence. Christies said its pre-tax profit rose 57 percent to 66.9 million pounds, or $108 million, from 42.5 million pounds. Sales soared 71 percent to 1.33 billion pounds, or $2.1 billion, from 777 million pounds in 1988. Christies Chairman Lord Carrington said sales in 1990 are ahead of a year ago. Growth in the breadth of interest in art, he said, allows the company to ``look forward to the 1990s with optimism.'' Christies didn't break out quarterly or six month results. It isn't required to under British law.
AP881109-0294 	X	Northern Ireland's police force agreed Wednesday to pay $1.6 million in compensation to 310 policewomen who alleged sex discrimination by Chief Constable Sir John Hermon. The Northern Ireland Police Federation said Hermon refused to renew the officers' contracts on the grounds they could not carry out full policing duties. But Hermon would not allow them to bear firearms or be trained in their use, it said. The police officers' association said the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the British province's regular police force, agreed to pay the compensation in an out-of-court settlement. The women, former and current part-time and full-time members of the RUC Reserve Force, took their case to an industrial tribunal in Belfast in 1982. Their claim followed the introduction of a policy to phase out full-time women reservists in 1980 and then, two years later, to restrict duties of part-time members of the force. The Police Federation said it was delighted with the award. ``Our support for our women colleagues has been vindicated,'' said a spokesman, who declined to be identified in keeping with British practice. One policewomen, who asked that her name not be used for security reasons, said: ``Naturally we are over the moon. This has been a six-year battle, and it has been a long fight, but at the end of the day it has been worth it.''
AP900706-0107 	X	Communist North Korea on Friday offered to open a small stretch of its border to promote unification with South Korea, but its capitalist rival dismissed the gesture as insignificant. The Communist overture came as the prime ministers of the two nations prepared to hold historic talks, perhaps as early as August. North Korea announced it would open the northern sector of Panmunjom, a border village, on Aug. 15, according to Naewoe Press, a semi-official South Korean news agency that specializes in Communist affairs. North Korea said the opening, about 800 yards long and 500 yards wide, was aimed at promoting unification of the Korean peninsula and urged South Korea to do the same, according to Naewoe. ``For successful progress of contact and visits between the north and the south, we will open the portion of our side ... and hope that the south side will take a corresponding measure,'' the agency quoted the Communist government as saying. The opening, however, would not permit foreigners to travel inland, past the perimeter of Panmunjom, a truce village that straddles part of the 155-mile border between the two Koreas. The village is jointly controlled by North Korea and a United Nations Command, comprising the United States and 15 other countries that fought with South Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War. No civilians may enter the area from either side without approval. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it had not been officially notified of the north's plans and would not comment on whether anyone would be allowed to cross the border. But a government spokesman said on condition of anonymity that North Korea's move was ``insignificant'' because it affected only a small, restricted section of the heavily fortified border. Other officials said the move was aimed at dividing opinions in South Korea, where dissidents are pushing for free contacts with their Communist neighbors. The South Korean opposition welcomed the announcement. Dissidents asked Seoul to allow 300 people to meet with North Koreans at the border village Aug. 15, the day in 1945 that Korea was freed from Japanese colonial rule. But a spokesman for South Korea's umbrella dissident group, Chonminyon, said the Seoul response had been negative. The South Korean government bans unauthorized border talks with North Korea. After a five-month suspension, South Korean and North Korean officials have been meeting to discuss an accord that would outline terms for the first talks between their prime ministers. On Tuesday, the Koreas agreed in principle to hold the prime ministers' meeting, possibly in August in Seoul. They agreed to adopt a formal accord July 26. Talks have been held sporadically between the two Koreas, but little progress had been made until recently. The border on both sides is heavily fortified and sealed, blocking exchanges of mail and transportation. North Korea is one of the last totalitarian Communist states, and sweeping changes in Eastern Europe and its socialist allies have made little impact. The two Koreas are still technically at war. No peace treaty has been signed since the three-year Korean War ended in 1953.
AP880518-0014 	X	U.S. Postal inspectors arrested 10 employees for drug trafficking through the Dallas Main Post Office Tuesday night, following a nine-month undercover investigation. Postal Inspector Jim Travell said authorities are still looking for two more employees who were indicted for selling and distributing marijuana and cocaine at the postal processing center. ``The indictments were handed down by a Dallas grand jury and charged each postal worker with selling drugs to agents who worked in an undercover capacity at the facility,'' said Travell, of Fort Worth. Sealed indictments were handed down April 28, Travell said, but they were not unsealed until Tuesday to allow authorities time to organize the arrests. Those arrested are mail handlers or processors and distribution clerks who worked two evening shifts processing mail through the Dallas facility, Travell said. ``They worked different shifts and we have no reason to believe there was a conspiracy between them,'' Travell said. The employees, who have one to 10 years experience with the postal service, were arrested for selling between a quarter-ounce to several pounds of marijuana or between a half-gram to a quarter-ounce of cocaine in any one sale to the undercover officers, Travell said. ``The largest sale we did was $1,000,'' Travell said. ``Most of them ranged from $25 to $1,000 a sale. The jist of the investigation was dealers, not users.'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Webster of Dallas said the employees face pentalties of 5 years to 15 years in prison and fines of $150,000 to $200,000. Travell said inspectors were alerted to a drug trafficking problem among the 4,000 workers at the facility by employees. ``Fellow employees are starting to be fed-up with this type of behavior,'' Travell said.
AP880914-0226 	X	Nightclubs and nudity are banned on this island where tradition holds that St. John wrote the New Testament's Book of Revelation in a cave overlooking the Aegean Sea. Under a special government decree, Patmos has a unique status among Greece's 200 or so inhabited islands as a ``holy island'' still dominated by its 900-year-old Byzantine monastery. ``We prefer our visitors to be pilgrims rather than ordinary tourists and we would like them to respect our tradition,'' Abbot Isidoros, who heads the 30-member community at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, said in an interview. But plans for an airport coupled with widespread publicity for the monastery's 900th anniversary celebrations are expected to bring mass tourism to Patmos in the coming years. The tranquillity of Patmos, a rocky outcrop in the Dodecanese group of islands with around 2,000 residents, attracts wealthy Greeks and foreigners who have restored scores of traditional mansions clustered beneath the monastery's gray fortress-like walls. Many have given donations to the monastery, to help maintain its library of rare manuscripts and early books, along with a collection of priceless icons _ portraits of saints painted in gold and bright colors. ``Patmos is still a place apart, with a unique atmosphere. Unlike other islands, a conscious effort has been made to protect it,'' said Maria King Constantinides, a Boston antiques dealer with a family home there. Signs in Greek, French, German or English scattered around the island's beaches point out that nudity is not allowed. One disco operates on a remote bay, but the narrow alleys around the monastery fall silent by 10 p.m., even in summer. ``People sometimes go topless on the beaches, but ... on the whole the rules are respected,'' said Christos Kyrozis, the island's doctor and also its mayor. The development project planned by Greece's state tourist organization EOT, together with the monastery and town authorities, calls for construction of an airport, zoning for new hotels and bungalows and improved harbor facilities. ``Past experience shows that once an island gets an airport, mass tourism is very difficult to avoid,'' said Eleni Bonou, who heads the project. ``But an airport is essential because it serves the islanders first.'' More than 30,000 visitors come to Patmos every year, but two-thirds of them arrive aboard cruise ships that steam away before sunset after a few hours' stay. On an island too barren to grow its own food, visitors are the only source of income apart from fishing. ``There's a delicate balance to be kept between God and mammon on this island,'' Mayor Kyrozis said. ``There has to be tourism, but not so much it kills what we have to offer.'' Trained for a more secluded life, the monks say it's already hard work taking turns to supervise the tourists swarming through the monastery museum, its frescoed chapels and stone colonnades. ``The sheer numbers of people coming through mean that we're exhausted by the time the season's over and there's time to get on with our own tasks,'' said Brother Chrysostomos, the monastery librarian. The tourists also crowd into the Monastery of the Apocalypse, built over the cave where St. John supposedly wrote his visionary work while exiled on Patmos around A.D. 95. ``It's historical fact that St. John was on the island,'' said Athanassios Kominis, an Athens University professor of Byzantine studies. ``The tradition that he wrote Revelation there is certainly more than speculation, but not quite certainty,'' Patriarch Dimitrios, spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, plans to lead Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churchmen in a two-day international pilgrimage to Patmos Sept. 25-26. It celebrates the 900th birthday of the Monastery of St. John, founded in 1088 by a Byzantine scholar, the Blessed Christodoulos with special permission from the Emperor Alexius Comnenos.
AP880420-0328 	X	Here is a state-by-state listing of per capita incomes for 1987, followed by each state's ranking by income level and the percentage change from 1986. National figures and a regional list follow the state list.
AP901216-0065 	X	Iraq has offered 500 tons of dates to the Soviet Union as part of international efforts to help tide the Soviets through the winter, the official news agency said Sunday. The Iraqi News Agency quoted the chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent, Dr. Ibrahim al-Nouri, as saying the organization's offer came ``as a gift from the Iraqi people to the Soviet people out of the spirit of traditional friendship between the two peoples.'' The news agency, which is monitored in Nicosia, said the Soviets had been made aware of the offer but had not responded. The Soviets expect severe food shortages during the winter, and many Western countries, including the United States, have responded with an outpouring of aid. This is the first reported offer of aid from Iraq, which was Moscow's main Middle East ally and received much of its weaponry from the Soviet Union before its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. Since the invasion, the two nations have been at odds.
AP880229-0202 	X	A huge explosion in the South Armagh border area killed two Irish Republican Army guerrillas Monday in ``an unfortunate accident,'' the IRA said. The blast destroyed a van and a barn about two miles outside Crossmaglen village, badly damaged two cars and left a crater. Police said four armed and masked men hijacked the van and a car shortly before the blast. Authorities speculated that IRA guerrillas were installing explosives in the van when the explosives accidentally detonated. A police officer, speaking anonymously in keeping with British practice, said it was believed the IRA's intended target was an army observation post near the border with Irish Republic. The IRA later issued a statement saying two of its men died in the blast, which it described as ``an unfortunate accident.'' The group gave no details, and said names and IRA ranks of the dead men would be released after families are notified. Police said human remains were found at the site and walkie-talkies and a notebook were among the debris. Helicopters brought security forces into the surrounding fields to seal off the area overnight. Police said they would not move in until Tuesday, after army bomb disposal experts made sure no booby-trap bombs were around. The mostly Roman Catholic IRA often uses explosives in its violent campaign to drive the British out of the predominantly Protestant province and unite it with the overwhelmingly Catholic Irish Republic.
AP880606-0113 	X	A moderate earthquake shook southeastern Alaska early today, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center reported. The 7:01 a.m. temblor measured 5.2 on the Richter scale and was centered on the mainland about 80 miles southeast of Yakutat, or 130 miles northwest of Juneau, said George Carte, a warning center spokesman. In Washington, Don Finley, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said earthquake monitors in Golden, Colo., recorded the tremor at a preliminary magnitude of 4.8 on the Richter scale. The Richter scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one number means a tenfold increase in magnitude. Thus, a reading of 7.5 reflects an earthquake 10 time stronger than one of 6.5. An earthquake of magnitude 5 can cause considerable damage. The 1964 Good Friday earthquake in Alaska measured 8.5 on the Richter scale and was centered in Prince William Sound. It generated large waves that devastated several coastal communities and killed at least 114 people as far south as Oregon and Hawaii.
AP901120-0215 	X	Santa Fe Pacific Corp. has announced it will split into three independent entities on Dec. 4. in a move it says will benefit shareholders. The railroad, energy and real-estate conglomerate said Monday that its board of directors approved a previously announced plan to spin off Santa Fe Energy Resources and Catellus Development Corp., formerly Santa Fe Pacific Realty, to shareholders. Santa Fe stockholders of record as of Nov. 29 will receive a special, tax-free dividend consisting of one share of common stock of Santa Fe Energy Resources for every 3.3 shares of Santa Fe Pacific held, and one share of Catellus for every 4 shares of Santa Fe Pacific. Distributions of fractional shares will be settled in cash. The spinoffs will leave the Chicago-based parent company with three interests: the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Santa Fe Pacific Minerals Corp. and a 44 percent stake in Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines. Santa Fe announced in April its plan to spin off the Houston-based energy and San Francisco-based real-estate units as part of a far-reaching restructuring program begun in 1987. Chairman Robert Krebs said in a statement that the values of Santa Fe's diversified assets have not been reflected in Santa Fe's stock price. Santa Fe Pacific stock closed 25 cents lower at $13 a share Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. ``Our stockholders should benefit from this separation because it will place a spotlight on the values inherent in those companies,'' he said. ``In addition, the directors, management and employees of all three companies will now be able to focus their energies on better utilizing and developing their assets,'' he said. Santa Fe previously sold 18.3 percent of Santa Fe Energy Resources to the public. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Santa Fe also has sold a 20 percent stake in the real-estate subsidiary to a limited partnership formed by JMB Realty Corp. and the California Public Employees Retirement System. Santa Fe said Catellus has been approved for trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
AP880802-0154 	X	After 17 years hitchhiking across the country, panhandling for food and living in shelters and a mental hospital, a 51-year-old retarded man has found his family. ``It's a miracle,'' said Frank Caswell, who has been a patient at Eastern State Hospital since last November. He had no identification, money or additional clothes when a mission for the homeless in Norfolk sent him to Eastern. Caswell was unable to tell workers at the hospital his hometown until last month, when he said he may have lived in Dover, N.H. He told social worker Martin Phillips he thought he had a sister who was still alive. PNo one would miss me anyway,'' Caswell said Monday. But he said he was eager to return to New Hampshire and promised never to leave again. Caswell's memory loss and an unusual limp had led hospital workers to believe he had been a chronic alcoholic. Actually, the limp came from his contracting polio in 1949. The challenge of piecing together his past had been made more difficult by false leads he gave the hospital. He guessed his age to be about 40 and came up with inaccurate names of relatives. Phillips said officials hope Caswell can return to New Hampshire and be reunited with his sister in the next two months. ``Basically, for the last 17 years, he has been a mystery man,'' Phillips said.
AP881216-0274 	X	One of the hottest topics on Wall Street these days has been speculation over when the Federal Reserve would raise a key short-term interest rate, known as the discount rate. That's the interest the Fed charges on loans to member banks and savings institutions, and it's considered the most direct vehicle for the central bank to make its credit policies known. Most economists predicted the discount rate would be raised 0.5 percentage point to 7 percent. The Fed already had given numerous indirect signals of its desire to keep credit tight. This past week alone, it stood by while another important interest rate, the federal funds rate, headed sharply higher. The rate on funds, or overnight loans between banks, had gone as high as 9.25 percent on Thursday before closing at 8.87{ percent, up from 8.37{ Wednesday. The rate had been well below 8 percent for most of the summer. Had it wanted to keep interest rates down, or loosen credit, the Fed would have injected more reserves into the open market through the purchase of government securities. But, ``it failed to counteract the uprward pressures that have taken place,'' said William V. Sullivan, director of money market research for Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. ``That was a very clear signal.'' Over the past few months, the Fed has allowed the fed funds rate to move higher to keep inflation in check, driving up the yields on Treasury bills and most other short-term securities. Long-term rates also have risen, including rates on commercial mortgages and home equity loans. Some economists are predicting the bank prime lending rate, which was raised a half percentage point to 10.5 percent in late November, will reach 11 percent by the end of the year. Concerns about inflation, coupled with the dollar's recent weakness in foreign exchange, have been mainly responsible for the rise in interest rates, economists say. Carol A. Stone, a senior economist for Nomura Securities International Inc., said this past week's government report on retail sales especially fueled the inflation fears because it showed brisk economic growth. The report said that November retail sales rose 1.1 percent following an upwardly revised 1.6 percent increase the previous month. ``What we had thought some months ago was that consumer spending was only sluggish ...,'' Stone said. ``It now looks like consumers have been spending at a pretty good rate since the summer and that there's more ... economic activity.'' Other economic reports released this past week showed that nationwide industrial production rose a brisk 0.5 percentage points in November and that factory use climbed 0.2 percentage points to the highest level in nine years. Raising interest rates will amount to throwing cold water on economic growth because it will make borrowing costs for businesses and consumers more expensive.
AP881017-0094 	X	District 1 -- 0 percent Chapman, Dem (i) 0 - 0 percent McQueen, GOP 0 - 0 percent
AP901031-0261 	X	William J. Rush, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Morning Journal in Lorain, Ohio, was named chief executive of the New Haven Register Wednesday, the papers' parent company announced. Rush, 53, led The Morning Journal's move from an afternoon to a morning publication and coordinated a $6.5 million building expansion and press installation. The Morning Journal and the New Haven Register are both owned by Princeton, N.J.-based Journal Register Co., which is a holding company of the New York investment firm E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. The investment firm acquired publisher Ralph Ingersoll II's American newspapers in July. Rush replaces Thomas P. Geyer, who was dismissed Oct. 15 in a disagreement with the Register's new owners over the need for more layoffs. The Register laid off 19 employees at the beginning of this month and 30 more a day after Geyer's departure. Twenty of the positions were in the news department. Rush, who was introduced Wednesday to Register employees, said his first priority will be to ``make sure the paper fulfills its commitment to the community while being financially responsible.'' Rush spent 11 years in editorial and advertising management positions in New England and Ohio before joining Horvitz Newspapers in 1969 as assistant to Harry R. Horvitz, the chief executive officer. He subsequently served as chief executive at The News-Herald in Lake County, Ohio, the News Journal in Mansfield, Ohio, The Record in Troy, N.Y., and The Tribune Chronicle in Warren, Ohio. A native of Alliance, Ohio, Rush is a 1958 graduate of Ohio State University's School of Journalism.
AP881109-0092 	X	Evan Bayh was elected the nation's youngest governor, but his sweeping Democratic victory did not prevent the home state of another youthful candidate, Sen. Dan Quayle, from falling solidly behind George Bush. Bayh, the 32-year-old secretary of state and son of former Sen. Birch Bayh, defeated two-term Republican Lt. Gov. John Mutz on Tuesday to end 20 years of Republican control of the governorship. Two-term Republican Sen. Richard Lugar also was re-elected by 1,407,568 votes, or 68 percent, to Democrat Jack Wickes' 671,527 votes, or 32 percent, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting. Bayh tallied 1,124,163 votes, or 53 percent, and Mutz had 994,359 votes, or 47 percent. GOP Gov. Robert D. Orr, 70, had been barred from seeking a third term. ``I'm feeling a whole lot older right now,'' said Bayh, who when he is inaugurated on Jan. 9 will be the nation's youngest governor at 33. ``It's been a long campaign.'' Mutz, a 53-year-old veteran of Hoosier politics, admitted he was taking the defeat hard, saying he was ``too old to cry and it hurts too much to laugh.'' In the presidential race, Vice President Bush, a Republican, had 1,281,940 votes, or 60 percent, to Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' 848,931 votes, or 40 percent. The victory gave Bush 12 electoral votes. Indiana voters also repealed the state's 137-year-old constitutional ban on lotteries. In House races, Indiana Democrats managed to protect their 6-4 advantage over Republicans as all incumbents won.
AP880610-0002 	X	The editor of a leading African magazine has publicly apologized to Kenyan Moslems for an article alleging Arabs introduced homosexuality together with the Islamic faith to Kenya. ``It has been pointed out to the publishers of the magazine that it is sacrilege to say that the practice of homosexuality is in any way linked to Islam,'' Benjamin G. Bundeh said in a statement published in Nairobi newspapers Thursday. The article, which appeared in June's issue of the monthly True Love magazine, alleged that homosexuality is widely practiced for money at the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa and other resort towns along the coast. Moslem leaders and politicians in Mombasa reacted angrily to the report as soon as the magazine hit the newsstands on June 2. ``Such reports are malicious and calculated to create disunity and hatred between Christians and Moslems in the country,'' said Said Hemed, a member of Parliament and an ethnic Arab. True Love is published in Nairobi, the capital, by Drum Publications and bills itself as Africa's leading magazine. Arabs settled along the Kenyan coast more than 500 years ago.
AP900522-0200 	X	Here are brief profiles of leaders of the Chinese pro-democracy movement crushed a year ago:
AP900228-0158 	X	After years in the trenches of America's drug war, Drug Enforcement Administration chief John C. Lawn is heading to a new turf: overseeing operations for the New York Yankees baseball organization. ``He will be involved with all operational areas other than player personnel,'' Yankees spokesman Arthur Richman said Wednesday. Lawn, who announced Tuesday that he will retire as DEA chief on March 23 after 27 years in government service, will become vice president and chief of operations for the Yankees, he said. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner met Lawn in 1987 when the two were on a speaking panel before the World Business Council, said DEA spokesman Frank Shults. In addition, Lawn is a close personal friend of Phil McNiss, a retired FBI agent who is vice president of Steinbrenner's American Shipbuilding Co., the spokesman said. McNiss recommended Lawn ``very highly'' for the job, and was instrumental in his hiring, said Richman, senior vice president for the Yankees. Lawn's starting date with the Yankees remains uncertain, Richman said. ``Mr. Steinbrenner said he can take all the time necessary to assist President Bush in seeking and counseling a replacement,'' he said. Richman said Lawn would not be involved in any anti-drug activities with the Yankees. Shults described Lawn as ``very athletic,'' but said there was no indication he had any particular background in baseball. The DEA chief was a basketball coach when he taught English and American history at the Jesuit-run Brooklyn Preparatory School for seven years after leaving the Marine Corps and before beginning his law enforcement career, Shults said. In 1964, Lawn was named New York City's high school coach of the year, he said. Lawn joined the FBI in 1967 and was named DEA acting deputy administrator in 1982. President Reagan nominated him to the top DEA job in 1985 to replace Francis M. Mullen, who had retired.
AP900424-0025 	X	``I yam what I yam,'' says Popeye the Sailor Man, but the peace-loving Quakers don't like his brawling ways and object to the use of the cartoon character in ads for Quaker Oats. Not only that, toot toot, but Olive Oyl is too submissive, say members of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, a longtime champion of women's rights. Popeye began popping up last year in TV commercials and in comics inserted in instant oatmeal packages, dispatching his nemesis Bluto with a swift swing of an oversized forearm. ``I eats me oatmeal and I'm stronger than steel, I'm Popeye the Quaker Man,'' he sings to an adoring Olive Oyl. Elizabeth Foley, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, the biggest Quaker group in the East, said Monday, ``They had Popeye resolving dispute and conflict through violence. This is completely obnoxious and offensive.'' ``We are an organization of pacifists. We have a peace testimony that is more than 300 years old,'' she said. ``To portray us as a church that beats up on other people is not OK.'' Quaker Oats Co. _ which has no connection with the religious group _ apologized and said it deleted the phrase ``Popeye the Quaker Man'' from commercials, which ran through the ``oatmeal season,'' September through March. References to ``Popeye the Quaker Man'' will be taken out in future printings of the comics in oatmeal packages, the Chicago-based company said. ``Obviously, we looked at it as a humorous way in which to promote the product and certainly never intended to create any controversy,'' said company spokesman Ron Bottrell. However, he said Quaker Oats hasn't decided whether to drop Popeye as a spokesman. In Chester County, near Philadelphia, Quaker children at the Willistown Monthly Meeting First Day School suggested an alternative plot. ``They have Popeye and Bluto coming together and saying, `Our fights have never resolved anything. Let's try something new _ let's work together for the betterment of all,''' Foley said. ``And they build a homeless shelter.'' Paul Hendricks, who edits the Popeye strip for King Features Syndicate, said the concept of Bluto and Popeye working together isn't too farfetched. ``I think it'd fly. As long it's not saccharine sweet, it'd be OK,'' Hendricks said. ``Basically Popeye's a nice guy. He just beats up on bad guys.''
AP881209-0051 	X	Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa resigned today, becoming the first Cabinet-level casualty in a widening scandal over conflicting statements about his involvement in questionable stock purchases. ``I have many regrets, but we are not getting anywhere without clearing this deadlock,'' Miyazawa told a news conference after submitting his resignation to Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. Miyazawa, who is also giving up his position as deputy prime minister, said he is stepping down to help pave the way for passage of sweeping tax reform bills. ``I feel that accomplishing tax reform is my mission and I did not want to stand in the way of completion of the tax reform bills,'' Miyazawa said. ``Personally, I hope the tax reform bills will be passed soon and it doesn't matter what happens to me.'' Takeshita said he would assume Miyazawa's post as finance minister. The prime minister is expected to shuffle his Cabinet in a few weeks, but Takeshita declined to say how long he would hold the finance portfolio. Opposition parties in Parliament have been stalling debate on the tax reform, demanding first that Miyazawa resign. Miyazawa has been under fire for giving conflicting accounts about his alleged involvement in the scandal. One of Miyazawa's former aides bought shares of Recruit-Cosmos Co. before they were registered to trade over the counter, and sold them immediately for a 20 million yen ($163,000) profit. Miyazawa is the most important figure to fall so far in the five-month scandal, which has shaken public confidence and implicated a range of influential figures in business and government. Public support for Takeshita's government has dropped to 18 percent from 30 percent when he assumed office a year ago, according to a survey released today by the mass-circulation newspaper Mainichi Shimbun. But political analysts said the resignation has been anticipated for some time and would have minimal economic and political impact. ``We knew he had to go sooner or later,'' said Masumi Ishikawa, a commentator for the national daily Asahi Shimbun. ``He must have judged politically that now is the right timing to quit to give the impression that he is sacrificing himself for the sake of tax bills, rather than taking blame for the scandal.'' Opposition parties responded to the resignation with mixed signals. Tsuruo Yamaguchi, secretary general of the largest opposition group, the Japan Socialist Party, said the resignation was well overdue, but that his party did not intend to participate in parliamentary debate on the tax reform package. ``Since the finance minister, who is in charge of carrying out the tax reform, resigned, the tax reform bills start again from scratch,'' he said. Komeito, or the Clean Government Party, however, said in a statment that Miyazawa's resignation had cleared the way for full-fledged deliberations on the tax legislation. The legislation, Japan's first sweeping overhaul of its tax system since the end of the World War II, has been a top priority for the Liberal Democratic Party for a decade. Successive administrations have failed to pass the reform due to a lack of public support and strong resistance from opposition parties. Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, under whom Miyazawa also served as finance minister, staked his political career on tax reform and lost. The new package simplifies corporate and personal income tax scales and introduces a 3-percent sales tax.
AP900817-0131 	X	Here is look at the forces buildup in the Persian Gulf region. In line with Pentagon practice, the numbers of U.S. aircraft or troops arriving in the gulf are imprecise, as are their locations.
AP900612-0181 	X	Israel on Tuesday invited the U.N. Secretary-General to send a personal envoy to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to investigate alleged abuses of Palestinian human rights. The move by Israel's day-old conservative government comes almost 2 weeks after United Sttes vetoed a United Nations measure calling for the Security Council to dispatch a team to the occupied territories. The United States vetoed the measure but said it supported a personal mission sent by the U.N. chief. ``The government of Israel, on our own initiative, extends to the secretary-general an invitation to (Secretariat Director) Jean-Claude Aime to visit Israel as an envoy in the framework of a visit to the region,'' Israeli Ambassador Johanan Bein told reporters. He said it was the ``first action of the new Israeli government in the international arena.'' The hard-line government received parliamentary approval Monday. Bein made the statement after a meeting with Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar who had sought to send both Aime and a special adviser to the occupied territories. Bein, Israel's acting permanent representative, said Israel ``definitely will extend full cooperation'' to the U.N. envoy. But he said the invitation was limited to Aime. He did not give a date for the visit, but U.N. officials said it could take place soon. Arab nations demanded emergency action from the United Nations to protect Palestinians living in the occupied territories after an apparently deranged Israeli gunned down seven Palestinian laborers and wounded 11 others on May 20. The shooting sparked widespread rioting in the occupied territories and a crackdown by Israeli troops. Israel's invitation may ease diplomatic tensions that emerged after the U.S. veto. Arab nations have threatened to seek an emergency session of the General Assembly to consider the situation in the territories if no action was taken by the United Nations.
AP900925-0204 	X	This capital now boils with political activity as Algeria undertakes an Arab-style transition toward democracy. One question dominates: will free elections in this North African country replace a Marxist-style dictatorship with an Islamic one? The potent brew of politics and religion bubbles to life each evening in the Casbah, where bearded young men sip mint tea and dissect democracy and the Koran in a capital long derided as ``Moscow on the Med.'' ``Vive FIS'' (``Long Live The Islamic Salvation Front'') reads the graffiti on the Ketchaoua mosque, a bastion of Algeria's most potent political movement. ``This is a Moslem country,'' said Ali Hamidouche, 32. ``It's only natural that people would want a Moslem government.'' The 28 political parties and lively free press born since constitutional rforms in 1989 contrast sharply with an Arab world ruled by monarchs, dictators and one-party states. But vows by Islamic councils elected last June to impose Koranic law fuel fears that the democratic experiment may be short. ``If the FIS wins, we're dead,'' a leading women's rights activist said. The Islamic Salvation Front took control of more than half the country's municipal and regional councils June 12 in Algeria's first free elections since independence from France in 1962. The verdict repudiated the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) and its 28-year monopoly on power. But local councils hold little power. The fundamentalists cannot effect changes while the FLN holds all seats in the National Assembly. Their complaints forced President Chadli Bendjedid to move legislative elections ahead a year to next spring. ``No matter who wins, the first success of these elections will be stability and legitimacy for the National Assembly,'' FIS leader Abassi Madani said in a recent newspaper interview. The 59-year-old philosophy professor presents the moderate face of a movement encompassing classical scholars and pro-Iranian radicals. His alter ego is Ali Belhadj, 31, whose fiery speeches attract thousands. He blames ``infidels'' - France chief among them - for Algeria's woes. For the young men outside the Ketchaoua mosque, the FIS heralds an end to the Soviet-inspired system the National Liberation Front imposed on Algeria, one of the continent's largest countries and situated on the Mediterranean. The fundamentalists' message is clear: the old regime was corrupt. It brought poverty and unemployment. An Islamic regime will stop corruption and, thereby, social problems. The FIS vows to end to secular practices that let men and women mingle at school and work. ``For us, secularism means liberty from God,'' Hamidouche said with a grimace. Ranged against the fundamentalists are dozens of political groupings, but only a handful with significant support. The FLN remains the best organized. Thousands of its adherents run the public sector to which most Algerians owe their livelihood. But the FLN managed only to win a quarter of the June vote. ``They'll be lucky to keep 25 percent next time,'' a Western diplomat said. ``People are fed up, and they've thrown up no young, charismatic leader.'' The oppostion includes the liberal Rally for Culture and Democracy, the centrist Front for Socialist Forces and the populist Movement for Democracy in Algeria. The Rally received a boost when the other two parties boycotted the June voting, claiming the FLN would rig the results. Their leaders are heroes of the war for independence - Berber chief Hocine Ait Ahmed and Algeria's first president, Ahmed Ben Bella. Ben Bella, 73, is the man Algerians are watching. He hopes to weld a ``democratic consensus'' to lead the country out of its economic ills. Ben Bella's stature is unrivaled by any living Algerian. He planned the 1954 uprising against France and ruled three years after independence until toppled in a military coup. Half his life has been spent in exile or prison. He currently lives in Geneva though a return to Algiers is considered imminent. ``They never broke him,'' said Hocine Guermouche, spokesman for the Movement for Democracy in Algeria. ``You've seen Mandela. He spent 27 years in prison and never lost his spirit. Ben Bella has done more ... he won the war.'' But he also gave Algeria ills it is only now shaking off: secret police, a single-party system, a Marxist economy. Whoever wins next year's elections will struggle to revive the sagging economy. In October 1988, thousands of Algerians rioted over living standards that plummeted along with prices for the country's chief export, oil. Scores of people, including many fundamentalists, died when the army crushed the uprising. The deaths robbed the FLN of popular legitimacy. Bendjedid, whose term expires in 1993, distanced the government from the FLN and drafted last year's constitutional reforms. He appointed technocrats to impose market economics. No party seems likely to meddle with the privatization program. But the pace of economic change remains slow. Unemployment officially stands at 25 percent. Families of 12 often live in two-room apartments. The government estimates 800,000 new dwellings are needed. Long lines form at shops often empty of basic foodstuffs. Jobless young men survive by hawking black-market cigarettes. Strikes proliferate. As the meuzzin at Ketchaoua mosque called the faithful to prayer, one young man said lots of political parties are fine, as long as they adhere to Islam. ``If the people vote for the FIS, fine. If they vote for ... some other party and they win, that's good, too,'' said Boumari Nacer Edde, a Casbah candy seller. ``The important thing is that there's democracy. We want democracy.''
AP900704-0034 	X	Snooky Lanson, a singing star of television's ``Your Hit Parade'' in the 1950s, is dead at age 76. Lanson, whose real name was Roy Landman, was nicknamed ``Snooky'' at age 2 after the Irving Berlin tune ``Snooky-Ookums.'' He got his first singing job with band leader Francis Craig at Nashville radio station WSM. In 1940, Lanson was hired by the Ray Noble Band, and a year later recorded the hit record ``By the Light of the Silvery Moon.'' In the late 1940s, he had a hit with ``The Old Master Painter,'' which helped him land the spot on ``Your Hit Parade.'' He sang on the show from 1950 to 1957. Lanson died Monday in Nashville where he had lived since 1967.
AP900131-0230 	X	Little Cao spends his days in his best friend's one-room apartment, watching television and reading. At night, he goes out on free-lance jobs, translating letters and contracts into English to earn a little money. He quit his government job in June when his boss began questioning him about his participation in last spring's pro-democracy marches. But other work units won't hire him because of his suspect political background. By quitting, he lost his office-assigned housing. He worries that authorities will send him back to his family's hometown unless he finds a job in Beijing soon. ``If you know of any foreign companies in Beijing that have openings, please let me know,'' he pleads. Cao is one of the hidden casualties of June's army crackdown on the democracy movement _ people who were not jailed but have been punished in other, subtler ways traditional to China's communist system. Some have been fired, others demoted. Several college seniors had their degrees withheld, while others were denied approval for planned study abroad. China long has used extra-legal punishments for those considered troublemakers. During the 1966-76 far leftist Cultural Revolution, thousands of alleged ``capitalist-roaders'' were sent to rural villages as punishment. Just being related to a political offender could bring trouble. Even now, some relatives of people arrested in June say they have been ostracized. One woman whose husband was jailed said authorities have refused to help her find a job. Most jobs must be officially arranged. Neighbors refuse to talk to her. ``They figure if I'm his wife, I should suffer,'' she says. A college senior who was active in the movement was expelled without his degree, losing his chance for a job assignment. He found part-time work on his own, but still relies on friends' support to get enough to eat. He lives in an empty storage room at his old school, in constant fear he will be kicked out. Another student was allowed to graduate and was assigned a good job at a central government office, but was fired almost immediately. She was told she would have to work for one year in the countryside before being assigned another job. One woman had her private shop shut down because she supported the movement. Several university lecturers who encouraged their students to march were suspended from work. A department head at an official newspaper was demoted to an ordinary reporter for having marched once last spring. A reporter on another newspaper was downgraded to a researcher, with a cut in pay.
AP880302-0246 	X	Here are the latest unofficial returns in the Democratic races for the U.S. Senate.
AP900102-0211 	X	Prices advanced on Wall Street today after the first economic report of the year indicated the manufacturing sector remained weak in December. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was up 21.12 to 2,774.32 as of 2 p.m. EST. Advancing issues were ahead of decliners by a margin of about 3 to 2, with 927 stocks rising, 575 falling and 424 unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume on the Big Board came to 101.68 million shares in midafternoon. Stock prices rose after the National Association of Purchasing Management said its monthly survey of its members indicated that growth in the manufacturing economy slowed in December. The Purchasing Managers Index registered 48 percent in December, up from 46.6 percent in November, but it was the eighth straight month that the index has indicated weakness in the industrial sector. Analysts said the stock market, which had fallen in early trading in anticipation of the report, was reassured by the results of the survey. Traders believe the Federal Reserve is more likely to nudge interest rates lower if the economy is weak. Prices also were boosted as institutional investors, flush with cash after liquidated some of their holdings at year's end, went on a buying spree. Blue chip issues were among the biggest beneficiaries: IBM rose 2} to 96~ and Ford Motor was up 1[ at 44}. Toys R Us was up 2] to 38\ after the retailer reported its Christmas sales were up 22.7 percent from a year earlier. Manufacturers Hanover led the NYSE's most active list, rising 1 to 34[. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks was up 0.80 at 195.84. On the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 1.08 to 379.08.
AP900402-0229 	X	The ms Westerdam was relaunched in March after a $65 million makeover transforming her into the largest cruise ship ever in Holland America's fleet. The ship, formerly the Homeric, is namesake of one of the best-known passenger ships of the post-World War II era. Capacity has been increased from 1,000 to 1,494 passengers with the insertion of a 130-foot section at mid-ship. The company says the expansion, carried out at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, West Germany, is the largest ever for a passenger ship. The ship's interior has been re-done, including the addition of an 800-seat two-deck show lounge, expanded restaurant and meeting facilities, and a new sports and sunbathing area on the topmost deck. A collection of 17th and 18th century art evoking Dutch world exploration, valued at more than $1 million, is part of the ship's decor. First cruises were scheduled for Bermuda and the Caribbean. A Panama cruise, featuring a daylight passage through the Canal, will depart from New York in May and call at Ft. Lauderdale, St.Thomas, V.I.; Castries, St. Lucia; Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela; Willemstad, Curacao; Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and Vancouver. From Vancouver, the ship will offer summer cruises to Alaska's Inside Passage. As the Homeric, the ship was acquired by Holland America in l988. She was re-christened after the four-month transformation which began last fall. The first Westerdam had an eventful history, being sunk in Scheidam Harbor three times during World War II, first during an Allied attack on the Nazi-held city in l940 and twice in l944 by Dutch Resistance fighters to thwart her wartime use by the enemy occupiers. The original Westerdam was raised after the war and made her maiden transatlantic crossing to New York in 1946. She was retired and scrapped in l964. _ The choice of air travel to Grenada will be wider for U.S. travelers with the inauguration of American Airlines' daily service to St. George's via its San Juan hub, beginning in late June. Traffic will be handled through a new terminal being completed this spring at Point Salines International Airport. _ BWIA-International, the only other carrier with flights from the U.S. to Grenada, also has added new schedules to Aruba, Curacao and Martinique. The Caribbean-based airline operates 51 weekly flights to the area from New York, Baltimore-Washington, Miami and Toronto. _ British Rail isn't part of the Eurailpass system, but for travelers who want to visit both England and France, it has introduced the BritFrance Railpass. This single pass is good for travel on the entire British and French rail network, available for any five days out of 15 or 10 days of a month. Prices start at $199. The railroad also has inaugurated its InterCity 225 with a link between London and the Midlands city of Leeds. It travels at speeds of up to 140 mph and is the fastest train in Britain. _ You don't have to sacrifice a tour guide's help while driving yourself around the British Isles. The Silver Service package from Kenning Car Rental includes a cassette which can be inserted into the rental car's tape deck to point out the sights as you drive. Tapes cover tours of London and the South; Manchester, the Midlands and the North; and Scotland. The company also supplies road maps and a directory of Tourist Information Centres around the country, where the motorist can get local tourist information or accommodation booking help. _
AP900731-0122 	X	President Bush will nominate two new members of the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation, the White House said Tuesday. They are Bernard F. Burke, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of astrophysics, and W. Glenn Campbell, director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Bush also reappoined three academics to the board: University of Michigan President James J. Duderstadt, San Diego State University President Thomas B. Day and Perry L. Adkisson, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. The White House also announced Bush will appoint IBM Corp. Chairman John F. Akera and AT&T Chairman Robert E. Allen to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Bush also announced plans to nominate Carolyn D. Leavens of Ventura, Calif., to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. She is a partner in Leavens Ranches. The White House also announced these nominations: _Robert F. Goodwin, vice president and director of governmental affairs for the Meredith Corp. of Washington, D.C., to be a commissioner of the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission. _Army Brig. Gen. Paul Y. Chinen to the Mississippi River Commission. Chinen is the commanding general of the U.S. Army Engineer Division, Ohio River, in Cincinnati. _Holland H. Coors of Colorado to the board of trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. The White House also announced Bush will appoint Chandler R. Lindsley, a rancher from Era, Texas, to be an alternate member of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission.
AP880926-0075 	X	NASA set the countdown clock ticking today for returning Americans to space on Thursday aboard the shuttle Discovery. ``The launch countdown is now in progress,'' test director Terry Willingham announced promptly at 8 a.m. EDT as he signaled the traditional ``call to stations.'' That call assembled more than 100 controllers at their consoles. Early work included loading Discovery's computer software, servicing the main engines and other propulsion systems and removing work platforms from around the base of the spaceplane. ``We're looking forward to doing the shot and doing it right and launching on time,'' Frank Merlino, another test director, told a news conference shortly after the countdown began for the first U.S. manned space mission since Challenger exploded over the Atlantic, killing the crew of seven, 32 months ago. Thursday's forecast was for scattered and broken clouds, a wind of 10-15 knots from the southeast, temperatures of 85 degrees and widely scattered showers. ``Given the constraints NASA has, things look very, very good,'' said Senior Master Sgt. Mike Beeman, an Air Force weather spokesman. The countdown had been set to begin at midnight but was postponed when launch pad workers fell behind in preparations Sunday. NASA said that did not affect the goal of launching Discovery at 9:59 a.m. Thursday. ``We're still on the timeline for launch on the 29th and that's the plan,'' launch director Bob Sieck said Sunday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had built 39 unprogrammed hours of contingency time into the countdown as insurance for last-minute problems. Sieck said it was decided Sunday to allot eight hours of that time to complete the work of replacing panels and removing work platforms from around Discovery's engine compartment. ``We don't want those people to have to do that under the gun with the clock counting,'' he said. ``So we said, `Take all the time it takes and we'll delay the call to stations to accommodate that.''' Closing out the aft end of the spaceplane had been held up when low voltage readings were detected in an electrical circuit that ignites the explosive charges used to separate the shuttle from its fuel tank in flight. Engineers eventually determined the fault was in a ground circuit, which does not affect the flight. Discovery's five astronauts planned to fly here late this afternoon from their training base at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Once here, they will receive daily briefings on launch preparations, review their flight plan and undergo medical examinations. Commander Rick Hauck, a Navy captain, and pilot Dick Covey, an Air Force colonel, planned to practice landings at a runway here in a jet outfitted to handle like the shuttle. The three mission specialists in the crew are George Nelson, Mike Lounge and Dave Hilmers, a Marine lieutenant colonel. All have flown on earlier shuttle flights. During four days in orbit they are to release a $100 million communications satellite from Discovery's cargo bay, conduct 11 science and technology experiments and check out modifications made to the shuttle since the Challenger accident. ``Because there are so many changes, we're treating it like a test flight of a new vehicle,'' Hauck said in a recent interview. The Rogers commission that investigated the Challenger accident said the direct cause was a leak at a joint between two segments of one of Challenger's two solid-fuel booster rockets. Engineers redesigned the booster, and made improvements to the orbiter, the main engines and the external fuel tank. In all, 56 major changes and more than 400 lesser ones were made. The program to redesign all three shuttles has cost about $2.4 billion to date. The commission report said cold weather, 36 degrees at launch, contributed to the Challenger accident by stiffening O-rings in the joint, preventing them from sealing gaps properly. Some engineers had argued with lower-level managers against launching in the cold, but their concerns never were relayed to top managers who made the launch decision. NASA has changed procedures to make certain concerns of any agency or contractor employee are relayed to top management. And a Mission Management Team, made up of 21 key NASA and contractor managers and engineers, has been established to monitor the final two days of the countdown. The team is headed by astronaut Bob Crippen, who has made four shuttle flights. With the help of team members, he will assemble all information in the final minutes of the count and will have sole authority to signal the decision to launch.
AP881113-0008 	X	A smoky fire in a mobile home early Saturday killed a family of five, authorities said. Fire Chief Bill Haggard said the victims probably died of smoke inhalation. The cause of the fire, which was reported at 5 a.m., was under investigation. ``There was lots of smoke,'' Haggard said. ``The front room was on fire. How long it had been burning, we don't know.'' Ralph Williams, the Herculaneum fire marshal, said the family had no electricity or gas in the trailer home. Herculaneum is 20 miles south of St. Louis. Officials declined to identify the victims, but neighbors said those killed were Paul and Maria Adams, both in their 20s; and their children, Brian, 4; April, 3; and Anthony, 9 months. Officials said that the Adamses had used candles to light the trailer, but that had apparently not been the cause of the blaze. Neighbors said the family had not been able to pay their electric bills and had had the electricity shut off. They said they believed Adams worked at an auto repair.
AP880527-0268 	X	Economists are uncovering peculiar similarities in events that range from the death of the steam-powered automobile in the early 1900s to the crash of the stock market last October. The decline of Sony's Betamax, they find, has something in common with the birth of the auto industry in Detroit. There are even similarities between the width of railroad tracks and the strange QWERTY arrangement of keys on a typewriter. In different ways, these rises and falls all defy economic doctrines of stability. All are examples of ``positive feedback'' _ things that get going in one direction and then keep going the same way. Like an avalanche, or a whistling microphone, or a buffalo stampede. Positive feedback helps explain what happened last Oct. 19, when corporate America lost nearly a quarter of its paper value in a single day. When prices dropped that day, buyers should have come in to pick up bargains. But trading strategies such as portfolio insurance locked the market into a suicidal loop of positive feedback, so each price decline triggered fresh sales. Portfolio insurers said they could protect investors against losses by selling their stocks and putting the money into interest-bearing Treasury bills. It worked _ until everybody else tried to sell at the same time. The loop was finally broken on Oct. 20, when the U.S. financial system was nearing gridlock. If all stocks had been covered by portfolio insurance, the Dow Jones industrial average theoretically could have sunk to zero. That is the power of positive feedback. In less frightening ways, positive feedback explains other things that defy traditional concepts of equilibrium. Once the VHS format got a slight edge over Sony's Betamax, for example, video rental shops began stocking more VHS tapes. That encouraged more people to buy VHS recorders, and so on. Now even Sony Corp. has added a VHS recorder line. Snowball effects likewise account for how railroad tracks that are 4 feet, 8{ inches wide crowded out other gauges, or why autos and electronics came to be concentrated in Detroit and Silicon Valley instead of evenly spread across the country. Herds of buffalo eventually get tired of stampeding. And at some point salaries for electronics engineers may get so high in Silicon Valley that it makes sense to locate elsewhere. Tired buffalo and overcrowding in Silicon Valley are examples of negative feedback, which leads to the cherished equilibrium of standard economics. In some cases, though, negative feedback never kicks in. Society becomes ``locked in,'' to use the phrase of W. Brian Arthur, a professor of population studies and economics at Stanford University who has done pioneering research in the field. Paul David, a colleague of Arthur at Stanford, has traced how the QWERTY typewriter layout has persisted in spite of the obvious superiority of the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which is 20 to 40 percent faster and can be learned in a few days. Then there is the clean, efficient steam-powered automobile, which exists no more. Years ago, smelly gasoline-powered cars gained some tiny advantage that grew into total dominance because the country was not big enough for two kinds of cars. In 1904, a man named William Fletcher with a cloudy crystal ball wrote: ``Unless the objectionable features of the petrol carriage can be removed, it is bound to be driven from the road, to give place to its less objectionable rival, the steam-driven vehicle of the day.'' Fletcher knew the power of positive feedback. He just bet on the wrong horseless carriage. In 1988, it's clear that many people don't know the power of positive feedback. For example, whiz kids in finance failed to foresee the damage that portfolio insurance could wreak in a falling stock market. Knowing about the snowball effect doesn't guarantee being able to do anything about it, but who knows? One thing could lead to another.
AP880510-0309 	X	The International Monetary Fund's managing director criticized commercial banks Tuesday for not lending enough to Third World nations. Michel Camdessus, addressing the City University Business School in London, said developing countries needed new loans to grow out of their debts. He said the IMF doesn't have the resources to provide such loans, and although larger commercial banks do, they haven't shown enough willingnes to extend new credit. ``The record is plain. Last year, net bank lending to countries with debt-servicing problems was negligible at best; two years before, it was negative,'' Camdessus said. ``It isn't only the amount of financing that matters. It is also the timeliness of financing and the attitude of the banks in responding to the indebted countries' efforts and needs.'' He added: ``This inevitably sends the wrong signal to countries contemplating bolder efforts and it calls into question the notion that our strategy is a cooperative one oriented to growth.'' Camdessus noted that many indebted countries have made progress in adopting IMF-agreed programs, but the former governor of the French central bank said the shift toward economic reform in the developing world ``risks being interrupted, and even reversed, because of doubts concerning the availability of financial support.'' IMF programs usually involve trimming government spending and reducing the size of the public sector, loosening exchange rate and trade policy and encouraging export-led growth. Camdessus' criticism of the conduct of commercial banks, which are carrying billions of dollars worth of possible bad debts, follows a sharper attack two weeks ago from David Mulford, assistant U.S. Treasury secretary. Mulford said the banks had taken a passive approach to debt crisis and he said that all major innovations for resolving the crisis had come from the debtor countries themselves. Commercial bankers have criticized the IMF and many governments for refusing to grant easier repayment terms on their own loans to developing countries, but have expected banks to take losses on their lending.
AP900404-0034 	X	A suburb is having a devil of a time with its new voting precinct number. Deer Park Council members approved a resolution Tuesday asking the commissioners of Harris County to renumber Precinct 666 because some religious folk view the number as symbolic of the Antichrist. ``Deer Park is a fairly conservative, religious community, and it's just a stigma they don't want,'' said Harvey Petree, a Deer Park city councilman. ``I had never heard that the three sixes had any religious connotation,'' said County Commissioner Jim Fonteno. ``If I would have known then what I know now, I would have just asked the clerk to skip a number.'' Election officials redrew Precinct 470 in August because it had grown to include 3,200 residents, Fonteno said. The county splits any precinct with more than 3,000 residents each August, with the new numbers taking effect in March. When the Deer Park districts were split, the new jurisdiction got the next available number, 666.
AP880217-0277 	X	The obscure cargo airline that Eastern Airlines is counting on to keep it aloft in case of a strike faces questions about its safety record as the government decides whether it is fit to carry passengers. Few air travelers have ever heard of Orion Air, a North Carolina cargo carrier which serves such air freight companies as United Parcel Service, Emery Air Freight and Purolator. But if labor strife intensifies at Eastern, many of that airline's customers may find themselves with tickets to fly Orion _ and the prospect has caused federal safety officials to step up scrutiny of the airline. Recently Eastern entered into an agreement with Orion, including the leasing of 26 of Eastern's jetliners, that call on the airline to take over much of Eastern's routes if pilots and mechanics go on strike. Orion would fly the Eastern planes with its own pilots and ground workers, Eastern officials said. But the FAA has yet to approve Orion for passenger service, and a senior agency official said Tuesday that an enforcement proceeding is under way that likely will include fines against Orion because of past safety violations. An FAA inspection report on Orion shows ``a large number of serious safety infractions,'' said Anthony Broderick, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation standards. Broderick said the airline's management has taken actions ``to permit Orion to safely operate its cargo business'' and training and maintenance procedures ``are being corrected to prevent similar occurrences in the future.'' At congressional hearings Tuesday, James L. Heffernan, an Orion vice president, said problems cited by the FAA have been corrected. Heffernan called Orion's safety record excellent and maintained that much of the FAA's concerns stemmed from a ``misunderstanding'' by FAA inspectors about Orion's method of record keeping. ``Orion Air responded to each of the FAA's proposed findings last summer and are still in the process of resolving these issues. Obviously, if any of the issues compromised air safety, the FAA would not have allowed Orion Air to continue to operate,'' Heffernan continued. But Rep. Cardiss Collins, D-Ill., chairman of the House government operations and transportation subcommittee, called Orion ``an airline in near-shambles'' and raised questions about its fitness to fly passengers. In an interview, Steven Kolski, a vice president of Eastern, said Eastern executives believe Orion's past safety problems have been resolved. He expressed confidence that the airline's fitness will be assured before the FAA allows it to engage in passenger-carrying flights. ``We got a report that said they (Orion) are a hell of a lot better today than they were a year ago and that most, if not all, of their problems were behind them and they were in good shape,'' said Kolski. Kolski said Eastern is relying on the agreement with Orion to keep Eastern's service going if its 10,000 mechanics go on strike and its 4,000 pilots refuse to cross the picket lines. But FAA officials were not as certain that all of Orion's safety shortcomings are behind it. The FAA cited ``systemic difficulties'' with the airline's training program, record keeping and use of operational handbooks that are not yet corrected. And the agency disclosed it was seeking civil penalties against Orion for past violations, although no amounts were cited. ``Once the systemic problems have all been corrected, the FAA will turn its attention toward developing an appropriate enforcement package, including a proposed fine'' for past violations, Broderick said. Orion's problems stem from safety violations found in early 1987 _ violations that attracted little public attention because Orion's 55 jets were carrying only cargo. Among the findings by FAA inspectors were a shortage of required training records; inadequate auditing of maintenance facilites; poor documentation on the qualifications of ``check pilots'' who decide on the performance of line pilots; incomplete flight operations manuals, instances of pilots failing to go through required refresher training; and training programs that did not meet federal standards. In a related development Tuesday, the FAA made public a report on improvements Eastern Airlines has made in its own maintenance program since the airline was fined a record $9.5 million two years ago. The FAA said that Eastern has made ``substantial progress'' to correct past deficiencies, but that some concerns remain about the airline's deferred maintenance program and repeated problems with certain equipment. Nevertheless, Eastern officials hailed the latest FAA findings which showed that corrective actions had been taken in 52 of the 53 areas cited by the FAA two years ago. ``We are very pleased. This report shows that Eastern has corrected the deficiencies,'' said Kolski.
AP881206-0144 	X	When Nikita Khrushchev addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 1960, the Soviet leader pounded a shoe on his desk and assured Americans that ``we will bury you.'' On Tuesday, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent word of his intention to seek ``real political cooperation'' with the United States one day before his speech to the General Assembly. Times have changed in 28 years. Soviet attitudes toward the West and the United Nations are radically different with widespread talk of diplomacy and cooperation. In 1960, Khrushchev was enraged over Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold's action in sending U.N. peacekeeping troops to the Congo, then a key Soviet client state. ``The General Assembly of 1960 was the greatest circus in the history of the United Nations,'' said Brian Urquhart, who then was undersecretary-general in charge of peacekeeping operations. In those days, world leaders often spent weeks attending the General Assembly and sat with their delegations much of the time. Roaming the floor of the Assembly were Cuba's Fidel Castro, King Hussein of Jordan, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nassar, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Khrushchev, destined to be the star performer. Sometimes crude and profane, and always easily angered, Khrushchev created the most memorable scene in U.N. debate by pounding a shoe on the Soviet delegation's desk for a point of order. Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong had just referred to the nations of Eastern Europe as being ``deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which have been swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union,'' when Khrushchev could stand no more. The Soviet leader slipped off his right shoe and waved it menacingly at Sumulong. The debate continued. The Soviet leader began pounding the shoe on the delegation's desk, shocking the assembly, and shouting: ``Point of order.'' Continuing, Khrushchev called Sumulong a ``toady of American imperialism.'' Khrushchev, bellowing in Russian, said the Congo was struggling to throw off imperialism, and then told General Assembly President Frederick Boland that ``we live on Earth not by the grace of God nor, sir, by your grace, but by the strength and intelligence of the great people of the Soviet Union and of all the peoples which are fighting for their independence.'' ``Khrushchev got so abusive that the Irish president of the assembly, Freddie Boland, broke the gavel in calling him to order, and the head of the gavel flew off into the General Assembly,'' said Urquhart. The most famous shoe in political history remained perched on the desk of the Soviet delegation. A U.N. visit by a Soviet leader is a rarity; the foreign minister usually delivers the annual address to the General Assembly. Between Khrushchev and Gorbachev, the only other top-ranking Soviet visitor was Premier Alexei Kosygin, the chief administrator of the government, who came to the United Nations in 1967 to support Arab complaints against Israel.
AP880406-0125 	X	A 17-year-old Israeli girl and two Palestinians were shot to death in a clash today between Israeli civilians and Arabs in a West Bank village, the army said. It said 15 Israelis, including a soldier, were wounded. The Israeli girl was the first Israeli civilian to die in four months of unrest in the occupied territories. There were conflicting reports on what led to the violence in Beita, about 15 miles from Nablus. Palestinians who said they witnessed the clash from a half-mile away said about 30 Israeli settlers entered the village on foot and fired without provocation, killing one Arab. Angry villagers then charged the settlers, the Palestinians said. ``The first man who was killed, Mousa Saleh Abu Shamseh, was plowing his land,'' said Mohammed Abbas Aly. Abu Shamseh was 20. ``When they heard a farmer was killed, they attacked the settlers with axes, picks and rocks. There was hand-to-hand fighting,'' said Aly, who was interviewed at Nablus' Al Ittihad Hospital. Aly said Fayez Al Jabr, 22, was killed when he ran toward the settlers brandishing a stick. The army and Israeli witnesses said the violence began when Palestinians stoned a group of Israeli teen-agers on a Passover bus and hiking tour of the West Bank. An army statement said two security guards on the bus opened fire at the stone-throwers, killing two Arabs and wounding two others. During the clash, the army said Arabs grabbed an M-16 automatic rifle and an Uzi submachine gun from the guards and opened fire on the Israelis, killing the girl and wounding three other Israelis. Boleslav Godlman, administrator of Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv, said an adult and nine children ages 14 and 15 suffered minor injuries. He said most of the 10 were hit by stones and metal fragments. Most of the injured reportedly were teen-agers from the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh, near Nablus. A soldier was injured in the head by a rock and was in serious condition in Jerusalem's Haddassah hospital, the army said. Another Israeli teen-ager was found slightly wounded in a villager's home. The army said the 17-year-old girl, whose name was not made public immediately, was killed by a bullet. It gave no details on how the other Israeli civilians were wounded. Shmuel Fuchs, 15, from Elon Moreh near Nablus, said 18 teen-agers, a soldier and a guide had left the bus and were sitting in a dry river bed when a group of Arabs began throwing stones at them. The Israelis got up and left ``and soon we discovered we were being followed by dozens of Arabs,'' Fuchs said from his Haddassah Hospital bed. Fuchs had a bandage on his right arm and the right side of his chest but said he did not know if he was hit by rocks or by bullets. He said some of the Arabs following the Israelis apparently wanted to help them and said ``come fast we'll lead you out of here.'' The Arabs led them a short distance to Beita. There, Fuchs said, ``a woman came with a huge stone, and she threw it at the head of the soldier.'' He said the guide who was armed opened fire on the Arabs. Gaby Bron, a reporter for Yediot Ahronot, said teen-agers at the bus radioed for help, and troops arrived and sealed the area, he said. The deaths brought to 140 the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis since unrest broke out Dec. 8 in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War. One Israeli soldier has been killed. Benny Katzover, a settler leader in the West Bank, said the attack on civilians could prompt some of the 65,000 Israelis living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to take vigilante action. ``This is a most serious confrontation. If this time the situation is not brought under control, I think it will be impossible to stop every Jew from taking things into his own hands,'' Katzover told Israel army radio. Jihad Hawari, the Arab head of the Israeli-appointed village council of Hawara, near Beita, said Beita had been declared ``liberated'' from Israeli rule and was bedecked with the outlawed Palestinian flag. Arab witnesses said the clash lasted about 1{ hours, until soldiers arrived. The entrance to the village was blocked by seven army jeeps by afternoon, and an army helicopter hovered overhead. The army said a curfew was imposed on the area, confining the village's 12,000 residents to their homes. The army said it was searching for the Arab attackers.
AP880330-0217 	X	A planned meeting between two Democratic presidential rivals collapsed Wednesday, with Jesse Jackson saying Albert Gore had launched an attack on him that was ``more personal than principled.'' Gore called Jackson's charge ``ridiculous'' and said he was merely holding his rival to the same standard as any other candidate. The two traded charges a day after Gore unleashed a broad assault on Jackson's record as without experience and said he was dismayed by Jackson's associations and Middle East policies. In his latest remarks, Gore defended his earlier criticism and said he had mentioned nothing that could be regarded as personal. ``There is no reason why anyone should think Jesse Jackson ought to be treated differently from any other candidate in this race,'' Gore told reporters. ``That's not a personal attack, and I'm surprised he would see it as a personal attack.'' ``I think it's ridiculous,'' Gore said. ``He's a major contender for the White House. Is he to be immune from any questioning of his position on the issues or his approach to the campaign? It's ridiculous.'' Gore commented at a news conference upon arriving in Washington from a campaign trip through New York and Wisconsin. Only moments earlier, Jackson had passed through the same private air charter terminal. The two had met on Monday and, according to both campaigns, agreed to set aside time Wednesday afternoon at National Airport for a meeting since their schedules coincided. But late Wednesday the meeting was canceled, the Gore campaign saying it was Jackson's move. Before departing on his own trip to Wisconsin, Jackson told reporters the two were planning to meet. But Jackson said that as a result of ``his attacks, which were more personal than principled, it's not necessary to meet at this time.'' Jackson said they would meet ``at some future time.'' Gore was informed of Jackson's comments and responded, questioning whether anyone believed he should ``bend over backwards to not say anything that might possibly be interpreted as critical'' of Jackson ``Is there supposed to be a separate standard?'' he asked. ``Is there supposed to be some unwritten rule why Jesse Jackson cannot be criticized, why his positions have to be just sancrosanct and nobody can say anything about them for fear somebody will just misinterpret what your saying? I have from the start of this campaign treated him exactly the same as every other candidate in this race.'' ``I don't think he really wants to be treated differently, and if he thinks about it he won't really see a criticism of his positions as a personal attack.'' Gore also took aim at Dukakis, the delegate leader who was considered the frontrunner for the nomination, at least until his massive loss to Jackson in Michigan last weekend. Gore faulted Dukakis for what he said was a refusal to even contrast himself with Jackson when asked. ``He was asked: `Why would you make a better president?''' Gore said of Dukakis. ``He said, `I'm not going to answer that question.' I think that's ludicrous.'' On Wednesday, however, Dukakis moved cautiously to contrast some of his positions with those of Jackson. He mentioned the Middle East and domestic policy as points of difference, but declined to provide specifics.
AP900525-0232 	X	The owners of Ms. magazine say reader response to their plans to resurrect the publication without advertising was strong enough to proceed, but they have delayed its reappearance until late July. The 17-year-old feminist magazine suspended publication last December because of heavy losses and a sharp decline in advertising. In March, plans were announced to resume publication without ads starting in June. But Andrea Kaplan, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said Thursday that the relaunch date now has been set for July 31. She blamed the delay on ``a lot of launch details'' that must be addressed. Lang Communications Inc., a New York-based company that acquired Ms. last fall, previously said that barring ads from the magazine would free writers to pursue topics without worrying about how advertisers might react. But magazine executives indicated earlier this year that resumption of publishing would depend on getting enough people sign up for subscriptions, which were set at $40 a year _ more than double the previous $16 rate. The magazine will appear six times a year, down from 10 previously. Ms. Kaplan declined to say how many people have signed up for subscriptions. She said Chairman Dale Lang and other magazine executives met two weeks ago and decided to proceed. She said the subscription response was ``close to their projections'' and that it was particularly strong from young women just out of college. Industry analysts warned that it would be difficult to generate enough revenue from circulation alone to be profitable, particularly because many other magazines have taken up some of the topics on which Ms. built its franchise with feminists. But Lang hired noted feminist author Robin Morgan as its new editor in chief and she has said the magazine will address topics that have not been explored fully enough in women's magazines. She has cited as examples stories on the role of women in the upheavals in Eastern Europe, homeless women and violence against women. The magazine also will feature fiction and poetry from women and investigative reporting. Ms. founder Gloria Steinem helped drum up support for the relaunch, writing a pitch for the magazine that was included in a March mailing to about 600,000 potential subscribers people, including those who had been subscribing to Ms. when publication was suspended. Ms. Kaplan said the magazine is continuing to solicit subscriptions, and expects a total circulation of ``less than 100,000.'' She said Lang expects to break even on the publication for the first year without advertising.
AP881003-0272 	X	Today is Sunday, Oct. 9, the 283rd day of 1988. There are 83 days left in the year.
AP880903-0167 	X	The bond market is getting a powerful lift from signs that the pace of economic growth is slowing, but some analysts worry that a decline in the dollar could spoil the party. The government's report on Friday that the nation's civilian unemployment rate jumped to 5.6 percent in August from 5.4 percent in July was the catalyst for one of the bond market's most forceful rallies of the year. What heartened the market was not so much the widely-anticipated increase in the unemployment rate but the accompanying statistics that indicated a slowdown in new job creation and little if any increase in wages. Trading volume in the bond market had slowed to trickle in advance of the report as some bond dealers suspected it would confirm their worst fears _ that the economy was growing so rapidly that it would ignite inflation and force the Federal Reserve to restrain it. But the report had only pleasant surprises for many bond analysts. By midafternoon Friday, prices of some 30-year Treasury bonds were up about $25 for every $1,000 in face value. That gain was the biggest since a $26 per $1,000 in face value rise on Jan. 15, the market's best day of 1988. The price rise trimmed yields on the 30-year issue, often viewed as an indication of broader interest rate trends. At midafternoon, the 30-year bond yielded 9.05 percent, down from 9.30 percent late Thursday and from 9.43 percent at the end of trading in the previous week. Some analysts said the unemployment report may mark a turning point from which interest rates will trend lower through the end of the year. Elliott Platt, director of fixed-income research for Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp., said, ``There is a very good chance that rates have peaked.'' Platt said the trade deficit contraction and business spending on equipment are slowing. He noted that earlier this past week the government reported a 0.8 percent decline in its leading indicators index for July and a 3.5 percent drop in manufacturing orders to factories. He said the unemployment report ``suggests that the slowdown may be here.'' He expects long-term yields will sink to 8.5 percent by yearend. But many economists say it is too early to call a turning point in rate trends and expect rates will head higher. Harold Nathan, senior financial economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in San Francisco, said he expects long-term yields could reach 10 percent by the end of the year and 10.5 percent next year. Nathan said the unemployment report ``showed some weakness in the labor markets that we have not seen in some time,'' but added it does not reflect a sharp economic slowdown. ``We are growing at a more sustainable but strong pace of activity. The bottom line is that there is still enough strength to put inflationary pressures on the economy,'' he said. Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis, said the unemployment report takes pressure off the Fed to push up short-term rates. But he said the economy ``is still doing fairly well'' and as a result feels ``this is a temporary pause, not a peak, in interest rates.'' Sohn said foreign central banks have raised their interest rates by much more than the U.S. central bank has this year, and that the dollar will probably come under pressure because of that. A declining dollar could reduce foreign demand for securities denominated in dollars such as Treasury notes and bonds. That could result in increasing pressure to raise rates to find buyers for the issues. Sohn expects 30-year bond yields of 10 percent by the end of the year. William V. Sullivan Jr., director of money market research for Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., said he thinks it is too early to say if the unemployment report marks a turning point for the credit markets. ``If the dollar plunges in reaction to signs of an economic slowdown it is possible that the bond market has to give up some of these gains,'' he said. In the meantime, he said he expects bond professionals are ``reconsidering their exposures'' just in case the slowdown turns out to be lasting.
AP881031-0001 	X	A school board member took $8,000 in bribes from two teachers seeking promotions to vice principal, a federal grand jury charged Monday. Malcolm George, 32, of Newark, was indicted by the panel on two counts of bribe-taking and two counts of extortion by a public official. He faces 60 years in prison if convicted on all counts. George, the board's second vice president, allegedly took $5,000 from one teacher as early as spring 1987 and $3,000 from another teacher last August in exchange for improving their chances for promotion, the indictment said. U.S. Attorney Samuel A. Alito Jr. declined to identify the teachers or their schools or say if they were ever promoted. ``This is part of a continuing investigation into activities of this type,'' Alito said. Sheldon Bross, a board attorney, said he believes the teachers were not promoted. George could not be reached Monday. His phone number is unlisted, and his attorney, C. Robert Sarcone, did not return a message. No date has been set for George to appear in court. He was not arrested. Authorities said George was a former Essex County employee but did not know his current occupation.
AP880319-0011 	X	A 101-year-old Mexican who was smuggled into the United States in the back seat of his son's car 14 years ago became the oldest alien to gain legal status under the amnesty program, officials said Friday. ``Gracias, muchas gracias a todos (Thank you very much everyone),'' Carlos Romero-Gaitan said as he was presented a temporary residency permit, or green card, by Howard Ezell, western regional director the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In recent weeks, Ezell and other INS officials have taken pains to publicize the impending May 4 deadline to apply for amnesty. Romero-Gaitan, who was born in San Pedro, worked on a hacienda and as a rodeo rider, and operated a Guadalajara tortilla shop until his retirement at age 82 in 1968. When his wife died in 1974, his son Carlos Jr. of Watsonville, Calif., flew to Guadalajara and took him by plane to Tijuana, where they got into a waiting car. With the father asleep in the back, Carlos Jr. drove to the border. ``They (the Border Patrol) asked everyone else in the car for identification, but they didn't want to disturb the man who was asleep, so he got through clean,'' INS spokesman Joe Flanders said. Flanders said Romero-Gaitan has lived ever since in Watsonville, tending the family's garden, watching cowbody shows and boxing matches on television and venturing out to an annual rodeo in the Salinas area. Romero-Gaitan said Friday that he decided to apply for amnesty now ``so I can feel free to go out of my house and not be afraid of being picked up.'' Four of his five children are alive and live in the United States and Mexico. He has 30 grandchildren and 40 great-grandchildren.
AP880629-0196 	X	The Woman's National Democratic Club, born in 1922 of the suffrage movement, voted Wednesday to grant its male members the right to vote. Outgoing club President Jean R. Jensen said it was ironic that men now seek full membership in clubs founded to give women a say in what once was the male world of politics. ``Perhaps it is a measure of our success that women's clubs are being asked to include men,'' she said. Club members agreed by voice vote and without dissent to give men full membership status. The organization has nearly 2,000 members, of whom 85 are men who, as associate members, could participate in all ways except that they could not head committees, become officers or vote. Ms. Jensen said that while the men have enjoyed the ``business and networking opportunities'' that come with socializing and participating in activities at the club's stately mansion, they have been slow to volunteer to work on projects and committees. ``We'll have to work on the men to get them more involved,'' she said. The club's decision to grant men full membership status comes on the heels of votes by Washington's exclusive Metropolitan and Cosmos clubs to end their men-only policies. In addition, the Supreme Court this month upheld a New York City law that bars discimination against women and minorities by large, private clubs where business deals often are arranged. Ms. Jensen said the decision of the woman's club to admit men was unrelated, and had been approved by the organization's governing board in April as part of a year-long project to revise the club's bylaws. John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University who had filed discrimination complaints against the Cosmos, Metropolitan and Democratic Woman's clubs, welcomed the latest vote, saying ``they're falling like 10-pins.'' He said that while he was less concerned about the potential discriminatory impact of women-only clubs than about men-only organizations, ``you've got to have sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander.'' The woman's club's activities include sponsoring trips, seminars, conferences, speaker luncheons and dinners, providing volunteers for various Democratic campaigns and developing position papers on issues.
AP881007-0039 	X	The government is dismissing worries that the flood of sympathy for ailing Emperor Hirohito will trigger new demands that Japan revive its military might. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yoshifumi Matsuda said Thursday the illness of the world's longest-reigning monarch will not create pressure to change the post-war constitution, which forbids use of military force. ``There will be no such general voices coming up towards that direction or to think about the constitution or a change of course,'' he said. The official sought in particular to discredit what he called the ``strange opinions'' of conservative author Hideaki Kase. The writer's remarks to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan last week were reported by some journalists as portending a surge of nationalism during a post-Hirohito transition. Rightists, including some members of Parliament from the governing Liberal Democratic Party, would like to change the constitution to restore some of the emperor's traditional status and allow Japan to be more of a military power. The 87-year-old emperor, who took power in 1926, has been bedridden since internal hemorrhaging caused him to cough up blood Sept. 19. He is being fed intravenously and has received daily blood transfusions. Hirohito remained in stable condition today. Rightists have worked quietly behind the scenes to increase public sympathy for Hirohito since he fell ill. The effort has been led by Shizuka Kamei, a member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party's Fellow Thinkers Council on Fundamental National Issues. Kamei spearheaded the drive to set up nationwide registries for people to sign and wish Hirohito a speedy recovery. ``It's not nationalism or revisionism,'' Kamei has said. ``The emperor is like our father, and he is sick.'' Kamei is in favor of revising the constitution. Earlier this year, he and his group supported a Cabinet minister who was forced to resign for saying Japan was not an aggressor in World War II but was simply fighting to protect itself ``at a time when the white race had turned Asian into a colony.'' Leftists have criticized both Kamei and the government, saying they are creating an unwarranted mood of mourning with such things as the registries and the many cancellations of trips by Cabinet members. Mainstream newspapers and some governing party members also have criticized the government for overreacting to Hirohito's illness. Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita has said government business should go on normally as much as possible. Asked at Thursday's weekly briefing for foreign journalists if rightists would be able to open debate on revising the constitition in view of the outpouring of sympathy for the emperor, Matsuda replied, ``Absolutely not.'' Matsuda said the correspondents' club made a ``very great mistake'' by inviting Kase, who he said represented ``just a handful of people in Japan.'' Japan's postwar constitution, largely imposed by U.S. occupation authorities, not only forbids use of military force but also ends the emperor's role as living god and source of all political authority. The constitution now defines the emperor as ``the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people'' and gives him only ceremonial duties. The militarists who ran the country before and during World War II invoked Hirohito as inspiration for attacks that put most of East Asia under Japanese rule. But opinion polls consistently show the public is largely content with the emperor's symbolic role and the low level of military spending in today's Japan.
AP901105-0147 	X	The European Community expressed concern Monday about the dangers of a catastrophic famine in East Africa. ``The council (of ministers) stressed the very real danger that the present drought, combined with a persistent difficult political situation, will lead to famine on a catastrophic scale'' in East Africa, the final communique read. The council of ministers said substantial short-term emergency food supplies will be necessary in the next few months. It said the United Nations has estimated that in Sudan as many as 5 million people are at risk. The council urged coordination of help among donors and called on all EC member nations to make their people aware of the seriousness of the situation, including ``the Community's concern about destuuction of refugee camps.'' Lynda Chalker, British minister for development, said the situation is even worse than the drought of 1984-85. She said there was evidence the government in Sudan was covering up cases of malnutrition.
AP880517-0002 	X	Twenty years ago, the Berrigan brothers and seven other Roman Catholic pacifists marched into a draft board office here, grabbed files from the drawers, then took them out and burned them with homemade napalm. The May 17, 1968, protest by the ``Catonsville 9'' inspired similar protests elsewhere and marked the entry of radical Catholics into the anti-war movement. Two decades later, most members of the Catonsville 9 have joined other anti-war protesters in society's mainstream, although they continue to espouse the ideals that prompted them to go to prison. But three of the eight surviving members are still defying the U.S. government in the cause of nuclear disarmament. This town of 48,000 west of Baltimore housed the draft board offices for Baltimore County, the suburban area that surrounds the city. On the day of the protest, the group, led by priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, walked into a second-floor office, yanked 600 files from the drawers, took them out to the parking lot and burned them. They then joined hands and said the Lord's Prayer as they waited to be arrested. ``We were tired of hearing the government trying to discredit the peace movement as long-haired, hippy, fag kids. It was not just a movement by people who were draft dodgers,'' said defendant George Mische, now a 50-year-old labor organizer in St. Cloud, Minn. The symbolic burning, coming just five weeks after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and a month before Robert F. Kennedy would meet an assassin's bullet, threw tinder on opposition to the Vietnam conflict, and sparked similiar draft record burnings in Milwaukee, Washington, Chicago and elsewhere. Thousands of people, many of them priests and nuns as well as anti-war activists such as Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman, marched in the streets of Baltimore during the week-long trial in October 1968. The nine defendants argued that the evil of the Vietnam War required persons of conscience to fight it. But they were convicted of destruction of federal property and spent anywhere from 9{ months to 3{ years in prison. Defendant Philip Berrigan spent the longest time in prison. Now a former priest, married and the father of three, he said recently that he has no intention of retiring from his career as a peaceful violator of U.S. laws. ``We can't very well do that because of the state of the world, '' he said. ``We're killing ourselves, and some of us are not making a murmur about it.'' Berrigan, 64, is incarcerated in a York County, Va., jail for throwing blood on Tomahawk nuclear weapons aboard the USS Iowa in Norfolk. His brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, 66, lives in a Jesuit community in New York. He is free on bond appealing a prison sentence for damaging missile warheads at a General Electric Co. plant in King of Prussia, Pa., in 1980. Philip Berrigan is appealing the same conviction. Artist Tom Lewis, 48, of Worcester, Mass., is the only other Catonsville 9 member still actively practicing civil disobedience. Last month, he was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for hammering on military weapons during a demonstration on the 42nd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima last August. He said he has dedicated his life to living among the poor and to peace work. The other surviving Catonsville defendants are living quieter lives. Mary Moylan, 52, a nurse who went underground for nine years before surrendering in 1979, now reportedly works again as a nurse in the Baltimore area. Thomas Melville, now 57, a former Maryknoll priest, and his wife, Marguarita, a former nun, said they joined the Catonsville protest because they were concerned about U.S. actions in Guatemala, where they had served before being expelled. Today, Mrs. Melville teaches at the University of California-Berkeley, while her husband is writing a book. Both have given speeches and demonstrated against U.S. intervention in Central America, he said. Defendant John Hogan, a former Maryknoll brother, was expelled from Guatemala with the Melvilles. He now lives in New Haven, Conn., and works as a carpenter. Mische moved to St. Cloud in 1976, where he ran successfully for the city council. The conservative Minnesota town eventually became the first in the state to declare itself a nuclear free zone. The ninth defendant, David Darst, 26, a Christian Brother who taught at a St. Louis high school, died in an automobile accident while the case was on appeal.
AP901009-0194 	X	Charges that two former police generals ordered the murder of a Solidarity priest are the first major prosecution of Poland's old guard and officially reopen a case most Poles never considered closed. The arrests in the case of the Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko come six years after the crime that shocked the nation, and at the outset of a presidential race in which Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki's careful treatment of former Communists is being challenged by Lech Walesa. On Monday, authorities also disclosed that a former interior minister and six other officials have been accused of taking bribes of gold and jewelry dating to 1971. ``In cases of clear crimes, party people will be punished. If proven, these people will be condemned,'' Aleksander Smolar, a senior adviser to Mazowiecki, told an American Society of Newspaper Editors delegation Tuesday. At a Walesa campaign rally in Warsaw on Tuesday, a spectator challenged the timing of the arrests ``right now before the elections,'' scheduled for Nov. 25. But Smolar said there was absolutely ``no political calculation'' in the arrests, which he said were ordered by independent courts. He said there would be no departure from the government's basic policy ``that our evolution to democracy should be as peaceful as possible, trying to reconcile the two parts of Poland,'' rather than waging a ``cold civil war'' against former Communists. Smolar said he recognized that the prosecutions of former police officials would prove popular because of ``the feeling of bitterness and injustice'' after 45 years of communism. ``There is a need of a clear moral condemnation, everybody needs it for a sort of catharsis,'' Smolar said. However, he added, most Poles understand the wisdom of avoiding purges. Those Interior Ministry records that survived destruction - the Mazowiecki government did not take steps to prevent the burning of documents - will not be opened to show who cooperated with the secret police, Smolar said. ``It is extremely dangerous and destroys the nation to judge people for their weaknesses ... in very harsh times, when only heroes were able to survive with dignity,'' he said. The 1984 kidnapping and murder of the 37-year-old Popieluszko, whose body was pulled from a river, gave a martyr to the then-underground Solidarity movement the Communists were trying to crush. Many Polish households still display photographs of the priest that were put up during the 1980s as a sign of protest. Four secret policemen from the Interior Ministry's Fourth Department, the unit responsible for spying on the Roman Catholic Church and clergy, were tried and convicted in Popieluszko's death. Two have been paroled. But no involvement was found on the part of higher authorities - a conclusion that satisfied few and came to symbolize ruthless communism. ``Something unprecedented has happened,'' Jerzy Jachowicz, an expert on the security services, wrote of the arrests Tuesday in a front-page Gazeta Wyborcza commentary. The two generals, former Deputy Interior Minister Wladyslaw Ciaston and Zenon Platek, former head of the Fourth Department, were charged with plotting the priest's slaying during September and October 1984 and directing the Oct. 19, 1984 killing, officials said. Prosecutors said the corruption charges were unrelated to the killing. But among those arrested was onetime Interior Minister Miroslaw Milewski, a former Communist Party Politburo member who was Central Committee secretary in charge of internal affairs when Popieluszko was murdered. After the slaying, Milewski was quietly dismissed. Milewski was given the party posts after being replaced as interior minister by Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak in 1981, during Solidarity's first legal period. Kiszczak, a Communist holdover in the Solidarity government until he resigned last summer, told Polish television in September that he believed the priest's killers could not have acted ``without the inspiration of someone standing higher then them.'' He suggested the crime was committed by those aiming to destabilize the ``reform-oriented'' Communist government of then-party leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, now the outgoing president. On Polish television Tuesday, Kiszczak said he believes Ciaston and Platek, who worked for him, are innocent. He said the corruption charges against Milewski were investigated in May 1984 and a ``thorough report'' was given to superiors, but he did not elaborate. The Popieluszko case was reopened July 24, three weeks after Kiszczak's resignation, by the Office for the Protection of the State, the smaller and tightly controlled agency that replaced the disbanded secret police. The arrests made since Thursday open a ``new chapter in the case,'' the government daily Rzeczpospolita said. ``The direct perpetrators of a crime were already judged. ... However, unanswered questions still remain,'' the newspaper said. The corruption inquiry, which also targets two unidentified other generals and two colonels, involves acceptance of bribes of ``great value, including many kilograms of gold and jewelry,'' Prosecutor General Aleksander Herzog said. The alleged crimes span the period from 1971, when Milewski was a deputy interior minister, to 1981, Herzog said.
AP880819-0171 	X	The family of jailed black activist Nelson Mandela on Friday requested the government to release his medical records to determine whether prison conditions may have contributed to his contracting tuberculosis. The 70-year-old Mandela, leader of the outlawed African National Congress, was transferred a week ago from the Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town to nearby Tygerberg Hospital. Reports of his illness triggered a wave of new appeals at home and abroad for his release after 26 years in jail. A statement issued on behalf of the Mandela family by anti-apartheid activists said Mandela was receiving good care at Tygerberg. But it questioned whether conditions at Pollsmoor may have contributed to the disease or whether doctors there could have made a quicker diagnosis. Doctors have said the prognosis for Mandela's recovery is good and treatment is expected to take about five months. The statement asked that Mandela's medical records be released to his family ``to dispel the nagging doubts existing in their minds.'' It was signed by the Rev. Beyers Naude, a white anti-apartheid activist on behalf of a new group called the Mandela Crisis Committee. Mandela's illness presents South African President P.W. Botha with one of the toughest dilemmas of his 10 years in power. The president, who has faced rising pressure to free Mandela, knows that violence could break out if the leader dies in jail. But he also knows that releasing the leader of the biggest guerrilla group fighting white rule would anger the right wing and could trigger renewed black activism as nationwide municipal elections approach on Oct. 26. On Thursday, Botha said Mandela's release was under serious consideration and indicated the government was trying to Mandela to accept its condition that he renounce violence. Mandela, jailed since 1962, is serving a life sentence for plotting a sabotage campaign to overthrow the government and its apartheid system of racial segregation. Neither the ANC nor Mandela's family have issued a formal response to Botha's remarks. But the statement issued by the activists Friday said Mandela ``has made his position very clear regarding the issue of violence.'' Mandela rejected a previous offer of conditional release, saying he would not renounce violence until the government legalized the ANC, dismantled apartheid and opened negotiations aimed at granting full political rights to the black majority. The Citizen, a pro-government Johannesburg daily, quoted unidentified government sources as saying there was no possibility of Mandela's release before the October elections, which will mark the first time that blacks and whites across the country vote on the same day. The government depicts the event as a major step toward democracy and has outlawed calls for an election boycott. But anti-apartheid groups have made clear they reject the election as an attempt to entrench a segregated political system. South Africa's 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.
AP880314-0322 	X	Stock prices showed no clear trend Monday in the quietest trading of the year as traders looked ahead to a potentially volatile week. Takeover news and speculation and a late flurry of buying in blue chips provided the highlights of an otherwise uninspired session. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials gained 15.09 to 2,050.07. But declining issues slightly outnumbered advances on the New York Stock Exchange, with 737 up, 794 down and 445 unchanged. Big Board volume came to 131.89 million shares, down from 200.02 million in the previous session, and the lightest total since a 111.58 million-share day Dec. 29. Analy were reluctant to take big positions in advance of the government's report Thursday on the nation's trade balance for January. The trade deficit narrowed in the last two months of 1987, but some analysts expect the sts said tradersJanuary data to show a modest increase in the gap between exports and imports. This week's trade report will come just ahead of a quarterly ``triple witching hour'' involving a group of expiring options and futures on stock indexes. The past few witching hours have been relatively uneventful with the adoption of new procedures designed to spread out the impact of last-minute maneuvering by computer program traders. Nevertheless, analysts say uncertainty aboe index closed at 296.94, up .85.
AP900209-0123 	X	Since 1956, the government has charged Helen Joseph with treason, detained her repeatedly, placed her under house arrest and made it a crime to quote her. But the 84-year-old white anti-apartheid activist survived 34 years of bannings and on Feb. 2 became one of nearly 500 people, living and dead, whose restrictions were lifted by President F.W. de Klerk. ``I didn't think I'd see this day,'' Mrs. Joseph said, adding that she was a bit disappointed the government no longer considered her a threat. ``I'm a stubborn old bag and I wasn't expecting things to change.'' Police restrictions have been a way of life for many anti-apartheid activists. Hundreds detained without charge during the 3{-year-old state of emergency were released but then placed under virtual house arrest. The restrictions varied, but often prohibited the activists from leaving their neighborhoods, required them to be home each night, prevented them from attending meetings or participating in politics, and often made it impossible to hold a job. Zwelakhe Sisulu, son of recently released African National Congress leader Walter Sisulu, was freed from prison in December 1988 after two years in detention. But he had to report daily to police and was unable to resume his job as editor of the New Nation newspaper until de Klerk rescinded his restriction order. Few have endured as much as Mrs. Joseph, a former social worker and union official now confined to a wheelchair much of the time. The government charged Mrs. Joseph, ANC leader Nelson Mandela and more than 150 others with treason in 1956 for their anti-apartheid activities. All were acquitted in a trial that lasted until 1961. However, Mrs. Joseph, a divorcee with no children, remained under a banning order and in 1962 became the first South African placed under house arrest. For the next nine years, police were the only visitors allowed to enter her comfortable white house with a red roof and a flower-filled garden in a Johannesburg suburb. Her house arrest ended in 1971 while she was undergoing a cancer operation, but until Feb. 2 she remained a ``listed'' person, meaning she could not be quoted in South Africa. She has been arrested numerous times, most recently in 1983 when she sang a freedom song and gave a clenched-fist, black power salute while attending a treason trial. As part of his reform program, de Klerk lifted the police orders on 374 people who had been restricted after their release from detention. He also removed the names of all 110 people who had been ``listed'' and could not be quoted. Many of the listed people are either dead or have left South Africa. They include: _Most of the African National Congress leadership, such as President Oliver Tambo, who is recovering from a stroke in Sweden. _Donald Woods, whose book ``Cry Freedom,'' about the life and death of black activist Steve Biko was made into a movie by the same name three years ago. Woods now lives in London. _Numerous whites, including Anne Heymann, who died of pneumonia Feb. 3 at the age of 66, and her husband, Isaac Heymann, who died of cancer four days later at the age of 79. The Heymanns, both listed since the 1960s, lived only a few blocks from Mrs. Joseph and often visited her at her front gate during the years when she wasn't allowed guests inside her home. ``So many people suffered for so many years,'' Mrs. Joseph said. ``I'm not grateful (for the lifting of the restrictions). It was not an act of compassion. It never should have been done in the first place.'' Despite failing health, she occasionally travels to anti-government protests, such as an ANC rally last October in the township of Soweto, where she received a rousing cheer from the mostly black crowd of 70,000. Mrs. Joseph, whose requests to visit Mandela were repeatedly denied, finally was granted permission and the two met last Dec. 21 for the first time in 28 years. ``He looked different after so many years, but then so did I,'' Mrs. Joseph said. ``He was in very good form, full of jokes, full of laughter.'' Four days later, Mrs. Joseph had Christmas dinner with Walter Sisulu and dozens of other activists at the home of a friend. After her house arrest was lifted, she began a tradition of making a toast at noon on Christmas to remember all the anti-apartheid activists who were in exile, in prison or had died. Word of the tradition had spread to exiles and prisoners, and Sisulu told Mrs. Joseph it was observed during his years in jail. She hopes one day all the activists will be able to hold a Christmas toast together in South Africa, but she doubts she'll be around to take part. ``I don't think I'll see the end of apartheid, but I'll see it diminish,'' she said. ``You can't wash away 300 years of cruelty and injustice overnight.''
AP880722-0076 	X	Medal of Honor winner Jake W. Lindsey, whose heroism in World War II and the Korean War earned him the nickname ``one-man army,'' was buried with military honors. Lindsey, who died of a heart attack Monday at age 67 at his home in this southeast Mississippi town, was buried Thursday at Whitehouse Cemetery. Lindsey was the 100th U.S. infantryman to receive the nation's highest military honor. He won 16 medals in all, including four Purple Hearts. He won the medal for an action in late 1944 in the Huertgen Forest near Hamich, Germany. Lindsey, then a 24-year-old technical sergeant, was part of a platoon that had been reduced from six men from 40 in four days of fighting. The platoon captured its objective but faced an enemy counterattack. Although wounded in the knee, Lindsey faced a German infantry company backed by five tanks. He killed at least 20 Germans, knocked out one of the tanks and then, after running out of ammunition, used his bayonet in hand-to-hand combat. ``His unerringly accurate fire destroyed two enemy machine-gun nests, forced the withdrawal of two tanks and effectively halted the enemy flanking patrol,'' according to his citation, read by Gen. George C. Marshall. When Lindsey was presented the medal before a joint session of Congress in 1945, President Harry S. Truman was said to have whispered to him: ``I'd rather have the Congressional Medal of Honor than be the president of the United States.'' During the Korean War, he single-handedly killed 150 Chinese soldiers in one night, said Ron Busby, who is familiar with Lindsey's exploits. Lindsey also taught Special Forces courses in hand-to-hand combat and parachuting. After retiring from the military, he spent 10 years with the U.S. Forest Service. The Isney, Ala., native spent most of his life in Waynesboro. Survivors include his wife, Lucille, two sons, two daughters and a granddaughter.
AP881212-0269 	X	When it comes to shopping, mature consumers prefer the old-fashioned way _ walking around the stores, according to a Baylor University study. The Baylor researchers said the ``gray marketers,'' 55 years or older, like to see what that are buying before they part with their money and thus go to the stores rather than order from mailed catalogs or television or telephone. ``Many of them actually prefer the social aspects of going shopping,'' says Marjorie Caballero, executive director of the Center for Professional Selling at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business, Waco, Texas. ``They like walking the shops and meeting people. Getting out of the house is something they look forward to,'' she says. She conducted the year-long survey with Baylor Professor Lawrence Chonko, chairman of the Marketing Department, and former Baylor faculty member James Lumpkin, now a marketing professor at the University of Mississippi. The study, ``Direct Marketing to the Elderly: Sources of Dissatisfaction and Remedies,'' was funded by the Andrus Foundation of the American Association of Retired Persons. Sixty percent of the more than 4,000 people surveyed were in the 65-plus age category; 20 percent in the 55-64 age group, and 20 percent were adults up to age 54. More than 2,500 responded to the survey. The study also found that the elderly strongly prefer the ``personal touch'' from sales people and dislike ``high pressure'' sales tactics. The survey had some advice for those doing the selling as well. ``Be patient with the elderly,'' Caballero suggested. ``Don't assume because of their age that they cannot understand complex information. They grasp things just like everybody else, but it may take them longer. ``Don't give them too much clutter to wade through. Their eyesight may not be quite as good; use larger type in your printed material, slow down in your approach, simplify, and, above all, never think of the elderly as `senile' or `cranky' in their ways,'' she says. ``They resent these stereotypes.''
AP880518-0188 	X	Two Detroit newspaper reporters and the religion editor of the Grand Rapids Press were among 14 journalists selected for the Michigan Journalism Fellows program at the University of Michigan for 1988-1989. The fellowships, supported by major newspaper and broadcast groups for the past 15 years, are given to journalists to pursue a year of independent study. The fellowships carry a $22,000-a-year stipend plus tuition. The 1988-1989 fellows: _Joan Richardson, 36, deputy business editor of the Detroit Free Press. _Denise Stinson, 34, criminal court reporter for the Detroit News. _Christopher Meehan, 39, religion editor of the Grand Rapids Press. _Fred de Sam Lazaro, 32, producer, KTCA-TV, St. Paul, Minn., and field producer, MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. _Robin Fogel, 31, deputy design director, The Philadelphia Inquirer. _Judith Foy, 36, producer, WCVB-TV, Boston. _James Galloway, 33, reporter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. _John Hall, 40, investigative editor and reporter, The New Haven (Conn.) Register. _Scott Heller, 27, senior writer, Chronicle of Higher Education. _Steven Litt, 32, art and architecture critic, The News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C. _Gregg P. Zachary, 32, technology reporter, The San Jose Mercury News. _Mary Caroline Arguillas, 29, Mindanao correspondent of The Manila Chronicle, The Philippines. _Hyun-Chai Park, 40, foreign news reporter Yonhap News Agency, Seoul, South Korea. _Sussie Sheikh, 32, parliamentary correspondent, Det Fri Aktuelt, Copenhagen.
AP881109-0031 	X	Following his wife's example, Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov underwent a heart examination as part of his first trip to the West. The 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was examined Tuesday, might receive a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat before returning to Moscow, a family member said. Sakharov suffers from chronic angina, or chest pain. His wife, Yelena Bonner, came to the same hospital, Massachusetts General, for heart bypass surgery in 1986. The hospital said it would not release test results or provide any other medical information for the next 10 to 14 days, at the request of Sakharov's family. His son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich, says if doctors decide a pacemaker is needed, Sakharov will undergo surgery before returning to the Soviet Union later this month. The physicist is scheduled to fly home Nov. 18, but relatives and colleagues have said his visa is flexible and could be extended. Yankelevich said last week that pacemakers, which are implanted under the skin, are not generally available in the Soviet Union. Though frail, Sakharov has maintained a demanding schedule and appears to be in generally good health. He is believed to have suffered a minor stroke when Soviet authorities force-fed him during a 1985 hunger strike. That fast, which lasted several weeks, prompted the Soviet authorities to allow his wife to come to Boston for heart surgery. She had suffered two heart attacks. Sakharov was also weakened by a hunger strike in 1981, said Joshua Rubenstein, an Amnesty International specialist on Soviet dissidents. That 18-day fast forced the Soviets to allow a young woman, Elizaveta Alekseyeva, to emigrate to the United States to marry Sakharov's stepson, Alexei Semyonov. ``But it wasn't just the hunger strikes themselves that caused the damage,'' Rubenstein said. ``It was the psychologcial pressure, the isolation, being force-fed, the stroke. Being force-fed is a form of torture, after all.'' Sakharov has commented little on his physical condition. Asked at a news conference Monday about his health, he said only that ``it hasn't changed either way'' recently. On Friday, he is scheduled to travel to New York City for a luncheon given by the Union of Concerned Scientists. From New York, he plans to go to Washington for a board meeting of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, of which he is a director. On Monday, Sakharov plans to visit President Reagan at the White House. In two public appearances since his arrival four days ago, Sakharov has called attention to Soviet political prisoners and warned that perestroika, the restructuring of his country's political and economic system, faces a grave threat from new laws restricting demonstrations and increasing police powers. Sakharov, who won the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize for championing human rights, was banished to the closed city of Gorky in 1980 for his opposition to Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Sakharov's living conditions during his internal exile were harsh and he frequently carried a 30-pound bag with his possessions, Rubenstein said. In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Sakharov to return to Moscow.
AP900509-0221 	X	``Deep'' (RCA-BMG) _ Peter Murphy The ``deep'' of former Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy's fourth solo project could refer to his unfathomable lyrics, but Murphy has said the title reflects both how he feels about his work _ deeply _ and his perception of the music, which he calls ``deep rock.'' It sounds more like doomsday disco. Murphy's old outfit, a post-punk British band with artistic pretensions, was among the first to mix infectious dance grooves with brooding, introspective lyrics. The style lives on in this recording and in records by The Cure, The The and others favored by masses of black-garbed club hoppers. ``Cuts You Up,'' a single from ``Deep,'' is a hit in dance clubs and on college radio, and its hook is undeniable. But it is difficult to imagine the self-absorbed Murphy finding a broader audience with songs this obtuse. _ By David Dishneau, Associated Press Writer.
AP900622-0085 	X	State high-school teachers have voted to boycott university entrance exams, endangering the chances of thousands of students who have applied to enter universities in Greece and abroad. The Federation of Higher Education Personnel, which represents nearly 60,000 high-school teachers nationwide, overwhelmingly voted Thursday to continue a strike over pay and conditions. ``We will stage 24-hour strikes whenever the government reschedules the exams,'' said one union official, who refused to be identified. The exams conducted by the state high-school teachers were originally set for June 14. The teachers want $107 more a month in pay and a reduction in the number of hours they must teach each week. High-school teachers receive a starting salary of about $476 a month, which can rise to $833 a month. They must teach 21 hours each week and want that cut to 18 hours a week.
AP900719-0014 	X	President Bush's decision to end recognition of rebels battling Cambodia's Vietnamese-backed government _ and open talks with Vietnam instead _ is being welcomed in Congress, but some lawmakers say it doesn't go far enough. ``U.S. policy requires overhaul and intensive effort, not tinkering and fleeting attention,'' Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, said Wednesday. He called past policy ``a dismal failure.'' Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for an end to covert U.S. aid to Cambodia's rebel coalition. Secretary of State James A. Baker III announced Wednesday in Paris that the United States would withdraw its support for the three-party coalition that is fighting the Vietnamese-installed Phnom Penh government. That coalition includes the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for more than 1 million deaths during its reign in Cambodia in the 1970s. Baker also said the United States would begin a dialogue with Vietnam about the need for a political solution to Cambodia's civil war, and would allow U.S.-sponsored humanitarian programs _ including $5 million in aid for children _ to go forward inside Cambodia. The moves were seen as adjustments to a new reality in Cambodia, where a potential takeover by the brutal Khmer Rouge has become a larger worry than fears of encroachment by neighboring communist Vietnam. But in a letter to Mitchell, Baker also said ``it is more important than ever to provide U.S. materiel support for the non-communist resistance, who should not be undercut just as they seek to provide the only non-communist alternative in free elections.'' The United States now provides $7 million openly to the resistance for non-lethal supplies and an additional $13 million a year in covert military aid for the coalition, according to intelligence sources. Both payments are under attack in Congress, because while the aid ostensibly supports the coalition faction of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, critics say it at least indirectly helps the Khmer Rouge, which is the country's strongest military force. Several opponents of U.S. policy said continuing the aid was inconsistent with other moves by the administration. ``The administration has eliminated the rationale for their policy of support for the non-communist resistance, but on the other hand has increased its resolve to provide assistance. That's a contradiction,'' said Rep. Chester Atkins, D-Mass. Citing reports that the Khmer Rouge is gaining ground on the battlefield, Mitchell said: ``There is simply no excuse to delay additional action'' that would go beyond Baker's announcement. Among actions Mitchell sought was direct U.S. talks with the Phnom Penh government of Hun Sen, rather than his Vietnamese sponsors in Hanoi, who are in turn supported by the Soviet Union. And he said Bush should be more willing to apply pressure to China, the chief supporter of the Khmer Rouge, and to do so publicly. ``The Chinese leadership must be made to understand that it stands entirely alone in support of genocidal forces,'' he said. Boren did not directly refer to the covert military aid program that goes through his Intelligence Committee, but he said that all U.S. support for the resistance should be handled openly. ``Any future debate on our policy toward Cambodia should be in the Foreign Relations Committee, not in the Intelligence Committee,'' which meets behind closed doors, Boren said. The intelligence panel voted June 28 to cut off the covert aid program beginning Oct. 1. Boren said he assumed the policy shift is ``a signal that the administration would no longer be seeking any aid that could be even indirectly helpful to the Khmer Rouge.'' That will require the administration to shift its budget request to support humanitarian programs and democracy-building moves, he said. Under U.S. pressure, the United Nations has awarded a seat to the Cambodian resistance coalition and denied formal recognition to Hun Sen. Baker said the United States also was changing its policy toward the Cambodian U.N. seat.
AP901015-0002 	X	The third game of the world chess showdown was adjourned Monday night after five hours, with neither world champion Garry Kasparov or challenger Anatoly Karpov clearly in control. The first game was a draw and Kasparov won the second game. Play was halted just after 10:30 p.m. when Kasparov wrote down his 41st move and sealed it in an envelope. The game was set to resume Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. when the match arbiter will open the envelope. Spectators said the players were in an unclear position. ``There are chances for both sides and I predict a draw,'' said Dmitri Gurevich, a grand master from Chicago. ``I think the position is better for black (Kasparov), but white (Karpov) has good chances of surviving and getting a draw,'' said international master Vitaly Zaltsman of Brooklyn. In the adjourned position, white has a king, rook, bishop, knight and four pawns. Black has a king, two bishops, a knight and five pawns. ``The adjourned position is a complete mess. Nobody knows what's happening,'' said Joel Benjamin, a grand master from Manhattan. Kasparov, 27, the highest-rated player in the history of chess, leads 1{ points to { points in the 24-game title match against Karpov, 39, the former world champion he unseated in 1985. Karpov played with the white pieces in Game 3, which originally was to be played Friday. Observers said they weren't surprised when Karpov - an introverted, methodical, player - postponed it until Monday: confidence is an important factor in this game of psychological warfare. The arch-rivals have played more than 120 games with each other. The majority of them, like Game 1 of this match, were draws. Kasparov dominated Game 2 thoroughly. In the third game, Kasparov, playing the black pieces, repeated his choice of opening from the first game - the King's Indian Defense. But Karpov, with his fifth and sixth moves, adopted a different system, known as the Classical Variation. Karpov used 1{ hours to play his first 15 moves. Kasparov used 21 minutes for his first 14 moves, then thought 41 minutes about move 15 - a quiet knight retreat. Karpov then decided to accept Kasparov's offer of the queen. But Kasparov's 23rd move trapped Karpov's queen, and forced an endgame in which Karpov had an extra rook but Kasparov had an extra bishop and two pawns that appeared very dangerous. Former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky, who is regarded as a strong amateur player, was in the press room analyzing the third game.
AP880719-0188 	X	U.S officials are in East Germany inspecting nuclear missile sites in compliance with the superpowers' Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, the state-run news agency ADN said Tuesday. ADN, in a brief report, said that two U.S. inspection teams arrived in East Germany on Monday. One team began checking a missile site near the town of Waren, about 70 miles north of Berlin the same day. The East German news agency also said the other U.S. inspection team started checking a second site Tuesday at Koenigsbrueck, about 15 miles north of Dresden. According to ADN, the Soviets maintained missiles at the sites until February, when they decided to remove them early to set a positive example in nuclear disarmament. The inspections in East Germany come as two teams of Soviet inspectors checked nuclear missile sites in Britain, which also fall under the INF agreement. Soviet teams have already conducted inspections at missile sites in West Germany and the United States this month, at the same time U.S. inspection teams began deploying to Warsaw Pact locations. The inspections fall under the terms of the INF treaty signed in Washington last Dec. 8 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan. The treaty provides for the elimination within three years of all nuclear missiles with ranges from 340 miles to 3,000 miles.
AP880615-0142 	X	Italy's highest criminal court ruled that Swiss businessman Walter Demuth can be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on arms trafficking charges, his lawyer said Wednesday. Following the ruling by the Court of Cassation last week, Demuth's lawyer, Aldo Perla, said he did not know when the businessman will be extradited. U.S. judicial authorities in New York issued a warrant for Demuth in 1986 charging him with illegal commerce of military materials and defrauding the American government. He was arrested in Italy in September. Demuth, 63, was head of a Swiss company, Helitrade AG, that deals in arms and civilian aircraft. Last year, the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick linked Demuth to arms dealing with Iran. The paper said Helitrade tried to ship 1,250 TOW anti-tank missiles falsely described as forklifts to Tehran for $7.5 million. Demuth was quoted as saying that the deal was never completed.
AP881020-0059 	X	A security guard who police once made a mascot has been charged with setting a spectacular waterfront blaze that caused about $10 million in damage, authorities said. Claude Douglas Melcher, 22, also was being questioned in a $20 million, nine-alarm fire two years ago that burned for several days and displaced hundreds of residents, police said. ``There are a lot of other fires we intend to question him about,'' said Sgt. Richard J. Ellwood. Melcher, who according to today's editions of The Sun often carried a plastic gun in a police holster and a police-fire radio scanner, was held on $100,000 bond Wednesday night after his arrest a day earlier. According to the newspaper, police and firefighters said he had visited station houses for 12 years and often ran errands for officers, who made him a mascot and outfitted him with shirts, trousers, even a night stick. A firefighter quoted by The Sun without identification recalled Melcher frequently arriving on the scene of fires before he got there. ``He would beat us there, and then he would want to help with the firehose or something,'' the firefighter said. Five firefighters suffered minor injuries battling the $10 million, seven-alarm blaze in the city's Fells Point section April 13. It began behind a building at Autoline Lubricants Inc., then spread to a shack at Allied Chemical Corp. Melcher returned to a fire station after the fire and talked with firefighters about it, fire officials said. The $20 million blaze destroyed a warehouse, three houses and damaged up to 120 homes and businesses on Nov. 4, 1986. Melcher was arrested after investigators questioned him about an Oct. 12 fire that caused $800,000 in damage at a building under construction at the Francis Scott Key Medical Center, where he is a security guard.
AP880429-0004 	X	Air Force officials announced plans Thursday to increase unmanned launches at this coastal base, after reaffirming a decision to put its space shuttle facilities in mothballs. Col. Sebastian Colitore said at the 25th Annual Space Congress convention Thursday in Cocoa Beach, Fla., that the Air Force would build one new launch pad and modify another at the base to launch the Titan 4 missile. His statement came a day after Maj. Gen. Donald Cromer, chief of the Space and Missile Test Organization at Vandenberg, reaffirmed a February announcement that the $3.5 billion shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg was being placed in mothballs because of federal budget cuts. Cromer said the move would save the Air Force $40 million in 1989. The Air Force plans to use the shuttle pad to launch other, unmanned missles, Maj. Sgt. Bruce Zielsdorf, a Vandenberg spokesman, said Thursday. The Titan 4, the military's workhorse missile, carries huge, shuttle-sized payloads and satellites into orbit. The first planned launch of the Titan 4, which is 20 feet taller than the shuttle at 204 feet, is set for February 1990, Colitore said. The Air Force also will modify another launch pad for old Titan 2 intercontinental missiles that are being refurbished into space boosters, said Lt. Col. Mike Callaway, project manager. The first launch of the Titan 2 is set for July 1 at Vandenberg, he said. Colitore said the Air Force would increase its unmanned launches at Vandenberg, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles on the California coast. The Vandenberg shuttle site has been regularly maintained at a cost of $50 million a year since the space shuttle Challenger exploded during launch in Florida in January 1986, killing the seven people aboard. It was to be the next site of a shuttle launch in July 1986. But after the Challenger disaster, NASA moved the launch back to 1992. Now launches have been indefinitely postponed at Vandenberg, although an August shuttle launch is planned at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Even if Vandenberg's vast shuttle complex, which includes a launch pad, buildings and runway, were to be reactivated, it would take at least four years for it to be functional, Zielsdorf said.
AP880528-0071 	X	Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini today asked Iran's parliament to do more for the nation's poor after legislative elections that boosted radicals seeking economic reform. Iran's leader also renewed his declarations that the 7{-year-old Persian Gulf war with Iraq would be settled on the battlefield, not at the negotiating table. He made his remarks in an inaugural message read to the 270-member Majlis, or parliament, by his son and aide, Ahmed. Earlier, President Ali Khamenei acknowledged that Iraq won victories recently in the ground war but said they would not affect final outcome of the conflict. The 87-year-old Khomeini, who was reported to be ill, asked the Majlis to ``simplify'' Iran's complicated government system. ``I hope that by close cooperation between the Majlis, the Council of Guardians and other experts, the problems of the deprived can be solved,'' he said in the message read by his son and carried by Tehran radio. Laws are submitted to the Council of Guardians after they pass through parliament. In Iran, ``deprived'' is a codeword for urban and rural poor. They were a major force in the revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. Khomeini has increasingly come down on the side of the radicals. They favor price controls, a minimum wage, land redistribution and other measures to help deal with runaway inflation and economic inequities. They are opposed by conservative believers in private property, many of whom are clerics or merchants and whose views are heavily represented in the Council of Guardians. The parliament was elected in two rounds of balloting in April and earlier this month. The exact breakdown of power blocs was not yet known, but based on announced results the radicals clearly gained influence. The new, four-year parliament is the third since the revolution. Referring to Iran's armed forces, Khomeini said in his message: ``The combatants must continue their fight by depending on their faith in God and their weapons,'' he said. ``The fate of the war will be decided on the war fronts, not through negotiations.'' The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that the president, Khamenei, also addressed the inaugural session and told the deputies they must work for social justice. Tehran radio earlier said Khamenei told worshipers in a prayer sermon Friday on the campus of Tehran University that ``war has a two-sided aspect.'' ``You will not find, in any of the wars in the world which last a long time, one side always winning and the other always losing. If one side constantly wins and the other constantly loses, the war will not last. It will be over,'' he was quoted as saying. The remarks followed two major battlefield defeats for Iran: the recapture by Iraq of the southern Faw peninsula April 18, and of a chunk of Iraqi territory east of the port city of Basra on Wednesday. Khamenei said, Iraq ``has had one or two victories and successes. These successes of the enemy are not beyond our expectation.'' The language used by the Iranian president to concede the defeats was unusually blunt, reflecting the scale of the reverses suffered by Iran since mid-May. In addition to the defeats in the ground war, U.S. forces on April 18 destroyed Iranian offshore platforms, sank a patrol boat and crippled two frigates in a series of clashes in the Persian Gulf. Iran's state-run media already had conceded that Iranian forces withdrew from some of their positions east of Basra. And after the Faw battle, it indirectly admitted setbacks by accusing United States forces of intervening on Iraq's side. But Khamenei assured his audience that Iran would prevail. ``We have no doubt that the nation which will have the last word and which will inflict the last blow is this same heroic and martyr-nurturing nation which, in the course of these years, has not for a moment felt a sense of weakness in confronting the big powers,'' he said. ``The great movement by the people towards final objectives and final victory has been charted by the imam (Khomeini) and the people are willingly and diligently following this path.'' Western military and political analysts have said it is too early to tell whether the string of defeats will represent a turning point in the war. But they say the setbacks have badly jolted the Tehran leadership at a time of growing economic woes and a power struggle between radicals who want a state-run economy and conservatives who back private property rights.
AP901104-0039 	X	Troops wounded dozens of Palestinians Sunday and ordered curfews across the Gaza Strip. Government leaders dismissed as ``one-sided'' a U.N. call for international protection of Arabs under Israeli occupation. Israel radio said 86 Palestinians were injured in widespread clashes following the death of a jailed Palestinian, while Arab reports said 70 were hurt. The army put the number at 27 and said it was checking the other figures. A Foreign Ministry statement castigated U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar for his report Thursday in which he suggested broadening the mandate of U.N. institutions in Israel to safeguard the 1.7 million Palestinians under occupation. The report was produced as a recommendation to the U.N. Security Council on response to the killing Oct. 8 of 20 Palestinians on Jersusalem's Temple Mount by Israeli authorities. ``The world community's continued preoccupation with this subject can only serve those forces who are interested in creating a link between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the gulf crisis,'' the statement said. The statement assailed a proposal to convene the signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which sets out rules for the treatment of civilians in wartime. ``Israel is disappointed at the one-sided approach exhibited in the report,'' it said. ``The recommendations in the report are directed only toward Israel and do not see fit to call for a cessation of violence on the Palestinian side.'' Israel has refused to accept a U.N. investigation into the Oct. 8 incident on Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Moslems. Israel says the inquiry would undermine its sovereignty in Jerusalem. Israel had conducted its own investigation and ``extracted the necessary lessons,'' it said. A government-appointed panel defended the action by police, saying they faced a threat to their lives. But it also said top officers failed to adequately supervise riot-control troops. Under the panel's recommendation, the Cabinet set up a permanent seven-member ministerial committee to oversee Temple Mount affairs. Police Minister Roni Milo upgraded Jerusalem to a full police district Sunday, acting on the commission's recommendations. Milo did not say if senior officers would be transferred or fired. About 350 officers will be added to Jerusalem's 1,000-member force and the public will be encouraged to volunteer for the Civil Guard, said police spokeswoman Ruth Shlezinger. In the Gaza Strip, extensive curfews were imposed and the area of 750,000 residents was declared a military zone and was closed to reporters. Arab reports said at least 180 people were injured during the weekend violence, started with rumors that a Palestinian inmate was killed by Israeli troops. Israeli authorities say the man hanged himself in his cell. In some sections of Gaza City, streets were littered with stones and scorched remains of burning tires. Masked youths in the city's Nasser Quarter fired rocks with slingshots at soldiers checking identification papers on a street. Arsonists gutted the town hall of Khan Yunis in Gaza, Arab reports said. Gaza police were not immediately available for comment. A senior aide of Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat claimed two girls' schools with hundreds of pupils in the Gaza Strip were hit by gas bombs fired by Israeli troops. Bassam Abu Sharif also said in a statement that dozens of other Arabs were wounded when Israeli troops opend fired on a Khan Yunis hospital and a number of clinics in the area run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. The statement was sent to The Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus, from PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed east Jerusalem.
AP900605-0051 	X	The U.S. military is offering to evacuate the families of American servicemen at government expense following the recent slayings of Americans and rebel threats of more attacks. A military spokesman said today that U.S. service personnel have until Thursday to tell officials whether they want their families sent home. ``We have asked those who have families to tell us when they would like to ship their dependents back before their tour ends,'' said Lt. Col. Ronald Rand, spokesman for Clark Air Base, 50 miles north of Manila. Rand did not say what would happen if service members decided later to return their dependents. Adm. Huntington Hardisty, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, authorized a program which allows a serviceman at any of the six U.S. bases in the Philippines to send members of his family home at government expense before his tour of duty ends, Rand said. Rand said a U.S. government-sponsored transfer of dependents of U.S. servicemen is usually done when only on exceptional cases, such as illness. But he said a large number of requests and letters of concern about their families forced them to adopt the program. A total of 40,000 Americans _ servicemen, civilian workers and dependents _ are stationed at Clark, Subic and four other American bases in the Philippines. At Clark alone, there are over 10,000 dependents, Rand said. Last month, Communist rebels killed two American airmen near Clark and vowed more attacks until all U.S. troops leave the country. Rebels also are suspected in the May 4 shooting death of a Marine sergeant near Subic. At least eight Americans have been slain in political attacks since April 1989. Six of the victims were servicemen or associated with the military. Another American serviceman was killed Saturday night, but American and Filipino officials said robbery _ not politics _ was the motive this time. Since Friday, U.S. Defense Department civilians and military dependents who live on Clark have been barred from leaving the base because of Communist threats. Those living off-base have been ordered to limit travel to essential business. Rand said the restrictions would last for at least two months depending on U.S. assessment of the threat. The New People's Army, the military wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, has waged a 21-year-old insurgency to establish a Marxist state.
AP880509-0216 	X	AP901011-0058 	X	The Missouri Knights of the Ku Klux Klan must stop playing racist telephone recordings that imitate the ``Mister Rogers'' children's television show, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs on Wednesday also ordered the Klan and three of its alleged members to turn over tape recordings and other materials that lawyers for the program say infringe on its trademarks and copyrights. Sachs issued the temporary restraining order one day after Fred M. Rogers and his Family Communications Inc. sued to stop the Klan's use of the recording. The message imitates the sound effects and song of the ``Mister Rogers'' television show and Rogers' voice and speech patterns. ``The messages are of racism, white supremacy and bigotry - the antithesis of everything Rogers and Family Communications Inc. stand for,'' said Cynthia E. Kernick, a lawyer for Rogers from Pittsburgh. A group of civil rights, community and religious leaders complained last week that the number for a telephone in Independence that played the racist message had been circulated among elementary and middle school students in the metropolitan area. The same phone number was used earlier this year to promote the philosophy of the Missouri Knights of the Klan. The lawsuit names the Klan and Adam Troy Mercer of Independence; Michael Brooks, also known as M.B. Madison, of Kansas City; and Edward E. Stephens, also of Kansas City. Attempts to reach Mercer, Madison and Stephens were unsuccessful. The judge set a hearing on a preliminary injunction for Oct. 20. Sachs declined to issue a civil search warrant allowing U.S. marshals to search for the tapes at the defendants' residences.
AP880421-0250 	X	A federal program to severely restrict pesticide use in the forests and farm lands where endangered species roam may itself be endangered because of a lack of federal dollars. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency opened a 90-day public comment period March 9 on a plan to enforce the Endangered Species Act in areas where pesticide use overlaps with the habitat of endangered species. Remaining hearings are scheduled for April 28 in Kansas City, Mo., May 3 in Sacramento, and May 6 in Phoenix, Ariz. The 1973 Endangered Species Act requires all federal agencies to ensure their activities or those they monitor do not harm critical wildlife habitat. The EPA's problem, according to several officials close to the agency's program, is that it doesn't have the funds to monitor and enforce pesticide restrictions. ``We don't have the money,'' EPA spokesman Al Heier said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. ``We're hoping in the meantime that where there are endangered species that people would voluntarily protect them where that's possible.'' ``Most of the farmers would try to comply,'' said Merlin Fagan of the California Farm Bureau. ``But if one would look at the thousands of dollars it could cost, we might be asking a lot.'' Fagan said the presticide program ``is a joke'' without the money to monitor pesticide use and verify the presence of endangered wildlife. Jay Feldman of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides contends the EPA is claiming empty coffers to avoid taking action that would affect farmers. ``I think hidden behind the excuse of money is a real reluctance on the part of the EPA to regulate pesticides that are seen to have a impact on agricultural production,'' he said. ``It's a lack of decisive action that plagues the agency, not a lack of resources.'' One example of an animal's potential impact on agriculture is the San Joaquin kit fox. This endangered creature roams 340,000 prime acres in Fresno County, an area with crops valued at $58.4 million that could be ruled off-limits to pesticides. The push to protect wildlife stems from a 1986 EPA internal report that slammed the agency for failing to implement the Endangered Species Act. The report included hundreds of complaints filed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service alleging the EPA had neglected to protect wildlife where pesticides are used, according to Laurie Mott of the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. Asked about the report, Heier said, ``What it said was that we were not implementing the Endangered Species Act for old pesticides.'' The report, coupled with criticism from environmentalists, prompted the EPA to propose strict regulation, within specific habitats, of any pesticide registered before 1978, Heier said. Pesticides registered after 1978, when new rules required more complete chemical information, comply with the law, he said. Angry farmers last fall forced a delay of the program's scheduled February start because the EPA's maps of rare plants and animal habitat were inaccurate. Fish and Wildlife Service director Frank Dunkle wrote last October that enforcing the program based on bad maps could ``develop a backlash among pesticide users.'' The EPA plan affects 900 counties nationwide. Pesticide labels would list specific counties where chemicals could threaten endangered species. Growers then would obtain a map to determine restrictions on the chemicals' use. Violations of the law can be punishable by fines of up to $20,000 and one-year prison terms. Last year's plan proposed restrictions on: _ 24 chemicals for forestry use, affecting 58 plant and animal species. _ 9 mosquito larvacides affecting 78 species. _ 29 pesticides for use on rangeland affecting 182 species. _ 64 chemicals for croplands affecting 45 species. County agricultural commissioners would be a farmer's main source for chemical restriction information, said James Wells, chief of the California Food and Agriculture Department's pesticide enforcement unit. As for money to implement and enforce this vast program on the local level, Wells said, ``That's one of the problems. Nobody in EPA has said anything about money. In fact, they said there is no money.'' Without federal funds, Wells speculated the state of California would have to absorb the program's cost. The state would have to help with mapping and enforcement or divert federal funds now used for other programs. Heier said it would probably take two years before the program gets into full swing.
AP880329-0209 	X	The pro-apartheid Conservative Party extended its series of recent political victories by winning a special election Tuesday to fill a vacant seat in Parliament's white House of Assembly. Conservative candidate Corne Mulder received 8,437 votes to 4,726 for Boy Geldenhuys of the governing National Party in the balloting in rural Randfontein district. The seat became vacant Jan. 13 when Mulder's father, Connie Mulder, died of heart and kidney failure. The elder Mulder had captured the seat for the Conservatives in the national whites-only election last May. Tuesday's lopsided vote was a further indication of the Conservative Party's growing support, especially among rural whites. President P.W. Botha's National Party holds 133 seats in the whites' 178-seat House of Assembly, Conservatives 23 and the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party 17 with five seats held by minor parties or independents. There are three separate chambers in the white-dominated Parliament, with the mixed-race chamber having 78 seats and the Asian chamber 45. By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services. The Conservatives won two special parliamentary elections on March 2 in rural white districts similar to Randfontein, which is 50 miles west of Johannesburg. In the national elections in May the Conservatives won 26 percent of the votes and they are expected to gain ground on the National Party in nationwide municipal elections in October. The National Party has governed South Africa since 1948. The Conservatives oppose all concessions to the black majority and say Botha is capitulating to blacks and international pressure. Botha's party has said it seeks gradual race reform that eventually would give blacks a say in national politics, but with the whites maintaining ultimate control. The Progressive Federal Party has been losing support in recent years and did not enter a candidate in Tuesday's election.
AP880401-0203 	X	S-CHARL, Switzerland (AP) _ An avalanche engulfed a Dutch skiing party on San Lorenzo mountain Friday, killing five people and injuring a sixth in the deadliest snowslide in the Swiss Alps in three years, police said. The deaths brought the skiing season's avalanche toll in Switzerland to 19. The snowslide occurred at noontime and swept seven Dutch skiers and a local mountain guide down the slope. The guide and one tourist freed themselves and alerted rescue helicopters by a walkie-talkie radio, police reported. Search teams assisted by dogs recovered five bodies and rescued an injured woman who was flown to a Zurich hospital. The skiers were at the 8,600-foot level of the nearly 10,000-foot mountain when they were struck by the avalanche. The Swiss Avalanche Research Institute on Friday had warned of moderate snowslide danger above 6,600 feet. Police did not release the names of the victims, but said the Dutch group came to S-charl on Sunday for a week of ski touring. It was the deadliest avalanche in Switzerland since 11 people were killed near Zermatt in March 1985.
AP900829-0136 	X	The aircraft carrier used to train the Navy's sailors and pilots _ the USS Lexington _ will be decomissioned in mid-1991, the Navy announced Wednesday. The USS Forrestal, which is homeported in Mayport, Fla., has been named to replace the Lexington as the service's training carrier. The Lexington was the site of a major accident last fall, when a jet pilot making his first landing crashed into the deck, killing himself and four others. In a statement issued at the Pentagon, the Navy said it had opted to retire the 47-year-old carrier rather than perform an overhaul to extend its service life. Since 1962, the Lexington has been used to qualify thousands of naval aviators, and it has recorded more than 490,000 aircraft landings on its flight deck. The Lexington was launched in 1942. During World War II, its crew destroyed more than 1,000 enemy planes and sank 300,000 tons of shipping, earning it the nickname ``The Blue Ghost'' and the reputation that it couldn't be sunk.
AP881211-0052 	X	Patrols watched for new fires Sunday following the devastation of three Southern California neighborhoods struck by wind-driven firestorms that destroyed 37 homes and charred thousands of acres of brush. Firefighters warned that until rain comes to the dry mountains that ring the Los Angeles Basin, a return of strong winds from the deserts further inland could bring a replay of fast-moving fires. ``We still have a red flag alert,'' said Roger Millan, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. ``We have people on standby. Patrols are out looking for brush fires.'' A brush fire that did an estimated $4.3 million damage in the fashionable hillside suburb of Porter Ranch Friday morning was finally put out Saturday, Millan said. Firefighters combed the burned-over area for hot spots Sunday, he said. Fourteen houses and a mobile home were leveled, 25 other houses were damaged and 3,200 acres of brush was charred, but there were no injuries. Residents described fleeing through a rain of fire, as wind estimated at 60 mph or more drove flames and embers into their neighborhood of $300,000-plus homes on the edge of the San Fernando Valley suburbs. Investigators trying to determine the cause of the fire sought two men seen in a park near the point of origin before dawn Friday, Millan said. The men were being sought as witnesses not suspects, Millan said. The Santa Ana winds, as they are known here, pick up speed as they funnel through canyons in the mountains around Southern California, heat by compression, dry the brush further and can spread the smallest fire into an inferno. The winds, which sweep Southern California sporadically every fall and winter, were blamed for the disastrous spread of two other Los Angeles area fires last week. A total of 22 homes in La Verne, and Baldwin Park, both to the east of downtown, were destroyed Thursday. In La Verne, a brush fire spread into a bedroom community; in Baldwin Park, a blaze at a paper recycling plant raged through a neighborhood of modest houses.
AP900821-0013 	X	Residents of the Florida Keys are fed up with Bausch and Lomb's monkey business. The vision-care giant put thousands of monkeys on two small, deserted islands more than a decade ago to breed, offering a steady supply of laboratory animals to biomedical researchers. But people who live near the islands where the rhesus monkeys have been allowed to run free, fouling the water and turning lush mangrove trees into useless skeletons, object to what they deem needless environmental destruction. ``It looks like a war zone right now. Just like Vietnam,'' said James McElroy, who's part of a grass-roots anti-monkey campaign. The rhesus monkeys have been good business since they were first brought over from India 18 years ago. Handlers regularly dispense monkey chow and capture more than a thousand each year, generating more than $1.5 million in annual sales. The breeding colonies became more important to U.S. researchers after India, Pakistan and Bangladesh banned monkey exports in the late 1970s, said Dr. Joseph Held, vice president for primate research at Charles River Laboratories, the division of Bausch and Lomb that runs the islands. And because they are untainted by Herpes B virus and other infections from the outside world, they are much more valuable than other primates destined for the nation's laboratories, Held said. ``It's the cleanest, healthiest commercial production colony in the world,'' Held said. Most of the animals are sold to labs doing advanced neurological research; none are used for eye-care tests, the company says. More than 1,900 breeding animals and several thousand of their offspring roam on 300 acres of partially submerged wetlands on Key Lois and Raccoon Key, another company-owned island several miles away. Even Charles River Laboratories, which is under a consent agreement to replace damaged trees and reduce the population, agrees that the monkeys have made a mess of things. The rhesus stripped the leaves from thousands of red mangroves, a protected species, and now struggle to find shade in the Florida sun. Their waste has fouled the waters, leaving a band of yellowish-brown algae that chokes out marine life. ``They weren't too noticeable until the vegetation began disappearing. That's when people became alarmed,'' McElroy said. Even armed with the necessary permits from pro-growth Keys officials, humans could never get away with such destruction, said Curt Kruer, a biologist and Audobon Society leader who has studied Keys wetlands for 13 years and can see Key Lois from his backyard. ``You could take all the mangroves destroyed for condo projects in the Keys in the past 10 years and it wouldn't come close to this,'' Kruer said as he poled his boat in for a close look at Key Lois last week. ``Where's it all going to end?'' The state owns everything below the high-water line, including the area where most of the mangroves have been destroyed, and environmental officials ordered the company to clean up those grounds years ago. Charles River Laboratories fenced in and replanted some trees, but disputed the boundary and sued the state in 1986. Nothing much changed until the two sides quietly agreed to a settlement in May that would allow the company to phase out the monkeys over 20-30 years. McElroy, Kruer and other Keys activists raised a ruckus. Gov. Bob Martinez and the Florida Cabinet, eager to improve their environmental image in this election year, responded by scuttling the agreement and deciding to go after Charles River for destroying state property instead. ``They just stripped all the state land and left it bare,'' Martinez said at the June 26 cabinet meeting. ``I'd like to see if we can prosecute.'' Ken Plante, general counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Resources, says the title dispute must be resolved first. A status hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 30. The department is still trying to find surveyors willing to brave the monkeys and measure the property, Plante said. Meanwhile, the company is quietly scouting out alternative sites where the breeding operation can be moved, said Barbara Kelley, a spokeswoman at Bausch and Lomb's Rochester, N.Y., headquarters.
AP880412-0087 	X	``We will try our utmost to protect our dear ones aboard the plane, but we will not surrender to any blackmail, even if we lose more of them. This is not the decision of Kuwait's government. It is a decision of the people.'' _ Kuwait Foreign Minister Sheik Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, about the fate of hostages aboard a hijacked Kuwait Airways jumbo jet, including members of Kuwait's royal family.
AP880927-0255 	X	``Broadcast News'' (CBS-Fox Video; VHS@Beta, $89.98; Rated R) One advantage in seeing ``Broadcast News'' at home is the opportunity to give the film a more satisfying ending than the feeble conclusion reached by director James L. Brooks. Just stop when you've had enough _ at least two good opportunities will arise _ and savor the satisfaction of saving a film in the cutting room. For most of its length, though, ``Broadcast News'' is a witty and often hilarious human comedy set in the high-pressure world of network journalism. This highly praised film inexplicably was snubbed at the Academy Award ceremonies, after winning seven nominations. However, Holly Hunter deservedly won best-actress awards from critics in New York and Los Angeles. Hunter and Albert Brooks play bright, dedicated and tough news professionals who worry about the inroads of fluffy feature stories and blow-dried airheads on the anchor desk. We know they are the very best of journalists because they say so, rather often. Their media Eden is invaded by a blow-dried, airhead snake named Tom Grunick (William Hurt). However, Tom establishes himself as a sympathetic figure. He's the only character who appears to have any humility, admitting that he's no genius and forthrightly asking help from Jane Craig (Hunter). What he knows is how to look good and sound smart, and he generously offers tips on anchoring to Aaron Altman (Brooks) _ perhaps knowing that the neurotic Aaron is no competition. Jane runs at such a high pitch that she often loses perspective. When her boss sarcastically tells her that it must be great to always be the smartest person in the room, she takes him seriously. ``No, it's awful,'' she sobs. Though Brooks and Hurt turn in first-class performances, this is Holly Hunter's movie and it runs on her energy. It's not just the two guys in the film who will fall in love with her. _ By Robert Barr, Associated Press Writer.
AP880728-0235 	X	Tonka Corp. announced a $7.6 million second-quarter loss and said it has laid off 110 employees in a restructuring of its Kenner Products and Tonka toy divisions. In cutting the 87 full-time and 23 part-time employees Wednesday, Tonka cited disappointing sales of its once hot Pound Puppies line and other Tonka products as well as a need to eliminate overlapping responsibilities with the recently-acquired Kenner Parker Toys. The company said its second-quarter loss came on sales of $198.4 million, and compared with earnings of $1.6 million, or 20 cents per share, on sales of $49.6 million in the same period a year earlier. Tonka attributed the loss to charges in connection with the Kenner Parker acquisition. The results brought Tonka's six-month losses to $18.1 million, compared with earnings of $3.2 million, or 41 cents a share, in the first half of 1987. First half revenues rose to $366.8 million from $97.9 million. Tonka renewed its earlier prediction that it would break even or earn a profit for the year after reporting a loss of $7.5 million for all of 1987. The layoffs announced Wednesday were the latest in a series of employee cuts among Tonka's four divisions since the Kenner Parker acquisition was announced last fall, reducing total employment from about 4,600 to about 3,975. Stephen Shank, Tonka's chairman and chief executive, said he hoped Wednesday's action would put the company in a stable business position. Tonka also announced Wednesday two Kenner executives will head a new U.S. toy group within the company to oversee the autonomous Kenner and Tonka divisions. David Mauer, 39, president and general manager of Kenner in Cincinnati, will head the group, and Joseph Fortino, 51, senior vice president of Kenner, will hold the same position within the new group.
AP901215-0054 	X	Iran was carrying out what were described as its biggest military maneuvers ever, and spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today ordered armed forces to be ready for any eventuality in the Persian Gulf. Tehran radio, monitored in Nicosia, said Khamenei addressed ranking military officers taking part in the air-sea exercises, code-named Piroozi 1, or ``Victory 1.'' Iran has spoken strongly against the presence of foreign military troops in the gulf region confronting Iraq, and Khamenei referred to them as ``the enemy forces.'' He said Iranian military preparedness was important because its enemies are ``armed to the teeth.'' Iran stands ready to confront any unexpected situation in the region, he said. Iran fought a 1980-88 war with Iraq, but Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made concessions for peace after his armies invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. The Iranian maneuvers appeared to present no conflict with the U.S.-led multinational force because they were taking place near Iran's southern islands, far from where the ships of the multinational force are deployed. The maneuvers reportedly began Wednesday, but were not mentioned in the Iranian media until today. The radio said the destroyer Sabalan, which was rebuilt after being severely damaged in March 1988 by the U.S. fleet protecting merchant ships in the gulf, was launched by Khamenei. The rebuilt destroyer will be taking part in the war games, the radio said. It did not provide other details about the maneuvers. The Islamic Republic News Agency, also monitored in Nicosia, said last month that the 10-day exercises would cover 12,000 square miles in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, and involve 50 warships. Several helicopters and hundreds of speedboats were also taking part, IRNA said. The news agency had earlier described the maneuvers as the biggest war games ever conducted by Iran. IRNA said the maneuvers would include amphibious operations and landings, rescue of ``captured'' ships and underwater rescue of frogmen. Weapons to be used included surface-to-surface missiles and air-to-surface missiles, IRNA reported in November. Smaller naval exercises have been conducted by Iran since the Kuwait invasion. The dominant Islamic Republic Guards Corps, which has its own air, military and naval wings, and Iran's regular armed forces, have often been in involved in disputes. Such internal strife was to blame for a string of military defeats in the Iran-Iraq war, which finally forced Iran to accept a cease-fire in August 1988. Khamenei said he expected the guards corps and the navy to perform their duties ``100 percent united.''
AP880625-0063 	X	An admiral has called for the court-martial of a Navy swimming instructor accused of holding a recruit's head under water and literally scaring him to death, a Navy spokesman said. Four other enlisted men and an officer accused in the death have until Monday to decide whether to accept more lenient disciplinary action or pursue a court-martial, Lt. Cmdr. Dennis Hessler said Friday. Rear Adm. David R. Morris of Corpus Christi, Texas, chief of naval air training, also dropped involuntary manslaughter charges against the enlisted men, except for Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael W. Combe, for whom he has recommended the court-martial, Hessler said. The Navy accused Combe of holding Airman Recruit Lee Mirecki, 19, of Appleton, Wis., under water after Combe and other instructors pushed or tossed the trainee into a pool when he panicked and tried to quit the course. Morris recommended the court-martial to Vice Adm. N.R. Thunman, chief of naval education and training, the ranking officer in Pensacola, said Hessler, Thunman's public affairs officer. ``It seems like he felt possibly that Combe was the most culpable, and I have to respect his decision because we are not part of the military process,'' Lynn Johansen, Mirecki's sister, said in Appleton. The decisions show all six defendants share the blame, she said. ``These men lacked professional judgment, and that's obvious,'' she said. ``Everyone's saying that the system failed, but these men were part of it.'' At a five-day investigative hearing two weeks ago, defense attorneys argued the system was at fault because Mirecki was allowed to return to training through a series of mix-ups after a flight surgeon declared him unfit and because use of force was a common practice condoned by authorities to keep scared, tired or malingering trainees in the pool. Mirecki had been described at the hearing as having died from ``sheer terror.'' A pathologist testified Mirecki had a phobia about being dragged under water, which triggered heart failure followed by drowning, although there was no determination of which factor killed him. Combe and the four other instructors had been charged with conspiracy to commit battery and involuntary manslaughter. Lt. Thomas A. Torchia, the officer in charge of the school, was accused of dereliction of duty and transferred. Morris offered to resolve the cases of Torchia, Petty Officers 1st Class Richard E. Blevins and David J. Smith and Petty Officers 2nd Class Frankie D. Deaton and John W. Zelenock with non-judicial punishment, Hessler said. If they decide to accept the offer, the extent of punishment would be determined at a proceeding known as an admiral's nest. They could face a pay cut, reduction in rank, restriction to the base or other penalties. A court-martial would enable a defendant to be cleared if acquitted but carries the risk of penalities that include prison time and removal from the service for a conviction.
AP880831-0126 	X	The National Council of Senior Citizens said Wednesday it is launching a campaign to dog Republican nominee George Bush on the campaign trail with signs reminding him of his 1985 vote in favor of a freeze on Social Security benefits. The council, which claims 4.5 million members, said it will undertake a massive distribution of voting records, literature and lawn signs to turn out older voters on behalf of Democrat Michael Dukakis for the Nov. 8 election. The group, created in the 1960s as an offshoot of organized labor to lobby for passage of Medicare, is planning news conferences on Thursday in 14 cities in Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Washington state and Ohio to publicize its stand. Its posters read, ``Bush whacked my Social Security on May 9, 1985. Vote Dukakis.'' Bush cast a tie-breaking vote on that date to defeat an amendment to exempt Social Security cost-of-living increases from a proposed federal budget freeze for 1986. However, President Reagan refused to endorse the freeze and it never became law.
AP901024-0227 	X	Former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. chief Frederick Joseph testified against the man who led the firm to Wall Street stardom as the government finished the second phase of its pre-sentencing case against Michael Milken. Also Tuesday, the former president of an important Drexel junk-bond customer said Milken offered him a personal investment in a 1985 takeover after his company bought a large stake in the deal. The testimony by Richard Grassgreen was important because it was the first indication Milken may have directly given big clients equity in the leverage buyout of Storer Communications Inc. Taking the stand nearly four years after Drexel and Milken were linked to wrongdoing in the government's insider trading probe, Joseph said Milken may have violated company policies related to Storer investments and misled him. Government charges against Milken are being aired at a pre-sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood. Prosecutors claim Milken broke the law beyond criminal charges to which he has pleaded guilty and deserves a lengthy prison term. The hearing is to resume Thursday with testimony on the last of three alleged illegal transactions, involving trading in Caesar's World Inc. securities in 1983. A sentencing date has not been set. Grassgreen, formerly president of Kinder-Care Inc., testified as part of his own agreement to plead guilty to two felony charges related to pocketing up to $500,000 from investments made by his company. Tuesday's testimony focused on the $2.5 billion buyout of Storer by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., for which Drexel provided financing in late 1985. Prosecutors claim Milken misappropriated valuable Storer equity warrants, or rights to purchase Storer stock, and used them to lure customers into buying riskier Storer securities. Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney John Carroll, Grassgreen said that after committing Kinder-Care to buying $5 million in preferred stock in Storer he was told by a Drexel executive about the warrants. When Grassgreen asked whether Kinder-Care could buy some of the warrants, he said Milken told him, ``No, it's for you and Perry,'' referring to Kinder-Care chairman Perry Mendel. Grassgreen testified he believed he was offered the warrants because of his longstanding relationship with Drexel and the company's role in the Storer deal. But Grassgreen contradicted testimony last week by Drexel executive Thomas Connors. Also, none of six government witnesses on Storer directly backed the bribery charge against Milken. Grassgreen said under cross-examination by defense lawyer Arthur Liman that Milken was unaware of Grassgreen's lawbreaking and that all investments made with Drexel in a relationship dating to 1978 were based on merit. Grassgreen has agreed to plead guilty to pocketing commitment fees paid by Drexel to Kinder-Care for investing in four takeover deals and to failing to disclose his personal stake in Storer to his company. He resigned last week as president of Montgomery, Ala.-based Enstar Group Inc., Kinder-Care's successor. Milken, 44, pleaded guilty to six felony counts related to illegal trading and agreed to pay $600 million in penalties. He faces a maximum 28 years imprisonment. Joseph testified under Drexel's agreement to cooperate with the government in settling criminal charges last year. Drexel now is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. He said he did not learn about a Drexel-related investment partnership known as MacPherson Investment Partners that was formed out of the Storer deal until 1988. MacPherson consisted of Drexel clients, money fund managers, Drexel employees and a trust in the name of the children of both Milken and his brother, Lowell, who also worked for Drexel. Joseph said the stake for the trust for the Milkens' children should have been disclosed to executives of the firm because of Drexel's role in creating and trading the securities. Disclosure was required to ensure the investment complied with federal and firm rules. Joseph said he believed the decision to give partnership stakes to fund managers whose institutions bought risky Storer securities also violated Drexel guidelines against giving ``favorable treatment'' to institutional investor accounts. Joseph also said that he asked Milken in the fall of 1988 whether any fund managers had invested in Drexel partnerships and Milken said no. Under cross-examination, Joseph said that Drexel employee partnerships had taken equity stakes in other leveraged buyout deals. Joseph also conceded that Milken was not responsible for determining whether investments needed to be disclosed and that Milken routinely consulted Drexel executives about personal investments.
AP881103-0132 	X	Janet Kiesner's 5-year-old son must walk to the same school his older brother goes to by bus because of a district policy designed to keep down costs. ``It's so dumb. I'd never have enrolled him (in kindergarten) . .. if I had known this would happen,'' said Kiesner, who doesn't drive. ``But now he loves it and I don't want to pull him out.'' Her son Joey is not permitted to take the bus because the Milwaukee Public Schools System prohibits the busing of children in its kindergarten classes for 4-year-olds if the youngsters live less than a mile from school. Older pupils, including those in kindergarten for 5-year-olds, get bus service. The problem, according to Richard F. Wenzel, assistant director of transportation for the district, is state law. It requires that if bus transportation were provided for pupils in 4-year-old kindergarten, it would have to be offered to all children in that age group. ``That would include 4-year-olds at day-care centers all over the city as well as to five miles outside the city,'' Wenzel said. ``There would be quite a financial impact.'' ``If it's too hazardous for a 5-year-old or my third-grader to walk, certainly it's too dangerous for a 4-year-old,'' said a frustrated Kiesner, whose 8-year-old son gets bused to the same school. She said she walks a neighbor's daughter, a 5-year-old kindergarten pupil, to her bus stop each day, waits for the bus to pick up the girl and then walks her younger son about six blocks along a busy city street to get him to the same school. ``To put one little kid on that bus and then have to walk my own child up to the same school seems ridiculous,'' Kiesner said. ``It's not like I'm asking for a special bus. It already stops right here and there's plenty of room,'' she said. School officials said they would like to bus Joey, but they are restricted by the school board's policy. And even though Joey has turned 5, he is still covered by the policy because he remains enrolled in 4-year-old kindergarten. The board has directed Superintendent Robert S. Peterkin to review the district's student assignment process, but Peterkin said no changes are likely to be made until 1990-91. School officials said there are two options for Kiesner. She can select another school farther from her home. According to Wenzel, busing is provided to youngsters in 4-year-old kindergarten if they attend a school more than a mile from home and their attendance enhances the school's racial balance. But Kiesner said she wants to keep her two children in the same school. ``I feel better knowing he (Joey) is in the same school with his brother.'' The second option, Wenzel said, is for Kiesner to negotiate a private contract with the bus company. A bus company spokesman estimated such a contract would cost about $2.50 a day. ``That's beyond my budget. I couldn't afford that,'' Kiesner said.
AP901109-0214 	X	Share prices ended slightly higher on London's Stock Exchange Friday after a lackluster session. Share prices picked up small gains in early trading as investors took advantage of Thursday's sharp decline to pick up some bargains. But as soon as the buying dried up the market drifted lower, failing to gain support from Wall Street's performance. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was up 4.4 points, or 0.2 percent, at 2,040.6 at the close. The Financial Times 30-share index rose 7.7 points to close at 1,582.6. The Financial Times 500-share index rose 1.15 points to close at 1,085.87. Volume was 370.1 million shares compared with 423.1 million shares Friday.
AP901021-0042 	X	A former day care center employee has been sentenced to 10 years' probation for spiking an infant's formula with rubbing alcohol because she was angry at co-workers. Patricia Ann Escarenio, 21, pleaded guilty to injury to a child in connection with the April 24 incident and was sentenced Friday by State District Judge Mike Wilkinson. She also was fined $5,000. The 4-month-old boy who drank the formula was hospitalized but authorities said he suffered no lasting effects because he vomited the concoction. Assistant District Attorney Carol Davies said authorities believe Ms. Escarenio was angered at the boy's mother, her co-worker at Chuckles & Grins day care center, because of a job assignment that day. Later that day, Ms. Escarenio checked herself into the psychiatric unit of St. Joseph Hospital and admitted tainting the bottle, Ms. Davies said.
AP880524-0286 	X	Stocks rose slightly in early trading today as a surge of dividend-related trading caused business to heat up from the previous session, the slowest since last Thanksgiving. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials edged up 4.64 points to 1,946.12 in the first 1{ hours of trading. Gainers narrowly outnumbered losers in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 578 issues up, 541 down and 529 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 61.44 million shares as of 11 a.m. on Wall Street. In economic news, the Commerce Department said orders to U.S. factories for ``big ticket'' durable goods rose 0.8 percent in April, boosted by a jump in orders for military communications equipment. The third consecutive monthly increase, which fell in line with expectations, followed gains of 0.9 percent in March and 0.1 percent in February. It confirmed most analysts' views that the economy is growing robustly. Murray Ohio Manufacturing Co. leaped 7~ to 59[ after a delay caused by an overload of buy orders. A federal judge ruled Monday that Sweden's AB Electrolux could proceed with its bid for Murray, and Electrolux raised its bid for the company to $52 a share, or $197 million. Utilities dominated the list of most actively traded stocks as traders sought to capture their dividends. Northeast Utilities was up [ at 19} and Kansas Power and Light was up \at 24\. Among blue-chip stocks, Boeing was up 1 at 52}, Citicorp was up \ at 22, Texaco was unchanged at 46[ and Eastman Kodak was up \ at 40~. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks was up 0.18 to 142.39. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 0.26 at 290.42. On Monday, the volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 102.64 million shares for the full session, the smallest total since 86.36 million were traded in a post-Thanksgiving session last Nov. 27.
AP900212-0159 	X	E.L. Doctorow's ``Billy Bathgate'' won the fiction category in the 1989 National Book Critics Circle awards announced Monday. The awards are given annually for new books by American authors published in the United States. The board called ``Billy Bathgate'' a ``wondrous achievement by a writer who has written other fine novels in his distinguished career.'' The winner in the general non-fiction category was ``The Broken Cord'' by Michael Dorris, a first-person account of how fetal alcohol syndrome affected the author's son. ``A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt,'' by Geoffrey C. Ward, was the winner in the biography-autobiography category; ``Transparent Gestures,'' by Rodney Jones, won for poetry; and ``Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History,'' by James Clive, won for criticism. The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a non-profit organization of 580 book critics and book review editors. The award ceremony is scheduled for March 8 at New York University.
AP900713-0183 	X	Britain's beleaguered trade secretary, Nicholas Ridley, came home Friday night from a trade visit to Hungary and expectations were he will resign after his charge that West Germany wanted to take over a united Europe. His comments in a magazine interview, which he later retracted, provoked cross-party calls for his resignation and were denounced in Germany, France and other European countries. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused Friday to answer questions about Ridley's political future, reportedly leaving the first move up to him. But even rank-and-file members of her Conservative Party, who applaud his warning of German supremacy over a united Europe, said he will have to go. Sir Marcus Fox, vice chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory lawmakers, told BBC Radio 4 that Ridley's position was now ``very bad.'' Mrs. Thatcher told the House of Commons on Thursday that Ridley was not reflecting government policy, nor her own views, but she rejected demands for his dismissal. Ridley, 61, the outspoken and controversial son of Viscount Ridley, is considered Mrs. Thatcher's closest ideological ally in the Cabinet. Political commentators said his departure would be a blow to her. In the interview with the conservative weekly, the Spectator, Ridley said the West German government's support for European monetary union ``is all a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe. It has to be thwarted. ``This rushed take-over by the Germans on the worst possible basis, with the French behaving like poodles to the Germans, is absolutely intolerable.'' Ridley said he opposed yielding sovereignty to the 12-nation European Community, which he said was run by ``17 unelected reject politicians.'' He said: ``You might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly.'' Earlier Friday night, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd made the government's first move to repair the damage to Anglo-European relations. Speaking at the Anglo-American conference center near Oxford, Hurd said: ``Our alliance, our partnership and our friendship with France and Germany lie at the heart of modern British foreign policy. ``Lingering memories from the past do not prevent us from strengthening, month by month, the practical proofs of that friendship. ``Irreversible also is the steadily increasing cooperation with the fellow members and institutions of the European Community of which the prime minister spoke after the Dublin (EEC) summit (last month). ``Nothing will now put these processes in doubt.'' Paddy Ashdown, leader of the centrist Liberal Democratic Party, said: ``The issue has now become not Mr. Ridley's folly but Mrs. Thatcher's judgment. By refusing to sack him, she is multiplying the insult of his outrageous views.'' Gordon Brown, the opposition Labor Party's trade spokesman, said she was guilty of a ``dismal failure of leadership'' for leaving the decision about Ridley's future in his hands. ``With this indecision following on top of the Ridley insults, her inaction today signifies an astonishing abdication of responsibility that will make Britain the subject of, at best, ridicule, and at worst, hostility throughout Europe,'' he said.
AP881009-0034 	X	The Soviet Union on Sunday reported its first AIDS death, that of a pregnant prostitute from Leningrad, and authorities may publish her photograph to alert her sexual partners. The 29-year-old woman died Sept. 5 of pneumonia following a 26-pound weight loss, chronic tonsillitis and bronchitis and a serious decline in the count of her immune system's T-cells, the labor newspaper Trud reported. All are common symptoms of aquired immune deficiency syndrome, and the newspaper noted that epidemiologists were incensed that the woman's doctors failed to diagnose AIDS before she died. They are now trying to locate the victim's sexual partners to determine who else might be infected with the disease, and authorities are considering publishing the woman's photograph to alert her partners, Trud said. She was registered as a night school student and as a worker at a factory, but police said she earned her living as a prostitute for foreigners. Soviet officials say they have identified 83 AIDS carriers but only one person who has developed the deadly disease. However, they say other cases may have been diagnosed incorrectly. AIDS is caused by a virus that damages the body's immune system, leaving victims susceptible to infections and cancer. It is spread most often through sexual contact, needles or syringes shared by drug abusers, infected blood or blood products, and from pregnant women to their offspring.
AP881216-0213 	X	Breakneck efforts to expand the economy is exacting an enormous human price in South Korea. Thousands of workers are killed or crippled every year in what critics claim is the world's highest industrial accident rate. The economic miracle has transformed South Korea in 30 years from a poor, backward nation into an industrial powerhouse, but little attention has been paid to the cost of the rapid growth. An average of five workers are killed and 390 are injured every day in accidents in every kind of workplace, from huge factories and shipyards to backstreet sweatshops employing two or three people. In 1987, 1,761 workers were killed in job accidents and 25,244 were maimed, according to government figures. In the three years from 1985 to 1987, 5,139 workers were killed and 66,991 were maimed, the figures show. The number of serious accidents is increasing as the economy grows. The accident rate rose from 654 deaths and 2,717 crippling accidents in 1972 to the 1987 total, the figures show. The Korean Federation of Labor Unions and academic experts, using figures from international labor sources, contend South Korea has the world's highest industrial accident rate. Safety standards are not enforced and the government and businesses are concerned only with economic growth, they claim. South Korea's accident rate is five times greater than neighboring Japan's or Taiwan and about 15 times higher than Western nations, officials said. Labor Ministry officials deny that South Korea has the world's worst accident rate, but said they did not know of a nation with a higher one. The International Labor Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Geneva, said it does not compile comparative figures on industrial accidents. Government officials acknowledge that little has been done to enforce safety and health regulations and many people work in dangerous conditions. The government wants to cut the accident rate in half by 1990, they say. ``It's shameful to have such a high industrial accident rate,'' said Kim Jung-kyu, who heads the Ministry of Labor's safety section. Labor union activists maintain that the main causes of accidents are poor working conditions and pressure on workers to meet production schedules at any price. Many factories have little or no safety gear, and workers spend up to 12 hours a day in deafening, poorly lit and overheated workspaces where they become fatigued and easily make mistakes that cause accidents, activists said. ``Many workers spend their days in terrible, dehumanizing conditions where they are considered virtually expendable. There are always more workers ready to work,'' said one activist. Past authoritarian governments played a major role in planning and directing South Korea's rapid economic and industrial expansion. The governments allowed businesses to ignore or scrimp on safety and helped suppress labor protests. The Labor Ministry's safety section, which is responsible for enforcing safety nationwide for more than 6 million industrial workers, has a staff of 13 people. While insisting that the government attitude has changed, Kim said safety still is ignored by many employers. Many companies save money by not installing safety devices or training workers to use equipment, he said. Park Sang-nak, a top safety official with the Korean Federation of Labor Unions, said it is cheaper for companies to pay compensation to injured workers than spend money on safety equipment. Employers pay marginal compensation for accident victims under Korean law. Maximum compensation for the family of a worker killed in an accident provides enough money to live on for just two or three years, officials said. The growing sophistication of Korean industry is adding to safety problems and accident rates, rather than cutting them as in other nations, officials say. Many companies eager to get ahead often introduce advanced equipment before their workers are capable of using it safely, government and labor officials said. ``Companies have gotten big by using new tools, advanced technology and dangerous chemicals,'' Park said. ``But workers have not been given adequate education or training.'' But Kim of the Labor Ministry said many workers are indifferent to safety and he claimed that carelessness is one of the main causes of accidents. ``Many workers do not wear helmets, goggles or heat-proof clothing even when it is provided.'' Labor unions and political parties are pressing the government to take drastic action to enforce safety regulations and cut accidents. Poor safety is the second main cause of strikes after wage demands. President Roh Tae-woo's administration, which took office in February, says it wants to drastically reduce industrial accidents as part of its efforts to improve life for the working classes. Roh hopes to attract more public support for his administration and defuse potential worker unrest. The government no longer automatically sides with management and has encouraged companies to give raises and other concessions. The Labor Ministry plans a major survey of businesses to ensure safety regulations are enforced and to cut accidents by more than half by 1990. But a government plan to increase safety spending by 280 percent in 1989 will still mean just $17.4 million is available _ far below the levels of most industrial nations. Plans for more safety inspectors will add just a few dozen personnel. Labor leaders call the plan inadequate.
AP900322-0119 	X	The small white madonna is still nestled outside the brown-shingled duplex where Carol DiMaiti Stuart grew up and where her parents and aunt still live. But six months after her slaying, no one answers the door. The same is true a few miles away on Lowe Street in Revere, where the parents of Charles Stuart have maintained a silence about the horrifying crime that riveted the nation. Boston police, citing an ongoing grand jury investigation, have remained almost as closemouthed as the families. The case that took a shocking twist Jan. 4, when Charles Stuart apparently jumped to his death from the Tobin Bridge, remains a mystery. ``There are a hell of a lot more holes in this story than solid information,'' said Ken Englade, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based writer whose paperback, `Murder in Boston,' is due in bookstores at the end of the month. ``It doesn't help that nobody is talking.'' Englade said he was frustrated by the refusal of Boston police and Suffolk County District Attorney Newman Flanagan to disclose information about the case. They also have withheld medical reports. More baffling is the prosecutor's refusal to release tapes of the lineup where Charles Stuart allegedly identified William Bennett as his assailant. And even though life insurance money was thought to be Stuart's motive, only $280,000 in life insurance money was apparently taken out on his wife's life. The two $100,000 policies purchased by Stuart were ``barely enough to cover the mortgage on their house,'' Englade said. Carol Stuart was insured for $80,000 through her work. Based on his research, Englade said he is not convinced Stuart actually killed his wife or even if he jumped off the bridge voluntarily. He cited numerous contradictions in the case _ even in the hours before Stuart's apparent suicide when he left instructions with a hotel clerk to rouse him at 4:30 a.m. ``Who leaves a wake-up call to commit suicide?'' Englade asserted. The only person associated with the tragedy who is willing to talk is Carol's 37-year-old brother, Carl DiMaiti, a former high school teacher who has taken over the family's pizza dough business. He heads the scholarship foundation established in Carol's name for residents in Boston's Mission Hill district where she was shot. So far, the foundation has received more than $340,000. This week found him in a familiar setting: accepting a donation for the foundation at an inner city outreach center. He is usually accompanied by two public relations agent who monitor his remarks. DiMaiti said Thursday his family's ordeal has been eased considerably by their work with the foundation. ``I'm amazed that people have gone out of their way and responded like this,'' he said. ``It shows the deep well of goodness in people. It's been a very difficult time for us. This has especially helped my mother and father through a very tough time.'' Their ordeal began the night of Oct. 23 when Boston police received a frantic call over a car phone from Stuart. He said he and his wife had been shot by a black gunman who robbed them shortly after they left a childbirth class at a hospital in Mission Hill. Carol Stuart, a 30-year-old tax attorney who was seven months pregnant, was shot in the head. She died a few hours later after her son, Christopher, was prematurely delivered. The baby died 17 days later. Stuart, 30-year-old manager of a fur store, was shot in the stomach and remained hospitalized until December. His body was recovered from the waters of Boston Harbor the day after his younger brother, Matthew, told police he had been enlisted by Charles to aid in the crime. Since then, a grand jury has met seven times to hear testimony in the case, according to Dave Rodman, spokesman for the district attorney's office. Stuart's siblings and his mother have appeared before the grand jury. Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said several witnesses are still scheduled to testify. The families have picked up the pieces of their lives in various ways. Carol's mother, Evelyn DiMaiti, 58, has returned to her job in a state office. Mrs. DiMaiti's husband, Giusto, 64, is retired but can often be found at the family bakery in nearby Chelsea. Charles Stuart Sr., who suffers from Parkinson's disease, and his wife, Dorothy, remain in seclusion at the home they share with sons, Matthew and Mark. Matthew reportedly still holds his job as a mixer at a paint factory and is a familiar figure on the streets of Revere in his stone-washed jeans and leather jacket. In addition to the soon-to-be published paperback, at least two hardback books and a CBS television movie are planned. Paul Corkery, a freelance writer and former editor of Boston Magazine, has rented an apartment in Revere to work on his book for Simon and Schuster. He said he has 50,000 words of notes, culled mostly from interviews with friends and relatives outside the two families. ``It's not a typical whodunit,'' said Corkery. ``It's the story of a hero who turned out to be the villain.''
AP900608-0138 	X	A court on Friday convicted a London man of conspiracy in an IRA bombing campaign in Britain and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. Nicholas Mullen was charged in connection with one of the biggest caches of terrorist equipment ever found in Britain. The stockpile of arms and explosives was discovered in London in 1988. Justice Anthony Hidden, said Mullen, 42, was ``a very dangerous man.'' ``You combine a high degree of criminal cunning with a commitment to a particular cause. That cause deals not with arguments but with atrocities,'' Hidden said. The Old Bailey Central Criminal Court jury deliberated 12 hours before finding Mullen guilty of conspiracy to cause bombings for his part in the Irish Republican Army's 1988 bombing campaign. Eamon Wadley, 36, also on trial for terrorist offenses, was cleared of all charges. Police accidentally discovered the arms and explosives stockpile in south London in December 1988 after a man was shot in the stomach in a disturbance on the street in front of an apartment complex. The gunman ran into the complex, and a search of the area found an apartment filled with terrorist equipment, including nearly 200 pounds of Czechoslovak-made Semtex explosive, an unspecified number of machine guns and other firearms, rifles, handguns, and bomb-making equipment. During the six-week trial the jury heard how Mullen helped the IRA by renting apartments, buying used cars and obtaining false identities for the guerillas. However, the Old Bailey jury found Wadley innocent of aiding terrorists, and he was acquitted of four charges of making property available for use in connection with terrorism. Prosecutor John Nutting called the south London apartment ``one of biggest caches of terrorist equipment ever found in this country.'' The prosecutor said that if the plot had not been unexpectedly foiled, the IRA's campaign would ``certainly have led to the death or injury of many people.'' The IRA is waging a bloody fight to drive the British out of the predominantly Protestant province of Northern Ireland and unite it with the Roman Catholic Irish Republic.
AP900301-0124 	X	Two residents have put up a billboard asking a million-dollar question _ how much should Ivana Trump get in her divorce from Donald Trump? The sign was put up Tuesday at an intersection in this central Pennsylvania town. It reads: ``Do you think Ivana Trump should get more than $25 million?'' Mrs. Trump's attorneys have rejected a $25 million sum specified in a prenuptial agreement. In arranging for the billboard, residents Lea Isenberg and Jim Smith had a motivation familiar to real-estate developer Trump _ the profit motive. The billboard gives 900-line phone numbers to call to vote yes or no, for a charge of $1. ``When we first started kicking it around at work, we actually discussed creating our own game titled, `Trump _ the Divorce,''' Isenberg said Wednesday. ``But we found out we could actually make some money through the billboard idea. ``In just two days we've been contacted by people from as far away as San Antonio, Cleveland, Memphis and Detroit,'' she said. During that time they received 54 calls, 58 percent in favor of giving Mrs. Trump more money and 42 percent against it, Isenberg said.
AP900115-0117 	X	Two policemen injured when the brakes failed on an ambulance operated by Mother Teresa's hospital remained hospitalized Monday, doctors said. Two other pedestrians died after they were struck in Saturday's accident. Doctors treating the two constables said on condition of anonymity they were still under medical care but gave no other details. Police initially reported that Mother Teresa was in the ambulance when the accident occurred. But police and the 79-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner's fellow Roman Catholic nuns said Sunday she was not in the vehicle. ``There was confusion because she reached the scene within minutes,'' an officer said on condition of anonymity. The accident occurred on a busy street a few hundred yards from the building where Mother Teresa lives. Several nuns wearing blue and white saris identical to Mother Teresa's attire were in the ambulance, adding to the confusion. The ambulance was carrying medical supplies but no patients when the accident occurred. Police said its brakes failed and it struck two pedestrians who had just stepped off the sidewalk into the street. The ambulance then veered onto the sidewalk and struck the two constables, according to the police reports. Mother Teresa accompanied the injured to a nearby hospital, where two of them late died, the police report said. Mother Teresa, who was born in Yugoslavia, won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work among Calcutta's destitute and dying. The Missionaries of Charity, the Roman Catholic order she founded in the city in 1959, has 3,000 nuns working in 87 countries. The frail nun suffered a heart attack in September and resumed work last week. Members of her order said Sunday that Mother Teresa's health was stable but that she was saddened by the deaths.
AP900323-0107 	X	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Friday she will press on with unpopular anti-inflationary policies despite her Conservative Party's most stunning by-election defeat in 50 years. ``We are not a fair-weather party. We are not for trimming and turning,'' Mrs. Thatcher said in a letter to party chairman Kenneth Baker after Thursday's upset. The letter was released by the party headquarters. The opposition Labor Party scored a landslide victory in the previous Tory stronghold of Mid-Staffordshire in central England. Labor leaders declared that 11 years after being ousted by Mrs. Thatcher, they are on course to return to power. In Mid-Straffordshire, Labor candidate Sylvia Heal, a social worker, took 49 percent of the vote. The Conservatives' Charles Prior got 33 percent, while other parties took the rest of the votes. The one-seat loss scarcely dented Mrs. Thatcher's control of the 650-member House of Commons, where she has an overall 100-seat majority. But the by-election rout raised new uncertainties about her political future. Recent straw polls have indicated a significant minority of the Tory members of the House of Commons _ who elect the party leader each fall _ want her to retire before the next election. It must be held by mid-1992. Her party and personal ratings are slumping largely because of soaring home loan rates and a new local tax, which will replace property taxes starting April 1 and increase what many Britons pay the government. Some senior Tories acknowledge the new tax, formally known as a community charge, has been a blunder. ``The government has got to be a lot more sensitive ... there have got to be changes in the community charge,'' said Tory legislator John Lee in a radio interview. Lee's north England district, Pendle, is among 76 highly vulnerable Tory constituencies held by majorities of few thousand votes or less. Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock said the victory Thursday was a turning point for the Conservatives, who ``are going to have to make up their minds how quickly they get rid of Mrs. Thatcher.'' ``Her leadership is misleadership, and the sooner she goes the better,'' he said on British Broadcasting Corp. TV. ``We will defeat any Conservative leader at the next election.'' The Conservatives, 10 points ahead in opinion polls a year ago, are now 21 points behind Labor. It is the biggest deficit since Mrs. Thatcher won a third consecutive term in 1987. Government popularity has waned steadily as the Thatcher administration doubled interest rates to 15 percent in less than two years to try to curb resurgent inflation. But inflation is more than 7 percent, among the highest of major industrialized nations. The government is banking on inflation to start falling next year in time to lower interest rates before it has to call an election.
AP880426-0305 	X	America's burgeoning love affair with the compact disk propelled the music business to a banner year in 1987, with sales of records, cassette tapes and compact disks totaling $5.57 billion. That figure _ based on suggested retail price, a somewhat inflated estimate _ was up 20 percent from $4.65 billion in 1986, the Recording Industry Association of America said Monday. The total number of disks sold also rose, in contrast to 1986 when sales of the high-priced disks pushed the dollar value up while unit sales declined, the association said. The total number of records, tapes and disks shipped rose 14 percent to 706.8 million last year, but that failed to top the all-time high unit sales of 726.2 million in 1978. Sales of compact disks, the high-quality, laser-read recordings now favored by audiophiles, soared 93 percent in 1987, to 102 million disks worth an estimated $1.6 billion. The number of cassette tapes sold rose 19 percent to 410 million tapes for an estimated $2.9 billion. Sales of record albums and extended play records dropped 15 percent to 107 million records, for an estimated $793 million. Singles sales were down 13 percent to 82 million units, or $228 million. A new format, the cassette ``single,'' which contains just one or two songs, accounted for 5 million units, or $14.3 million.
AP881017-0234 	X	Mart Niklus was awestruck when speakers at a conference blessed by the Kremlin made the same statements that had landed him in prison, but he said the new freedom had not penetrated Soviet labor camps. Niklus, a dissident for decades who was freed July 8, heard two days of speeches as a guest delegate to an officially sanctioned meeting of the People's Front, an Estonian nationalist group. ``A lot has changed,'' he said. ``People have become less afraid of publicity. They criticize the authorities boldly. ``People are more frank, open-hearted. National self-consciousness has become very strong. It's surprising for me.'' Niklus agreed that fewer people are going to jail for political reasons, but also said the reform program President Mikhail S. Gorbachev calls perestroika had not eased the misery of those already there. ``There have been no changes. Perestroika hasn't reached the correctional labor camps,'' he said. For Niklus, the memories of arrests and prison are too vivid to permit complete belief in Gorbachev's reforms. He still holds his hand over his mouth when speaking of politically sensitive matters. As a reminder to all, the 54-year-old former inmate wore the black-and-gray striped uniform of ``special regime'' prisoners like himself who are repeat offenders or considered especially dangerous. Speakers at the conference Oct. 1-2 in Tallinn's city hall urged Moscow to renounce Josef Stalin's pact with the Nazis under which the Soviet Union took control of independent Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940. ``I was sentenced for that. ... I got 10 years for that,'' Niklus said in the excellent English he learned while studying ornithology before he was sent to prison. He and 47 other activists signed an appeal on the 40th anniversary of the agreement, Aug. 23, 1979, demanding its renunciation. He was arrested in April 1980 on charges of ``anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation'' and sentenced to 10 years in prison and five in internal exile. It was Niklus' fourth arrest. He spent eight years in jail in the 1960s. Now even the Estonian Communist Party is calling for a review of Stalin's foreign and domestic policies. The party also has taken up some of nationalist demands: making Estonian the official language, gaining local control over the republic's economy and curbing immigration of non-Estonians. As a ``special regime'' prisoner, Niklus spent most of his time in solitary. He was hospitalized for a month after his release, being treated for chronic back pain that developed because he was forced to sit for long periods and poor eyesight he said resulted from confinement in a small, dark cell. To illustrate the decline of his health, Niklus displayed two photographs _ one taken in 1976, before his latest imprisonment, in which he had a full head of black hair and full cheeks; the other taken after his release in July, showing a man with gray, thin hair and sunken cheeks. ``You are not treated as a human'' in special regime, he said. Niklus described the standard diet was thin gruel, bread and weak tea with sugar for breakfast; cabbage soup, bread and oatmeal for lunch, except for Sunday when the main course was macaroni, and hot water and a small piece of fish in the evening. Those meager rations may improve, however. On July 25, the Soviet parliament directed that rations for prisoners in solitary confinement or special regime no longer be reduced. Western estimates put the number of Soviet labor camps at more than 1,000 and say they hold at least 1 million people, perhaps twice that. Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, says about 200 people now are in labor camps, psychiatric hospitals or internal exile because of political beliefs, compared with 10,000 a few years ago. Soviet officials say all but a few people classified in the West as political prisoners were freed by amnesties in February and June 1987. They say the ``anti-Soviet propanganda and agitation'' law under which they and Niklus were convicted is being softened in a revision of the criminal code. Perhaps, but Niklus said: ``They may arrest me again now. I have been arrested four times. You never know when they will get you again.'' Then he added, with a slight chuckle: ``But I am not afraid. I have a kind of immunity.''
AP880812-0204 	X	George Bush reviewed the names of potential running mates with senior advisers Friday, asking ``a few questions about a few people,'' but said he has not made up his mind, a campaign source said. ``He indicated he has not narrowed it,'' the source said. ``We talked about individuals. He's still asking questions and seeking information.'' The source, insisting on anonymity, said Bush told his advisers he thought he would make his decision before he flies to New Orleans on Tuesday for the Republican convention but wasn't sure of that. Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, one of more than a dozen people said to be under consideration, called Bush on Friday to ask that his name be withdrawn, citing his family. ``The vice president's job requires a lot of national and international travel,'' Thompson said. ``My wife couldn't travel with me because I've got a 10-year-old in school, and that's not true of the other candidates.'' Bush is spending the weekend in Washington mulling his choice and working on the speech he will deliver Thursday night in accepting the Republican presidential nomination. On his arrival here Tuesday, Bush will join President Reagan at an airport ceremony and then get on a boat to cross the Mississippi River for a welcoming rally downtown. Leaders of Bush's campaign assembled at his headquarters in Washington at 7 a.m. Friday to talk with the vice president about his search for a running mate. The group included Craig Fuller, his chief of staff; campaign manager Lee Atwater; pollster Robert Teeter; media adviser Roger Ailes; press secretary Sheila Tate; former Sen. Nicholas Brady, nominated last week to be Treasury secretary, longtime Texas friend Robert Mosbacher. Bush gave no clue about his preference, the source said. ``He asked a few questions about a few people. He's seeking more information. He hasn't made a decision and he's unwilling to say when he will.'' The source refused to say who was discussed or how many names were reviewed. Afterward, Atwater flew to New Orleans for final preparations for the convention. Among Bush's staff, there were differing opinions on whether he actually has made up his mind but just isn't telling anyone. One official, insisting on anonymity, expressed the view that Bush knows who he wants but is holding it back until the last minute. Gov. John Sununu of New Hampshire, one of the prospects, said he thought Bush should keep it a secret until Wednesday or Thursday. GOP Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf said he is trying to persuade the Bush forces it would be best to announce the running mate choice on Wednesday night after the convention nominates Bush, as Reagan did in 1980 when he chose Bush. Fahrenkopf, in an interview, said that making the announcement on Thursday would undercut the news value of Bush's speech to the convention Thursday night. It would put the only two big news stories of the convention in competition with each other for Friday's front pages. Fahrenkopf said he would favor having Bush come to the convention hall, thank the delegates for nominating him and then ask their support for his vice presidential choice. Meanwhile, Rep. Lynn Martin, R-Ill., a co-chair of Bush's campaign who has been mentioned as a possible running mate, declined to say if she had been asked if she wanted to be considered. However, she said, ``It's not going to be offered and I wouldn't take it.'' People who were contacted by Bush, and asked to provide financial data, include Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, and Sens. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Dan Quayle of Indiana and Alan Simpson of Wyoming, according to campaign aides. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas, rumored to be under consideration, has said she isn't interested in the job. Govs. George Deukmejian of California, Thompson of Illinois, Sununu of New Hampshire and Carroll Campbell of South Carolina and former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee were also among those on the original list of those under consideration, the aides said. Deukmejian also has asked that his name be withdrawn.
AP901214-0170 	X	A prosecutor said Friday he will not appeal a judge's dismissal of a first-degree murder charge against a doctor who invented a device that an Alzheimer's victim used to kill herself. District Judge Gerald McNally on Thursday threw out a first-degree murder charge against retired pathologist Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the June 4 death of Janet Adkins of Portland, Ore. She died after activating a machine invented by Kevorkian that sent poison into her veins. The ruling doesn't let Kevorkian use the suicide device again. Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson said the ruling left many moral, medical, ethical and religious issues unsettled. ``We think Judge McNally's decision was wrong,'' he said. ``(But) these profound issues should be decided by the legislative branch of government, that branch which is pre-eminently suited to consider the consensus of society.'' Thompson also said there was no guarantee the Michigan Supreme Court or Michigan Court of Appeals would hear the case and an appeal would drain county funds. ``I'm pleased that he's not going to waste further taxpayers' money on an appeal,'' Geoffrey Fieger, one of Kevorkian's lawyers. ``And I hope he'll drop the civil case as well. I hope he decides not to enforce morality through the prosecutor's office.'' Thompson said the county will continue its civil case blocking Kevorkian from using his suicide machine or helping others commit suicide. Kevorkian's machine remains in police custody after prosecutors obtained a temporary court order preventing its further use. A civil trial to decide whether or not to make that order permanent will resume in January, Thompson said. Kevorkian hooked Mrs. Adkins, 54, to his device in the back of a van in a park in Oakland County northwest of Detroit. Adkins pushed a button, allowing lethal drugs to drip into her system. Michigan has no laws against suicide or assisting in it, but the Legislature is considering at least two bills outlawing assisted suicide.
AP900219-0046 	X	Business leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief today at the governing party's electoral victory, interpreting it as voter support for the policies that have brought economic prosperity to Japan. But they warned that the scandal-plagued party still must do more to bolster public trust. ``I saw this election as a test for our nation's liberalism, and my feeling of crisis had been growing,'' Eiji Suzuki, president of the Japan Federation of Employers Association, said in a statement. Eishiro Saito, chairman of the powerful Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), told reporters: ``The decision by the people not to destroy the foundation of the free economy, the basis of Japanese economic growth to date, should be highly appreciated.'' He welcomed the Liberal Democratic Party's renewed majority in Parliament's lower house, but urged more discussion and mutual understanding between the governing and opposition parties for greater political stability. Shun Ishihara, chariman of the Japan Committee for Economic Development, warned the Liberal Democrats that they should not think the public has forgiven and accepted all of their actions. ``The party has not fully improved. The Liberal Democratic Party still needs to be reborn in order to recover the public trust,'' he added. The business community had been concerned about whether the pro-business governing party could keep control of the government after it lost its majority in Parliament's less powerful upper house in elections last July. Voters then registered their disapproval of a new 3 percent sales tax and a widespread influence-buying scandal in which many leading Liberal Democrats were implicated. In Sunday's election for the lower house, which names the prime minister and controls the budget, anger over the tax and scandal apparently had faded. In addition, many voters echoed the view of business leaders that the opposition Socialists were not capable of governing effectively. The Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan since their party's founding in 1955, ended with a comfortable majority _ 275 of the lower house's 512 seats. The Socialists won 136. ``The outcome shows that the Liberal Democrats' taxation policy, including their stance toward the sales tax, has been accepted by the people,'' said Rokuro Ishikawa, president of the Japan Chambaer of Commerce and Industry. The Liberal Democrats have promised to review the tax, which took effect in April, and possibly lower the levy on groceries, rents and some other items. The opposition has demanded abolition of the tax. Keidanren's Saito supported the review of the tax, but added, ``I do hope the parliamentary session will not be disrupted over the consumption tax revision when the taxation system is gaining general acceptance.'' Since the opposition controls the upper house, a stalemate over the tax is possible. The governing party also might face trouble in enacting legislation to deal with U.S.-Japan economic friction. ``It's the most serious concern for me right now that the trade dispute between Japan and the United States will get worse,'' said Isao Yonekura, president of C. Itoh and Co., a leading trading company. Despite the relief of business leaders over the Liberal Democrats' victory, the Tokyo Stock Exchange's leading index plunged today. The 225-share Nikkei Stock Average rose more than 130 points in early trading, as final election returns came in, but then the market's concern turned to the possibility of higher interest rates, a dampening factor on stock investment. The Nikkei ended at 37,222.60, down 237.72 points, or 0.63 percent, from last Friday.
AP880619-0085 	X	Protesters burned the American flag and caricatures of the seven world leaders attending the economic summit Sunday, and police said more than 100 were arrested by the time authorities cleared the streets. Some 2,000 demonstrators, carrying placards and colorfully dressed, defied a police ban and attempted to march one mile from the front of the provincial legislature to summit headquarters. They shouted ``Arrest the G-7'' as they went, referring to the summit group of seven countries. Their intent was to deliver a citizens' warrant for the arrest of the seven leaders for alleged crimes against humanity. When police barricaded University Avenue, the broad thoroughfare leading to the summit at Metropolitan Toronto Convention Center, more than 60 demonstrators hurled themselves over crowd-control barricades into the arms of tactical squad officers in dark blue uniforms. The demonstrators espoused a host of causes ranging from opposition to U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels to urging more help for victims of the deadly AIDS disease and saving the rain forest. After they burned the caricatures, flag and three newspaper boxes containing the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, busloads of tactical squad officers linked arm to arm and rushed across the intersection shouting ``move, move, move.'' They arrested those who refused to clear the street. About 30 demonstrators sat on the road singing ``Give Peace a Chance'' and flashing the peace sign. Phalanxes of police scooped them up and dragged them away. Supporters shouted ``the world is watching'' as the dramatic scenes, unprecedented in Toronto, developed. Police Supt. Bob Guay said when it was all over, at least 101 had been arrested and charged with breach of the peace. Organizer James Ensley of the Alliance for Non-Violent Action said: ``I think people are showing today that its wrong for the streets of Toronto to be shut just because seven people come to town.'' Protesters said they were seeking to dramatize their argument that President Reagan and the six other world leaders have been involved in militarism and economic policies that abandoned the poor and the homeless. Reagan arrived here Sunday from Washington to begin a series of talks with the leaders of Canada, Japan, Britain, Italy, France and Germany. The summit is the 14th annual gathering, designed to focus primarily on international economic issues. Police had granted the protesters a permit for a rally, but denied permission for them to march. A police superintendent told them through a loudspeaker, ``This is an unlawful parade. Please disperse.'' One protester shouted, ``These are our streets, man. This isn't Russia.'' Just outside a 15-foot-high chain link fence surrounding the convention center, eight Japanese Buddhist monks wearing yellow robes chanted for peace and pounded drums. They stood under a banner calling for a new human consciousness of non-violence. Gisela Ramacher of West Germany said the protest was a ``special prayer of peace for creating world peace and the victory of non-violence.''
AP901001-0147 	X	President Bush on Monday launched a 35-nation meeting on how to facilitate the growth of freedom and the easing of East-West tensions in Europe. Bush called on the foreign ministers to strengthen the European Security Conference by giving it a permanent secretariat as well as an elections office to supervise the exercise of voting rights in Europe. Just before Bush opened the meeting, which is making arrangements for a summit to be held in Paris Nov. 19-21, the Big Four allies of World War II suspended their last controls over Berlin. In a ceremony capped by a champagne toast, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Foreign Ministers Douglas Hurd of Britain, Roland Dumas of France and Eduard A. Shevardnadze of the Soviet Union turned over supervision of access to Berlin and the German border to the Germans. Bush called it ``a moving moment,'' and said ``we really rejoice with the German people.'' East Germany will merge formally with West Germany, creating a single, more powerful and prosperous nation at midnight Tuesday. Bush said unification is an expression of the human rights and fundamental freedoms set down in the 1975 Helsinki agreement produced by the European Security Conference. Depending on the decisions taken by the foreign ministers, the Paris summit is expected to establish a new structure to bridge East and West and also a treaty to cut U.S. and Soviet weapons in Europe. Bush, after a meeting with Shevardnadze, said the Soviet minister was confident the accord would be ready for signing in Paris. ``I came out of the meeting encouraged also in asking for flexibility so these negotiators can polish off the remaining differences,'' Bush said. Baker and Shevardnadze made headway in two meetings last week and will meet here again Wednesday. Meanwhile, the administration gave its support to full membership for the three Baltic republics and said Albania may be allowed to participate as an observer.
AP881213-0117 	X	Two new situation comedies starring Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke, respectively, are gone from CBS' schedule, the network announced Tuesday in a schedule shakeup that dumps two of the three CBS shows produced by Grant Tinker's GTG Entertainment. The network, which has ranked last in the ratings so far this season, said ``Annie McGuire,'' starring Miss Moore, would have its last broadcast in its Wednesday time period on Dec. 28, suggesting it might be brought back in the future. But the network said ``The Van Dyke Show'' and ``Raising Miranda,'' the GTG shows, would have their final broadcasts this month. ``Dirty Dancing,'' a half-hour show based on the hit movie of the same name will go ``on hiatus'' in January. ``Simon & Simon,'' the long-running, on-again, off-again detective series, has its last broadcast in its Saturday time period on Dec. 31. CBS left the door open to reviving it yet again. GTG Entertainment was established by former NBC chairman and MTM Productions head Grant Tinker in partnership with Gannett. Tinker founded MTM Productions with his then-wife, Mary Tyler Moore. The third GTG show for CBS, the critically praised ``TV101,'' an hourlong, teen-appeal drama, is being moved next month from its low-rated Tuesday time slot to Wednesday in place of the Moore and Van Dyke shows. GTG has also not fared well with its only other current TV enterprise, the syndicated newsmagazine show ``USA Today: The Television Show,'' though the company insists it is sticking by that show for the long haul. In the most recent ratings from the A.C. Nielsen Co., ``Annie McGuire'' and ``The Van Dyke Show'' were the lowest-rated network shows of the week. ``Raising Miranda'' was the third lowest-rated show last week. Both ``Annie McGuire'' and ``The Van Dyke Show'' had problems from the start. Both pilots were re-shot and the Moore show was partially recast. They then emerged to almost universally negative reviews, even though their stars are two of the most popular sitcom performers ever. Moore and Van Dyke co-starred in ``The Dick Van Dyke Show'' in the 1960s, and Moore starred as Mary Richards in ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' in the 1970s. CBS announced that ``Tour of Duty,'' a Vietnam series, will return to the schedule Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST. ``Dolphin Cove,'' starring Frank Converse as a dolphin researcher in Australia, will join the schedule in January in place of ``Dirty Dancing'' and ``Raising Miranda'' on Saturday night. The Smothers Brothers will also return to the schedule for four shows in January and February.
AP880703-0011 	X	A TWA jetliner bound for New York returned to Cairo International Airport after taking off Sunday because a telephone caller claimed there was a bomb on board, an airport official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the jet returned to the air at 1 p.m. (6 a.m. EDT), 5{ hours later, after the plane was evacuated and its passengers and luggage searched. No bomb was found. He said someone called minutes after the plane took off for Paris en route to New York. The anonymous caller said there was a bomb on the plane and hung up. The official said 156 passengers of various nationalities were aboard the plane. He said one American woman refused to get back on the plane.
AP901215-0008 	X	Activists of the environmental group Greenpeace strung up an anti-nuclear banner between the towers of the famous Notre Dame cathedral after other members were arrested near a French nuclear test site in the South Pacific. The banner reading ``No to nuclear tests'' was put up at around 11 a.m. Friday and removed without incident about two hours later. Several activists were involved, and no arrests were reported. The environmentalists were protesting the arrest of five Greenpeace members whose inflatable craft entered restricted waters around Mururoa atoll in the south Pacific, where France conducts nuclear tests. They were collecting plankton specimens to determine if they were affected by radiation from the nuclear tests. The captain and four crew members of the Rainbow Warrior II, the craft's mother ship, are being held in French Polynesia. They were to face police charges for illegally entering Mururoa's waters.
AP900703-0025 	X	Big Bird was there, and Fozzie Bear, and Oscar the Grouch, as more than 1,400 colleagues, family and fans paid tribute to Muppet creator Jim Henson in a verdant St. Paul's Cathedral. England was a second home to Henson, who died in May at the age of 53. ``He loved England and the English; we claim him as ours,'' said Duncan Kenworthy, chief of Henson Productions in Britain. For the tribute, the cathedral was transformed to resemble a north London parkland Henson loved. The 17th-century building was festooned with greenery, its aisles full of Henson's creatures and portraits of their creator. Friends and colleagues of Henson had worked into the night adorning the cathedral with garlands, plants and birches. A May 21 memorial for Henson at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York included a Dixieland band and Muppets singing their way through the crowd. Henson died May 16 in New York of pneumonia. Henson's family asked well-wishers not to wear black, saying the event would be as much a celebration and thanksgiving for Henson's life as a traditional memorial service. ``He has left a heritage that will never be forgotten. Jim Henson will always be with us,'' said Lord Lew Grade. It was Grade who contracted Henson in 1976 to make 24 half-hour episodes of ``The Muppet Show'' after the Muppeteer failed to find American backing for the variety show. The show became one of the most widely seen television programs in the world, with an estimated 235 million viewers in 100 countries. Most of Henson's films were made in Britain as well. Henson owned a home in north London's leafy Hampstead district, across the street from the onetime Victorian post office housing the Creature Shop where his puppets are made. Muppet performer Richard Hunt led a quartet in a medley of Henson's favorite songs. Henson's wife Jane and four of his five children attended. ```When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who makes a difference in this world,''' daughter Cheryl, 29, recited from an essay written by her father. ```My hope still is to leave this world a little bit better than it was when I got here.''' ``We really feel he did leave the world a bit better,'' she told the congregation. ``So, thanks.''
AP901203-0216 	X	EDITOR'S NOTE - Fifty years ago Adolf Hitler decided to take his biggest gamble of World War II, the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was an action that helped lead to the collapse of the Third Reich and left the Soviet Union in control of Eastern Europe all the way to the Elbe River in central Germany. Here's a retrospective on what was going on in Berlin and Moscow during those crucial months before the invasion.
AP900909-0036 	X	The discovery of a clandestine mass grave containing more than 1,700 bodies, some apparently of political opponents of Brazil's former military rulers, has stirred many painful memories. Although an amnesty passed by the former military dictatorship bars trying anyone for involvment in the deaths, activists are demanding a full investigation. ``The construction of a state of law and democracy demands the truth ... is fully told,'' said a statement issued last week by two human rights groups. ``This necessity is even greater in Brazil because the amnesty eliminated the possibility that those responsible for torture and assassinations would be held accountable for their actions,'' the statement said. The grave, discovered Tuesday in Perus on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, contained mostly the remains of paupers. But an estimated 50 of the dead are believed to be former enemies of the military government that ruled from 1964 to 1985. Some of the skeletons unearthed had damaged skulls from gunshot wounds to the head, and human rights officials say the people were summarily executed. A pacemaker and platinum dental work also indicated that not all the remains were those of paupers. Sao Paulo Mayor Luiza Erundina said records at three other city graveyards would be checked this week to see if other military ``enemies'' were buried there. Unlike some South American countries, Brazil never fully investigated human rights abuses that occurred under military rule. In Argentina, a full public accounting of the crimes of the 1976-1982 dictatorship took place. Five former junta members later were found guilty of murder and human rights violations. Uruguay returned to civilian rule in 1985 after nine years of military dictatorship. A nationwide referendum was held there on revoking the military's self-approved amnesty, and after much public debate the amnesty was narrowly upheld. Brazil's dictatorship was not as brutal as some in the region, but it systematically violated human rights. Rights groups say about 200 people were killed in Brazil, 150 disappeared and thousands were tortured. Many people with leftist sympathies were exiled. However, a key to the 1985 return of civilian rule, which was negotiated among the generals and civilian politicians, was the understanding there would be no investigations or trials of former military officials. ``That agreement allowed the civilians to take charge and provided them with some stability,'' said political science professor David Fleischer, who worked in Brazil's Senate during the transition period. ``But it also had a negative side: The military maintained great influence, and there was no definitive rupture with the past,'' he said. One direct result was that hundreds of those directly involved in torture and human rights violations retained their positions in the police and armed forces. President Fernando Collor de Mello, who took office in March as Brazil's first directly elected president since 1960, promised to abolish the National Intelligence Service, the former dictatorship's secret police force, which was involved in repression of civilians. Instead, he renamed the agency and put a civilian in charge, but it continues to spy on the population. Some people hope the discovery of the mass grave leads to a renewed interest in fully airing abuses committed during the military rule. ``The truth is a moral sanction,'' wrote prominent political columnist Clovis Rossi in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. ``The widows, the orphans and the brothers and sisters of the victims have the right to know who killed their loved ones.''
AP900509-0064 	X	Fierce shelling today by the forces of rival Christian leaders Gen. Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea killed 20 people and wounded 41, police said. The barrages came after Aoun threatened to attack ships using ports controlled by Geagea. On Tuesday night, 11 people died and 21 were wounded in fighting. The casualties raised the overall toll to 972 killed and 2,564 wounded since the showdown for dominance of the Christian enclave north of Beirut broke out Jan. 30. Tuesday's deaths included Brig. Gen. Francois Zein, commander of the military academy in the Aoun-held Fayadiyeh suburb east of Beirut. Zein, 47, was killed when his office at the academy was hit in a barrage fired by Geagea's Lebanese Forces militiamen. Aoun's threat to attack ports controlled by Geagea was aimed at cutting off supplies for Geagea's Lebanese Forces militia. A communique issued by Aoun's headquarters warned ``local and international maritime agencies'' against serving any port along the 28-mile stretch of Mediterranean coast in the enclave. Geagea's headquarters said in a communique the warning was ``illegal because it was issued by an illegitimate side that usurped power.'' The communique pledged ``severe response to any attack on a civilian ship.'' Smoke billowed from east Beirut's district of Ashrafiyeh, Geagea's main stronghold, and the pinewoods of the Metn mountains, where Aoun's troops are entrenched. The thuds of exploding shells echoed across Beirut as radio stations interrupted regular programming to report on the developments and blare appeals from hospitals for blood donations to cope with the influx of casualties. Geagea controls Beirut harbor and the ports of Jounieh and Byblos north of the capital. Jounieh, 12{ miles from Beirut, is the terminal for a ferry and a hydrofoil from Cyprus. These vessels are the Christians' only outlet from their enclave, which is ringed on its land sides by hostile Syrian troops and their Moslem militia allies. Aoun's 19,000-man army controls only a three-mile strip of the Christian coast and he is not believed to have any working gunboats left from the heavy fighting with Geagea's militia of 6,000 fighters and thousands of reservists. He has heavy artillery in the mountains overlooking Beirut and the coast and has used it to fire on Geagea's flotilla of gunboats and armed speedboats. But the guns are not radar-controlled and the police spokesman noted: ``It will be extremely difficult for Aoun's gunners to hit mobile targets, especially speedboats.'' The communique said Aoun declared the coast between Christian east Beirut and the Madfoun bridge in north Lebanon a military operations zone. ``Sailing across it is banned to any vessel irrespective of its type or cargo,'' the communique said. Geagea ordered his flotilla to blockade Aoun's only sea outlet at Dbaye, north of Beirut, on April 23 in an effort to prevent the general shipping in weapons and ammunition. President Elias Hrawi and Prime Minister Salim Hoss drove to the Syrian capital, Damascus, for talks with President Hafez Assad on ways of implementing a peace plan to end Lebanon's 15-year-old Christian-Moslem civil war. Aoun has rejected the Arab League-brokered peace plan, endorsed by Lebanon's Parliament in the Saudi Arabian resort of Taif in October, because it does not guarantee the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, maintains 40,000 troops in predominantly Moslem regions under a 1976 Arab League peacekeeping mandate. Aoun calls them an occupying army. He also refuses to recognize Hrawi's election to implement the peace plan. But Geagea has recognized Hrawi and cautiously accepted the peace plan, which calls for an equal distribution of power between Moslems and Christians.
AP900525-0253 	X	Too much rain kept corn futures prices growing Friday and new forecasts called for no change in the soggy conditions that have stalled spring planting in the Midwest. Other grain and soybean futures also advanced on the Chicago Board of Trade. On other commodity markets, cocoa futures retreated; livestock and meat futures rose; precious metals were mixed; and oil futures were mixed. Corn futures settled 1 cent to 5 cents higher in Chicago with the contract for delivery in July at $2.84 a bushel. The July contract's gains totaled 9\ cents in the three days ending Friday. Wheat futures settled { cent lower to 3 cents higher with July at $3.30 a bushel; oats were 1\ cents to 2 cents higher with July at $1.54{ a bushel; soybeans were 1 cent to 3} cents higher with July at $6.19 a bushel. Forecasts for scattered showers in the Corn Belt well into next week ``overwhelmed everything else'' in the corn market Friday, said Victor Lespinasse, an assistant vice president in the grain trading division of Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. ``It's wet, it's been wet and it looks like it's going to continue to be wet,'' he said. After the close, the National Weather Service released a six-to-10-day forecast predicting wetter-than-normal conditions in the Midwest from May 31 through June 4. ``It looks like a real soggy run for the eastern Corn Belt,'' said Richard Feltes, director of commodity research with the futures brokerage Refco Inc. About 20 percent of the nation's corn crop remains to be planted, Lespinasse said. If farmers don't get the seed into the ground within the next 10 days, yield losses are likely, he said. That propect was reflected in steeper losses in the new-crop corn contracts than in the July contract, which represents the last of the old-crop corn. The pattern was reversed in the soybean market, reflecting the possibility that farmers will plant soybeans on acres they had planned to sow with corn. Cocoa futures fell sharply on New York's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange, erasing Thursday's gains as traders took profits ahead of the long holiday weekend. Prices climbed to new 14-month highs on Thursday and surged again in early trading Friday on news of a customs workers strike in the Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer. Traders quickly discounted the importance of the strike, though, since most of the available Ivory Coast cocoa already has been shipped. Cocoa settled $25 to $30 lower with July at $1,464 per ton. Most livestock and meat futures rose moderately on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in pre-weekend position-evening after several days of weakness, especially in pork futures. After the close, the Agriculture Department released a monthly report that showed 102.2 million pounds of pork bellies in the nation's commercial freezers. The number was near market expectations. Live cattle futures settled .02 cent to .25 cent higher with June at 73.52 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .07 cent lower to .13 cent higher with August at 83.77 cents a pound; live hogs were .10 cent to .37 cent higher with June at 65.95 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .12 cent to .38 cent higher with July at 65.85 cents a pound. Gold futures rose modestly on New York's Commodity Exchange on light volume, supported in part by slight weakness in the dollar. The advance extended the market's recovery from Wednesday's plunge of more than $11 an ounce. Gold futures settled $1.50 to $1.90 higher with June at $368.40 a troy ounce; silver was 1.3 cents to 1.5 cents higher with May at $5.215 a troy ounce. Energy futures ended mixed on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Near-term crude oil deliveries finished slightly lower after a burst of buying early in the session that analysts linked to bullish chart signals. West Texas Intermediate crude oil settled 5 cents lower to 12 cents higher with July at $17.80 a barrel; heating oil was .15 cent to .38 cent lower with June at 49.66 cents a gallon; unleaded gasoline was .40 cent lower to .18 cent higher with June at 63.41 cents a gallon.
AP881028-0341 	X	American Hoist & Derrick Co. said Friday it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy all the stock of Denver-based CoastAmerica Corp. for $10.50 a share or $110 million. Under the deal, American Hoist will begin a cash tender offer within five business days, followed by a cash merger at $10.50 for each share not previously tendered. CoastAmerica said the holders of 63 percent of its outstanding shares have agreed to tender their stock in the offer. ``This represents a unique opportunity to realize in one transaction our plan of creating a national hardware distribution company,'' said Robert H. Nassau, Amhoist's president and chief executive officer. Nassau said the acquisition will combine three of the nation's leading hardware suppliers. ``Our Farwell, Ozmun, Kirk & Co. hardware distribution business, CoastAmerica and Globe all have demonstrated their abilities in certain regions of the country,'' he said. Richard H. Bard, chairman and president of CoastAmerica, said, ``Our buying power will be enhanced and our true national presence will increase our growth opportunities.'' CoastAmerica is in the process of completing its acquisition of Globe Distribution, a privately held distributor based in Lincoln, R.I., Amhoist said. Globe, a distributor of automotive products, including hardware and paint, will become part of Amhoist after CoastAmerica is acquired, Amhoist said. The acquisition, when complete, will make Amhoist's distribution business the fifth largest wholesale hardware distributor in the United States and the largest that is not dealer-owned, Amhoist said. It said that after the acquisition, it will have annual sales of more than $800 million.
AP880218-0060 	X	The main opposition party urged Chancellor Helmut Kohl to dismantle some nuclear missiles before the new U.S.-Soviet arms treaty is ratified, as the Kremlin has done. East Germany's state-run news agency ADN reported that Soviet SS-12 missiles in Waren, an East German site northwest of Berlin, were dismantled, put in crates and were ready for transport back to the Soviet Union. The SS-12s are part of the U.S.-Soviet agreement last December to eliminate medium-range and shorter-range missiles within three years. The treaty applies to nuclear missiles with a range of 300 to 3,000 miles. Hermann Scheer, disarmament expert for West Germany's opposition Social Democrats, told reporters that Kohl's government should respond to the Soviet move with the early scrapping of West Germany's 72 Pershing 1A missiles. ``Such a reaction would be equal to developing trust in disarmament which the leadership in East Berlin has been working toward with the Soviets,'' Scheer said, speaking on behalf of the party. East German newspapers praised Soviet plans for early removal of the SS-12 missiles from Waren. ``Soviet missile troops preparing withdrawal from the DDR (East Germany). Troops in Waren dismantle medium-range rockets earlier than expected,'' the Communist party's official newspaper, New Germany, said in banner headlines Wednesday. ADN did not say how many missiles had been dismantled or when they would be returned to the Soviet Union, only that Soviet soldiers ``are making the last preparations to return their SS-12 rockets.'' ``With this step we can make an important contribution toward disarmament even before the treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union is ratified,'' ADN said. The East Berlin-based newspaper Berliner Zeitung said Wednesday: ``Removal of missile troops from the DDR (East Germany) starts earlier than expected.'' President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the superpower treaty in Washington last December. Kohl had announced beforehand that West Germany would scrap its Pershing 1A missiles if a treaty was agreed upon. West Germany owns the Pershing 1A missiles, but the United States controls the nuclear warheads for the rockets. Three U.S. Senate committees are debating the treaty and ratification may come this summer. The Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union's parliament, is expected to approve the accord. East German leader Erich Honecker said in January that Soviet intermediate-range rockets based in his country could be removed ahead of schedule, but at the time he gave no specific timetable. According to figures released after the treaty was signed, 22 rockets, 12 launchers, nine transport vehicles and seven practice missiles were stationed at the Waren site, which holds the largest numbers of SS-12s in East Germany. There are three other SS-12 rocket sites in the country. The city of Waren is 90 miles northwest of Berlin.
AP881023-0023 	X	When Baltimore Symphony Orchestra players laid down their instruments in favor of picket signs a month ago, they were following a long tradition of militancy among symphony orchestra musicians. In the past 10 years, the 31 major orchestras in the United States have struck or been locked out 28 times, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League. ``Musicians in general traditionally have been the most militant of the various entertainment groups,'' said Leonard Leibowitz, an attorney who represents Baltimore Symphony members and the American Federation of Musicians. ``Symphony musicians in particular have probably been one of the most militant.'' The Baltimore orchestra has gone on strike three times and been locked out by management once in the past 20 years, said John Gidwitz, symphony executive director. The San Francisco Symphony walked out for 12 days in January and the Utah Symphony Orchestra struck for nearly a month this fall. Leibowitz attributed the musicians' feistiness to several things, including a belief that they should be compensated for the years they have spent, many since childhood, devoted to their art, and their view that working in the orchestra is a career, not a stepping stone to individual acclaim. ``For us, the big break is to crack a major symphony orchestra,'' said Charles Underwood, BSO violinist. Gidwitz attributed the strikes to a history of inadequate wages that musicians reversed by walking off the job. ``I hope and guardedly believe as musicians start to attain more reasonable salaries we will collectively find less disruptive ways of settling labor contracts,'' he said. Utah Symphony Orchestra executive director Paul Chummers blamed ``unrealistic expectations'' by musicians, who he said don't realize the precarious financial state in which many orchestras exist. The symphony league lists 13 orchestras that are in financial trouble, including Phoenix, Denver, Detroit, Houston and Columbus, Ohio. Chummers said symphonies commonly earn half their costs from ticket sales and depend on donations for the rest. A symphony's labor problems rarely alienate audiences. The Baltimore symphony has not lost community support during the strike, Gidwitz said. Unless a strike lasts the entire season, patrons usually return quickly, Leibowitz said. The Baltimore contract expired Sept. 17. Informal contact between both sides continues but no negotiations have been scheduled. In San Francisco, musicians walked out during the last two contract negotiations, this year and for two weeks in the 1985-86 season. ``Sometimes it seems you need a strike just to get the other side serious about negotiating,'' said Tom Hemphill, chairman of the San Francisco Symphony players' committee. For the BSO, the strike follows four years of harmony between management and musicians _ a relationship that has created a world-class reputation, both sides said. Broadcasting and recording contracts and European tours brought good reviews, and a $40 million fund-raiser recently put the orchestra on sound financial footing. Because of that, the dissonance that creeps into both sides' rhetoric is almost always balanced with at least a token note of respect for the adversary. The 96 players walked off the stage after their Sept. 23 performance, rejecting management's final offer of a $4.2 million, three-year package that would have raised salaries by $25 a week in the first year, from $770 to $795. The union was seeking $1,015 weekly by the end of the 1988-89 season. The orchestra offered $980 by the end of the 1991-92 season, said Richard Hafetz, attorney for symphony management. The union wants to be paid the average of its peer orchestras, including so-called second-tier groups such as San Francisco, St. Louis and Houston. Management said its offer would bring salaries in line with the group, because it totals more than the contract Houston players recently signed. The offer is about $200 less a week than San Francisco musicians earn.
AP880508-0037 	X	A group of federal regulators working on ways to prevent another stock market crash appears certain to clash with activist members of Congress who want to do more than the anti-regulation Reagan administration. The group, appointed in mid-March, is chaired by Treasury Under Secretary George D. Gould and includes the heads of the Federal Reserve Board, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. According to two sources familiar with its deliberations, the focus of group's recommendations is likely to be improved communication and cooperation among both exchanges and regulatory agencies rather than jurisdictional changes requiring new legislation. If that is the case, it will not satisfy either Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, or Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the finance subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. However, one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that the Gould group's positions were still fluid and could change before it reports to President Reagan the week of May 16. And, pressure on the group to recommend more than it apparently had intended increased on two fronts last week. An earlier White House panel, headed by Wall Street investment banker Nicholas F. Brady, issued a statement warning that regulatory turf fights should not be permitted to sidetrack market reform, which it said ``will inevitably require legislation.'' And, according to one of the sources, SEC Chairman David S. Ruder has made it clear he will stake out an independent position if the Gould group's final report does not go far enough. Ruder has urged that his own agency, which regulates the stock markets, be given additional authority over stock index futures, which currently fall under the jurisdiction of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. At the very least, he wants ``tie-breaking'' authority to resolve disputes during emergencies, such as the record Oct. 19 decline of 508 points in the Dow Jones average. Both CFTC Chairwoman Wendy L. Gramm and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan are opposing jurisdictional changes. Proxmire has introduced a bill that would create a three-member committee to coordinate regulation. It would consist of the chairmen of the SEC, CFTC and the Federal Reserve. The Fed chairman would head the committee, but disputes would be resolved by majority vote. Markey's staff is still working on legislation and is unlikely to be finished before the Gould group reports to the president, according to an aide, who asked not to be identified by name. However, Markey has said the SEC, not the CFTC, should regulate stock index futures. The administration working group appears likely to recommend only one of the changes sought by legislators and the Brady panel: brief, coordinated ``circuit breakers'' to break the momentum of a soaring or plunging market, one of the sources said. Agreement on margin levels _ the amount of money required to make an investment in either the stock or futures markets _ was ``still within the realm of possibility'' but less likely because of strong disagreement between Ruder and Gramm, the source said. Futures margins are higher than they were before the Oct. 19 stock market crash, but Ruder has said further increases are needed. Gramm, reflecting the views of the industry her agency regulates, has resisted. The Federal Reserve sets stock and stock option margins, while the individual futures exchanges set their own margins. According to the source, Treasury Department officials also believe ideally that stock and option exchanges ought to set their own margins. However, the Brady panel in its statement last week said margin-setting was too important to leave to the exchanges. It said the Fed is the logical agency to set all equity margins to ensure their harmony with one another. According to Markey's aide, the Massachusetts congressman sides with the Brady panel on that issue and is considering including in any legislation a direction that stocks and futures margins be not just harmonious, but equivalent. That would be controversial. Gramm and executives of the Chicago futures exchanges argue that stock and futures margins serve different purposes and need not be the same. Other tentative provisions of Markey's bill would give the SEC power to impose trading halts and take other action during market emergencies. The legislation also is likely to prohibit cross-market front-running. Some brokerage firms have been accused of profiting in either the stock or futures market by trading for their own accounts in front of a major trade by a big client like a mutual or pension fund in the other market. The Gould group from the start faced criticism from Proxmire and Markey that it was little more than a delaying tactic by the administration, anxious to avoid any additional regulation of the markets. They believe Congress must get moving this spring before its members become preoccupied with the summer political conventions and their own re-election campaigns in the fall. However, the participation of Brady on the side of Proxmire and Markey has made the debate more complicated than a dispute between Democrats and Republicans. Brady, a former Republican senator from New Jersey, is a close adviser to Vice President George Bush and is considered a leading candidate for Treasury secretary should Bush win the presidential election in November. Republican staffers are assisting Democratic aides in drafting House legislation, although it is unclear what parts Republicans will ultimately support, according to the Markey aide. In the Senate, Brady's backing helped Proxmire obtain more Republican co-sponsors than Democratic. Five Republicans and three Democrats have signed on.
AP900426-0062 	X	Sotheby's, departing from its role as an auction house, is financing the $142.8 million purchase of the contents of a distinguished New York art gallery. Sotheby's has agreed to finance the purchase of the Pierre Matisse Gallery, one of the foremost inventories of 20th-century art, in an agreement with art dealer William Acquavella, said Diana C. Brooks, president of Sotheby's in North America. The gallery was founded by Pierre Matisse, the son of painter Henri Matisse. Its inventory has 2,300 works by artists such as Joan Miro, Marc Chagall and Alberto Giacometti. Acquavella will be managing partner of the joint venture company, which will be called Acquavella Modern Art, The New York Times reported today. Acquavella said he plans to sell the paintings privately over a period of time. Until now, Sotheby's has represented sellers and has not owned most of the works it has sold. But with this move, Sotheby's acquires a substantial inventory of artwork and enters the gallery business. Sotheby's has expanded its operations in the art world since real estate tycoon A. Alfred Taubman bought it in 1983. The auction house in 1988 started Sotheby's Financial Services, a subsidiary that lends money to sellers, buyers and owners of art. More recently Sotheby's has offered guaranteed minimum prices for consigned pieces of art, even if the work does not sell at auction. ``I think once more it is another confirmation that Sotheby's has really become an art dealer,'' David P. Tunick, a New York art dealer and board member of the Art Dealers Association of America, told the Times. ``To any longer describe themselves as an objective middleman is wrong.''
AP901220-0102 	X	California's civil rights commission may not award damages for emotional distress or other personal harm caused by job discrimination, the state Supreme Court ruled today. The 5-2 ruling eliminates the Fair Employment and Housing Commission's ability to order damages for bias victims who commonly suffer no losses in salary but sue for the trauma and humiliation caused by employers' mistreatment. Those victims of sexual or racial harassment could still go to court and sue for a full range of damages. But suits are available only to those who can afford a lawyer. The court said the commission was authorized only to order back pay and reinstatement for wrongfully fired employees and to require employers to take steps to prevent future discrimination. In a separate decision today, the court said discrimination victims were not required to file claims with the state before suing in court. The rulings come three years after the court prohibited the same commission from awarding punitive damages in flagrant cases of job discrimination. In that time, the Legislature has passed bills establishing the commission's authority to award both kinds of damages, but Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed them. Today's ruling was based on an interpretation of current state law and left open the possibility that the Legislature could pass a new law allowing the commission to award damages. But the opinion by Justice Edward Panelli hinted that unlimited damage awards by the commission, even if authorized by state law, might be found unconstitutional as a violation of the right to a jury trial. A jury in a court case ``is in the best position to determine just compensation for emotional and mental distress,'' Panelli wrote. The ruling overturned a $20,000 damage award by the commission to Rose Brown, a secretary for the Peralta Community College District in Oakland. She claimed she was fired in April 1981 for refusing sexual advances by an administrator at Laney College.
AP900118-0207 	X	The Kremlin Wednesday authorized the thousands of soldiers it sent to the Caucasus to open fire if necessary on Armenians and Azerbaijanis fighting in the hills near the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Thousands of Armenian refugees poured from the southern republic of Azerbaijan, many beaten or chased from their homes by angry mobs. Some blamed the attacks on Azerbaijanis who earlier fled ethnic violence in Armenia. The death toll rose to 58, mostly Armenians, and the number of injured to 169 in five days of civil warfare, an Interior Ministry official said. Four burned bodies were found in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the official news agency Tass said Wednesday. Eighteen Armenian residents were injured in Azerbaijan in the past 24 hours.
AP880722-0272 	X	General Motors Corp. and industry analysts credit the automaker's 29 percent increase in its second-quarter earnings to a return to profitability in its North American automaking business and continued strong results overseas. GM barely broke even building cars and trucks in North America in 1987, reaping $3.56 billion in 1987 profit from accounting changes, tax benefits and record contributions from its streamlined overseas businesses and its subsidiaries. But second-quarter revenue for the nation's biggest automaker rose 12 percent to $29.9 billion from $26.7 billion a year ago, breaking the previous quarterly record of $27.6 billion set in 1986 when the auto industry set a 16.3 million-vehicle annual sales record. GM reported net earnings of $1.5 billion, or $4.52 a common share, up from $1.17 billion, or $3.39 a common share, in the second quarter a year ago. ``It was a good quarter. The number of units produced per employee went up almost 17 percent versus second-quarter last year. That's phenomenally good, showing the kind of earnings General Motors can have if sales pick up,'' said Ronald Glantz, analyst with Montgomery Securities Inc. in San Francisco. Car and light truck sales in 1988 have continued to surge well ahead of pessimistic predictions issued in the wake of the October 1987 stock market crisis. Expectations for the year have risen to a consensus of about 15.6 million vehicles, and GM has benefited from the industry's surprisingly strong performance. ``Last year, (sales) volume was so low that most of their gains came from accounting changes. This year, it seems based on volume. Sales were strong in the first half, particularly in the second quarter,'' said Kathleen Heaney, analyst with Nikko Securities International in New York. Second-quarter revenue rose 12 percent from a year ago and broke the previous GM record for any quarter of $27.6 billion set in 1986, GM said. The earnings were the best for any quarter since second quarter 1984. GM also said that as of June 30, it had shaved $2.7 billion of the $4 billion it plans to trim from its costs during 1988. In the second quarter, operating income rose 64 percent, to $1.75 billion from $1.07 billion a year earlier. It rose 16 percent in the first six months, to $2.4 billion from $2.08 billion a year ago. GM said the improvement came both from a return to stronger profitability in North America and overseas performance stronger than last year's record. However, GM said it does not provide income for different geographic areas on a quarterly basis. GM's worldwide vehicle sales rose 9.3 percent in the second quarter, to 2.25 million. At the end of the second quarter, GM's North American-built cars and light trucks held 35.1 percent of the U.S. market, up slightly from 33.8 percent at the end of June 1987. In the first six months of 1988, GM earnings rose 13.3 percent to $2.6 billion, or $7.63 a share, on revenue of $56.34 billion from $2.29 billion, or $6.65 a share, on revenue of $52.8 billion a year ago. On Wednesday, GM reported earnings by its three subsidiaries _ General Motors Acceptance Corp., Electronic Data Systems Corp., and GM Hughes Electronics Corp. GM blamed higher interest expenses and a drop in auto financings for an 18.9 percent drop in GMAC earnings. Second-quarter earnings for EDS and Hughes were up 33 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively.
AP900830-0044 	X	A cult leader risks the death penalty after being convicted of murdering a family of five at a communal farm in what disciples said was a soul-cleansing ritual. Jeffery Lundgren, 40, was found guilty Wednesday of murder and kidnapping in the 1988 slayings. Earlier in the day, his wife, Alice, was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison for her part in the murders. Dennis Avery; his wife, Cheryl, and daughters, ages 7, 13 and 15, were slain at the Lundgrens' rented farm in Kirtland, 30 miles east of Cleveland. They were lured one at a time to a barn, gagged, shot and dumped in a common grave. The bodies were found in January. Fellow cult members testified that the Averys, who also were members of the cult, were slain in a purification ritual in hopes of witnessing the return of Christ. Defense lawyers admitted Lundgren shot the family but said he was guided by his interpretation of the Scriptures. Prosecutor Steven LaTourette said after the verdict, ``I noticed Mr. Lundgren was smiling _ sort of a day-at-the-beach attitude.'' The jury will return Sept. 10 to consider whether he should get life in prison or death in the electric chair. Mrs. Lundgren, 39, was convicted Aug. 1 of conspiracy to commit murder and of kidnapping. After the sentencing, Mrs. Lundgren tearfully told reporters, ``I am not the `Angel of Death.' I am the mother of four.'' She testified she was afraid of her husband. ``I'm not a cold-blooded murderer. He is,'' she said. ``I was found guilty of a crime I had no knowledge would occur.'' Other cult members, however, testified she attended prayer meetings at which the pending murders were discussed. Until 1988, Lundgren was a lay minister for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, a town of 6,500. He was defrocked for inappropriate conduct and formed his own sect, based on his interpretation of the Bible and the book of Mormon. Testimony indicated that the Averys were less ardent in their belief and that Lundgren disdained them. The Lundgrens' son, Damon, 19, awaits trial on murder charges. Five other cult members have pleaded guilty and await sentencing; five more await trial.
AP901213-0066 	X	Three homes began sinking in this Southern Illinois community after an old coal mine shaft collapsed, authorities said. No injuries were reported, authorities said. Five homes were evacuated. ``When I got out of the car, I noticed a crack in the concrete (driveway). Then I got inside and heard the house popping. We could feel the house moving,'' said Maxine Smith, who began removing possessions from her home Wednesday evening. Cracks appeared in roads on the south side of this community of about 9,600, said Interim Fire Chief Paul Marlo. In the sinking homes, windows shattered, walls and floors cracked, and floors and pipes burst, residents said. ``The houses are still shifting. We don't have any idea how long it might be. Right now, it's just a waiting game,'' town Superintendent Terry McEvers said late Wednesday. The homes began sinking Wednesday afternoon because of the mine shaft collapse, authorities said. Abandoned mines run underneath much of Southern Illinois, where coal mining is a major industry. ``There's no way of knowing the extent of the damage. The whole area is undermined,'' Marlo said. As a precaution, work crews began draining a 750,000-gallon municipal water tower near the site late Wednesday, authorities said. Service was not affected because the town has another tower. ``Right now, the structure of the tower is sound, but we want to make sure we have no problems,'' McEvers said. Authorities evacuated the three homes which had moved and two across the street as a precautionary measure, Marlo said. ``We thought they'd better go some place else for the night,'' he said.
AP901025-0161 	X	Twenty-five Portuguese stone masons returned to their homeland Thursday after Iraqi authorities allowed them to leave Baghdad. The workers finished contracts last week to install marble in a palace for President Saddam Hussein on the banks of the River Tigris in the Iraqi capital. A spokesman for the group, Joao Cacador, said Baghdad authorities granted exit visas to the Portuguese after the Iraqi company supervising work on palace appealed to Saddam's office on their behalf. Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva, on working visit to Spain, said he was overjoyed to hear the Portuguese men had left Iraq. Iraq has held thousands of foreigners in their country in the aftermath of the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, including Westerners in strategic sites thought to be the targets of a possible U.S. attack.
AP880829-0221 	X	Schroeder. They can be reached at 212-621-1852@3. The ``Health Care'' Special Edition contains these stories: b1247 BC-SPE--Health Care: Heart (LaserPhotos NY700, NY701) b1248 BC-SPE--Health Care: With Heart-Aspirin b1249 BC-SPE--Health Care: With Heart-Work b1250 BC-SPE--Health Care: With Heart-Children b1251 BC-SPE--Health Care: Exercise Poll b1252 BC-SPE--Health Care: Cholesterol b1253 BC-SPE--Health Care: Breakfast Cereal b1254 BC-SPE--Health Care: Survey (LaserPhoto NY703) b1255 BC-SPE--Health Care: School Nurse b1256 BC-SPE--Health Care: Anxiety b1257 BC-SPE--Health Care: Nutrition Goals b1258 BC-SPE--Health Care: School Lunches b1259 BC-SPE--Health Care: Youth Fitness b1260 BC-SPE--Health Care: Hearing b1261 BC-SPE--Health Care: Asthma b1262 BC-SPE--Health Care: Fat b1263 BC-SPE--Health Care: Videos (LaserPhoto NY702) b1264 BC-SPE--Health Care: Business Travel b1265 BC-SPE--Health Care: Arthritis b1266 BC-SPE--Health Care: Child Patients b1267 BC-SPE--Health Care: First Aid b1268 BC-SPE--Health Care: Travel-Motion Sickness b1269 BC-SPE--Health Care: Briefs
AP901120-0200 	X	Every week, 115 million chickens are slaughtered to feed the U.S. appetite for cordon bleu, McNuggets and everything in between, according to the National Broiler Council, a poultry industry group. Driven largely by a demand for lower-cholesterol, lower-fat meat, poultry consumption has grown to 73 pounds a year per person, up from 49.7 pounds a decade ago, said Bill Roenigk, vice president for the Washington-based council. Beef consumption has fallen during the same period from 76.4 pounds per person to a projected 67.4 pounds this year. The top 10 broiler chicken producing states, in order, are Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Delaware, Maryland, California and Virginia. About 25,000 farmers raise the chickens, nearly all under contracts with processing companies. Tyson Foods is by far the largest processor, handling 75 million of the 400 million pounds processed weekly, the broiler council said. The next largest are ConAgra, 30 million pounds; Gold Kist, 25 million; Perdue, 25 million; and Pilgrim's Pride, 15 million. Cargill ranks 21st at 4.5 million pounds per week.
AP900116-0153 	X	A Chicago suburb agreed Tuesday to allow contruction of a group home for the retarded in a federal court settlement that may ease efforts to build housing for the handicapped across the nation. Chicago Heights also agreed to pay $45,000 in damages and report for five years all actions affecting housing for the handicapped. ``We hope other communities will get the message that the handicapped have rights under the Fair Housing Act,'' said James P. Turner, acting head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. ``If local officials don't pay attention to those rights, they will pay damages for violating them,'' Turner said. Under the consent decree approved by U.S. District Judge William T. Hart, Chicago Heights agreed to issue a zoning permit before week's end to Residential Facilities Management Services Inc., of Galesburg, Ill. The permit will allow construction of a group home for 15 retarded adults. The agreement settles lawsuits filed June 20 by the Justice Department and the next day by the corporation charging the City Council violated the Fair Housing Act when it voted May 1 to turn down a request for the zoning permit. The lawsuits were the first brought by the government under the Fair Housing amendment enacted last year to protect the handicapped. The lawsuits contended the City Council vote was motivated by opposition from residents prejudiced against the retarded. Chicago Heights, while not admitting to any discrimination, agreed to pay $30,000 to RFMS for construction delays and $1,000 to each of the 15 people who eventually will live in the home. The city contends the permit was denied because RFMS had not supplied necessary documents with its application. ``The fact that the inhabitants happened to be developmentally disabled was not a factor,'' said Chicago Heights lawyer Nick J. DiGiovanni. He said the city agreed to the settlement ``in recognition of the cost saving of not having to go to trial to be vindicated.'' Under the agreement, Chicago Heights officials also must report to the federal government for the next five years any other applications they receive from anyone wanting to operate a facility for the handicapped. They must report within five days any changes made in local laws governing such facilities. RFMS must submit site plans and other documents to the city, and pledge that the home will not be used to care for mentally ill or emotionally disturbed patients. It also must limit the number of residents to 15. Justice Department spokeswoman Deborah Burstion-Wade said the settlement may make it easier for the government to obtain court orders in future cases involving the refusal of local governments to grant permits for group homes. ``Our hope is that this (agreement) will be noted by other communities, not only in the Chicago metropolitan area of Illinois, but nationwide _ that it's impermissible for them to deny access to living accommodations on behalf of developmentally disabled persons,'' said Richard E. Friedman, attorney for RFMS, which operates 55 group homes in 35 other Illinois communities. Group homes for the handicapped, usually established in residential neighborhoods, are designed to encourage independence. Residents live under supervision, but are given greater responsibility for everyday decisions than in other facilities.
AP900911-0015 	X	Animal rights activists have gone to court in an attempt to block the trade of an aggressive dolphin from the New England Aquarium to a secret Navy training center in California. Opponents of the swap claim the Navy trains dolphins for hazardous duty. A lawsuit seeking to block the trade was filed Monday in federal court by Steven Wise, an attorney for Citizens to End Animal Suffering and Exploitation. He said a hearing would be held Wednesday or Thursday. The aquarium wants to trade Rainbow, a 450-pound male, to the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego, Calif., for a partly deaf female dolphin. The Navy center said it trains and studies 142 marine mammals in underwater surveillance and other activities. Opponents say the aquarium lacks the required paperwork for the trade.
AP880425-0215 	X	Government prosecutors said Monday they will oppose a bid to reopen the trial of the ``Sharpeville Six,'' a group of blacks convicted of complicity in a mob killing and sentenced to death. P.J. Van Zyl, registrar of the Pretoria Supreme Court, said the attorney general of Transvaal province had filed a notice of intention to oppose the defense lawyers' application to reopen the trial. He said a ruling was expected May 3. The defendants, five men and a woman, were granted a stay of execution on March 17, the day before they were scheduled to be hanged. The stay was ordered after their lawyers filed papers claiming a key state witness had been coerced by police into giving false testimony. Defense lawyers asked that the trial be reopened to consider that claim and to review the credibility of other state witnesses. Many human rights organizations and Western leaders have appealed to South Africa's white-controlled government to commute the death sentences. The six were convicted of complicity in the September 1984 killing of a black municipal councilor, Kuzwayo Dhlamini, during riots against rent increases in the black township of Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg. But they were not found guilty of physically contributing to Dhlamini's death. They were convicted under the doctrine of common purpose, which holds defendants responsible if they are found to be participants in mob violence. The government has said their conduct inluded throwing stones at Dhlamini, helping set his house afire and slapping a woman who begged the crowd not to burn him. Black government employees frequently are targets of militants battling to overthrow the government and its policy of apartheid. By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.
AP880319-0091 	X	Justice Department officials are encouraging federal, state and local prosecution of drug users as an effective way to reduce demand for cocaine, marijuana and other illegal substances. Among the efforts being touted by department officials: _A border-crossing drug arrest program spearheaded by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego, Calif., is resulting in 10 to 20 drug-carrying motorists a week being arrested by U.S. Customs Service agents and charged with possession under federal drug laws. _A recently enacted New Jersey law revokes the licenses of drivers arrested with drugs in their cars. Also their cars are confiscated and they must perform at least 100 hours of public service work in addition to facing possible conviction for possession, which carries a jail term and a fine. The National Drug Policy Board, a Cabinet-level group chaired by Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Thursday approved a plan under which authorities will arrest and prosecute anyone caught entering the country with illegal drugs, no matter how small the amount. The idea of cracking down on users isn't a new one at the federal level. It has been included in previous Reagan administration anti-drug strategies. But the renewed emphasis on it is recognition that ``we need to focus on the demand for drugs,'' a Justice Department official said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We're going to hammer this thing into specific ideas and programs.'' Arresting users at the federal level isn't expected to take up a significant portion of resources because they will be ``picked off the fringes'' of cocaine dealing operations and major drug distribution rings already under investigation, says Assistant Attorney General William Weld, head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Weld said the approach will reinforce the point that ``there's no such thing as recreational drug use.'' The border-crossing drug-arrest program in San Diego being pushed by U.S. Attorney Peter Nunez caught 900 people last year, most of whom were permitted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. They avoided jail time but paid steep fines and many of them were first offenders now saddled with criminal records. ``I think demand for drugs is the problem, not supply,'' says Peter Nunez, the U.S. attorney in San Diego. ``We're trying to figure out a way to get the message across to the users that they are the problem and there are adverse consequences.'' Justice Department officials regard some of the demand-side programs in place in New Jersey under a recently enacted anti-drug law as models that ought to be duplicated elsewhere. A New Jersey drug prevention education fund is financed with drug users' fines. Dealers get extra prison time for selling near schools. And the law's provisions yanking licenses and confiscating cars of those in possession of drugs strikes terror in the hearts of high school students. New Jersey Attorney General Cary Edwards says students' eyes glaze over when he warns them they could go to jail for drug use, an unlikely outcome for young first offenders. But they snap to attention when he tells them they won't be able to drive. ``We have to teach the marginal users not to be users any way we can,'' says Edwards. ``If society believes that law enforcement can stop drug distribution, they're crazy. We have to dry the market up.''
AP900813-0195 	X	Despite Iraqi claims to the contrary, the Iraq economy is weak and ill-prepared to withstand an economic blockade, the Middle East Economic Survey reported today. ``Iraq's financial position was precarious before the invasion and the ending of new hard currency flows will impose severe strains on the Iraqi economy very rapidly,'' said the respected weekly newsletter based in Nicosia. The newsletter disclosed that payments for Iraqi crude delivered even before Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait are being frozen. Payment is normally made by 30-day letters of credit. Iraq's economy depends almost entirely on oil. And the three outlets for Iraqi oil exports, pipelines across Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and shipment by sea direct from an Iraqi terminal at the head of the Gulf, have been blocked. The blocking of oil exports is part of a total trade embargo decreed by a U.N. Security Council resolution after Iraq invaded and then annexed Kuwait. ``Drawing together the available economic indicators, the clear indication is that the Iraqi economy has been deteriorating during the last year,'' the newsletter said. Iraq was becoming more dependent on outside funding after an expensive eight-year war with Iran. In the second half of 1989, a large increase was reported in short-term debt to Western industrialized countries. Also, last year cash aid to Iraq from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, estimated at $2 billion a year during the war _ which ended in a cease-fire in 1988 _ stopped. In 1989, Iraq had trouble borrowing from commercial banks, according to newsletter. Of a total of $1.6 billion in loans, $1.5 billion was in unauthorized loans from the Atlanta, Ga. branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. The Middle East Economic survey said it is unlikely that Iraq, even before the embargo, could have found significant untapped sources of new money. ``It is clear that at the present time the Iraqi economy is very vulnerable and that it has little leeway to withstand an economic blockade,'' it said. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has claimed that Iraq can hold out against the embargo if it conserves supplies. ``Iraq's national wealth is abundant. ... Our supplies of essential needs and food stuffs is great,'' Saddam said in a message broadcast Sunday on Baghdad television. ``Victory is on our side and defeat is certain for the aggessors who have pinned all their hopes to their economic sanctions and to their forces and their useless fleets.'' However, in the same speech he indicated a concern about shortages. He asked Iraqi women not to hoard foodstuffs and to cut back on consumption.
AP881102-0082 	X	The dollar changed little against most major currencies in thin mid-morning trading today, and dealers forecast a steady course before the Nov. 8 presidential election in the United States. Gold prices were higher. Foreign exchange dealers said the dollar bounced back in Europe from lows hit during the Tokyo trading day on support from a third day of intervention from Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan, and fear of the same by the U.S. Federal Reserve. But they said sentiment remained essentially bearish, although the dollar was unlikely to fall sharply ahead of the U.S. election. ``The nearer we come to the election the calmer the dollar will be,'' said one trader in Milan. In London, the dollar rose against the British pound. One pound cost $1.7695 today, more expensive for buyers than Tuesday's late $1.7668. Other mid-morning dollar rates compared with Tuesday's late rates: _1.7824 West German marks, down from 1.7865 _1.4990 Swiss francs, down from 1.5025 _6.0835 French francs, down 6.0965 _2.0100 Dutch guilders, down from 2.0155 _1,323.85 Italian lire, up from 1,331.50 _1.2270 Canadian dollars, down from 1.2278 Earlier in Tokyo, the dollar closed at 124.68 Japanese yen, down 0.62 yen from late Tuesday. Later, the dollar traded in London at 124.90 yen. Gold opened in London at a bid price of $411.65 a troy ounce, up from $411.25 late Tuesday. At mid-morning, London's five major bullion dealers fixed a recommended gold price of $412.50 a troy ounce. Gold was trading in Zurich at $412.10 a troy ounce today, up from $411.00 Tuesday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold closed at a bid $413.90, up slightly from Tuesday's $413.89. Silver bullion traded in London at a bid $6.34 a troy ounce, up from $6.28.
AP880528-0196 	X	After Tuesday, American businesses, from the loftiest Fortune 500 company to the smallest corner grocery, won't get just a warning the first time they're caught employing illegal immigrants. Companies tempted to look the other way when illegal aliens apply could face stiff fines, the real teeth in the landmark 1986 immigration reform bill that enters a new phase June 1. The Immigration and Naturalization Service will target key industries, looking for violators. It is a system that has worked in Europe, and many feel it offers the best hope to curb illegal immigration and transfer jobs from aliens to U.S. citizens. But others worry about possible exploitation of illegal workers, discrimination against foreign-appearing workers, the impact on the labor force and the dangers of turning employers into immigration police. Doris Meissner, a former acting INS commissioner, questions whether employer sanctions might ``put into our employment practices a bias toward looking at people's foreignness that never existed before.'' It may be too early to gauge whether that is true, but the monetary impact will certainly be felt right away. After Wednesday, the INS need no longer issue an initial warning citation to employers who hire undocumented workers. The law now requires employers to obtain documents from workers showing they are legally in this country. Employers face fines of up to $1,000 for improper documentation, up to $2,000 per alien for a first offense of knowingly hiring an illegal alien, up to $5,000 per alien for the second offense, $10,000 for subsequent offenses, and $3,000 or six months in jail for a ``pattern or practice'' of violation. Over the past year, INS fined 80 businesses $350,000 and gave 2,000 citations. The agency thus views the new phase not as a dramatic crackdown, but as a nudge to employers. The fines went to companies that got warnings but continued ignoring the law. ``Our intent is not to indiscriminately run around fining employers. The intent is to encourage employers to validate their work force,'' says INS spokesman Duke Austin. ``It'll be a deliberate implementation of the law.'' Although INS is beefing up its investigative force, agents will not be able to inspect every business. Austin says the agency will use its resources ``judiciously,'' targeting the construction, garment and hotel and service industries that have traditionally been repositories of illegal workers. In Europe, where many countries adopted employer sanctions a decade ago, the system did not trigger widespread job discrimination against foreigners, according to a 1987 study by the Center for Immigration Studies, a private think tank that researches immigration trends. The study concluded that cooperation by employers is vital for such a system and said employers would cooperate if the paperwork wasn't burdensome and if enforcement was consistent and certain. ``It's got to take on the aura of the IRS,'' says Vernon M. Briggs Jr., a labor economist at Cornell University. ``Most people are probably reasonably honest in doing their income tax because there's a fair chance they're going to get caught. Everybody worries about the IRS but I don't think anybody is worried about the INS yet.'' Businesses were skeptical last year about the I-9 forms they were required to fill out for workers, a new and costly level of paperwork. Now, they seem less resistant, if still wary. Virginia Lamp Thomas, labor attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says businesses are ``afraid that the law has significant teeth in it.'' The chamber is conducting a survey to determine how the law is working. Some experts have made preliminary assessments. ``Employer sanctions will probably work best in the larger firms and will work least effectively as you get down to the mom and pop enterprises that don't pay much anyhow and need the cheap (illegal) labor to survive,'' says David Simcox, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Briggs, the labor economist, says employer sanctions probably will not be very effective because employers really don't have to verify the worker's documents. ``Anything that a worker shows an employer that appears to be reasonable essentially takes the employers off the hook. I think it's likely to make a mockery out of the ability to enforce the bill,'' he says. The amnesty phase of the law, in which illegal aliens who came to the United States before 1982 could apply for temporary residency, enlarged the pool of legal workers available for low-paying jobs. Employers ``have got the windfall of having additional pools of low-wage workers, which means they don't have to modernize or raise wages in order to make jobs more attractive,'' Briggs says. The potential for worker exploitation concerns civil liberties advocates. The law ``grandfathered'' in workers who had jobs on Nov. 6, 1986, the date it was passed. That means that employers did not have to ask those workers for documents, although illegal workers in that category remain subject to deportation if caught by INS. Now, the worry is that those workers can be trapped in their jobs with no redress against an unscrupulous employer. ``Obviously for these employees it totally removes their ability to make any kind of changes. If there is a bad employment situation they'd be very reluctant to change jobs because they don't have documents. It sets up a situation amenable to exploitation,'' says Meissner, now with the Carneigie Endowment for International Peace, which studies foreign policy issues. There is also the issue of job discrimination. The law bars employers from refusing to hire someone because of their national origin or, in the case of someone who has taken steps to become a citizen, his citizenship status. It sets up a special Justice Department counsel to prosecute complaints. So far, 139 discrimination allegations have been filed with that office. Forty-eight have been resolved or are being investigated. Of those, 15 have resulted in formal complaints and 10 have been settled by requiring back pay with offers of employment. But that may not tell the whole story. The law also allows employers to hire U.S. citizens over non-citizens ``if the two individuals are equally qualified.'' ``That's going to make it even more difficult to prove discrimination. `Equally qualified' is to a certain degree subjective,'' says Mario Moreno, of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which provides legal assistance to Mexican-Americans and others involved in employment discrimination suits or complaints. The General Accounting Office, an investigative branch of Congress, last fall found little evidence that employers were discriminating against foreign-looking job applicants because of the new law. But those findings are only preliminary. The law was intended to discourage illegal immmigration by drying up the job prospects for such aliens. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. ``There will be some job market for illegals because there will be employers who won't comply,' says Meissner. ``The question then becomes to what extent over time does the government's effort bring about real voluntary compliance on the part of employers and some deterrence.''
AP880229-0153 	X	Here are the latest, unofficial results in the Democratic presidential caucuses Tuesday. The votes in each jurisdiction may differ in meaning, depending on state rules and level of caucus.
AP900319-0010 	X	Occasionally, an art theft reads like the plot from an Ian Fleming thriller in which half-mad billionaires pay slick international thieves to steal famous paintings for their private pleasure. In reality, experts said Monday, most art is stolen to earn a quick buck in an international black market that is second in size only to the drug trade. The priceless art stolen Sunday from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is too famous to be sold anywhere, raising the spectre that the pieces could be held hostage for ransom for a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars the art world says the paintings are worth. The true scale of the art underworld is difficult to gauge, but investigators say art thievery is increasing as prices for works on the legal market soar. ``There's a lot of it going on,'' said Robert W. Holmes Jr., a Boston attorney specializing in fine art transactions. ``Ninety percent of stolen art is never recovered. There's obviously a market there.'' Rarely, one end of the market is held up by someone who decides to commission the theft of a painting that cannot be legitimately acquired. One such theft occurred in 1983, when thieves stole Italian Renaissance masterpieces, including Raphael's self portrait, from the Hungarian national museum in Budapest. Investigators found that a sophisticated band of Italian art thieves, armed with cutting tools and high-tech alarm-busting devices, executed a perfect break-in and vanished with the works. An extensive dragnet eventually snared the thieves in their home country before they could get the paintings to Greece where, it was later found, an olive oil baron had paid a handsome sum for the sake of having the works hang in his home. ``There aren't many thieves with that sort of expertise,'' said Robert Volpe, a former New York City police detective who worked on the Hungarian case and is now a private consultant tracing stolen art around the world. ``They were capable of stealing anything.'' But most of the black market in art is in lesser-known works usually ranging in value from $100,000 to $300,000. Priceless works such as the Vermeer taken from the Gardner Museum are simply too famous to be sold anywhere. ``It's incredibly stupid to steal a Vermeer or a Rembrandt,'' said Steven Keller, a private security consultant who was brought in as security director at The Art Institute of Chicago after a major theft of three works there by Cezanne in 1979. ``He (the Gardner thief) has got some things that are too hot to handle,'' Keller said. Keller said lesser-known works and prints that could be sold more easily were more valuable to thieves than masterworks that couldn't be fenced. ``You might be able to sell say, a lesser-known American artist's painting in Europe,'' Keller said. ``It's harder to spot them.'' Often, thieves who can't sell stolen art underground hold it ransom for insurance money, a scenario several investigators and curators said was likely in the Gardner theft. Last year, for instance, thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, demanded a $2.2 million ransom and returned one of the works. The others were later recovered and four people suspected of the theft were arrested. ``It happens, and it happens frequently,'' Holmes said. ``But like any hostage situation, it's got to be outside the public eye, so often these cases go unnoticed.'' Keller, noting the relative worth of the art stolen from the Gardner Museum, said, ``If I were the thief of the Gardner paintings, I'd ship the Vermeer and the Rembrandt back to the museum and go for a ransom on the smaller works.''
AP900803-0149 	X	Iraq jammed short-wave radio broadcasts from Voice of America on Friday, the agency's director said. Two of the six frequencies carrying Arabic-language broadcasts to the Middle East were jammed at 5 p.m. EDT (Midnight in Kuwait), said Richard Carlson, director of the U.S. government's overseas radio broadcasting. The jamming signal, which sounds like someone blowing bubbles, has electronic characteristics indicating it is Iraqi, Carlson said. The two jammed frequencies are broadcast from West Germany and the island of Rhodes off the southwestern coast of Turkey and are the most powerful frequencies beamed to the area, he said. Weaker Arabic signals and English-language broadcasts were not affected, he said. However, ``The BBC has had indications they're being interfered with as well,'' he said. Carlson said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was ``trying to keep his neighbors and his own people from knowing what is going on.'' He said he did not know how much of the signal was getting through to neighboring countries in the region. Iraq has not jammed VOA signals before, Carlson said. The only other country now jamming VOA is China, he said.
AP880608-0045 	X	Congress today passed a land reform law supporters say will improve the lives of millions of impoverished Filipinos. Critics say the plan could fail unless it is implemented efficiently. President Corazon Aquino, who asked Congress to enact land reform last July, was expected to sign the bill by Friday. Land reform was a chief promise during her 1986 election campaign against ousted President Ferdinand Marcos. The measure gives landowners the choice of dividing their property among tenants or sharing profits with them. It is expected to cost $70 billion and benefit 2 million farmers in this largely agricultural nation of 7,100 islands. Land reform is also considered essential to defeating the 19-year-old communist insurgency, which has its main support in rural areas. ``We are very pleased with the final bill,'' said Rep. Ramon Mitra, speaker of the House of Representatives. ``It is a measure that will change the lives of millions.'' Under the plan, each landowner may retain 12 acres and an additional seven acres for each direct heir over age 15 who will till the land. A landowner also has the option of sharing profits or giving tenants shares of stock instead of physically dividing the property. All but one of the 19 senators present approved the bill late Tuesday. Sen. Vicente Paterno, a landowner, abstained. The other four members left before the vote. The 203-member House of Representatives later passed the measure by a vote of 152-20 with four abstentions. Sen. Heherson Alvarez, a former agrarian reform minister who sponsored the legislation, said it would bring ``democratization of the means of production.'' Rep. Jose Cojuangco, Mrs. Aquino's younger brother, voted in favor despite earlier objections to the plan. ``There are a few sections that have to be amended, but for the first time this bill will really accomplish a genuine land reform,'' he said. The president's family owns a 14,820-acre sugar plantation in Tarlac province north of Manila. Rep. Bonifacio Gillego sponsored the original House bill but withdrew after changes began. He voted against the legislation today and told his colleagues they were ``foisting a grand deception on our people.'' He said the plan would fail if the government does not provide credit, expertise and other assistance to new landholders. He also predicted communist rebels will oppose the plan. ``They will try to expose it as bogus and not genuine, not equitable,'' Gillego told The Associated Press. ``Therefore, they will engage in a vigorous campaign. So the burden is on the government to show it is not bogus.'' Gillego said farmers would oppose the profit-sharing option and it might ``result in agrarian reform, if you will, through a revolution.'' Leftist farmers' groups have said the bill favors landowners. Guillermo Luz, executive director of the influential Makati Business Club, said the government's skill in implementing the program will determine its success or failure. ``The private sector will have to be involved, especially with technical and management expertise and credit,'' he said. ``It will have to devise a system of agricultural credits in the countryside.'' The bill also provides for the transfer to farm workers of tracts of public land greater than 2,470 acres now leased to multinational corporations. Government lands will be the first distributed in the 10-year program. Private holdings of more than 123 acres will be parceled out in the first four years and smaller holdings later. Owners of more than 123 acres will be compensated with 25 percent of the value in cash and those with less than 60 acres will be paid 35 percent in cash. Tax exemptions, shares of stock in government-owned or controlled corporations or Land Bank of the Philippines bonds will make up the rest of the compensation. Officials say the program will be financed by foreign aid and assets of Marcos and his allies that were seized on grounds they were illegally acquired. Marcos governed the Philippines for 20 years but was driven from the country in February 1986 by a civilian-military uprising that brought Mrs. Aquino to power. The Philippines has attempted about a dozen land reform programs in this century, but they have largely failed due to lack of funds and resistance from landowners. ``Genuine'' land reform was among the demands of pro-Soviet Huk rebels in the 1950s and early 1960s and is a principal goal of communist rebels who launched their current insurgency in 1968.
AP881224-0081 	X	Time magazine has named the ``endangered Earth'' its Planet of the Year, departing from its annual Man of the Year designation to call for ``a universal crusade to save the planet.'' ``This year the Earth spoke, like God warning Noah of the deluge,'' the weekly newsmagazine said, citing natural and human-caused disasters from earthquakes to overpopulation to pollution of the world's beaches. Since 1927, Time annually has selected the person, group or object that in its editors' views most significantly influenced world events that year. It selected an inanimate object once before _ the computer, in 1982. In the cover article of its Jan. 2 issue, released Saturday, Time warned of a series of impending environmental catastrophes: _Pollution-caused warming of the atmosphere, known as the ``greenhouse effect,'' threatening weather changes that could flood coastlines and render large areas of the planet infertile and uninhabitable. _Toxic and radioactive wastes and dumped garbage that could poison drinking water and despoil the land. _Chemical pollution that is depleting the atmosphere's protective ozone layer. _Clearing of tropical rain forests, driving thousands of species to extinction. ``Most of these evils had been going on for a long time, and some of the worst disasters apparently had nothing to do with human behavior,'' Time said. ``Yet this year's bout of freakish weather and environmental horror stories seemed to act as a powerful catalyst for worldwide public opinion. ``Everyone suddenly sensed that this gyrating globe, this precious repository of all the life we know of, was in danger. No single individual, no event, no movement captured imaginations or dominated headlines more than the clump of rock and soil and water and air that is our common home.'' Added Time: ``Now, more than ever, the world needs leaders who can inspire their fellow citizens with a fiery sense of mission, not a nationalistic or military campaign but a universal crusade to save the planet.''
AP880824-0282 	X	Sony Corp. said Wednesday its profit soared five-fold in its first fiscal quarter on the strength of a ``gratifying sales performance'' and success in reducing costs. Sony said it earned 16.1 billion yen, or $122 million based on an exchange rate of 132 yen to the dollar, in the period ended June 30, up from 3.25 billion yen a year earlier. Revenue rose 37.2 percent to 463.6 billion yen, or $3.51 billion, from 337.8 billion yen a year earlier. The sales gain reflects strong demand in all areas, especially in Europe and Japan, as well as the addition of sales generated by the former CBS Records Group, which Sony bought in January. The exchange rate used to calculate dollar equivalents was the one prevailing at the end of the reporting period.
AP881202-0106 	X	Soviet troops broke up a mob of up to 1,500 people that had gathered in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku to attack Armenians, official media reported Friday. The Soviet government formed a commission to feed and clothe thousands of refugees from the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan who had crowded into tents, dormitories and relatives' apartments because of ethnic violence that has killed at least 60 people since February. Baku radio, in a report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in London, said soldiers had prevented a mob from attacking Armenian residents of Baku on Thursday night. ``In the area of the railway station, a mob of up to 1,500 people attempted to beat up citizens of Armenian nationality. Because of the measures adopted, the troops stopped the attempts at hooligan activities,'' the radio said. Soldiers fired warning shots in five instances overnight, and they confiscated nine guns and two knives, it said. A curfew remained in effect in Baku, Yerevan and other major cities in the two republics. At least 80,000 people have crossed the border to their ethnic homelands, Soviet media reported Thursday. The Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda reported Friday that another 19,000 people had fled across the border the previous day. In a report from northern Armenia, the newspaper Socialist Industry said a resort designed for 300 children and 150 adults was jammed with 700 people who had fled Azerbaijan. ``In tents intended for two people, there are six beds,'' the newspaper said. ``In corridors, halls and entrances, endlessly tired people sit silently, immersed in themselves.'' ``Dozens of people who we listened to here said the same thing: there, where they lived, local authorities warned that they could not answer for their safety, and proposed that they urgently leave the republic.'' ``There was no talk about compensation for their homes, cattle, furniture or belongings,'' the paper said. The Tass news agency said that Boris Shcherbina, deputy premier, would head a Soviet government commission to extend aid to the refugees. Scherbina also headed a special commission 2{ years ago to deal with the Chernobyl nuclear power accident. Refugees ``will be provided with food, housing, medical and other social and consumer services, and given jobs,'' Tass said. Armenia and Azerbaijan previously had set up such commissions on a local level. Official Armenian media have said that the government is confiscating empty homes to house the refugees and is providing food for them. The two southern Soviet republics are locked in a bitter dispute over control of the predominantly Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Residents began agitating in February for annexation by Armenia, but the idea has been rejected both by Azerbaijan and the central government in Moscow. Ethnic rioting broke out in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait at the end of February, and 32 people died. The republics remained tense since then, and in mid-November Azerbaijanis began mass demonstrations to protest what they said was an Armenian effort to send settlers to Nagorno-Karabakh to pad the Armenian majority. A national Interior Ministry spokesman told the Communist Party newspaper Pravda in an article published Thursday that the death toll in the latest violence was 28. The Supreme Soviet parliament and the Soviet leadership under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev appealed for calm Thursday, urging Armenians and Azerbaijanis to show restraint.
AP880610-0185 	X	Her students dressed her in a gold cape and handmade crown, the school board named a kindergarten classroom in her honor and the mayor declared it ``Nellie M. Karrey Day.'' It was all part of a celebration by this western Massachusetts city for the teacher who, for more than a half-century, has gently introduced its children to school. ``It was such a surprise. It was a big secret and the children didn't tell,'' Miss Karrey, 78, said Friday. ``They were awfully cute.''' She will retire this month after 54 years of teaching, including 51 in North Adams kindergarten classrooms. She and her three sisters, also teachers, never wanted to do anything else, Miss Karrey said. ``I don't like cooking and I don't like gardening, but kindergarten was my niche.'' The celebrations began Thursday with a gala assembly at Greylock Elementary School where, with a paper crown perched on her gray curls, she accepted each class' handmade tributes, poems and cheers as well as proclamations from local and national politicians. A fifth-grade class changed the lyrics of ``She's Coming Around the Mountain'' and sang ``She gave us birthday cards and pulled our teeth ... she taught all my aunts and uncles and grandpa, too.'' ``One of the classes gave her a quilt, and put in it some of the things that she was noted for, such as the clay handprints,'' said Principal Stephen A. Boisvert. ``Every Christmas for as long as I can remember she has had each of the children in her class make an imprint of their hand in clay. And then she paints the imprints so they can give them to their parents. They have become family treasures,'' he said. Thursday evening, more than 300 of her former students turned out for an open house at the school. In keeping with one of her traditions, each of Miss Karrey's former students received a lollipop. ``She had a large tent in her classroom with a candle on top and a box of lollipops inside and whenever one of the children had a birthday they would light the candle and the child whose birthday it was would get to pass out a lollipop to everyone in the class,'' Boisvert said. ``She's an outstanding teacher, because of her flexibility and her warm relationship with the children,'' Boisvert said. Each fall for the 23 years he has been at the school, he said, she has gleefully reported that this was her best class ever. Five-year-olds, Miss Karrey said, haven't changed much over the past 50 years. ``They're all sweet as youngsters,'' she said. ``The smart ones are very smart now, because of all the opportunities they have to go places and be exposed to things through television and VCRs,'' she said. ``And the others I'm not going to tell you about.'' As for teacher burnout, Miss Karrey scoffed. ``I don't know what they are talking about,'' she said. ``I love the children and I'll miss them terribly.''
AP881110-0282 	X	Bankers who lend money for housing urged President-elect George Bush on Thursday to take early steps against rising home mortgage rates and said they favor a broad-based tax increase if necessary to ease the deficit and save the housing market. ``We hope ... that the Bush administration, as a last resort, will not foreclose the option of raising new revenues if necessary to bring down the deficit,'' said Warren Lasko, executive vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association. ``He has to find a way to step away from his read-my-lips philosophy,'' said Lasko, referring to Bush's campaign pledge not to raise taxes. But Lasko told a news conference that housing lenders would oppose any effort by the administration or Congress to eliminate or reduce the income tax deduction home buyers can take on their mortgage interest. He said such a move would be a tax increase. Lasko said the association, which represents 2,800 mortgage companies and other lenders, hopes Bush will give increased attention to housing in line with his promise for a ``kinder, gentler nation.'' He said the new president and Congress will have ``an opportunity to weave a stronger thread of home ownership and housing opportunity into the social fabric of the nation.'' The association says home ownership is declining in relation to the population, with eight percent fewer families headed by men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 owning homes now than did when Reagan was first elected in 1980. It also says home buying takes a bigger bite out of family income, rents are higher, low-income housing is scarcer, vacancies are higher among high-income units, and 9.5 million American families live in substandard housing. Lasko criticized the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Reagan for failing to work with Congress or with state and local officials to combat the housing problem. ``HUD has been negligent in recent years in not attending to the fact that housing and community building are to be carried out with governors and mayors,'' he said. Lasko noted that interest rates on home mortgages have been creeping up in the past week and said they could reach 11 percent by the end of the year, further slowing housing markets. Increases in the amount of public and private debt tend to push interest rates up, and Lasko said the United States has become a nation ``addicted to debt.'' He said Bush's first priority for benefitting housing should be to decrease the deficit. ``Nothing affects housing affordability more than interest rates,'' he said.
AP880729-0028 	X	A consumer group says it will sue the Consumer Product Safety Commission if it doesn't do something about what the group sees as the threat of cancer lurking in children's sand piles. A commission officials said Thursday there is no evidence that commercial play sand causes cancer, but the commission will make a formal decision on a petition to ban limestone products, including play sand, in September. Industry officials say if sand from the nation's rock quarries caused cancer, there would be higher instances of the disease among workers in the centuries-old industry. Public Citizen, a non-profit organization which fights for product safety and public health, said in a news release Thursday that many of the nation's children could be exposed to play sand that contains dangerous asbestos or asbestos-like tremolite fibers. ``During the hot summer of 1988 your children may be playing in the sandbox. Would you want them to be breathing asbestos as they pour buckets of sand over each other?'' the consumer group asked. Asbestos fibers have been proven to cause cancer when inhaled. Children who are exposed to them may not be afflicted until many years after exposure, the group said. In a letter to the product safety commission, Public Citizen said that if the agency does not indicate within 30 days that it plans to resolve the issue, the group will consider legal action. Appeals to the safety commission to protect workers and consumers from exposure to rock-based fibers date back 12 years. In May, the agency said it had evaluated several play sand samples and did not find asbestos in any of them. Public Citizen, however, said sand sold under two brand names, Basins Play Sand and Quickrete Kiddie's Fun Sand, have been shown by tests to contain tremolite, a rock-forming mineral that can occur in an asbestos form. ``No one knows how many other brands may be similarly contaminated,'' the group said. An official of Package Pavement of Stormville, N.Y., a distributor of Kiddie's Fun Sand, said five outside tests have been conducted on its sand and none found harmful ingredients. ``All indications are that there is no such fiber in our play sand,'' said Eileen Doherty, vice president for marketing. She said sand from a quarry in Connecticut does contain tremolite, but in a crystalline form which is not harmful. Sandra Eberle, safety commission program manager for chemical hazards, said no one has found true asbestos in play sand. She said the fiber-like particles that have raised concern are not tremolite asbestos but ultra-thin cleavages from crystalline tremolite that occur in some marble-based sand. ``It's very upsetting to us because parents get naturally terrified. I've spent a lot of time on the phone telling people this is not asbestos,'' she said. Ms. Eberle said, however, that the commission is still considering a petition by New Jersey geologist and physician Mark Germine to ban all limestone products, including play sand, lawn and garden limestone and consumer gravel products. Rick Renninger of the National Stone Association, which represents the industry, said the claim of cancer-causing ingredients in sand is old and is not backed up by the evidence. ``We produce a billion tons of stone a year in the United States, and we've been doing it for a couple of hundred years,'' he said. ``I think that there'd be evidence of asbestos disease problems in people exposed for their entire working lives, and there simply isn't.'' Renninger said tremolite is among the most common rock-forming minerals and is found in almost every rock product. Public Citizen researcher Dr. Lynn Silver, a pediatrician, accused sand distributors of trying to hide the danger of their products. ``The industry throws up a smokescreen,'' she said in an interview. ``If somebody dies from falling off the left side of a skyscraper, they tell you there's nothing to prove that falling off the right side is also dangerous.''
AP880401-0126 	X	American corporations that owe taxes to Panama will be allowed the U.S. foreign tax credit if payments are made to the government of ousted President Eric Arturo Delvalle, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday. The announcement was aimed at discouraging U.S. businesses from sending tax payments to the Panamanian government controlled by military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, which Washington does not recognize. Some large U.S.-based multinational firms recently made quarterly tax payments just in time to give that government a desperately needed infusion of cash. The foreign tax credit is designed to prevent two national governments from taxing the same dollar of income. In general, the United States will not tax income that an American corporation earns in and pays taxes on to a foreign country. The IRS announcement is the latest move in the U.S. effort to squeeze Noriega, who has been indicted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges. Delvalle, who is in hiding, has directed that all tax payments due his country be paid through the Panamanian Embassy in Washington into a special account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ``This notice confirms that income taxes due to the government of Panama which are paid into such account will be considered paid to the government of Panama, and will therefore be creditable foreign taxes if all other requirements'' of the law are met, an IRS statement said. The White House, in declaring Thursday that such an announcement would be forthcoming, cautioned that U.S. businesses might expect some sanctions if they continue turning over money to Noriega. A spokesman for Eastern Airlines said the company had recently paid the Noriega government $178,000 in monthly rentals and landing fees. Texaco, Inc., routinely paid income, sales and excise taxes for March, said spokesman Peter Maneri, and sees no conflict with the position of the U.S. government. ``We do not become involved in any political activity in a host nation; we're just doing business down there,'' Maneri said.
AP900118-0234 	X	U.S. airlines had their most fatal air crashes last year since 1968 but the government says the overall accident rate for commercial air carriers and commuters declined. In all, 278 people were killed in 11 crashes in 1989 involving scheduled and non-scheduled air carriers, down slightly from the 285 in 1988, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. The most deadly year of the decade was 1985 when 526 people were killed in seven fatal commercial aviation accidents. The least destructive year was 1980 when only one fatal accident took place, killing just one person. Also last year, 763 people died in accidents involving private or general aircraft, the safety board said, the lowest figure for that category since it began keeping statistics. There were 781 deaths involving general aviation accidents in 1988. The board said the fatal accident rate for general or private aviation continued ``an improving trend that lasted most of the decade.'' Despite the high number of airline accidents involving fatalities last year, the overall accident rate for commercial air carriers and commuters declined, the safety board said. There were 28 accidents involving U.S. scheduled and charter airlines last year, a decrease from the 32 accidents recorded in 1988. The 11 involving fatalities were the most since the 15 of 1968. The fatal accident rate was 0.144 for every 100,000 scheduled and charter departures, up from 0.026 in 1988. The major scheduled U.S. airlines had 24 accidents last year, down from 31 the previous year. Of those two dozen accidents, eight involved fatalities, the most since 1973. Accidents involving scheduled airlines took 131 lives last year, 111 of them when a United Airlines DC-10 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa on July 19. The safety board noted a passenger who died 31 days after the accident was not registered in its statistics. The scheduled-airline accident rate for each 100,000 departures was 0.328, down from 0.412 in 1988. The fatal accident rate rose from 0.027 to 0.109. Charter airlines experienced four accidents during the year, three of them involving fatalities. A total of 147 people died, all but three of them in the Feb. 8 crash of an Independent Air B-707. There were no fatal accidents involving chartered aircraft in 1988. Here are other aviation accident statistics for 1989: _Commuter flights: There were 18 accidents, one fewer then in 1988. Five fatal accidents, up from 2 in 1988, took 31 lives. That was 10 more than in 1988. The accident rate: 0.621 for each 100,000 departures compared to a rate of 0.654 in 1988. The fatal accident rate rose from 0.069 to 0.172. _Air taxis: Accidents rose from 98 in 1988 to 110. The number of fatal accidents declined from 27 to 23. But fatalities increased from 58 to 80. The accident rate rose from 3.45 to 3.83 for every 100,000 aircraft hours. But the fatal accident rate dropped from 0.95 to 0.80. _General aviation: The accident rate dropped for the seventh year in a row from 7.97 for each 100,000 aircraft hours in 1988 to 7.25. The last increase in the accident rate took place in 1982 when it was 10,06. The fatal accident rate declined to 1.40 for each 100,000 hours from 1.52 in 1988.
AP900613-0124 	X	Georgette Mosbacher, socialite wife of the U.S. secretary of commerce and head of a cosmetics company she owns, was robbed of $30,000 in jewelry and cash outside her hotel room by a man with a submachine gun. Mrs. Mosbacher said she gave the robber her jewelry and handbag, then escaped when an elevator opened and she jumped in. ``I was screaming and yelling and leaning on the buzzer,'' Mrs. Mosbacher said after the Tuesday robbery. ``When I got to the lobby, I ran to the desk. I was hoping they could lock off the stairs and catch him.'' The robber fled. No arrests have been made, police said Wednesday. Mrs. Mosbacher said the well-dressed robber covered her with the small submachine gun and told her to open her door. She said she told him the key wouldn't work, but he got it open. ``I told him `I'm not going there. I'm not going to shout.' ``I took off my earrings and said, `There's a bench over there and I'm going to sit.' I said to myself, `I'm not going to live,' but I thought I'd have a better chance in the hallway,'' she recalled. The gunman's hands were occupied with jewelry and Mrs. Mosbacher's bag when the elevator door opened and Mrs. Mosbacher took her chance to get away. The robber got her wedding band, two other rings, a watch, $400 in cash and the earrings, she said. She said the valuables were worth $30,000. Mrs. Mosbacher was staying at the hotel while the couple's apartment is being renovated.
AP880218-0096 	X	The investigation into the case of a black teen-ager who claims she was sexually assaulted by six white men has again reached an impasse with lawyers for the victim saying they will not cooperate with prosecutors. Representatives of the victim met with state Attorney General Robert Abrams, the special prosecutor investigating the case, for 12 hours Tuesday and Wednesday but failed to secure a pledge from Abrams that he would personally handle several key aspects of the case. Without that, ``we are unable to give him the cooperation that he is demanding of us,'' Alton Maddox Jr., an attorney representing Tawana Brawley and her family, said at a news conference after Wednesday's meeting. ``There is no way that we can agree that we have, instead of a special prosecutor, a case manager,'' he said. ``We are looking for a special prosecutor to personalize this case.'' Abrams said in a statement that he was committed to personal participation in, as well as overall responsibility, for the case. But he said it was too early to make the specific tactical decisions demanded by Maddox, attorney C. Vernon Mason, and activist Al Sharpton. Abrams said the investigation will continue without the cooperation of Miss Brawley or her attorneys. The two sides have no immediate plans to meet again, said Abrams' spokesman, Timothy Gilles. Miss Brawley, 16, of Wappinger Falls, claims she was repeatedly raped and assaulted last November by six white men, one of whom flashed a police badge. She was found four days after her disappearance in a daze, wrapped in a plastic bag. Racial epithets had been scrawled on her body. This week's talks followed a meeting Feb. 11 between Miss Brawley's representatives and Gov. Mario Cuomo, which appeared to break a stalemate that had stymied the investigation. Previously the representatives had refused to allow Miss Brawley or her family to cooperate in the probe, saying they didn't think John Ryan, the aide Abrams had picked to head the investigation, had sufficient experience in civil rights matters. The attorneys later said they had been assured by Cuomo that Abrams would be ``personally involved'' in the investigation. In the meetings this week the representatives made Miss Brawley's cooperation conditional on Abrams personally conducting certain aspects of the case, including grand jury presentation and direct examination of several witnesses, Abrams said. ``I have indicated that I do not rule out performing any or even all of these roles myself,'' said Abrams. ``However, we are far from any trial here, we are far from even solving this case, and these are questions of trial tactics that I and my staff of prosecutors feel cannot in good conscience be made at this time.''
AP880301-0139 	X	A county supervisor who prides himself on doing right by his district and recently offered $1 to any constituent who spotted a pothole, has issued a $5 bounty on flooded intersections. ``Whether I pay off one or two, it'll be the best survey the Flood Control District ever had,'' said Kenneth Hahn, who is running for an unprecedented 10th term. ``It'll keep the Flood Control engineers out of their offices in downtown and down in the streets where they belong,'' he said. The offer, intended to pull the plug on storm-caused flooding, is good from Tuesday through March 10. Hahn paid $3 on his pothole offer _ $2 of it to a Los Angeles Herald Examiner reporter who cruised the byways of the 2nd District in a near-fruitless search for poor pavement. ``I pride myself on taking care of my district,'' Hahn said. ``If you do your homework and take care of the little things in your district, the big things will take care of themselves.''
AP900129-0058 	X	President Bush asked Congress today to cut taxes on capital gains and create a new tax break to encourage savings. Bush's 1991 budget calls for tax increases of $15.7 billion, although there is no proposed general increase in personal income taxes. The budget recommends $5.6 billion increases in user and service fees and $1.8 billion worth of targeted tax cuts, including a special credit of up to $1,000 a year for each child under the age of 4 in lower-income families. Although the most sensitive revenue proposal in the budget is the tax cut on capital gains, the one with the potential for affecting the greatest number of taxpayers is the call for a reward for increased savings. Under this proposal, a couple could avoid tax on the interest earned on special ``family savings accounts'' held for seven years or longer. While interest would be tax-exmept, deposits to such accounts would have no tax advantage. Most couples would be allowed to invest up to $5,000 a year in these accounts; a single person could invest $2,500. The tax break would be limited to couples with incomes below $120,000 and single people under $60,000. Bush also recommended that a first-time homebuyer be allowed to withdraw up to $10,000 penalty-free from an Individual Retirement Account in order to make a down payment on the home. The proposed capital-gains tax cut is more sweeping than the one Bush failed to win from Congress last year. Democratic leaders have fought any such reduction on grounds that 80 percent of the benefit would go to those with incomes over $100,000 a year. ``A reduction in the capital-gains rate would help United States businesses in the face of increasing global competition,'' Bush said in a written message to Congress. He also repeated the administration's insistence that cutting taxes on capital gains _ which are profits from the sale of stock, real estate and other investments _ would increase revenues. Under Bush's plan, capital gains from property owned more than one year would be taxed at lower rates than apply to wages and other income. When fully phased in, the provision would exempt from taxation 30 percent of profits from the sale of property owned at least three years; 20 percent of gains from property owned more than two but less than three years would be exempt; 10 percent of gain from assets held more than one year would be exempt. Thus, a person whose regular income is taxed at 28 percent would pay an effective rate of 19.6 percent on capital gains from long-held property. Other revenue proposals include: _Making permanent the 3-percent tax on local and long-distance telephone service, which is due to expire Dec. 31. _Raising the 8-percent tax on airline tickets to 10 percent. _Increasing more than three times the fee on waterway shippers, from 0.04 percent of value to 0.125 percent. _Requiring the 3.8 million state and local government workers who are not covered by a retirement plan to pay Social Security taxes. Also, state and local workers hired before April 1, 1986, would be required to pay the 1.45 percent Medicare tax; most state and local workers already pay. _Cutting oil industry taxes by creating four incentives for drilling in old fields. _Imposing fees for a variety of government services, including those provided by the Coast Guard and the Food and Drug Administration. _Requiring veterans, except those with low incomes, to pay part of their medical bills relating to non-service-connected ailments. Many veterans wold have to pay a 1.75 percent fee on new VA housing loan guarantees.
AP900524-0112 	X	Kids are saying no to plastic across the Twin Cities after a cafeteria sit-in by grade schoolers prompted a school board decision to switch from disposable lunch trays and cups in favor of washable dishes. Mounds View school officials say they will spend at least $145,000 to equip eight grade schools with dishwashers and related equipment _ three schools next year and five the year after that. Students at Bel Air started the movement after hearing their teacher talk about the need to recycle and attending Earth Day festivities. They passed around a petition, which prompted school officials to call in a plastics representative to preach the benefits of plastic. That made them decide to stage a cafeteria sit-in. When they refused to return to class, they were suspended for a day and a half. While banished from class they cleaned up a neighborhood park.
AP880820-0001 	X	A shark named ``megamouth'' with lips that glow in the dark washed ashore off the coast of Western Australia, and scientists said it was only the third time such a specimen has been found. ``In this day and age, it is quite a remarkable find,'' Dr. Gerald Allen of the Fish Department of the Western Australia Museum said Friday. ``Something like this doesn't happen every day.'' The fish, which measured 16 feet and looks like a cross between a whale and a shark, swam ashore on Wednesday near the resort town of Mandurah. Locals pushed it back to sea, but it beached itself again and died. Allen said only two other specimens had been found. He said a megamouth _ as researchers call the shark _ was first discovered in 1976 off Hawaii. A second specimen was caught in 1984 off the coast of Southern California. ``It's the first time a megamouth has been found in the Southern Hemisphere,'' Allen said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Allen said the fish lives at depths of 660 feet to 3,300 feet and has bioluminescent lips that glow in the dark to attract jellyfish, plankton, shrimp and other food. ``We don't know very much about it other than that it swims at great depths apparently with its mouth open, filtering food,'' said Allen. He said the megamouth has a bulbous head with a mouth measuring 2{ feet across and tiny teeth. ``It's definitely a shark and it is not prehistoric,'' Allen said. Allen also noted that the megamouth, weighing about 1,500 pounds, feels very flabby. ``It's sort of like jelly,'' he said. ``That is because it doesn't need strong muscles or a hard skeleton for the sort of environment in which it lives.'' He said the museum planned to display the megamouth.
AP880610-0202 	X	High school officials who protested greeting cards linking drinking and graduation are irate and embarrassed over a similar display in their school's yearbook. The full-page photo spread in Edison High School's yearbook, the Oracle, shows students with beer bottles and wine coolers. It appeared less than a week after Edison administrators joined in a protest of the Hallmark cards, which the company later said it would discontinue. ``I'm very concerned and disappointed,'' Principal Jack Kennedy said Thursday. ``If there was a way I could recall it, I would. But I can't. ``It depicts everything we're against,'' he said. Edison officials became involved in the protest after a parent discovered two cards linking drinking to graduation fun. The parent, who is on a committee planning a graduation party next week at Edison, took the cards to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Kennedy is retiring July 1 and will be replaced by Brian Garland, who also joined members of MADD in the June 3 protest outside Hallmark's regional sales office in Newport Beach. Garland said Thursday that the photo page in the yearbook showed ``poor judgment'' and gives the school a bad image. ``It won't happen again,'' Garland said, ``I won't tolerate it. You can bet the farm.'' Students paid for the page, near the back of the annual, school officials said. Jim Wheeler, a 19-year yearbook adviser, said he was unsure ``where to draw the line'' but added the yearbook staff had voted to refrain from such features next year.
AP880926-0243 	X	OPEC's price monitoring committee ended a two-day emergency session Monday by calling for prompt action to reverse the sharp decline in world oil prices but stopped short of calling for a special meeting of the full 13-member cartel. In a communique released at the conclusion of the meeting, the oil ministers also said it was essential that a joint meeting of the price committee and the Long-Term Strategy Committee be held to review existing OPEC strategies and objectives. ``No lasting stability in the world oil market can be achieved without concrete cooperation by the non-OPEC oil producing countries and their contribution in regulating world supplies of oil in line with demand,'' the price committee said. OPEC Secretary General Subroto of Indonesia, speaking to reporters at a news conference following the meeting, underscored the committee's statement saying the cause of the recent fall in oil prices was ``mainly due to a significant overproduction of some OPEC countries as well as non-OPEC oil producers.'' Subroto said the ministers would decide after the joint meeting whether a special session of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should be called before its regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 21 in Vienna. Oil futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which had risen earlier in the day, began falling immediately after Subroto's statements then recovered slightly, analysts said. One broker said Subroto's comments were interpreted as indicating OPEC was unwilling to take immediate action to restrain oil output and boost sagging oil prices. The meeting of the price committee was called in response to the recent slump in world oil prices, which earlier this month hit their lowest level since the summer of 1986 when they fell below $10 a barrel. According to many analysts, sagging prices represent the failure of nearly all OPEC members to respect production quotas. The secretary general did not give specific dates for the joint meeting except to say it would probably be held in October. Subroto said Iran and Iraq are to speak directly with each other at the Long-Term Strategy Committee for the first time in years within OPEC. He downplayed the significance of such a meeting, however, saying it was normal that their respective oil ministers should speak since their foreign ministers began meeting last month in peace talks. The Long-Term Strategy Committee is comprised of OPEC's founding members, including: Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Algeria, Venezuela and Kuwait. Subroto said Iran and Iraq have both confirmed their attendance at the joint session. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Algeria also are members of the price committee, along with Nigeria and Indonesia. Since the last price committee meeting Aug. 3 in Lausanne, Switzerland, a cease-fire between the two countries in their eight-year Gulf War has begun to hold. The Price Evolution Committee, as the price committee is officially named, is an influential panel that studies price developments and compliance with OPEC policies, namely production quotas, by OPEC members, although it has no enforcement powers. The committee may, however, call for special meetings of all 13 OPEC members. The committee said it also examined during the emergency session in the Spanish capital a report prepared by the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat on current market conditions as well as a report presented by Subroto on the outcome of his recent visits to various OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing countries. The Paris-based International Energy Energy Agency reported OPEC production at 19 million barrels a day in August and OPEC President Rilwanu Lukman has put OPEC production at closer to 20 million barrels per day. Last June, OPEC set a 15.06 million barrel a day ceiling to apply to all OPEC nations except Iraq, which has refused to go along with OPEC quotas, saying it needs to produce more oil to rebuild its war-torn economy following eight years of fighting with Iran. On Monday, North Sea Brent crude for delivery in October was quoted at $13.25, up slightly from Friday.
AP900606-0018 	X	Under pressure from builders and Congress, federal regulators are moving to ease lending restrictions imposed on savings and loans under last year's bailout law. The Office of Thrift Supervision is proposing to temporarily quadruple to 60 percent the percentage of capital that a qualified thrift institution may lend to one borrower, an agency official said Tuesday. The office was under intense pressure from lawmakers who were inundated with complaints from builders that the rule was forcing them to curtail projects, putting their employees out of work. Last year's S&L legislation had sharply reduced the lending limit, aiming to sever the cozy relationship between highflying S&Ls and some developers. In the past, loan limits were so high that the default of a single loan could bankrupt a thrift. However, builders complained that the shift was too abrupt and left many reputable builders unable to arrange alternative financing for sound projects. Last month, the National Association of Homebuilders cited the regulation as one element in a credit crunch they predicted would cut housing construction nationally by 100,000 units to 1.28 million this year. Under a draft regulation submitted by the thrift agency to the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, the strongest S&Ls would be allowed to lend up to 60 percent of their capital to a single U.S. developer for residential construction. That is four times the 15 percent limit imposed by S&L bailout legislation enacted last August. The limit would drop to 30 percent before returning to the 15 percent mark at the end of 1991, said the thrift office official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Before passage of the S&L bailout law, thrifts had been allowed to lend 100 percent of their capital to one borrower. The new transition rule would not apply to commercial projects, and only S&Ls currently meeting strict capital standards effective in 1995 would be eligible. The thrift office official said 1,185 of the nation's 2,502 solvent S&Ls meet the test. ``This will give us some breathing room,'' said economist David Seiders of the homebuilders group. ``We think it will provide a lot of help.'' The association had been pushing for a somewhat longer transition period and had wanted regulators to make a larger group of thrifts eligible for the relaxation. But, Seiders said, ``This is a step in the right direction.'' The homebuilders had mounted a campaign in Congress, where legislators in both chambers were preparing amendments to the S&L law. A transition rule proposed by Rep. Peter Hoagland, D-Neb., had attracted more than 60 cosponsors. However, Seiders said the builders all along had been looking for relief from regulators rather than having to wait months for Congress to change the law. Details of the loan-to-one-borrower proposal were first reported in Tuesday editions of American Banker, a trade newspaper. The thrift office hopes to formally announce the policy by the end of the month, the agency official said. Regulators, in testimony to a House Banking subcommittee in February, indicated that last year's law left them with no discretion to issue a transition rule. However, Treasury Undersecretary Robert Glauber told the Senate Banking Committee in May that thrift office lawyers were working to establish their authority to interpret the law. Seiders praised Timothy Ryan, the new director of the thrift office, for his willingness to review the matter after taking office two months ago. ``We think it's a good sign in terms of (prospects for) working with Ryan'' and the agency, the homebuilders official said.
AP880528-0135 	X	Police said they raided a Mafia summit Saturday and arrested five people meeting to draw up new territories for Naples' crime families. The five were charged with criminal association of a Mafia type and with illegal possession of firearms. They are reputed leaders of the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia. Authorities said the five met at the apartment of the boss of one Camorra gang and that the apartment had been under surveillance for months. The five were identified as Antonio Egizio, 35; his brother Umberto Egizio, 24; Vincenzo Romano, 28; Vincenzo de Michele, 36; and Salvatore Manna, 44. Police said Antonio Egizio recently sent a letter to President Francesco Cossiga complaining that he was a good person who was continously being persecuted, stopped and followed by the police.
AP880630-0149 	X	Scientists today began innoculating an acre of corn stalks in the first field test of a genetically engineered microbe designed to combat the European corn borer, one of agriculture's most destructive pests. Although researchers have conducted other experiments of genetically altered materials in the environment, the tests of Cxc-Bt at the federal experimental station here are the first approved of a genetically altered ``plant vaccine,'' scientists and federal officials said. Proponents of the Crop Genetics International project call the testing a step toward an era of chemical-free pest control. The company's chief scientist, Peter Carlson, said today he hoped Cxc-Bt will have the effect of making the corn borer sick. But he said the main purpose of the test is to determine whether the pesticide will spread from plant to plant, an undesireable effect. The microbe works by attacking the alkaline stomach of corn borers, giving them ulcers. It doesn't affect humans because people's stomachs are acid and are unaffected by the Bt protein, according to researchers. In previous experiments in petrie dishes and in a greenhouse, the microbe killed the borers in the petrie dishes and sickened them when tested in the greenhouse. The pest costs American farmers $400 million annually. Critics worry that Cxc-Bt experiment could set a precedent and are concerned that genetically engineered materials could spread uncontrollably once released into the environment. Environmental groups, including the National Audubon Society and the Environmental Defense Fund, did not oppose the limited field tests begun today. Environmental experts said if their questions about spreading are answered with more tests, they may support the final product. The crucial question for environmental groups is whether there will be adequate testing and regulation because Cxc-Bt is just the beginning of a rush of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of similiar products, said Maureen Hinkle, the Audubon Society's director of agriculture policy. Only one other genetic crop protector, a microbe altered to fight frost, has been approved for field testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends, said the pesticide hasn't been shown to work in greenhouse tests. Rifkin said today his organization did not oppose today's test because ``this product doesn't work. It does not kill corn borers. (The company's) evaluation data supplied to the EPA shows the product does not kill the insects. It poses no immediate threat because it doesn't work.''
AP880323-0101 	X	A West Virginia University professor who worked as a consultant for Caterpillar Co. had his students spy on competitors of two Caterpillar dealerships, but a school official says there's no evidence the assignment was made to help the professor's work. ``I think inappropriate things were asked of them. I think they were in an uncomfortable situation and responded in an unfortunate (manner),'' Provost Frank Franz said Tuesday. Two groups of graduate students in Marketing 321 polled competitors of H.O. Penn Machinery Co. in Armonk, N.Y., and Yancey Bros. in Atlanta, both Caterpillar dealers, according to Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. The students obtained inventory and sales volume reports and even new product information from competitors and gave the data to the Caterpillar dealerships, according to the report. The aim of the assignment, according to instructor Terry Wilson, was to give students a firsthand taste of the ethical issues involved in industrial espionage. ``They'll be facing these issues every day of their career. They have to learn to deal with them. I tell them to think through the tradeoffs,'' Wilson told the Journal. However, he said his students no longer will be assigned similar projects. Franz said there was no evidence the students' surveys were conducted to help Wilson's consulting work. ``It's not clear from the article that there's any action that professor Wilson took that was inappropriate,'' he said. Wilson won't be disciplined, said Cyril Logar, dean of the College of Business and Economics, because he taught students about the ethical considerations involved in the project, including confidentiality, before the students began their work, although ``they still broke the rules, so to speak.'' ``I thought I was doing them a favor,'' said H.O. Penn Machinery marketing manager Milton Long, who helped direct students about what to ask whom. The students identified themselves only as university students during the surveys, and promised some dealerships that their identities would remain confidential, the Journal said. However, ``there was pressure'' at H.O. Penn for students to name the competing dealerships and that information was provided, one of the students, Mark Wheatley, told the Wall Street Journal. ``It makes me shudder to think about it,'' he said. Long denied obtaining confidential information from the students. Wilson said he told his students to reveal who the information was being gathered for _ but only if those being surveyed asked. And he said students should have known on their own not to divulge confidential information. One of the businessmen surveyed said business owners let their guard down when dealing with college students, allowing them to get information not ordinarily available. ``That's not ethical in my mind,'' said Alan Stith at the Atlanta-based Stith Equipment Co.
AP900201-0132 	X	The Soviet military commandant expressed hope Thursday that by mid-February troops could begin returning home and authorities could lift a curfew imposed after violent ethnic clashes in Azerbaijan. Representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan prepared to open peace talks Friday across the Soviet Union in Riga, capital of the Baltic republic of Latvia. A spokesman for the Azerbaijani People's Front accused President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of caving in to Communist hard-liners by sending troops to occupy Baku, and added: ``Gorbachev's hands are now bloody.'' Lt. Gen. Vladimir S. Dubinyak told the first foreign journalists permitted to visit Baku since the military seized control of the city Jan. 20 there are ``many positively inclined forces trying to noralize the situation and end the curfew.'' He said the 11 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew might be lifted within two weeks. He said tensions would have to ease further, including an end to leaflets appealing to Baku workers to strike to protest the military presence. At night, during the curfew, military trucks and armored personnel carriers stand at most intersections between Baku airport and the center of the city. Soldiers guarding the intersections wear helmets and carry automatic weapons. Red flowers mark where Azerbaijanis died fighting the military intervention. On Jan. 13, Azerbaijanis attacked ethnic Armenians and drove them from their homes in Baku, an oil center and the capital of the republic of Azerbaijan in the southern Soviet Union. Soviet troops stormed Baku a week later. The official Soviet news agency Tass reported the death toll in Baku alone since the troops moved in at 139. That includes 106 civilians, 28 soldiers and five policemen. As many as 498 people were wounded, Tass said. Iran on Thursday offered to send doctors, nurses and medicine to neighboring Soviet Azerbaijan, whose residents are primarily Shiite Moslem, like most Iranians. The offer was reported by Tehran television, monitored in Cyprus. Iran has condemned the use of force in Azerbaijan. Dubinyak said regular army soldiers, making up 5,000 of the 17,000 troops now committed to Baku, could be sent home, military equipment could be removed from the streets, and the remaining Interior Ministry soldiers could patrol the streets without weapons. Dubinyak said he would welcome talks with the Azerbaijan People's Front, a group that Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov has said the military is trying to crush as a nationalist movement. Dubinyak said the people's front has not proposed talks, but a spokesman for the group interrupted to say such discussions could begin any time. The People's Front spokesman, Nadchov Nadzhavov, editor of the group's banned newspaper, charged that soldiers were sent into Baku in part to prevent the front from making a strong showing in local elections. The date for the elections is to be set this month, and they must take place within three months. ``I can make the prognosis that they won't leave before the elections,'' Nadzhavov told reporters. He also criticized Gorbachev's handling of the crisis in Azerbaijan, saying the Kremlin leader had given in to reformers by not cracking down on an independence movement in Lithuania and then had given in to Communist hard-liners by sending troops into Azerbaijan. ``Gorbachev's hands are now bloody,'' he said. Lt. Gen. Mikhail P. Kolesnikov, a representative of the Soviet army serving under the commandant, told reporters that the military had been affected by the ``Tblisi syndrome.'' He said criticism that followed the crushing of a nationalist demonstration in the Georgian capital on April 9, 1989, had demoralized the military and hindered decision making. ``We saw outrages,'' he said. ``We saw instances of blood-letting, but we couldn't do anything.'' Azerbaijani representatives arrived in Riga for peace talks with a three-man delegation of the Armenian All-National Movement. ``Maybe the first steps toward dialogue with the Armenians will take place. We are counting on that,'' the chief Azerbaijani delegate, Khikmet Khazhizade of his republic's People's Front group, told The Associated Press. The talks are sponsored by the Baltic Council, a grouping of the three people's front organizations in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Organizers said they hoped the talks could start Friday morning. The Baltic activists cautioned against expecting quick results. ``Such talks could help, but we need two or three months, as the problems are very deep,'' said Edvin Inken, a Latvian People's Front leader who recently visited Baku.
AP880722-0035 	X	Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis begins his race against Republican George Bush with a 12-point advantage, according to an ABC News poll. The network reported Thursday that Dukakis leaped to a 53-41 percent lead in a survey of 450 registered voters Wednesday, up from his 45-46 virtual dead heat with Bush in ABC's poll Sunday. The movement was 13 points _ from 1 point down to 12 up. The jump was expected; polls in other elections have found that nominees often gain support immediately after their party's convention. Such bumps frequently settle back down as voters focus on the substance of the race. The survey reflected the success of Dukakis' peacemaking with Jesse Jackson, his opponent for the nomination. Sixty-eight percent said Dukakis was treating Jackson fairly, up from 52 percent in a poll early this month. Similarly, 70 percent said Jackson was treating Dukakis fairly, and the share of respondents with an unfavorable view of Jackson fell 11 points from Sunday, to 31 percent. Those with a favorable view rose 9 points to 52. The national survey found a rise in unfavorable views of Bush, who was roundly criticized by convention speakers this week. His favorable rating fell from 49 percent to 41 percent, while those viewing him unfavorably rose from 36 percent Sunday to 44 percent Wednesday. The poll, completed the day before Dukakis appeared at the convention, found little change in his favorable-unfavorable rating, 55-21. Dukakis' 12-point lead against Bush did not mark his greatest numerical advantage in an ABC poll; the Massachusetts governor led by 53-40 in late May. The margin of error for the new poll was 5 points. Such single-day surveys, particularly when conducted during or just after a highly publicized event, tend to measure visceral reactions rther than considered opinion, so the views they gauge can change rapidly. Dukakis continued to do better with women voters than with men, and the poll Wednesday found that he had gained more ground among women _ leading Bush by 25 points in the new poll, up from an 8-point lead Sunday. Dukakis scored a tie with Bush among men, after a 12-point Bush lead Sunday. Dukakis improved with independents, scoring 48-42 against Bush after a 52-35 lead for Bush among independents Sunday. And 59 percent of Democrats who had bolted the party to vote for President Reagan favored Dukakis now. In another measure of the convention's impact, 52 percent said the Democrats could be trusted to do a better job with the nation's problems, up 9 points from Sunday. And 40 percent said they generally approved of the proceedings in Atlanta, while just 13 percent disapproved. Nearly half said they had not been paying enough attention to say.
AP900616-0050 	X	President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro has announced plans to reduce the Nicaraguan army, the largest force in Central America, by half and retire some senior officers. Mrs. Chamorro, who took over after the leftist Sandinistas were defeated in free elections, said on Friday that the cutbacks would take effect by Aug. 3. Her spokesman, Antonio Lacayo, said the cuts would come mainly from sending draftees home and reducing the ranks of the militia. He said the reductions would also affect active-duty troops and reserve forces. Mrs. Chamorro did not say whether the Sandinista army chief, Gen. Humberto Ortega, would be among those senior officers who retire under the reforms. She had said earlier that Ortega, brother of former Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, would hold the post only temporarily. Ortega told reporters later that the army itself will decide which officers stay and which leave. Mrs. Chamorro also said she was ordering the army and the Interior Ministry to disarm civilians. ``It is my purpose that by Christmas there are no weapons in the hands of anyone unless they are part of the nation's army,'' Mrs. Chamorro said. She said draftees would be home by Dec. 7. The president's announcement came in a speech to the Cabinet, representatives of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the diplomatic corps and the army general staff. During the 10 years of Sandinista rule, Nicaragua never made public the size of the army, but estimates put its strength at near 55,000, making it the largest in Central America. Gen. Ortega said on Friday that the army numbered 96,000, but it was not clear how many of those were active-duty troops and how many were reservists. Lacayo said the army numbered 80,000, including reserves, militia and draftees, when Mrs. Chamorro took office in April. The president said the cutbacks would bring the army strength to ``less than 41,000 men and women,'' adding: ``This means half of the members that it had on April 25, the day I assumed the presidency of the republic.'' Mrs. Chamorro also announced that 14,200 of the U.S.-backed Contra rebels have demobilized so far. The Contras waged a nearly decade-long insurgency against the Sandinistas. ``With all security we can say that today the war has been left behind,'' Mrs. Chamorro said. About 1,000 Contras have yet to demobilize but are expected to do so, she said. The measures were announced before Mrs. Chamorro left for a regional weekend summit in Guatemala, also to be attended by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. It will be Mrs. Chamorro's first summit as president. Mrs. Chamorro later arrived in Guatemala. The summit, which is taking place in the town of Antigua, 30 miles west of Guatemala City, is expected to concentrate on efforts to reconstruct the economies of Nicaragua and other countries in the region. She wanted to present the army reduction plan and the Contra demobilization as evidence that her 7-week-old, U.S. backed government is fulfilling regional peace pacts entered into by her predecessor. Mrs. Chamorro had ordered Gen. Ortega to present her with a troop-reduction plan, but she did not say whether the plan she announced was his.
AP880523-0014 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev said a U.S.-Soviet treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons could be signed by January but that he will not set aside disputes over the ``Star Wars'' program to reach such an accord. The Soviet leader also said his policy of ``glasnost,'' or openness, includes freedom of speech, but he condemned a leading dissident as a ``parasite'' and accused him of ``sponging on the democratic process.'' Gorbachev's comments came in a pre-summit interview with two American news organizations. The Soviet news agency Tass on Sunday ran a partial transcript of the interview with The Washington Post and Newsweek. Radio Moscow's English-language foreign service also carried a report about it as its lead item on Sunday. Soviet television's widely watched evening news program ``Vremya'' mentioned as its lead item that the interview had been published in Washington and would appear in today's Soviet newspapers. The 90-minute discussion, in which Gorbachev also proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet trip to Mars, covered a wide range of foreign and domestic issues. The interview, conducted in the Kremlin on Wednesday, produced a startling Biblical reference by the head of the officially atheistic state. When asked about how far glasnost should go and about criticism of dictator Josef V. Stalin, the 57-year-old Communist Party leader said: ``Jesus Christ alone knew answers to all questions and knew how to feed 20,000 Jews with five loaves of bread. We don't possess that skill, we have no ready prescription to solve all our problems quickly.'' The interview was conducted 11 days before President Reagan's arrival in Moscow for a five-day summit with Gorbachev. It will be their fourth meeting. Although the Tass transcript included much of the interview, it deleted a reference to Yegor Ligachev, the Kremlin's No. 2 man. It also left out a reference to Gorbachev's wife, Raisa. Ligachev, considered more conservative than the Soviet leader, reportedly wants to slow Gorbachev's policy of ``perestroika,'' or restructuring, of the Soviet economy and society. Gorbachev acknowledged a lively debate between the two but said ``to present these discussions _ which are a normal part of the democratic process _ as division within the leadership would be a great mistake itself.'' Gorbachev expressed optimism that a superpower agreement to cut strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons will be completed by the time Reagan leaves office in January. ``We want to have that signed,'' he said. If the agreement ``comes to be drafted under the present U.S. administration, I see no reason why President Reagan and I should not sign it. I would certainly welcome that,'' Gorbachev added. However, he cautioned that he has no plans to set aside disputes to hasten an agreement. ``If we sign with one hand a treaty reducing strategic offensive forces in one area and at the same time launch an arms race in space or at sea, what would be the point? That would be senseless,'' he said. He reiterated his opposition to Reagan's ``Star Wars'' missile defense program, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, saying the leader who promotes an escalation of the arms race in space ``is committing a crime against the people _ his own people, and others.'' U.S. and Soviet officials have said they don't believe the long-range nuclear weapons treaty will be completed by the end of Reagan's term. Another treaty to ban short- and medium-range nuclear weapons is being debated by the U.S. Senate. Gorbachev said he will ask Reagan at the summit to approve a joint Soviet-U.S. unmanned flight to Mars. ``Why shouldn't we work together? We have great experience, you have great experience _ let us cooperate to master the cosmos, to fulfill big programs,'' he said. On domestic affairs, Gorbachev was asked whether glasnost includes freedom of speech. ``While freedom of speech is indispensable for glasnost, we see glasnost as a broader phenomenon,'' he said. Glasnost is ``the right of every citizen to openly say what he or she thinks about all social and political questions,'' he added. Gorbachev was asked later whether freedom of speech applies to dissidents such as Moscow journalist Sergei Grigoryants, who was jailed for a week earlier this month. Gorbachev said Soviets think of Grigoryants ``as some kind of alien phenomenon in our society sponging on the democratic process.'' Gorbachev went on to call Grigoryants a ``parasite.'' It was a rare reference by a Soviet leader to a dissident. Grigoryants, editor of the dissident magazine Glasnost, said the computer and printer used to produce the journal were confiscated when he was arrested. In a telephone interview on Sunday, he called Gorbachev's comments about him ``very unpleasant.''
AP900322-0209 	X	Amtrak will eliminate smoking next month on some trains and in some stations under new policies that will more strongly segregate nonsmokers and those who want to light up. No-reservation trains of three or fewer cars will be designated no-smoking, Amtrak spokeswoman Sue Martin said Wednesday. ``This will affect a number of trains in the East, some in the Midwest and one in the Northwest,'' she said. ``Seventeen routes will have some trains that at least on some days have no smoking at all.'' Two lawmakers who led the successful fight to ban smoking on most domestic flights said Wednesday that the nation's passenger railroad would adopt the tougher smoking policies April 1. They jumped the gun on Amtrak's own announcement of the new policy, which had been scheduled for today. ``These new rules are another victory for health and common sense,'' said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation. ``It's further acknowledgement that nonsmokers should not be forced to breathe other people's smoke.'' Lautenberg and Rep. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the House transportation appropriations panel, had said after the airline smoking ban took effect Feb. 25 that they would turn their attention to railroads. ``It is my hope that eventually nonsmokers will be able to ride smoke-free on all forms of public transportation,'' Durbin said. Although passengers will be permitted to smoke in sleeping compartments and lounges on longer trains, smoking will be eliminated in: _First-class cars on all trains in the Northeast Corridor that don't require reservations. Reserved-seat Metroliners will carry smoking cars and will set aside smoking areas in first-class cars. _All areas except a portion of the lounge on other trains requiring reservations. _Coach cars of reserved-seat, double-deck Superliners operating west of Chicago. Currently, Amtrak allows smoking in the last four rows of Superliner coaches. The new policy will limit Superliner smoking to the lower level of the lounge car, Ms. Martin said. _Stations smaller than 1,100 square feet. _At least three-quarters of the area of larger stations. Amtrak's ultimate goal is to separate the 25 percent of its passengers who smoke from the 75 percent who do not, Ms. Martin said. Toward that end, Amtrak will begin locating its smoking cars at the front or rear of unreserved trains so nonsmokers need not walk through smoking areas to reach their seats. The Amtrak policy changes drew fire from the Tobacco Institute, the lobby for cigarette manufacturers. ``Once again we're seeing unnecessary regulation above and beyond what is necessary,'' said institute spokesman Thomas Lauria. ``Train travelers have accommodated each other, smokers and non-smokers alike, ever since we've had trains,'' Lauria said. ``Obviously this is an attempt to put smokers in the back of the bus once again. On shorter trains, it seems mean-spirited to ban smoking altogether.'' Lauria said he anticipated resistance from smokers to Amtrak's intended smoking restrictions in stations. According to Ms. Martin, the changes are part of the national passenger railroad's fine-tuning of its smoking policy as the number of smokers drops. ``We feel it is very important for our marketing effort to continue to permit smoking on longer trips,'' Ms. Martin said. ``It simply doesn't make good business sense to eliminate smoking altogether.''
AP900515-0015 	X	Lawmakers are optimistic that North Korea's decision to return the remains of five U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean war will lead to better relations between the United States and the communist nation. ``This is a humanitarian gesture at this time, and we hope we can get into other areas at a later date,'' Rep. G.V. ``Sonny'' Montgomery, D-Miss., said Monday of the first North Korean repatriation since 1954. Montgomery, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, will head a six-member congressional delegation that travels to the border village of Panmunjom on May 28 to receive the five sets of remains. The delegation will then give the remains to the U.S. military, which will take them to a laboratory in Honolulu for identification. Montgomery said North Korean authorities told them that two sets of remains include military dog tags that should enable authorities to identify them quickly. The Defense Department estimates that about 8,200 U.S. servicemen were unaccounted for at the end of the war, with 345 of those listed as possible prisoners of war. ``I am very hopeful that this will be the first brick, if you will, in improving the relationship which will mean literally hundreds of remains,'' said Rep. Frank McCloskey, D-Ind., a delegation member, said at a news conference with Montgomery. U.S. officials have been working on obtaining U.S. remains from the 1950-53 Korean war since November 1989, Montgomery said. He credited the work of China in assisting the U.S. effort and McCloskey acknowledged the help of the Soviet Union. The United States and North Korea have no formal diplomatic relations, and the U.S. military has 43,000 troops in rival South Korea to deter an attack from the North. ``I'm looking forward to ending this chapter on the Korean war and getting on with a better relationship,'' McCloskey said. In addition to Montgomery and McCloskey, the delegation will include Reps. James H. Bilbray, D-Nev.; Bob Stump, R-Ariz.; Bob Traxler, D-Mich.; and Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
AP880329-0071 	X	A day in February when millions of Britons wore red clown noses reaped $25 million for British and African charities, organizers said. ``Comic Relief Day'' was held for the first time on Feb. 5, and accompanied by a seven-hour ``laughathon'' on television, which raised the bulk of donations through telephone pledges. Two million donors also paid nearly $1 each for a red nose. Bankers in pin stripes, school children, secretaries and others wearing the bulbous badge were a common sight. Even Prince Andrew, second son of Queen Elizabeth II, posed for photographers in a red nose. Organizers on Monday said the funds would be used to help famine victims in Africa and poor youths in Britain.
AP900310-0133 	X	The National Assembly on Saturday pardoned both the Contra rebels and Sandinista government workers accused of wrongdoing in a sweeping amnesty law of ``national reconciliation.'' ``We must avoid political vengeance and block any moves by hotheads in the National Opposition Union,'' said Carlos Nunez, president of the legislature. He was apparently referring to possible reprisals against Sandinista government workers after the opposition takes over April 25. The amnesty was proposed by leftist President Daniel Ortega after he lost the Feb. 25 presidential elections to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who headed the National Opposition Union's ticket. The leftist Sandinistas control the National Assembly, and lawmakers passed the law on a vote of 72 in favor with six abstentions. Only 78 of the 96 members were present. The law absolves Nicaraguans, ``residents or not in the country, who commit crimes against public order and against internal security of the state.'' The U.S.-backed Contras, who have fought to overthrow the Sandinistas, have resisted calls from the outgoing and incoming governments to lay down their weapons. About 11,000 Contras are based in border camps in Honduras. The ``Law of General Amnesty and Reconciliation'' was introduced Thursday, replacing an earlier version that prompted significant opposition. The wording of the new version was changed to make the amnesty more sweeping. The amnesty covers public employees who ``presumably committed crimes of failing in their duties, fraud or theft and have not been prosecuted'' between July 1979, when the Sandinistas came to power, and the day the law takes effect. Legislators said it will take effect between March 20-23 when it is published in the official government gazette. Edwin Illescas of the Democratic Conservative Party said he supported the law because he recognized that by holding elections, the Sandinistas were working for peace. He said similar laws had been passed in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile and hastened the return of democracy. The law says it is designed ``to contribute to the national reconciliation of all the sectors of society with the goal of peace and tranquillity to Nicaraguan families.'' ``The union of Nicaraguan families needs the pardon and to forget those deeds that brought anxiety and restlessness in the nation.'' ``The law is not to protect criminals'' but benefits ``people who have worked more than 10 years protecting the revolution,'' Nunez said. The Sandinistas hold 61 seats in the present legislature to 35 for the opposition. The 14-party National Opposition Union will hold a majority in the new legislature, with the Sandinistas remaining the largest single party.
AP900713-0022 	X	New disclosures of harmful radiation releases at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state could help win federal compensation for those who became ill following the emissions in the 1940s, some lawmakers say. ``The federal government owes something if folks have been harmed by these early releases of radiation,'' said Rep. Sid Morrison, a Republican whose district houses the 560-square-mile Hanford reservation near Richland, Wash. An independent panel of scientists released preliminary data Thursday that showed some residents in the early years of atomic bomb building in the 1940s could have been exposed to large doses of radioactive iodine. For a few infants, the doses were as high as 2,900 rad over three years. One rad is the amount of radiation a body organ would absorb from about a dozen chest X-rays. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said the findings underscore the need for the Energy Department to make public its secret records of health risks at all DOE sites nationwide. He said he was ``surprised and disturbed'' by the results of the dose reconstruction study at Hanford. ``The study suggests that the Hanford residents may have been exposed to more radioactive iodine than from any industrial nuclear facility in the world,'' he said. Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash., said the Energy Department should launch a major campaign to help locate people who may have been exposed to the radiation. ``The number of curries released over all these years are comparable to the levels released in Chernobyl (in the Soviet Union) ... The missing link is where are the people who were exposed?'' Adams said. ``If we find these people around the country and if there has been injury then the government should compensate them for it,'' Adams said. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said if it can be proven that people were injured as a result of the emissions it ``would be only fair'' to compensate them. Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., said the high doses of radiation exposure during the 1940s suggests a study into thyroid disease should begin immediately. However, he added, ``Radioactive materials have leaked from existing storage tanks at Hanford as recently as last month... I fear the public is left with the impression that the only threat at Hanford existed 30 years ago.'' Some members of Congress are pushing to remove the Energy Department's oversight authority of health and environmental safety at nuclear weapons plants. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., have proposed bills to establish independent oversight of DOE's weapons facilities through the Department of Health and Human Services. ``I think that because the federal government has misled the people of the Pacific Northwest, that unless there are truly independent decisions being made on health and safety, the citizens of the Northwest are going to doubt the department's credibility,'' Wyden said. Energy Secretary James Watkins said his department is preparing to enter an inter-agency agreement that would transfer some radiation research activities from DOE to HHS.
AP880727-0040 	X	The Reagan administration said it will make ``no deals'' with Iran after Tehran offered to use its influence to free American hostages in Lebanon if the United States releases Iranian assets frozen in this country. ``I am not willing to make anything that sounds like a deal,'' White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday, the same day the proposal was aired by Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, in a television interview. ``We have heard this kind of thing before, but as far as we are concerned you just can't link the two,'' Fitzwater said. ``No deals.'' Fitzwater said it is ``interesting that there should be this series of statements,'' but ``the clearest signal they could send is to release the hostages.'' In New York, Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: ``We have said that we will not make deals on this particular issue. We are very interested in getting them (the hostages) out. And if they want to talk, we will be prepared to talk, but that is a speculative question.'' Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters Tuesday, ``I don't think we can ignore anything that comes our way. But I think we should reject anything that smacks of ransom or blackmail and this sounds like both.'' State Department officials said Iranian officials had made proposals similar to Rafsanjani's previously and the Reagan administration had rejected them. The officials said they assume Rafsanjani was referring to military equipment which had been purchased by the Iranian government during the reign of the Shah of Iran but had not been delivered. President Carter withheld all such deliveries after the hostage crisis began. Carter also refused to return to Iran military equipment which Iranian authorities had sent back to the United States for repair. The officials said they had no dollar figure on the military equipment on which Iran has a claim.
AP880329-0021 	X	Fund raising for a proposed $4 million memorial to black Revolutionary War patriots will begin soon since President Reagan has approved placing the monument in the city's main tourist district. Project coordinator Maurice A. Barboza said the memorial would be the first prominently displayed monument in Washington dedicated to blacks. Barboza said Monday that the president signed legislation Friday permitting the proposed memorial to the 5,000 black veterans to be placed in Area I, which includes the Mall stretching from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, the grassy Ellipse behind the White House, Lafayette Park and West Potomac Park. The next step will be to study specific site plans being developed by three architectural firms and submitting the best one to the National Capital Memorial Commission, Barboza said. The commission and other agencies must recommend a site before it goes to the Secretary of Interior for final approval. Barboza, a Virginia lawyer who has devoted himself full-time to the memorial project, said he hoped to have the Interior Department approval and start work on a design competition in six months. Construction of the memorial must begin by the end of 1991 under an authorizing measure signed into law in late 1986. Barboza said July 4, 1991, is the target date for construction to begin. Barboza predicted the memorial would cost about $4 million and said he hoped to announce a major fund-raising effort within several months. Barboza said he hopes to built the black patriots memorial on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Constitution Gardens. Legislation allowing the construction of the memorial was enacted in 1986, but another measure was needed to allow it to be built in the city's monument-crowded Area I. That complex procedure was established by officials who worried that the city's prime tourist areas would become cluttered with memorials. The black patriots legislation was pushed through Congress by Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., whom Barboza enlisted in his fight several years ago. He is formerly of Plainville, Conn., in Mrs. Johnson's district.
AP880521-0143 	X	The Swiss Supreme Court on Saturday announced it has ordered a Swiss bank to allow investigators to examine the bank account records of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The court, in a ruling made May 16, denied a request filed by the Credit Suisse in March to bar Swiss investigators from examining the records. The ruling was made to give Swiss judicial authorities the possibility of locating any funds that might have been embezzled by the ousted leader or his family, according to Justice Minstry spokesman Joerg Kistler. The government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino has accused the Marcos family of corruption, fraud, embezzlement and other offenses and has asked Switzerland to help it recover funds deposited in Swiss accounts. But the ruling does not mean that Credit Suisse must return the Marcos fortune to Philippine authorities, Kistler said. He said a request by the Aquino administration for a return of the money was still blocked by appeals and that the accounts have been frozen. The Manila government has estimated that $1 billion of the deposed leader's money was in Swiss banks, most of it in Credit Suisse, but Swiss bankers have said the amount is exaggerated.
AP900322-0157 	X	One of the last persons to receive a Jarvik artifical heart before federal approval of the device was withdrawn died after surgery to replace the pump with a donor organ. He spent 87 days on the device. Carl E. Bryant, 43, of Louisville, died Wednesday, eight hours after the transplant operation, said doctors at Louisville's Jewish Hospital. ``We did everything we could for Carl Bryant,'' said Dr. Laman A. Gray Jr., who transplanted the heart. Physicians said the donor heart, which became available late Tuesday, met the criteria for transplantation. But the left ventricle, or main pumping chamber, failed to function once the heart was inside Bryant. The Jarvik 7-70 assist device was implanted Dec. 22 at Humana Hospital-Audubon by Dr. William DeVries, who pioneered use of the artificial heart. ``The transplant surgery offered Carl's only real chance for survival,'' DeVries said in a statement Wednesday. Bryant was the second-to-last person to receive a Jarvik pump in this country before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval of the device Jan. 8, said Gary Cole, an executive vice president with Symbion Inc., the Arizona manufacturer of the pumps. The agency said its inspections uncovered ``serious deficiencies'' in the way Symbion was carrying out studies with the device. In February, the FDA said it would allow use of the device as a last resort, but only when all other available treatments had failed and when no other life-saving device could be used. The device was last implanted in the United States in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 31, Cole said Thursday. He said two Jarvik pumps have been implanted in other countries since the FDA withdrawal. Cole said 159 Jarviks have been implanted as bridges to transplants since 1985. He said the longest-surviving patient to use the Jarvik while awaiting a donor organ was a French woman. She lived 603 days on the device. Dr. Barney Clark, the first person implanted with a Jarvik heart, died in 1983 after 112 days on the device. He received a Jarvik-7, which was supposed to be a premanent replacement for his heart. Bryant had a massive heart attack in July and underwent cardiac catheterization and angioplastic surgery in his left coronary artery. His wife, Cynthia, took him to the hospital Dec. 16 after he complained of chest pains. Three hours before he was to undergo triple bypass surgery, Bryant suffered a second massive heart attack. DeVries implanted the Jarvik device during a six-hour procedure. ``I have no qualms about Carl being on the assist device at all,'' Cynthia Bryant said. ``It worked wonderfully and may further research to help someone else. And we had three good months together that we would not have had otherwise.''
AP881121-0058 	X	U.S. military authorities are investigating reports that two tear gas canisters exploded outside a nightclub near an American base on Okinawa, a military spokesman said today. The incident was the latest in a series of mishaps to plague U.S. military forces in this country. On Friday, the commander of a U.S. destroyer was relieved of his post after practice shells from his ship reportedly missed hitting a Japanese vessel by 330 yards. Japan lodged a protest over the Nov. 9 incident off Boso Peninsula east of Tokyo. Frederick H. Michaelis Jr. was relieved of command of the guided missile destroyer USS Towers and transferred to Destroyer Squadron 15, military spokesman Rodriguez said. In October, rifle bullets struck a civilian housing area near a firing range on Okinawa. Earlier this month, two Marine helicopters collided in flight over the southern island, killing four servicemen. About 46,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the country under the U.S.-Japan mutual security pact. No injuries or damages were reported in the latest incident in Okinawa, Marine Master Gunnery Sgt. Jake Rodriguez said, but the blasts sent scores of crying, choking people into the streets late Saturday. Little else was known about the incident, Rodriguez added. ``Marine Corps officials acknowledged reports of an apparent release of two CS gas (tear gas) devices in the vicinity of Club Larosa, Chatancho,'' a statement from the U.S. military in Japan said. The residential neighborhood in Chatancho borders the U.S. Kadena Air Base. Military authorities and Japanese police were investigating fragments from the exploded devices to determine their origin and composition.
AP881208-0216 	X	George Bush and Michael Dukakis put on a blizzard of last-minute campaign spending, for a combined total of $33.8 million in the final days of their presidential contest, financial disclosure forms showed Thursday. Dukakis outspent his Republican rival by more than $2 million in the last 2{ weeks, but he ultimately failed to stop Bush's march to victory. Their financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covered the period from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28, including bills that were paid off after the Nov. 8 election. Dukakis, who won only 10 states and the District of Columbia, poured out $18 million for his last stand _ much of it going into a TV campaign that featured the Democratic governor of Massachusetts talking to the camera in an intimate manner designed to make him seem less rigid. In the preceding month, Dukakis had spent $10.4 million. The price tag for Bush's final push came to $15.8 million, as he put on his own barrage of commercials and zigzagged across the country campaigning in battleground states. Dukakis showed $42.5 million in net spending for the entire campaign, Bush's $45.3 million. The net expenditures reflect actual spending on the campaign, not including such reimbursable costs as payment for charter plane seats used by the traveling press corps. Dukakis' campaign treasurer, Robert Farmer, said Thursday the Democrats have no reason to feel badly about spending so much money and not winning more states. ``We have nothing to be ashamed of,'' he said. ``It was a very negative campaign and we probably weren't prepared for that and we could have responded earlier.'' Still, Farmer said, Dukakis ran close in several states he did not win, and made a far better showing than Democratic nominee Walter Mondale who won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia four years ago. ``We are very proud,'' he said in a telephone interview. Farmer noted that in addition to the spending by the Dukakis campaign itself, the Democratic National Committee raised a record $68 million for the election. He said this ``created a level playing field'' for the first time with the traditionally better heeled Republican National Committee. The 380,000 people who gave money to the DNC ``demonstrated there was a lot of commitment to the Democratic party and to Michael Dukakis,'' Farmer said. Each candidate received $46 million from the federal Treasury to pay for their campaigns. The money comes from the voluntary $1 checkoff on individual income tax returns. Both campaigns showed receipts and expenditures in excess of that amount, due to differing accounting practices. Bush borrowed start-up money from the separate fund that is used to pay for legal and accounting compliance with federal election law. In Dukakis' case, it reflected his compliance fund reimbursing his campaign committee for such legal and accounting expenses, said accountant Mary Wong. Dukakis still had bills of $1.7 million, with $4 million available in the bank to pay them off and another $4 million in receivables. Bush had $807,155 in cash on hand, with bills of $764,597 and $911,667 owed to the campaign.
AP880525-0363 	X	Business failures declined by 10.1 percent in the first quarter over a year ago as more farmers and retailers climbed out of the red, a report released Wednesday said. Dun & Bradstreet Corp., a business-information concern, said 15,211 businesses nationwide went under during the first three months of this year, compared with 16,924 in 1987. Joseph W. Duncan, Dun & Bradstreet's chief economist, said 75 percent of the improvement was due to a decline in failures in the agriculture and retailing sectors. First-quarter retailing failures slipped 17 percent, to 2,918 from 3,515, while agriculture failures plunged 53 percent, to 596 from 1,266. ``The strong levels of consumer demand that characterized the early years of the current economic expansion also resulted in a high level of entrepreneurial activity in retailing,'' Duncan said. He attributed the improvement in the agriculture sector to the introduction of Chapter 12 into the federal bankruptcy laws. Chapter 12 protects farmers from their creditors while allowing them to reorganize. Other large declines in business failures included: mining, down 53 percent; transportation and public utilities, down 13.2 percent; manufacturing, down 11.1 percent; and construction, down 9.8 percent, Dun & Bradstreet said. By region, the West-South-Central states _ Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana _ fared the best, with business failures down nearly 30 percent. But the South Atlantic states _ New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania _ had a 68 percent jump in failures. ``Until further data are available in 1988, it will be difficult to tell if the trend in New York and New Jersey is somehow linked to the October (stock market) crash,'' Duncan said.
AP881209-0249 	X	Plans by the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. to buy half of Texaco Inc.'s refining and marketing assets could further erode the domestic oil industry and increase reliance on foreign supplies, Rep. John Bryant said Friday in asking the treasury secretary to investigate the proposed deal. ``The enormity of this acquisition causes us to believe a second look should be taken at the matter, because of its possible impact on the domestic oil and gas industry and on our ability to become energy independent,'' Bryant said. Bryant, a Dallas Democrat, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, Sen. Jeff Bingamon, D-N.M., and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., appealed to Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady to investigate the joint venture, named Star Enterprises, on national security grounds. The Saudi-Texaco deal, announced Nov. 10, would include three refineries, 50 distribution terminals, 1,400 service stations and 10,000 franchised gasoline stations in 23 Eastern and Gulf Coast states. In their letter, the Democrats said they believe the acquisition falls under the law enabling the government to block mergers involving a foreign interests if there is evidence that national security is threatened. The acquisition, they wrote, could ``seriously increase U.S. dependence on foreign oil, threaten the viability of the domestic oil industry and jeopardize the well-being of American consumers.'' ``The lessons of the 1973-74 oil embargo and the 1978-79 shortage taught our country all too well the economic and political consequences of reliance on vulnerable oil supplies,'' the letter said. ``What is particulary noteworthy is that 96 percent of the capacity of the three refineries will be used in refining Saudi Arabian crude oil,'' Bryant said. ``So you've got a circumstance that Saudi Arabia has guaranteed itself an outlet for crude oil into the American market, giving them the option of lowering crude prices while earning increased prices at the gasoline marketing level. This could amount to an enormous loss to domestic producers and leave us even more dependent on foreigh oil.'' Also, he said, foreign countries are immune from our antitrust laws, ``so it's not clear we could enforce antitrust laws against this merged entity if needed to do so to protect consumers from market manipulation.'' He said Saudi Arabia has announced a concerted effort to expand its dominance in U.S. oil markets and that its goal is to become the 10th largest seller of gasoline in the United States as a first step.
AP881011-0013 	X	Vice President George Bush, seeking to exploit Americans' crime fears as a campaign weapon, is turning prison inmate Willie Horton Jr. into a symbol of what he calls opponent Michael Dukakis' liberal views. It was Horton who, while on furlough from the Massachusetts prison where he was serving time for murder, brutally slashed a Maryland man and twice raped his fiancee last year. He is now behind bars in Maryland. Because Dukakis, as Massachusetts governor, was in charge of the prison system at the time, Bush sees the Horton incident as a political mother lode. While polls place crime somewhere in the middle of voters' concerns, it is closely linked to the drug issue, which rides atop the worry list. National crime statistics released this weekend show crime up 1.8 percent last year, ending a five-year decline. And 34.7 million people were victimized by criminals _ nearly one in three American households. ``It has tremendous saliency,'' said GOP political consultant Eddie Mahe. ``It ties into the drug issue so closely. Everybody knows the drug problem is driving the crime problem through the roof.'' Bush had made crime _ and Horton in particular _ the basis for anti-Dukakis campaign speeches and a television spot highlighting the crime issue, and he has recruited Horton's victim _ Cliff Barnes, who was cut 22 times in the stomach _ as a campaign surrogate. Deputy Bush press secretary Mark Goodin even keeps a photo of Horton on the wall in his office. ``I didn't ask to be brought into this,'' Barnes said Monday at a news conference in Texas. ``I didn't invite Willie Horton to my House and I didn't let him out of prison.'' The attack has been going on for weeks, and Dukakis was at first slow to respond. But now the Democratic campaign is fighting back and hoping the emotionalism of Bush's message will backfire by Election Day. Over the weekend, Dukakis called Bush ``shameless'' for using crime victims to win votes. ``Unlike Mr. Bush, I've been a chief executive on the front lines of fighting crime. Unlike Mr. Bush, who will not take responsibility for anything, I as chief executive took full responsibility for that tragic Horton case and acted to change that policy,'' Dukakis said, referring to his signing of a state law in April revoking furloughs for first-degree murderers. Dukakis also has put together a television spot that seeks to shove the issue back at Bush. The ad cites a 1981 rape and murder carried out by an inmate staying at a Houston halfway house that Bush helped start while he was a congressman. Dukakis says two similar murders occurred under the California furlough system in the early 1970s, at a time when Ronald Reagan, then state governor, supported furloughs. Dukakis also points to a 13 percent drop in violent crime in Massachusetts since 1982, the largest decline among major industrial states. He says that as the state's chief executive, he had to face real problems of running the Massachusetts prison system, while Bush has never been tested on the issue. Far from being out of the mainstream, the Massachusetts law allowing prison furloughs is in line with the rest of the nation. A 1987 national survey found that all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal prison system have some provision for granting short-term furloughs for prisoners, and two-thirds of them permit furloughs for prisoners serving life terms. Bush's use of the issue is ``an oversimplification of a real complex thing,'' said Emily Herrick, an editor with Contact Inc., the non-profit criminal justice information organization that conducted the survey. More than 200,000 furloughs were granted last year for 53,000 inmates, the survey found. No murders were reported. All but three states _ Hawaii, Oregon and North Carolina _ had success rates in excess of 90 percent, meaning the inmates returned at the appointed time and place without violating terms of the furlough. Bush hit the crime issue again Monday, renewing his proposals to create an anti-gang unit in the Justice Department, spend more money to build prisons and bolster programs to compensate crime victims. ``I think there is something very wrong when there is so much sympathy for criminals and very little left over for victims,'' Bush told a campaign crowd in Trenton, N.J. ``Frankly, law-abiding Americans are fed up with the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on them by those who are soft on crime.'' Despite his rhetoric, Bush has been short on specifics. Asked what he would do about the furlough issue, the vice president has said only that as president he would have his attorney general review the federal prison system's policies. ``I don't have any specific feelings at all,'' he said, although he said he wants to make sure the federal system doesn't ``slip into the Massachusetts model.''
AP900228-0265 	X	The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, which rose 52.93 points over the past two sessions, gained 10.13 to 2,627.25. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones by about 8 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 928 up, 566 down and 474 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 184.41 million shares, against 152.59 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index added 0.91, closing at 183.07. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 1.50 to 352.90.
AP881026-0051 	X	with Michael Dukakis by saying one of his daughters works for the Democratic nominee but assured viewers: ``She doesn't tell me what questions to ask, I don't tell her how to run the governor's campaign.'' Koppel, host of ABC's ``Nightline'' program, ended his 90-minute interview with the Massachusetts governor Tuesday night br telling viewers he had a ``small housekeeping note.'' He said his daughter, Deidre, works for the Dukakis campaign. ``It was a choice that she made on her own after she graduated from college,'' Koppel said. ``I can tell you without having to worry about shading the truth in any fashion, she doesn't tell me what questions to ask, I don't tell her how to run the governor's campaign, and let that be the end of it.'' Miss Koppel has worked in several areas of the campaign, including the press staff in North Carolina and also in the campaign's Boston headquarters.
AP901229-0110 	X	The Texas House speaker was indicted on charges he accepted $5,000 from a law firm and didn't disclose it, joining legislative leaders in the two other most populous states under an ethical cloud. House speakers in New York and California also are under scrutiny as they prepare for new legislative sessions. The investigation in Texas also involves other legislators. A Travis County grand jury returned indictments on two misdemeanor charges Friday against Gib Lewis, alleging he solicited and received a gift from the San Antonio-based law firm of Heard Goggan Blair & Williams, then failed to report it. Despite the charges, Lewis' lawyer said the lawmaker would seek an unprecedented fifth term as House speaker. Lewis has denied the allegations and his lawyer said he'd plead innocent to the charges. ---= NEW YORK (AP) - Authorities blamed the first snowstorm of the season for an electrical fire that trapped four rush-hour trains in a smoke-filled subway tunnel, killing one person and injuring more than 150 others. In Boston, authorities investigating a trolley accident that injured 33 people Friday said tests showed the trolley driver had high levels of alcohol in his system. It was the second rail accident this month in the city's Back Bay section. The driver of the trolley, which rammed a streetcar that was unloading passengers, blamed faulty brakes for the collision, officials said. But investigators ruled that out as a possible cause, said Peter Dimond, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The fire Friday morning in New York filled trains with smoke in a subway tunnel linking Manhattan and Brooklyn. Fire and transit officials said melting snow from a 7-inch snowfall overnight apparently caused an electrical short-circuit. ---= WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dn Quayle doesn't abide discrimination at golf clubs, his office says, but he still plays at one of the most exclusive all-male courses near the capital as an honorary member. Quayle on Friday canceled a second round of golf at the all-white Cypress Point golf club near Monterey, Calif., after he learned the facility was mired in a racial controversy, said his press secretary, David Beckwith. He had played there Thursday, unaware, Beckwith said, that the club was ruled ineligible for its share of the 1991 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am tournament next month because it has no black members. Quayle was ``unwilling to leave any impression that he condones any form of discrimination,'' so he left California and returned to Vail, Colo., where he had been on a skiing vacation, Beckwith said. But the spokesman said he could not explain why Quayle is an honorary member of the Burning Tree Club in suburban Bethesda, Md., which bars women from its course. ---= SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California stopped telling casual marijuana users ``smoke a joint, go to jail'' 15 years ago. But the federal government's new version - ``smoke a joint, lose your driver's license'' - promises to rekindle debate over the state's pot law. A little-noted amendment to a new federal highway funding law seeks to use federal funding as a weapon against liberal state drug laws. It would particularly affect California and New York because of those states' relatively liberal marijuana laws and large amounts of federal funding. The federal law calls for every state to pass a law in 1991-92 requiring a six-month driver license suspension for anyone convicted of violating any drug law, including possession of marijuana for personal use. States that refuse could lose 5 percent of their federal highway aid in the 12 months starting Oct. 1, 1993. That would be $60 million at current levels of aid to California, said the amendment's sponsor, Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y. The amendment passed in July. Leaders of California's Democratic-controlled Legislature chafed at the federal interference, but Gov.-elect Pete Wilson, a Republican, agrees that the state's drug laws are too lenient. Solomon's amendment lets a state avoid a monetary penalty only if both the Legislature and the governor oppose the requirement of license suspensions.
AP900220-0273 	X	Domestic steel production totaled 1,812,000 net tons during the week ending Feb. 17, 1990, down 0.1 percent from the previous week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. The week's production represented 80.9 percent of the industry's domestic capacity, the steel industry group said Tuesday. American steelmakers produced 2,005,000 net tons in the same week last year, AISI said. Domestic steel production so far this year is 12,191,000 net tons, 9.6 percent below last year's pace, AISI said. Production by district for last week, (previous week in parentheses). North East Coast 236,000 tons (232,000 tons); Pittsburgh-Youngstown 277,000 tons (249,000 tons); Lake Erie 143,000 tons (139,000 tons); Detroit 150,000 tons (151,000 tons); Indiana-Chicago 454,000 tons (493,000 tons); Southern 252,000 tons (245,000 tons); Western 95,000 tons (93,000 tons).
AP900502-0062 	X	The United States will suffer a sharp loss of influence in Europe if Americans withdraw their troops, West German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg says. ``In the past, American cooperation and influence on European policy was helpful, and in future, American policy and influence in Europe can be helpful,'' Stoltenberg said Tuesday evening. ``But without any soldiers or significant (numbers of) soldiers, your influence in all matters of security policy will sharply decline,'' he added. ``And I doubt whether this is desirable.'' Stoltenberg said in a speech before the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of the Johns Hopkins University that Americans should maintain a substantial military presence for the foreseeable future. He said the United States might be able to reduce its forces in Central Europe beyond the 195,000 troops proposed by President Bush, if that could be coordinated with European allies and the Soviet Union. The defense minister met with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney earlier Tuesday, and they discussed German unification and other European issues, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said. A Pentagon source who spoke on background said the officials discussed problems with East-West talks in Vienna to cut conventional forces in Europe. He declined to say what the problems were. Stoltenberg called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to retain nuclear forces in Europe, but said their numbers should be greatly reduced.
AP900913-0069 	X	Some soldiers being sent to the Persian Gulf have their children at home to worry about. But Air Force reservist Lorain Kuryla, who is nicknamed ``Grambo,'' also has her five grandchildren. When the United States began sending troops to the gulf after Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Kuryla _ an Air Force reservist for 19 years _ didn't hesitate to answer a call for volunteers. ``This is what I've been trained for, and I'm glad for the opportunity to serve my country,'' said Kuryla, who turns 63 on Friday. ``In fact I feel better about going because I have no small children at home to care for,'' she adds. ``I feel it will relieve pressure from young mothers and fathers about being sent.'' ``It's kind of weird to think of my mother with an M-16,'' said her son, Michael Kuryla, 37. ``I can honestly say that my mother wears combat boots.'' Leaving behind her family in west suburban Hillside, Kuryla, a master sergeant from the 928th Tactical Airlift Group, left O'Hare International Airport on Wednesday, bound for the Middle East. Kuryla works in Air Force personnel and will be one of three officers sent to the region to handle records, her son said. The grandchildren were the ones to come up with the ``Grambo'' nickname.
AP901213-0197 	X	A company that once beamed pornographic movies via satellite to television viewers pleaded guilty to a second federal charge, prosecutors said. Home Dish Only Satellite Networks Inc. will pay a $150,000 fine and has stipulated that movies it distributed via satellite, such as ``Hard Core Girlfriends'' and ``Ramb-Ohh Sex Platoon,'' were pornographic by community standards, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert said Wednesday. The movies were beamed to 30,000 subscribers to its American Exxxtasy Channel. Company attorneys appeared Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Aldon Anderson. They entered the plea to a count of distribution of obscene matter via satellite transmission. As part of the plea bargain, company operators Paul L. Klein and Jeffrey Younger have promised to refrain from promoting or distributing sexually explicit films or publications and will cooperate with investigators looking into the pornography industry, Lambert said. The company pleaded guilty to a similar charge Nov. 29 in Buffalo, N.Y. Until investigators pulled the plug on the operation last March, Home Dish was the only nationwide satellite network beaming hard-core pornography to home television viewers, the Justice Department said. The movies were transmitted from the company's Buffalo office to a satellite uplink station operated by U.S. Satellite Inc. in Murray, Utah, which in turn relayed them to a satellite. In Salt Lake, the company pleaded guilty for the Feb. 26 transmission of the movie ``Hard Core Girlfriends,'' Lambert said. The charge in New York stemmed from the transmission a day earlier of a movie entitled ``Hot Shorts.'' U.S. Attorney Dee Benson in Utah said U.S. Satellite was not prosecuted because it cooperated with the investigation. Benson said Klein and Younger were not prosecuted individually because of their willingness to stay out of the business and cooperate with a Department of Justice's investigation into the pornography industry.
AP880506-0195 	X	Secretary of State George P. Shultz is gearing up for a trip to the Middle East in June in another effort to promote Arab-Israeli peace talks, a U.S. official said Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a final decision to make the trip is likely next week. Shultz would make stops in Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, hoping to open negotiations over Palestinian self-rule and then on an overall Mideast settlement. He would fly to the Middle East at the windup of the Moscow summit meeting June 2 and then attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's foreign ministers in Madrid June 9-10, the official said. Two trips by Shultz to the Middle East this year failed to produce peace talks, but the secretary refuses to give up. ``Who's afraid to struggle against odds?,'' he said at the end of the last venture in April. ``What am I saving myself for, anyway?'' He also suggested that Arabs and Israelis, despite their public lack of enthusiasm for negotiations, had privately urged him to keep trying. Shultz's first goal is a peace conference that would sponsor, but not steer, negotiations to provide some form of self-rule for the 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs who live on the Israeli-held West Bank and in Gaza. The secretary told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week that ``under the right circumstances'' King Hussein of Jordan would be agreeable. However, he also testified that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had made the conference the ``centerpiece'' of his objections to Shultz's plan. Shultz also was unsuccessful last month in Moscow in trying to persuade the Soviet Union to accept a limited role in the negotiations. Shamir _ and Shultz _ are unwilling to give the Soviets an opportunity to shape the outline of an Arab-Israeli settlement. But Hussein is insisting on Soviet involvement. On the other hand, Jordan is resisting negotiations with Israel without a guarantee that it would recover all the land it lost during the 1967 Mideast war. Shultz has advised Hussein that was not ``in the cards.'' But he backs the idea of Israel trading some territory on the West Bank for peace and said the future of Jerusalem should be decided in negotiations. Despite the long odds, Shultz said he did not think his plan was ``fated to failure.'' Shultz's plan called for a peace conference in mid-April, the opening of negotations on the Palestinians May 1 and a second stage of talks on an overall settlement beginning Dec. 1. The first two deadlines have passed. Still, Shultz has said he will keep trying to get negotiations started in the 8{ months that remain to the Reagan administration in order to give the next president a head start.
AP880827-0061 	X	A second former U.S. soldier involved in a spy ring that sold secrets to the Soviets apparently provided information that led to the arrest of the alleged ringleader, a West German newspaper said today. The Die Welt newspaper of Bonn also said that ``no charges have been filed against the (second) American citizen, although he is still in the Federal Republic.'' The man alleged to have led the ring, former U.S. Army Sgt. Clyde Lee Conrad, remained in prison today, facing espionage charges carrying a maximum 10-year sentence. Conrad allegedly paid another U.S. soldier ``a five-figure sum'' for obtaining secret NATO information, according to chief West German prosecutor Kurt Rebmann. ``The information that led to the arrest of the alleged international spy ringleader, former U.S. Army Sgt. Clyde Lee Conrad, apparently came from the U.S. Army soldier who was recruited by Conrad to provide information after Conrad left the service in 1985,'' the conservative Die Welt said. Although the West Germans say the second American was a soldier when he was recruited for espionage, the Washington Post quoted administration sources as saying the man has since left the Army. In Washington, a U.S. official said Friday that Conrad had a top secret security clearance before leaving the U.S. Army. The U.S. official also conceded that Conrad was never subjected to a periodic follow-up investigation during the time he held the high-security clearance. West German and U.S. news media reports have said the spy ring sold the Soviets secret documents about nuclear missile bases, military pipelines and NATO troop strength. Officials say the ring started operating in the late 1970s. According to a report Friday night on CBS News, the 41-year-old Conrad collected more than $1 million for peddling the secrets. CBS attributed the report to a West German newspaper that it did not identify. West German investigators have said they believe Conrad kept the money in numbered Swiss bank accounts.
AP900117-0037 	X	A man claiming he had a bomb took over an America West airliner late Tuesday and demanded to be flown to Cuba, but was arrested soon after the plane made an emergency landing in Austin, police said. No one was seriously injured during Flight 727 from Houston to Las Vegas, with 34 passengers and five crew members aboard, or the arrest at Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, officials said. SWAT team members overpowered the man aboard the plane, officials said. FBI agent Byron Sage identifed the man as Jose Manuel Gonzales-Gonzales, 39, and said he was believed to be from New Orleans. Gonzales-Gonzales was believed to be of Cuban descent. The flight was diverted to Austin and landed shortly before 11:30 p.m. after trouble was reported aboard, America West spokeswoman Kathy Christensen said in Phoenix, where the airline is based. ``The man said he had a bomb and had some electronic device that blinked when he pointed to the front of the aircraft,'' said passenger Herb Atwood of Cold Spring, Texas. ``He grabbed one of the stewardesses and had something around her neck,'' Atwood said in an interview with radio station KVET. ``He was shouting orders. He said he wanted them to fly to Cuba, but the pilot said that we did not have enough fuel.'' The man ordered all the passengers to move to the front of the aircraft, Atwood said. Austin police received a report of a bomb threat at 11:28 p.m., said police spokesman Harold Elmore. After the plane landed, nearly 40 police officers, including hostage negotiators, surrounded the aircraft shortly before midnight. Police Capt. Loyd Polk said he climbed up an escape hatch into the aircraft, then subdued Gonzales-Gonzales. ``I saw he had the stewardess, so I took action immediately,'' Polk said. ``I had a struggle with him, but I was able to hold him to the ground until more help arrived.'' Passengers evacuated the plane, and police began searching the airplane for a bomb. ``We doubt there was a bomb aboard the plane,'' Elmore said. Gonzales-Gonzales was taken to a hospital early Wednesday for treatment of cuts to his head suffered when he was arrested, said city emergency services shift commander Bob Gutierrez. The stewardess who was grabbed was also taken to a hospital for minor cuts and burns when coffee spilled on her, Gutierrez said. Several passengers were treated at the airport for minor injuries suffered when they evacuated the aircraft. Elmore said passengers were taken to an airport terminal for questioning. City aviation director Charles Gates said the passengers would be put up in a hotel for the night and flown out Wednesday morning. Sage said authorities intended to charge the man with air piracy and kidnapping. ``You always hear about this,'' passenger Atwood said, ``and I never thought it would happen to me. I was scared like everyone else. I was looking forward to a trip to Vegas. But my gambling ended before it started.''
AP880228-0016 	X	An Oklahoma State Penitentiary inmate who had armed himself with a screwdriver and took three hostages gave up late Saturday after he was apparently overpowered by a hostage staff member. Correction Department spokesman Jerry Massie said the hostage situation ended shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday, more than 12 hours after it began. ``There was some kind of a scuffle'' inside the office where inmate Robert Taylor was holding two prisoners and a staff counselor, Massie said. The four men then came walking out. ``Everyone seems to be fine,'' Massie said. ``There appears to be no serious problems.'' He said the hostages, identified as prison counselor Chuck Ryden and inmates Robert King and Allen Livingston, were taken to the prison's medical unit to be examined for injuries. ``We don't know exactly what happened yet,'' Massie said. ``It looks like the officer (Ryden) was able to overpower the inmate.'' Taylor's only weapon was apparently a screwdriver, authorities said. Linda Morgan, a public information officer at the prison, said Taylor grabbed Ryden, a correctional counselor, at about 10:20 a.m. after they went together to an office to discuss a problem. ``The other two inmates were out cleaning and painting and entered the office to get more supplies at which time they became hostages themselves,'' she said. Saturday afternoon, Taylor's request for a pitcher of tea was granted in exchange for allowing a prison doctor to examine Ryden. The counselor had his blood pressure checked and ``seemed fine,'' Ms. Morgan said. Taylor had demanded that the warden contact the governor's office and that he be allowed to have an attorney present when he presented his grievances. Ms. Morgan declined to say what the grievances were, other than to say that he originally approached the counselor with a complaint about his prison diet. Ms. Morgan said Taylor is serving a 15-year sentence for second-degree burglary and had been an inmate at the prison since 1986. Warden James Saffle had said he wouldn't meet with Taylor or contact the governor's office until the situation has ended, Ms. Morgan said. Ms. Morgan said that approximately80 prisoners live in the cells in the section of the prison where the incident took place, and ``all are in their cells.'' The McAlester penitentiary was the site of an uprising in December 1985 when inmates protesting prison conditions held seven hostages for nearly 17 hours before releasing them unharmed. The institution has been under a 23-hour-a-day lockdown since that episode, officials said.
AP881010-0194 	X	When Marisa Fernandez de Sanda went to a doctor in 1981 to complain about terrible itching and aches all over her body, she was told these were ``normal signs of spring.'' But as spring turned to summer and her condition grew worse, the 25-year-old mother of a small son and a baby began to think about the five-quart plastic jug of bargain ``olive oil'' she bought on the advice of a neighbor and the news she was seeing on television about people dying from something called ``atypical pneumonia.'' Eventually more than 700 people would be dead and 25,000 others would become mysteriously ill. Marisa Fernandez was one who became ill. ``I had always bought sunflower oil, but after my second pregnancy, the doctor recommended olive oil,'' she said in a recent interview in her home in the Province of Madrid. ``So when my neighbor said she knew a man who was selling it real cheap, I thought, here's a bargain.'' Her friend Clara Burgues de Dominguez bought three jugs of the oil at a street market because her husband was unemployed ``and every peseta counts when you're trying to make ends meet.'' In July 1981 both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues were admitted to the hospital and told they were suffering from what had gone from ``atypical pneumonia'' to a mysterious ``toxic syndrome'' that developed from the oil the two women thought was olive oil but in fact allegedly was rapeseed oil processed for industrial use, not for human consumption. The state brought 38 defendants to trial on charges of involvement in the import, refining and sale of the oil. Fifteen months of hearings ended in June but the verdict of the three-judge tribunal is not expected for six months, possibly a year. The state claims the oil was the cause of the deaths and the illness that affects the respiratory system, nerves, joints and muscles. ``I used the oil for everything _ making stews, frying meat and potatoes, salads, making mayonnaise,'' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I loved to dip bread in it when I was cooking and eat it on the spot.'' Her husband, Juan, and son, David, fell ill briefly but were not hospitalized. The baby did not become ill but was without his mother for the first six months of his life, something Juan Sanda thinks was equally as serious. ``The first time I was hospitalized for 25 days, my weight had fallen from 56 to 43 kilos (123 to 94 pounds),'' Marisa Fernandez said. ``I was in a room with about 25 other women, and they pumped us full of pills and shots. Every day someone would leave, and we would know they had died.'' Said Clara Burgues: ``When the pain got too bad, we would grab on to lamp posts when we were walking in the street. ``When we went to the hospital, they treated us like guinea pigs. They didn't know what to do with us, how to treat us, what to treat us for. They didn't have enough beds so they processed us through real quick. Then we just had to be readmitted again when it became unbearable.'' Marisa Fernandez returned to the hospital in September 1981, unable to use her hands or feet or to feed herself. ``I had no appetite, and all around me, people, particularly young girls, were dying.'' At 33, after three years of acupuncture and continuing twice weekly physical therapy sessions with other toxic syndrome sufferers, she still has frequent cramps and little feeling on the right side of her body. She can no longer type and can't work outside her home and receives from the government a monthly disability pension the equivalent of $270. ``There is something all those affected seem to feel,'' she said, looking at a photograph of herself, emaciated, in a bathing suit following her hospitalization. ``We all carry the disease on our faces, like a shadow.'' Although the Spanish press and most of those affected by the toxic syndrome blame the oil for the illness, Clara Burgues is not so sure. ``When I testified at the trial, they asked me to say whether I believed the oil was the cause of my problems. I told them how did they expect me, a housewife from a lower-middle class neighborhood, to answer that question. I told them of 28 people among my neighbors who all used the oil, I was the only one who got sick. But then they all ate tomatoes, too.'' That was a reference to the claim of some defense attorneys that the illness was due to organophosphate pesticides used on tomatoes grown in southeastern Spain around Almeria. Dr. Richard Doll, chief pathologist for Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund, testified at the trial that the oil was the cause of the illness. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the European branch office of the World Health Organization agreed with Doll's finding. Both Marisa Fernandez and Clara Burgues say they are not sure they will ever get out from under the shadow of the mysterious illness. ``When it first struck, we were treated like lepers by neighbors and sometimes even family. They were afraid they would catch it,'' Marisa Fernandez said. The illness, once thought to be caused by a virus, is not contagious. Added Clara Burgues: ``But even now that we appeared to have recovered, we always have doubts _ whenever we get something, an ache, a problem, we wonder, could it be something caused by the illness. We are living the syndrome of the toxic syndrome.''
AP880819-0098 	X	Douglas and Joan Wolff know health care costs are skyrocketing, but they found a $15,543 bill for emergency room treatment of Wolff's minor scrapes a little hard to swallow. Speaking of swallowing, Wolff was charged more than $3,000 apiece for the five Tylenol capsules he was given. Mrs. Wolff said Thursday that reading the computerized bill almost sent them both back to the emergency room. ``At first we were shocked. We couldn't believe it,'' she said. ``Then we just had to laugh. We knew it had to be a mistake because all he did was get cleaned up over there.'' St. Mary-Corwin Hospital administrators acknowledged the computer error and assured the Wolffs an amended version of the bill would arrive soon. The bill was not without a touch of heart. The hospital offered the couple a 10 percent discount if the bill was paid within 20 days. The discount of $1,554 would bring the total due down to a mere $13,989.
AP880412-0049 	X	Twenty-seven people who attended a dinner following a funeral in northeastern China came down with food poisoning and 14 of them died, the official China Daily reported today. The 13 others became seriously ill after the dinner last week in Yixian County, according to the report. The dinner was held by Yu Huqing, head of the gardening department of Jinzhou City in Yixian County following the death of his mother, the newspaper said. The report did not say if Yu was among those who died.
AP900112-0142 	X	President Bush warned Congress on Friday not to look for big savings from Pentagon spending and complained that his key domestic initiatives were mired ``in the jungles on Capitol Hill.'' While applauding the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, Bush cautioned against expectations of any ``peace dividend'' in the military budget, saying that is ``not money in the bank. It is more like a possible future inheritance.'' Meanwhile, he said, ``It's impossible today to know what will unfold in the next six months, let alone the next six years.'' Bush said the U.S. invasion of Panama was proof that America must have a ``ready and highly effective defense force.'' The president spoke to about 1,500 people at a gathering of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. Later, he met privately with the family of Army Pfc. James Markwell, a Ranger medic killed by gunfire in his drop zone in the Panama invasion. The White House said Bush expressed his personal sympathy and gratitude for the sacrifice that Markwell made for his country. Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, speaking with reporters later, said the president's talk with the family of the dead soldier was ``a pretty emotional meeting.'' Fitzwater said that ``we were all pretty broken up about it,'' referring to the president, as well as several aides and Secret Service agents. Fitzwater said that the soldier's mother, Mrs. William Rouse, showed the president a poem that her son had written when he was 15 years old about being in the military, as well as a ``death message'' that he had written before going into combat. Fitzwater said that in that message her son ``was proud of what he was doing. It was a little message for each of the people he knew in life.'' ``That was really tough,'' Fitzwater said. Bush also has sent letters of condolence to the families of all those killed in Panama, officials said. The president's combative stand toward Congress sets the tone for legislative battles likely to erupt after lawmakers return to work Jan. 23. Bush will send his budget to Congress on Jan. 29 and deliver his State of the Union Address on Jan. 30. He said the Democratic-controlled Congress had stalled action on his plans to lower capital gains taxes, beef up education programs, strengthen clean-air regulations and fight crime. ``And these four issues are bogged down in the jungles on Capitol Hill,'' Bush said. ``The clock is running and America's patience is running out,'' Bush said. While saying he was not trying to assign any blame, Bush said, ``America wants it done right, America wants it done responsibly and America wants it done now.'' The fall of hardline communist governments in Eastern Europe has prompted calls in Congress and elsewhere for lowering defense spending and targeting the money for other purposes. ``That's like the next-of-kin who spend the inheritance before the will is read,'' Bush said. ``Of course, whenever a potential inheritance looms,'' he said, ``there are those eager to rush out and squander it, to buy new things, to spend, to spend, to spend _ spending funds they don't yet have. ``Then the bills start coming, and the inheritance may not,'' Bush said. ``And what was promised as a bonus becomes a burden.'' He won applause by saying, ``most Americans know we not only must maintain our defenses but still must reduce the deficit.'' Bush also paid a visit to predominantly black Taft High School, where he hailed a program of business leaders, government officials and educators to reduce dropouts and improve academic performance. Several speakers told Bush there was a sense of hopelessness among inner-city youths and asked what he could do about it. He said the best answer was ``encouraging the strength of the family.'' Bush said federal resources for education were limited but that he would call for some increases in overall school spending when he presents his fiscal 1991 budget to Congress on Jan. 23, including expanding the Head Start program for disadvantaged pre-school children. But, the president added, ``I don't think you can design a curriculum to lift the self-esteem of a kid. It's got to come from peers, it's got to come from family, it's got to come from dedicated volunteers or workers who are saying, `Hey, you are somebody. You can amount to something.''
AP900929-0103 	X	Cardinal Bernard Yago said Saturday a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II was uncovered prior to a papal visit earlier this month, but denied Ivory Coast opposition parties were involved. The cardinal attributed the plot to a group based in Ghana, and condemned President Felix Houphouet-Boigny for disclosing details about the plot. ``He should have kept it secret. ... He has held political interests above those of the (Roman Catholic) Church,'' the cardinal said in rare criticism of Ivory Coast's leader of 30 years. The cardinal noted Houphouet-Boigny accusation's came as the president faced the nation's first multiparty elections on Oct. 28. The 85-year-old president did not name those he claimed were responsible for hiring mercenaries and former soldiers to kill John Paul when he visited Ivory Coast on Sept. 9-10. No attack was made on the pontiff. Yago said one assassination plotter had confessed to a parish priest, and said he was ``disgusted'' by Houphouet-Boigny's ``political use'' of knowledge that came from the confessional. Emile Boga, a leader of the opposition Ivorian Popular Front, called the assassination plot allegations ``a fabrication.'' The cardinal said the pontiff had been told about the plot before the visit. Earlier, chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro, asked about Houphouet-Boigny's claim, said, ``We never comment on such matters.''
AP901129-0066 	X	President Bush's quest to aid the poor by substituting self-help programs for government handouts is sparking friction among White House aides, administration officials and conservative members of Congress. It even prompted a call by Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., for Budget Director Richard Darman either to recant a recent speech or resign. A group of conservative policy makers inside the White House, with strong backing from HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, is pressing to make ``empowering'' initiatives in housing, education and welfare the centerpiece of Bush's next State of the Union address. The general philosophy, say those backing the concept, is to give people tools to help themselves, rather than having government social programs do it for them. For example, housing legislation signed by Bush on Wednesday aims to help poor people buy public housing apartments or vacant homes. ``A cornerstone of our effort to reduce the heavy hand of government is this idea of empowering people, not bureaucracies,'' the president said in signing the measure. The debate was sparked partly by a speech last April by James P. Pinkerton, Bush's deputy assistant for policy planning, in which he said the idea is to enact ``policies that empower people to make choices for themselves.'' But the concept drew a public rebuke earlier this month from Darman, who ridiculed the slogan of ``the new paradigm'' as pretentious and meaningless. Darman dismissed the idea of boosting the use of vouchers and decentralized policymaking as a throwback to old initiatives that did not work in the 1960s. ``We now find ourselves encouraged to embrace several programmatic ideas that are returning from a quarter-century hiatus, but which have not yet been seriously tested or evaluated,'' Darman said in a Nov. 16 speech to the Council for Excellence in Government, a private watchdog group. The ideas are ``little more than slogans,'' he said. Darman's words infuriated conservatives. Gingrich denounced the Darman speech as ``an assault on members of his own party'' and demanded Wednesday night that Darman either recant or resign. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Darman and Gingrich had smoothed over their differences in a telephone conversation today, and that Darman was not withdrawing the speech. ``Director Darman and Newt had a long conversation this morning and they `re great and good friends, and there's no problem,'' said Fitzwater. Asked if Bush stood by his budget director, Fitzwater said, ``Sure.'' In an era when communist regimes around the world are collapsing, Bush is warming to the theme of putting power back in the hands of people and out of the grip of centralized bureaucracies. The National Affordable Housing Act - including $25 billion this year and $27 billion in fiscal 1992 - provides grants for low-income families to buy their public housing units or homes that are vacant or have been foreclosed. The measure provides $155 million for such projects this year and $885 million for 1992. It also authorizes $123 million this fiscal year and $258 million for 1992 to provide housing and services for the homeless. And, it contains a new block grant program, authorizing $1 billion for this year and $2.1 billion for 1992 to promote partnerships by federal, state and local governments with private groups and industry to meet housing needs, the White House said. Earlier Wednesday, Kemp briefed members of the Domestic Policy Council on possible initiatives under consideration for the State of the Union address and fiscal 1992 budget. Bush named Kemp on Aug. 6 to head a task force on empowerment. The ideas that Kemp and the White House conservatives are touting, including vouchers to give parents wider choice in education, inner-city enterprise zones and tenant ownership of public housing, are hardly new. In fact, former President Reagan went to bat for most of them to no avail. But their advocates are banking on rising public dissatisfaction with government to give new life to these old ideas. ``The new paradigm enables the GOP to move forward in these areas and do good, without going back to the Great Society of noble rhetoric and unintended consequences,'' Pinkerton said in April. For Republicans, he said, ``fighting taxes and communists has brought us about as far as it can. ... The future growth of the Republican party depends on our ability to address voters' concerns about other important issues, such as health, child care, education and pollution.''
AP900207-0057 	X	A computer hacker broke into the 911 emergency telephone network covering nine states in the South and another intruder passed on the access data to other hackers, authorities said. Robert J. ``The Prophet'' Riggs, 20, of Decatur, Ga., and Craig M. ``Knight Lightning'' Neidorf, 19, of Chesterfield, Mo., were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury and accused of computer crimes, said acting U.S. Attorney Ira H. Raphaelson. He said Riggs was a member of the so-called Legion of Doom hackers group, whose members are involved in numerous illegal activities. Riggs and two other alleged members also were indicted Tuesday in Atlanta and charged in other computer break-ins. The government would not say if any emergency calls were disrupted or whether other damage was done during the tampering. ``These were not teen-agers playing games,'' Raphaelson said. ``They are thieves, they're reckless and they're dangerous.'' In the Chicago case, Riggs is accused of entering Atlanta-based Bell South's 911 system with a computer, stealing a copy of the program that controls the system and publishing this data on a hackers' computer bulletin board in Lockport. Neidorf is accused of transferring the data to his computer at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he allegedly edited it for a computer hacker publication known as PHRACK. There was no immediate comment from either defendant. Directory information had no listing for Riggs, and there was a recorded message at the Neidorf residence. Neidorf's attorney, Art Margulis, said he had not seen the indictment so he could not comment. Raphaelson said industry specialists estimate that $3 billion to $5 billion is lost yearly to computer fraud. He said this is the fourth hacker case brought by the federal government in the past year. Bell South's 911 controls emergency calls to municipal police, fire, ambulance and emergency services in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. ``People who invade our telecommunications and related computer systems for profit or personal amusement create immediate and serious consequences for the public at large,'' said Raphaelson. He said the 911 data was valued at nearly $80,000, but would not say how a hacker could profit by stealing this data, other than by selling the information to others. Riggs, if convicted on all charges, could be sentenced to 32 years in prison and fined $222,000. Neidorf could be sentenced to 31 years and fined $122,000 on conviction. Riggs and Neidorf are charged with interstate transportation of stolen property, wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.
AP900909-0030 	X	Police opened fire Sunday to disperse crowds of blacks in Soweto angered by an overnight attack on a squatter camp that killed at least 10 people. At least three people were wounded during Sunday's confrontations, according to a witness. A total of 32 people had died in black factional fighting since Saturday, reports said. Hundreds have died since the violence in black townships near Johannesburg began less than one month ago. Residents accused Zulu supporters of the conservative Inkatha movement of launching the nighttime attack with police help. They also said masked white men took part in the assault on Soweto's Tladi squatter camp. The head of the South African Council of Churches, the Rev. Frank Chikane, visited the camp and said he had seen enough to know that ``police are involved in killing us.'' Police fought running battles with residents hurling rocks and firebombs throughout the morning near the camp in the sprawling township southwest of Johannesburg. At least three blacks were wounded when police opened fire with birdshot and live ammunition, a witness said. Earlier, police had fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the residents. The Independent South African Press Association reported a crowd of about 100 people attacked the camp on Saturday night, assaulting occupants and smashing dwellings. A total of 26 people were killed in Soweto over the weekend, police said Sunday. Residents and witnesses said 13 died at the Tladi squatter camp, but police could not confirm that figure. Six other deaths were reported Sunday in other Johannesburg-area townships, including four men found stabbed in a van at a squatter camp near Vosloorus, south of the city. Fighting between Zulu Inkatha backers and Xhosas and other blacks loyal to the African National Congress has killed nearly 600 people in black townships near Johannesburg since Aug. 12. Black leaders and others have accused police of fueling the violence by siding with the Inkatha fighters. Police and government officials have denied the charge, saying some officers may have acted improperly but that the force as a whole was impartial. Police confirmed Saturday they would investigate the allegations. A police spokesman told the government-operated South African Broadcasting Co. that witnesses would be interviewed. The leftist ANC and more conservative Inkatha blame each other for the factional fighting. Both groups oppose apartheid but differ over tactics and plans for a future South Africa. The two sides have been fighting for supremacy since 1986 in the eastern province of Natal. Those battles have resulted in about 5,000 deaths.
AP900611-0166 	X	The stock market headed higher today, rebounding from last week's setback. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 34.95 points last week, rose 19.30 to 2,881.68 by noontime on Wall Street. Gainers outnumbered losers by about 9 to 8 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 681 up, 611 down and 513 unchanged. Analysts said traders were doing some selective ``bargain-hunting'' in the blue chips while they awaited a broad array of economic reports due from the government this week. Among the monthly statistics on the agenda for Wall Street are the producer price index of finished goods, due on Thursday, and the consumer price index and the nation's trade balance, both on Friday. If all goes as expected, brokers say, the data will support the popular view that economic growth is plodding along at a pace slow enough to permit inflation and interest rates to ease. However, they add, any surprises in the numbers could unsettle some of the optimism that built up during the rally the carried stock prices to new highs as recently as last Monday. Boeing climbed 1] to 56~ on expectations of a big order from Korean Airlines for Boeing 747-400 jets. Elsewhere among the blue chips, International Business Machines rose 1[ to 119~; American Telephone & Telegraph ] to 42]; General Motors | to 49[, and DuPont ] to 39{. Microcom Inc. tumbled 8{ to 9} as the most active issue in the over-the-counter market. Late Friday the company projected a loss for the fiscal quarter ending June 30, saying major domestic distributors were overstocked with its software and modem products. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks added .52 to 196.57. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index slippesd .09 to 361.08. Volume on the Big Board came to 60.05 million shares at noontime, against 69.98 million at the same point Friday.
AP881004-0119 	X	The House on Tuesday killed a move to establish procedures to review the continued detention of Cubans who entered the United States during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Under legislation defeated by a 271-144 vote, Mariel aliens denied parole would have been given the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge. The hearing would have been required within 90 days after the end of a Justice Department review, or within 90 days of the alien's detention by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The legislation provided that to continue detention, the department would have to prove that the detainee would pose a threat to the community or would violate reasonable conditions of release. Aliens released under the legislation would only have been sent to a halfway house or to a suitable sponsor. Mariel Cubans not released under the procedures would have had annual reviews, to determine whether circumstances justified reopening hearings. More than 125,000 Cubans came to the United States between April and October 1980, when Cuba opened its port of Mariel for citizens wishing to leave. The group included many people with criminal records and mental illness. Last year, Cuban detainees rioted at the Oakdale correctional facility in Louisiana and the federal prison in Atlanta after the United States and Cuba agreed to resume a migration agreement. At the time, there were 2,500 Cubans waiting for repatriation. In the wake of the riots, a new Justice Department review program was started for detainees designated for repatriation, and those denied parole by the INS.
AP901023-0068 	X	China's guardians of Marxist ideology announced a new campaign today against pornography and Western liberalism and said they would press on with an anti-crime drive in which hundreds have been executed. The announcements, made in headlines in the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, contradicted widespread expectations that the party would relax its tight social controls after the Asian Games ended Oct. 7 in Beijing. Hong Kong newspapers, many of which have close ties to Chinese officials, had predicted that more participants in last year's failed democracy movement would be released from jail if the games went off smoothly. But Zhou Chengkui, spokesman for the National People's Congress, said on Monday he had no word of forthcoming releases. Today's announcements further indicated the hard-liners who have dominated Chinese politics since June 1989 have no intention of relaxing their hold. Their speeches said that China's current stability is fragile and called for vigilence against alleged anti-party forces. ``At present, our country is politically, economically and socially stable,'' Qiao Shi, the party official in charge of police matters, said in giving the order to continue China's 6-month-old crackdown on crime. ``But we must see clearly that the relatively smooth public order of these few months was achieved through the might of the (crackdown on crime),'' he said. ``In ideology and in work, we cannot relax one whit.'' The international human rights group Amnesty International said last month that more than 720 people were given death sentences in China from January through mid-August, including more than 350 in June and July alone. Official newspapers have reported thousands of arrests since the anti-crime campaign began in May, causing cities to expand their police forces and in some cases form civilian patrols. The party also held an anti-pornography campaign for about six months beginning in June 1989, when the army crushed a student-led movement for democratic reforms. Not only pornographic but pro-democratic publications were seized and burned. Liu Zhongde, who headed that drive, said a new campaign to last through next spring will clean up remaining ``spiritual pollution and cultural garbage.'' The People's Daily quoted him as saying that 12 percent of the country's newspapers, 13 percent of its social science periodicals and more than 7 percent of its publishing houses had been closed since June 1989. He said 32 million books and magazines were destroyed and nearly 80,000 people were convicted for involvement in illegal publising activity. ``This is still just a good beginning,'' he said. ``Some obscene publications that have been explicitly banned have reappeared in new form. Illegal publishing activities have reared their heads.'' He blamed this on ``the bourgeois liberal tide,'' the party's phrase for Western-style democratic ideas such as free speech and multiparty rule. ``People who support bourgeois liberalism ... advocate complete Westernization,'' he said. ``But complete Westernization necessarily opens the door to corrupt and degenerate capitalist things, and thus obscene things are spread.''
AP880427-0032 	X	The Metropolitan Opera filed a lawsuit seeking to ring down the curtain on a bebop, jazz band that calls itself the ``Metropolitan Bopera House.'' In its trademark infringement suit against the jazz quintet, the Met claimed the ``virtually identical'' name ``is likely to cause confusion, deception, mistake.'' But John Marshall, one of the founding members of the Metropolitan Bopera House, called Tuesday's lawsuit ``pretty silly, because we're no threat to them in any way. After all we're playing different kinds of music.'' Bebop is a form of improvisational swing popularized by Charlie ``Bird'' Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, said Marshall. Henry W. Lauterstein, general counsel for the Met, declined to comment further, saying he'd let court papers call the tune. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks a restraining order against Metropolitan Bopera House to keep them ``from unfairly competing'' with the Met. ``After playing smoke-filled dates and struggling to assert itself in the rough jazz business, it is difficult for our group to see how we could possibly threaten the opera, which seems to feel it has exclusive rights to the word `metropolitan,''' said Marshall, a 35-year-old trumpeter from Brooklyn. The opera house also wants the Bopera House to turn over all their records, labels, advertising _ and anything else with the offending name _ for destruction. According to the lawsuit, the Metropolitan Opera has been the Metropolitan Opera since 1883 and even registered that name and ``Met'' as trademarks. The Met also sought an accounting of Metropolitan Bopera House's profits and unspecified damages for alleged ``willful and wanton, unfair competition and unfair business practices.'' The lawsuit claimed the boppers ``obviously intended to connote a connection or association'' with the Met and were stealing ``its name, good will and reputation.'' Not so, said Marshall, noting that his band, founded 100 years after the Met, took its moniker from a nickname for the Royal Roost, a popular Manhattan jazz club of the 1940s.
AP880629-0030 	X	Former Navy Secretary James H. Webb says he learned last fall of a massive fraud investigation and deliberately kept Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci in the dark, figuring the FBI would tell him when it wanted to. Webb, in a telephone interview Tuesday, also said he was told from the start that former Navy official Melvyn R. Paisley was a ``central figure'' in the probe and that a member of his headquarters staff was under scrutiny. Webb said he wasn't told and didn't ask the identity of the official on his staff under investigation. FBI search warrants suggest the Navy official is James Gaines, the deputy assistant secretary for acquisition management. Webb said he never attempted to discuss the matter with Carlucci because ``that wasn't my job.'' ``This was a very close-hold report involving an investigation being conducted by the FBI with the NIS (Naval Investigative Service) cooperating, not the Department of Defense,'' he said. ``My view was that if the FBI wanted to tell Carlucci, they would tell him. How should I know whether they wanted to tell him? Why should I get tangled up in all that?'' Pentagon spokesmen have said Carlucci did not learn of the probe until June 13, the day before FBI agents began executing search warrants at the Pentagon and elsewhere around the country. The former Navy chief added he was originally told the investigation would probably be completed by last Christmas, ``but it kept getting delayed because the net kept expanding.'' Webb, a Vietnam War hero, lawyer, novelist and former assistant defense secretary, became the secretary of the Navy in April 1987 after the resignation of John F. Lehman Jr., who had held the post for six years. Paisley was an assistant secretary of the Navy and one of Lehman's top aides. He left at the same time Lehman did and established a defense consulting business. ``I was, in fact, briefed about this last fall,'' Webb said. ``And I was then periodically updated on it by the chief of the Naval Investigative Service. ``I was told that with respect to the Navy, Paisley was the central figure. I was also told an individual still on my staff was under investigation.'' After the briefing, Webb said, he did two things. ``I told them I didn't want to know who it was on my staff, but please try to hurry up and get the investigation done if that was the case,'' Webb said. ``I didn't like the idea of someone committing felonies when I'm trying to reorganize (with new people). ``And I also asked the NIS to communicate to the FBI my concern that if they were investigating Paisley, it be for substantive matters because of Paisley's relationship with Lehman. I didn't want it to appear to be a witch hunt.'' According to the Justice Department, the NIS began the current investigation two years ago and then called in the FBI. Justice officials say the inquiry centers on allegations that Pentagon executives took bribes from private military consultants who were seeking classified contract information for defense contractors. Webb said his knowledge of details of the investigation always was limited. Asked if he was told there were other ``central figures'' working for other armed services or on the Pentagon staff, Webb replied, ``No comment.'' Webb also said that long before he knew of the investigation, he canceled a consulting contract between Paisley and the Navy that allowed Paisley to keep his security clearance for super-secret ``black'' program information. The consulting arrangement was established shortly before Webb took over as Navy secretary. Webb said he canceled it as soon as he learned of its existence, less than a week after assuming office. ``The arrangement kind of bothered me, the access to black information (for a consultant),'' Webb said.
AP901102-0046 	X	President Bush says a look at history will back up his suggestion that Saddam Hussein is a barbarian surpassing Adolf Hitler, but experts on the Nazi era disagree with him. ``We don't see the kind of atrocities being committed in Kuwait and Iraq that would match those of Nazi Germany,'' said Richard Breitman, a professor of history at American University and a specialist in the Hitler era. ``No one yet, and I hope no one ever will, match up to the systematized brutalities and racist policies that Adolf Hitler committed,'' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The center is devoted to the study of the Nazi Holocaust, in which an estimated 6 million Jews were killed, and its contemporary implications. Bush, speaking at a Republican rally in Mashpee, Mass., Thursday, said Saddam's Iraqi invaders ``have committed outrageous acts of barbarism. Brutality - I don't believe that Adolf Hitler ever participated in anything of that nature.'' Later, at a news conference in Orlando, Fla., Bush said, ``I don't think I am overstating it. I know I am not overstating the feelings I have about it. ... I think the American people are as outraged as I am about the treatment of the people in our embassy, for example, and I think it is important that they know my concerns on this subject.'' ``I was told that Hitler did not stake people out against military targets,'' the president said. ``He did respect the legitimacy of the embassies, so there are some differences.'' He added, ``I see many similarities between the Iraqi behavior in Kuwait and the way the Death's Head regiments behaved in Poland. Go back and take a look at the history and you can see why I'm as concerned as I am.'' '' The Death's Head units were notorious blackshirted SS troops that began as Hitler's personal bodyguard. They were blamed for many atrocities during the German invasion of Poland. Breitman said many of the specific points Bush made were correct and could make Saddam appear worse than Hitler in some respects, ``but I don't think the overall record would show that to be the case.'' He said that at the outbreak of World War II the Nazis interned foreign diplomats in conditions ``that were not comfortable, but were nothing like what we are seeing in Kuwait and Iraq.'' These diplomats were eventually exchanged for German diplomats in Allied custody, Breitman said. He said he was not aware that the Nazis ever took hostages to potential military targets to use them as human shields as Saddam has done. Cooper, however, said Bush was ``absolutely wrong'' on the point. ``Look at the millions of people of all nationalities who were forced into slave labor factories in Germany and many of them got blown away by the Allied bombing missions,'' he said. Breitman said Hitler is not known to have visited any of the Nazi death camps, but ``that does not mean he was not involved.'' He also said the activities of the Death's Head units were ``only the tip of the iceberg in terms of brutality in Poland'' by the German invaders. The historian said he was not defending Saddam. He said the Iraqi leader has committed crimes ``that give the idea of a Nuremberg-type trial a certain legitimacy to raise.'' Administration sources have said that such a trial, along the lines of the war crimes trials held in Nuremberg, Germany, after World War II, is a possibility. At the Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Cooper said, ``Saddam Hussein has a list of crimes that I don't think has to be compared with anybody in order for the people of America to understand how serious a threat he represents.'' ``But let's also keep this thing in some sort of perspective,'' he said. ``And to say that he outstrips Adolf Hitler, I just think it's either a slip of the tongue or a speech writer got carried away.'' Other Jewish leaders generally agreed. David Harris, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee, said, ``Both men, each in his own way, represents an incarnation of evil. But to try and suggest that Saddam Hussein is a man of even greater evil than Adolf Hitler to me doesn't add to the discussion.'' Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, called Bush's remark ``an unfortunate exaggeration that could hurt the president's credibility at a time when it is very important that he remain credible.'' ``Saddam Hussein is writing his own chapter of barbarism,'' Foxman said. ``It's the Saddam Hussein chapter and one need not compare or exaggerate.''
AP901024-0212 	X	It's a tough campaign for president, barbed with Polish humor, between the earthy shipyard worker who founded Solidarity and the somber, laconic intellectual he chose as prime minister. What do Poles think of the contest between Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki in their first popular vote for the presidency? Some call it Cham vs. Hamlet. Cham, pronounced ``ham,'' is Polish for bumpkin. Others have asked: Will Mazowiecki declare his candidacy before or after the election? Then there's the story of a problem Walesa had when he wanted to reserve a burial site in Jerusalem next to Jesus Christ. He found the cost was $150,000, it goes, and said to his top aide: ``I don't know, Krzysiek. Is it worth it for only three days?'' The duel between Eastern Europe's first non-Communist head of government and the man who gave him the job has rekindled interest in politics after months of hand-wringing by commentators over post-Communist apathy. Nearly all conversations turn sooner or later to the question of which one will occupy Belweder Palace, seat of Polish presidents. A man was even killed in a drunken dispute with his son-in-law over who would be the better president, the state news agency reported. Poland held parliamentary elections in June 1989 that were largely free and democratic local elections in May, but this is the first real contest because Solidarity candidates swept the earlier votes. Surveys indicate the two former Solidarity allies are running about even. Other candidates have ventured into the ring, including Roman Bartoszcze of the Peasant Party and Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz of the Social Democrats, formerly the Communists, but only Walesa and Mazowiecki are given a real chance. If neither gets 50 percent of the votes Nov. 25, a runoff will be held Dec. 9. Part of the fascination stems from their contrasting styles. Walesa is electric, speaking rapidly, seeming to bob and weave through questions thrown at him from the crowd. Mazowiecki is ``grey on grey'' in the words of one newspaper, shy and ponderous in speech but exuding character and moral authority. Walesa declared early and began an aggressive campaign immediately with meetings at factories, where he is strong, and with academics, Mazowiecki's turf. In the first three weeks of October, Walesa visited nine cities, saw more than 100,000 people and was seen by millions more on television. Local Solidarity chapters organize his Western-style rallies, held outdoors or in large arenas with banners, brass bands and deafening loudspeakers. Mazowiecki made his first campaign appearance Oct. 14, two weeks after Walesa, in the Krakow Philharmonic Hall, which seats only 800 people. Instead of direct questions from the crowd, he took written ones that were rephrased by his campaign spokesman. The prime minister seems hesitant about contact with strangers. Hundreds of people waited outside the hall in Krakow for two hours and Mazowiecki rewarded them with only a few minutes on the balcony, his stilted words of thanks barely audible through a bullhorn. His dedication to his job, evident in his tired, careworn appearance, earns sympathy even from people who say they will vote for Walesa. After becoming prime minister in August 1989, Mazowiecki set a considered, pragmatic course that won respect abroad and gave Poles a sense of security against the sudden shocks of revolutionary change. To many, however, Mazowiecki's government has seemed to drag its feet, allowing former secret police to destroy records and keeping Communist ministers in the government half a year after the party dissolved. In his campaign, Walesa advocates faster change and has been quoted as intending to use a ``sharp axe'' to chop away vestiges of the old system. He and Mazowiecki also appear to disagree about policy toward the Communist leadership. When he took office, the prime minister spoke of drawing a line between present and past, but Walesa has said he wants to ``settle accounts'' with those who have injured Poland or stolen from it. If Walesa becomes president, Mazowiecki says, he will join the opposition. Walesa replies that he already has five other candidates for prime minister. Critics accuse Walesa of currying favor with the mob, promising easy solutions he cannot deliver and becoming a demagogue who could abuse the still-fragile democracy and frighten off Western investors. ``I'll vote for Mazowiecki because, under his presidency, I can sleep peacefully,'' Adam Michnik, a former Walesa adviser, told a rally. ``If someone knocks at my door at 5 in the morning, it can only be the milkman.'' ``Walesa is as suitable to be president as I am to be a radio announcer,'' Michnik, now editor of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's leading daily newspaper, said in a recent broadcast. Michnik spoke with his usual stutter. Walesa wished him luck in radio.
AP880827-0072 	X	American diplomats in Panama are facing a variety of real and potential problems brought on by the Reagan administration's decision to have no dealings with that country's military-dominated government, U.S. officials say. In addition, harassment of American servicemen is on the increase, prompting U.S. military officials to take precautionary measures. Panamanian officials respond that troublemakers among U.S. military personnel pose daily headaches for Panamanian authorities. The State Department's constraints on U.S. envoys are such that they are prohibited from carrying out even simple tasks, such as renewing their license plates or their driver's licenses. As a result, many diplomats have been forced to rent cars rather than run the risk of driving with expired plates. Some make their rounds with expired driver's licenses, worried what local authorities might do if they catch them in a traffic violation or an accident, the officials said. The diplomats lack the documents entitling them to diplomatic immunity. Thus, they are subject to imprisonment if found guilty of a legal infraction. According to U.S. officials, there is concern that agents of Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega might stage an ``accident'' in which an American diplomat might be subject to prosecution. The diplomats have been in this unusual position since last February, when the Reagan administration refused to recognize the de facto government that took office after the ouster of President Eric Arturo Delvalle. Delvalle was deposed after his abortive attempt to fire Noriega, commander of Panama's Defense Forces. Noriega has been indicted on drug smuggling charges by two Florida grand juries. By withholding recognition from the Noriega-led government which assumed power after Delvalle's ouster, the administration hoped to force its ouster and to lay the groundwork for the restoration of democratic rule. There were confident predictions in Washington six months ago that Noriega soon would be forced to surrender power but, with key elements of the Defense Forces supporting him, he has been able to maintain his position despite widespread popular opposition. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats and others in Panama have been forced to make difficult adjustments. There have been increased incidents of harassment of American servicemen but U.S. officials do not believe the actions represent deliberate harassment by the Panamanian government. Earlier this week, Panama's Defense Forces issued a statement denying a published report that American servicemen are being singled out for harassment. The statement said U.S. troops cause daily problems for Panamanian authorities, including fights, mistreatment of women, venereal disease, shooting in public places and refusing to pay bar and restaurant tabs. According to U.S. officials, the most serious incident involved the Panamanian wife of an American serviceman. The officials said she was raped by two Panamanians who were wearing Defense Force uniforms. There also have been reports of beatings and abductions of U.S. military personnel. Cynthia Farrell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, said American residents of Panama, including businessmen and embassy personnel, have reported no increase in harassment. But an official at the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 240 cases of harassment of U.S. servicemen had been reported between February and August of this year. In response, the Pentagon has been sending some servicemen back to the United States or moving them to safer locations in Panama. The Southern Command official said an increasing number of Panamanian policemen have been attempting to bribe U.S. servicemen stopped for traffic violations. But he noted that the police have not been getting paid regularly because the government has been short of cash since the start of the year. In another example of harassment, the Defense Forces recently refused to allow U.S. military personnel to pick up mail at Panama's international airport for three days, the official said.
AP880408-0009 	X	A jury on Thursday convicted former U.S. Rep. Sam Steiger of theft by extortion for threatening a parole board member to get his vote on a personnel matter while serving in the Evan Mecham administration. ``Any time you go to court you can expect a guilty verdict, but it's difficult to believe,'' Steiger said in the courtroom moments after the jury returned its verdict. Steiger, who was a top aide to the now-ousted Republican governor, was accused of threatening Ron Johnson, a member of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. Steiger allegedly threatened to withhold permission for Johnson to work as a part-time Tempe justice of the peace and to remove him from the board unless he voted to retain as executive director Patricia Costello, a Mecham appointee. Judge Ronald Reinstein of Maricopa County Superior Court scheduled a May 6 sentencing for the 59-year-old Steiger, who faces up to five years in prison. Asked whether the verdict would be appealed, defense attorney Thomas Karas said, ``We'll take it one step at a time.'' Steiger said, ``That's up to counsel.'' Jury foreman Greg Jones, a fire captain in suburban Mesa, said the deciding factor behind the verdict was ``the tapes of the phone call between Steiger and Johnson.'' Johnson called Steiger at home from the office of the state attorney general, who taped the call. During testimony Monday, Steiger denied that he threatened Johnson or told him how he should vote. But the state alleged that Steiger followed up on the alleged threat in a letter and a telephone conversation after Johnson voted with the board majority to seek Ms. Costello's resignation. The board voted 4-3 that Ms. Costello should step down because of low staff morale. Steiger, a former five-term congressman, testified that he did suggest that Johnson should back Ms. Costello but denied that he tried to ``steal'' Johnson's vote by threatening his job. Karas had asked Reinstein to declare a mistrial, contending the conviction of Mecham at his state Senate impeachment trial Monday might prejudice jurors against Steiger. However, Reinstein ruled that great care had been taken to select unbiased jurors. Steiger gave up his 3rd Congressional District seat in 1976 to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Republican.
AP880503-0281 	X	The New York Stock Exchange is requiring members to submit daily reports of their program trades, a move designed to help the exchange analyze market volatility. Under the new rule, NYSE members and member firms must submit a log of program trades made for customers or for their own accounts, including trades executed in other markets, by the close of the second business day following the trades, the exchange said in a statement Tuesday. Members are not required, however, to identify customers for whom program trades were executed.
AP900115-0150 	X	Egypt's foreign minister left for Washington early Wednesday seeking a way to resolve differences by Israel and the PLO that continue to block Middle East peace talks. The unexpected trip by Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid comes after two visits to Cairo in a week by Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman. Abdel-Meguid told reporters at Cairo International Airport he is carrying a message to President Bush from President Hosni Mubarak, who has been trying to start a dialogue between Arafat's organization and Israel. He did not elaborate except to say he would exchange views with U.S. officials on the situation in the Middle East. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that Abdel-Meguid and other senior officials, including Osama el-Baz, director of Mubarak's political office, ``are going to try and push forward Middle East peace efforts'' with U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Israel has repeatedly declined to meet with the PLO leadership, saying it is an organization bent on destroying the Jewish homeland.
AP880727-0162 	X	The United States has suspended military and economic talks with Qatar to protest the Persian Gulf sheikdom's unauthorized acquisition of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, U.S. diplomats said Wednesday. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy said the suspension would remain in place until Qatar returns the missiles to the United States. ``What we have done is to place on hold a number of agreements that were under consideration,'' Murphy told the House subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East. ``We consider it very much in the interests of developing the solid relationship with Qatar that those missiles be returned soonest. And we've made that very clear,'' he added. Murphy himself made an official protest when he visited the Qatari capital of Doha last month. Another official, speaking on condition he not be named, said Qatar had been seeking several military and economic agreements with the United States, including the purchase of weapons. ``We told them everything is frozen,'' he added. ``Relations are now correct but cool.'' The United States does not have any defense cooperation with Qatar but considers the country important as a member of the pro-Western Gulf Cooperation Council which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S. officials wants to get the Stingers back in order to see their serial numbers and determine where Qatar got them. The United States first learned of the Stingers' presence in Qatar last March, when an embassy official saw one of the rockets in television footage of a military parade. U.S. officials say they do not know how many of the shoulder-fired rockets Qatar has. They have speculated that Qatar was given the Stingers by Iran, which in turn captured them from the U.S.-supplied Afghan rebels fighting against the Soviet occupation of their country. Other officials say Qatar may have bought the missiles on the black market, although that possibility is less likely. Strict controls apply to the sale of the Stingers, which are considered of great value to terrorists because they are portable and highly accurate. In response to questioning, Murphy said the United States was not considering recalling its ambassador to Qatar who heads a tiny mission of five Americans. Such a move would not be in the interests of maintaining relations with the pro-Western oil state, Murphy said. The ambassador ``is the only one with access to decision makers'' there, he added. Qatar contends it needs the missiles for self-defense and has rejected any attempts by U.S. officials to even see them.
AP880726-0057 	X	The body of a man found shot four times in the head has been identified as that of a former Texas schoolteacher wanted on kidnapping and drug smuggling charges, police say. Juan Francisco ``Frank'' Garcia, 38, his head wrapped in a gauze bandage and his hands tied behind his back, was found dead in the back seat of an abandoned car shortly after midnight Saturday, said Hernan Guajardo, state judicial police director. Guajardo said the body was identified through fingerprints sent from federal authorities in Texas. The body was found by municipal police in Guadalupe, a suburb of Monterrey. In a news conference Monday, Guajardo described Garcia as a ``person dedicated to narcotics trafficking on a grand scale.'' He said Garcia had been sought in the United States since the early 1980s. Garcia taught elementary history in the Donna Independent School District for two years in the early 1970s. He also taught migrant students in Edinburg, Texas, according to records kept by the Edinburg Daily Review newspaper. Garcia failed to appear in Hidalgo County Court in Edinburg in 1984 on a charge of kidnapping. The case involved the abduction of a South Texas couple taken to Dallas and tortured in an attempt to find more than $500,000 in gold coins Garcia believed had been taken from him, according to the Daily Review. Garcia also is wanted on a federal indictment in Houston in 1985 charging him with involvement in a narcotics smuggling ring. That so-called ``Cash Crop'' indictment alleged that Garcia and 43 other people were involved in smuggling about 250,000 pounds of marijuana from Mexico into the United States.
AP881004-0072 	X	A Philippine Airlines jetliner carrying 303 passengers veered onto the grass from a taxiway today after making a landing at Hong Kong Airport, the government said. It said no one was injured. The Boeing 747 left the taxiway because of a mechanical problem, the government said in a statement. It did not elaborate. The plane landed at 3:08 p.m. after a flight from Manila. The jetliner later was towed away by airport workers, the government statement said. No other details were immediately available.
AP880611-0084 	X	A half dozen geese flew into the engine of a Europe-bound Pan Am jumbo jet Saturday, forcing the pilot to shut it down and return to Kennedy International Airport on the three remaining engines, authorities said. The Boeing 747 landed safely and passengers were transferred to another plane for the flight to London and Frankfurt, Pan Am spokeswoman Pamela Hanlon said. Flight 100 had taken off at 9:56 a.m. with 387 passengers and 16 crew members aboard. While it was still in its takeoff flight pattern, it ran into the flock of geese, the Federal Aviation Administration said. ``As soon as the captain was aware that there was some obstruction of the engine, he shut it down,'' Ms. Hanlon said. ``It's no big deal,'' said Stan Nowak, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official. ``A 747 is capable of flying on one engine if it had to.'' He said the plane had to go out over the Atlantic Ocean to dump some fuel before it could return to the airport. ``With a full fuel load, a plane is too heavy to land on its gear. That's the way they are designed. They can take off heavier than they can land,'' Nowak said. The pilot had asked for fire and medical equipment to stand by a precautionary measure but none was needed, Nowak said.
AP900726-0205 	X	The following are the top record hits and leading popular compact disks as they appear in next week's issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1990, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
AP881110-0200 	X	A federal administrative judge ruled Thursday that stiff landing fees aimed at keeping smaller aircraft out of Boston's Logan Airport violate federal aviation law because they are discriminatory and unfair. A final decision on how to deal with the fee structure imposed last summer by the Massachusetts Port Authority rests with the Transportation Department, to whom administrative law judge Burton S. Kolko made his recommendations. The case has been seen within the aviation industry as a test over how much power the federal government intends to allow local officials and airport operators in dealing with air traffic congestion. A DOT spokesman said the department will decide by Dec. 17 whether to uphold Kolko's decision or come down with an alternative finding on the Boston airport fees, which have raised a storm of protests among private and business pilots and in the commuter airline industry. Kolko in his decision said the Logan fees ``are lacking in economic justification ... not fair and reasonable (and) are unjustly discriminatory'' toward private aircraft and smaller commuter planes. The judge said that Massport officials acted in violation of federal aviation laws and he concluded that the Transportation Department has legal grounds on which to take pre-emptive action to have the fees revoked. Massport officials said that since the fee structure has been in place, Logan has handled more passengers with fewer delays. ``It is unsettling then, that all the benefits ... could be dismantled if DOT accepts the recommendations issued today,'' the company said. The Transportation Department announced last summer that it planned to closely examine the so-called ``Pace Program'' enacted at Logan to curtail the volume of air traffic in and out of the busy Boston airport. After loud protests from private pilots and some commuter airlines, Congress included in its DOT appropriations legislation earlier this year a provision ordering the department to stop airport construction money for Logan if it concludes the fees violate aviation law and are not rescinded. Massport approved the higher landing fees for small aircraft last March, saying Logan's capacity ``is a finite resource, which must be managed wisely and efficiently in order to keep people moving with a minimum of delay.'' The airport's operators said they wanted to use Logan's limited capacity for airliner traffic and not private aircraft, maintaining that a large jetliner with up to 400 people aboard ``deserves a higher priority than a Cessna with two people on board.'' The new fee structure went into effect in July after a U.S. district judge ruled that the fees were not discriminatory. The higher fees have affected both private pilots and commuter airlines. The government said some commuter services were discontinued to Logan after the new fees went into effect, but that most commuters just passed the higher costs on to air travelers. While the conclusion Thursday by Kolko is little more than a recommendation to senior department officials on whether to take administrative action, it was hailed by private pilot groups and other critics of the Logan fees. John Baker, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, called the law judge's decision ``well reasoned'' and said, ``It makes it clear once and for all this country has a national aviation system that must be regulated by appropriate federal authority.'' Jonathan Howe, head of the National Business Aircraft Association, said his group now ``looks forward to .. the final determination'' on the Massport fees by Deputy Secretary Mimi Dawson next month. ``The entire aviation community was gratified'' by Kolko's findings, said Edward W. Stimpson, president of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the trade group that represents builders of small aircraft.
AP881006-0139 	X	A federal judge sharply criticized Iran-Contra prosecutors on Thursday for charging a former CIA station chief in the nation's capital with committing crimes across the Potomac River in Virginia. U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. questioned a proposal by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to dismiss all the charges against Joseph F. Fernandez so prosecutors could seek a new indictment from a federal grand jury in nearby Alexandria, Va. ``I don't think it's a simple matter of I'll dismiss it and let you go to Virginia and re-indict it,'' Robinson told Laurence Shtasel, an associate independent counsel. The judge did not indicate how he would rule on Walsh's request, which was made in a response to a defense motion to dismiss four of the indictment's five counts on the ground those alleged offenses occurred at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. instead of in Washington. Fernandez, who used the pseudonym Tomas Castillo when he was the CIA's station chief in Costa Rica, is accused of conspiring with former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North to illegally ship arms to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Robinson said he found no basis for dismissing that count, since the alleged conspiracy took place both in Washington and elsewhere. But the judge sharply questioned the prosecution decision to indict Fernandez, 51, in Washington on four counts of making false statements in Virginia to CIA superiors and to a presidential commission that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. Robinson also lectured the prosecutors about fairness saying: ``There has to be a sense of justice in the process as well as the outcome, otherwise public confidence in the system is destroyed.'' Laurence Shtasel, an associate independent counsel, said prosecutors had not misled the grand jury about the venue _ or location _ of the four alleged crimes, and had advised the panel that Fernandez could waive his right to be tried in Virginia. The grand jury included the four Virginia charges because they were related to the conspiracy, Shtasel said. ``That doesn't give it any right to indict when the venue of the case is not here,'' Robinson said. ``It's the government's responsibility to advise the grand jury what it can or cannot do under the law.'' Defense attorney Thomas E. Wilson argued that Walsh should be barred from bringing the charges anew in Virginia, saying prosecutors ``were trifling with the process.'' ``They intentionally pursued an indictment where they knew there was not even a colorable basis of venue on four of five counts,'' Wilson said. ``The prosecutors in this case are not beleaguered, overworked assistant U.S. attorneys,'' Wilson said. Walsh ``assembled the prosecutorial equivalent of a Roman legion: 29 lawyers, 33 FBI agents, 11 IRS agents, four Customs agents.'' ``They are trifling with the process _ they ought to be stuck with the consequences,'' Wilson said. But Robinson said he ``didn't know any basis for dismissing'' the conspiracy charge against Fernandez. ``The nub of the case is the conspiracy indictment, any way you look at it, everything else is superfluous really,'' the judge told Shtasel. But he said allowing Walsh to try Fernandez in Washington on the conspiracy count and obtain another indictment in Virginia ``places an intolerable burden on a single defendant.''
AP901123-0078 	X	A ``human bomb'' attack, similar to last month's IRA bombing which killed seven people, failed when the enormous bomb fizzled, police said Friday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday night's failed attack but a spokesman for the Royal Ulster Constabular said the Irish Republican Army was suspected. The RUC spokesman said armed, masked men kidnapped a man from his home near Newtown Butler and ordered him to drive a truck containing a 3,500-pound bomb to an army checkpoint at Annaghmartin. The gang tied up the man's elderly parents and locked them in a bathroom while the man was driven near the checkpoint, 56 miles southwest of Belfast. The man was told to deliver the bomb, which they said had a five-minute timer, police said. The man drove the red pickup to the checkpoint, jumped out and shouted a warning. A short time later there was a small explosion, which was believed to have been caused by the detonator going off, police said. Army bomb experts defused the bomb, one of the largest ever found in Northern Ireland, police said. The army said there was only minimal damage and no one was injured. On Oct. 24, the IRA staged three human bomb attacks which killed six soldiers and a civilian, who drove one of the bombs to the army targets. The IRA is fighting British rule in Northern Ireland. It wants to unite the predominantly Protestant province with the 95 percent Catholic Republic of Ireland, under socialist rule.
AP880229-0011 	X	Actor Sean Penn says being married to a star like Madonna is a strain, but that recent reports the couple was close to divorce were created by the press. Penn discussed his marriage in a story published in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, which said it was the first interview with filmdom's bad boy since he was jailed for 32 days after striking a movie extra. Penn, 27, vowed to ``refocus'' himself to avoid outbursts. He said reports of his marital problems with Madonna, 29, stem from her fans' possessiveness of her and their view of him as less-than-ideal marriage material. ``She belonged to them, to the public,'' Penn said. ``And if anybody took her, I think they thought it should have been someone more acceptable, like Donald Trump.'' Madonna filed divorce papers in Santa Monica, Calif., on Dec. 4, citing irreconcilable differences. Two weeks later, she asked to withdraw the petition and the court granted the request the same day, court records show. No reason was given in the court papers for her change of heart. But Penn said the divorce story ``was more People magazine than reality. My attitude with the press right now is that I hope they've had their share of me. They've been very busy trying to find or make dirt. I'd like to get back to acting.''
AP900213-0196 	X	For almost half a century, being prepared for World War III has been the military's mission and a piston driving the American economy. Moscow and Washington, East and West, stood toe-to-toe along the Iron Curtain. It took a million soldiers, 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and a growing defense budget to keep the peace in Europe. Inside a year, the world changed. ``For eons we've been saying, `The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming,''' says Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif. ``Well they haven't come, and they aren't coming.'' Defense Secretary Richard Cheney told Congress: ``We are now on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot ever being fired.'' Three arms treaties are being negotiated for the signatures of Presidents Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Once they are settled _ reducing the stockpiles of chemical weapons, conventional forces in Europe and long-range nuclear missiles _ the American military will be transformed in size and purpose. Yet with the outbreak of peace, as Gov. Richard Celeste of Ohio notes, ``there can be a dark side.'' Peace is not a completely comforting prospect for everyone: _Not for the 1,600 people who work in St. Louis at the Army Troop Support Command, distributor of uniforms, tents and other military supplies. The Pentagon wants to close it. _Not for the 101,000 who work for General Dynamics Corp., maker of tanks, submarines, jets and missiles in plants from Florida to California. The No. 2 defense contractor has become a symbol of the end-of-the-Cold War malady. Public relations executive Chris Schildz discourages reporters seeking interviews on how the company is going to handle it. _Not for thousands upon thousands of GIs who now must confront something that American soldiers don't usually worry about _ job security. Today's troops aren't draftees like those let go after World War II or the Korean War or Vietnam. They are volunteers. Many chose the service as a career. Demobilization, for them, is as rude a slap as a layoff for a factory worker. ``We are very well aware of the fact that this is the first time the United States of America has ever taken apart an army made up of all volunteers,'' says Lt. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations and plans. He says it's too early to estimate how many soldiers will be let go. _Not for the 13,000 people in and around Lima, Ohio, who owe their jobs to the Army Tank Plant. It makes the M-1 Abrams tank, a 60-ton monster deemed too muscular for the lighter, more mobile Army the Pentagon envisions for the 1990s. The plant is scheduled to close in 1993. Don Downhour, a Lima resident who doesn't work at the plant, says he's sympathetic to the plight of the tank builders, but he sees another side. ``We don't need tanks if we're going to have peace,'' he muses. ``And that's what we've been praying for.'' Harry O'Brien, shop steward at the Saco Defense plant in Saco, Maine, whose mainstay is the Mk-19 grenade launcher, says his co-workers are worried by the defense cutbacks. ``Everybody is saying, `Gee, what happens if we get closed down?','' he says The diminishing of the 45-year-old threat of global war between the two superpowers is worrisome in other places, too: _In President Bush's White House. No sooner had Bush submitted his budget to Congress, calling for a slight drop in Pentagon spending next year, than he took to the road to sell Americans on a single idea: Cutting back too fast, too far is dangerous folly. _At the Pentagon, where Cheney has been carrying the Bush message to Capitol Hill. He is a man in the middle _ knowing reductions will be forced by Congress, but needing to protect Bush's cautious approach and the strategic concerns of the armed forces. _In Congress, where claimants for the ``peace dividend'' _ those who want to retire some national debt; or cut Social Security taxes; or address the problems of the homeless and ill-housed, hungry and poor; or repair decaying bridges, roads and sewage systems; or fix America's education system; or ease the medical-cost burden of the elderly _ are lining up for a piece of the pie. A pie that Bush says doesn't exist. _And again in Congress, where some foresee severe economic upheavals if defense plants and bases close suddenly and thousands of workers are left in the cold. The trouble, then, is figuring out just how much defense to drop, and where. If the Cold War is over, what is the justification for spending 25 cents of every federal dollar on defense _ half of which goes to deterring a Soviet invasion of Europe now deemed less likely than a blue moon? From the fall of the Berlin Wall in November to the Soviet Communist Party's historic decision Feb. 7 to give up its power monopoly, events in the East bloc have eroded the very underpinnings of Western strategic thinking. Indeed, the East European states no longer are a ``bloc'' in the traditional sense. In this new world order, what will the United States do with its military might? Fight terrorists? Play ``policeman'' in Third World hot spots? Revert to the isolationism so dreaded by U.S. allies in Europe and Asia? One answer may be in joining the Bush administration's war on drugs, and the president is pressing for more money to use Marines and other military resources to help keep drugs out of the country. For years the Pentagon fought the idea, arguing it would sap readiness to fight conventional wars and involve soldiers in police work, customarily a civilian concern. Those misgivings seem to have diminished. The exact features of the military transformation are not yet clear, but some signs are visible. U.S. troop strength is being cut, bases closed, weapon programs illed and security threats reassessed. Less clear is what these changes will mean for individual soldiers and their families, for communities and companies that depend on a thriving military-industrial complex, and for a NATO alliance facing possible disintegration. Bush says he hopes attrition will reduce the ranks of the military so that relatively few soldiers will have to be discharged. ``I would like to think that a kid that went in to make a career out of this would not be unceremoniously dumped from the armed services,'' he told reporters recently. As Pentagon planners redefine the military's mission, politicians are rushing to reset the nation's spending priorities. They see a new hope for social programs that took second place to the 1980s military buildup. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has proposed carving out a $169 billion ``peace dividend'' over the next five years _ more than quadruple the savings proposed by Bush in the same period. Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., accuses Bush of ``beating plowshares into swords.''
AP901004-0004 	X	The sale of $7.3 billion in new weaponry to Saudi Arabia is just one step in creating a Persian Gulf ``coalition defense'' against the long-term threat posed by Iraq, say two senior Bush administration officials. That sale will be followed by more sales next year to the Saudis, perhaps to their neighbors Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and new military help for Israel, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew told Congress on Wednesday. In doing so, the United States hopes ``to build a Saudi and a gulf force capability that will, in effect, drive up significantly the costs to anybody looking to take a whack at them,'' Bartholomew said. ``We do not want to leave the road to Bahrain open, as it was on the second of August,'' the day Iraq invaded Kuwait, he told a hearing of two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees. President Bush has asked Congress for permission to sell $7.3 billion worth of weapons, including tanks, attack helicopters and anti-missile defenses, to Saudi Arabia. The two officials said the weapons would help the Saudis present a more credible deterrent to aggression from Iraq or elsewhere, and would permit them if attacked to resist long enough to allow reinforcements from friendly countries to arrive. They noted that past U.S. military sales to the Saudis, some $50 billion over the past four decades, helped build many of the facilities that now are supporting Operation Desert Shield, the American-led international troop deployment in that country. ``Some have said that once Desert Shield is over Iraq will no longer be a threat because the U.S. and allied forces will have destroyed the Iraqi military,'' Wolfowitz said. ``We cannot count on that. ... No outcome is likely to permanently eliminate Iraq as a regional power.'' U.S. strategy is based on a principle of ``coalition defense,'' Wolfowitz said. He said that includes strengthening the ability of gulf nations to defend themselves, encouraging defense cooperation among countries in the region and making it easier for them to receive reinforcements from allies. The sale of 150 advanced M1A2 tanks is particularly important, Wolfowitz said, noting that U.S. strategists were particularly afraid of Iraqi tanks in the early days of the military deployment. ``We had severe concerns about the ability of Iraqi armor to penetrate rather quickly,'' he said. ``We didn't have anything on the ground to stop Iraqi tanks. We don't want to ever be in the position of saying that again.'' The officials asked that Congress quickly approve the newest sale to Saudi Arabia. They said additional sales to Riyadh, as well as to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, would be proposed early next year. Next year's Saudi package will include F-15 fighter planes, additional Patriot anti-missile batteries and more tanks and anti-armor weapons, Bartholomew said. The administration also is considering requests from Bahrain for Apache attack helicopters and multiple-launch rocket systems, and from the United Arab Emirates for Apaches, he said. Responding to concerns from supporters of Israel, Wolfowitz noted the administration is prepared to quickly transfer two Patriot batteries from current U.S. stocks and is looking at additional ways to aid Israel militarily. Asked by Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., whether it is U.S. policy to retaliate against Iraq immediately if it attacks Israel, Bartholomew said: ``I don't have any reason to open that up to question.'' Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., raised the possibility that weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could fall into enemy hands if its current government ever falls, and cited similar past occurrences in Iran and Kuwait. Bartholomew acknowledged that some U.S. weapons that had been sold to Kuwait now are in the hands of Iraqi forces, including a number of improved Hawk antiaircraft missiles, TOW anti-tank missiles, self-propelled 155-millimeter howitzers and ammunition, and about 16 A-4 attack aircraft.
AP881114-0059 	X	Opposition parties today demanded an inquiry into why the state-run television company helped finance an anti-communist film on which President P.W. Botha's daughter was production coordinator. The film, ``Back To Freedom,'' opened in South Africa last week and has been panned by critics as an amateurish propaganda exercise. The far-right Conservative Party called for appointment of a commission to investigate the South African Broadcasting Corp.'s involvement in the production. Parliament member Dave Dalling, spokesman for the liberal Progressive Federal Party, said the film company involved was owned by a friend of President Botha's. Dalling asked who authorized the SABC to provide more than $1 million to finance the film. Botha's daughter, Rozanne, was production coordinator of the film, but in the credits her last name is given as ``Both'' instead of Botha. The film's scriptwriter, a university professor, also used a pseudonym. The controversy over the film was sparked by reports in Sunday newspapers that the Cabinet minister formerly in charge of the SABC, Alvyn Schlebusch, had recommended the corporation withhold the final installment of its payment to Mimosa Films, more than $200,000, because the film was substandard. According to the reports, President Botha overruled Schlebusch and ordered the payment be made. Schlebusch subsequently resigned. The Cabinet minister who now oversees the SABC, Stoffel van der Merve, said the broadcasting company's involvement in the film was legitimate. The SABC, in return for its financing, was to get all profits from domestic box-office receipts and half of overseas profits. The movie plot is based loosely on the current civil war in Angola, in which South African-backed rebels are fighting the Soviet- and Cuban-supported troops of Angola's Marxist government. South African military equipment was used in the film, and dozens of soldiers reportedly served as extras. The Sunday Times newspaper said the script was believed to have been submitted to Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi for approval.
AP900907-0057 	X	President F.W. de Klerk will meet President Bush on Sept. 24 in the first U.S. visit by a South African leader in decades, a government official said today. De Klerk, who has launched wide-ranging reforms since assuming power a year ago, was scheduled to meet Bush in June. But the visit was canceled after anti-apartheid groups in the United States protested, saying Bush should first hold talks with African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. Mandela, who saw Bush in June, said it did not matter who met first with the U.S. president. Mandela has said his movement has no objections to a Bush-de Klerk meeting, but wants to United States to maintain its limited economic sanctions against South Africa to protest apartheid. A South African government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an official announcement of de Klerk's visit would be made this afternoon. No South African leader has visited the United States since the apartheid system of racial segregation was formally implemented in the late 1940s, officials said. De Klerk says he wants to end apartheid and negotiate a new constitution with opposition groups that would allow whites and blacks to share power. Under apartheid, the 5 million whites dominate politics and the economy and the 30 million blacks have no voice in national affairs.
AP900421-0130 	X	An elderly woman drowned in flood waters, and 30,000 people in Outback areas remained isolated as heavy rain continued across much of eastern Australia, police said Saturday. Ngari Roberts, 64, drowned at Mudgee in central west New South Wales state when her motorcycle was swept downstream as she tried to cross a swollen creek. Her body was discovered late Friday by her husband. The town of Charleville, in western Queensland state, was underwater and officials said an estimated 4,000 people, many waiting on the roofs of the flooded homes, would have to be removed by helicopter and boat. Queensland state premier Wayne Goss declared the central and western areas of his state a disater area and promised financial aid for victinms of the flooding, caused by three weeks of heavy rain. Meteorologists said the rain was the heaviest in 40 years in the region, which is normally dry and dusty. Dozens of small communities remained cut off as the Royal Australian Air Force continued to drop food and supplies to isolated rural towns. A number of usually placid rivers were overflowing, killing thousands of sheep and cattle. Residents of the New South Wales town of Nyngan worked through the night to sandbag the banks of the Bogan River and prevent it from flooding the town center. Some of the 90 passengers in a train surrounded by flood waters near the town of Longreach were evacuated Friday and other passengers were to be airlifted Saturday.
AP880623-0272 	X	Share prices on the London Stock Exchange were little changed Thursday amid some profit-taking and uncertainty over the market's direction. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was off 0.4 point, or 0.02 percent, at 1,878.9. Trading volume was 558.9 million shares, compared with 521.6 million shares Wednesday. Analysts said the market appeared to be consolidating the advances of the previous two sessions, when the key index climbed 35 points. ``People are starting to question whether the rise to 1,900 is sustainable,'' one trader said. Roger Charlesworth, senior dealer at Chase Manhattan Securities in London, said the market was having a delayed reaction to Wednesday's news of a half-point rise in the British commercial banks' base lending rate to 9 percent. Higher rates, he said, ``might be quite bearish because it's not to wring inflationary pressure from the economy but rather to stabilize the currency.'' News that Rowntree PLC had decided to accept Nestle S.A.'s sweetenend takeover offer of 2.55 billion pounds, or about $4.5 billion, continued to support selected issues in an otherwise declining market, dealers said.
AP900221-0223 	X	After Vic Monia headed a campaign that helped persuade local voters to limit developments on surrounding hillsides, he immediately had to fend off a $40 million defamation suit filed by a developer. Citizens who crusade against local polluters or new developments are increasingly likely to be hit with such suits, called ``SLAPPs,'' or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, two University of Denver professors say. They say the suits are unconstitutional and discourage citizen participation. Some SLAPP targets, however, are SLAPPing back, with notable success. The suit against Monia, a computer engineer in Saratoga, Calif., never made it to court. Last year, nine years after it was filed, he won $200,000 in a countersuit when a jury ruled he was the victim of malicious prosecution. But the developer's SLAPP against Monia and his environmental and homeowners group had an effect. Intimidated city council members exempted the developer from some new restrictions and many local homeowners' groups disbanded, Monia said. ``I saw the impact of the lawsuit in the community: a lot less participation,'' he said. ``People were talking about: `You've got to be careful. You speak out, someone's gonna sue you.' ``I got so preoccupied,'' he said. ``I ended up leaving my job. I thought about moving out of the state. My daughters at the time were quite young, we'd just moved into a new home, the payments were pretty good-sized. And my wife said, `Are you sure you haven't risked everything we've worked for?' It really began to weigh very heavily on me.'' Now, he said, he'd think twice before participating in local politics. Monia's is one of hundreds of cases tracked by law professor George Pring and sociology professor Penelope Canan as part of a 2{-year study financed by the National Science Foundation. Pring and Canan say there are thousands more and the numbers have been growing since the 1970s, with the greatest concentration in areas with a high quality of life and a large number of educated newcomers, particularly California, New York and Colorado. Among the SLAPPs they studied: _A Louisville, Colo., woman circulated petitions opposing plans for a housing development on nearby farmland and was sued by the developer. _A Sutton, W.Va., blueberry farmer told federal authorities that operators of a nearby coal mine had polluted a river and killed fish in it. He was hit with a $200,000 libel lawsuit. _A group of citizens in Washington and Warren counties in New York went to court to block a planned trash incinerator and were countersued by the counties for $1.5 million. _The League of Women Voters in Beverly Hills, Calif., supported a ballot initiative to stop a condominium project and wrote two letters to a local newspaper criticizing it. The developer sued the league for $63 million. SLAPPs aren't meant to be won _ they're meant to intimidate, the professors concluded. They usually don't even get to court, and once there, more than 90 percent of the plaintiffs lose, Pring said. By that time, though, the citizen opposition often is scared off or into compromise, the professors said. The average SLAPP seeks $9 million in damages and takes 36 months to resolve. ``Hundreds of people we've talked to are literally terrified at the thought of losing their homes under multimillion-dollar lawsuits,'' Pring said. The suits also dissuade people who merely hear about them from participating in politics, he said. State authorities are starting to act. A legislative proposal in New York, for example, would require developers to prove actual malice on the part of citizen opponents before they could file SLAPPs, said Nancy Stearns of th New York Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau. ``It's troublesome,'' Stearns said. ``Particularly in the environmental arena, citizen participation is really key. The law relies on the involvement of citizens in the environmental process. It's not just exercising rights, but being a responsible citizen.'' She said the increase in SLAPPs in the last 10 to 15 years could be due to rising citizen concern about the environment. Pring and Canan said it also could be the result of a generally more litigious society, noting that many SLAPPs are unrelated to the environment but instead are filed by local or school officials against citizens or parents. In a recent case in suburban Denver, for example, a teacher accused by fundamentalist Christian parents of teaching witchcraft sued the parents for slander. Police officers have sued citizens who complained about their behavior, and elected officials have claimed defamation when citizens called for their jobs, the professors say. ``The right to tell our elected government representatives what we think and what we want them to do for us is the most basic right we have,'' said Pring. ``What is more basic than parents going to school with complaints about their children's education?'' Monia said he stewed about the ``injustice'' of the suit filed against him for almost a year after it was dismissed before deciding to sue the developer and the developer's attorney. In addition to the $200,000 jury award from the developer last year, Monia won an out-of-court settlement with the attorney. In a more prominent California case last year, a group of Kern County farmers who successfully fought off a SLAPP by agribusiness giant J.G. Boswell Co. in a water dispute countersued and won a $13.5 million judgment against Boswell for infringing on their constitutional rights. The court ruled Boswell filed the libel suit in 1982 to intimidate the farmers so they would not support a state proposition. ``Unlike SLAPPs, many SLAPP-backs are succeeding,'' said Pring, who testified on the farmers' behalf. ``It used to be filers could file these cases with impunity. ... Now I have to counsel would-be filers and their attorneys they may be walking themselves into a multimillion-dollar action.'' Still, he said, the farmers told him they would never again participate in politics. Monia, who said he was lucky enough to be able to weather nine years of legal bills, hopes his victory encourages others. ``And I hope that they can feel that if they go after individuals or companies who misuse the judicial system for political purposes, that they can win,'' he said.
AP900111-0142 	X	The PLO on Thursday accused fighters of a pro-Iranian militia of killing a Palestinian guerrilla and wounding three others deployed to quell battles between Shiite Moslem militias in south Lebanon. The fundamentalist Hezbollah, or Party of God, issued a statement in Beirut denying the PLO charge and said its fighters ``did not fire a single shot on Palestinian positions.'' But a Sunni Moslem cleric, Sheik Maher Hammoud, who maintains close ties with Hezbollah, said fundamentalist fighters fired at the Palestinians on the strategic Hamade hill, which overlooks the forward lines of Hezbollah and its rival militia, the Syrian-backed Amal. The militias have been fighting intermittently since May 1987 for dominance of Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiites. The latest battles have been waged on the fringes of PLO strongholds, in south Lebanon's Iqlim al-Tuffah, or apple province. About 700 members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement were deployed last week to try to disengage the warring factions, and no major clashes have occurred since Monday between the militias. The PLO claimed Hezbollah gunners opened fire on a PLO disengagement force Wednesday, killing one guerrilla and wounding three. The commander of the Fatah force, identified only as Col. Abu Fadi, said the guerrillas ``will be forced to return fire to defend ourselves'' if Hezbollah fires on them again. A police spokesman, who cannot be named under standing regulations, said Hezbollah believes the PLO intervention has helped Amal and stopped Hezbollah from taking the entire region. Police could not confirm the Palestinian casualties. They said the bodies of two slain Hezbollah fighters were found early Thursday in Iqlim al-Tuffah. The police spokesman said the two men were apparently slaughtered by Amal militiamen after being taken captive. Police said one Hezbollah gunman was also killed and two Amal militiamen were wounded in a brief shootout in the village of Arki, six miles southwest from the main area of fighting. The casualties, excluding the Palestinians, upped the overall toll to 97 dead and 277 wounded since the current round of clashes broke out Dec. 23. Fatah's political chief in the southern city of Sidon, Zeid Wehbe, refused a Hezbollah appeal for the withdrawal of Arafat's men from Iqlim al-Tuffah. ``We are not an occupying force to be asked to withdraw,'' Wehbe said in a statement published in several Beirut newspapers. ``We are a disengagement force. When fighting is over and its consequences are solved, we will return to our previous bases,'' he was quoted as saying by the independent An-Nahar daily. Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Ali Besharati, who is in Beirut trying to enforce a cease-fire, has warned of the dangers of the Palestinians' expansion in Iqlim al-Tuffah and called on them to withdraw promptly to their nearby refugee camps. But sources from both Shiite factions spoke of a deadlock. In public statements, Amal chieftain Nabih Berri insists on an unconditional withdrawal of Hezbollah from all territories it conquered during the latest round of fighting. Hezbollah has offered a gradual withdrawal, coinciding with negotiations on finding a way for both militias to exist in the region. There was sporadic sniper fire interspersed with blasts from rocket-propelled grenades Thursday, but no casualties were reported.
AP901021-0057 	X	Rain was scattered across the South on Sunday, and rain and high wind lashed the Pacific Northwest. Showers and thunderstorms associated with a slowly moving cold front were over Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern and south-central sections of Texas during the afternoon, with some locally heavy rain. Showers and thunderstorms also produced locally heavy rain over northern and central Florida. Heavier rainfall totals for the six hours up to 2 p.m. EDT included 2.31 inches at Shreveport, La.; 1.70 inches at Mayport, Fla.; 1.37 at Fort Polk, La.; 1.33 at Pine Bluff, Ark.; 1.24 inches at Daytona Beach, Fla.; 1.11 inches at San Antonio, Texas; and 1.10 at Alexandria, La. Killeen, Texas, got 2.99 inches of rain during the 12-hour period up to 2 p.m. EDT. A cold front crossing the northern Pacific Coast region carried rain and high wind to parts of Washington and Oregon. Quillayute, Wash., got 1.49 inches in six hours during the night. Showers were scattered from eastern Washington state into the northern Rocky Mountains. Strong southwesterly wind blew over the northern high Plains, with a gust to 66 mph during the morning at Livingston, Mont. Blustery northwesterly wind carried cold air into Oklahoma and Texas during the afternoon. Temperatures in the 70s extended as far north as the Carolinas and southern sections of the Ohio Valley. But clouds and northwesterly wind kept afternoon temperatures in the 30s and 40s across the northern half of the Mississippi Valley, and afternoon readings were mostly in the 40s from the Dakotas to the northern and central high Plains. Temperatures were in the 40s and 50s across much of the West, and in the 80s in the desert Southwest. Overnight temperatures dipped into the teens and 20s in the Great Basin that includes Nevada and western Utah, and in the Rockies. Readings dipped below freezing during the night across upstate New York and northern New England, over the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma Panhandle, and from the northern and central high Plains to Minnesota. Wheat Ridge, Colo., tied its record low for the date of 23. Sunday's low for the Lower 48 states was 3 above zero at Gunnison, Colo.
AP900529-0143 	X	Special interests paid nearly $600,000 last year for speeches by a half-dozen top leaders in the House. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the tax-writing committee, took in the most with $285,000, according to financial disclosure reports made public Tuesday. Rank-and-file members shared in the speechmaking windfall to supplement their $89,500 salaries. All told, House members accepted millions of dollars for speaking and writing, and many got more for talking than the average family earns in a year. The flow of speaking fees, mostly from special interests that ranged from colleges to banks, was hardly slowed by the allegations of financial improprieties that led last year to the resignations of Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, and Rep. Tony Coelho, D-Calif., the majority whip. Wright's successor, Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash., reported he received $32,000 in honoraria. Coelho's successor, Rep. William Gray, D-Pa., claimed $164,098. Foley's successor as majority leader, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., reported $34,500. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., was the top talk-for-pay lawmaker outside the leadership, with $160,517. House members are allowed to keep honoraria equivalent to 30 percent of their salaries and most give what is left to charity. Rostenkowski traditionally spreads the excess among churches and schools in his hometown of Chicago. Republican Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia handed over $29,304 of his $67,491 in fees to the Atlanta zoo. The disclosure statements of most House members were made public Tuesday, although some lawmakers were granted extensions. Senators' reports will be released Wednesday. Speaking and writing fees were not the only source of outside income for members of the House, which has dozens of millionaires. One of the wealthiest, Rep. Amory Houghton, R-N.Y., an heir to the Corning Glass Works fortune, received $127,000 last year for managing family trusts. Rep. Don Sundquist, R-Tenn., listed dividends of $5,000 to $15,000 from his stake in a popular barbecue restaurant, Red, Hot `n Blue, in Arlington, Va. Rep. Ronald Machtley, R-R.I., earned interest by lending money to his own campaign committee. Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., who heads the Foreign Affairs Committee, pocketed a $24,000 salary from his law firm, $11,913 in Social Security benefits and as much as $15,000 from his stake in a thoroughbred horse breeding operation. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is under investigation by the House ethics committee because of his association with a male prostitute, was paid between $15,000 and $50,000 as an advance on a book he is writing. Rep. Ben Jones, D-Ga., an actor who played on the old ``Dukes of Hazzard'' show, received a $10,625 advance for his autobiography. Another ex-actor, Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa, earned $26,219 in royalties from his tour on the ``Love Boat'' series. Rep. J. Howard Coble, R-N.C., won $600 in a congressional pinball tournament and donated it to charities in his district. Rep. Curtis Weldon, R-Pa., who once helped extinguish a fire in a House office building, was reimbursed for expenses of 19 speaking trips to fire-fighting organizations in 16 states last year. He received no fees for those speeches. Weldon is a founder of the congressional fire-prevention caucus. Rep. Chester Atkins, D-Mass., earned $17,307 as chairman of the Massachusetts State Democratic Committee. Rep. Stan Parris, R-Va., sold a 1948 Chrysler roadster for something between $15,000 and $50,000. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo., earned nearly $14,000 designing Indian jewelry. Rep. Herbert Callahan, D-Ala., was paid $12,000 in director's fees from the Finch Companies. Although Democrats, who control the House, were paid the most for their speechmaking, Republicans shared in the wealth. Republican Leader Robert Michel of Illinois reported $49,300. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, who heads the House Republican Conference, was paid $31,000. As part of a bill raising their government salaries, House members agreed that 1990 will be the last year they will receive honoraria. Senators will allow themselves lower government salaries than House members after this year but will keep their speaking fees. In addition to their speaking fees and other honoraria, members of Congress and most other federal officials are required to disclose their assets, not including their homes; their investments, most liabilities and gifts. The forms require that values be listed only by broad category. For example, a multimillion-dollar holding is reported only as worth more than $250,000. Some members are more precise. Rep. William Natcher, D-Ky., whose seniority and Appropriations Committee position make him one of the most powerful House members, listed no speaking fees, no gifts, no liabilities, no investment transactions and no membership in any organization. He listed nine properties valued at $144,978 from which he collected $4,200 in rent, and the $4,131 savings account that earned $212 interest. Not all are so lucky in their finances. Rep. Tommy F. Robinson, R-Ark., who switched parties last year, listed among his liabilities more than $250,000 he owes Jerral W. Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Jones' daughter left a $60,000-a-year job on Robinson's staff last year after the congressman and Jones had a falling out over Robinson's plans to run for governor. Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., reported assets of between zero and $5,000 with no liabilities. On the other hand, Gephardt, who sold rental homes in Missouri last year, had no liabilities but assets of as much as $915,000. Rep. William Green, R-N.Y., an heir to the Grand Union food stores, reported one of the highest 1989 incomes among House members, at least $507,857 and perhaps as much as $1.26 million. His campaign committee returned to him between $100,000 and $250,000 of personal funds he had invested in his 1984 re-election effort.
AP880827-0095 	X	The mayor handed out a harsh etiquette lesson to city workers after he read a newspaper column describing a telephone caller's rude treatment. ``I was livid. I was very frustrated,'' Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. said Friday. ``That's just the kind of action I've been trying to ferret out of City Hall.'' Paolino delivered a tongue-lashing in person to the Department of Inspection and Standards Thursday after reading the columnist's account of her attempt to get a zoning question answered. The mayor also transferred one employee suspected of rudeness to a job where he will not have to field incoming calls. The columnist, Gayle Gertler of The Providence Journal, wrote that two city divisions referred her back and forth and one worker responded to her questions by saying, ``You're not listening, dear.''
AP900724-0129 	X	The Senate will vote Wednesday on a resolution denouncing Sen. Dave Durenberger for financial misconduct. Only Durenberger and, perhaps, fellow Minnesota Republican Rudy Boschwitz are expected not to vote for the resolution. Durenberger's press secretary, Lois West, said the senator would vote ``present.'' Boschwitz's press secretary, Tim Droogsma, said his boss may vote the same way. West said Durenberger had ruled out a challenge to the resolution, which she said the rest of Durenberger's colleagues are expected to approve. ``There have been senators who said they would support him in whatever he wanted them to do,'' West said. ``Durenberger, if asked, has been saying that he would just as soon they accept it _ as he has done.'' The Senate Ethics Committee recommended last week that the full chamber denounce Durenberger for ``unequivocally unethical'' conduct in connection with a book-promotion scheme and Senate payments on his Minneapolis condominium. Durenberger will be required to make up to $123,000 in restitution to the Senate. He had appealed to the committee for a lighter penalty, saying denouncement was ``much too onerous.'' ``Once the decision was made, he said he wasn't going to challenge it. It was appropriate to argue (the penalty) in advance,'' West said. Boschwitz was considering voting against the resolution until he talked to Durenberger and learned he would not challenge the sanction, Droogsma said. Boschwitz believes Durenberger has already been punished by the length of the 22-month-old ethics investigation and the $500,000 in legal fees he has incurred, Droogsma said.
AP900526-0002 	X	Colombian journalists who have risked their lives to cover the drug trade are being honored by Harvard University's Nieman Foundation. The 1990 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism has been awarded to Colombian reporters, both living and dead, who have covered the drug industry and its effect on that country, the foundation announced Friday. Luis Gabriel Cano, 67, president of El Espectador, a Bogota newspaper, will accept the award this fall. El Espectador has lost many of its staff to death or exile and had its newsroom bombed by narco-terrorists last September. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based human rights group, has documented the killing of 20 reporters and editors in Colombia by agents of drug lords in the last five years. However, Cano and other Colombian journalists estimate that 50 news organization employees, including business employees, have been killed, the foundation said. Among those murdered was Cano's brother, Guillermo Cano, El Espectador editor-in-chief and a columnist. ``Mr. Cano has lost his brother and several of his associates to the narco-mafia assassins, and recently suffered a major bombing to the paper's installations which caused $2.5 million in damages, seriously jeopardizing the paper,'' T. Roberto Eisenmann Jr., editor of La Prensa in Panama and a former Nieman fellow, wrote in nominating Cano for the award. ``Yet Cano struggled on, realizing that if his newspaper fails in its efforts, his country's institutions might crumble, giving way to narco-mafia dominance. His courage is especially inspiring for our profession.'' A committee of the 21 members of the Nieman Fellow Class of 1990 chose the Colombians for the award, which is named in honor of former Nieman curator Louis M. Lyons. The award carried an honorarium of $1,000. Cano will travel to Cambridge to accept the award on behalf of his Colombian colleagues.
AP900726-0067 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today his country needs Western assistance to make his reform program work, and he promised that any aid will be repaid. Gorbachev spoke at a news conference after a day of meetings with Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti, the president of the European Community. Andreotti is a leading proponent of providing aid to the Soviet Union. No agreements were reached in the talks about Italian or European aid to boost Gorbachev's reform program. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union needs help producing more food and consumer goods for the market, and that factories need a chance to work with foreign firms to boost their productivity. As an example of Soviet inefficiency, Gorbachev has said 25 percent of the nation's crops are lost during harvesting and storage. The resident of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union's largest republic, today warned of a food shortage ``catastrophe'' in Russia unless efficiency improves. ``We have to gather it carefully, preserve it and get it onto the table of the Russian people,'' Boris N. Yeltsin said. ``The existing food situation in our republic is critical,'' he said in an appeal on the front page of the Sovietskaya Rossia newspaper. ``To prevent a catastrophe, we must improve it immediately.'' As an incentive, Yeltsin said the government would issue special coupons to agricultural workers, from farmers to tractor drivers, allowing them to buy goods that have been in short supply. Russian Prime Minister Ivan Silayev warned in a separate interview that if the market is not soon saturated with food and consumer goods ``the situation will be unpredictable.'' ``The prices will simply skyrocket and the shadow economy will capture everything,'' he told Pravitelstvenny Vestnik newspaper. Gorbachev said the next two years of reforms will be crucial. ``In these two years, in which we will have to make the most difficult changes, we need this kind of help,'' Gorbachev said. Some of the aid should be given quickly ``to reduce the difficulty of the problems, and so perestroika does not slow down,'' he said. However, he added, the Soviet Union ``cannot depend on foreign sponsors'' to fix its economy, but must depend largely on itself. Aid to his country will not be ``a handout,'' he said, but temporary assistance that must be paid back. The West German government has guaranteed $3.1 billion in bank loans to the Soviet Union, and together with France it pushed the European Community to endorse an immediate $15 billion aid program. But European leaders refused to go along with the plan, as did leaders of the world's seven largest capitalist powers meeting in Houston, Texas, earlier this month. President Bush says a program to provide the Soviet Union with Western advisers and know-how would be of greater benefit than economic aid until the Soviet Union makes greater changes in its economy. He also has asked Gorbachev to cut aid to countries like Cuba.
AP880707-0088 	X	A rocket blasted into space today carrying an unmanned probe on a six-month mission to Mars that is designed to help prepare for a manned voyage to the planet. Soviet television broke into its evening news program ``Vremya'' for a live broadcast of the 9:38 p.m. launch from the Baikonur space center in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. A 180-foot-tall Proton rocket capped by the probe, Phobos I, erupted in white and gray smoke and orange and blue flames. The newscast switched to the Soviet Mission Control Center outside Moscow, which reported the spacecraft's flight was normal. More than a dozen nations are participating in the mission to swoop close to the surface of Mars' moon, Phobos, and drop probes onto the small, potato-shaped moon that scientists say may hold clues to how the universe was formed. A second satellite, Phobos II, is scheduled to blast off July 12. The satellites will enter Mars' gravity in January and begin a three-month remote study of the surface and atmosphere of Mars. After that, scientists said, they will draw closer to Phobos and drop descent vehicles carrying laser, ionic and radar equipment to help determine the internal structure and composition of the moon. The probes are expected to be sent to Phobos in about April of next year, according to Roald Sagdeyev, director of the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute. Soviet space scientists said Phobos is an important step toward a manned flight to Mars, which they hope can take place in the early 21st century. Officials including Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev have proposed that the United States take part in the mission. ``First, it is necessary to draw up a more accurate map of the Mars surface in order to choose a place for the future landing,'' said Vyacheslav Balebanov, a deputy to Sagdeyev. ``Then, it is necessary to study the climate and soil characteristics and find out whether oxygen should be taken from Earth, or whther it can be gotten directly on the planet. The study of Mars renewed under the Phobos program should provide answers to those questions,'' he said in an interview with the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya. Also participating in the project are Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Ireland, Poland, Finland, France, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the European Space Agency. The Deep Space Network of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration will provide tracking data to permit two 100-pound landers to reach Phobos, and then will begin to track the Martian moon precisely using antennas in California, Spain and Australia, and a Soviet radio telescope in the Crimea.
AP900301-0138 	X	WASHINGTON _ (AP) _ Democrats on Thursday urged President Bush to take a hard line against Japanese trade barriers when he meets with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu this weekend, but they delayed action on retaliatory legislation. House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., told Bush in a letter he should go into the meeting Saturday in California with the new prime minister armed with specific proposals for opening the Japanese market to more U.S. exports. ``The time for talking about the problem is coming to an end and the time to actually produce results is here,'' Gephardt said, referring to a continuing annual $50 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Bush and Kaifu are meeting just a week after trade negotiators for the two countries made little progress in talks in Tokyo on removing structural barriers that effectively keep U.S. products and services out of the Japanese markets. U.S. officials had hoped for more progress after the ruling Liberal Democatic Party's large victory in Japan's parliamentary election Feb. 18, but the last round of talks remained focused largely on technical matters. ``Our negotiators are now complaining openly about Japanese intransigence,'' said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's trade subcommittee. Baucus had planned to asked the committee Thursday to approve a bill directing the administration to retaliate with new U.S. barriers to Japanese goods if Tokyo doesn't agree by a June 17 deadline to lower its barriers to American wood products. The deadline, established by the 1988 Trade Act, also applies to Japanese barriers to U.S. satellites and semiconductors. Baucus, however, agreed to withhold the bill after U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills told him in a letter Thursday the administration is prepared to retaliate on its own ``should the negotiations not conclude satisfactorily and on time.'' ``Hopefully, President Bush and Prime Minister Kaifu can make progress on these isses this weekend,'' he said. Baucus estimated that Japanese tariffs, building codes and other structural barriers are effectively keeping out between $1 billion and $2 billion in U.S. forest products at a cost of 10,000 jobs in this country.
AP900912-0107 	X	Chinese authorities are arresting and torturing Tibetans despite the end of martial law in Tibet, the Dalai Lama said Wednesday. The Nobel prize winner and spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists was in New York to help launch a yearlong campaign to raise public awareness of Tibetan culture and call attention to China's rule over his homeland. In March 1989, civil strife rocked Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and martial law was imposed for a year. The Public Security Bureau in Tibet later said 387 Lhasa citizens died in the anti-Chinese riots. Most of them were Tibetans but some security forces also were killed, the bureau said. Tibetans claim more than 450 of their people were killed. Martial law was lifted in March, but the Dalai Lama told reporters ``the actual situation has not at all improved.'' ``The military uniformed personnel changed their clothes to police uniforms and plainclothes. ... Incidents of arrest and torture, these also continue,'' said the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of his people. He said he feared that ``in 15 years, if present conditions don't change, the Tibetan community will become insignificant in its own land,'' now a province of China. About 6 million Tibetans still live in their homeland, but they are outnumbered by Chinese even in Tibet. ``After 40 years of Chinese occupation, much of Tibet's civilization has been destroyed,'' the Dalai Lama said. Actor Richard Gere, who is the president of Tibet House in New York, introduced the Dalai Lama at a news conference to begin the Year of Tibet, a series of art exhibits and cultural events to promote public awareness of Tibetan culture. ``Many of my friends find Tibetan culture quite healthy, quite useful,'' said the Dalai Lama, who then chuckled and added, ``But I don't know.'' Many of his remarks were sprinkled with self-deprecating humor. The Year of Tibet opens with a show of more than 150 works of Tibetan art, including 31 from the Hermitage collection in Leningrad, in April 1991 at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. It moves to New York in October 1991.
AP880812-0181 	X	The Nicaraguan government is withholding approval of the names the State Department has submitted as replacements for eight U.S. envoys who were expelled by Sandinista authorities last month, a spokesman said Friday. Other officials said the administration does not intend to replace Ambassador Richard Melton, who was among those expelled, but instead plans to send Kenneth Skoug, head of the State Department's office of Cuban affairs, to run the embassy. As embassy charge d'affairs, Skoug would not require Senate confirmation. The officials, speaking only on condition they not be named, said it was doubtful that any ambassadorial nominee could receive Senate confirmation before congressional adjournment on Oct. 8. They said Sandinista refusal to approve the envoys proposed as replacements apparently was in retaliation for the U.S. expulsion of Nicaraguan Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann, who served as chief envoy to both the United States and the Organization of American States. Nicaragua maintains that the administration acted beyond its authority in expelling a diplomat accredited to the OAS. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said a U.S.-Nicaraguan agreement calls for a reply to be given on visa applications for diplomats assigned to either country's embassy within five days of the visa request. The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry informed the U.S. Embassy in Managua that this provision of the agreement had been suspended and that both the agreement and the U.S. visa requests were under review, Redman said. ``Stalling on the issuance of visas indicates the Sandinista regime wishes to prevent the U.S. Embassy from functioning normally,'' Redman said. On July 11, Nicaragua ordered the seven American diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours, charging that they had been interfering in Nicaragua's internal affairs by encouraging anti-government protests. The State Department denied that the diplomats had acted improperly and ordered Tunnermann and seven of his colleagues home. It said Tunnermann had engaged in unspecified illegal activities during his U.S. stsy and that a U.S. agreement with the OAS permitted the United States to expel any OAS diplomat guilty of such behavior.
AP900118-0158 	X	Up to 14 inches of snow fell Thursday over the mountains of the West and extended onto the southern Plains, while locally heavy rain fell over parts of the South. Record high temperatures were posted in the East. Overnight snow accumulations in Nevada included 14 inches at Mount Charleston, 12 inches at Goodsprings and Sandy Valley and 8 inches at Red Rock. Mount Charleston had 36 inches of snow on the ground at 9 a.m. Snowfall Wednesday and overnight into Thursday across Arizona included 18 inches at Ash Fork, up to 10 inches at Prescott, 5 inches at Cottonwood, and 1 to 3 inches at Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Payson and Bisbee. In southern Colorado, 4 inches of snow had fallen at the San Luis Valley at midmorning and snow was falling at the rate of 1 inch an hour at Wolf Creek Pass. Wind gusted to near 70 mph at Albuquerque, N.M., and to 80 to 100 mph in eastern sections of the city. In Texas, 2 inches of snow covered the ground at Amarillo at noon, with 5{ inches across the west side of town. ``The plows are out, it's still snowing and it's slick in spots,'' said a Department of Public Safety dispatcher in Dalhart, Texas. By 3 p.m., 6 inches of snow had fallen on the northern Panhandle city, and it was still snowing heavily. Two- and 3-inch overnight snowfalls were reported over the western two-thirds of the Oklahoma Panhandle. And 2 inches of snow fell during the morning at Hugoton, Kan. Ahead of the snow, showers and thunderstorms reached across northern Texas, western and southern Oklahoma, Louisiana, southern Arkansas, Mississippi, and southern Alabama. Tyler, Texas, got 1.71 inches of rain overnight, Longview, Texas, got 2.01 inches and up to 3 inches of rain was reported over Houston County. Thunderstorms also produced almost an inch of rain during one hour along with small hail at Abilene, Texas. Rain also fell over sections of southeastern California, southern Nevada and northern Arizona, changing to snow at higher elevations. Light rain was scattered over northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. Record highs included 70 at Baltimore; 62 at Boston; 54 at Burlington, Vt.; 57 at Concord, N.H.; 66 at Harrisburgh, Pa.; 64 at Philadelphia; 58 at Portland, Maine; 71 at Roanoke, Va.; 68 at Washington; and 65 at Wilmington, Del. Thursday's low for the Lower 48 states was 22 degrees below zero at Yellowstone National Park. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EST ranged from 6 degrees below zero at Yellowstone to 85 at Tampa, Fla.
AP880507-0185 	X	CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather told the University of Oklahoma's graduating seniors Saturday that if America is to reclaim the ideals that made it great, today's graduates must acknowledge that ``greed is out'' and ``achievement is in.'' ``You must leave here today with a commitment to contribute,'' said Rather, commencement speaker for Oklahoma's 96th graduation exercise. ``Find a life's work worthy of yourself and your heritage, commit yourself with all the zeal that you can muster and throw yourself into it.'' In Stillwater, the state's new higher education chancellor told Oklahoma State University's graduating seniors that research funds will provide the means by which the state will successfully adapt to the future. ``Money, money, money ... that is what is needed. And we should not be bashful about it,'' said Chancellor Hans Brisch.
AP880520-0275 	X	The prosecutor responsible for convicting reputed cocaine kingpin Carlos Lehder Rivas says the powerful Medellin Cartel's days are now numbered, but a defense lawyer predicts the verdict will be overturned. Lehder was convicted Thursday of smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into the United States. Authorities say the 38-year-old Colombian was a key figure in the cartel, a violent drug ring responsible for about 80 percent of U.S. cocaine imports. The flamboyant Lehder, described by witnesses as a one-time New York City street hood, was characterized by U.S. Attorney Robert W. Merkle, chief prosecutor in the case, as the most important drug smuggler brought to trial in the United States. The verdict capped a seven-month trial on an 11-count federal indictment charging him with taking over the island of Norman's Cay in the Bahamas to smuggle cocaine into Florida and Georgia from 1978 to 1980.
AP901107-0095 	X	Lawton Chiles' coattails failed to help son Ed Chiles win a seat in the Florida Senate. Lawton Chiles was elected governor, but his son lost in Senate District 24 on the state's southwest coast to businessman John McKay. ``I feel like a winner,'' said Ed Chiles, like his father, a Democrat. ``I just don't feel like a loser.'' He said he was pleased with the 48 percent of the vote he received in the heavily Republican district. Ed Chiles, a restaurant owner from Holmes Beach, said he may not be coming to Tallahassee as a senator, but plans to visit the governor's mansion. ---
AP880930-0194 	X	Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said Thursday he will be able to work with newly appointed Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski despite past differences. ``I know his arguments and his way of thinking,'' the leader of the banned trade union movement said, speaking at a news conference on his 45th birthday. Walesa referred to the legal period of Solidarity in 1981, when Rakowski was deputy prime minister in charge of dealing with trade unions. Solidarity was banned in early 1982. ``I always came to Mr. Rakowski in those times with various problems and I always looked afterward at what I got, and not at Mr. Rakowski. I have to admit I had no complaints about the work,'' he said. ``Similarly now I am ready to solve all the problems that I am going to raise. I have enough arguments, all of Europe and the world know them,'' said Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Rakowski as the country's ninth prime minister since World War II. The government led by Zbigniew Messner resigned Sept. 19 following strong criticism of its failure to achieve reform. In his speech to Parliament, Rakowski asked for two weeks to form a government of people with ``reformatory attitudes'' and said he hoped to broaden the Communist-dominated government. Walesa said he could shed no light on exactly when planned round-table talks with authorities slated for mid-October will begin. Authorities agreed to the talks on Solidarity after a wave of strikes in August. ``Society is waiting for the round-table talks, that is evident,'' Walesa said. He said Solidarity would object if the talks were stretched out for too long. ``We are not marathon runners,'' he said. In a statement issued Thursday, the Warsaw branch of the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia urged the round-table to take decisions to change the form of public life in Poland and called for legalization of Solidarity. ``The fulfillment of this postulate (legalization of Solidarity) is the essential condition of actual reform of political and economic life,'' the statement said. Club President Andrzej Stelmachowski has played a key role as an intermediary between the authorities and Solidarity recently. In London, the opposition Labor Party on Thursday accused British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of ``supreme hypocrisy'' in arranging to meet Walesa Oct. 18 in Gdansk at the end of a three-day official visit. ``She is undermining the position of trades unions at home while appearing to encourage trades unionists in another country,'' said George Foulkes, Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman. Mrs. Thatcher's Conservative government has drastically reduced British labor union powers.
AP900302-0022 	X	The Pentagon must provide a realistic five-year spending plan because the current budget indicates that $138 billion in spending cuts are needed to meet President Bush's defense goal, a congressional report says. ``The Congress is faced with budget decisions that will have long-term implications, but without an updated five-year defense plan, it does not have the information necessary to fully assess alternatives,'' Comptroller General Charles Bowsher told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Bowsher presented the General Accounting Office's assessment of defense spending. The investigative arm of Congress found that Bush's budget for fiscal 1991 includes a five-year program that projects spending of $1.5 trillion. That total is $212 billion less than the recent five-year plan that the administration prepared in fiscal 1989. However, the Pentagon has come up with only $74 billion in reductions from the 1989 projections. ``The Defense Department is still faced with decisions on how and where to make reductions of another $138 billion between fiscal 1992 and fiscal 1994,'' Bowsher said. The Pentagon, he said, has said the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the lessening Soviet threat to the West has made it difficult to decide where and how the reductions will be made. The comptroller general said the GAO does not expect the Pentagon to act hastily, but the decisions must be made soon. Bowsher suggested that the administration ``rethink our entire weapon system acquisition strategy,'' starting with the B-2 stealth bomber and the multiple-warhead MX nuclear missile. Repeating testimony he gave last week to the House Armed Services Committee, Bowsher suggested slowing down production of the costly stealth bomber until critical tests have been completed on the radar-evading aircraft. According to the GAO, the current schedule calls for spending more than $48 billion and ordering 31 bombers before critical performance tests have been conducted. The GAO also found that the Air Force plans to make an initial production decision on moving the MX missile from fixed silos to railroad cars before operational tests and evaluations have been done on the completed system. Shortly after the production decision, the Air Force plans to buy about 73 percent of the launch cars for the MX. Bowsher said that during the 1980s, the strategy of concurrent production and testing ``was designed to get systems in the field more quickly, but it often resulted in making extensive _ and expensive _ changes after the systems were fielded.'' The B-2 bomber and the MX rail-garrison program are following the same path, he said. Overall, the comptroller general painted a dire financial picture as he accused the Bush administration of spending projections that are ``the result of creative bookkeeping; they do not portray the real situation.'' According to Bowsher, the government is using surpluses in the federal trust funds for Social Security, highways and other divisions to cover up the real budget deficit. ``If we continue along this same path, we can expect the national debt to increase to $4.5 trillion by fiscal year 1995,'' Bowsher said. ``A debt of this magnitude would require annual interest payments of over $335 billion and would represent the largest single item in the federal budget.''
AP900525-0257 	X	An administrative law judge found Brian P. Monieson, former head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, guilty Friday of failing to adequately supervise two employees accused of defrauding customers. Monieson, chairman of GNP Commodities Inc., was barred from futures trading and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine. GNP Commodities was found guilty of similar charges and ordered to close all customer accounts within 30 days and pay a $500,000 fine. Monieson's attorney, Jerrold E. Salzman, said the penalties against his client and the trading firm are on hold while the ruling is appealed to the full Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The two traders, Ira P. Greenspon and Norman K. Furlett, also were found guilty by Judge George Painter of the CFTC. A lawyer said they were considering an appeal. ``The fraud in this case was committed against the retail customers, a euphemism for relatively small public customers who are virtually defenseless,'' Painter said. ``The shame of this case is that GNP and Monieson were so callously indifferent to the wrongs done to their most vulnerable customers,'' he added. CFTC attorneys said Greenspon and Furlett engaged in ``allocated'' trades that bilked customers of thousands of dollars. The term refers to initiating futures contracts without the required customer account numbers, then keeping profitable trades for themselves while socking customers with the losses. ``The facts set forth in this matter constitute a pernicious, widespread and institutionalized scheme of cheating and defrauding customers,'' Painter said. He banned Greenspon and Furlett, both of Malibu, Calif., from the futures industry and fined them $75,000 each. Monieson's attorneys argued that as chairman of Chicago-based GNP Commodities, he was not involved in daily oversight of his employees and should not be liable for failing to stop any wrongdoing. Painter dismissed those claims, referring to testimony from others who said Monieson was clearly a hands-on manager. ``It appears that Monieson's misplaced allegiance to Furlett and Greenspon overshadowed his greater duty to the customers they were defrauding,'' the judge said. Monieson, of Northbrook, Ill., and GNP Commodities were found guilty of failing to adequately supervise the two traders from September 1984 through May 1986. Monieson was Merc chairman from 1983 to 1985. Futures are contracts to buy or sell commodities, ranging from agricultural products to stocks and bonds, at a specified price on a future date. People trade futures contracts either to lock in commodity prices in advance, thereby reducing their financial risk, or to speculate on price changes. In Chicago, GNP Commodities issued a statement calling Painter's decision ``unprecedented and unwarranted.'' If executives are responsible for their traders' misdeeds, even when the executives did not personally benefit, ``no firm could continue to do business,'' the statement said. Mark S. Boyle, one of two attorneys representing Greenspon and Furlett, said he had not seen the entire 135-page ruling but was considering an appeal. ``We still maintain they did nothing wrong,'' Boyle said. Neither of the men currently works for GNP Commodities, he said. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the Merc on Friday fined GNP Commodities $100,000 and told the firm to continue its voluntary effort to pay $300,000 to customers who may have been harmed. Under a proposed settlement with the Merc, GNP Commodities neither admits nor denies violating exchange rules.
AP900915-0036 	X	South Korea launched regular ferry service with China today for the first time since the Korean peninsula was divided in 1945. A 4,300-ton ferryboat carrying 130 people left the western port city of Inchon for Weihai on China's Shandong peninsula, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. The boat will leave Inchon twice a week, Yonhap said. It will fly a Panamanian flag because the two countries have no diplomatic relations. South Korea has strengthened economic and non-political ties with China, a close ally of Communist North Korea. In recent months it has also increased ties with the Soviet Union and most of the formerly Communist nations in Eastern Europe. China intervened on North Korea's side in the 1950-53 war between the Koreas. The two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, and hundreds of thousands of troops guard their borders.
AP880329-0116 	X	Rep. James Howard, D-N.J., who died last week after suffering a heart attack, was eulogized today as a productive congressman whose contributions can be seen throughout the country. ``He worked hard and he played hard and he laughed full-tilt,'' said House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, who spoke during a Roman Catholic funeral Mass for Howard. ``His candle burned brightly for 60 years and others came and lighted their candles from him,'' said Wright. More than 850 people, including four busloads of congressmen and their aides, attended the service at St. Catharine's Church here. Aides to Howard restricted access to the church because it could hold about 400 people, and a crowd of about 450 watched from the street as the casket was brought into the church. Loudspeakers broadcast the service to those gathered outside. Howard, 60, died Friday, a day after suffering a heart attack while playing golf in a Washington suburb. He represented the state's 3rd Congressional District and served in the House for 22 years. He was the second-most senior member of New Jersey's congressman behind Rep. Peter Rodino, also a Democrat. Acting as pallbearers at today's funeral were Sen. Bill Bradley and Rep. Robert A. Roe, both D-N.J., Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, R-Ark., state Sen. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth, and Monmouth County freeholders John Villapiano and John D'Amico. Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., also spoke during the service. ``Jim was one of the best, most productive congressmen, most beloved congressmen,'' said Udall, who attributed Howard's success to his honesty and his enthusiasm. ``I never saw anyone with a more infectious manner come to the House floor. He was everywhere at once,'' said Udall. As chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, Howard largely controlled highway and transportation projects nationwide. ``The handy work and fruits of Jim's labor'' can be seen in Monmouth County as well as across the nation, Wright said. In Washington on Monday, the House and Senate voted unanimously to name the New Jersey segment of Interstate 195 after Howard. Howard's staff says it will continue to provide service to constituents, although the district will not have a vote in the House until a successor is elected. Gov. Thomas H. Kean must call a special election to replace Howard and has said he will consider holding it Nov. 8 as part of the general election. Third District voters would be asked to pick someone to finish the final two months of Howard's term, and cast a second vote to choose a congressman for a full term beginning in January 1989.
AP880327-0008 	X	State Sen. Greg Tarver was shot and wounded Saturday night, but refused to press charges after identifying the attacker as his wife, police said. The shooting happened at Tarver's home less than an hour after he returned from a special session of the Legislature in Baton Rouge. Police learned of the shooting when Tarver's mother phoned to report it, said Police Chief Charles Gruber. Tarver, 41, a senator since 1984 and one of only a handful of blacks in the 39-member body, was taken to LSU Medical Center, Gruber said. Hospital spokeswoman Elaine King said he was in stable condition, and a doctor said he was taken into surgery. Gruber said Tarver was shot once in the upper chest with a small caliber weapon about 6:45 p.m. ``He has identified his assailant as his wife, Sabrina,'' said Gruber, who disclosed no motive at a hospital news conference. ``There are no charges being filed at this time,'' Gruber said. ``She is not in custody at this time. We are not looking for her at this time. ``Sen. Tarver requested that we not pursue anything at the moment,'' he said, adding that police would pursue an investigation in case Tarver changed his mind about pressing charges. Gruber would not say where Mrs. Tarver was, and there was no answer at the Tarver home. Dr. Darryl Williams, dean of the LSU Medical School, said Tarver was taken into surgery. And, though he wouldn't speculate on the risk, Williams added: ``Any injury in that area can be life-threatening.'' Several of Tarver's legislative colleagues and one of Gov. Buddy Roemer's aides went to the hospital soon after he was shot.
AP900319-0022 	X	For East German voters, it's not just unification that lies over the rainbow. It's Western prosperity as well. That was the main message from Sunday's historic free elections, which gave the conservatives a huge and unexpected win. Born in church basements where young activists once met to hide from the despised secret police, the peaceful revolution that ousted hard-line Communist rulers five months ago quickly lost its innocence and idealism. After unleashing tens of thousands of people on the streets, the New Forum opposition movement found that the thirst for riches soon drowned out calls to reform socialism for the good of the people. East Germans, many with tears in their eyes, asked over and over again ``what have we been doing for 40 years?'' as they gazed in wonder at the glittering shops of West Berlin after the Berlin Wall crumbled in November. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, spotting the most basic of all election issues, furiously campaigned throughout East Germany with a message of ``prosperity for all.'' Many recalled that that was also a favorite slogan of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, the late West German leader who guided the post-war ``economic miracle.'' Sunday's conservative win, engineered in large part by Kohl, shows that East Germans believe in a second economic miracle. ``The East Germans have voted for the West German mark and for unification,'' commented West Germany's ARD television network. ``It was important for them that Kohl was the one with the keys to the cash box.'' And that, said ARD, set the Christian Democratic chancellor apart from West Germany's opposition Social Democrats, who often lectured East German voters on the need to slow down the pace of unification and curb their expectations. While Poles, Hungarians and Czechoslovaks now enjoy once-unthinkable democracy, it will take them years, if not decades, to reform their economies. The governments will have to attract and compete for Western investment at the same time they learn to cope with multiparty systems. For East Germans, the road to recovery seems much closer. ``The decisive thought for East Germans may have been, `If we vote for Kohl, the money will flow,''' said Oskar Lafontaine, the Social Democrat governor of West Germany's Saarland state who will try to unseat Kohl in December elections. In fact, East German leftists had joined the Communists several times in recent weeks in virtually begging Kohl for billions of dollars in bailout money to save the ravaged economy. Each time, Kohl's heavily publicized answer was ``no'' _ not until the East German voters show they want true economic reform. Even so, it's a long way from voting in the conservatives to accepting the bitter pills Kohl's economic advisers and West German investors are likely to be handing out. East Germans, some still covered with grease and dressed in overalls, had been seizing the microphones at dozens of panel discussions to denounce any reforms that would cost their jobs. But last week's announcement that West German-led economic reforms will cost 100,000 jobs in the East German automobile industry and related sectors is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg. Another potentially destabilizing factor is the continuing hemorrhage of East Germans relocating to West Germany, many of them trying to take a shortcut to prosperity. ``I don't think the results themselves will stop the emigration,'' conceded East German Christian Democratic leader Lothar de Maiziere, the top contender for the premier's post. ``Rather, it's a question of measures that now must be taken.'' With the number of emigrants heading West at up to 2,500 a day, those measures will have to be fast and convincing. Kohl himself used his first post-election statements to plead with East Germans to stay put and help build up their ``beautiful country.'' There was no mention of the country's decaying homes nor of its pollution-choked rivers and air. Left behind with only a few crumbs thrown by loyal voters were New Forum and other leftist groups that had preached the need for East Germans to maintain their own identity and forge a ``new path'' between capitalism and socialism. ``It's not the first time that a people has forgotten its own martyrs,'' commented ARD television, noting that many of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement had spent years in jail working for their cause. Said Stephan Bickhardt of the leftist Democracy Now party: ``The revolution has cast off its children.'' Democracy Now, New Forum and another leftist group had joined together in a much publicized coalition that failed to get even 3 percent of the votes. Other East Germans also see the end of another failed experiment in socialism. ``It's just proof that people really are just looking for riches and a trip to Tenerife,'' complained government worker Elke Heise, naming the Canary Island that's a favorite vacation spot for hordes of sun-hungry West Germans each year. Added East Berlin engineer Fred Mauer: ``The Christian Democrats can now do with us whatever they want.'' And that's likely to include even more shots called by a West German chancellor eager to see his name go down in history books as the man who united a people torn asunder by the crimes and madness of Adolf Hitler.
AP880827-0099 	X	The certified world's champion credit-card collector _ he never leaves home without a bunch of them _ says he wants to get even more of the handy little plastics. Walter Cavanagh, ``Mr. Fantastic Plastic'' as he calls himself, says he is determined to get one of each of the 10,000 credit cards he estimates are available in this country. He figures it will take him five years to reach his goal. ``I figure I only have 12 percent of what's out there,'' he said in an interview last week. ``My goal is to get them all.'' Cavanagh, whose 1,099 credit cars earned him a paragraph in the Guinness Book of World Records, said he applies for 100 cards a month, and gets few refusals. `I did get a letter from a gas company back East asking why I wanted a card since I lived 3,000 miles from one of their stations,'' Cavanagh said. He doesn't owe on any of the cards because he pays his bills in full. He has found the only drawback to collecting plastics is the barrage of catalogs and other buy-me goodies he gets daily. ``My mailman hates me,'' he said.
AP900523-0057 	X	Harvard University has sold the stock it owned in companies that manufacture tobacco products because of the dangers of smoking. The university decided to sell the stocks last September and completed the sales in March, according to Harvard President Derek Bok. He revealed the sale May 18 in a letter to three Harvard School of Public Health students, who had been demanding the university sell its investments in companies manufacturing cigarettes. ``In reaching its decision, the corporation was motivated by a desire not to be associated as a shareholder with companies engaged in significant sales of products that create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm to other human beings,'' Bok wrote. Dr. Allan Blum, a Houston physician and chairman of Doctors Ought To Care, a national anti-smoking group that pushes for divestment of tobacco stocks, called Harvard's decision a ``breakthrough morally and financially.'' ``This is a historic event that can't help but send a message that there's something rotten about holding tobacco stocks,'' Blum said. Sara Ridgway, vice president of public affairs for the Lorillard Tobacco Co., said the decision may deprive Harvard of profitable stock investments. ``I think it would behoove them to look at the best investments, and our stock has done very well,'' she said. Bok said the decision was based on an Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility review. He also said tobacco companies did not adequately answer questions about ethical issues in selling tobacco and their adherence to World Health Organization guidelines for marketing tobacco products in the Third World.
AP880622-0314 	X	Orders to U.S. factories for ``big ticket'' durable goods plunged 2.2 percent in May, the steepest dive in nine months, the government said today. The Commerce Department said orders for durables goods, items expected to last three or more years, totaled a seasonally adjusted $114.8 billion last month. It was the biggest drop in new orders since August, when orders plummeted 2.3 percent, and followed a 1.8 percent increase in April, revised upward from a previous estimate of 1.0 percent. The entire May decline can be accounted for by a precipitous 9 percent decline in orders for transportation equipment. At the White House, spokesman B. Jay Cooper called the report on new orders ``volatile. May's decline should not be cause for concern. Shipments continue to show strength and the backlog of unfilled orders remains high.'' ``More news that inflation remains under control. It is good news,'' Copper added. Economists were surprised by the report. Most had predicted a rise of more than 2 percent in orders on the strength of two big orders late in May to Boeing Commercial Airplanes Co., one from United Airlines, the other from American Airlines. But those orders apparently were not recorded in the Commerce Department's preliminary estimate of durable goods. Excluding transportation, orders increased 0.3 percent. Excluding just aircraft, overall orders increased 0.6 percent. Cynthia Latta, senior financial economist at Data Resources Inc., a Lexington, Mass., forecasting firm, said excluding aircraft and defense, order levels are ``not half bad.'' ``I think what we're seeing is what we want to see, which is continued growth, but maybe some moderation of the pace,'' she said. Stronger growth would inject inflation pressure into the economy, she said. Orders in the volatile defense goods category fell 16.6 percent to $8.3 billion, following an increase of 1.9 percent a month earlier. Excluding defense, orders declined 0.9 percent following a 1.8 percent rise in April. The key category of non-defense capital goods, considered a sign of business expansion plans, fell 6.9 percent last month, following a 3.4 percent rise a month earlier. Despite the setback in May, analysts still expect export-producing manufacturers to spend heavily on modernization and expansion. Orders for primary metals, such as steel, zoomed 5.5 percent following a 1.6 percent rise in April. Orders for electrical machinery also posted a strong gain, 3.5 percent, following a 5.0 percent rise a month before. There was a 2.4 percent decline in orders for non-electrical machinery, more than erasing a 1.2 percent gain in April. Shipments of durable goods rose 1.5 percent in May to $114.4 billion, following a 0.9 percent decline in April.
AP880520-0219 	X	ROBERT DOLE Income: $310,310-$329,995. Honoraria: $106,050, of which $80,000 was donated to charity. Gifts: $11,858. Assets: $275,290-$579,277. Liabilities: None. Dole's income included $50,000 in royalties from a joint autobiography with his wife, $30,000 for a daily radio talk show and a $13,896 Army pension. His gifts included a Steuben glass apple from the New York State Republican Committee and an $800 crystal sculpture from the Columbia University Business School. His wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, reported income $221,538-$301,025 and up. Her qualified blind trust generated income of more than $100,000. She had assets of $440,005-$975,000 and liabilities of $50,001-$100,000. Mrs. Dole accepted gifts valued at $2,937, including air travel, a $900 brooch from Countess Sophie Vavlitis of New York City; and a $500 ``Cuatro'' guitar from Anibal Marrero of Puerto Rico, a $150 suit from Rep. Jim Lightfoot, R-Iowa, and his wife; and $35 in roses from Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd and his wife.
AP901217-0129 	X	The Pentagon on Monday charged that a House committee's report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is basically a ``rewrite of a fundamentally flawed'' congressional report released in July. ``There are a number of problems with the conclusions and finding of both reports,'' the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization said in a one-page statement responding to the study done by the Government Operations Committee. The panel report, issued Sunday, cited a General Accounting Office study issued this past summer that raised serious questions about deploying the first phase of the strategic defense system, commonly known as Star Wars, in 1993. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said detailed tests planned by the SDIO wouldn't be completed by the time the president has to decide whether to go ahead with deployment. Based on the problems of incomplete testing, the General Accopunting Office said it did not believe the ``will be able to give the president enough information to support a 1993 decision to deploy Phase 1.'' The incorporation of the ``Brilliant Pebbles'' concept into the strategic defense system in January drastically changed its design, leaving it in a state of flux. ``Brilliant Pebbles'' are several thousand interceptors that would orbit the Earth to seek and destroy a target by smashing into it at high speeds. The House committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., warned that Brilliant Pebbles could become the next version of the ill-fated Hubble telescope, the $1.5 billion telescope whose primary mirror is flawed and provides a blurred view of its viewing targets. Responding to the reports, the SDIO said the 1993 decision was never a decision on whether to deploy but rather a choice on moving toward full-scale development. ``Given recent budget cuts, all decisions have been delayed by at least two years - and deployment of Brilliant Pebbles would not begin before late in this decade,'' the SDIO said. The organization also contends that the General Accounting Office exaggerated the changes in design of the system after the introduction of Brilliant Pebbles. It also said the president could make a decision on the system with the tests planned. The organization added that cost estimates are continuing to drop, ``a trend which we believe all in Congress should support.'' ``The recent House Goverment Operations Committee report on the Strategic Defense Initiative is essentially a rewrite of a fundamentally flawed GAO report released earlier this year,'' the SDIO said.
AP880309-0265 	X	Here are the latest, unofficial results in the Republican races for the U.S Senate.
AP880303-0140 	X	A tentative settlement has been reached in the week-old Cleveland teachers' strike, a federal mediator said today. ``I'm happy to say that the School Board and the Cleveland Federation of Teachers reached a tentative agreement and will be reporting back to their respective constituencies,'' Jack Buettner said late this morning. ``The parties will then review the details of the proposal at that time.'' Details of the agreement were not disclosed, pending a ratification vote. Superintendent Al Tutela declined to comment on when schools might re-open for the district's nearly 73,000 students. Eugene Kolach, president of the 5,100-member teachers union, said union negotiators will recommend to the union's executive committee that the tentative agreement be approved. Early this morning, members of the Cleveland School Board said they believed progress was being made toward ending the strike. On Tuesday, Craig Brown, chief negotator for the school board, had said talks seemed to be snagged on the issue of ``career ladder,'' a plan to hinge some pay raises largely on performance evaluations. The union's contract expired in September. Teaching salaries range from $17,600 to $37,450, depending on education and experience. The average teacher makes $29,000 annually. Tutela said the district's 2,951 non-teaching school employees, such as maintenance workers and janitors, were being laid off this week. The layoffs were to continue during the strike, he said.
AP880718-0220 	X	EDITOR'S NOTE _ Since her one-woman show, ``Without You I'm Nothing,'' opened off-Broadway in March, Sandra Bernhard has at last tasted the stardom she dreamed about as an insecure little girl in Arizona. Critics praise her brilliant monologues of fantasy and pop cultural commentary. Night-life columnists dog her. That's just for openers.
AP880818-0167 	X	Jerry Dorris is one person who would like to see the Republican National Convention last longer. Business at his video rental store is up 20 percent as a prime alternative to all the political talk. ``I wish the conventions were each two months long and were held every year,'' said Dorris, owner of Landmark Video in the Empire State Building, where comedies and action adventures were alternatives to acceptance speeches. ``The majority of our customers want to be entertained after a day of work. They don't want to be bored by the convention. The general comment is they've had enough and they'd much rather watch a movie,'' Dorris said Thursday. A spot check of other stores indicated movie fans have elected to tune out the George Bush and Dan Quayle show, which has filled prime time for the three networks, and flicked to fantasyland instead. ``The Manchurian Candidate'' was doing well in some areas, but political movies such as ``All The President's Men,'' ``The Candidate'' with Robert Redford and ``Advise and Consent'' gathered dust on the shelves. Nor was there much demand for Ronald Reagan's ``Bedtime For Bonzo'' or ``Knute Rockne _ All-American,'' the movie where he first asked his mentor to win one for the Gipper. ``People are pretty bored with the convention,'' said Sue Granat, salesperson at New York City's Videoroom, where rentals are up 25 percent. ``There hasn't been a good convention since the Democrats in 1968. That had drama and violence,'' she said. Rentals also increased during the Democratic gathering in Atlanta, but the earlier convention at least had some electricity between Jesse Jackson and Miachel Dukakis, store officials said. At the Video Circus, rentals were up 33 percent for the week. ``Everyone is complaining, coming in here and saying they don't want to be bored,'' said store owner Frank Lopez. ``I guess it's important, but it's quite monotonous after a while. I mean, really, four days of that stuff?''
AP900608-0233 	X	Grain and soybean futures were mixed in early trading today on the Chicago Board of Trade. Corn prices opened higher as rains continue to hamper planting and increases the likelihood of a reduced crop yield, said Victor Lespinasse, an analyst with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. However, traders began to liquidate their positions for the weekend, and futures were moving lower. Soybean futures were steady to slightly lower as soggy fields delay the planting of the soybean crop. But the potential for increased soybean acreage as farmers switch from corn is weighing on prices. Wheat futures were higher on reports that disease is spreading through the soft red winter wheat crop in the southern Midwest, Lespinasse said. In early trading, wheat was a { cent to 1 cent higher with the contract for delivery in July at $3.35\ a bushel; corn was 1 cent lower to 3 cents higher with July at $2.87 a bushel; oats were } cent lower to 1 cent higher with July at $1.48{ a bushel; soybeans were a \ cent to 2 cents lower with July at $6.02{ a bushel. Livestock futures were mostly higher and pork futures lower in trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Cattle prices were higher on follow-through buying from Thursday's strong close and on active meat sales. Pork futures plunged on fund liquidation due to lower cash prices. Live cattle were .15 cent lower to .28 cent higher with June at 75.30 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .03 cent to .20 cent higher with August at 85.30 cents a pound; hogs were .27 cent to 1.02 cents lower with June at 63.80 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .55 cent lower to .03 cent higher with July at 66.85 cents a pound. Livestock and pork futures settled mixed in Thursday's trading.
AP881022-0141 	X	Stormy weather spread heavy rain, wind and cold air across parts of New England on Saturday, with snow at some higher elevations, while high wind whistled across parts of the northern Plains. A strong low pressure system over the southern New England coast spread rain over much of the region during the night and into Saturday morning. During the six hours up to 2 p.m. EDT, 1.70 inches of rain fell at Brunswick, Maine; with 1.50 at Portland, Maine; and 1.05 inches at Portsmouth, N.H. Colder air poured in behind the low and changed the rain to wet snow over parts of south-central and northeastern New York state and over most of Vermont. Up to 10 inches of snow accumulated at higher elevations of Tompkins County in New York's southern tier. Six to 8 inches of snow was measured across Schuyler County, and Ithaca got 5 inches. The heavy, wet snow in Tompkins County downed several trees and power lines, and at 3 p.m. about half the county was without electricity, said Julie Morehouse, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff's department. In Cortland, N.Y., deputies said downed poles and power lines caused widespread blackouts and roads were slippery and thick with slush. Auburn, N.Y., asked Rochester for emergency generators to provide temporary electricity while utility crews worked to restore service. The New England coast was battered by strong wind, with gusts to near 60 mph at Bar Harbor, Maine, during the afternoon. Strong wind and heavy rain knocked down power lines in parts of Maine, and Central Maine Power Co. spokesman Clark Irwin said an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 customers were blacked out in the Portland area alone. At Bath, Maine, the scheduled launching of a new Aegis cruiser was postponed at Bath Iron Works, the first launching to be put off since 1967. Snow was also reported over the higher elevations of southern West Virginia. Showers were widely scattered from the lower Great Lakes into the mid Atlantic Coast. Strong, gusty wind blew over the northern Rockies and northern high Plains behind a cold front moving across the northern Plains, and a few showers developed over central Montana. Gusts to near 60 mph were recorded at Rapid City, S.D., and to 52 mph at Wheatridge, Colo. While the Northeast had snow and cold, the central high Plains had temperatures in the 80s over northwestern Kansas and eastern Colorado. Readings also hit the 80s over much of southern and central Texas, extreme southern Florida and the desert Southwest. In Central America, Hurricane Joan was downgraded to a tropical storm after moving across Nicaragua, causing several deaths and considerable damage. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EDT ranged from 32 degrees at Binghamton and Saranac Lake, N.Y., to 98 at Palm Springs, Calif. Saturday morning's low for the 48 states was 11 degrees at Gunnison, Colo. For Sunday, widespread rain was forecast from the Great Lakes through the middle Mississippi valley and the lower Ohio and Tennessee valleys into eastern Texas and the lower Mississippi Valley. Rain changing to snow was forecast over northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. Scattered rain was forecast over the eastern Great Lakes and northern Maine. Highs only in the 30s were predicted over northern Minnesota; in the 40s from the northern Plains through the upper Mississippi Valley into northern New England; in the 70s and 80s from the Pacific Coast through the Great Basin of Nevada and western Utah, the southern Rockies, much of Texas and the Gulf Coast states into the southern Atlantic Coast and Florida; in the low to mid 90s over north-central California and the desert Southwest; and in the 50s or 60s across much of the rest of the nation.
AP880330-0035 	X	A cloth diaper importer has offered this town a year's worth of free diapers to show his appreciation for the town fathers' refusing to let welfare recipients buy the disposable kind. Philip D. Anderson, president of Empire Trading Co. Ltd. of Syracuse, N.Y., said he will supply as many cotton diapers as the town needs at no charge. He said his offer was prompted by a news story about the town's Feb. 16 decision to remove disposable diapers from the list of allowable local welfare expenses. Anderson said his company supplies diaper services and mail-order houses with Chinese-made diapers designed to retain their shape after laundering. The town's policy change has drawn support from environmentalists and fiscal conservatives who agree with the choice of traditional cloth diapers as an appropriate technology that saves taxpayers' money. Critics have accused Lisbon officials of making a rash decision to balance the budget on innocent babies' bottoms. In a letter to the Times Record in nearby Brunswick, Peggy Cotton of West Bath said the restriction was ``for a baby who's helpless'' and she suggested that town officials ``get their savings someplace else.'' Connie A. France, Lisbon's welfare director, recommended the policy because throwaway diapers cost $10 a box, while cloth diapers, even with laundering costs considered, are less of a drain on the town's welfare budget. France said it would be up to the selectmen whether to accept Anderson's offer. But, she added, ``I'm sure they will.'' France said she had no idea how big a diaper demand there was over a year's time but, pending the selectmen's decision, she would order a gross of diapers from Anderson. The welfare director said that while the diaper rules may have caused a stir outside Lisbon, there have been no complaints from her clients. Town Manager John Bubier said Lisbon officials have received letters and phone calls from across the country in response to the diaper policy, with ``about 98 percent of them'' backing up the selectmen. He said 200 to 300 individuals in this town of 12,000 usually receive public assistance benefits during the course of a year. The local welfare budget totals about $35,000.
AP880419-0037 	X	Sponsors of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion postponed presenting the $369,000 prize to this year's winner while they investigate charges that he fostered anti-Semitism, a newspaper reported. Inamullah Khan, secretary-general of the World Moslem Congress, was chosen last month to receive the award. He was the first Moslem to win the award, which has been presented 15 times. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith protested, saying that Khan and his organization had fostered anti-Semitism for years, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Khan, 73, of Pakistan, has denied the charges and said: ``I can never support anti-Semitic feelings because I am myself a descendant of Semitic ancestors from the Middle East.'' He said he differs with Zionists ``because the U.N. General Assembly has declared Zionism a racist creed.'' The decision to delay the presentation was announced last week, the Times said. Khan's supporters say he and his organization have been more willing than other Islamic groups to maintain contacts with Jewish representatives in national and international settings. However, The Moslem World, a newsletter of the World Moslem Congress, has published many comments critical of Jews and Zionism. The newsletter also has advertised and endorsed ``The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' and Henry Ford's ``The International Jew,'' both notorious anti-Semitic tracts. Past recipients of the prize include Mother Teresa, the Rev. Billy Graham and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Sir John Templeton, an American-born financier living in the Bahamas, established the prize in 1972 as a religious counterpart to the Nobel Prizes for peace, science and literature.
AP900404-0066 	X	Lawmakers in the nation's second-largest city approved the distribution of chlorine bleach for cleaning needles to slow the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users. The council vote was unanimous Tuesday after an emotional hearing in which one unidentified man was escorted from chambers when he tried to shout down supporters of the program. The $25,000 allocated for distribution of kits containing bleach and condoms was part of an $85,000 AIDS prevention and education program. The bleach kills the AIDS virus on needles, which drug addicts often share. The money also establishes a central AIDS treatment and information center. San Francisco is the only other governmental agency in California that distributes bleach to clean needles. New York also distributes bleach _ and recently withdrew from a program to distribute clean needles. Critics of the programs charge they promote drug abuse. Supporters say drug abuse will continue regardless of whether needles are sterilized to prevent AIDS. Dave Johnson, the city's AIDS policy and program coordinator, estimated that 7 percent of intravenous drug users in Los Angeles County carry the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The City Administrative Office said the $25,000 will pay for 50,000 to 62,000 bleach and condom kits. City officials said they had no way of estimating how many intravenous drug users would use the kits.
AP880524-0279 	X	Japan reported Tuesday its net overseas assets soared to a record of about $240 billion in 1987, making it the world's largest creditor nation for the third year in a row. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said the figure was up 33.5 percent from 1986, when Japan's external assets totaled a then-record $180.4 billion. He presented an annual report to the Cabinet Tuesday that said Japan's governmental and private assets abroad at the end of 1987 totaled $1.07 trillion, up 47.3 percent from a year earlier, while liabilities surged 51.9 percent to $830.8 billion. That left Japan with net external assets of about $240 billion. Japan surpassed Britain and other industrialized nations in terms of net external assets in 1985, with a total of $129.8 billion. A Finance Ministry spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the sharp increase came from active investment in U.S. and other foreign securities by Japanese financial institutions and corporate and private investors. The external assets also include private and government loans, trade credits and the diversion of part of Japan's huge trade surplus, which totaled $76 billion last year, to foreign securities acquisitions.
AP880818-0120 	X	Thousands of people rallied today in Burma's two largest cities to demand an end to authoritarian rule, diplomats said, and the government prepared to choose a replacement for the nation's ousted leader. An Asian diplomat in the capital of Rangoon cited reports that 100,000 people, including students and Buddhist monks, marched along the streets of Mandalay, the nation's second-largest city, 350 miles north of Rangoon. According to 1984 figures, Mandalay is a city of 600,000 people. A Western diplomat in Rangoon said at least 1,000 protesters were present at the start of a demonstration in front of Rangoon General Hospital. It was the third straight day of demonstrations in Burma's capital. Japan's Kyodo News Service, reporting from Rangoon, later put the number of Rangoon protesters at 15,000. It also said thousands rallied in Mandalay. Security forces made no attempt to interfere with the peaceful protests in both cities, said the diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity. Kyodo said soldiers armed with bazookas were seen in parts of Rangoon, along with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Meanwhile, accusations mounted that Rangoon's security forces shot unarmed civilians last week during massive anti-government riots. Estimates of those killed range from 95 to more than 3,000. Security forces allegedly shot doctors and nurses outside the hospital during the rioting, which ended the 17-day rule of hard-line President Sein Lwin. Sein Lwin resigned last Friday as state president and chairman of the Burma Socialist Program Party after five days of massive protests. He had replaced Ne Win, who resigned last month after 26 years of authoritarian rule. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited reports that the party's central committee of the Burma Socialist Program Party has been meeting daily since Sein Lwin's ouster to prepare for an emergency party session Friday, presumably to choose a new chairman. The legislature also is to hold an emergency session the same day, presumably to name a new president. The state-run Radio Rangoon said 52 people arrested in last week's rioting were freed today, including 43 students. According to official reports, 155 people had been released in Rangoon since Tuesday. Several prominent figures arrested July 29-30 still are being held. They include the country's leading dissident, Aung Gyi. Sein Win, the Burmese correspondent of The Associated Press, also remains in custody. U.S. State Department officials and a number of Rangoon diplomats say they can at best estimate the number of dead nationwide as ``in the hundreds'' given the limited movement of diplomats last week in Rangoon and elsewhere. Dozens of tourists and some journalists witnessed the mass demonstrations last week in Rangoon, but they returned with vague accounts of killings. Only one photograph of a corpse was seen in Bangkok. One senior Western diplomat told newsmen that a grisly ``battle of the bodies'' accounted in part for the lack of information about numbers killed. ``When someone is killed, (the protesters) try to get it so they can display the bodies and government tries to get it to cremate it,'' he said. After demonstrations in March, diplomats learned that the bodies of a number of young protesters gunned down by police had been taken swiftly to a cremation ground and burned. Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist and Burma scholar, says 3,000 persons were killed in Rangoon alone, including 600 who died at the Rangoon General Hospital. He was not in Rangoon last week, but cited witnesses to the demonstrations he later interviewed by telephone from Bangkok.
AP900324-0192 	X	Two Michigan businessmen and three companies they control pleaded innocent Friday to charges they bilked a Scott Paper Co. mill out of up to $1 million by bribing an engineer and putting his wife on their payroll. Federal prosecutors say Gerald M. Chernow, 49, and William M. Engelman, 52, cheated the S.D. Warren mill in Westbrook by persuading maintenance engineer David Hilt to buy unneeded maintenance and roofing equipment that was marked up by up to 20 times its cost. Initially, Hilt was given merchandise, gift certificates and money orders, and later, his wife, Ellen, was put on the payroll of one of the Michigan companies, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Gleason said. Chernow and Engelman, both of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., entered innocent pleas before U.S. Magistrate David Cohen. Chernow and Engelman were freed on their own recognizance, but they must hand over their passports and will be required to pay $50,000 bond if they fail to show up to any court proceedings, Gleason said. The two businessmen had appeared in court without being arrested. The two are charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and the use of interstate facilities in furtherance of private bribery. Both businessmen declined to comment on the case, as did defense attorney Julian Sweet of Lewiston. Also named as defendants in the 21-count indictment are Modern Research Corp. and Lincoln Technical Services Inc., both of Troy, Mich., and ABC Chemical Co. of Detroit. If Chernow and Engelman are convicted on all counts, they face up to 105 years in prison and fines totaling $5.25 million each, the prosecutor said. Modern Research and Lincoln Technical Service each face up to $10.5 million in fines, while ABC Chemical could face $6.5 million in fines. Philadelphia-based Scott Paper lost between $750,000 and $1 million in the scheme, the government says.
AP900618-0021 	X	Late this week, budget talks between the Bush administration and Congress should evolve from preliminary, technical discussions into hard bargaining with election-year politics and billions of dollars at stake. But none of the participants pretends to know what will happen. ``I wouldn't hazard a guess,'' said one, Senate Budget Committee Chairman James Sasser, D-Tenn. ``These things can go on for so long, and then suddenly as if by magic you seem to reach a critical mass and then there's an agreement.'' After five weeks and eight private sessions, the Democratic and Republican sides agree that somewhere between $45 billion and $60 billion in new taxes and spending cuts are needed for fiscal 1991, which starts Oct. 1. Unless some deal is worked out by that date, the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law will force tens of billions of dollars worth of spending cuts, an amount both parties say is intolerable. Yet neither side is eager to be the first to lay a plan on the bargaining table at sessions continuing this week, and risk being accused of championing something that the voters might find dreadful. Among the battlegrounds: will Democrats have to swallow cuts in some of their favorite social programs? And will President Bush's campaign mantra of ``No new taxes'' become obsolete? Democrats say the bargaining can only begin with a concrete offer from Bush, who called for the talks early last month. ``I thought implicitly at the beginning that the administration would present a proposal here,'' Sasser said last week. But Republicans say there is no need for the White House to lay down a proposal, and it has no plans to do so. If Democrats continue to insist that Bush present a budget proposal, ``It would be clear at that point that the Democrats don't intend to work out an agreement,'' said a GOP bargainer, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Rep. Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, a Republican negotiator who will retire from Congress this winter, said he might be willing to push a plan forward if no one else will. ``If they need a fall guy, and it's said that lame ducks are good at that kind of stuff, I wouldn't mind being put in that position,'' he said. But that's not likely to satisfy Democrats. ``We're not interested in hearing from Republican legislative members,'' said Sasser. ``That's not what it's all about. This is a negotiation between the executive and legislative branches.'' Contributing to the unpredictability of the talks is the schizophrenic outlooks of the Democratic and Republican teams. Each side has pragmatists like White House budget director Richard Darman and House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, D-Calif. They seem above all to want a deal that once and for all takes a bite out of the federal deficit, which some project could exceed $200 billion next year. But the two teams also have highly partisan members, such as Sasser and White House chief of staff John Sununu, who seem leery of agreeing to anything that might provide a campaign advantage to the other party. Bargainers say the litmus test for the talks will be whether they have accomplished anything by the start of Congress' July 4 recess. They argue that agreement is needed by around then for lawmakers to have time this year to enact a deficit-reduction package. ``Everyone feels that if we work day to day until then, we ought to be either well on our way to putting an agreement together or be pretty much facing a task that's harder than everybody thought,'' said Panetta.
AP881005-0259 	X	In 1969, like thousands of other bright, young Indian professionals, Naresh Trehan went abroad to further his education. In less than two decades, he was one of the top heart surgeons in New York City with an income of $1.5 million a year, an apartment on Fifth Avenue, a beach-front house on Long Island and two cars in the garage. He wanted to come home, to bring his wife and two children back to their own country, but his professional achievements and aspirations had reached too high. During exploratory trips back to India, he found no place where he was willing to work. So he set out to fulfill a new dream: a world-class heart hospital in India, equipped with state-of-the-art computers and staffed with Indians who had set career goals their country could not accommodate. His Indian dream became a reality when the 170-bed Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center opened in New Delhi in mid-September. ``It's like climbing a new mountain,'' the 42-year-old Trehan said. ``It's a passion for me to come back and train others.'' In New York, Trehan performed heart bypass operations and heart transplants. He was director of cardiovascular surgery at the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital, and he remains an assistant professor of surgery at New York University. Some years at least 10 percent of his patients were fellow Indians. Trehan reasoned that wealthy Indians who go abroad for heart surgery would pay comparable prices for the same quality of treatment at home _ while saving the cost of air fare and the hassle of travel. Their fees would help offset free or subsidized treatment for others. Trehan enlisted a wealthy industrial family to help bankroll the new hospital, whose start-up cost was budgeted at $20 million and, according to Trehan, will probably rise. News of the project spread by word of mouth among Indian doctors working in the United States and Western Europe. ``I was always thinking that we could do it here,'' said Dr. Sunil Sharma, who quit a job at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., to become the Escorts center's chief bacteriologist and infection control officer. Sharma, 33, declined to disclose present salary but said it is about one-tenth of what he made in Washington. The main attraction, he said, was the chance to live and work among his own people. ``The standard of living is so high abroad, but we are more emotionally attached to our patients here,'' Sharma said. ``In the States, everybody is afraid of malpractice (suits), but here we treat from the core of our hearts.'' Of the 30 doctors now on staff at Escorts, 12 have returned from abroad. There were more mundane problems to deal with in establishing the new heart center. ``This hospital is going to be 100 percent fly-proof,'' Trehan declared as he strode across the polished-stone lobby to the front door where a powerful downdraft of air from the ceiling thwarts entry of flies and mosquitos. Flies seem to be a standard part of hospital life in India, along with families who camp in the courtyards and hallways, cook meals and try to keep track of a noisy assortment of half-naked children. At J.P. Narain Hospital, one of New Delhi's largest, it is possible to walk in off the street and wander through corridors and wards without being questioned. People lie on the floors, and barefoot women in tattered saris flail the hallways with twig brooms that stir up dust without sweeping it away. At the Escorts center, security guards check visitors for passes. ``We are training our staff to a totally different level,'' Trehan said. ``And for the first time, we have introduced a housekeeping service similar to that in hotels.'' A formula was reached with the government under which 40 percent of all outpatients and 10 percent of all inpatients would be treated free of charge. About 25 percent of the rest would be given subsidized rates, while the rest would pay full costs. Trehan, as the center's executive director, will still perform surgery and plans to work for free if patients can't afford his bill. The other doctors had to agree to do the same. One of the hospital's first patients was Santosh Rani Arora, a 46-year-old widow. A bout with rheumatic fever 22 years ago left her with a severe aortic disease that causes her heart valves to leak. Surgery in 1970 and 1983 failed to solve the problem, according to her sons Sunil and Anil, both government civil servants. The sons expressed concern about being able to afford Escorts' charges, but Trehan told them they could pay $352 for an angiography test that normally would cost about $463. Later, when the family had left, Trehan said he expected to perform surgery on Mrs. Arora. ``I can forgo my fee,'' he said. ``I expect that we can help them out with the rest, and they can come up with whatever they can so we can recover the cost of some of the consumables (supplies and medicine).''
AP900730-0141 	X	A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to index FBI documents on its investigation of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance 15 years ago Monday, a ruling the former Teamsters leader's family hailed as a victory. U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ordered the government to prepare within 30 days an itemized list off all documents related to a freedom of information request by the family. The government must provide a detailed justification for any documents it wants exempted, Limbaugh ruled. ``Our family is extremely grateful. Fifteen years have gone by without them telling us what they know,'' said attorney Barbara Crancer, who sued the government for files on her father's case in February 1989. ``We've waited so long to hear something,'' she said. Crancer said it was ``pretty ironic'' the ruling Friday came just before the 15th anniversary of Hoffa's July 30, 1975, disappearance. ``I don't think the judge planned it that way,'' she said. Calls seeking comment from FBI spokesman John Anthony and Justice Department attorney Henry Fredericks were not immediately returned. Hoffa, 62, vanished from a restaurant parking lot in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township. Federal investigators have said they believe he was murdered but couldn't release their files because their probe was continuing. Hoffa built Detroit's Local 299, a tiny Teamsters unit, into a 15,000-member local, and became president of the international union. In 1958, he was hauled before the U.S. Senate rackets committee and accused of running a ``hoodlum empire.'' Nine years later, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud involving the Teamsters Central Pension Fund and received a five-year federal prison term. Under a sentence commutation he received from President Nixon in 1971, Hoffa was barred from returning to office in the Teamsters until 1980. When Hoffa vanished, he was contesting that provision in court. His son, Detroit attorney Jimmy P. Hoffa has said he thinks his father was killed because he was trying to return to union power.
AP900208-0207 	X	Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday it will prohibit paid screen advertising in all movie theaters showing the company's films. The policy will begin in March with Disney's release of the film ``Pretty Woman.'' ``Our patrons don't dislike screen advertising, they hate it,'' said Richard Cook, president of Disney's Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Audiences, he said, ``do not come to experience the mundane. They come to escape it. We must not so insult our paying guests (with commercials) and we won't.'' Disney plans to enforce the anti-ad policy by revoking a theater's license to show Disney movies if it shows advertisements. Cook said the action was essential to the continued financial health of the exhibition of motion pictures in movie theaters. ``We have been told repeatedly by moviegoers that they do not want and will not tolerate commercial intrusions in movie theaters,'' Cook said in remarks given at the 1990 convention of the National Association of Theater Owners. The Disney announcement was greeted by some groans. A number of theater owners depend on paid advertising to generate extra income. Terry Laughren, president of Screenvision Cinema Network, the nation's leading cinema advertising company, said such advertisements bring theater owners millions of dollars annually. ``It's real money. It's not pocket change,'' said Laughren, whose company has placed ads in about 35 percent of the nation's 17,500 first-run movie theaters. Cook said Disney won't demand that theaters break existing contracts with advertisers, but the company will encourage the theater owners to get out of such contracts. Disney defines screen advertisements as commercials for goods and services projected on the screen in the same theater where Disney films are shown. Previews of upcoming attractions, slides projected for products during intermission and approved charitable advertisements are not affected by the ban, Disney said.
AP880909-0203 	X	Like other frequent fliers, pilots suffer the effects of jet lag and sleep loss from flight delays, late arrivals and crossing time zones. For them, however, the consequences are potentially disastrous. The second story of a three-part AP Extra series, ``6 Miles Up and Sleepy,'' describes the growing medical evidence showing how fatigue and disruption of the body's biological clock upset performance in the cockpit.
AP880701-0111 	X	Four people were killed and 27 injured in a collision between a bus, truck and taxi near Havana, the third serious bus wreck reported in Cuba in the past week, Cuba's state-run radio said today. A Radio Rebelde broadcast monitored in Miami today did not disclose when the three-way accident occurred or what caused it. The report said 15 of the injured victims were in serious condition. In a June 25 accident, a train and bus collided near Havana, killing at least 27 people, most of them teens, and injuring about 80 other people, a broadcast said. The day before, Cuban radio reported that 10 people died and 21 were injured when a bus and tractor-trailer collided along Cuba's main highway after the bus driver was blinded by lights of oncoming traffic.
AP900213-0059 	X	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is proposing a big-power conference with the two Germanys to work out a framework for German reunification, government sources said today. She wants the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France _ the original occupiers of Germany after World War II _ to meet at foreign-minister level with representatives of East and West Germany, said the sources at her Downing Street headquarters. They spoke on condition they not be identified. Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd drew up a detailed proposal and discussed it with Britain's allies at this week's East-West ``Open Skies'' conference in Canada of 23 nations, the sources said. The proposal is expected to be amplified when Mrs. Thatcher meets Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany in London on Wednesday. Genscher asked for the meeting, the sources said. They said no date was being set for the conference, but it was hoped it would take place soon after East Germany's March 18 elections. Any formulas agreed upon would then be presented to the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mrs. Thatcher's proposal is seen as a response to critics who accuse her of seeking to slow the momentum toward reunification. The British leader has not disguised her concern that hasty moves could undermine European security. On Saturday, at a meeting of her Conservative Party, Mrs. Thatcher stressed that the 1975 Helsinki agreement stipulated that ``no boundaries would be changed except by agreement.'' ``So if any boundaries are to be changed, this requires massive consultation between us,'' she said. ``All this means the changes they are having now in Germany and moves towards unification must be done in accord with the other obligations to which we signed up.'' The Daily Mail, which first carried the report today, said the conference could produce an agreement ``tantamount to a German peace treaty.'' No peace treaty was signed after World War II, and although the United States, Britain and France renounced their status as occupiers in 1955, they retain authority in Berlin and maintain armies in West Germany. The Daily Mail said Mrs. Thatcher's proposal was a way of saying: ``Let's be practical and settle the complex problems at the conference table rather than through demonstrations in the streets.''
AP900122-0045 	X	Drug and alcohol tests were administered to 18 staff and school board members at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, and now it is the student athletes' turn. A lottery will select 15 athletes a week, starting this week, to be tested for alcohol and 10 drugs. Two of the samples will be checked for steroids. During the semester a total of 277 athletes will undergo screening in the school district south of Chicago. Football coach John Wrenn said the program already is working. ``Through the grapevine I've heard that some students have gotten help,'' Wrenn said. ``That's what this program is for, not to punish kids, but to get them help.'' Athletic director Ken Schultz submitted the first urine specimen Friday followed by the principal, Charles Smith, and 16 other administrators and school board members. The testing will cost $40,000 to $50,000, school officials said. It will be paid for through donations and increased ticket prices for football and basketball games. Athletes who fail the test will be evaluated by a drug conselor and will be suspended from school for 30 days if considered chemically dependent. They will be reinstated if they follow a treatment plan and pass a new test, but could be suspended for up to a year if they fail the follow-up test.
AP900329-0111 	X	A judge has ruled that Jesus Christ was innocent of the charges that sent him to his death at the hands of Roman authorities in Galilee two millennia ago, a newspaper in this southern city reported Thursday. Judge Eduardo Rodriguez told the Ideal newspaper the idea to symbolically overturn Christ's conviction on charges of political rebellion came to him while he was preparing a prayer for traditional Passion Week ceremonies. ``I consider myself almost a blasphemer because I'm nobody to judge Christ,'' the daily quoted him as saying. ``But my intention was to give Jesus of Nazareth a just sentence and teach a lesson to those who judged him.'' Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Roman law around the year 30 after being condemned as a political rebel. ``If that trial had been held with all the due guarantees, he would have been absolved, among other reasons, because nobody was defending him _ he only had accusers,'' Rodriguez said. He used Biblical texts to prepare the case and concluded his ruling by asking Jesus for forgiveness.
AP880611-0093 	X	Investigators tried Saturday to piece together what happened to a free-lance gemologist between her disappearance in February while carrying more than $500,000 in diamonds and her death less than a month ago. An autopsy on Barbara Mangiameli, 33, whose naked body was found Thursday floating in the Hudson River near lower Manhattan, showed that she died within the last month of a beating to the head. She was last seen at her Manhattan apartment building the day she was supposed to return six diamonds worth between $500,000 and $600,000 to their owner after a proposed sale fell through. Two brothers who allegedly arranged a meeting between a potential buyer and Ms. Mangiameli are in federal custody on charges they pawned one of the missing diamonds in Florida. They are not suspected in the murder because they have been in custody since April, and Ms. Mangiameli was then alive according to the autopsy. Ms. Mangiameli's body was covered by plastic bags and was bound in the fetal position by a Venetian blind cord around the neck, wrists and ankles, police said. An autopsy Friday found she died from multiple blunt force injuries to the scalp and face that caused skull fractures, brain contusions and brain hemorrhaging, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. She was identified through dental records and an appendectomy scar, Ms. Borakove said. ``According to the doctor who did the case, she wasn't in the water for very long,'' Ms. Borakove said. ``She was not dead for a very long period of time from the time they found her yesterday. It certainly is not months. Whether it's weeks or days, I cannot pin it down.'' Ms. Mangiameli had worked for 10 years in advertising and two years ago went into the gem business. She recently graduated from the Gemological Institute of America Inc.
AP881025-0230 	X	There is no Economy Rdp planned for this cycle. The AP
AP880630-0006 	X	One new poll suggests Vice President George Bush is running neck-and-neck with Gov. Michael Dukakis, while another survey indicates the Republican nominee-to-be is only slightly behind his Democratic rival. The new results contrast with a series of surveys in recent weeks indicating Bush trailed Dukakis in double digits. A telephone survey of 1,013 adults last week by ABC News and Money Magazine, released Wednesday, found 45 percent support for Dukakis and 42 percent for Bush. That amounts to a tie, given the margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. And a Gallup poll of 1,210 voters, also out Wednesday, suggested Dukakis had the support of 46 percent, to 41 percent for Bush. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. By contrast, Gallup, NBC News-Wall Street Journal and Washington Post polls conducted since June 9 have found double-digit leads for Dukakis. The Post survey, done June 15-19, found a 51-39 percent Dukakis margin. The ABC-Money Magazine poll, conducted June 22-25, found support for Dukakis down 7 points from an ABC-Post poll in mid-May that used the same methodology. Bush rose only from 41 to 42 percent support; those who didn't know grew from 2 percent to 6 percent. The rest said they wouldn't vote or would support someone else. Poll analysts have said they expected the race to tighten as Dukakis came off the crest of his Democratic primary victories. A Harris survey early this month found a dead heat _ 49-44, with a 3-point margin of error _ and a USA Today-CNN poll gave Dukakis a single-digit lead. The ABC-Money Magazine poll had Dukakis leading among women, respondents earning less than $25,000 a year and adults aged 35 to 54. Bush led among men, respondents earning more than $50,000 and those in the 55-64 age group.
AP880420-0338 	X	First Interstate Bancorp, one of the nation's largest banking concerns, on Wednesday reported a 27 percent rise in its first quarter profit over a year ago, when the company battled troubled domestic and Third World loans. Net income for the three months ended March 31 totaled $102.6 million, or $2.20 a share, compared with earnings of $80.5 million, or $1.69 a share. Chairman J.J. Pinola said First Interstate decided last year to increase its loan-loss reserves, and that contributed to the improvement this year. First Interstate posted a loss of $556.2 million for fiscal 1987 because of writeoffs and an addition to its loan-loss provision. Allowances for loan losses at the end of the first quarter stood at $1.39 billion, up from $542 million a year ago. However, during the quarter the copmany reduced its provision for loan losses to $76.4 million from $99.5 million. Net loans charged off were $108.9 million, compared with $92.9 million, First Interstate said. The company said its writeoff fund increased due to its January acquisition of Houston-based Allied Bancshares in a complex stock swap worth between $415 million to $450 million. Allied held a number of distressed properties in Texas, which has been hit by an oil industry slump. First Interstate has taken steps to shed those properties. First Interstate said net interest income rose by 8.7 percent during the quarter while non-interest income was up 4.2 percent.
AP900403-0025 	X	Americans are smoking less than any time since 1942. The Agriculture Department says cigarette use dropped 5 percent in 1989, the largest decline in six years. And the trend is expected to continue. Overall, American smokers consumed about 533 billion cigarettes last year, the department's Economic Research Service said Monday. Exports, however, jumped 20 percent to 142 billion cigarettes. Annual use by the U.S. adult population dropped 7 percent to an average of 2,888 cigarettes, the report said. Economist Verner Grise said that was the lowest average since 1942, when the average was 2,585 cigarettes per adult. The peak was 4,345 cigarettes in 1963, before beginning its longtime decline. The average is for all Americans 18 years and older, smokers and non-smokers alike. It is a statistical comparison only and does not indicate the actual smoking habits of the population. ``Domestic cigarette consumption will probably continue to fall this year because of higher prices, increased restrictions on where people can smoke, anti-smoking activity and declining social acceptance of smoking,'' the report said. Meanwhile, the report said total U.S. tobacco output could increase substantially this year, perhaps by 8 percent over the 1989 crop of 1.4 billion pounds. However, smaller on-hand inventories will reduce total supplies for 1990-91.
AP900912-0206 	X	A Columbus, Ohio, stock brokerage and its president, accused of numerous fraud schemes, were expelled from the National Association of Securities Dealers Wednesday and fined a total of $250,000. Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Corna and Co., Inc. and its owner and president, David A. Corna, agreed to the disciplinary action as part of a settlement with the NASD, a self-regulating organization empowered by Congress to oversee the over-the-counter securities market. The firm and Corna were accused of parking securities and making unauthorized trades in clients' accounts ``on hundreds of occasions between 1985 and 1989,'' playing fast and loose with its records _ including creating two bogus customer accounts _ falsifying documents, and not cooperating with an NASD investigation. Parking is an illegal scheme to conceal the true ownership of securities by buying them with the understanding that the original owner will buy them back with no loss to the person they were ``parked'' with. The NASD's Cleveland Business Conduct Committee said ``the conduct at issue represents some of the most serious violations of the federal securities laws and the rules of the Association that can be a committed by a member. ...'' The disciplinary committee also accused Corna of forging the signatures of several customers and former employees. The firm was censured, expelled from membership in the NASD and fined $100,000. Corna also was censured, barred from associating with any NASD member in any capacity and fined $150,000.
AP881103-0054 	X	The Duchess of York returned to London today after six weeks in Australia, carrying a toy koala bear as a present for the 12-week-old baby girl she left behind in Britain. The 29-year-old duchess arrived at London's Heathrow Airport with a white fluffy toy bear under her arm. She smiled at waiting photographers but said nothing before she got into her Jaguar car and took the wheel to drive into London. The baby, Princess Beatrice, stayed in Britain with a nanny while the duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson, was in Australia with her husband, Prince Andrew, second oldest son of Queen Elizabeth II. Andrew, 28, a Royal Navy helicopter pilot, will remain with his ship, the guided-missile destroyer HMS Edinburgh, and is not expected back in Britain until Dec. 16. The couple had a narrow escape from serious injury Wednesday in Fremantle, western Australia, when a steel cable securing the Edinburgh to the dock snapped as they were saying goodbye. The duchess _ on the dock chatting with Andrew, who was on the lower deck of the ship _ was whisked to safety by a security man who saw the cable about to snap less than three yards from where she stood. Andrew and other crew members ducked for cover as the cable lashed back like a whip and smashed into the ship's hull. The duchess flew from Britain to Australia on Sept. 21 on her own and met up with Andrew there for the couple's 10-day official tour to help celebrate Australia's bicentennial. When Andrew returned to his ship, the duchess extended her stay in Australia to have more time with him, traveling from port to port to meet his ship. She also visited relatives in Australia and the British domestic news agency Press Association said she comforted her elder sister Jane over the reported breakup of her marriage with Australian farmer Alex Makim. British tabloids criticized the duchess for spending so much time away from her baby, who was born on Aug. 8. The duchess and Andrew shrugged off the criticism and Buckingham Palace, as is customary, refused to comment on the issue.
AP880520-0103 	X	Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin has been found guilty of using cocaine after being jailed for failing to appear at his trial. Detroit Recorder's Court Judge John O'Brien ruled Thursday there wasn't enough evidence to convict Ruffin of a cocaine possession charge, but did find him guilty of using the drug. Ruffin faces up to a year in jail at his sentencing, scheduled for May 31. The singer was being held in Wayne County Jail pending a hearing on his failure to appear earlier this week. He failed to appear for court dates Monday and Tuesday morning and was arrested on a bench warrant when he showed up in Recorder's Court late Tuesday. Ruffin, 47, originally was charged with possessing a trace of cocaine after a July 28, 1987, raid on a friend's home. A co-defendant testified that he and Ruffin were among seven people who pitched in to buy 42 grams of crack cocaine. Ruffin, who lives near Detroit in South Lyon, said he went to the house to find a friend, not to buy drugs. But he admitted Thursday that he had used cocaine recently after O'Brien threatened to force him to take a drug test. Ruffin, who turned down an offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge, sang with the Temptations, a top Motown group, from 1963 to 1968. He has recently been performing with another former Temptation, Eddie Kendricks.
AP901126-0232 	X	The spot month contract for light sweet crude was $33.70 per barrel at 12 p.m. Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
AP900904-0041 	X	Eight teen-agers accused of stealing to get night club admission money were charged in the subway slaying of a Utah tourist who came to the aid of his mother when she was punched in the face, police said. Five were picked up for questioning at the Roseland Ballroom after the fatal attack Sunday night, Capt. Steve Davis said. The other three were arrested Monday. Killed was Brian Watkins, 22, of Provo, Utah. The former college tennis player was in town with his family for the U.S. Open tournament. He was stabbed once in the chest after intervening when his mother was punched. He collapsed on the subway platform at 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue after starting to chase the fleeing thieves, Davis said. ``Brian jumped in to help me when one of the muggers hit me in the face,'' Karen Watkins said. She was treated for a mouth cut. The slaying reinforced New York's image as a hotbed of urban crime. It was the 18th killing in the city's subways this year. In Watkins' hometown, one homicide was recorded for all of 1989, Provo police records secretary Bobbie Ferguson said. The Watkins family, tennis fans who have visited New York for the past five years to see the U.S. Open, had spent Sunday at the tournament and were on their way to dinner when they were attacked. Their hotel is near the subway station where Watkins was stabbed and the Central Park restaurant they were headed for is located just two subway stops away. Watkins was waiting for a northbound train with his father, Sherwin, his mother, his brother Todd and Todd's wife Michelle, when a group of young men approached, one carrying a knife, another wielding a box cutter. Sherwin Watkins' pants were slashed and thieves took a money clip containing about $200 and some credit cards. One punched Mrs. Watkins in the face. The brothers interceded and one of the men stabbed Watkins, police said. He died later at a nearby hospital. Watkins' father was treated for a leg cut. The dance club is less than a block from the subway station where Watkins was stabbed. Davis said ``most kids who get off at that stop are going to Roseland,'' and that it was ``logical'' to investigate there. Debbie Jaspering, a family friend, said she'd seen the Watkins family at the tennis tournament several days ago, before she returned to Provo. ``They were having a great time,'' Jaspering said. ``They were sitting with the family of Brad Pearce,'' a touring pro from Provo who lost in the first round of the Open. ``My sister and I had been nervous, you know, two women alone in the city,'' she said. ``And this happens to the Watkins, with three men there. It's crazy.'' Manhattan detective Chief Joseph DeMartino said police recovered several weapons, including a cardboard cutter and a folding ``butterfly knife'' believed to be the weapon used to kill Watkins. The motive of the crime was to get money for admission into the night club, DeMartino said. Arrested was Yull Garry Morales, 18, of Queens, who police said stabbed Watkins. Also arrested and booked for investigation of murder and robbery were: Johnnie Hincaipe, Anthony Andersen, Louis Fernando Montiero, Ricardo Lopez, Emiliano Fernandez, all of Queens; Pascual Carpenter, of Long Island and Ricardo Nova, address unknown. All are 18.
AP881129-0112 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev bowed to criticism of his constitutional reforms Tuesday, saying he will accept tighter limits on presidential power and try to accommodate republics clamoring for more autonomy. Gorbachev, acknowledging the political give-and-take forming in the freer atmosphere he has fostered, told the Supreme Soviet, or parliament: ``Our own socialist system of `checks and balances' is taking shape in this country, designed to protect society from any violations of socialist legality at the highest state level.'' The Supreme Soviet is considering during its three-day session a package of almost 120 articles of legislation first published five weeks ago that Gorbachev says are the first major step toward a political system based on law, not central dictate. But the draft laws faced stiff criticism that they actually stengthen the presidency, which Gorbachev assumed on Oct. 1, against the legislature, and strengthen Moscow's power against that of the 15 Soviet republics. The unprecedented criticism of the proposed legislation was highlighted by the Estonian republic's Nov. 16 ``declaration of sovereignty'' over all internal affairs and demand to review all new Soviet legislation. Several Supreme Soviet deputies, including two top officials from the Baltic republics, registered dissatisfaction Tuesday with elements of the reform. Arnold Ruutel, the Estonian president, told reporters that Surpreme Soviet deputies only received copies of the amended proposals on Tuesday. They have not been published. But Gorbachev, detailing some of the changes to the 1,500 Supreme Soviet members, said, ``It is obvious that some of the provisions of the bills were not formulated precisely enough and cuased quite a few critical remarks in the course of discussions.'' ``The draft now gives the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet the right to repeal decrees and decisions by its Presidium, and orders by the Supreme Soviet president,'' Gorbachev said. That was implied in the Soviet Constitution, which requires Supreme Soviet confirmation of directives of the Presidium, the highest executive body on which Gorbachev serves as chairman. But the Supreme Soviet almost never has challenged any such directive, and the proposed constitutional amendments said nothing about Supreme Soviet review. Gorbachev's reforms call for the formation next year of a Congress of People's Deputies, a 2,250-member legislative body that will include representation from the Communist Party, trade and creative unions, and social organizations as well as geographical legislative districts. The Congress will choose a smaller Supreme Soviet, which is to become more active. He said the Congress would have power to recall any official it appoints, including the president. The Supreme Soviet would have the powers of budget oversight and review of the actions of government ministries. ``This right will definitely be used regularly in the new conditions,'' he said. It was not immediately clear whether Gorbachev was giving up his proposal to strengthen the president by giving his the chairmanship of the Defense Council and responsibility for foreign policy. In order to further strengthen the system of checks and balances, Gorbachev said a constitutional review commission would be formed, and that judges would be given considerably more independence. To meet complaints from small republics the amendments now give all 15 republics stronger representation in one house of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet of Nationalities. Gorbachev, who led the Presidium on Saturday in rejecting Estonia's challenge, stressed the economic unity of the Soviet Union. But a specific criticism of Estonia originally included in a summary of Gorbachev's remarks distributed by the Tass news agency did not appear in the final version, and he struck a conciliatory note. Gorbachev proposed creating a special commission to settle the question of division of powers between the central government and the republics. Soviet Vice President Anatoly Lukyanov, in a news conference, told reporters that a section allowing central authorities to declare a state of emergency and call in soldiers to keep order had been amended to assure the republics any such operation would be temporary, and that they would be consulted. ``We are not approaching the constitution and the republics as something that has been set once and forever. There will be changes and amendments,'' he said. But leaders of two Baltic republics still objected. Latvian President Anatoly Gorbunov said direct representation of social and political organizations in the Congress of People's Deputies could result in one person holding several seats in the the congress. Another Baltic republic president, Vitautas Astrauskas of Lithuania, called for a new constitution limiting the central government to national issues. Gorbachev's ideology chief, Vadim A. Medvedev told a news conference that he believed the Estonian measures were ``adopted spontaneously under public sentiment and emotion that for a certain time got the upper hand in the republic.'' ``I'm not inclined to agree they are an adequate reflection of public opinion in that republic,'' he said.
AP881011-0162 	X	Rain driven by gale-force winds brought heavy flooding Tuesday to southwestern England, leaving the center of this catherdral city of 14,000 people awash in 4 feet of water, police said. The downpour that began Monday night dumped more than 2 inches of rain in two hours on the Cornwall peninsula, said a spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary who requested anonymity. Hardest hit was Truro, the administrative center of Cornwall, about 300 miles west of London. Shopkeepers were evacuated from the low-lying areas downtown as emergency workers sandbagged the perimeter of the area to prevent the rising water from spilling into residential neighborhoods, the spokesman said. Other flooded areas included the nearby villages of Carnon Downs, Feock, Devoran and St. Just-in-Roseland. Roads to the seaside resort of St. Agnes were cut off by floodwaters aggravated by rising tides, the spokesman said. Main roads into the Truro area lay under 6 feet of water in some places, the spokesman said, while the River Kenwyn near Truro appeared in danger of spilling its banks. About 50 families across the barren, rugged Cornish peninsula had been evacuated, the spokesman said. A spokesman for the London Weather Center said an Atlantic weather depression spawned the rains and accompanying 35-45 mph winds gusting up to 65 mph. The high winds stranded 400 people bound for Cork, Ireland, at the dock in Swansea, Wales, for 10 hours as the ferry Celtic Pride was forced to ride out the storm at anchor in Swansea Bay, the domestic news agency Press Association reported.
AP880927-0044 	X	The William Randolph Hearst Foundation will give $1.25 million to Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera Co., New York Philharmonic and Juilliard School. ``Our board felt that we had a real opportunity to make a mark on the future of the performing arts with these grants _ an act every bit as important as our traditional areas of support in health, medical research, education and the social services,'' Hearst Foundation President Randolph A. Hearst said Monday in announcing the grants. Lincoln Center's share will be $200,000 for its new building, which will house young artists and provide new public facilities. The Metropolitan Opera Co. and New York Philharmonic will receive $400,000 each. The Juilliard School, where music and the performing arts are taught, will get $250,000. The Hearst Foundation, a leading supporter of the Lincoln Center Consolidated Corporate Fund, will make its usual annual $100,000 donation, too.
AP900129-0140 	X	The government accused opponents Monday of attempting a coup and supporters rallied behind it, occupying the offices of one opposition party and forcing another's leader to flee in an armored car. More than 15,000 people rallied in Bucharest to support the self-appointed government that took over when Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was deposed and executed last month. News media reported similar demonstrations in several other cities, but gave no details. On Sunday, about 15,000 people protested in the capital, demanding the resignation of the Council of the National Salvation Front, the name adopted by the government that is running the country until elections planned for May 20. After initially declaring its only purpose was to guide Romania through the immediate post-revolutionary period, the Front recently said it would enter candidates in the elections. That decision angered the fledgling opposition, which says the Front _ 150 intellectuals, technocrats and former Communists _ has an unfair advantage. Many opposition politicians have pointed to the Communist pasts of leading Front members and suggested it really is the Communist Party in disguise. As the thousands of pro-government demonstrators gathered Monday outside Front headquarters in Victory Square, three of Ceausescu's henchmen pleaded guilty in court to complicity in genocide. Former Interior Minister Tudor Postelnicu, former Central Committee secretary Emil Bobu, and former Politburo member Manea Manescu, along with Ion Dinca, a former Politburo member who pleaded guilty Saturday, admitted supporting Ceausescu's order to shoot demonstrators at the revolution's outset. About the Sunday protest, Front member Silviu Brucan said it was organized by the Peasants Party, which was a dominant presence in Parliament before World War II and is thought to be the strongest opposition party now. Brucan, a ranking Communist who fell out with Ceausescu after criticizing his dictatorial methods, told reporters the rally was an attempt to overthrow the Front. ``Their shock troops came close to the main entrance of the building,'' he said. ``The whole event amounted to a putsch, a coup d'etat.'' Peasants Party spokesman Ion Ratiu said of Brucan's allegations: ``The whole thing was turned around to justify their actions today.'' He spoke at a news conference called in the hotel room he has called home since returning last week from decades of self-exile in Britain. Ratiu, a wealthy shipbuilder and real estate investor, accused the Front of staging Monday's demonstrations. Many protesters arrived at Victory Square in buses and trucks. Another pro-government rally formed around the building that houses Peasants Party headquarters, about two miles from the Front building, and at the nearby Liberal Party headquarters. ``We won't leave until you dissolve the party!'' demonstrators chanted as they forced their way into Liberal headquarters. Peasants Party leader Corneliu Coposu was evacuated building by soldiers in an armored car. No injuries were reported at either headquarters. Brucan said three people suffered stab wounds to the back during Sunday's protest, but that none was in serious condition. Brucan denied Ratiu's claim that the Front staged and paid for the demonstrations Monday, but several people outside the Peasants Party building indirectly suggested they had been under pressure to demonstrate. They said they worked in state factories and had joined their bosses at the pro-government rallies. A woman who would not give her name claimed the Sunday demonstration also was less than spontaneous. ``They were given dollars, cigarettes and lei,'' she said, referring to the Romanian currency. Both days of demonstrations violated a ban the Front has put on rallies that lack advance authorization from the police. The Front has decreed that rallies should not take place during working hours, but made no attempt to disperse Monday's pro-government demonstration.
AP900606-0217 	X	Shining Path rebels exploded a car bomb on Wednesday near the Government Palace, the second to hit downtown Lima in 24 hours. Police said the attacks signaled a rebel offensive against Sunday's presidential elections. Police said the blast destroyed a small car parked behind Lima city hall and wounded one person. Hundreds of military police quickly swarmed through the area and sealed off the Plaza de Armas in front of the palace. In Lima's middle-class Jesus Maria neighborhood, four rebels with machine guns took over an electoral office, forced electoral workers outside and set the office ablaze. Firefighters said electoral workers' identification and most other documents were destroyed. The attack came four days before runoff presidential elections pitting novelist Mario Vargas Llosa against agricultural engineer Alberto Fujimori. The first car bomb exploded one block from the palace on Tuesday night, seriously wounding a passer-by. Rebels launched a wave of overnight violence around the capital. They blew up at least three high-tension power pylons, blacking out parts of the capital and other coastal cities where most of Peru's 22 million people live. Power was restored to most areas within a few hours. In pre-dawn attacks Wednesday, guerrillas threw gasoline bombs at a city bus and at a stove factory owned by a senator-elect of Fujimori's Change 90 party, police said. They planted a bomb in the doorway of a public high school along with a red flag with the hammer-and-sickle symbol of the Maoist-oriented Shining Path. Police defused the device before it exloded. Police said the attacks also may be in response to last week's discovery of an elegant house in a Lima suburb apparently used as the group's Lima headquarters. Police said the house may have been used as a hideout by Abimael Guzman, Shining Path's founder and leader. Police arrested 31 people in the raid last Friday and found personal possessions that appeared to belong to Guzman, who has not been seen in public in more than 10 years. More than 18,500 people have died in political violence since the Shining Path began its insurgency in May 1980.
AP880711-0233 	X	The dollar climbed to recent highs against several major currencies Monday in choppy domestic dealings after posting gains earlier in Europe despite concerted central bank intervention. Gold prices fell sharply. The dollar reached its highest point since last October against the British pound and West German mark. It reached its highest point since last August against the French franc and Italian lira. Led by West Germany's central Bundesbank, intervention began early in the European trading session. West Germany, which stepped in sporadically to sell dollars throughout last week, was accompanied by the central banks of Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium, dealers in Europe said. The Federal Reserve also was believed to have sold dollars, but the U.S. currency continued to resist the downward pressure. ``It's a general feeling that U.S. interest rates are going higher and that there is progress in the trade deficit,'' one London trader said in explaining the dollar's apparent strength in the face of intervention. If the Federal Reserve pushes up interest rates to keep the economy from overheating, dollar securities would become more attractive to foreign investors. Earl Johnson, a vice president at Harris Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago, said the total amount of dollars sold during the interventions was rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1 billion, which he characterized as not particularly excessive considering the number of banks involved. Traders in New York said the market was buffeted throughout the session by mixed messages regarding the level of the U.S. currency. ``There were rumors to the effect that the Bundesbank is not looking for an appreciation of the mark, that the Bank of Japan and the (Fed) are happy with the level of the dollar,'' said John McCarthy, a vice president and trader at Irving Trust Co. But on the bearish side, McCarthy cited former White House economic adviser Martin Feldstein's prediction that the dollar would trade at 100 Japanese yen within three years. ``When you get these arbitrary statements, people get positioned badly and they bail out of the market,'' McCarthy said. ``It was a yo-yo day where people were caught both ways.'' Traders said they expected some skittishness in the market ahead of the government's release on Friday of the merchandise trade report for May. In Tokyo, where trading ends before Europe's business day begins, the dollar rose 1.36 yen to a closing 133.33 yen. Later, in London, it was quoted at the lower rate of 132.96 yen. In New York the dollar closed at 133.07 yen, down from 133.29 yen on Friday. The dollar appreciated against the British pound. In London, it cost $1.6900 to buy one pound, cheaper than Friday's $1.7015. In New York, one pound fetched $1.6925, less expensive than $1.6996 on Friday. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Friday: 1.8423 West German marks, up from 1.8415; 1.5305 Swiss francs, down from 1.5325; 6.2065 French francs, up from 6.1945; 1,367.25 Italian lire, up from 1,364.50; and 1.2072 Canaidan dollars, down from 1.2091. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Friday: 1.8460 West German marks, up from 1.8378; 1.5350 Swiss francs, up from 1.5295; 6.2080 French francs, up from 6.1820; 2.0750 Dutch guilders, up from 2.0605; 1,364.50 Italian lire, up from 1,355.50; and 1.2082 Canadian dollars, down from 1.2095. Gold prices fell in Europe after New York traders began selling platinum during the European afternoon. Dealers in Zurich said the downward slide appeared limited, and predicted that new buying would emerge. On New York's Commodity Exchange, gold closed at $434.60 a troy ounce, down from $439.10 on Friday. Republic National Bank of New York said gold was bid at $434.50 a troy ounce as of 4 p.m. EDT, down from $439 late Friday. In London, gold finished at a bid price of $435.10 a troy ounce, down from late Friday's $438.50, while in Zurich, the bid price was $435.50, down from $439.50 Friday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold rose 96 cents to close at a bid $442.04. Silver on New York's Comex finished at $6.937 a troy ounce, down from $7 on Friday. In London the metal was quoted at a late bid price of $6.94 a troy ounce, down from Friday's $7.01.
AP901219-0079 	X	Japan's Cabinet will slow the growth of military spending under a new five-year defense plan, Defense Agency officials said today. Analysts say the new plan, which is to be approved Thursday, follows Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's support of easing military spending in keeping with the collapse of Communism in Europe. Defense Agency officials and senior lawmakers of Kaifu's governing Liberal Democratic Party have opposed a sharp cut, contending the reduction in tensions has not yet extended to the Far East. Analysts say the new plan is only a provisional measure. Critics maintain that it does not go far enough in reducing Japan's defense spending. During the current $138 billion five-year plan, which ends in March, spending increases averaged 5.4 percent a year. The new plan envisions spending of $170.68 billion for 1991-1995, with an average annual increase of less than 3 percent, agency officials said today, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Defense Agency insists it needs at least $175.86 billion to meet 1976 guidelines stating that the Self-Defense Forces, Japan's military, should be capable of repulsing a ``limited, small-scale'' foreign attack. But Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto insists the average annual growth of the defense budget should not exceed 3 percent, an agency official said. Japan also depends on a defense treaty with the United States, which in the past pressed this nation for bigger defense buildups. It now is seeking more Japanese funds to support the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan. A policy paper released by the National Security Council on Tuesday said, ``The world situation is heading in desirable directions...and the possibility of a large-scale military conflict is lessening.'' Last week, Kaifu said in Parliament that he planned to restore Japan's self-imposed defense spending ceiling of 1 percent of its gross national product. The 1 percent ceiling, imposed in 1976, was eliminated in 1987 by the administration of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who actively promoted the strengthening and modernization of the Self-Defense Forces. The new plan has generated domestic criticism for not cutting defense spending more. ``The rest of the world, including the United States, is revising its security policies to respond to the new world order,'' said Kazuhisa Ogawa, a political analyst. ``But unfortunately, Japan is still sticking with the conventional stance of only seeing the Soviet Union as a potential enemy and following what the United States wants Japan to do,'' he said
AP880630-0239 	X	Scientists injected 2,200 corn stalks with a microbe effective against the destructive European corn borer Thursday in the first approved outdoor test of a genetically engineered ``plant vaccine.'' Environmental groups did not oppose the tests, which were approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture. The tests of the Cxc-Bt at the federal experimental station here are the first approved of a genetically altered ``plant vaccine,'' said Peter Carlson, chief scientist of Crop Genetics International, which developed the biological pesticide. Cxc-Bt was also injected into an acre of corn owned by Crop Genetics on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a company spokesman said. Only one other genetically engineered crop protector, Frostban, a frost-inhibiting microbe, has been approved for field testing by the EPA. ``I think the result could be reduced use of chemicals for crop protection,'' Carlson said. He said that would be ``good for farming, good for the environment and good for the food supply.'' The corn borer, a moth larva introduced to the United States in 1908, is one of agriculture's most destructive pests, attacking about 200 plant species, Crop Genetics said. It costs American farmers $400 million a year, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The Audubon Society and Environmental Defense Fund took a wait-and-see attitude. The important question is whether testing and regulation will be adequate because Cxc-Bt is just the beginning of a rush of perhaps hundreds of similiar products, said Maureen Hinkle, the society's director of agriculture policy. Carlson said the main purpose of the test is to determine whether the pesticide will spread from plant to plant, an undesireable effect. The microbe works by attacking the alkaline stomach of corn borers, giving them ulcers. It doesn't affect humans, according to researchers. In previous laboratory experiments, the microbe killed the borers in petrie dishes and sickened them when tested in a greenhouse, the company said. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends, said the pesticide hasn't been shown to work in greenhouse tests and has lowered corn yields during some tests.
AP880416-0081 	X	Negotiators for Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the Contra rebels started a second day of meetings today in the capital in an effort to end the nation's 6-year-old war. After a brief round of talks Friday night, the first ever in Managua between the U.S.-supported rebels and Sandinista leaders, the two groups met this morning for more extensive discussions. The meeting started at 9 a.m. (11 a.m. EDT) and was expected to last for about 12 hours. Forty high-level Contra officials, some in Managua for the first time since 1979, came ``in search of what (they) tried to attain for many years ... democracy and liberty for the Nicaraguan people,'' Adolfo Calero, head of the rebels' Nicaraguan Resistance, told a news conference. Earlier, he told reporters at Sandino International Airport that the Contra leaders' presence in Managua ``is a triumph'' for their cause. But Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, the Sandinistas' main bargainer, said, ``The victory is when we reach a definitive cease-fire. It doesn't involve mounting a publicity show, but of complying'' with a preliminary peace plan signed March 23. The talks mark the first time since the war began that the Sandinistas have allowed rebel leaders to openly come to Managua. They are designed to move the two sides closer to halting the fighting that has claimed more than 26,000 lives since it began in November 1981, according to the government. Agreement on details of the truce was reached during talks that concluded Friday in the southern border post of Sapoa, 90 miles from Managua. The two sides in those talks issued a statement that said ``considerable progress'' had been made in narrowing their differences and that additional discussions would be held. The talks were called for in the preliminary peace plan. As part of that agreement, a 60-day cease-fire went into effect on April 1 to give both sides time to work out a lasting peace. But the two sides were unable to agree on important issues such as verification that the Contra fighters have moved into seven designated cease-fire zones, how the rebels would be resupplied, and if they should be allowed to keep their weapons. ``We will try to seek mechanisms in order to guarantee physical and moral security for our combatants,'' said Azucena Ferry, a member of the rebel directorate. Under the agreement, the Contras were supposed to have gathered in the zones by Friday, but there was no indication that occurred. The Sandinistas, in return, were to have released 700 political prisoners, allowed humanitarian aid for the rebels and permitted the insurgents to send representatives to take part in internal political discussions. The Contra leaders arrived more than four hours late on a commercial flight from San Jose, Costa Rica, and relatives gathered at the airport to greet them. Violetta Chamorro, the co-owner of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, waited to see her son, Contra leader Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, returning to Managua for the first time since 1986. Earlier, her newspaper's building was the target of a protest by about 300 teen-agers who pelted the building with rocks to protest the publication's pro-rebel stand. The demonstrators said they belonged to a group called Sandinista Youth. Witnesses who insisted on anonymity said a young man was slightly injured by a pail thrown from the roof. The Interior Ministry immediately banned all demonstrations and alcohol sales around the airport and hotel where the Contras were staying and closed the main road to the airport. Contra leaders claim they have about 10,000 rebels under arms. The Sandinistas claim they have an armed force of 300,000 men and women, including an 80,000-man army. The cease-fire was called for under a Central American peace plan signed by five Central American presidents last August.
AP880722-0144 	X	Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said today that a wave of public ``retribution'' against groups whose problems are seen as their own doing, including smokers and drunken drinkers, could spread to AIDS victims by the next decade. ``Such a response would be tragic, but not unexpected to the health profession,'' Koop said. He cited the recent passing of laws to segregate smokers and public ``retribution against drunk drivers, teenagers who become pregnant, drug addicts and wife beaters.'' The anti-smoking attitude, he said, is being expressed in the adoption of laws setting up no-smoking areas in restaurants and banning smoking from entire office buildings and workplaces. ``These are examples of public retribution exercised against smokers,'' he said, also telling his audience, ``Most Americans would like to see all smokers stop.'' And he said it is possible that the American people, ``already traveling the road of retribution,'' will extend that retribution against AID victims in the 1990s, ``when the annual health bill for the disease reaches $5 billion.'' He did not say what retribution might be taken against people suffering from the fatal disease. The challenge to health professionals, he said, will be to move reaction to more responsive, productive and tolerant attitudes toward those with AIDS. The surgeon general commented in a speech after reeceiving an honorary fellowship from the American College of Legal Medicine. AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is a contagious disease that attacks the body's immune system, rendering it incapable of resisting other diseases and infections. The virus most often is spread through close contact with blood, blood products or semen from infected persons. The incurable condition is believed caused by an unusual virus, now called human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, discovered in France and the United States. Its chief victims have been homosexual men and intravenous drug users, although a small percentage of cases are attributed to transfusions of contaminated blood, heterosexual contact and spread from infected pregnant women to their offspring. As of July 4, AIDS had been diagnosed in 66,464 Americans, of whom more than half, or 37,535 have died since June 1981, according to the CDC. No one is known to have recovered from AIDS.
AP881105-0011 	X	The complete works of filmmaker Milos Forman, Oscar-winning director of ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' and ``Amadeus,'' are being bought for distribution in Czechoslovakia 20 years after he left his native land. A report in Friday's Communist Party daily newspaper Rude Pravo announced the purchase, confirming rumors in Prague that Forman movies such as ``Hair'' finally will be seen in the country where he spent his first 36 years. ``It is great that they will show his films at last, I just don't know why they couldn't do so before,'' actress Vera Kresadlova, Forman's first wife and mother of his twin sons, told The Associated Press by phone. ``I guess they finally realized that if Milos `walks' the streets of Prague again, it doesn't have to cause a riot.'' A Prague film critic who asked to remain anonymous welcomed the news and opined it indicated that ``those friends and colleagues of his (Forman's) who managed to keep the lid on his work for a long time are finally retiring.'' Forman's first films were made in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, including ``Fireman's Ball,'' which is enjoying another run in Prague right now, according to Rude Pravo. Forman moved to the United States in 1968, when Warsaw Pact tanks ended the ``Prague Spring'' reforms, and started his second career with ``Taking Off'' in 1971. But it was ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' that brought him worldwide fame, winning five Oscars and becoming a symbol of artistic skill for Czechoslovaks who were not able to see the film officially. In 1977, Forman was given American citizenship and went on to make ``Hair'' and ``Ragtime.''Neither was purchased by Czechoslovakia's state-run film distribution firms. With the spread of video in the 1980s, bootleg copies spread on the black market in Czechoslovakia. Forman returned to Czechoslovakia in 1983 to shoot ``Amadeus'' in Prague. The film was shown in 1986 as Czechoslovakia's most other famous exile in the United States, tennis star Martina Navratilova, returned to her native land to play in the Federation Cup tournament. In 1987, Forman went to Moscow's international film festival as signs emerged that the Soviet drive for more openness in the arts was breaking down some previous tabus in Czechoslovakia's state-run arts.
AP900911-0063 	X	Federal parole officers are recommending that former U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon, who was impeached and removed from office, be sent back to prison for carrying guns on a turkey hunt. Herb Lepchenske, one of two officers who conducted a parole revocation hearing Monday, said he will recommend Nixon serve 10 months of the remaining three years of his five-year sentence. Nixon, 61, was paroled in November 1989 on a conviction of lying to a federal grand jury. The seven-member Parole Commission in Atlanta will review the recommendation, and could give Nixon as little as a reprimand or as much as the full remaining three years of the sentence. At the hearing, Nixon said he was carrying guns in cases when he was arrested April 25 for hunting wild turkey over a baited field. Nixon, who is appealing his conviction on that state offense, testified he had changed his mind about hunting that day and never took the guns out. Chester Diaz, a state Department of Wildlife investigator, testified that Nixon asked him to pretend he wasn't carrying a rifle and a shotgun. Nixon knew the guns he had were illegal for a felon and asked if he could switch them for an old-fashioned muzzleloader, Diaz said. ``I told him `No, sir,''' said Diaz. ``I'm very, very remorseful for what I've done,'' Nixon said Monday. ``I haven't slept much since this happened.''
AP901219-0206 	X	The Associated Press poll on homelessness was conducted by telephone Dec. 5-9 among a random sample of 1,004 adults in the contiguous United States. Interviewing was done by ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa. The results were weighted to adjust for variations in the sample. The poll had a three-point margin of sampling error, meaning that 19 of 20 times its findings should be within three points of the result if every adult American were asked the same questions. The error margin is larger for subgroups. There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions. These are the questions in this poll; because of rounding, sums may not total 100: 1. Is your knowledge of the homeless a result of something you have seen or dealt with in person, or is it just based on news reports and word of mouth? In person: 45 percent. Word of mouth: 54 percent. Don't know or no answer: 2 percent. 2. Which of the following statements best reflects your attitude toward the homeless in the United States today? - The homeless themselves are mainly at fault because of their unwillingness to work or their behavior, such as alcohol or drug use: 17 percent. - Our society is mainly at fault because we do not provide sufficient housing for them: 20 percent. - Neither the homeless nor society is mainly at fault because they become homeless through tough breaks or bad economic luck: 41 percent. - (volunteered answer) Combination of both homeless and society: 17 percent. - Don't know or no answer: 5 percent. 3. Do you think federal spending on helping the homeless should be increased, decreased, or remain the same? Increased: 58 percent. Decreased: 7 percent. Remain the same: 23 percent. DK-NA: 12 percent. (For those who said increased) Would you be willing to pay more taxes for that? Yes: 75 percent. No: 22 percent. DK-NA: 3 percent. 4. I'm going to ask you to rate the chances that you or a member of your family could become homeless in the coming year. Do you personally feel the chances are ... Very likely: 4 percent. Somewhat likely: 11 percent. Somewhat unlikely: 16 percent. Not at all likely: 67 percent. DK-NA: 3 percent. 5. Do you know someone who has become homeless in the last year? Yes: 15 percent. No: 85 percent.
AP901112-0112 	X	Hundreds of masked youths battled police and set 30 cars ablaze Monday as police in Paris blocked the route of more than 100,000 students demanding better conditions at their high schools. It was the worst violence in a month of nationwide student protests. Riot police fired water cannons and hundreds of rounds of tear gas at demonstrators, who pelted officers with rocks and bottles, smashed windows and looted stores. Police headquarters said 104 officers were hurt, including 18 hospitalized. Police reported 52 arrests in Paris, and a dozen youths arrested for vandalism during a protest march in Montbelaird, eastern France. In all, about 100 vehicles were damaged in Paris, police said. About 150,000 students took part in demonstrations elsewhere in France. President Francois Mitterrand promised steps would be taken to address student demands. They want more government spending to improve security, upgrade substandard facilities, modernize curricula and hire more teachers. The main throng of protesters in Paris was orderly, but hundreds of youths on the fringes ran wild. Many rioters wore masks and carried clubs. Journalists were beaten. Mitterrand and Education Minister Lionel Jospin met with a delegation of student leaders and promised an emergency plan in response to demands for better education and safety on campus. Monday's march began at the Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris, where 201 years ago rioters stormed the prison to start the French Revolution. In the Montparnasse neighborhood of southern Paris, gangs started smashing windows and robbing street vendors about two hours after the march started. Police Chief Pierre Verbrugghe, who deployed 5,000 officers, told students they would not be allowed to follow their planned route and finish their march on the Champs Elysees. Many students obeyed the orders, but a few hundred youths squared off against police at the Alma bridge. Police fired water cannons when they tried to cross, scattering the rioters who hurled rocks and trash. The youths regrouped and repeated attempts to break through police line. Vandals set fire to trash and dismantled bus stops. Jospin promised more discussions with student leaders Tuesday and throughout the week, and said such talks should be held on the local level as well. Organizers claimed 200,000 students joined the Paris march, but other observers estimated the turnout at closer to 100,000. It was the first time students from the provinces were urged to join a march in the capital. Those who couldn't come to Paris staged their own protests in dozens of smaller cities. Dozens of previous student marches and rallies across France over the past four weeks have been peaceful, except for sporadic vandalism blamed by student leaders on provocateurs. On Nov. 5, an estimated 150,000 students participated in marches nationwide. The protests began with student strikes last month in the tough northern suburbs of Paris after the gang rape of a girl in a school lavatory and assaults on teachers. Protesters have complained of drug trafficking, theft and extortion on campus. Most protesters come from relatively low-income families, and many are children of immigrants. They view education as the key to advancement, and resent a seemingly second-class treatment of schools in the high-rise slums that ring many major cities. ``I'm from a bourgeois neighborhood, so our problems with security and infrastructure are not that great,'' said marcher Fabien Liabastre, 16, of Sceaux. ``But even our school has wire hanging out of the wall and water leaks throughout the ceiling.'' The students have broad public support and the government has proposed increasing the education budget by 9 percent in 1991. But students worry that improvements won't come quickly enough to help them win university admission or decent jobs.
AP881019-0093 	X	The Food and Drug Administration today announced new drug approval procedures to speed development of treatments for life-threatening diseases like AIDS. In essense, the new regulation would create a mechanism for the FDA to work with drug companies in the earliest stages of a drug's development to refine preliminary tests in animals and humans to get the most useful data in the shortest possible time. While that clearly could shorten the approval time for drugs that subsequently prove to be safe and effective, in most cases it would require a larger financial commitment from drug developers long before they have any realistic assessment of whether the drug will eventually pan out and thus enable them to recover their research investment. FDA Commissioner Frank E. Young acknowledged at a news conference that the revised procedures would show results only if private pharmaceutical companies take advantage of new opportunities to get the FDA involved in earlier stages of drug development. The word ``may'' is scattered throughout the proposal, establishing clearly that it creates new options for drug companies rather than requirements in the drug approval process. The regulation is being published in the Federal Register as an ``interim rule'' with a 60-day public comment period, meaning it is effective immediately. Young said repeatedly that he did not want to ``overpromise'' the likelihood of dramatic changes in early development of drugs for AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Nonetheless, he defended the agency against charges by AIDS activists that the new regulations are politically motivated to help the campaign of Vice President George Bush _ who has headed the Reagan administration's effort on easing regulatory red tape at the FDA and other federal agencies. Young pointed out that Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis agreed at their first debate that they are in essential agreement on how to cope with the AIDS epidemic, including support for federal anti-discrimination to protect people carrying the AIDS virus. The FDA commissioner used two analogies in explaining his view of how the new regulations would work: as a college professor giving students a clear idea of the answers he was looking for on an essay test question, rather than leaving for the students to guess what was on the professor's mind; and of the agency being more like a baseball catcher _ ``helping call the signals'' _ rather than strictly as an umpire _ ``just calling safe and out.'' In simplified terms, the new procedures encourage drug developers to meet with FDA regulators when they are getting ready to go into Phase II testing _ after preliminary animal and human tests have established the safety of a drug. The idea is that the FDA would help the companies design studies specifically greared to answering the scientific questions about a drug that the agency considers most pressing. If that happens, and the Phase II tests clearly establish that the drug is effective, the final step before approval _ Phase III testing on reasonably large numbers of patients _ could be sharply curtailed or perhaps even bypassed. Emphasizing that the new procedures would be used only for drugs designed to treat life-threatening diseases where no effective therapy is available, Young said, ``a treatment could be approved even if some questions reamin to be answered by researchers.'' ``There might be questions about the very best way to use a drug, the lowest dose that was effective, for example,'' he said. ``Such questions could be studied after the drug was approved and would not delay its approval.''
AP901114-0143 	X	U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday adopted their first comprehensive guidelines on human sexuality, portraying it in exalting terms and calling for it to be taught in Catholic schools. Against some opposition and attempts at delay, the document was approved by a strong voice vote by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It says sexual education should be taught in schools and parishes as well as in families, a provision strongly opposed by several bishops who said many parents want such education kept in the home. One said families might remove their children from Catholic schools if sex education is required. Describing sexuality as a ``wonderful gift,'' the bishops say they approach the subject with a ``deep and abiding sense of appreciation, wonder and respect.'' They add: ``We are dealing with a divine gift, a primal dimension of each person, a mysterious blend of spirit and body, which shares in God's own creative love and life. ... ``Sexuality is a dimension of one's restless heart, which continually yearns for interpersonal communion, glimpsed and experienced to varying degrees in this life, ultimately finding full oneness only in God, here, and hereafter.'' The 185-page document, called ``Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Lifelong Learning,'' was developed by a special task force, including experts in various fields. Auxiliary Bishop William Newman of Baltimore, said the effort was to present the subject in ``positive terms and with flow.'' Much of it has a lilting sweep in phrasing. ``We are created not as angels or pure spirits, but as human beings, embodied and sexual,'' the document says. ``The gift of sexuality involves the whole person because it permeates all facets of the human personality: the physical, the psycho-emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual and ethical and the social,'' the bishops say. ``Sexuality prompts each of us from within, calling us to personal as well as spiritual growth and drawing us out from self to interpersonal bonds and commitments with others, both women and men.'' The document affirms the church's traditional teaching that condones intercourse only in marriage. ``Like all our human powers and freedoms, sexuality can be channeled for good or ill ... can be abused, sometimes intentionally, sometimes through immaturity or ignorance... ``Given how important sexuality is ... such errors in judgment frequently have a profound impact for ill on ne's psyche, human commitments and relationship with God,'' it says. Bishop Kenneth E. Untener of Saginaw, Mich. noted the document mentions that some dissent from the church ban against contraception and urges they pray and reconsider. He said they might respond, ``We will if you will.'' Refering to widespread disagreement with the contraception ban among Catholics, he urged listening to them. ``If we don't, it will cause great damage to the church at large,'' he told fellow bishops, saying the church's credibility depended on it. Some bishops complained that many parents wanted sexual education kept in the home, and not taught in school. Auxiliary Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York, protested that the document had been shaped without wide parental consultation. He sought unsuccessfully to get it tabled. He said if sexual education is required, many parents ``will pull their children out of Catholic schools.'' Considerable debate came on a section dealing with homosexuality, and a move was made to insert a 1986 Vatican declaration that homosexuality is an ``objective disorder'' involving a tendency to moral evil. However, Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, said that the Vatican's philosophical analysis had been misinterpreted to mean ``the person was intrinsically disordered and intrinsically bad.'' The matter was put in a footnote, along with an explanation of the distinction between the technical and personal implications. ``Homosexual orientation, because it is not freely chosen, is not sinful,'' an added line said. The portion on teaching about sexuality focuses on the different stages of life, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The bishops, on the third day of their four-day annual meeting, also approved a major aid program to long-suppressed churches of Eastern Europe. A national collection was to be made for three, and perhaps five years, to fund the operation. Asked how much was expected from such fund drives, Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis told a news conference,``Millions.'' He said other special drives have yielded more than $10 million annually.
AP900205-0252 	X	The stock market posted a modest advance today, with prices extending the day's gains in the final hour of trading. But activity overall was relatively subdued as worries about rising interest rates tended to restrain the advance. The stock market has labored for much of this year under the weight of lackluster corporate earnings reports and rising interest rates. Interest rates have been rising in recent days in anticipation of this week's government auction of $30 billion in new securities. Higher rates make yields on short-term securities more competitive with those on stocks and could hurt the corporate earnings outlook. But even as rates edged higher again today, stock prices gained ground and managed to maintain their tiny gains through the day. In the final hour of trading, prices pushed even higher.
AP900625-0129 	X	Iran appealed Monday for medical supplies to treat earthquake victims, and countries worldwide answered with tons of foreign relief shipments and millions in cash donations. Iran's U.N. ambassador, Kamal Kharrazi, acknowledged help from the United States and said the disaster ``may create a better atmosphere for relations between Iranian and American peoples.'' A private American relief plane was one of at least 68 that landed in Tehran on Sunday and early Monday, bringing the first overt shipment of U.S. aid to Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran also has accepted $291,000 in U.S. government relief in the form of blankets, tents, water jugs and other supplies. A separate Red Cross charter flight left Washington carrying supplies donated by the U.S. government. Australia, Belgium, Libya and North Korea were among 26 countries announcing or sending aid. Saudi Arabia, which severed relations with Iran in April 1988, said it would send 40 planeloads of supplies in the next few days. Even Iraq, which fought Iran in the 1980-88 Persian Gulf war, offered help. British author Salman Rushdie, who Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered killed for a novel many Moslems considered offensive, pledged $8,650 for quake survivors, the British newspaper The Independent reported. The powerful quake rocked northern Iran on Thursday, killing an estimated 50,000 people and leaving at least 500,000 homeless, the Iranian U.N. mission said Monday. The mission released its latest figures with an urgent appeal for antibiotics, surgical gloves, X-ray equipment and other medical equipment. In Paris, UNESCO on Monday announced the start of a campaign to raise funds to rebuild schools wrecked by the earthquake. The director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Federico Mayor, said about half of those rendered homeless by the quake were children. Communist North Korea announced Monday that it had sent a 58-member medical team and pledged $1 million in aid to victims of the quake. The Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, said part of the aid shipment was sent on the same plane Monday as a medical team from the North Korean Red Cross. The Australian government pledged a $790,000 donation, and Belgium pledged $425,000. Sweden on Monday donated another $2.2 million above the $750,000 it pledged Friday. The money will be handled through the Red Cross, it said. Libya sent a planeload of relief aid to Tehran to help victims, the official Libyan news agency JANA reported Monday. The shipment, which arrived Sunday, contained food, medicine, tents and blankets, said the brief dispatch, monitored in Rome. An AmeriCares' chartered cargo jet carrying 42 tons of U.S. aid _ including bandages, antiseptic burn cream, and tents _ arrived in Tehran on Sunday. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic ties since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Islamic militants, who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979 and 1980.
AP880926-0082 	X	Previous joint excavations in Laos were in February 1985, February 1986 and in May. ``A total...'' 16th graf
AP901031-0180 	X	A hunter was charged Wednesday with accidentally killing a man he mistook for a turkey. Game wardens said the victim, Charles Boyer, was crouching near some bushes and calling turkeys when he was shot in the forehead. Boyer wore clothes with blue-gray parches that resemebled turkey heads, said Lorraine Yocum, a law enforcement supervisor for the state Game Commission. Troy Alan Moore, hunting with a separate party about 90 yards away, saw blue-gray spots moving and fired at them, grazing Boyer above the right eyebrow, Ms. Yocum said. Boyer, 43, of New Galilee, lost a lot of blood during the 40 minutes it took paramedics to get to the remote spot on a timber company's property in Deerfield Township, she said. He died shortly after they arrived. Moore, 24, of Tidioute, was booked on a misdemeanor charge of killing a human being while hunting with a firearm. Arraignment was set for Nov. 16. Moore faces a fine of up to $5,000 and a 10-year revocation of his hunting license if convicted. Unlike deer hunters, turkey hunters in the state aren't required to wear bright orange because it alerts the birds, Ms. Yocum said. Since Pennsylvania's small-game season opened Saturday, three people have died in turkey hunting accidents, the Game Commission said. A man who in 1988 shot a woman he mistook for a deer was acquitted earlier this month by a Superior Court jury in Bangor, Maine.
AP880512-0328 	X	Sears, Roebuck and Co. said Thursday it had agreed to sell Midland International, an electronics division of Western Auto Supply Co., to Glenayre Electronics Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, for $35 million. Sears acquired Western Auto, a Kansas City-based auto-parts and hardware chain, earlier this year for about $400 million. The Midland sale was subject to a definitive agreement being reached. Midland is a major supplier of equipment for the wireless communications industry with facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, Sears stated. Midland is a significant supplier of land mobile radios and associated equipment to Glenayre, according to L. Claude Simmonds, Glenayre's chairman and chief executive. Midland's senior management will remain in place, Simmonds said.
AP881014-0242 	X	An Iranian official said both presidential candidates have asked Iran for help securing the release of hostages held in Lebanon. Hussein Sheikholeslam, a deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, spoke at a news conference late Thursday in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, where he stopped en route to Kenya. He said Republican candidate George Bush and Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis made contact with Iran through third parties, including governments and individuals. Bush has denied this, and officials in Washington insist the United States has no direct or indirect contacts with the Iranians. Sheikholeslam said the identity of the intermediaries is ``a touchy question'' and that he did not want to get involved ``in the election games of the United States.'' But he said the contacts were not at the level of those conducted in 1986 that led to the Irangate scandal, in which arms were secretly sold to Iran. He did not elaborate. Sheikholeslam stressed that normalizing relations with the United States should be separated from the issue of the hostages held in Lebanon. Iranian-backed Shiite Moslem militants are believed to hold most of the 14 Westerners missing in Lebanon. Nine of the captives are American. The longest held is American Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press. He was kidnapped March 16, 1985. Sheikholeslam said Iran also was concerned about four Iranians who have been missing in Lebanon for six years. He said that while Iran was appealing for the release of its nationals, it was not necessarily linking their fate to that of the 14 Westerners. Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani Sadr, who lives in exile in Paris, said recently that Richard Lawless, a former U.S. official, negotiated with Iranian government representatives on behalf of Bush for the release of the American hostages. In Washington on Friday, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater denied again that the U.S. government was negotiating with Iran. Fitzwater took issue with a report Friday in The Nation, a Jerusalem weekly, that talks on the hostages were held but recessed because of news leaks. ``No one is authorized to talk for the (U.S.) government,'' he said. ``As we have said before, there are all kinds of people around the world freelancing on this situation.'' Fitzwater also predicted more such stories, although he did not say why. ``Suffice it to say, we find them (the news reports) mostly detrimental,'' he said. ``What they do is build up people's expectations when they are not warranted.''
AP900601-0059 	X	A federal judge permanently banned racial discrimination in the city's public schools in his final order in a 16-year-old desegregation case. The order Thursday from U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. barred ``creating, promoting or maintaining racial segregation in any school or other facility in the Boston school system.'' In a 1974 ruling on a lawsuit brought by black parents, Garrity found the city's public schools were segregated. He ordered them desegregated, and the resultant busing of students touched off years of turmoil. Garrity monitored the city's compliance with his order until 1987, when a federal appeals court ruled that the schools were desegregated and gave control over student assignment back to the School Committee. Garrity continued to monitor school administration and operations, however. He said Thursday's order would be his last. Perhaps the most controversial part of the four-page ruling was a decree that teacher layoffs must follow court-ordered racial guidelines rather than be based on seniority alone. That order, which means teachers and administrators must include 25 percent blacks and 10 percent other minorities, is to remain until ``seniority would be a racially neutral standard,'' he said. Achieving a fully desegregated faculty and staff ``will be an important milestone on the long road to affording equal educational opportunity to all students in Boston's public schools,'' Garrity wrote. More than 200 teachers are expected to be laid off _ nearly 800 have received layoff warnings _ before the next school year because of budget limitations. The Boston Teachers Union's contract calls for layoffs strictly on the basis of seniority. Union President Edward Doherty has said the union would appeal any ruling that continued minority quotas, which he said would mean many white teachers with 20 or more years of experience would lose their jobs. But lawyers on both sides of the desegregation case praised Garrity's final judgment. ``The order is consistent with affirmative action policies the School Committee has in place and clarifies some issues that need clarification concerning layoffs,'' said Henry Dinger, a lawyer for the School Committee. Robert Pressman, a lawyer for black plaintiffs, said the ruling shows that Garrity ``studied the papers carefully and manifests his continuing steadfastness in protecting the rights of the plaintiff class.''
AP880415-0262 	X	Occidental Petroleum Corp. has agreed to acquire the plastics manufacturer Cain Chemical Inc. in a transaction valued at $2.2 billion, the companies said. Under terms of a definitive merger agreement, Occidental will pay $1.25 billion cash and will assume about $830 million in debt. Including Cain preferred stock, the deal has an indicated value of about $2.2 billion. Houston-based Cain will continue to operate with its present employees as a separate, wholly owned subsidiary of Occidental, according to the agreement, which has been approved by a majority of Cain shareholders. The transaction will result in a pretax gain of $120 million for Chase Manhattan Corp., which has had a stake in Cain since its formation. In addition, about 43 percent of the proceeds of the sale will be distributed to Cain employees, the company said in a statement. Cain, a closely held concern, was formed in March 1987 by a group headed by Gordon Cain. The group purchased and integrated chemical operations from several major chemical companies including PPG Industries Inc., E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., and ICI Americas Inc. Cain now has seven plants on the Gulf Coast of Texas and is the nation's fifth-largest maker of ethylene, a component of PVC plastic. The merger will make Occidental the country's third-largest ethylene producer. Occidental Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Armand Hammer credited Cain with having built ``a strong position in petrochemicals with its large, cost efficient ethylene plants and its top quality high density polyethlyene facilities and products.'' He said he expects the acquisition to ``significantly improve Occidental's net income and cash flow'' in the long term. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed in early May, will bring Occidental's long-term debt to $6.34 billion, a spokesman said. Occidental is involved in businesses including oil, gas, chemicals, fertilizers, coal and meat products.
AP880610-0134 	X	The Senate passed legislation today that would permit the death penalty for drug dealers convicted of murder, rejecting pleas that the measure would be a move toward ``reducing the civility'' of society. The election-year legislation was sent to the House on a 65-29 vote. The bill's fate is less certain in that chamber, where the House Judiciary Committee _ which will consider it _ has been hostile to capital punishment legislation in the past. ``Murder is murder, whether legal or illegal,'' said Sen. Dan Evans, R-Wash. ``We are reducing the civility and the compassion of our society.'' But Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., the bill's sponsor, said, ``I believe society has a right to say we are outraged at certain acts, and the death penalty is the appropriate penalty in these cases.'' Before final passage, lawmakers voted 66-28 to set aside a provision by Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., that would have limited the bill's capital punishment provisions to drug dealers who are convicted of killing law enforcement officers. On voice votes, they accepted a provision that would allow prison employees to refuse to participate in executions, and rejected language that would have required prisoners to be killed in public. Both measures were sponsored by Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore. On Thursday, the Senate voted 69-27 to shut off debate, ending a filibuster by opponents who had stalled a vote. ``I'm not saying the death penalty will eliminate the drug problem, but I do think it will serve as a deterrent,'' said D'Amato. But opponents decried the bill as election-year politics, saying it would do nothing to deter drug dealing and represented a cynical response to public demands to do something about illegal drugs. Evans referred to a similar bill proposed in 1986 and said: ``Once again, we're going for an election-year slam dunk on drugs. ... We're taking precipitous steps to indulge our own political vanity.'' The D'Amato bill provides that the death penalty can be imposed on people who are convicted in federal courts of running a drug ring and who are then separately convicted of killing law enforcement officers or private citizens. Many states, including those with severe drug problems, already have the death penalty and it hasn't had much deterrent effect, opponents of the bill said. Before invoking cloture, the Senate voted 65-31 against an amendment that would have imposed a penalty of life imprisonment without parole, instead of the death penalty, for people convicted under the terms of D'Amato's bill. D'Amato's proposal was originally attached as an amendment to the Pentagon budget bill, but opponents filibustered and D'Amato withdrew his proposal in return for a promise by Senate leaders to give him a vote on a separate bill. Supporters said the death penalty would deter drug kingpins. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said, ``To go on talking about a war on drugs and not commit ourselves to a death penalty for those who kill our law enforcement officers in that war is to make a mockery of saying we have a war on drugs.'' But Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., said, ``The evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent is just not there at all.'' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., added that the death penalty provision could lead to the execution of innocent people. He cited a Stanford University study which said 350 people have been convicted of capital offenses in this century and then later found to be innocent. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, responded that there are enough safeguards in the legal system to protect innocent persons. ``Nobody should be able to kill our policemen without paying the ultimate price,'' he said. Also Thursday, the House Banking Committee approved legislation to make it more difficult for drug dealers and other criminals to hide their profits. The bill would require banks to file transaction reports with the government for all cashiers' checks, money orders and travelers' checks of $3,000 or more. Now, banks need to file such reports on transactions of $10,000 or more. New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, meanwhile, was proposing the creation of ``tent jails'' in Nevada to incarcerate convicted drug offenders and relieve prison overcrowding elsewhere. In an appearance before two House Armed Services subcommittees, Koch conceded that Nevada probably wouldn't think much of his idea.
AP901109-0161 	X	Sen. Rudy Boschwitz apologized Friday for a letter sent to some Minnesota Jews on behalf of his unsuccessful re-election campaign suggesting his challenger was not a good Jew. ``I deeply regret having allowed the letter to be written and accept full responsibility for it,'' said Boschwitz, who is Jewish. Paul Wellstone, who upset the Republican senator in Tuesday's election, said he appreciated Boschwitz's remarks and accepted his apology. ``I think it should be the final word,'' said the senator-elect, who is also Jewish. The letter, written by two of Boschwitz's Jewish supporters and signed by them and 70 others, was printed on Boschwitz campaign stationery and mailed at campaign expense Nov. 1. ``Wellstone has no connection with the Jewish community or our communal life,'' the letter said. ``His children were brought up as non-Jews.'' The letter noted that Wellstone served as co-chairman of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign in Minnesota, and said, ``Jesse Jackson has embraced, literally and figuratively, Yasser Arafat, and has never repudiated that embrace.'' Moreover, Wellstone never disassociated himself from any of Jackson's policies, the letter said. The letter angered Wellstone's Jewish supporters, some of whom described it as an attempt to split the Jewish vote over the issue of Israel. Two days before the election, Wellstone said the letter was ``completely unforgivable.'' ``This is making an issue of the fact that we have an interreligious marriage,'' said Wellstone, whose wife is Christian. ``This is the most sensitive issue in the Jewish community there is.'' Boschwitz initially stood by the letter. But on Friday, after the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported that the letter had generated angry discussion among Jews in Israel and the United States, the senator said he was sorry. ``Bringing Jews and non-Jews together has been an important element of my public service and private life,'' Boschwitz said. ``Others will judge over time whether I have made a positive contribution in this regard, but for the moment I simply reiterate my apology.'' Wellstone said Boschwitz' statement showed a ``tremendous amount of sincerity and conviction.'' ``His remarks are powerful,'' Wellstone said. ``It was very hurtful to everybody in our family, but this is a wonderful statement, and I think it's in the past.'' Wellstone said he didn't believe the letter was the major reason why Boschwitz lost the election, but he said, ``In the end, it was very damaging for them.''
AP880709-0047 	X	An 11-year-old aviator who plans to emulate Charles Lindbergh's flight to Paris arrived in New York with a bit of a scare. Christopher Lee Marshall was piloting his Mooney 252 two-seater toward busy La Guardia Airport on Friday evening when the plane's electrical power _ and radio _ went dead. ``I thought we might get in trouble if we can't call the tower,'' Chris said later. But the power outage lasted only about 10 seconds and he landed safely. ``I thought it was neat to land at a big airport,'' the Oceano, Calif., boy said. Chris, who is accompanied by a former Navy pilot, hopped across the country from San Diego to Kerrville, Texas, then to St. Louis and New York. Today _ if the plane's electrical problems are sorted out _ he and his companion planned to head toward Europe. His flight plan calls for stops in Montreal, Greenland and Iceland. ``I want to show all other kids across America that if I can do this trip, they can do this trip,'' Chris said Friday at Lambert Airport in St. Louis before taking off for New York. Chris, the son of a commercial pilot, first took the controls of a plane at age 4, and began flying with an instructor at 7. Lindbergh flew from San Diego to St. Louis, then to New York before completing his 33{-hour, non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris in 1927. Last year, Chris became the youngest flier to cross the United States. Tony Aliengena, a 9-year-old from San Juan Capistrano, Calif., broke the record in April by making a California-to-Massachusetts round trip. Chris, who will be a fifth-grader this fall, said this trip would make him the world's youngest trans-Atlantic pilot. He is accompanied by Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham, 46, a retired commander at Miramar Naval Air Station, Calif., and Vietnam War pilot. Cunningham sits in the pilot's seat in the two-seat craft. Chris' seat is boosted to window-level by a foam cushion. But Chris has done all of the flying, Cunningham said. The two flew to Texas in a borrowed plane, then traded it for a new aircraft that was built for the trans-Atlantic journey. Because Cunningham is limiting the boy's flying time to less than eight hours at a time, the flight will be stretched out over five days. ``He's doing good; he's a tiger,'' Cunningham said. ``He was sick on the flight from Texas, but he flew right through it. He's got around 270 hours of flying time in and he's very responsive. Tell him to do something and he does it.'' Chris' mother, Gail Marshall, founded a company that raised money to pay for the flight.
AP900511-0192 	X	Police on Friday sought a 12-year-old girl needing heart surgery and her mother, who authorities said abducted the girl from a hospital because the woman's religion forbids blood transfusions. The girl, Kimberly Winfield, was believed to have left Children's Memorial Hospital about 1 a.m. Thursday, said police Lt. Edmund Beazley. The mother, Caroline Winfield, called relatives to say she wanted to return her daughter, said Dave Schneidman, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. But she was afraid to surrender for fear of being prosecuted. Police obtained an arrest warrant for the 35-year-old mother on a charge of child abduction because Kimberly is a ward of the state, Beazley said. ``We're not real interested in catching the mother if she doesn't want to be caught, but we do want the child back so we can save the child's life,'' Schneidman said. Police and the state Department of Children and Family Services said they were reasonably certain the mother was responsible for the child's disappearance. ``There doesn't seem to be any doubt of it right now,'' Beazley said. ``Before the child was discovered missing, the mother had told relatives that she was going to take the child from the hospital because she did not approve of the surgery,'' said department spokesman Schneidman. Schneidman said the child needed open-heart surgery to survive. ``The prognosis is she has anywhere from a week to a month to live without the surgery,'' he said. However, Children's Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Jan Benzies said Kimberly, who was admitted Wednesday, was not critically ill. ``She was undergoing tests to determine the severity of her heart problem,'' the spokeswoman said. ``Her doctor does not believe her life is in immediate danger. ``However, it is clinically advisable that she be located and treated within a month,'' she said. No one at the hospital saw the mother or child leave, Beazley said. ``Apparently, she just got her dressed and walked out,'' he said. ``They were allowing the mother to stay in the room with her, which is pretty common with young children. The nurse came back to check on them and they were both gone.'' The mother is a Jehovah's Witness, Beazley said. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions as being against the teachings of the Bible. ``You can't do surgery without a transfusion of blood,'' Schneidman said. The Department of Children and Family Services waited about 34 hours after the disappearance to notify the press so police could check leads on Winfield's whereabouts, Schneidman said. Those leads were exhausted, he said. The agency was named temporary custodian of Kimberly and two brothers, ages 2 and 8, about a month ago because Winfield was unable to care for them, Schneidman said. ``They were living on the streets without proper housing or any evident means of support,'' Schneidman said. The boys, whose names were not released, are now living with their paternal grandmother in Chicago, Beazley said. A department caseworker noticed Kimberly was ill and took her to the hospital, Schneidman said. Larry Winfield, Kimberly's father, had been notified and was very concerned, Schneidman said. He maintains a permanent residence and is employed, but the mother and children have not lived with him for some time, Schneidman said.
AP880817-0072 	X	Former Sen. Paula Hawkins of Florida, who has recovered from a back injury which threatened to make her an invalid, is feeling so good she's talking about running for elective office again. Mrs. Hawkins, who was Florida's most prominent Republican officeholder for more than a decade before her loss to former Gov. Bob Graham in the 1986 Senate race, said she would prefer staying in Florida to returning to Washington. ``I've been elected three times in Florida statewide and people remember that,'' she said. ``I like serving.'' The Republican National Convention has been a coming out of sorts for the 61-year-old grandmother, who spent most of 1987 recovering from a series of operations to correct a chronic back problem. ``The voters did me a great favor,'' Mrs. Hawkins said. ``They said, `You need to get a new body.'''
AP900522-0009 	X	On this island where fantasy has long dictated policy, reality is taking hold and may help improve relations with China and stimulate democratic change at home. The myth has long been that the ruling Nationalist Party, which retreated to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Communist forces in 1949, is still the legitimate government of China. That myth has long been used to justify the party's policy of no official contact with the rival government in Beijing. It also has long been used to justify the party's monopoly on political power. But events of the past week, culminating in the inaugural address of President Lee Teng-hui on Sunday, indicate the days of fantasy are drawing to a close. Lee was sworn in for a six-year term after being elected by the electoral college and stressed his commitment to democracy. The Nationalist government still calls itself the ``Republic of China'' and says reunification with the Chinese mainland is the ultimate goal. But on Wednesday, Hau said something no top official had previously acknowledged in public: The reality is that China today is ``one country with two governments.'' In his inauguration speech, Lee urged markedly improved relations with Beijing and ``channels of communication'' that could eventually lead to talks on reunification. In effect, Lee signaled a desire to end the 40-year-old hard-line policy toward the Chinese Communists known as the ``three nos'' _ no official contact, no negotiations and no compromise. There is a catch. The Nationalists want Beijing to renounce the threat of force against Taiwan, end its policy of isolating Taiwan diplomatically and scrap one-party Communist rule. China on Monday rejected such preconditions, saying Lee was ``ignoring the universally accepted fact that the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing all Chinese people.'' While Taiwan does not expect an immediate breakthrough, its leaders hope relations will improve as civilian and business contacts expand. Indirect trade across the Taiwan Straits was $4 billion last year, and Taiwan residents made 1 million visits to the Chinese mainland since such travel was first allowed in late 1987. ``We want gradually to expand our contact by peaceful ways,'' government spokesman Shaw Yu-ming recently told foreign journalists. ``We have to move in measured steps. ... It's not a very action-packed kind of approach.'' Lee also said he wanted to quickly scrap the 1947 ``Mobilization for the Supression of the Communist Rebellion.'' Not only would this mean Taiwan would no longer view the Beijing government as a rebel group, but it would also lift temporary legal provisions that have guaranteed the Nationalist Party a lock on power. Under the provisions, the Legislature and electoral college are dominated by Nationalists, elected on mainland China before the civil war defeat. The theory is they cannot be replaced until their constituencies are recaptured and new elections held. But the mainland-elected parliamentarians are dying fast and the island's 20 million people, 85 percent of whom are native Taiwanese, want a greater say in government. Lee on Sunday gave a two-year timetable for replacing the provisions with constitutional amendments that would establish ``a great model of political democracy for all times.'' He also stressed the importance of securing fair competition among political parties, indicating an understanding that future legitimacy must come from the people. Still, the promise of greater democracy is viewed skeptically by many students and opposition party members. They view Lee's decision to nominate the country's only four-star general as premier a step back toward the Nationalists' authoritarian past. But the nomination of Defense Minister Hau Pei-tsun also is viewed less sinisterly as an attempt by Lee to shore up his support among party elders and to crack down on rampant corruption and crime. Government spokesman Shaw said military rule or a return to authoritanism would be impossible. ``Nobody in this land, no party, no group ... no individuals, can turn the clock back,'' he said. ``Military rule, military dictatorship or even authoritarian-type of politics cannot ... be accepted by our people.''
AP880324-0081 	X	A four-member family earning $31,000 a year pays three times as much of its income in state sales and excise taxes as does one making over $612,000, a private study reported today. The share of earnings soaked up by those taxes is almost five times as large for the poorest families _ those making less than $8,600 _ as it is for the richest, according to a report by Citizens for Tax Justice. This happens because the taxes are applied at a flat rate regardless of income. In 23 states, the disparity is even worse than the national average. The poor in South Dakota and Mississippi pay about seven times as much of their earnings in sales and excise taxes as do the rich; in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana, almost six times as much. The study focused on general sales taxes and on excise taxes, chiefly those on gasoline and tobacco. It concluded that: _The poorest 20 percent of four-member families, averaging income of $8,581, paid 5.4 percent of their earnings in sales and excise taxes last year. _The second one-fifth, averaging $20,535, paid 3.9 percent. _The third, averaging $31,497, paid 3.3 percent. _The fourth, averaging $44,910, paid 2.9 percent. _The highest-earning one-fifth, averaging $66,912, paid 2.5 percent. _The top-earning 5 percent, averaging $187,316, paid 1.6 percent. _Four-member families averaging $612,122 a year _ the richest 0.7 percent of Americans _ paid 1.1 percent of their incomes for sales and excise taxes. Citizens for Tax Justice is a Washington-based research organization that is financed by organized labor and several liberal social groups. The organization considers income taxes more equitable than consumption taxes, including excise and sales taxes. Income taxes generally take a bigger bite of each dollar as income rises and, thus, fall more heavily on upper-income Americans. ``By relying on nickel-and-dime sales taxes, state governments across the country have quietly heaped an onerous burden on their poorest citizens,'' Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said in releasing the study. ``The less you make, the worse you do _ especially in states with heavy taxes on food, utilities, tobacco and fuels.'' The ultimate solution, he said, is for states to rely less on sales taxes and more on income taxes. In the meantime, McIntyre added, sales taxes can be made less onerous by extending rebates to the poor and applying the levies disproportionately to services that are generally used by the well-to-do, such as club memberships and home-improvement services. The study concluded that the 10 states with relatively low tax burdens on the poor have considerably more money available for public services than do the 10 whose sales taxes on the poor are highest. ``Taxing the poor heavily is both cruel and inefficient,'' said McIntyre. ``It doesn't produce much in the way of revenues because the poor don't make very much money.'' Sixteen states still fully tax food; over 22 percent of all food purchases in the United States are taxed. In fact, the study found, the 10 states with the most onerous sales taxes on the poor all tax food. They are: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Dakota, Virginia and Hawaii. The poor spend 6.2 percent of income on electrical bills, more than double the rate of the middle-income family. But that middle-income family pays three times as big a share for electricity as do the rich, the study found. The portion of the $600,000-a-year family's income spent for tax on take-home beer is only 15 percent of the $8,600 family's share. On cigarettes, the upper-income family's share is 1 percent of the low-income family's; on gasoline, 4 percent; on fresh flowers, 98 percent; on legal fees, 100 percent; jewelry, 259 percent; wine for home consumption, 324 percent, and out-of-town lodging, 613 percent. The study found that only six states have set up a system of tax credits to reduce the sales-tax burden on the poor. In only one state, New Mexico, would the credit offset as much as half the burden. The six states and the theoretical reduction for the poor, if all the poor applied for the credit: New Mexico, 64 percent; Kansas, 35 percent; Vermont, 26 percent; Idaho, 22 percent; Hawaii, 17 percent, and North Carolina, 7 percent.
AP900612-0127 	X	An anti-smoking measure in a rural town lost its place in Colorado history when city officials discovered it hadn't passed after all. ``The election judges read the results backwards,'' City Administrator Roy Lauricello said Monday. About 17 percent of the estimated 4,600 registered voters in this conservative eastern Colorado town voted June 5 on the proposal to limit smoking in public. Afterward, the city said the ordinance passed 431-355, giving the City Council 60 days to decide how strict to make the regulations. But a recount Monday revealed the measure actually failed by 11 votes, Lauricello said. ``I'm in a state of disbelief that an error of this size could have been made,'' said Mark Simmerman, a public health nurse who campaigned for the measure. Thirty-four Colorado cities and counties have enacted smoking restrictions, but this would have been the first passed in a rural town, according to the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution.
AP900225-0027 	X	Riot police armed with rifles arrested at least 150 people Sunday to prevent marches by pro-democracy demonstrators demanding the government lift its 29-year-old ban on political parties. The protesters, shouting ``Long live the revolution!'' were taken into custody as they entered Katmandu's main shopping district of New Road to begin marching, said witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity. The planned march was one of several scheduled around Nepal by two banned political groups, the Nepali Congress Party and a left-wing coalition, who are leading a movement for more political freedom. Political demonstrations are not allowed in Nepal. According to the government, at least 12 people have been killed since Feb. 18 when the movement was launched to demand restoration of a multiparty democracy. Activists say the death toll is nearly double the government figure. Activists said at least 1,000 people were taken into custody Sunday, mostly in the capital, but the witnesses, who have proved reliable in the past, said they only saw about 150 people being herded into a police station. The police refused to give any figures. Residents contacted by telephone said police also arrested demonstrators in the southeastern town of Dharan on Sunday, but they had no details. The outcome of the other planned marches was not immediately known. The state-run news agency said without elaborating that ``some persons who tried to raise undesirable slogans'' were arrested in the southern town of Nepalganj. The report was the only reference by the government to any demonstration in the Himalayan kingdom, one of the world's oldest monarchies. Witnesses said those arrested in Katmandu included Hari Bol Bhattarai, former mayor of the city and a senior member of the Nepali Congress, and Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a left-wing member of the National Assembly. Both were waving the black flags adopted by the new pro-democracy movement and were shouting anti-government slogans when policemen tore the flags from their hands and took them away, said witnesses. Earlier Sunday, more than 100 doctors and nurses in the country's largest hospital walked off their jobs for more than one hour in support of the pro-democracy movement. They gathered outside the 300-bed Bir Hospital in the capital, wearing black armbands over their white jackets. ``We mourn the death of our people,'' said one doctor, who refused to give his name for fear of reprisals. ``This is a protest against the government's violation of human rights.'' Medical students said in a statement they supported the movement. In Katmandu, hundreds of steel-helmeted policemen, wearing chest pads and carrying rifles, batons, bamboo shields and tear-gas canisters, patrolled the 2-square-mile New Road area, watched by reporters and throngs of tourists. Shops were closed, and only police vans and a few private vehicles were allowed in the usually bustling area. The government has accused the demonstrators of trying to impose their brand of democracy on a country which it says already has a working democracy. Power in Nepal is shared between the king and the National Assembly. One-fifth of the assembly's 140 members are nominated by the king. The rest are elected on a non-party basis. Advocates of multiparty democracy say the elections are a farce and that the only candidates allowed are those approved by King Birendra or his associates. Nepal's two-year experiment with Western-style democracy ended in 1961 when then-King Mahendra, the present monarch's father, dissolved the government of the Nepali Congress Party, accusing it of corruption and poor administration.
AP880611-0063 	X	A ship that has been unable to unload its 10,000 tons of ash for 20 months is headed for West Africa, where public anger is rising at industrial nations trying to dump wastes. The Khian Sea is en route to the Cape Verde Islands, and from there it will go to an undisclosed destination in West Africa, said its operator, the Amalgamated Shipping Co. of Freeport, the Bahamas. In a June 3 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Amalgamated Shipping said the Khian Sea was proceeding ``under reduced speed'' to the islands west of Senegal to await further orders. The company said it had a representative in West Africa negotiating for the discharge of the ash, which came from city incinerators. The Organization of African Unity has called plans by developed countries to dump their wastes ``a crime against Africa and Africans,'' and the Greenpeace environmental group said in a report last week that shipping waste to Africa was a growing trend. ``In particular, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have become the preferred dumping grounds of waste peddlers from industrialized countries,'' Greenpeace said. On Thursday, Guinean officials announced that they had jailed a Norwegian official and several Guinean employees of the Ministry of Commerce for bringing 15,000 tons of Philadelphia ash into the country. ``If the Khian Sea is planning to go to West Africa, if these guys are thinking of marketing their material there, their timing is way off,'' said Peter Christich, an official in the EPA's international affairs office. The Khian Sea left Philadelphia in October 1986 loaded with about 15,000 tons of incinerator ash. It has been rejected by the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Haiti and Guinea-Bissau. It unloaded about 4,000 tons of ash in Haiti before being ordered out of the country. It returned to the Delaware Bay on March 1 with the intention of taking the ash back to Philadelphia. But negotiations broke down with the contractor who was to dispose of the ash, Joseph Paolino & Sons, and the ship left May 22. In March, A.S. Bulkhandling, Inc., a Norwegian shipping company, said it had taken 15,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash to Guinea to be used in making construction material. The ash was dumped on the island of Kassa, off the Guinean coast. By May, the Guinean government formally requested that the ash be removed. Bulkhandling officials tried to convince the government that the ash was not harmful, but it was not convinced and set a May 20 deadline to remove the ash. The ash was not taken away, and on Thursday, the government announced that Norway's consul general had been arrested for complicity in the secret dumping of what it called 15,000 tons of toxic waste from the United States. Ibrahima Sory Diaby, Guinean secretary of state for security, said the waste was shipped from Philadelphia. City officials have said that the ash is not harmful.
AP880406-0009 	X	Alarmed by the fast spread of AIDS in the country, Mexican authorities have begun a campaign called Cascade Education, a novel approach that enlists those most likely to be afflicted to spread the word. The campaign is aimed directly at male and female prostitutes, the homosexual community, street gangs and the poor in the hope that what they learn about AIDS prevention will ``cascade'' down to others in their own vernacular. Most of the effort is concentrated in Mexico City, a metropolis of 18 million people, where high-risk people are hard to reach through newspapers and other standard means. ``We are teaching them to become health care promoters and sending them into their communities,'' said Dr. Glorias Ornellas Hall, director of the National Center for AIDS Information, an arm of the federal Public Health Department. ``We believe that using the media to give information is not enough to change behavior patterns. Only face-to-face contact can do that,'' she said. ``The best way is for them to reach their own communities in their own language. That includes prostitutes reaching out to prostitutes, homosexuals to homosexuals, even deaf-mutes to deaf-mutes.'' According to the center, Mexico had 1,126 confirmed AIDS cases as of Feb. 1, and the number is doubling every seven months. For every confirmed case, an additional 50 to 100 people are becoming exposed to the virus, said Dr. Jaime Sepulveda Amor, the department's director of epidemiology. Sepulveda, who is also president of the government's National Commission on AIDS Prevention, estimated during a recent interview the number of people confirmed to have AIDS will reach over 25,000 by 1991, making it the second or third leading cause of death for people in the 25 to 44 age group in Mexico, which has a population estimated at 81.7 million. In the United States the number of AIDs cases reported since June, 1981, has reached 57,024. Since it was founded last year, the information center has broadcast its services on radio and television and through bumper stickers, posters, keychains and matchbooks with condoms attached. Mexico recently received a donation of 10 million condoms from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The center also has trained dozens of Mexico City residents in its Cascade Education program, offering instructional rclasses but leaving the actual teaching process to each individual. ``We give them the basics, then leave the style of presentation in their own hands,'' Ornellas said. The center's staff also trains street-gang leaders and visits jails to teach police officials and prisoners. Ornellas said many of the Cascade volunteers from the streets originally visited the center to be tested for the AIDS virus and, with counselling and support, have joined the program. She said the best of them are those who have tested positive. One male prostitute in the program, only known by his nickname of Jaimito, regularly visits Mexico City markets to sing a ``ranchero'' song he wrote and recorded called, ``What is AIDS?'' Ornellas called Jaimito ``one of our great promoters.'' A deaf mute who also is a male prostitute is another is Cascade promoter. ``He uncovered a whole sub-culture of deaf mutes who prostitute themselves off to make a living,'' Ornellas said. ``We found that many feel they have no other way to earn money.'' An initial Health Department survey indicated that about 30 percent of the male homosexual community in Mexico City has been exposed to the AIDS virus. Gerardo Ortega Zurita, a Cascade volunteer leader, said cultural prejudices have made it very difficult for homosexual men to seek help. ``There's incredible discrimination against homosexuals, who are isolated from the centers of the country,'' Ortega said. ``Teaching them about AIDS is difficult. They are forced to hide from the police and other government authorities.'' Ortega brings youths from what he calls ``controlled groups'' of prostitutes to the center to be examined and learn about AIDS prevention. ``But there are others we can't get to, who are more preoccupied with making a living than with taking care of their lives,'' he said. Ornellas and other health officials say the Cascade approach is essential not only in reaching previously hidden subcultures but in confronting many myths about AIDS. ``We've come across many beliefs,'' Ornellas said. ``Some say AIDS is punishment from God, and others, that witchcraft can ward it off. In a country with cultural setbacks that include religious beliefs, ignorance and cultural taboos that do not allow the use of condoms, we found that this program has worked.'' Currently, Ornellas said the center is receiving 50 visits and 100 telephone queries a day from people wanting to find out about AIDS. ``It's new that they should come out at all,'' she said. ``The very lowest class is the most at risk, and the hardest to get to. There's a disrespect for life (among them); they don't care if they die.'' As in other countries in Latin America, the center had to overcome initial resistance from the Roman Catholic Church in distributing literature and promoting the use of condoms. Clerics are one way of reaching rural areas, Ornellas said. ``We haven't even started with rural people, where you have whole families living in a single room. Children learn about sex in one room. What's going to happen when AIDS reaches these rural areas?''
AP881223-0139 	X	Rep. Bud Shuster says it was a ``legitimate public works project'' that led him to the Virgin Islands last week. But congressional sources said things seemed to happen in the reverse order _ that the Pennsylvania Republican wanted to go the islands, and dispatched aides to find a reason for the government to send him there. Shuster toured an airport construction project before leaving St. Thomas island on Wednesday following a four-day stay. Shuster, a member of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, had his trip to the island of St. Thomas approved ``without compunctions'' by Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Calif., the panel's chairman, according to committee aide Paul Schlesinger. The airport tour came after Public Works staff members had looked into other projects for Shuster to inspect in the Virgin Islands, including one on St. Croix, according to congressional aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was in the Virgin Islands, Shuster's top aides refused to disclose his whereabouts. ``We're going to take this back to the voters. He did nothing wrong,'' Shuster administrative assistant Ann Eppard said Friday. She said the congressman knew nothing about staff members shopping around for projects, and that if they did that, ``then it was not initiated by the congressman.'' She said Shuster was unavailable for an comment Friday. Interviewed by telephone Thursday from his rural central Pennsylvania district, Shuster denied that the committee was paying for the entire trip. He said the tour of the airport ``was an official trip, and the committee pays for my airfare back. I spent my own money staying.'' Shuster said the Virgin Islands trip represented ``a couple days off'' and that, ``It's none of your goddamned business what I do in my personal time.'' Schlesinger, the committee aide, said he was not aware that Shuster had arranged to pay part of the cost. But Eppard said Shuster got only ``a one-day per diem and a one-way (plane) ticket.'' Like other committees, the House panel is free to sponsor its members on fact-finding missions around the world. Shuster tacked the Virgin Islands trip onto the end of a fact-finding trip to Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras that he had taken with three other House members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Shuster said he arrived in the Virgin Islands on Dec. 17, the day after the intelligence committee concluded its fact-finding mission. Asked why Shuster did not return home with the others, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., said, ``He had other business to tend to.'' Shuster, the second-ranking Republican on the Public Works panel and a member of the subcommittee on aviation, inspected the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas on the same day as his trip home, according to officials of the Virgin Islands Port Authority. ``This is construction of a completely new airport on an existing airport. A lot of money has been appropriated for this project and he wanted to understand what was being done and how far it had progressed,'' said John Harding, executive director of the port authority. Shuster termed it ``a legitimate public works inspection.'' He said there has been a major cost overrun, and the Federal Aviation Administration had cited the airport ``as being among the most dangerous.'' FAA spokeswoman Joann Sloane said in an interview Friday, ``From what I can find out, it's not dangerous but they have a short runway. There's a mountain on one side and water and other, and they're building the new runway out into where the water is.'' Shuster said aides did not disclose his trip because there was a rule in his office not to reveal his itinerary for security reasons. Asked about Shuster's whereabouts earlier this week while he was in the Virgin Islands, aide Karen Schecter had pointed to a wire service photograph appearing in a Pennsylvania newspaper on Dec. 15 _ six days earlier _ showing the congressman in Managua, Nicaragua. The conservative Shuster, 56, was just elected to his ninth term. In September, he was presented with his tenth Golden Bulldog Award by a private, non-partisan group which presents awards for fiscal integrity.
AP881117-0017 	X	At least 12 Mariel prisoners have apparently exhausted their administrative appeals and could be deported within days, but plans are in the works by prisoner advocates to block any deportations, a newspaper reported Thursday. Gary Leshaw, director of the non-profit Atlanta legal aid organization representing Mariel detainees, said he was informed by the Justice Department that there would be an announcement Thursday on the prisoners. Meanwhile, prisoner advocate groups in Miami and Atlanta plan to ask federal judges to stop the deportations, which if carried out would mark the first time Cubans have been deported to their communist homeland since May 1985, The Miami Herald reported. ``There is a chance if we all speak with one united voice here and explain the merits of our case,'' said Rafael Penalver, chairman of the Task Force of Cuban American Citizen Organizations. Penalver is a lawyer who helped negotiate the settlement to end riots by 3,800 Mariel detainees in Oakdale, La., and at an Atlanta prison last November. ``We will appeal to President Reagan. He can block the deportations, even if the people are sitting in an airplane at the airport.'' A special three-member Justice Department panel was created in the aftermath of the riots to review the cases of 113 Mariel detainees in federal prison in Talladega, Ala. In the past two months, the panel has looked at prison records, immigration history, written statements from the prisoners and other materials, but there have been no personal appearances by the prisoners or their lawyers. Deportations to Cuba were reinstated as part of a renewed immigration pact between the United States and Cuba that allows up to 20,000 Cubans and 3,000 political prisoners and their families to emigrate and, in return, the Cuban government will take back 2,500 prisoners. The Justice Department contends that these prisoners are criminals the Cuban regime injected into a boatlift of refugees from the port of Mariel. Prisoners selected for deportation are being taken from a list of Mariel inmates who were imprisoned at the time of the 1984 immigration pact. Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban-American National Foundation, acknowledges there is much division over the deporations, even in Dade County's Cuban exile community. He said the foundation favors letting Cubans apply for visas to immigrate to the United States but opposes the deportations to Cuba. ``I cannot in one hand denounce the human rights situation in Cuba and then support sending them back,'' Mas said.
AP900710-0148 	X	Here are some quotes from the Soviet Communist Party Congress held Tuesday in Moscow. ``I maintain only one thing: The policy that I have chosen I will pursue, and for me the biggest prize is that my homeland will live.'' _ Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. ``It is an illusion to think that after all dissenters, all who do not wish to be drive belts and cogs of the apparatus, quit the party, it will retain all the property of the Soviet Communist Party and the associated authority. It will not be so. ... The party will be bankrupt, obliged to repay its debts to the people, if only with its property.'' _ Boris N. Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation. ``I don't see another force other than the party which could bring progress to our country.'' _ hard-liner Yegor K. Ligachev ``Our Russian thirst for blood is showing. It's stupid and ugly and inhuman.'' - Inna Dementyeva, a Moscow delegate. ``You can never go back to yesterday by any path, and no dictatorship ... solves anything. If any of the delegates came to the congress with the hope of returning the party to old conditions, comfortable or uncomfortable, this is not a question, they were seriously mistaken.'' _ Gorbachev.
AP880801-0090 	X	A federal judge today ruled unconstitutional the school dance ban that has been in effect in tiny Prudy for at least a century. U.S. District Judge Russell Clark stopped short, however, of ordering the school board to hold dances for students. ``It would be inappropriate for this court to order the district to sponsor school dances. However, a district rule prohibiting students from holding dances on school property infringes on the First Amendment rights of the students and must be invalidated,'' Clark said in the decision that followed four days of testimony in June. He awarded the plaintiffs _ 21 students and their parents _ $1 in nominal damages and attorney fees and ordered the school board not to enforce its ban on dancing. William Fleischaker, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer from Joplin, who represented those who favored dances, said the school board could still ban dancing if it could present reasons other than the written rule and religious reasons. But he said he felt it would be ``foolish'' of the school board to try to stop dances on school property. Nancy Fox, 16, student body president for the upcoming school year, said she would try to organize a dance for the start of the school term next month. ``I think the only change will be we'll have some dances and we'll have some fun. I hope there won't be any bad attitudes,'' she said after Clark's ruling. School officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The school board lawyer was with a client, and members of the school board did not answer their telephones. Clark said he found the testimony of school board members ``incredible.'' ``The entire board candidly admits that they followed the will of the majority, but they were not candid in their opinions of the religious reasoning of the majority,'' Clark wrote. ``This court is skeptical that it heard the complete story concerning the board members' deliberations of the rule and the religious significance of the opposition to dancing in Purdy,'' his order said. The pro-dancers sued the school board in 1986, maintaining the dance ban was inspired by a religious bias against dancing. But school board members testified that the community of 900 people southwest of Springfield opposed dancing for a number of reasons that had little to do with religion, including the belief that dancing leads to drinking and other discipline problems. The school board handbook states simply: ``School dances are not authorized and school premises shall not be used for purposes of conducting a dance.'' Purdy High School proms have been held in neighboring communities, prompting some parents to complain that their children were put into danger by being forced to drive 30 miles or more to dance. In recent decades, senior classes have made a ritual of asking the school to allow a dance and being refused. But the class of 1986 proved more persistent. Students that year signed a petition in support of a school dance to publicize a local chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving. They asked their parents' help and sought media attention when they took the request before the school board. They were met with resistance organized in local churches _ so many people were drawn to the meeting at which the ban was challenged that it had to be moved to the high school gymnasium. The school board, lobbied by anti-dancing ministers, voted unanimously to uphold the ban. Dance supporters followed with a rally to which they invited stars of the movie ``Footloose,'' a movie about a fictional Texas town where dancing was banned. Actors Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer were unable to attend.
AP880622-0201 	X	A delegation of Israeli left-wingers and moderates challenged a 2-year-old law by attending a conference along with Palestine Liberation Organization observers, a participant said Wednesday. The delegates could face three years in jail if they are found to have violated a law passed in August 1986 which bars Israelis from meeting with members of the PLO, viewed by Israel as a terrorist group. In the first test case last month, a court convicted four Israelis for meeting with PLO officials in Costinesti, Romania in November 1986. The four have not yet been sentenced. Moshe Amirav, an Israeli delegate, told The Associated Press the Israeli group attended a three-day symposium last week along with Palestinian academics at the invitation of the Free University in Amsterdam. Two PLO officials, Afif Safieh and Ilan Halevy, attended the conference as observers but did not take part in its proceedings, he said. ``The law is stupid. But we will continue meeting in such a way that we won't be able to be accused of anything,'' Amirav said, adding that none of the delegates had been summoned for police questioning. The daily Hadashot reported Amirav actually met with the PLO officials, but Amirav denied the report. Other sources who attended the conference and refused to be identified said some members of the Israeli delegation did meet with the PLO officials. Amirav said other Israeli delegates included Nitza Shapira-Libai of the left-leaning Labor Party, a former adviser to then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres on women's affairs; former left-wing legislator Meir Pail, and human rights lawyers Naomi Chazan and David Kretzmer. Amirav is a former activist in the right-wing Likud Bloc who was expelled from his party for advocating direct talks with the PLO and far-reaching self-rule for Palestinians in the occupied territories. He enraged party leaders last year by meeting with Faisel Husseini, a resident of Arab east Jerusalem billed by Israeli authorities as the PLO's representative in the occupied West Bank. Amirav, now a member of the liberal Center Party, said the Israelis found the Palestinian academics surprisingly moderate. He said the academics told him the PLO was ready to recognize Israel and end the Middle East conflict in return for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. ``We were stunned by their attitude,'' he said. ``They said they recognized Israel and believed there should be two independent states.'' The delegation was the third known group of Israelis to attend a forum with PLO officials and the first to include moderate participants more representative of the Israeli consensus. The other groups openly defied the law and met directly with PLO officials, arguing the group was not terrorist.
AP901215-0118 	X	Israel on Saturday ordered four Palestinian activists deported. It made the announcement a day after Moslem fundamentalists stabbed three Jews to death. The four will be allowed to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, the army said. If upheld, the expulsions would be the first since August 1989, when five Palestinians were expelled for their roles in the uprising against Israeli rule. Sixty Arabs have been expelled since the uprising began in December 1987. In Washington, the State Department denounced Saturday's deportation orders. ``The United States deplores this decision by the government of Israel,'' State Department spokesman Alan Shub said. ``We've consistently ... held that such deportations are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as it pertains to the treatment of inhabitants of occupied territories.'' Other nations in the past have also condemned deportations as a violation of human rights. In the recent outbreak of anti-Israeli violence that followed the Oct. 8 Temple Mount riot, in which 17 Palestinians were killed, some Israeli politicians have called for reinstating deportations. Israel radio said the four ordered expelled were residents of the occupied Gaza Strip and were members of the Moslem fundamentalist movement Hamas, or Zeal. The radio said the activists were arrested along with hundreds of other Hamas members after Moslem fundamentalists stabbed three Jews to death Friday in the Arab-Jewish town of Jaffa, adjacent to Tel Aviv. The army would not say how many Arabs were arrested; Arab reports said it was nearly 500. The army said the four all took part in violent activities. But it was not clear if they were suspected of involvement in the killings. Earlier, police said two Palestinians were wanted in Friday's killings of the Jews, and they were believed to be hiding in Gaza. Also Saturday, Israel restricted the number of Palestinians allowed to leave the Gaza Strip as part of its search for the assailants. The army command initially sealed off Gaza, confining its 750,000 Arab residents to the area and barring journalists from entering. But it later lifted the closure, allowing Palestinians who met strict security criteria to enter Israel. Arab reporters said Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantizi, a founder of Hamas, was one of the arrested. Two men who preach at the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount also were detained, Arab reports said. Hamas marked the third anniversary of its founding Friday and had called on Palestinians to honor the date by escalating their uprising against Israel. The Arabs who killed the Jews sprayed Moslem fundamentalist slogans on the walls before fleeing, police said. Radio reports said the government would discuss Friday's attack at its weekly meeting Sunday. Curfews were in place Saturday in parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank to prevent violence on the Hamas anniversary. The curfews meant that about 250,000 Arabs were confined to their homes. In other incidents, paramilitary border police clashed with masked youths in east Jerusalem in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Jerusalem police spokesman Aharon Elhayani said one youth was injured slightly by a rubber bullet. In the Gaza town of Rafah, masked men fatally shot Akram Hosli Aram, 18, in the head. An activist group said Aram, who worked as a laborer in Israel, was killed for collaborating with Israeli authorities. Aram's death brought to 318 the number of Palestinians killed by fellow Arabs during the 3-year-old uprising, most on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. At least 778 Arabs have been killed by Israeli civilians or soldiers during the revolt. Friday's deaths raised to 57 the number of Israelis who have died in the violence.
AP880930-0155 	X	A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Eastern Airlines' layoff of more than 3,000 employees when the financially troubled carrier eliminated service to 14 cities to stem continuing losses. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was insufficient evidence to support contentions of three unions that the layoffs were part of an illegal campaign to weaken the power of organized labor at Eastern. The unions ``have directed our attention to nothing that would undermine Eastern's claim that legitimate business concerns provide an ample reason for these reductions,'' the court said in an opinion by Judge Stephen Williams. The panel noted that ``there is no claim that Eastern has tailored its reductions so as to impose a differential impact on union members. Indeed, it appears that the furloughs affect union members and non-members in roughly their proportions of Eastern's workforce.'' The court also ruled that the layoffs of baggage handlers and flight attendands were not an illegal change in working conditions under the Railway Labor Act, which governs labor negotiations in the airline and railroad industries. The court found that U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker had ``erred in granting the injunction as the furlough was not an unlawful change in the status quo.'' Last month, Parker had enjoined the layoffs. But the appeals court had quickly dissolved the preliminary injunction, saying Eastern could proceed to lay off affected employees if it posted a $4.7 million bond while the case was appealed. In a statement from its Miami headquarters, the airline hailed the decision as ``a very significant, positive development for Eastern Airlines,'' ``Eastern believes the decision is extremely important because the court has reaffirmed management's right to operate its business in the best interests of the company, its employees, shareholders and the public,'' the company said. Union spokesmen expressed disappointment with the verdict and said no decision had been made on how to proceed. Eastern, which has lost $1 billion since 1980, announced the layoffs in July as part of a plan to eliminate unprofitable routes to 14 cities and close its Kansas City hub. Citing losses of $120 million in the first six months of this year, the company said it was restructuring its operation to concentrate service along more profitable East Coast routes. Profitable service to Latin American points would also be maintained. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Transport Workers Union of America and the Air Line Pilots Association, contended that the furloughs were merely part of an anti-union campaign being waged by Eastern's parent, Texas Air Corp. The pilots union joined the legal challenge even though pilots were not being laid off as a result of the schedule changes. The airline said attrition would account for a reduction in pilot jobs. The unions argued that the layoffs were part of a plan by Texas Air, which acquired the carrier in 1986, to transfer work to its non-union subsidiary, Continental Airlines, and sell off profitable Eastern assets. Judge Stephen Williams, in the opinion joined by Judges David Sentelle and James L. Buckley, found that ``Eastern and Texas Air officials have certainly expressed at least exasperation with Eastern's unions.'' But the panel said ``the present record provides little support for any possible finding that forbidden purposes drove Eastern's decisionmaking.'' Eastern said it will save between $99 million and $199 million in annual operating losses if it cut the unprofitable service plus daily payroll savings of $160,000 from the layoffs. During the second quarter of this year, Eastern said it was losing $1 million a day. Under schedule changes implemented Aug. 31, Eastern eliminated 140 of its 1,225 daily flights and will sell between 33 and 41 airplanes. Service was eliminated to Albuquerque, N.M.,; Reno and Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.; Omaha, Neb.; Dallas and San Antonio, Texas; San Diego; Tucson, Ariz.; Fort de France, Martinique; Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; and St. Lucia, West Indies. Because Parker did not have enough time to fully explore the claims of anti-labor bias, the panel said the union should be given another opportunity to document their allegations in the lower court. ``We do not view this decision as the end of the story,'' said Joseph Guerrieri, a lawyer representing the IAM. He said the union was studying whether to take the case back to Parker or seek a rehearing by the full 11-member appeals court. ``We're very disappointed in the decision,'' said Nancy Currier, vice president of the Transport Workers Local 553 in Miami, which represents about 6,700 Eastern flight attendants. ``... Our legal counsel is studying it and will advise us where we can go from here.'' ``We are committed to continuing to do whatever we can to stop the furlough and bring our people back to work. If we can't do it through the courts, we'll have to try to restore collective bargaining,'' she said. She said union leaders are preparing to begin contract talks with Eastern. Their contract becomes amendable Dec. 31.
AP880429-0226 	X	Since the prison disturbances by Mariel Cuban detainees last fall, the government has released more than 1,000 of the detainees into halfway houses or with family sponsors in communities, the Justice Department announced Friday. One of the triggers to last year's uprisings at federal prisons in Atlanta and Oakdale, La., was the fact that the government was taking so long to place them in halfway houses once they were deemed eligible for release, according to legal advocates for the detainees. Federal officials said they were having trouble finding halfway house space for the detainees. From last June until the time the prison riots erupted in November, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had released 106 Cuban inmates to halfway houses or to family sponsors. A total of 1,047 have been placed since the disturbances. INS has approved 2,224 Cuban detainees for release since last June, of whom 1,337 have been approved since the riots. Parole has been denied to 1,193 Mariel Cubans and 845 of the denials have been decided since the uprisings. When the riots broke out, there were about 7,600 Cuban detainees in various facilities. The Justice Department also announced it plans to repatriate 14 Mariel Cubans, the first group of detainees designated for return to Cuba since the prison disturbances. The 14, in federal custody since completing prison sentences for crimes committed in the United States, have been notified that the INS intends to send them back, the Justice Department said. Those in the group to be repatriated have been convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter, armed robbery, attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted rape. The repatriation process will include a review of their cases by a Justice Department review panel under an agreement which ended the rioting at Atlanta and Oakdale. Those facing repatriation will be given the opportunity to submit additional information on their behalf to the Justice Department review panels, which specifically exclude immigration officers.
AP901208-0072 	X	Serbia and Montenegro, the last Communist-ruled Yugoslav republics, on Sunday hold multiparty elections that could decide whether the country stays together or disintegrates. In the country's largest republic, Serbia, the first free vote in more than 50 years pits the Socialists, formerly the Communists, against a host of center-right nationalist parties. In traditionally pro-Communist Montenegro, the country's smallest republic, the vote is being contested by the ruling Communists and 10 other parties, including some who seek union with neighboring Serbia. In the struggle to shape the country's future, the western republics of Croatia and Slovenia, where center-right parties ousted Communists in spring elections, want more independence from the federation and have threatened to secede. They are pitted against Serbia and Montenegro, whose politicians generally favor a strong central government, although some have accepted the possibility that the country could break up. The race between Socialist leader Slobodan Milosevic and his bitter rival, Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, for Serbia's powerful presidency is the most important in Sunday's elections. Milosevic has so far refused to negotiate with rival Croatia and Slovenia on the country's future. But Draskovic has suggested there might be no stopping the country's breakup. ``If I become president, I would immediately negotiate with Croatia and Slovenia in order to deflate this horrible balloon of hatred in Yugoslavia,'' Draskovic said in a recent interview. ``If we fail to reach an agreement about living together, we will set up separate states.'' The Serbian Reneval Movement poses the biggest challenge to the Socialists. It demands the restoration of capitalism and the return of Serbia's glory as a dominant Balkan state. The outcome of the vote in Serbia could decide a decade-long struggle for power in Yugoslavia, which is being wracked by ethnic and political tensions between its six constituent republics and two provinces. With tensions in Yugoslavia running high, U.S. intelligence has predicted the country could split in 18 months and civil war could break out. Milosevic and Draskovic face 30 lesser rivals running for Serbia's presidency. Also at stake are 250 seats in the republic's Parliament which are contested by 44 parties. Pre-election polls indicated the Socialists were slightly ahead of Draskovic's party. But they also indicated nearly 40 percent of the republic's 6,865,445 eligible voters were still undecided. Serbia's opposition claims that the republic's acrimonious election campaign has claimed five lives. The Socialists say those were not politically motivated deaths. Opposition leaders repeatedly have alleged that the Socialists were preparing to rig the elections to stay in power. They say that since April the Communist authorities have stopped registering deaths in Serbia to enter the non-existing votes in the coming elections. The Socialists deny any wrongdoing. In last year's single-party Serbian elections, unregistered voters, who in some cases were under age, were allowed to cast ballots. As a result, Milosevic won with 104 percent of the votes in some areas. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close 12 hours later. First official results of the elections in the two republics are expected early this week. Runoff elections in all districts where one candidate did not get at least 50 percent of the votes are scheduled for Dec. 23.
AP880720-0139 	X	Here's a sampling of what newspapers abroad are saying about the Democratic National Convention:
AP880610-0120 	X	Some 33,000 pounds of refuse was carted away from a house after it was declared unfit for human habitation, the city's environmental health director said. That was 9,000 pounds more garbage than was generated in the entire city after last October's World Series celebration, said the director, Frank Staffenson. It took seven truckloads to remove the refuse. Cleanup was completed Wednesday when the last of the garbage was removed, rodent traps were placed inside, and the house was boarded up. ``As it stands now the house is condemned as unfit for human habitation and will remain so until the repairs are made and the utilities turned back on,'' said Staffenson. The house's owners, Michael and Deborah Eggert, have not been available for comment. The couple's four children, who lived in the house, have been placed in foster care.
AP881028-0044 	X	The Federal Communications Commission has decided to relax its rule on ownership of more than one radio station. The new rule would allow commonly owned stations to be as close as 25 miles apart, as long as they are in different markets. The rule would reduce by about half the distance required between two stations owned by the same person or company, and it would allow common ownership of stations in adjacent markets. The FCC said the new rule will enable more station owners to take greater advantage of the economies of scale and cost savings that result from common ownership of stations. The FCC also agreed to recommend that Congress require cable companies to negotiate with out-of-town TV stations for the rights to carry their signals. The commission is expected to extend that recommendation to cover local TV signals before it issues a final order in the matter.
AP880807-0059 	X	An Irish customs officer was charged Sunday with belonging to the Irish Republican Army after police seized electronic equipment they said could be used to elude British anti-terrorist scanning devices. The charge came after the IRA claimed responsibility for killing six people and injuring 37 last week in a series of bombings and shootings in Britain, West Germany and Northern Ireland. Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frank Sutcliffe was arrested Friday after three weeks of surveillance. In that operation, authorities said they seized walkie-talkie radio sets and a sniper rifle. The walkie-talkies carried devices which the police sources said could block efforts to locate radio-controlled bombs planted by the IRA. The IRA is waging a guerrilla war to unite the Protestant-dominated British province of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, where Roman Catholic are in the majority. Sutcliffe, 30, of Dublin, appeared Sunday at a special sitting of Dublin's anti-terrorist Special Criminal Court. He was charged with membership in the IRA, which is outlawed both in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland. The court was told Sutcliffe, who was released on $7,040 bail, would also face additional charges.
AP900221-0097 	X	Rival Christian forces today used a cease-fire to stockpile weapons and redeploy troops for their next battle, while civilians fled their ruined neighborhoods for refuge in safer Moslem areas. Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia, refused to give any concessions to Gen. Michel Aoun and said his fighters were ready for war. A source close to Geagea's command said his militia had adopted a new military plan to block any attempt by Aoun to storm its strongholds if the current cease-fire collapses. ``If clashes break out anew, it will be a tough, crushing battle throughout the Christian enclave,'' the source said. Snipers killed one person and wounded five in various parts of the Christian enclave today, police said. By police count, the fight for the 310-square-mile enclave has killed at least 673 people and wounded 1,877, in addition to inflicting more than $750 million in damage. The dead include 97 soldiers killed since the confrontation broke out Jan. 30. The fighting began when Geagea refused Aoun's demand that he disband the Lebanese Forces, the largest Christian militia in Lebanon. Geagea's 6,000-strong militia has deployed about one-third of its fighters in east Beirut, the military source said. They are to defend its urban strongholds and deny Aoun access to the port through the streets of the Ashrafiyeh district. Aoun lost the port in the early days of the fighting. Military analysts believe Aoun must regain control of the port to ensure safe supply lines by sea before accepting any peace settlement. The Lebanese Forces moved new heavy fire power into place in the Kesrouan mountains to harass Aoun's back if he tries to move into the port area, the source said. The upgraded fire power includes about 120 truck-mounted multi-barreled rocket launchers brought out of weapons depots. The launchers, obtained from Iraq more than a year ago, can fire 40 122mm shells a minute. Geagea's men are outnumbered by Aoun's army at least 3-to-1 and hoped to counter his superiority with their upgraded weapons, the source said. Lebanese forces militiamen, with nearly 15 years' experience in street battles, ``are waiting for Aoun's army in the narrow alleys of Ashrafiyeh, which has become a huge garrison,'' the source said. The militia force defending the port, Ashrafiyeh and the military headquarters of Karantina have been beefed up from 1,200 to 2,000 men, the source said. The surrender of Aoun's troops Saturday at Adma, an isolated pocket in Kesrouan, freed the militiamen for the new deployment. The source said the bulk of the militia's fighting force, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, was deployed along the southern and eastern edges of Kesrouan province, separated from Aoun's troops by a no-man's-land of just a few hundred yards. A police spokesman, who cannot be named in line with regulations, confirmed that both factions were bolstering their forces. Aoun's army stockpiled ammunition, especially tank cannon and howitzer rounds, in depots in the Metin mountains northeast of the capital. Meanwhile, civilians continued to desert the Christian enclave, seeking refuge in the predominately Moslem areas outside the enclave. The Christian communities, dispersed throughout Lebanon before the civil war, have gradually consolidated in the enclave since 1975.
AP880827-0104 	X	The cost of living in Fairfield County is among the highest in the country, but the cost of dying has become pricey, too. To make matters worse, burial plots are running out. Most cemeteries, where single plots can cost $1,000 and more, are likely to be filled within 10 or 15 years, according to funeral home and cemetery managers. ``Cemeteries are going to become a thing of the past,'' said William E. Magner Jr., who manages Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport. Harriet Steuber, president of a group that administers Union Cemetery of Norwalk, said that once space runs out, ``I guess we'll all have to be cremated and dumped in the sound,'' referring to Long Island Sound, the stretch of ocean off the Connecticut coast. ``I don't like to think about it. It gives me the creeps,'' Steuber said. One solution may lie above ground. Mausoleums up to four stories high are becoming increasingly common in the region. Construction of one such facility by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport began this month at Darien's St. John's Cemetery. ``It's one of the, shall we say, contemporary modes of burial to help meet the lack of space,'' said Monsignor Nicholas B. Grieco. The structures are often multistory units containing hallways lined with crypts. Each floor might contain up to 100 bodies. ``Think of it as a giant bookcase with slots,'' Magner said. But mausoleums are not cost-savers. They are generally more expensive than below-ground burial, Grieco said. Other cemetery managers say mausoleum interment is about twice the price of traditional burial. Sometimes it's possible to economize. At St. John's Cemetery in Norwalk, a two-grave plot can be used for four individuals _ one on top of another. The practice is allowed at the discretion of the cemetery, which charges $1,050 for the double plots. But the cost of the grave site is only the start. Add to that payments to the cemetery for digging the grave and the price of a concrete vault, plus a foundation for a gravestone and it could cost as much as $2,000. Cremation, which one local funeral director said now accounts for about 30 percent of his business, can save several hundred dollars at the funeral home and there would be no cemetery costs. Basic cremation and transporation services can cost as little as $160.
AP880825-0205 	X	The following are the most popular videocassettes as they appear in next week's issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1988, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
AP900509-0163 	X	An interstate probe of computer hacking has uncovered losses that may reach millions of dollars and could be ``just the tip of the iceberg,'' federal law enforcement officials said Wednedsay. No computer-crime arrests resulted, however, when 27 search warrants served in a dozen cities were served by 150 Secret Service agents and police on Tuesday, officials said. Three people _ one each in Chicago, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh _ were arrested for unrelated offenses, officials said. Secret Service officials declined to release any specifics, including the number of people targeted, saying the two-year investigation, code-named ``Operation Sun Devil,'' was continuing. The probe is focused on illegal entry into computer systems and unauthorized use of credit-card numbers and long-distance codes, said Garry M. Jenkins, assistant Secret Service director for investigations. ``The losses that we estimate on this may run to the millions of dollars,'' said U.S. Attorney for Arizona Stephen McNamee, who joined Jenkins and Arizona Attorney General Bob Corbin at a news conference. ``Most of you have been taking this as a game,'' Corbin told reporters. ``It is not a game. ... They're not all kids. They're adults, too.'' Much of the alleged loss stems from unpaid telephone and computer access charges, the officials said. They said it was possible that hackers had gotten goods or cash through use of unauthorized credit cards, but could not cite any instance of it. In addition to misuse of credit cards and phone lines, the hackers are believed to have gotten into computers that store medical and financial histories, the officials said. The case ``appears to be the largest so far'' in the field, said assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Holtzen. However, it ``is probably only the tip of the iceberg'' when it comes to computer crime, he said. Statements from the Secret Service and the Justice Department gave conflicting information on the number and locations of the cities where searches were made. In addition to searches in or near Phoenix, there were searches conducted this week in or near Chicago; Cincinnati; Detroit; Los Angeles; Miami; Newark, N.J.; New York City; Pittsburgh; Richmond, Va.; Plano, Texas, and San Diego. Also listed in some of the statements were San Jose, Calif.; Saginaw, Mich.; San Francisco and Tucson. Officials said they were unable to explain the discrepancies. Documents on the search warrants will be sealed pending further investigation, assistant Attorney General Gail Thackery said. Under new computer crime laws, the Secret Service has jurisdiction to investigate allegations of electronic fraud through the use of access devices such as credit-card numbers and codes long-distance companies issue to individual callers. Defendants convicted of unauthorized use of such ``access devices'' can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison if they commit fraud of more than $1,000, according to the law. A similar investigation supervised by federal prosecutors in Chicago has resulted in several indictments.
AP900530-0090 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrives tonight for summit talks with President Bush that will focus on tough arms control and trade differences and search for common ground on the future of a unified Germany. The White House said Bush was in a mood of ``anticipation and confidence'' as Gorbachev wound up a brief visit to Canada and headed for his second summit with Bush and his first in Washington since he conferred with President Reagan in 1987. ``The president sees a new horizon in this meeting _ a horizon of opportunity,'' said presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. ``After their discussions we should have a much better view of a new day in East-West relations.'' The Soviet president, in terms harsher than comments made the previous day, reaffirmed his country's opposition to a united Germany belonging to NATO. ``I haven't yet heard any alternative from the West,'' Gorbachev said after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. ``It seems that it is just like an old record that seems to be playing the same note again and again. ... I would like us to find a new melody.'' Bush was spending his second consecutive day closeted with advisers over strategy for three days of summit talks starting Thursday. He also spoke by telephone this morning with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Tuesday night with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Fitzwater said in a statement that Bush brings to the summit talk ``the understandings and insights of many allied leaders,'' including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand, with whom he met recently. Bush was not prepared to offer a position for future negotiations on the size of a unified German military _ a major concern of the Soviets _ Fitzwater said. The White House press secretary disputed news accounts suggesting Bush would offer assurances on limiting German forces to bolster Gorbachev's standing at home. On prospects for a trade agreement during the summit, Fitzwater said, ``I intentionally want to be vague.'' He added, ``I urge you not to rule out anything.'' ``This is an issue that really will depend on Gorbachev and Bush,'' he said. The Bush administration has held up the trade agreement to protest the Soviet Union's economic sanctions against Lithuania and Soviet failure to enact liberal emigration legislation. In a move to resolve disputed arms control issues, Col. Gen. Labronislav Omelichev, first deputy on the Soviet defense ministry's general staff, headed for Washington to enter talks on possible nuclear and conventional fores agreements for Bush and Gorbachev to announce. On the question of German troop levels, the United States still maintains such discussions should be held as part of future talks on reducing conventional forces in all of Europe, Fitzwater said. ``We are opposed to any proposal which would single out Germany for special limits,'' he said. However, Fitzwater said the summit would include ``discussions on the general question. We want to hear their concerns and their interests. We'll express our policy.'' ``This is not an issue which is linked in any way to German unity nor to the renunciation of four-power rights,'' Fitzwater said, referring to control of Germany's destiny by World War II victors Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. ``President Bush will be exploring the subject with President Gorbachev from the standpoint of exploring mutually acceptable options and positions. Again, these issues are not going to be decided here,'' he said. However, an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Bush hopes to nudge Gorbachev into accelerating the first round of conventional arms talks under way in Vienna, Austria, so a treaty can be completed by year's end. Bush was described as firmly opposed to a Soviet proposal that a united Germany be excluded from NATO's military structure while remaining within its political framework. Gorbachev was upbeat about the German issue as he spoke to reporters Tuesday outside Mulroney's residence in Ottawa. Gorbachev said he was confident that he and Bush will find a way to preserve the balance of power in Europe after East and West Germany are unified. Asked if he was optimistic about agreement on Germany and its membership in NATO, the Soviet leader replied: ``I am sure of that. And tell that to the American people.'' U.S. officials disclosed that Gorbachev would meet with South Korean President Roh Tae-woo in San Francisco after the Washington summit ends with a Bush-Gorbachev news conference on Sunday. The Soviet leader's plan to meet Roh was viewed as a further warming in relations between the two countries, which recently established ``consular departments'' in trade offices in each other's capitals. Before flying to Washington, Gorbachev acknowledged the emergence of a new domestic worry _ the election of political maverick Boris N. Yeltsin as president of the Russian republic _ as a major earthquake struck Eastern Europe. Gorbachev told reporters that ``everything is OK'' in the Soviet Union despite the quake that struck Romania this morning, killing eight people, injuring 260 and causing widespread damage. Tremors were felt in Moscow and Leningrad and a Soviet lawmaker said initial reports from the republic of Moldavia indicated there were an unspecified number of deaths. The Soviet leader said he saw no reason to break off his trip and return home. A major earthquake in Soviet Armenia in December 1988 forced Gorbachev to cut short a visit to the United Nations in New York, where he also met with President Reagan. In advance of the Soviet leader's early evening arrival, it was announced that Vice President Dan Quayle will meet Gorbachev briefly on Friday at the Soviet Embassy to discuss cooperation on space exploration. Arms control negotiators for the two countries, meanwhile, wrangled for more than two hours Tuesday over U.S. and Soviet conventional forces in Europe as well as their nuclear arsenals, including bombers and submarines. Meeting in secrecy at the State Department, they made some progress toward reductions in both areas. They agreed, for example, on definitions for such conventional weapons as tanks and armored personnel carriers, which will make it easier to verify that treaty terms are carried out, an official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Although Secretary of State James A. Baker III's recent trip to Moscow led to agreement on sea and air-launched missiles, a handful of tough strategic weapons issues remained unsettled. Arms control issues still in dispute include whether to ban ballistic missiles with multiple warheads and the number of flight tests the Soviets could conduct of their heavy SS-18 missiles. The arsenal of such missiles is to be halved, from 308 to 154, but there is no agreement restricting improvement in the missiles that remain. Bush and Gorbachev still are expected to issue a joint declaration of progress toward a major reduction in nuclear arsenals, officials said, but they cautioned that long-range nuclear weapon issues still disputed may be excluded from that declaration. On the economic front, State Department spokeswoman Margaret D. Tutwiler said Tuesday that a new commercial air travel agreement has been initialed. Officials said it will be ready for signing at the summit.
AP881017-0133 	X	The government is losing billions of dollars in tax revenues each year because the Internal Revenue Service does not use an enforcement program on business taxpayers that it has been using effectively on individuals, a House panel said Monday. A report from the House Government Operations subcommittee on commerce, consumer and monetary affairs estimated that between $3.2 billion and $8 billion a year in taxes on interest and dividends earned by businesses is never collected because the income is not reported to the IRS. While the revenue loss estimates ``are not statistically precise,'' the report said they provide ample justification for the IRS to include businesses in the document-matching program it now uses to verify interest and dividend earnings on individual tax returns. Under the existing document-matching program, the IRS compares ``information returns'' detailing interest and dividend payments to individuals with the individuals' actual income tax returns. The program in fiscal 1985 produced $2.35 billion in additional tax revenue from individuals. Although banks and corporations are not required to file such information returns on income payments to corporations, the House report said the IRS received _ but never used _ 26 million such returns in 1985, showing income payments to 5 million businesses totaling $987 billion. ``By casting these information returns aside, IRS is not only missing the chance to assess many billions of dollars of unreported business tax liabilities but has created a double standard of enforcement that is more lenient by far toward businesses than individuals,'' said Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., chairman of the subcommittee. IRS spokesman Frank Keith said Monday the agency has not seen the House report and will have no comment until agecny officials can review it. But at a hearing before Barnard's subcommittee last year, IRS Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs said the costs of implementing a document-matching program for corporations would not be justified by the additional revenue that would be generated. Gibbs said the administrative costs of a document-matching program for corporations would be much higher than for individuals because corporations use different fiscal years, varying accounting methods and different names. Although the problems cited by Gibbs all ``pertain to the way income is reported'' to the IRS, the House report said the IRS ``never considered the desirably of modifying the reporting requirements, nor assessed the feasibility of a partial document-matching program encompassing those corporations to which the difficulties do not pertain.'' Gibbs told the subcommittee last year the IRS would begin using document-matching to verify income reported on tax returns from single-owner businesses and would initiate a multi-year study to determine the extent of business underreporting of interest and dividend income. He also promised to begin a test program using information returns to detect corporations and partnerships that do not file any income tax return. The House report said the test program in one district office was so effective the IRS now has expanded it to nine more districts and could have a document-matching program ready by next spring to identify non-filers among corporations and partnerships nationwide. But despite such efforts, Barnard said the IRS ``has not been sufficiently diligent in attempting to extend its sophisticated computer matching capabilities to businesses.'' ``Individuals, and now sole proprietors, who know that each and every one of their returns will be scrutinized by IRS' computers for unreported income deserve to know why corporate and partnership returns are being excused from this automatic examination process,'' Barnard said. The report said Congress should help the IRS set up a document-matching program for corporate returns by enacting legislation to require that businesses and financial institutions report to the IRS all dividend and interest payments to corporations. Barnard introduced such legislation earlier this year, but it was never reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee.
AP881031-0182 	X	A Soviet official said Monday that claims against Washington for delays in erecting the Soviet Embassy exceed the $29 million America is demanding for an unfinished, allegedly bugged U.S. Embassy building in Moscow. A Swedish official said Monday that the U.S. claim will go to an arbitration board in Stockholm which has quietly dealt with East-West disputes for 20 years. President Reagan said last Thursday he was recommending tearing down the main office building of the new U.S. Embassy compound in Moscow because the building was riddled with Soviet eavesdropping devices. His administration is not permitting the Soviets to occupy their new building in Washington while the status of the U.S. building remains unsettled. Soviet officials deny the U.S. Embassy building in Moscow is bugged, and on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news conference: ``We also have bills to present to the American side.'' Gerasimov said claims for late delivery of construction materials and equipment and for other troubles would surpass the amount sought by Washington. In Stockholm, Ulf Franke, vice chairman of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, said, ``We have been informed by the United States that they are preparing an arbitration (case) here in Stockholm. The next step is to appoint the arbitrators.'' ``The case is well prepared and it might start any day.'' His organization is the parent body of the Arbitration Institute. Franke said the U.S. government invoked a clause in the 1977 building contract for the embassy construction in Moscow, in which either side can refer a dispute to the Stockholm institute. The ruling of the panel is binding. State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said in Washington that the U.S. claim against the Soviets is for damage and defective construction. No figure has been established for any bugging of the building. The State Department has said the building will be torn down and a new embassy will be contructed with U.S. workers and materials. Direct talks between the United States and Soviet Union have failed to settle the dispute. U.S. officials said last week they would ask outside arbiters to resolve it. Sweden's Arbitration Institute was founded 70 years ago and began dealing with international cases in the 1960s. Its reputation for secrecy has brought it a growing number of cases. The case will be heard by three arbitrators, one chosen by each side and a chairman picked by the board from a list of leading Swedish legal experts.
AP880301-0254 	X	Farmers who received some government information late have been given additional time to file their 1987 federal income-tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it was granting special relief to farmers who did not receive Agriculture Department documents by the Feb. 15 scheduled date. Those documents are Form 1099-G, which reflects certain government payments, and Form 1099-A, on which acquisitions or abandonments of secured property are reported. Farmers generally are not subject to penalties for underpayments if they file their returns by March 1. The IRS concluded that farmers who failed to receive required information from the Agriculture Department by Feb. 15 might be unable to meet the March 1 deadline. The IRS said farmers affected by the delay should attach to their tax return a Form 2210F on which they have written their name and Social Security number and, on the bottom right, the words ``farm waiver.'' With the extension, farmers will have to file returns and pay any tax owed by April 15, the deadline for most taxpayers.
AP880623-0260 	X	Stocks opened mixed this morning after a strong runup the previous session that pushed the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest level since the October crash. The widely watched index of 30 industrials was off 0.71 to 2,151.49 by 10 a.m. EDT. Among broader market indicators, the New York Stock Exchange composite index of all listed issues rose 0.01 to 155.36. The American Stock Exchange market-value index fell 0.05 to 308.54. Losing issues narrowly outnumbered declines on the NYSE, with 460 down, 417 up and 547 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board totaled 24.07 million shares after the first 30 minutes. Brokers differed on their short-term outlook for stocks. Some expected prices to weaken from investors selling stocks to capture profits from the market's Wednesday surge. Others said the dollar's strength and eased pressure on interest rates would lure more people into the market and boost prices. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 43.03 points to 2,152.20, its highest level since the crash eight months ago. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about an 11-to-4 ratio in nationwide trading of NYSE-listed stocks, with 1,144 up, 413 down and 420 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 217.51 million shares, up from 155.06 million previously.
AP901201-0011 	X	A weather satellite that will help the military plan air, sea and ground operatios was launched Saturday into a near-polar orbit, the Air Force said. An Atlas E booster blasted off with a payload for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The satellite went into orbit about five minutes later about 500 hundred miles above Earth. ``It's going to take 20 days or so to fully check out the satellite and make sure it's working properly,'' said Staff Sgt. Tom Clements. ``From what we can see, everything looks picture perfect.'' Meteorology information gathered by optical scanners on the satellite will be used by all branches of the military to aid commanders planning air, sea and ground operations, the Air Force said. The satellite cost about $40 million to build in 1981, Clements said. By today's dollars, the price tag is closer to $60 million. The Atlas E program costs $30 million to $40 million per year to launch two payloads, he said. The satellite will allow forecasters to track existing and developing weather patterns over remote areas. It will also be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and similar civilian agencies.
AP880813-0124 	X	A man who pleaded guilty in connection with an elaborate scheme to sell stolen computer plans to the Soviet Union has been sentenced to six years in federal prison. Kevin Anderson, 30, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to violate export laws and wire fraud in a plea bargain that apparently required his testimony against his alleged co-conspirator, Charles McVey. He had faced a maximum of 15 years. McVey is awaiting extradition from Canada for his role in the failed caper involving $4 million worth of technology manuals and programs from the Saxpy Corp. of Sunnyvale. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 12 years for Anderson, citing the case's ``extraordinary seriousness.'' But U.S. District Judge William Ingram said at Friday's sentencing he was mainly concerned about the theft of materials from Saxpy and less about the purported danger to national security posed by the 1987 scheme, which was never completed. Because of the Saxpy computer's capabilities in antisubmarine warfare, the case threatened national security, prosecutors contended. ``The American computer technology involved in this case is among the most sophisticated and highly sought after by the Soviet bloc,'' the U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement issued Friday. ``The documents and programs stolen from Saxpy would have allowed the Soviets to use this technology in anti-submarine warfare applicatons. ... If the shipments were successful, it would have been a major blow to our national security.'' Defense attorneys charged that federal officials had ``hyped'' charges in the case, saying they claimed Anderson had stolen ``the crown jewels of technology ... when it was really rhinestones at best.'' David Ellison, one of Anderson's attorneys, said that with credit for time served, Anderson could be free in 18 months.
AP880917-0153 	X	Thousands of revelers jammed the downtown area Saturday to soak up the suds and kick off Oktoberfest, the world's biggest and best-known beer bash. Officials estimate more 6 million people will attend the 2-week-long binge of hoopla and are expected to consume nearly 1.4 million gallons of the brew. The annual event draws visitors from both home and abroad to savor the traditional Octoberfest fare _ hamhocks, sauerkraut, grilled chicken and sausages _ washed down with glasses of beer to the sound of blaring Bavarian folk music. The festival got its start as a wedding party when on Oct. 12, 1810, when Crown Prince Ludwig, who later became King Ludwig I of Bavaria, married Princess Therese von Saxony-Hilburgshausen. That five-day celebration was held on the same patch of ground where the event is held today. During the early Octoberfests, the royal family paid the costs of the festival, but that tradition has long since faded and visitors are paying record prices for their brew this year. According to festival organizers, a liter of beer will cost on average about $3.70. Organizers said they expected consumption to equal or top last year's figures. Last year, revelers drank 1,396,720 gallons of brew and consumed a total of 732,859 grilled chickens and 349,594 pork sausages. Since its inception, the annual event has only been canceled 24 times, in 1854 and 1873 because of cholera epidemics, and during and after World War I and World War II.
AP900709-0053 	X	Nearly half of the Arco Chemical Co. plant employees were returning to work today but the plant remained out of operation as investigators tried to determine what caused an explosion that killed 17 workers last week. About 150 of the plant's 350 workers were told to return to work, said Gerald Davis, Arco Chemical spokesman. ``We'll just bring some administrators in,'' Davis said. ``Other employees will be out until a judgment is made about the safety at the plant and we will continue to pay their salaries and try to keep them informed about what's happening in the plant.'' The sprawling plant complex will be brought back into operation in phases that could span several months, Davis said. Company officials and representatives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration toured the crumbled remains of a block-long area of the 564-acre chemical plant on Sunday. Seventeen workers from Arco and contractors Austin Industrial Inc. and Waste Processers Industries Inc. were killed Thursday night when a wastewater tank exploded in a fireball. Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of the blast. The widow of a millwright killed Thursday said her husband called her a half hour before the plant blew up, saying workers restarting equipment there were afraid it might explode. Lori Davis said her husband, Michael Davis, said they were afraid to restart a compressor that they had fixed. ``They thought it might blow,'' Mrs. Davis said. Harold Sorgenti, president and chief executive officer of Arco Chemical, earlier said workers were repairing an electric compressor near a 900,000-gallon wastewater treatment tank when the explosion occurred. The tank separates hydrocarbons from water and then a compressor pumps the sometimes volatile vapors into a pipeline where impurities can be removed before releasing the gases to the atmosphere, officials said.
AP880705-0101 	X	Rebels of Uganda's Holy Spirit Movement have released seven kidnapped priests and nuns after the Roman Catholic Church met their demands for medical supplies, a church official said Tuesday. The Rev. Agostoni Tarcis, secretary of the church's Justice and Peace Commission, said the abductions occurred Saturday at Amuru Mission, 19 miles from the northern provincial capital, Gulu, after an abortive rebel raid on nearby Lacor mission hospital for drugs. ``The rebels held the hostages, demanding drugs in exchange for their release,'' Tarcis said. They freed their victims, all Ugandans, the next day after the church handed over an unspecified amount of medication. In March, rebels belonging to the same group attacked Lacor hospital and got away with large quantities of drugs. Since then, government troops have guarded the medical center. The government of President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power in January 1986, is fighting several different rebel groups in northern and eastern Uganda.
AP900426-0258 	X	Health care products giant Johnson & Johnson on Thursday blamed loan payments in Argentina for a 23.2 percent dip in earnings despite a 16.1 percent rise in sales for the first quarter of 1990. Earnings for the period were $244 million, or 73 cents per share, on sales of $2.84 billion, compared with $317 million, or 95 cents per share, on sales of $2.45 billion for the same period a year ago. The latest results were reduced by a nonrecurring charge of $125 million resulting from paying off an Argentine subsidiary's loan that was growing rapidly because of inflation in that country. Excluding the nonrecurring costs, the company said its earnings would have risen 16.4 percent. ``We are very pleased with the 16 percent increase in sales, especially in the light of the extreme competitive environment in the domestic consumer environment,'' Johnson & Johnson Chairman Ralph S. Larsen said in a statement. ``The increase reflects substantial sales gains from worldwide and professional operations, as well as strong international revenues from our Consumer businesses,'' he said. Larsen said sales of six key products, including a blood screening product for Hepatitis C, increased substantially in the quarter. Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest manufacturer of health care products serving consumer, pharmaceutical and professional markets. It reported 1989 sales of $9.76 billion.
AP881108-0083 	X	A $66 million lawsuit has been filed charging that a law firm and its major client, Shell Oil Co., conspired to cover up years of pollution at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Travelers Insurance Co., which insured Shell's arsenal operations from 1952 to 1975, charged that the oil giant failed for decades to tell underwriters about environmental destruction at the chemical production site north of Stapleton International Airport. The complex lawsuit, filed Nov. 1 in California, is unusual in its accusation that the Denver law firm Holme Roberts conspired with a client. The Army, which leased arsenal space to Shell, sued the oil giant in December 1983 to force it to join the $2 billion cleanup of the 27-square-mile facility. Shell hired Holme Roberts as its attorneys in the case. One month later, Travelers agreed to pay 55 percent _ $16 million _ of Shell's costs of defending itself against that suit. Travelers is asking for return of the $16 million plus $50 million in punitive damages. Travelers said Shell ``knowingly and intentionally released pollutants into the environment since commencement of its operations at the arsenal in 1952.'' It also charged that Holme Roberts learned of the extent of Shell's pollution at the arsenal while representing Shell. A spokesman for Holme Roberts said the lawsuit was ``totally without foundation,'' and a Shell corporate spokeswoman said the accusations were ``totally without merit.'' In a separate case, Shell is suing Travelers and 250 other insurance companies to force them to share the entire cost of the cleanup bill. That trial is in its second year in San Mateo County (Calif.) Superior Court. Travelers charged in its lawsuit that Shell and Holme Roberts are using Travelers-financed evidence from the Army case against Travelers itself in the California insurance trial.
AP900120-0072 	X	At least two companies hired by the Energy Department as independent investigators of environmental and safety conditions at nuclear weapons plants are on the payroll at facilities they investigated, government records show. Others participating in the audits had bid for Energy Department contracts at sites they investigated, although they were not yet working there. Still others, while not associated with the plants they audited, are the Energy Department's prime contractors at other nuclear bomb factories. Written department guidelines for carrying out the ``independent tiger team'' investigations include a provision aimed at avoiding organizational conflicts of interest. It defines such a conflict as a situation in which a contractor ``has past, present or currently planned interests that either directly or indirectly ... may relate to the work to be performed'' and which may bias its judgment. The tiger teams were assembled by Energy Secretary James D. Watkins last summer to give an independent view of the plants' compliance with state and federal environmental, safety and health standards. The auditing work is meant to lay the groundwork for actions to correct unsafe and illegal practices at the plants. Virtually all 17 major weapons facilities have severe environmental problems; estimates of the cost of cleaning up production wastes are as high as $100 billion. Watkins publicly stressed the independence of the tiger teams but did not explain that many of the experts would be tied to the weapons business. The Energy Department, which owns the plants, declined to comment on whether the contractors' connections to the weapons industry amount to a conflict of interest that undermines the independence of the investigations or taints the findings. Department spokeswoman Catherine Kaliniak said the department would prefer to use its own employees for this work, ``but we don't have the people to do it.'' Each team is headed by a small number of department officials, but most of the scientific work is done by contract employees. Most have extensive backgrounds in nuclear environmental and safety matters. A review of department records as well as interviews with government and industry officials show that of the eight weapons plant investigations done last year, at least three involved companies that held other Energy Department contracts at the same sites or were bidding for contract work at those facilities. _The engineering and environmental consulting firm NUS Corp. of Gaithersburg, Md., was on the tiger team that investigated the Y-12 uranium processing plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., last fall. According to department records, NUS at the same time was working for the Oak Ridge reservation on an environmental study of its nuclear and hazardous waste management. The Y-12 plant is one of several operations at the Oak Ridge reservation. NUS's Oak Ridge contract was awarded Nov. 8, 1988, and was valued at $1.4 million. The firm also holds contracts at weapons facilities in South Carolina and Idaho. NUS spokesman Don Couchman declined to discuss any aspect of the firm's work for the Energy Department. _Science Applications International Corp. of La Jolla, Calif., helped evaluate the Nevada Test Site, which conducts underground nuclear weapons tests. The company at the same time was working at the site under two Energy Department contracts with a combined value of $100 million. Most of its work is at a proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at the site that was not part of the tiger team audit. _ICF Kaiser Engineers, an engineering and construction company based in Oakland, Calif., participated in tiger team audits at the Nevada Test Site. ICF held no Energy Department contracts at the test site at the time of the investigation last November, but it was bidding for a $5 million job to help the facility's prime contractor, Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co., Inc., develop and carry out an environmental cleanup program there. ICF Kaiser announced it won the contract 10 days after the on-site tiger team work ended Dec. 1. Similarly, records show the company participated in tiger team investigations at the Fernald uranium processing plant in Ohio and the Y-12 Oak Ridge plant while it was a bidder for major Energy Department contracts at both sites. The contract at Oak Ridge is valued at $505 million over five years, according to Bob Lynch, deputy director of the department's field office there. Marc Tipermas, executive vice president of ICF, said in a telephone interview that he saw no conflict of interest in his company's involvement in the tiger team work. He said he was not sure whether, in choosing ICF for the work, the department knew or cared about the company's other work at the weapons plants. ``In order to get this job done well and quickly, contractors had to be used,'' Tipermas said. ``Like many other companies, we were drafted. We were helter-skelter pulled onto these teams.'' The Energy Department has used private contractors to run the nuclear weapons plants since they were built as part of the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. The contracting system has left the department with little internal expertise in this area and a tendency to rely on the weapons makers to police themselves. Watkins strongly advocates hiring more federal employees with environmental, safety and health expertise to lessen the dependence on private contractors. Although the department insists that the tiger team members' links to the weapons industry do not compromise their objectivity as judges of environmental and safety conditions at the plants, some outside experts disagree. ``It's inevitably a potential conflict when a contractor is reviewing another contractor, and the reason is that any possible criticism of one contractor might lead to future business for another contractor,'' said Donald F. Kettl, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University and author of a book on government use of contractors. Other tiger team members included companies in charge of running nuclear weapons plants, though not the ones they investigated. These include EG&G Inc., which is the prime contractor at the Rocky Flats plutonium processing plant near Denver, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory at Idaho Falls, which processes naval nuclear fuels, and the Mound Laboratory near Dayton, Ohio, which makes detonators for nuclear arms. Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc., which runs the Oak Ridge facilities, participated in some other audits, as did subsidiaries of Westinghouse Electric Corp., which runs several weapons sites, and Mason and Hangar Silas Mason Co., operator of the Pantex final weapons assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas.
AP880727-0015 	X	Fire-spitting helicopters were dispatched to Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday to help protect the Old Faithful geyser area from a 6,000-acre blaze, part of the worst series of fires in the park in nearly a century. Almost 1,000 firefighters were summoned to the scene, but officials had not decided as of early Tuesday evening whether to actively fight the fire, one of a dozen burning in the oldest national park. The fires have charred more than 70,000 acres in the 2.2 million-acre park, the nation's oldest national park. One fire, the 47,000-acre blaze dubbed ``Clover Mist'' on the eastern edge of Yellowstone, made two jumps into Shoshone National Forest. Interior Secretary Donald Hodel made plans to tour Yellowstone by helicopter Wednesday to get a first-hand view of the devastation. Winds were pushing the Old Faithful fire away from the geyser complex, which includes an historic inn and several other buildings. But fire managers decided as a safeguard to call in ``heli-torches'' that can spew a napalm-like substance. If officials decide to use them, the copters will be used to start ``backfires'' to burn away brush in the main fire's path. The fire, which started Friday in the adjacent Targhee National Forest in Idaho, burned roughly 10 miles west of Old Faithful, and about 10-15 miles south of Madison Junction, said Fire Information Officer Bruce Fox. Later estimated differed on how far the fire was from Old Faithful, ranging from about 6 miles to 10 miles, but officials agreed that it was still burning toward the northeast, a direction would bypass the geyser. Spokesmen stressed that their figures on total acreage burned also were estimates. Officials said they didn't believe firefighters could ever douse the flames. ``These fires are going to burn until the weather puts them out,'' said Fox. A fire camp was established 13 miles north of Old Faithful in an open field, where resting firefighters relaxed in tents or simply stretched out on the ground. Other firefighters were at Old Faithful picking the area clean of downed trees, piles of firewood, twigs and pine needles that could feed embers carried by winds to the area. They also cleared the ground around a microwave tower that provides Old Faithful's communications with the rest of the park. Plans were made to burn a five-mile-long meadow, possibly on Wednesday, to clear out the dry vegetation and thus slow the fire if it turned toward Old Faithful, said Fox. ``With the worst-case weather scenario (strong winds out of the west), that probably wouldn't hold it. But it would definitely slow it down,'' he said. ``If all else fails, we'll backfire Old Faithful.'' Eighty firefighters were sent to an area near Frost Lake, located 10 miles north of Yellowstone's East Entrance, where flames had blackened about 200 acres since the fire moved into the national forest during the weekend, said forest spokesman Dave Damron. Another 60 were 10 miles farther to the north where the ``Canoe Lake'' fire had burned about 50 acres, he said. Unusually hot and dry conditions this summer have left Yellowstone and the rest of northwestern Wyoming tinder-box dry. ``The last time they had this much fire in the park was in the late 1800s,'' said Incident Commander Larry Caplinger. ``The fuel conditions, and the weather conditions, lend themselves to extreme fire potential. ``The outlook is we probably got at least three long months of fire season ahead of us in this part of the country,'' he added. ``We could be in for the beginning of the siege of '88.'' Although no closures of services or accommodations at Old Faithful had been ordered, park visitors were advised such closures may eventually be necessary. Fires have forced the closure of Grant Village and the road from there south to the South Entrance. At Grant Village, about 500 firefighters were continuing to fight flames from the the Shoshone and Red fires that had spread to 20,200 acres. The village includes a small hotel and some trailers and apartments for park service personnel. Hot embers shooting ahead of the fires Monday night burned through power lines at the area of the village and set one building on fire. Officials said the structure wasn't seriously damaged. Flames also had burned around the Lewis Lake campground, torching trees along the perimeter of the area, according to fire officials. In the Teton Wilderness that borders Yellowstone on the south, some 690 firefighters worked Tuesday along the northern edge of the 24,400-acre Mink Creek fire. While good progress was made during the day on the southern end of the fire, thunderstorms packing some erratic winds were creating a problem on the northern end, which had burned about 1,200 acres into Yellowstone's remote backcountry.
AP900919-0235 	X	The president and chief executive officer of CPC International Inc., Charles R. Shoemate, also will serve as chairman of the board, the food company announced Wednesday. Shoemate, 50, succeeds James R. Eiszner, who died Sept. 11. Shoemate joined CPC in 1962 and has held positions in manufacturing, finance and management within the consumer foods and corn refining businesses. He became president in October 1988. Based in Englewood Cliffs, CPC had sales of $5.1 billion last year. Among its U.S. brands are Hellmann's mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter and Mazola corn oil and margarine.
AP900209-0240 	X	The dollar fell against most major currencies in European trading today. Gold was quoted nominally softer. The dollar lost ground against the yen in Tokyo today, closing at 144.72 yen, down 0.78 yen from Thursday's close of 145.50 yen. Later in London, the dollar traded at 145.15 yen. Traders sold the West German mark for the yen throughout the day to take profits on overbought mark positions, dealers said. Concerns about the implications of a proposal to unify the two German monetary systems, along with profit-taking, helped push the mark lower, traders said. Other dollar rates at midmorning, compared with late Thursday's prices, included: 1.6665 West German marks, down from 1.6872; 1.4890 Swiss francs, down from 1.4905; 5.6710 French francs, down from 5.6725; 1.8840 Dutch guilders, up from 1.8810; 1,241.00 Italian lire, down from 1,241.50; and 1.1940 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1970. The British pound traded at $1.6910, compared with $1.6885 late Thursday. London's major gold dealers fixed a recommended price of $418.50 at midmorning, up from $417.75 bid late Thursday. In Zurich, the bid price was $418.75, up from $417.75 bid late Thursday. Gold in Hong Kong rose 96 cents an ounce today, to close at $417.42. Silver traded at a bid price of $5.34 a troy ounce, up from Thursday's $5.32.
AP900412-0097 	X	Superstitions generally cast Friday the 13th into a bad luck day for the so-called ``triskaidekaphobics'' who fear it, but the number 13 also has some good signs. In this Liberty Bell city the 13 colonies declared independence, and the 13-letter slogan ``E Pluribus Unum'' is placed on U.S. coins. Also Philadelphia is the headquarters for the Friday the 13th club, founded 54 years ago by 13 men, limits membership to 13 and only meets on Friday the 13th. ``We replace members only when someone dies or leaves town,'' member Arthur Klein said of the club, whose theme is to defy all the superstitutions. This Friday the 13th, the club will gather at 8:13 a.m. in a paint warehouse where chairman Max Buten has assembled some ladders. Not only will members walk under the ladders. They also will open black umbrellas, break mirrors and spill salt. They may even have a few black cats. Scared? ``Not us,'' said Klein, who wouldn't say if he would be carrying a rabbit's foot or would be knocking on wood when walking under the ladders. ``As soon as this meeting's over I'm asking for a substantial premium reduction on my warehouse's catastrophe insurance,'' Buten said. Nordic myth has it that number 13 first became unlucky a few thousand years ago when, at a banquet of a dozen benevolent gods, an uninvited bad god intruded and started a fight that killed the most popular god. Another explanation for calling it a bad day was that Jesus was crucified on a Friday and there were 13 at his Last Supper. Many buildings omit 13 when numbering floors. Some hospitals don't have a room 13. Some people won't start a trip on the 13th. Klein isn't worried about defying the superstitions. ``Hey, we've been meeting every Friday the 13th, and nothing's stopped us yet,'' he said. There's a target date for stopping, though. The last scheduled meeting, according to the club's charter, is Friday, Oct. 13, 2000.
AP880409-0136 	X	Candidate Sonny Bono isn't sure how he'll do in this desert resort's mayoral election Tuesday, but just ask him about his ex-wife's chances for an Oscar. ``I had this vision,'' Bono said. ``This incredible thought occurred to me. `Cher's going to win the Academy Award.' I called her yesterday. I said, `Cher, you're going to win.' ``She said, `From your mouth to God's ear.''' Cher is a nominee for Best Actress in Monday night's Academy Awards for her performance in ``Moonstruck.'' And her former singing and marriage partner is on the ballot for mayor the next day in this celebrity desert resort. ``Wouldn't it be fun if she won the Academy Award and I was elected mayor?'' Bono said in a recent interview at his lavish mansion here. `It would be unprecedented in that Sonny and Cher stays alive in so many ways, years later.'' It's been 23 years since the bell-bottomed, fur-vested couple hit the top of the record charts singing ``I've Got You Babe,'' and 14 years since both their television show and marriage ended. Bono, who recently appeared in offbeat movie ``Hairspray'' and also runs a restaurant, announced his candidacy a year ago, drawing hoots and howls from people who remembered him as the long-haired butt of Cher's jokes and whose career bottomed out after guest spots on ``Love Boat'' and ``Fantasy Island.'' ``They thought it was a joke,'' Bono said of townspeople's reaction to his candidacy. ``They came around because I put my body out there for people to start shooting at. And people came around. They now take me very seriously.'' Show business, he says, was never as tough as running for office. ``Not even close!'' The pressure and anxiety reached major proportions March 31 when he burst into a televised candidates' forum and exploded at the moderator for not explaining that he wasn't participating because his pregnant fourth wife, Mary, 26, was hospitalized with the flu. The couple's first child is due April 17. ``I shouldn't have gotten that emotional or let it affect me that much. But it did,'' he said apologetically. Although there are seven candidates for mayor, the media spotlight is on Bono. ``We got calls from Europe, an Australian television station. ABC is coming in tomorrow. It's just crazy,'' said campaign worker Glenn Symonds. Bono is fueling his campaign by selling $15 ``Sonny Bono for Mayor'' T-shirts. The sales of shirts, buttons and bumper stickers account for $37,000 of his $53,000 campaign war chest, the largest of the candidates. Bono's opponents are Vice Mayor Eli Birer, businesswoman Deyna Hodges, accountant Lloyd Maryanov, Agua Caliente Indian Tribe Secretary Ray Patencio, real estate agent Neil Beatty and retired dentist Lewis Friedman. ``I've never run against a celebrity before. It's really tough,'' Birer said. Bono moved to the desert four years ago to escape Los Angeles. The tranquility relaxed him, and he enjoyed the small-town atmosphere. But he soon had run-ins with city officials over the size of a sign for his Italian restaurant, ``Bono,'' and about a retaining wall he was building at his home. So, like Carmel's Clint Eastwood, he decided to run for mayor. ``It was very dictatorial, very controlled, very hostile,'' Bono said of the city government. ``I have a big investment in this city. I don't want to see it deteriorate or decline.'' Incumbent Frank Bogert, 76, is stepping down after two two-year terms. The new mayor will serve a four-year term and be paid $15,000 a year. The part-time, non-partisan official presides over the City Council, while a city manager handles daily operations and makes recommendations to the council. Whatever townspeople think of Bono's candidacy, most agree that Palm Springs needs revitalization. It has lost business, clout and tourists to other nearby desert communities such as Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage, where Frank Sinatra lives. If he's elected, Bono has plans to draw tourists to this town 120 miles southeast of Los Angeles, including a film festival with big-name celebrities, a sporting event such as a marathon or triathalon and concerts. But win or lose, Bono knows he made a difference by getting the issues discussed and people interested. An election in this community of 38,000 residents usually draws about 6,000 of its 18,000 registered voters. That's expected to double Tuesday. ``At least I added excitement to the race,'' he said. ``It would have been a yawn without me.''
AP900118-0032 	X	An international group of lawyers is planning a court challenge to the government screening process that determines which Vietnamese boat people are to be forcibly repatriated, a spokesman said today. ``We think that there are cases of persons who are genuine refugees who have fallen through the cracks in the process'' and were mistakenly classified as illegal immigrants, said David Clark, senior lecturer in political science at Hong Kong University. This British colony once considered all Vietnamese who arrived by boat to seek asylum as refugees eligible for resettlement overseas. But the government, facing a mounting influx of Vietnamese, decided in June 1988 to classify arriving boat people as illegal immigrants subject to repatriation unless they could prove they fled persecution in their Communist homeland. About 85 percent of the approximately 44,000 boat people who have arrived under the new policy are expected to face forced repatriation. The current screening process involves an interview with an immigration officer and gives the opportunity for one appeal. So far, 51 boat people have been forcibly repatriated and about 1,000 have gone back voluntarily. The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International earlier this week criticized the program, saying immigration officers often have scant knowledge of the situation in Vietnam and that translating services need improvement. The group of lawyers, which includes members from the United States and Britain, has selected nine boat people who were screened out by immigration officials and had their appeals denied. ``We have evidence in those cases that there were various defects'' in the process, said Clark. He added that the Vietnamese chosen for the case appear to have a good claim to being classified as refugees. The lawyers plan to go to the colony's High Court with their complaints in a few weeks to seek the overturn of the screening results, said Clark, who has taught administrative law in Hong Kong for 11 years. ``It will be a tough case to win,'' he said. ``The government will fight it tooth and nail.' If the High Court rules against the challenge, the lawyers' group can take the case to the Court of Appeal in Hong Kong and then the Privy Council in London. If that fails, the group may take action against the screening process through the European Commission of Human Rights. The impetus for the legal challenge came largely from Americans Arthur Helton, of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights; Janelle Diller, of the Indochina Resource Action Center, and Briton David Burgess.
AP880528-0130 	X	Delegates of Mauritius stormed out of the final session of the Organization of African Unity summit Saturday and accused the OAU of hypocrisy for criticizing their nation's increased trade with South Africa. ``These self-righteous, hypocritical accusations are an insult to Mauritius,'' said Satoam Boolall, the island nation's chief representative at the summit. ``My government feels that it is being unfairly and unjustly singled out.'' Boolall, of Mauritius' Foreign Ministry, said Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth ordered the delegation to walk out of the session. Conference sources said the Comoros Islands and the Seychelles, two other Indian Ocean islands, also protested the summit's adoption of an OAU Liberation Committee report expressing embarrassment and concern at their growing trade ties with South Africa. Thirty heads of state attended the OAU's 25th anniversary celebrations and its 24th summit in Addis Ababa, the organization's headquarters. OAU Secretary-General Ide Oumarou of Niger said the final resolution criticized those African nations that do not border South Africa and whose economic relationship with the white-dominated government was ``voluntary and deliberate.'' He said the organization was not being hypocritical in not citing the countries whose geographical proximity to South African and colonial heritages have forced their economies to be integrated into that of South Africa. Black Africa does about $1 billion a year business with South Africa, most of it covert. The summit established a committee to investigate that. It also asked the OAU secretariat to report on the financial cost of opening a Washington D.C. office to back efforts encouraging passage of a U.S. bill supporting economic sanctions against South Africa. The OAU member countries repeated longstanding calls for the United States to use its influence with Pretoria to ensure the speedy implementation of U.N. Resolution 435, calling for a cease-fire and referendum in Namibia, which South Africa administers. The summit also said it would work toward convening a U.N. Security Concil meeting to ``examine the totality of racist South Africa's reprehensive policies and acts of state terrorism in South Africa, Namibia and the region.'' The OAU discussed the $12 million owed by 34 member states to the organization's fund for the support of liberation movements. A resolution urged that the members owing money, some of which have never contributed, to clear their debts within two years ``to enable national liberation movements to intensify the armed struggle in Namibia and South Africa.'' President Moussa Traore of Mali, newly-elected chairman of the OAU, told reporters the pan-African body will continue to pursue its call for a unified front of the African National Congress, the main guerrilla movement fighting white domination in South Africa, and the much smaller Pan Africanist Congress, which are fighting South Africa's government. Under South Africa's system of apartheid, the nation's 26 million blacks have no voice in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate schools, districts and health services.
AP900314-0180 	X	Former Fruehauf Corp. chief execitve Neal Combs, who ran the company when it was dismantled to meet leveraged buyout debts, has been replaced as head of its truck-trailer operation. Combs was replaced Tuesday as Fruehauf Trailer Corp.'s chief executive by Terex Corp. President Woodward Baldus, officials said. Green Bay, Wis.-based Terex bought Fruehauf's trailer business last August as Fruehauf assets were sold off to meet debts from a $1.5-billion leveraged buyout by management. Fruehauf Trailer Corp. continues as a Terex subsidiary. Combs went to Terex with the trailer business. Combs could not be reached for comment Wednesday at Fruehauf or at his home. ``Combs was asked to resign,'' Terex spokesman Jeff Zilka said, but declined further comment. The last of the former Fruehauf's assets, Kelsey-Hayes Co., maker of auto parts such as aluminum wheels and anti-lock braking systems, was sold to Canada's Varity Corp. last November. Fruehauf Trailer employs about 5,100 people in its U.S. operations.
AP900421-0056 	X	At 3 a.m., the telephone buzzes Adnan Khashoggi awake in his luxurious bedroom, 47 floors above Manhattan. The Saudi Arabian financier plugs the phone into a transmitter locked around his ankle, sends a signal and goes back to sleep. Most people who deal in billions of dollars and hobnob with presidents and kings might think it demeaning to be monitored so. But Khashoggi seems amused by this nightly ritual that lets authorities check his whereabouts outside U.S. District Court, where he is on trial with former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos. ``I call it the government's wake-up service. It wakes me up in time for morning prayers,'' joked Khashoggi, a Moslem. Raising a pants leg to reveal the black, wristwatch-like gadget, he added: ``When this (trial) is over, I might go into selling these things. This one, I am going to auction off _ for charity.'' It wouldn't be the first time ``A.K.,'' as his intimates call him, found a business opportunity in an unexpected place. He has done that for years on his way to becoming one of the world's most famous citizens and, for a time, perhaps its richest. Despite a series of business setbacks in recent years, Khashoggi is so wealthy that numbers are almost irrelevant. ``Adnan would consider himself penniless if he was down to his last hundred million,'' says James Linn, his lawyer. Khashoggi, 54, is vague about his current worth but doubts that he ever was the world's richest man. He says that title belongs to his friend the Sultan of Brunei. His wealth may be best judged by his bail. He put up the required $10 million, but authorities said it was small change to Khashoggi, and feared he would forfeit it for freedom. He was released from jail only after King Fahd of Saudi Arabia sent a letter guaranteeing that he would not attempt to flee, and after he agreed to wear the monitoring device. In an interview at his lavish apartment, with its artworks by Dufy and Miro and its sweeping views of the city, Khashoggi described an investment portfolio that once ranged over 35 countries. ``In my heyday I used to earn $80 million to $100 million a year and probably spent, on this style of life, $40 million,'' he said. ``But when they say I am the world's richest man, how do they come to this conclusion? I don't have $10 billion in the bank.'' When a $600 million Salt Lake City project went bust in 1987, he lost $300 million. ``That was the beginning of the disaster stories. Because it was me, everybody thought I went bankrupt, but it was not true,'' he said. Khashoggi reportedly was a middleman and financier of the Iran-Contra affair, in which profits from secret U.S. arms sales to Iran were channeled to rebel groups fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. In his opening statement at the trial, Linn tried to dispel the idea that there was something wrong with being an arms trader, saying all Khashoggi's arms dealings had U.S. and Saudi government approval. Khashoggi describes himself as an ``international salesman,'' and ``merchant banker.'' He insists there is nothing sinister or mysterious about what he does. ``I am a hard-working man, and I have to pay my bills,'' he said. ``I am just like you _ with a few extra zeros.'' Despite his wealth, Khashoggi takes the subway to and from court to avoid traffic. Last week, when the train stalled, he walked 29 blocks home; few passersby took notice of the short, portly man talking into a hand-held telephone as he strode up Park Avenue. In court, he dozes off occasionally as testimony focuses mainly on Mrs. Marcos' alleged financial misdeeds. The government claims she and her late husband, Ferdinand, looted their country's treasury of about $220 million, depositing some in secret Swiss bank accounts and spending more on lavish living and real estate purchases. Khashoggi is charged with mail fraud and obstruction of justice. It is alleged that he forged documents to help conceal the Marcoses ownership of four New York office buildings and an art collection bought with stolen funds. He concedes that he was ``foolish'' to get involved with the Marcoses, but contends he committed no crime because the document backdating occurred in 1985, the year before Marcos was ousted from power and a U.S. court froze all transactions involving the buildings. ``When you ask me why this trial is unfair, it is because they (the prosecutors) know all this,'' he said. ``Without me, they don't have a case. They want to get the Marcoses, by hook or by crook.'' Khashoggi said he believes Judge John F. Keenan eventually will dismiss the charges against him, but if not, he'll be acquitted by the jury. ``These people are not going to be unfair,'' he said. And he contended the trial is doing great damage to America's image in the Middle East. ``This case has become a symbol of fear,'' he said. ``I am trying to say, `Hey, guys, this is not America.' We will have our day in court and they will see that it is not America, but a corner street called New York.''
AP880424-0041 	X	A man who set his gasoline-soaked clothes on fire and walked down the aisle of a church during a prayer service died Sunday from his burns, though worshippers tried to save him by dousing the flames. The songs of a children's choir gave way to hysterical screams as worshippers at Friendship Baptist Church noticed Willie J. Boone, 41. Saturday night's musical program was almost over when ``I saw the children looking curious and I looked back'' from the first row, said the Rev. Jimmy L. Mills. ``I saw this young man coming up the middle aisle ablaze of fire.'' ``Most of (the children) went into hysterics,'' he said. ``It was a terrible tragedy.'' The pastor said he and deacons used a fire extinguisher to douse the flames on the man's clothes ``and asked him to go out and sit on the front porch and that's where he went until the police arrived.'' On the porch, Boone said, ``It's all right,'' and collapsed, Mills said. Boone suffered burns over his entire body except the soles of his feet, said patient representative Karen Hall at the Medical Center of Central Georgia. Mills, pastor of the downtown Macon church for 30 years, said Boone gave no clue to his motive and was a stranger to the 40 to 50 people in the church sanctuary.
AP900905-0131 	X	Armenia's Communist Party chief has threatened to quit the Soviet Politburo unless President Mikhail S. Gorbachev can restore order in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, news reports said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Armenian parliament passed a resolution complaining that citizens of the predominantly Armenian territory located inside the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan are having their rights trampled upon, the Tass news agency reported. ``The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh continues to be subject to terror on the part of Azerbaijani authorities, assisted by units of the Soviet army and Interior Ministry troops,'' Tass quoted the resolution as saying. A state of emergency is in effect in the mountainous region, part of Azerbaijan since 1923. Ethnic battles between residents of the two Caucasus republics over who should control the area have left more than 200 people dead the past two years. Vladimir Movsisyan, the Communist Party leader of Armenia, said in an appeal published in the republic's newspapers Wednesday that indifference and indecision on the part of the Soviet leadership have given Azerbaijan's leaders ``a free hand to pursue an anti-Armenian policy,'' according to the independent Interfax news service. It quoted him as saying misinformation circulated about Armenians' ``aggressive activity'' in Azerbaijan has put the two republics on the verge of war. Movsisyan, who as the republic's Communist Party leader is a member of the Soviet Politburo, threatened to resign unless the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is solved as soon as possible so that Armenian lives in the region are protected, Tass and Interfax reported. The president of Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, also has accused the Soviet authorities of inaction in the dispute, and he has issued a different kind of threat _ that his republic may secede from the Soviet Union if the Kremlin does not act to ``normalize the situation'' in Nagorno-Karabakh. Mutalibov made the threat in an interview published Tuesday in the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya. Movsisyan said a natural gas pipeline to Yerevan, Armenia's capital, has been shut off, and freight trains have stopped arriving in the city of Idzhevan, costing the republic tens of millions of rubles. In addition, Azerbaijani authorities are forcing Armenians to leave their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, in order to change the demography of the region, the Armenian parliament's resolution was quoted by Tass as saying. The parliament urged that Interior Ministry and Soviet army troops be deployed immediately along the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas to restore Soviet authority and self-government in the area, Tass reported. Last week, the Armenian parliament banned the Armenian National Army, created last winter as a vigilante group to protect the mostly Christian population of Armenia from the mostly Moslem population of Azerbaijan. Lawmakers acted after the militant nationalist group was blamed for the shooting deaths of a member of parliament and another man. Gorbachev has demanded that militants in the republic disarm and disband paramilitary groups, but Armenian leaders say they can police their own population.
AP880908-0128 	X	Four white supremacists have pleaded guilty to federal charges they plotted bombings, robberies and other crimes to further their beliefs. The two Coeur d'Alene couples entered the pleas Wednesday night after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. The couples, David and Deborah Dorr and Edward and Olive Hawley, were scheduled to go on trial Monday. The Feb. 12 indictment accused them of committing a series of crimes in the Coeur d'Alene area in August and September 1986 aimed at advancing their white-supremacist group, Bruder Schweigen Strike Force II, or Order II. Besides raising money to finance its operations, the group sought to kill or intimidate opponents of their offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian-Aryan Nations, prosecutors said. They were accused of bombing an auto restoration shop, the home of a priest who was a leader in anti-hate group activity, and the federal building Coeur d'Alene. Prosecutors alleged the explosions were part of an aborted plan to rob a bank and a National Guard armory. All four pleaded guilty to racketeering or engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise from 1984 to 1987. Some also pleaded guilty to firearms or explosives charges or counterfeiting. Ryan approved an agreement with prosecutors that Dorr be sentenced to no more than 20 years in prison, Mrs. Dorr to no more than eight years, Hawley to no more than 12 years and Mrs. Hawley no more than a suspended six-year term. He scheduled sentencing for Oct. 26. A fifth defendant, Robert Pires, has pleaded guilty to charges including a 1986 slaying and bombings and attempted bombings in Coeur d'Alene. Pires was sentenced to 25 years in prison and has been cooperating with prosecutors.
AP880709-0176 	X	Sixty-four men survived the Piper Alpha oil rig fire by leaping into the burning sea in the dark, but they had to leave behind more than 100 colleagues trapped and screaming for air in the inferno. ``I am one of the lucky ones,'' Harry Calder said in an interview Friday. ``I am pretty sore, I am badly bruised and my hands are burned. But at least I'm alive. I have lost a lot of friends.'' Seventeen bodies have been found and 166 men are presumed dead in the North Sea oil field where the rig exploded Wednesday night. At least 100 men died screaming for help, trapped in their sleeping quarters after surviving the first explosion, said Calder, a 35-year-old helicopter landing officer. The workers were in the smoke-filled galley of the platform, which was plunged into darkness when the emergency lighting failed, he said in an interview Friday.
AP900521-0095 	X	A gunman shot two people this morning and took one of his victims hostage in a church, police said. The man shot the people about 8:45 a.m., said Julie Wolinksi, a police spokeswoman in Melbourne Beach. He then barricaded himself inside the Episcopal church, Saint Sebastian-By-The-Sea. No one else was believed to be inside the church, she said. But reporters at the scene heard a man and a woman screaming, leading them to believe two people were being held hostage. The gunman's identity was not immediately known, officials said. The other shooting victim was taken to the Holmes Regional Medical Center, Ms. Wolinski said. The victim, Diane Conarroe, was in surgery with two gunshot wounds to the abdomen, said hospital spokeswoman Valerie Davis. The 43-year-old woman was expected to be in surgery for most of the afternoon, Davis said. Police surrounded the church as a hostage negotiator from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office tried to talk the gunman into releasing the hostage and surrendering, she said. Homes and schools were being evacuated in this town of 2,600 people, 25 miles south of Cape Canaveral, authorities said.
AP901010-0187 	X	Chinese leaders are cautiously planning a partial return to collective farming in hopes of raising productivity, according to an official newspaper report Wednesday. Ten years after land was distributed to individual farming households, Communist Party and government officials recently decided that ``household contracted lands should be redistributed ... and production conducted under a unified plan,'' the English-language China Daily said. China's reformist leaders dismantled the commune system a decade ago, allowing the rural economy to return to a family farming system that allowed farmers to sell some crops on the free market. As a result, grain production jumped by one-third and rural incomes tripled. But that growth has stagnated. China's farmable land is shrinking annually because of industrial development, and plots worked by individual farmers, averaging 1.5 acres, are too small for efficient mechanized farming. At the recent national meeting, party and government officials decided that ``conglomerates in charge of supply, production and sales'' would be established to make large-scale mechanized farming possible, the China Daily reported. It did not say what incentives farmers would have to join the conglomerates or give details about how the conglomerates would be set up. Supporters of such a system have carefully avoided calling the collectives ``communes,'' which evoke unpleasant memories of extreme poverty and the leadership's ``leftist mistakes.'' Aware that the change is likely to be unpopular among China's 80 million peasant population, officials stressed the household contract system was not being abandoned. Rather, it would be incorporated into a ``two-tier rural economy'' along with the collective sector. Redistribution will be done with the consent of the majority of local farmers, the report said. Calls have been heard for several years for a return to large-scale farming. Experts say the family farmer who brought prosperity to many rural areas has outlived his usefulness and must make way for large-scale mechanized farming.
AP901106-0092 	X	All nations must face up to the threat of a climate disaster and take steps against global warming, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain said Tuesday. Thatcher, in a keynote speech to a United Nations meeting of ministers on the issue, said much more research is needed but a ``clear case for precautionary action'' exists now. ``It is a race against time ... to save our planet,'' French Prime Minister Michel Rocard told the officials from some 120 countries, including more than 80 ministers. In an appeal aimed in good part at the United States and the Soviet Union, Mrs. Thatcher demanded all countries begin work on binding commitments to rein in rising pollution by ``greenhouse gases.'' The limits would be for a planned global treaty on climate change to be ready in 1992. But there were increasing signs Tuesday that ministers, contrary to European Community hopes, will fail to agree on targets or deadlines so as not to endanger Wednesday's conference-ending declaration. ``Not to come to a result would be a very bad signal,'' German environment minister Klaus Toepfer told reporters. ``We have to do our best to come to a minimum compromise.'' Environmental groups said the draft declaration looks ``more like a non-declaration as all the crucial points on carbon dioxide reduction targets, dates and the urgent call for immediate action have been removed.'' Carbon dioxide pollution, much of it from burning fossil fuels, is seen as the leading cause of global warming. Methane and chlorofluorocarbons are other heat-trapping ``greenhouse gases.'' Americans and Soviets are the biggest contributors of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Washington opposes immediate targets against carbon dioxide pollution, saying more scientific data is needed to justify the enormous costs involved in changing ways of life. The Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia and some other countries also have reservations. China sounded a Third World note of reluctance. ``Measures to protect the global climate should not hinder the economic development of developing countries,'' delegate Song Jian told the two-day meeting. Mrs. Thatcher, who holds a chemistry degree, warned climate change could occur more quickly than current computer models suggest. ``Should this happen it would be doubly disastrous were we to shirk the challenge now.'' Many steps would be ``sensible in any event'' - improving energy efficiency, developing alternative sources of supply, reforestation, rethinking industrial processes and tackling the waste problem, she said. Mrs. Thatcher and Rocard followed the lead of scientists from some 100 countries, who met last week in the conference's first part. The experts made plain that global warming undoubtedly exists and appealed to politicians for immediate measures. Scientists say global temperatures could rise at their fastest rate in 10,000 years next century if nothing is done. Among the feared upheavals are rising sea levels that would displace coastal dwellers, desertification and vast changes affecting wildlife. Bikenibeu Paeniu, prime minister of Tuvalu, told delegates they may hold the key to the ``continued existence'' of his South Pacific coral atoll group and other islands. ``We in the Pacific, the Carribbean and elsewhere have done the least to create these hazards but now stand the most to lose,'' he said.
AP900628-0199 	X	Some cities have decided to make downtown look like downtown again. They are doing away with their pedestrian malls, bulldozing the kiosks, trees and benches that replaced streets 20 or 30 years ago. They are welcoming back the fumes and noises of once-banished traffic. And some that haven't decided to return to the downtown of an earlier time are thinking about it. It turns out, said Lawrence O. Houstoun Jr., that converting traditional shopping districts into a pedestrian malls worked _ but only for a while. Houstoun is an urban development consultant in Cranbury, N.J. Dry rot has set in again in many central cities, he said, because office buildings _ which provide many of the shoppers _ have been erected on cheap land too far away for a lunch-time shopping stroll. ``The pedestrian malls had some initial success because they were the first thing that looked good downtown, but they didn't deal with the basic problem,'' Houstoun said. ``The problem wasn't that people wanted to walk in the streets; the problem was that downtown wasn't convenient or became inconvenient.'' Houstoun said studies have established that at lunch time, people will walk for nine minutes _ or about three blocks _ from their office. If stores are a block or two further away, they will be shunned, no matter how pleasant the environment. So, a number of the 200 or so cities that took the plunge in the late 1960s and the 1970s have undone or down-scaled their malls or are considering it, Houstoun said. He reported his findings in Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Association, and elaborated in an interview. Kalamazoo, Mich., which called itself ``Mall City,'' is reopening two blocks of its four-block mall to traffic. Eugene, Ore. removed the kiosks, playgrounds, restrooms and plantings from two blocks of its pedestrian mall. New London, Conn. brought back the cars. Three Illinois cities _ Danville, Champaign and Rockford _ have given up their malls. Norfolk, Va. and St. Joseph, Mo. kept theirs, but in smaller configurations. In the capital of New Jersey, cars will return to part of Trenton Commons. Springfield, Mo. welcomed cars back to much of its mall, too. ``We drive around the square again,'' says Bob Turner, acting director of public works. But some cities find their mall still work well. The mall in Boulder, Colo., is a standout. And traffic-choked New York City is considering going the mall route by ``pedestrianizing'' 10 blocks of Broadway. A number of cities that would like to take out their pedestrian malls can't afford to, said Houstoun, a former official in the Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development in Washington. Often the malls were built with federal grants; no federal money is available to undo them. Houstoun said it can cost $500,000 to $750,000 a block to take out the ``pedestrian features'' that give urban malls their character. The old, urbane, upper-middle-class Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill., spent $3.1 million in 1988 to take out a mall that had been built 16 years earlier for $1.4 million. In the process, 84 quarter-of-a-century-old pin oak trees were removed. Those that could be saved were replanted elsewhere in the community of 55,000. But ``it absolutely was not a mistake,'' to build Oak Park Mall in the first place, said Christine Burdick, executive director of Downtown Oak Park. ``It helped stabilize what in 1972 had been a declining retail center and helped us maintain a viable retail business,'' she said. ``It worked, it just became obsolete.'' Adds village manager Neil Nielson: ``It served a life, like anything else.'' Most Oak Park residents liked their mall, no matter what merchants felt. At the very time that streets, curbs, sewers and lighting were being reinstalled, citizens voted 13,000 to 9,273 in a non-binding initiative against tearing out the mall. What happened was five department stores that had been mall ``anchors'' either went bankrupt or moved away, and business fell off, Mrs. Burdick said. ``Restreeting'' _ her term for it _ has helped business, Mrs. Burdick said. Sales for the last quarter of 1989 were up 24 percent over the previous year; 15 new retailers moved in. The occupancy rate inched up from 75 to 80 percent. In its dependence on anchors, Oak Park Mall more closely resembled on-the-highway regional shopping malls than do most downtown malls. Downtown malls, said Houstoun, typically rely on two different types of shoppers _ lower-income city residents and office workers _ whose wants are not alike, adding to the malls' difficulty in finding a market. Office workers are important shoppers. One study found that they spend an average of $1,800 a year downtown on food and goods, most of it during the lunch break. In retrospect, said Houstoun, cities might have been wiser to clear abandoned buildings from core areas, making sites available for office buildings that would have provided the customers for downtown stores. The pedestrian mall, he said, ``wasn't a remedy geared to the problem and removing them is not a cure for today's problems, either.''
AP880607-0251 	X	Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and European Economic Community officials agreed Tuesday to step up trade contacts. Takeshita responded favorably to a suggestion by EEC Commission President Jacques Delors to create a panel of experts to discuss technical aspects of the EEC's rocky trade relations with Japan, officials said. Takeshita also stressed the need for Japan and the 12-nation EEC to widen their relations beyond trade to cultural and scientific sectors. ``The relationship between Europe and Japan is not very strong or as well developed'' as that between the United States with Europe and Japan, an aide to Takeshita told reporters. Senior EEC and Japanese officials meet annually. An EEC official said Delors believed regular meetings of experts could be useful in defusing trade tensions. The EEC is conducting numerous investigations of allegations of dumping by Japanese exporters. The EEC official, who asked not to be named, said EEC Foreign Trade Commissioner Willy De Clercq noted a ``remarkable improvement in trade relations'' between the 12-nation trade bloc and Japan, even though the EEC continues to register a large trade deficit with Japan. The gap shrank by 4 percent in 1987, but was still $25 billion. For his part, Takeshita said the EEC's plans to turn the 12 EEC states into a single, borderless market by the end of 1992 was good for Japan. But his aide quoted him as saying, ``The ... single market after 1992 should be the one which is open to the outside world'' and that the EEC should remove restrictions on Japanese exports. But he dismissed the idea of reciprocity in trade, an issue the EEC has given high priority in order to gain greater access for European goods to the Japanese market. ``We fully understand what (the EEC) Commission people are saying on reciprocity but Japan cannot agree to reciprocity on a sectoral basis,'' Takeshita was quoted as saying. Among specific trade issues discussed were Japan's high taxes on imported liquor and cars, the difficulties of foreign companies' bidding on Japanese public works projects and better access for EEC exports of telecommunications hardware and semiconductors. The EEC side also urged Japan to liberalize its banking sector. Officials said Delors stressed European banks must be able to establish themselves in Japan to make it easier to finance European exports and investments. De Clercq also called on Japan to quickly comply with a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ruling to amend an accord with the United States on trade in semiconductors. The world trade body has ruled the deal discriminates against the EEC. Takeshita also asked Delors' advice as to the best way to distribute $500 million Japan has earmarked as special economic assistance to Africa. ``We are aware that European countries have a long relationship with African countries,'' the aide quoted Takeshita as saying.
AP880608-0234 	X	Sinhalese extremists seeking to disrupt Thursday's regional elections detonated a bomb in a crowded market, killing four people, a Sri Lankan military official said. The official said Sinhalese radicals on Wednesday also fatally shot a candidate for the southern District Council. Authorities blamed the pre-election violence on the People's Liberation Front, an ultra-nationalist group from Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority. District Council elections were called under terms of an Indian-brokered peace accord signed on July 29, 1987, and intended to end a separatist war by the Tamil minority. The war has cost more then 8,000 lives since 1983. Sinhalese radicals claim the pact makes too many concessions to Tamils and have vowed to kill anyone who supports it. A total of 166 candidates are competing for 53 seats on the newly created southern District Council, the seventh to be elected since April 28. Attacks by the Sinhalese radical group since India and Sri Lanka signed the peace agreement have taken the lives of 24 council candidates and more than 300 other people, including civilians and party workers. The bomb Wednesday exploded in the market at Weligama town, 75 miles south of Colombo. The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the four people killed were Sinhalese civilians. He said the candidate, 52-year-old A.S. Dayawansa, was shot to death while campaigning on Wednesday in the southern district. He was a member of the opposition United Socialist Alliance. Five deaths were reported Tuesday, including one candidate, a policeman and a civilian. Other violence in the past two days included the burning of government buses and several courthouses. Storekeepers said Sinhalese extremists told them to close Wednesday, and police said the group ordered a ``curfew'' on Thursday to keep people from leaving their homes to vote. Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhists, are more than 75 percent of Sri Lanka's 16 million people and Tamils, predominantly Hindu, make up 18 percent. Tamils claim discrimination by the Sinhalese, who control the government and army, and rebels seek a separate homeland in the Tamil-dominated north and east to be called Eelam. The peace agreement called for Tamil rebels to lay down their arms in exchange for more autonomy in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, but the largest insurgent group continues to fight. India has more than 50,000 troops on the island trying to end the rebellion. It became involved because it is the region's dominant power and has 60 million Tamils in southern Tamil Nadu state. District Council elections in the Tamil-dominated areas have been delayed by the fighting, but officials hope to hold them next month.
AP900125-0070 	X	A judge today rejected an application to free a white former police captain allegedly involved in a secret terror network that harassed and assassinated anti-apartheid activists. The suspect, Ferdinand Barnard, has been held without charge since Oct. 31 as part an investigation into the assassinations last year of two white activists: Johannesburg university lecturer David Webster and Namibian lawyer Anton Lubowski. Pretoria Supreme Court Justice H.J. Priess rejected a bid by Barnard's father, a retired police colonel, to have the former narcotics detective released. In Windhoek, Namibia, another Supreme Court judge today set April 18 as the start of a murder trial for Donald Acheson, a suspected accomplice of Barnard who is accused of involvement in Lubowksi's killing. Lubowski, shot and killed outside his Windhoek home on Sept. 12, was the only white to hold a leadership position in Namibia's independence movement, the South-West African People's Organization. Webster, a well-known human rights activist, was shot and killed outside his Johannesburg home on May 1. Police Brig. Floris Mostert, in testimony opposing Barnard's release, said the investigation into the assassinations had uncovered the existence of ``a secret organization ... with members from all levels of society, which strives to terrorize left-wing radicals with the aid of violence and intimidation.'' Dozens of anti-apartheid activists have been the victims of unsolved murders in recent years. Many others have had their cars vandalized, and there have been bombings or arson attacks on offices of militant trade unions, civil rights groups, and opposition newspapers. Mostert said Barnard had been in contact with Acheson prior to Lubowski's murder. The brigadier also said: ``I must respectfully stress that the nature of my investigation is extremely sensitive and that the secrecy of the information which I possess is of the utmost importance.'' Police say the Webster-Lubowski case is not directly related to investigations of claims that death squads within the ranks of the national police force killed government opponents on the orders of high-ranking officers. One black ex-policeman, Butana Nofemela, has pleaded guilty to committing a murder as part of such a death squad, and a white former captain, Dirk Coetzee, has fled abroad after telling a newspaper he commanded a death squad. Thus far, legal steps have been taken only against Nofemela and Coetzee, not against other policemen implicated by them. This has resulted in widespread demands for an independent judicial inquiry and accusations that President F.W. de Klerk's government is engaged in a cover-up. Some of the white officers implicated by Coetzee appeared today at an inquest into the deaths of four young black activists in 1986. The policemen have denied allegations that the youths were murdered, saying they were shot in self-defense by a special counter-insurgency unit.
AP881215-0005 	X	The rage of Hong Kong these days is easy to spot. Just look for the tiny antennas, the telltale sign of the portable telephones so many people are carrying wherever they go. Despite price tags of $2,000 or more, the hand-held telephones have become a huge hit in this British colony, where doing business is a 24-hour preoccupation and new status symbols are always in demand. Downtown streets are filled with professionals ready for business with the cellular phones tucked under their arms or stuffed, antenna-up, into briefcases. Away from the financial district, people can be seen barking into the phones while eating in restaurants, riding public buses and ferries, or sitting in darkened movie theaters. Everyone from executives to proprietors of produce stalls can be seen chatting away. The Hong Kong Standard newspaper spotted a telephone in a recent 100-kilometer (62-mile) charity walk along a rural trail. ``In driving rain and a lashing wind, a young man was spotted eagerly and conspicuously talking into his mobile telephone,'' it said. ``In a more normal society one would expect (him) to hand the phone over to one of his seconds before starting the race. (But) a few kilometers down the track, the young man was spotted merrily informing the financial markets at large of his continued existence.'' The government estimates about 60,000 portable cellular telephones _ roughly six times earlier projections _ will be in use by the end of the year in this territory of 5.7 million people, said Deputy Postmaster General Henry Wise, whose department is in charge of telecommunications. While most cellular telephones sold in other countries are for use in cars, roughly three-fourths of the units sold in Hong Kong since the market opened three years ago have been the more expensive handheld models. ``We were amazed when the whole thing really took off in a great way,'' Wise said. Hutchison Telephone Co, which has sold about 26,000 cellular telephones, recently stopped sales for six weeks because demand was outpacing the company's capacity to handle all the calls. ``The market just caught everybody by surprise,'' said Peter Grant, president of China Telephone Co. Ltd., a rival firm. ``We're all frantically rebuilding networks.'' Harry Hui, a psychology lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, attributed the popularity of the telephones here in part to ``the importance of face. It's a status symbol.'' Wise believes the Hong Kong work ethic of doing business whenever and wherever possible is largely responsible for the tremendous sales. ``Virtually the whole day is part of the working day,'' he said. Although industry officials see no end in sight to demand for the telephones, their indiscriminate use in public places already is viewed as an irritation by some. ``People are becoming aware of the annoyance factor,'' acknowledged Grant. Several exclusive clubs demand that their patrons and guests check their telephones at the door.
AP880319-0138 	X	U.S. soldiers deployed on what Washington officials call a show of military support for Honduras and a training mission said Saturday they are ready for anything. ``We're prepared to do anything they ask us to do,'' Maj. Mike Nason of the 82nd Airborne Division headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., said at the Palmerola air force base. ``I don't want to speculate, but the 82nd Airborne is a combat unit. Anything can happen.'' Nason arrived in the first plane Thursday of an airlift of 3,200 American soliers sent by the Reagan administration to Honduras. They were dispatched after Nicaraguan soldiers entered Honduran territory in pursuit of U.S.-backed rebels known as Contras. U.S. officials say the troops will not engage in combat. They say the troops are in Honduras for a training mission combined with a show of force and support for the Central American nation. But Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government has accused the United States of preparing to invade Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega said last week his forces are ready to ``liquidate'' the U.S. troops. Nason, from Garden City, N.Y., said the American soldiers would be surprised if they are called upon to do anything other than demonstrate American support for Honduras. ``Our orders remain that we're here to train. We're not here to enter into combat,'' he said. The arrival of the 82nd Airborne and units of the 7th Light Infantry from Fort Ord, Calif., put U.S. strength in Honduras at about 6,900, according to Maj. Gary Hovatter, the public affairs officer for American troops in Honduras. The troops who had been here before the reinforcements were sent are assigned to various U.S. facilities and engaged in training exercises. President Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras asked for the additional U.S. troops in hopes of forcing a Nicaraguan retreat and he said Saturday he won't hesitate to ask for more U.S. assistance. Azcona has asked for a U.S. helicopter airlift to help him deploy Honduran troops in the mountainous Bocay border region where the Sandinistas crossed the frontier. Despite the tense situation, the American soldiers at the Palmerola headquarters were relaxed Saturday. Many said they looked forward to the training activities and nothing more. ``I like it. It's fun,'' said Pfc. Shane Lawson of Columbus, Ohio. ``You can't train like this in the States, so we came down here. And we get to train with Honduran troops.'' Sgt. Kenneth Martin Anderson said he was upset at protests back home over the deployment. ``They're protesting just to protest something,'' he said. `They don't understand that you can't have communists running free all over the place doing what they want to do. What happens if the United States gets attacked by communists?'' Anderson and Lawson were in a contingent of about 670 airborne soldiers in camouflage battle dress who climbed into Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters for the brief flight to their bivouack at the nearby base of Tamara. Hovatter said the U.S. troops were sent to four Honduran bases: Tamara, just north of the capital; San Lorenzo in the south; Juticalpa, about 65 miles northeast of the area where the Nicarguan incursion took place, and Palmerola, 40 miles west of Tegucigalpa. Nason denied Nicaraguan claims that the U.S. operation was designed to bring in equipment for the Contras in their 6-year-old war against the leftist Sandinistas. ``Wherever we go, the equipment goes. None of it will stay here,'' he said. Nason said the 82nd flew in two tanks, four Cobra combat helicopters, three light helicopters, more than 100 machine guns, a dozen 105mm howitzers and several thousand rifles. On the main highway through Tegucigalpa, people stopped to look at a convoy of about 25 trucks filled with U.S. soldiers. Reporters driving alongside the caravan asked the troopers where they were heading. ``Nowhere!'' one soldier shouted.
AP900417-0087 	X	Housing starts continued to fall in March from their January peak, the government reported Tuesday, but many analysts said the decline had bottomed out. The Commerce Department reported that starts of new homes and apartments fell 9.3 percent last month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.32 million units _ a pace many analysts said probably would continue. ``We might see levels like we had in March during most of the rest of the year,'' said economist Thomas Holloway of the Mortgage Bankers Association. The drop was the sharpest since a 12.4 percent plunge in January 1989, but was expected after starts jumped 23.2 percent to an annual rate of 1.57 million units during January's record warm weather. They slipped to 1.46 million in February, still well above the level of the last 11 months of 1989 as unusually warm weather continued. ``It isn't so much that housing is plunging as it is a correction in the data to the bulge earlier this year which couldn't be sustained,'' said Allen Sinai, chief economist for The Boston Co. David Berson, chief economist for the Federal National Mortgage Association, noted that all of the decline was in single-family homes, which fell 12 percent to an annual rate of 1.02 million units. Nevertheless, Berson added, the March rate ``still is a very good number, better than most months of 1989.'' Single-family starts totaled 1 million last year. On the other hand, multifamily starts gained 0.9 percent to an annual rate of 306,000 _ ``up a tad, but still at an abysmally low number,'' said David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders. Apartment starts plunged 35.3 percent in February after a 37.1 percent jump the previous month. In addition to the weather, analysts had attributed the January gain to builders wanting to get construction under way before expensive new regulations designed to make apartments more accessible to the handicapped went into effect. Seiders blamed the ``incredible weakness'' in apartment starts on fair housing regulations for the handicapped that he said would add as much as $3,000 to the cost of multifamily units and on a construction credit crunch brought on by the August savings and loan bailout law. The biggest decline in starts was experienced the Northeast, where the real estate industry has been in the doldrums in recent months. They were down 37.8 percent, to 138,000 units, after advancing 32.1 percent in February. ``We though we had seen hopeful signs'' in the Northeast, Seiders said, ``but it clearly was a temporary, weather-based effect. Now it's showing it is the weakest housing component in the country.'' Other declines were posted in the South, down 11.5 percent to 524,000 units, and the West, down 0.5 percent to 376,000 units. The Midwest registered the only gain, up 6.8 percent to 293,000 units. Applications for building permits, often a barometer of future housing activity, fell 7.6 percent after dropping 25.2 percent the previous month. The 1.21 million applications were the lowest since 1.15 million permits were sought in October 1982.
AP900503-0218 	X	For nearly a decade, states in the Mississippi Delta region have pursued tough education reforms, and they are starting to get results. Last month, Kentucky Gov. Wallace Wilkinson signed legislation that will overhaul public education. The changes were enacted after the state Supreme Court in June found the public school system inequitable and unconstitutional. Spending per pupil varied district to district from $1,800 to $4,200. Now a state minimum, $2,900, has been established. In addition, the new Kentucky law calls for committees of parents, teachers and principals to make day-to-day school decisions. In Mississippi, Gov. Ray Mabus also signed legislation in April, continuing education reforms begun in the early 1980s that have raised standardized test scores for the last four years and increased accountability by requiring district ``report cards.'' One measure commits $182 million to curriculum improvements in the next three years; another calls for $800 million in bonds to replace aging school buildings and buses. Mabus has said he'll call a special legislative session in June to work out how to finance the plan. Arkansas' education reforms have reduced class sizes, added support personnel and expanded the curriculum, particularly language, science and math courses. A 1-cent sales tax hike and a teacher testing policy were among reforms pushed by Gov. Bill Clinton in 1983. Since then, his office says, 1,400 people who failed the teacher tests are out of the classroom, 17,000 more students are taking foreign-language classes than in 1983, 15 percent more students are attending college, dropout rates have improved and test scores are up. In Tennessee, a draft of Gov. Ned McWherter's 1991 package spells out 12 major goals, from requiring kindergarten to better preparing college freshmen to do college-level work. The plan also calls for ``performance audit teams'' in the state education department. Reforms in Louisiana have included reducing classroom size, rewarding successful schools and raising teachers' pay, though hard times in the state's petroleum industry have cut revenues. One effort Gov. Buddy Roemer is pushing is a $30 million computer-based reading lab. The states still fall behind much of the nation in per pupil spending. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics in Washington, the national average expenditure was $4,243 in 1987-88, the last year for which complete figures were available. The comparable state figures were: Kentucky, $3,011; Mississippi, $2,548; Arkansas, $2,989; Tennessee, $3,068; and Louisiana, $3,138.
AP880910-0012 	X	A plane used in fighting forest fires crashed near an airport outside this northwestern Spanish city, killing all four of its occupants, airport officials said. Officials said one of the motors of the plane apparently failed shortly after the aircraft took off Friday from Labacolla airport. The plane crashed into a forest nearby. The victims were two captains, one lieutenant and one non-commissioned officer of the Spanish Air Force. The Labacolla-based plane had been taking part in efforts to combat a forest fire in Orense province in northwestern Spain, officials said.
AP901130-0151 	X	A U.S. thrift regulator testified Friday that Sen. Dennis DeConcini broke the bounds of propriety - but four other senators did not - when they intervened on behalf of savings and loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. Regulator Michael Patriarca, addressing the Senate Ethics Committee, drew the line between the behavior of DeConcini, D-Ariz. and four colleagues: John McCain, R-Ariz.; Donald W. Riegle Jr., D-Mich.; John Glenn, D-Ohio and Alan Cranston, D-Calif. Patriarca said it was wrong for a senator to attempt to ``influence, to change the outcome'' of an examination that was highly critical of Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan. ``My personal view is Senator DeConcini did that,'' he said. ``It's not clear to me that any of the others did.'' The regulator was referring to the senators' conduct at an April 9, 1987 meeting with four San Francisco-based regulators - including Patriarca - who were responsible for the Lincoln investigation. Patriarca also said he would fault the senators generally, because they ``appeared to have made up their minds in advance'' that Keating was right and the regulators were wrong in finding serious problems at Lincoln. Patriarca's two days of testimony backed the assertion of his ex-boss, former Federal Home Loan Bank Board Chairman Edwin J. Gray, that DeConcini took the lead in trying to negotiate a deal on Keating's behalf. DeConcini denied that he sought a waiver for Lincoln of a rule prohibiting risky investments, in return for the thrift establishing a home mortgage loan program. Patriarca was questioned by Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., one of six Ethics Committee members who will judge whether the five senators improperly intervened for Keating. Keating and associates donated $1.3 million to the campaigns and political causes of the five senators. The committee has held nine days of hearings in an effort to determine whether the money influenced the intervention. The hearing adjourned until Monday after a former member of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board testified he received calls from Cranston and DeConcini in April 1989 - immediately before the government takeover of Lincoln. In those calls, said Roger Martin, both senators urged the board to approve a sale of Lincoln rather than its seizure. The requests were rejected. All the senators except Riegle met on Keating's behalf with Gray on April 2, 1987 in DeConcini's office. When the chief regulator said he lacked details of the Lincoln investigation, the four San Francisco-based regulators including Patriarca, were summoned to the April 9 meeting. That also was in DeConcini's office and this time Riegle joined the group. Rudman asked Patriarca whether he thought DeConcini was ``out of line'' in the April 9 meeting, when he sought the waiver for Lincoln. ``Yes I did, senator,'' the regulator responded. He said that the proper way to challenge the regulation was through the courts and Lincoln ``had a retainer with every significant law firm in the country'' to do so. Lincoln in fact did, shortly before the meetings with regulators, file a court suit challenging the rule. The suit was not successful. Patriarca said McCain showed the ``least prejudice'' toward regulators at the April 9 meeting; DeConcini and ``perhaps Sen. Glenn seemed to have their minds made up pretty substantially'' and Riegle was ``in the middle.'' Another member of the committee, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., asked if the senators were hostile at the meeting. ``I think it was hostile,'' Patriarca said. ``We were being dressed down.'' Helms then asked whether the senators expressed ``surprise or shock'' after the regulators informed them that serious problems - and possible criminality - were found at Lincoln, of Irvine, Calif. ``We didn't seem to be getting through to the senators,'' the regulator said. ``They did not seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation that we were trying to convey to them.'' On Thursday, Patriarca said the senators became less aggressive when regulators said they would make criminal referrals to the Justice Department.
AP901001-0276 	X	Grain and soybean futures prices were sharply down Monday on the Chicago Board of Trade, as a result of increased harvest pressures and declines on the precious metal and energy markets. Wheat futures prices fell to levels from two weeks ago amid doubts the Soviet Union does not plan to buy subsidized wheat flour from the government, along with professional selling by major companies and near-ideal harvest conditions, analysts said. ``There's a very weak export outlook to buy grains,'' said Walter Spilka, an analyst with Smith Barney, Harris Upham and Co. in New York. ``You're moving grains into positions to be sold and you don't have any ready buyers, so that's going to push prices lower.'' Soybean futures pushed toward double-digit losses as major corporations sold off their interest. Near-ideal weather conditions in areas where the crop is grown also added pessimism the entire harvest would be sold, Spilka said. Corn followed soybeans and wheat amid the same fears. At the close, wheat futures were 7} cents to 3\ cents lower with the contract for delivery in December at $2.70a bushel ; corn was 5 cents to 1{ cents lower with December at $2.23 a bushel; oats were 1{ cents lower to { cent higher with December at $1.19{ a bushel; soybeans were 11} cents to 5 cents lower with November at $6.06\ a bushel.
AP900726-0101 	X	Postmaster General Anthony Frank endorsed legislation Thursday to require child-proof packaging of mailed medicine samples, saying it could ``head off a disaster before it happens.'' The bill was inspired by an incident last March in Saline, Mich., in which a group of children ages 3 to 8 obtained sample packages of Tylenol gelcaps from an open mailbox area in an apartment complex. The Postal Service typically places mailed samples in open racks or on tables in the mail area of apartment buildings when the packages don't fit in mailboxes. The children, pretending the gelcaps were cocaine, were crushing them and apparently intended to inhale the powder. But an adult saw what was happening, confiscated the medicine and notified police. Frank said he had received no reports of children actually ingesting direct-mail medicine samples. ``We all have it in our power to head off a disaster before it happens and what a great feeling that is for a change,'' he told the House Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Services. ``We stand foursquare behind the bill.'' No opposition surfaced during the subcommittee hearing. Voicing support for the bill were Donnelley Marketing, the company that handled the Tylenol mailing; the Direct Marketing Association; the Third Class Mail Association; and two agencies of the U.S. Postal Service. The bill would require that pharmaceutical and hazardous household product samples sent through the mail be packaged in child-proof containers. The Postal Service would refuse to deliver samples not meeting the standard. James Douglas, director of the Saline Department of Public Safety, said about 110 sample packages of Tylenol gelcaps were taken from the children. The University of Michigan's poison control center later told police that as few as six of the gelcaps could cause serious, or even fatal, liver disease in a 40-pound child. That is the typical weight of children ages 3 to 5, Douglas said. An overdose of aspirin and similar drugs would not cause any readily observable symptoms such as vomiting or unconsciousness, he said. Poison control officials told him the only way to determine whether a lethal dosage had been consumed is to conduct a ``blood screening'' within six hours of the time the drug was ingested, Douglas said. ``This truly is a situation where a tightening of rules and regulations could prevent a threat to public safety,'' said Rep. William Ford, D-Mich., a co-sponsor of the bill. Donnelly Marketing already has adopted a policy requiring child-proof packaging of medicine samples it distributes, senior vice president Ellen M. Farley said. While supporting the legislation, she said its effective date _ Oct. 1 or 60 days after its enactment, whichever is later _ might not give manufacturers enough time to comply. An additional six months should be allowed, Ms. Farley said.
AP901026-0189 	X	The House approved the first overhaul of federal clean air laws in 13 years Friday night, requiring new pollution controls to sharply reduce urban smog, acid rain and industrial release of toxic chemicals. The 1,100-page bill passed by a vote of 401-25 and immediately was sent to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, scheduled a vote Saturday. The cost for meeting the new requirements eventually are expected to exceed $22 billion a year and affect virtually every segment of society. Many of the handful of congressmen who opposed the measure did so because of the burden imposed on Midwest utilities that will have to undertake expensive measures to curb pollutants that cause acid rain. But supporters hailed the legislation as the most far-reaching piece of environmental legislation to be considered by Congress in years. ``This bill will be the standard by which we will judge environmental legislation in the '90s,'' declared Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla. Despite its lopsided approval, the bill was the product of months of intense bargaining by House members among themselves behind closed doors. The highly technical and far-reaching bill requires tighter emission controls on cars, cleaner-burning gasoline blends and pollution controls on businesses to combat urban smog. Smog-producing emissions from automobiles must be cut by 30 percent to 60 percent and gasoline sold in areas with smog problems must be 15 percent cleaner toward the end of the decade. More than 100 cities that are failing to meet federal air-quality standards will have to impose pollution-control plans to bring their air into compliance over the next five to 17 years, depending on the severity of the problem. The Los Angeles area is given 20 years. At the same time, the measure directs industry to cut toxic air pollution by 90 percent over the next eight years by installing new pollution-control equipment to capture 189 hazardous chemicals and requires coal-burning electric power plants to reduce chemical releases that cause acid rain by more than 10 million tons. The industrial Midwest will be hit hardest because plants in such states as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois rely heavily on high-sulfur coal and will carry the greatest burden of reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain. Failure to meet the new federal requirements could open polluters to civil penalties of up to $25,000 a day. Criminal penalties may be sought against corporate executives for willful release of hazardous air pollutants that pose a serious health threat. Most of the new pollution requirements would be phased in over 10 to 15 years. The requirements for cleaner burning motor fuels and reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants take effect by 1995. The clean-air requirements are expected to have widespread effects on society. Consumers are likely to pay slightly more for automobiles as well as gasoline and, in many of the Midwestern states, more for electricity. Small businesses and huge petrochemical plants alike will have to invest in pollution-control equipment and improve the monitoring of chemical releases. Cost estimates for the new controls have varied widely. The bill's supporters have said the legislation will cost the economy about $10 billion a year beginning in 1995 and about $22 billion by the year 2005, when most of the requirements will be in effect. Industry estimates have been much higher, with some studies predicting annual costs from the legislation by 2005 of more than $60 billion. Environmentalists have criticized the industry figures as being based on ``inflated estimates and extreme or false assumptions.'' The latest push for overhauling the 1970 Clean Air Act, which was last changed in 1977, began nearly 17 months ago when President Bush unveiled his proposal for cleaning up the nation's air, noting that for nearly a decade ``political paralysis has plagued ... progress against air pollution.'' But the task proved to be far from simple. It took three weeks of intense closed-door negotiations between Senate leaders and the White House to craft legislation that would satisfy divergent regional and economy interests affected by the bill. Finally the Senate passed a bill April 3 by a vote of 89-11. Six weeks later, the House approved its version 401-21 after also after working out scores of tradeoffs and compromises. But negotiations bogged down as the House and Senate tried to resolve differences in the two bills, each of which ran to nearly 700 pages. Facing increasing time pressures, negotiators for the two houses finally agreed on a compromise bill Monday, barely in time for final floor action before Congress adjourns.
AP880423-0100 	X	Here is the text of the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, as delivered Saturday by Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia: This is Senator Byrd. I have good news. Congress is one step closer to passing the long-awaited trade bill. Last Thursday, the House of Representatives did its part. The trade bill passed overwhelmingly. Now, it is our turn in the Senate. Next week we are going to send the trade bill to the president for his signature. The trade deficit has got to come down. America's standard of living is being threatened. There are more of us working, but fewer of us owning homes. In most families, it takes two people working to keep the American dream in sight. And everyone is looking over their shoulders, worried about the next crash on Wall Street. Year by year, we have slipped further into debt. The trade deficit, like the budget deficit, is in triple digits. The trade deficit is up again. That means fewer jobs for Americans. With this trade bill America will be telling the world: ``Watch out, you've got competition.'' We will be telling the world that America expects fair competition: ``If you get access to our markets, we get access to yours.'' The trade bill is a positive step for America. It is a good bill. This bill creates programs for retraining workers, and gives the president new tools to open up markets to American products. It is not protectionist. The trade bill is comprehensive. It covers everything from exchange rates to better education for our children. The trade bill establishes a strong new export policy. At the same time, it protects American inventions from piracy by foreign firms. In addition, this trade bill prevents foreign investors from dominating industries vital to our national security. This trade bill is a reasonable response to a trade policy that hs gone awry. It opens up new markets, invests in people and ideas, and creates new opportunities for American industries and workers to work together _ to make America competitive again. We are at the 11th hour when it comes to dealing with our nation's trade deficit. This is no time to dilly-dally. America has got to get moving again. The trade bill gets us moving in the right direction. But all this is at risk if the president vetoes the trade bill. Despite months of working with the president, the Congress is still unsure of his support. The president is still waving his veto pen in the air. The president is upset that the trade bill includes one small section to protect workers from suddenly being laid off without notice. That's the issue: the plant-closing legislation that you have been hearing about. Our bill says if your factory is going to close and you are going to lose your job, you have a right to know 60 days in advance. That is simple justice, simple decency. Right now, many workers get only a week or two or a day or two of warning that their jobs are about to disappear. About a third of all American workers get no notice at all. The administration does not like this provision. I think the administration is dead wrong. What they are saying is this: ``It is OK to give golden parachutes to the big guys, but it is not OK to give the little guy a warning that he is about to lose his job.'' Is that fair? Of course not. I have seen the impact of factories suddenly closing in my own state of West Virginia. Men and women who have loyally worked for years for a company suddenly are handed pink slips without warning. ``Go stand on the unemployment line. All your hard work does not count.'' That's the message. The choice is simple. If the president stands up for America, he will sign the trade bill. There will be no veto. It will be a great day. If the president vetoes the trade bill, he will be sending another message: The big boys with the golden parachutes count more than the little guy. Mr. President, at the 11th hour, don't turn back the clock. We need new policies, not old politics. Mr. President, put away your veto pen and sign the trade bill when it comes to your desk.
AP881101-0178 	X	A Taiwanese man was convicted Tuesday on murder and robbery charges in a bloody street shooting that left two federal drug agents and two assailants dead. Su Re ``Michael'' Chia, 21, was not at the scene of the Feb. 5 robbery and shooting, but was an important figure in a drug deal that had been planned as a double-cross, prosecutors had argued. Chia delivered a gun, gave a ride to one of the alleged killers, and acted as a lookout for them, prosecutors said during his three-week trial. Jurors reached their verdict on their third day of deliberations. Chia, who could face life in prison, is to be sentenced Dec. 21. Chia was convicted in the deaths of Drug Enforcement Administration agents Paul Seema and George Montoya and attempted murder in the wounding of agent Jose Martinez. He was also found guilty of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. The undercover agents were shot after they agreed during a meeting at a Monterey Park restaurant to buy $80,000 worth of heroin. They drove to a quiet Pasadena street to conduct the transaction. However, two men got into the undercover agents' car and robbed and shot them, then fled to a waiting car where a third man drove them away, with backup agents and police in pursuit. Investigators later said the killers planned the double-cross robbery from the start and did not know they were dealing with DEA agents. After a brief chase, the car was stopped in San Marino and Michael Sun, 17, and Wen Hui Kow, 27 were killed in a shootout. Win Wei ``William'' Wang, 19, was shot eight times but survived. Wang is charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances that could lead to the death penalty if he is convicted. When police picked up Chia after the shooting, they found bullets, handcuffs, a clip that fit one of the guns used in the agents' shooting, and three ski masks in his car. ``He delivered one of the murder weapons the night before, and knew about the robbery plan,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Clymer said of Chia. ``He knew about the robbery plan, and took Wang to the apartment of one of the other shooters.'' Defense attorney Brian O'Neill contended that authorities lied and altered reports after Chia's arrest to make their case against him.
AP900403-0092 	X	The government's main economic forecasting gauge plunged 1.0 percent in February, its steepest drop in nine months, the government said Tuesday. But analysts said the decrease was misleading. The Commerce Department said Tuesday its latest Index of Leading Economic Indicators _ designed to forecast economic activity six to nine months in advance _ wiped out three months of increases with the largest decline since a 1.1 percent fall last May. But analysts said the report was an aberation caused by a record 25 percent drop in building permits in February from January's 26.8 percent gain as builders took advantage of warm weather and tried to beat deadlines for new government regulations. ``It would have been down just 0.2 percent without the distorting effect of the building permits,'' said David Jones, an economist with Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a government securities dealer in New York. Gilbert Benz, an economist with the Swiss Bank Corp. in New York, said the gauge would bounce back next month to its levels of late 1989 and early 1990. The index rose 0.1 percent in November, 0.4 percent in December and 0.2 percent in January. Nevertheless, seven of the 11 statistics in the index were down which analysts interpreted as meaning a soft economy, particularly in the manufacturing sector. ``February's leading indicators show a substantial industrial rebound is unlikely to occur in the next six months,'' said William K. MacReynolds, forecasting director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But Jones added, ``Recent signals suggest that while the goods-producing sector is still flat, it's not getting any worse and there's no evidence that its weakness is spreading to other sectors.'' According to a recent survey of 51 top economists by Blue Chip Economic Indicators in Sedona, Ariz., the gross national product _ the nation's output of goods and services _ will avoid a recession and grow 1.7 percent in 1990. But the survey concluded that the economic outlook ``remains the most sluggish since the recession year of 1982.'' The economy grew 3 percent last year, although it slowed to 1.1 percent in the final quarter. In addition to building permits, other statistics contributing to the index's decline in February were faster business delivery times, lower stock prices, a decline in plant and equipment orders, a decrease in the price of raw materials, a decline in the backlog of manufacturers' unfilled orders and a drop in an index measuring consumer confidence. Three of the components were positive, including an increase in orders for consumer goods, a gain in the money supply and a drop in weekly unemployment claims. One indicator, the length of the average workweek, was unchanged. The various changes left the index at 144.0 percent of its 1982 base of 100. The index fell 0.6 percent from September through February after declining 0.5 percent the previous six months.
AP880715-0092 	X	Nevada's Supreme Court, which banned use of police decoys who pose as drunks with cash hanging from their pockets, says it's OK if the decoy is alert, well-dressed and more of a ``logical target'' for thieves. The high court Thursday rejected an appeal from Vincent DePasquale, convicted in Las Vegas of larceny after a police decoy operation in 1983. A plainclothes policewoman was used as a decoy, carrying a shoulder bag in which a fake $100 bill was exposed, a zipper pulled tight against the money. DePasquale claimed entrapment. The Supreme Court said it has ruled against use of decoys when they pose as anyone who is helpless, drunk or feigning unconsciousness with money exposed temptingly from pockets. That ``degree of vulnerability'' suggested entrapment, or inducing someone to commit a crime he might not otherwise commit, the court said. In the DePasquale case, however, ``the exposed valuables were presented in a realistic situation, an alert and well-dressed woman walking on the open sidewalks in the casino area,'' the court said. ``The fact that the money was exposed simply presented a generally identified social predator with a logical target,'' the court added. ``These facts suggest that DePasquale was predisposed to commit this crime.''
AP901129-0263 	X	The U.S. dollar surged sharply against the Japanese yen Friday morning, while stock prices declined. The dollar was quoted at 133.35 yen at 11:30 a.m., up 3.20 yen from Thursday's close of 130.15 yen. After opening at 133.70 yen, it ranged between 133.00 yen and 133.85 yen in the morning. On the stock market, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average closed the morning session at 21,933.99 points, down 778.61 points, or 3.4 percent, from Thursday's finish of 22,712.60 points. In bond dealings, the price of the benchmark No. 119 10-year Japanese government bond slipped to 85.62 points as of midmorning, down from Thursday's close of 86.11 points. Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction from price, rose to 7.58 percent from 7.48 percent. The resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council on Thursday authorizing the use of force to drive Iraq from Kuwait encouraged dollar buying, traders said. The dollar is seen as a safe investment in times of international tensions, while the yen is weakened by possibility of war in the Gulf because Japan imports virtually all its oil. The dollar's jump followed its overnight advance in New York, where it closed at 133.25 yen, as investors sought a safe haven in anticipation of the U.N. decision. Jumpei Ishii, a foreign exchange dealer at the Mitsui Taiyo Kobe Bank, said the dollar was staying close to its New York finish in the absence of fresh market-driving forces. He said investors were generally not taking big risks this late in the year. The lower yen and possibility of war in the Middle East helped push share prices down on the Tokyo stock market, said a dealer at Cosmo Securities, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said a further plunge may follow because the Nikkei average has hit below the 22,000-point level. ``We see severe times ahead,'' he said.
AP900703-0174 	X	Just when teacher union chief Albert Shanker was starting to sound like a mellowed elder statesman, the old firebrand re-emerged with an attack on school boards and administrators he accuses of impeding reform. In his opening address Monday before 3,200 delegates at the American Federation of Teachers annual convention, Shanker virtually declared an end to the decades-old feud with the National Education Association. The two teacher unions are finally cooperating, seeing eye-to-eye on most key issues, he said _ though officials of both unions hastened to add that merger is at best a distant dream. Moments later, the president of the 744,000-member AFT, once considered so feisty that Woody Allen portrayed him as the cause of World War III in the film ``Sleeper,'' told reporters that school boards and administrators have failed to act on reform despite his union's flexibility. Insisting he was not trying to ``hurt'' or ``destroy'' school leaders, he said, ``What I'm shocked about is they're not acting like intelligent managers.'' Unless reform proceeds more quickly, Shanker warned, the public will turn to more drastic schemes like giving parents the right to use tax dollars to send their kids wherever they want, including private school. Such a plan already is in place in Milwaukee, he pointed out. Those were just his opening shots. Shanker indicated he'd have more to say on Wednesday in an address to the convention. National School Boards Association executive director Thomas Shannon replied by calling Shanker ``myopic and forgetful.'' ``One of the biggest obstacles to change is collective bargaining contracts. You can't always just change things,'' said Shannon, reached by telephone at his Washington office. ``We have no doubt about the sincerity of Al Shanker,'' said Gary Marx, spokesman for the American Association of School Administrators. ``And he should have no doubt about our commitment to better schools.'' The AFT gathering runs through Thursday. More than 8,000 delegates of the 2-million-member NEA will meet in Kansas City Thursday through Sunday. In another development, the AFT released a survey showing average teacher pay in the United States up 5.7 percent to $31,315. Alaska was tops with an average salary of $43,097. South Dakota ranked last at $21,300.
AP900313-0066 	X	Here are major elements of President Bush's aid package for Nicaragua and Panama. OVERALL FUNDS. Bush coupled a $300 million aid package to help Nicaragua speed the transition to democracy with a renewed request for $500 million in aid to Panama. He requested the Panama money earlier this year, but it got sidetracked in Congress on other issues. The Nicaragua and Panama money would be diverted from unspecified Pentagon programs. An existing $21 million would be used for emergency aid to Nicaragua, including food. Some of it would be used to help re-integrate the Contra rebels. TRADE. The president lifted a five-year-old trade embargo against Nicaragua. He also took steps to allow Nicaragua to resume shipping sugar to the United States and to make that nation eligible for duty-free treatment for a variety of other products. SUPPLIES. Some $60 million would be earmarked for providing critical agricultural supplies, petroleum and medical supplies. EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS. $10 million would help pay for ``emergency employment programs,'' including ones designed to help turn soliders into farmers. RESETTLEMENT. Some $45 million would go toward helping speed the repatriation and resettlement of the U.S.-backed Contra forces and other refugees, and an additional $1 million would be used for technical assistance in restructuring the economy. INTERNATIONAL FINANCE. Some $50 million would be used to help Nicaragua pay off debt to the International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions. An additional $75 million would go toward helping to prop up the Nicaraguan currency to help restructure the economy and aid the country with its balance-of-payments imbalance. PROJECTS. About $60 million would help pay for such projects as bridge, road and highay repair and refurbishing schools and hospitals. FURTHER AID. Bush said he would later propose an additional $200 million to be used in the fiscal year that begins next Oct. 1, with details to be announced later
AP900327-0242 	X	Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the futures industry's most powerful ally in Congress, has all but conceded defeat in a battle over who should regulate trading of at least some types of futures contracts. Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said ``the cards are stacked'' against the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The two dominate global futures trading and favor continued oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Illinois Democrat also said Congress appears to favor a merger of the two federal regulatory agencies over proposals to transfer to the SEC jurisdiction over only the financial futures markets or over stock-index futures alone. ``If there's any movement at all with respect to partial consolidation, there will be total consolidation,'' Rostenkowski said. ``I think the cards are stacked against the members of the Chicago trading faction.'' Rostenkowski commented on the situation in a meeting Monday with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board. His remarks were reported in Tuesday's editions. The CFTC currently regulates all futures trading. Leaders of the Chicago exchanges fear the SEC, which oversees stock and bond trading, would be a stricter regulator whose actions could raise the cost of trading futures in the United States, driving business overseas. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady and SEC Chairman Richard Breeden favor giving the SEC at least some of the CFTC's regulatory authority. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest market for stock-index futures, is opposed to any transfer of jurisdiction, said spokesman Andrew Yemma. ``The position advocted by some in Washington of shifting jurisdiction to the SEC, we just don't consider that a negotiable matter,'' Yemma said in a telephone interview. The battle over jurisdiction of the industry stems in part from the government's investigation of illegal trading practices at the Merc and Board of Trade. Forty-eight people, mostly traders, have been indicted in the probe, prompting criticism that the CFTC has been lax in policing the exchanges. The turf battle also is rooted in the belief among some experts that stock-index futures trading increases volatility in the stock market. Stock-index futures are contracts that represent baskets of stocks. Rostenkowski portrayed the fight as reflecting a rivalry between New York and Chicago over dominance of the nation's financial markets. ``This shows the strength of the New York operators,'' he said, noting that Brady, former head of a powerful Wall Street firm, ``is part of the Eastern establishment.'' Sen. Alan Dixon, D-Ill., another futures industry ally, on Monday introduced a compromise bill that would put a member of each agency on the counterpart regulatory body. ``I think cross-membership is a good idea to give each agency a better appreciation of the issues the other has to face,'' Dixon said. The measure ``does not call for fundamental restructuring of our regulatory structure,'' he said, noting such restructuring is unnecessary. The debate over jurisdiction is likely to heat up Thursday, when top regulators are expected to testify before a Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. Dodd has said he favors shifting regulation of stock-index futures to the SEC from the CFTC.
AP900908-0018 	X	Law enforcement agencies must spend more time and money fighting Asian crime syndicates, which are becoming one of the most powerful criminal forces in the United States, the FBI director says. Asian organized crime groups traditionally choose victims in their own ethnic community, FBI Director William Sessions told a gathering of business leaders Friday. ``Now they are extending their tentacles out to the rest of American society,'' he said. ``Indeed, Asian crime groups are networking and interacting not only with each other but with La Cosa Nostra and Colombian drug cartels as well,'' he said. The FBI first became aware of the extent of Asian organized crime when agents seized 900 pounds of 90 percent pure heroin worth more than $1 billion in February 1989, Sessions said. ``Unfortunately, Asian criminal organizations are gaining larger and stronger footholds around the country,'' Session said. Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese organized crime groups are the strongest in the United States, he said.
AP880722-0163 	X	The leaders of Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus will meet in New York next month for talks aimed at resolving problems in the divided nation, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said today. U.N. officials said Georges Vassiliou, president of the Republic of Cyprus, and Rauf Denktash, president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, will visit New York for talks Aug. 24. ``The leaders of the two sides in Cyprus have accepted my proposal for resumption of talks to negotiate a settlement of all aspects of the Cyprus problem,'' Perez de Cuellar said in a brief news conference. He did not elaborate on his proposals for peace in Cyprus, which has been divided since Turkish troops invaded in 1974 and captured the northern third of the island. Turkish Cypriots, who comprise one-fifth of the island's 650,000 people, have formed their own breakaway state, headed by Denktash, in the Turkish- controlled territory. Several rounds of talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders, under U.N. mediation, have failed to resolve disputes over the form of a federation and withdrawal of about 29,000 Turkish troops.
AP901207-0129 	X	Final payments totaling about $100 million are going out to states as their share of 1990 national forest sales receipts, the Agriculture Department said Friday. F. Dale Robertson, chief of the Forest Service, said the money is in addition to a preliminary payment of $246 million which went to the states on Sept. 19, bringing the total for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 to more than $346 million. By law, 25 percent of the revenues collected by the Forest Service for the sale of timber and other use of national forest resources must be returned to the states where the forests are located. Actual receipts in fiscal 1990 totaled $1.38 billion. The states are required to use the funds for schools and roads. Oregon is the biggest recipient of total forest receipts for 1990 with $150 million, followed by California, $64 million, and Washington, $37 million.
AP880219-0067 	X	Human rights violations have increased under President Corazon Aquino's administration and the United States shares responsibility, a leftist social action group charged today. Meanwhile, suspected Communist rebels ambushed and killed a police informant early today in Manila's Tondo district, a stronghold of urban guerrillas. Petrolino Lim suffered three gunshot wounds and died a few hours later in a hospital, police said. The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates said it would file a petition with the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in New York asking it to condemn the U.S. and Aquino governments for ``gross and systematic violations of human rights of the Filipino people.'' Alvaro Senturias, an alliance official, told a news conference that the petition would show that ``human rights violations have increased under the Aquino government.'' The alliance distributed copies of the petition, which cited numerous specific allegations of abuses, including murder, the bombing of civilians and forced evacuation of villagers. Most of the incidents stemmed from the government's effort to step up the war against Communist rebels' 19-year-old insurgency _ employing armed vigilantes, for example, the group said. There was no immediate comment from the government, which came to power nearly two years ago on the promise of restoring human rights after 20 years of authoritarian rule under ousted President Ferdinand Marcos. The alliance, an umbrella group for several leading church-affiliated human rights groups, says in the petition that the United States ``has intensified its intervention in the counter-insurgency program.'' ``The Aquino government has become more subservient to the dictation of the U.S. policy makers and counter-insurgency experts,'' it says. The alliance said that despite its stated commitment to human rights, the Aquino government had made little effort to punish those in the military who had committed abuses under the Marcos administration. The military has said that many of the church-affiliated groups that comprise the alliance are communist-infiltrated. It says they unfairly blame soldiers for abuses without criticizing similar actions by the rebel New People's Army. Mrs. Aquino was swept to power in a February 1986 military-civilian uprising that toppled Marcos, who lives in exile in Hawaii.
AP900125-0126 	X	A woman is suing a school district for locking her 13-year-old son in a cafeteria closet for three school days for fighting. Frances Allison said her son, Gary DeWayne Morris, has nightmares and refuses to sleep without a light since the incident last March. She is suing the Elmore City School district and a former principal for $100,000. The lawsuit, filed in December, says the boy was kept in the 4-by-5-foot closet from 8:25 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., that meals were served to him and that he had to urinate in a bottle. ``Imagine what they would have done to me if someone had come to my house and noticed Gary in the closet,'' Ms. Allison said. ``They'd put me in jail and take away my kids.'' Delbert Handke, district superintendent, said today that the boy was allowed out to use the bathroom. He said the incident occurred before he became superintendent. The school district said Ms. Allison consented to an in-house suspension. Ms. Allison said the principal told her such a suspension would occur in a classroom away from other students and would be supervised by a teacher.
AP880921-0220 	X	A company that keeps tabs on the aircraft industry reports jet aircraft orders are booming as commercial airlines worldwide modernize their fleets with more fuel-efficient aircraft. The company, Forecast International, says more than 3,400 aircraft worth $114 billion are either on order or on option to order, most to be delivered over the next six years. In 15 years of tracking aircraft developments, ``I've never, never seen a replacement cycle like this,'' said company President Edward M. Nebinger. He said Tuesday airlines are ordering new planes because they can save 20 to 25 percent on fuel costs with newer models, with fuel being an airline company's largest operational expense. Nebinger also said the industry had weathered an era of cutthroat competition, prompted partly by the deregulation of the industry a decade ago, that has seen less-efficient carriers fold amid a series of mergers and consolidations. ``The survivors are economically stronger,'' he said. Newer models also reduce the risk of metal fatigue, which literally can cause a plane to fall apart. Nebinger recalled this year's Aloha Airlines incident, when the entire front section of the cabin roof flew off in flight, due to fatigue cracks. That plane had made 90,000 takeoffs and landings, he said. The Aloha Airlines incident and the recent crash of a 1973-vintage Boeing 727 jet in Dallas renewed questions about the reliability of aging aircraft, Nebinger said. His figures indicate the average age of a Boeing 707 is 20.3 years, while the average age of a Boeing 727 is 15.4 years. The average age of a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 is 21.4 years and the average age of a DC-10 is 12 years. Forecast International maintains computer data on aircraft inventories worldwide. Nebinger said jet planes are the last major items that the United States exports and his data provide encouraging news as the United States attempts to trim its trade deficit. U.S. manufacturers are expected to deliver 1,738 new aircraft, worth about $72.5 billion, through 1994. Of that, $25.4 billion is destined for American airline companies, while the remaining $47.1 billion will go to foreign customers, Nebinger said. But he also said European companies, specifically Airbus Industrie, are taking an ever-increasing bite of the market away from U.S. giants like Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, which 15 years ago claimed virtually the entire world market. He said Airbus Industrie was expected to deliver 852 aircraft through 1995, while other European producers will deliver about 575. Much of those will go to countries other than the United States, but about $12.8 billion will go to U.S. operators, he said. On balance, Nebinger said, ``the U.S. still emerges as a very strong winner in the import-export balance, with exports to Europe exceeding imports by $13.2 billion.'' The impact on the U.S. trade deficit, he said, ``cannot be overemphasized.'' Boeing has 1,275 aircraft either on order or option to order. McDonnell Douglas has 349. Airbus Industrie has 852, while Fokker, based in the Netherlands, has 257, and Embraer of Brazil has 208, according to Nebinger's numbers. To support the orders his company has tracked, new engines needed through 1994 will be worth $24.7 billion, Nebinger said, of which U.S. manufacturers will produce $15.6 billion, or 63 percent.
AP900114-0055 	X	The Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers earned a trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday behind superb passing performances by quarterbacks John Elway and Joe Montana, who wrote his name in the all-time NFL record book. Behind an almost-flawless Montana, the 49ers beat their NFC West-rival Los Angeles Rams 30-3 for the NFC championship in San Francisco and a chance at becoming the first repeat Super Bowl winner in a decade. Montana, who passed for 156 yards in a 21-point second quarter that broke the game open, had a 20-yard TD pass to Brent Jones and an 18-yarder to John Taylor, his 30th and 31st in postseason. That broke the record of 30 by Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw and sent the Niners on to New Orleans, where in two weeks they will be trying to match another standard set by Bradshaw and the Steelers with their fourth Super Bowl victory. Pittsburgh was the last team to win two straight Super Bowls, in 1979 and 1980. In Denver, the Broncos earned their fourth shot at the Super Bowl with a 37-21 victory over the Cleveland Browns, whom they've beaten three times in the AFC championship since 1987. Elway enjoyed his best game of the season and his best ever in the playoffs, completing 20 of 36 passes for 385 yards and three touchdowns. He took Denver on scoring drives of 82, 80, 80 and 60 yards.
AP880705-0041 	X	President Fidel Castro has enhanced his image on human rights by releasing hundreds of political prisoners, but dissidents say thousands more remain in jail or are ostracized for opposing the regime. Communist authorities have nearly halved the dissident population in Cuban prisons since Cardinal John O'Connor of New York asked Castro to release 433 people charged with political crimes, said Bienvenido Avierno, a Foreign Ministry official. O'Connor visited Cuba in April. Former political prisoners are among the 300 or so Cubans leaving Havana each month aboard charter flights that depart four times a week for Miami. Asked if the releases benefit the government by letting it purge dissidents, Avierno said, ``Sure, we are maintaining these guys.'' One dissident here says the government has only become more sophisticated in curbing its domestic opposition. ``Everything is repressive here,'' Ricardo Bofill, president of the banned Cuban Human Rights Committee, said in a recent interview at his one-room apartment in the Havana suburb of Guanabacoa. ``Their tactics have changed. Now they use mobs and press campaigns.'' Bofill, a Communist Party member before Castro came to power in 1959, has been jailed several times for speaking out against the government. He has stayed at home for the past four months, saying he fears for his life. ``There are death threats. I have been identified in Cuba as the head of the counterrevolutionaries, the No. 1 enemy,'' Bofill said, sitting in a rocking chair in his room. The Communist Party newspaper Granma devoted several pages in April to discrediting Bofill. ``He is totally twisted and imbued with double-dealing lies, faking, deception and, especially a monstrous ego and unquenchable thirst for fame and notoriety,'' it said. Bofill's group compiles and distributes reports of government abuses. He showed a reporter a handwritten prison pamphlet called ``Dawn,'' which detailed ``systematic cruelty.'' He said Cuba has 10,000 political prisoners. Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, put the number at 450 in its 1987 annual report. The Castro government tolerates Bofill, often citing his criticisms as proof Cuba has freedom of expression. Avierno flatly denies there are any rights abuses in Cuba: ``The people, for the first time in their lives, have the arms. If they didn't like the system they could use them.'' Bofill said he does not oppose the government, but rather its tactics: ``This is not a fight against the system, it is against an unjust order. The basic rights, the right to life, is not guaranteed.'' In Cuba, only state-run news media are allowed to operate and the government decides who can leave the country and who can return. Bofill displayed his identification card, a booklet resembling a passport, and showed the government stamp that indicates he has applied for permission to leave the country. He said the stamp identifies him and thousands of others as malcontents. Roberto Bermudez, 32, a painter, said his opposition to the government has meant he can't exhibit his paintings. Sebastian Arcos, a former professor of dentistry and ex-political prisoner, said thousands of Cubans depicted as social outcasts are unable to find work. Cuba's socialist policies mean free and often model health care and education. The government says its provision of these social services constitutes a human right. ``This is a country where we have education, health, a country where drugs, especially hard drugs, are unheard of. No child needs to leave his studies to help his family. Violence is practically unknown. These are human rights,'' Jose Ramon Fernandez, vice president of the Council of State, said in an interview. Castro this year permitted the International Red Cross to examine Cuban prisons for the first time. A confidential report is being prepared. In addition, a United Nations human rights group is expected to inspect the prisons by September. The United States maintains no formal diplomatic relations with Cuba. But the U.S. Interests Section in Havana receives ``thousands upon thousands of letters from Cubans requesting political asylum in the United States,'' spokeman Jerry Scott said. An agreement renewed last year will allow 3,000 Cubans to travel to the United States as refugees. Avierno said the Cuban government agreed to free most of the prisoners requested by O'Connor ``if the United States guarantees they can go there.'' About 40 of that group will not be released because they ``are very dangerous people and they must fulfill their sentences,'' Avierno said. The maximum prison term is 30 years.
AP900207-0267 	X	Stock prices rallied in moderate afternoon trading, helped by program trading and a sharp boost in technology stocks. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was up 30.63 points to 2,636.94 at 2 p.m. EST. The blue-chip indicator was down 0.45 point at noon and more than 20 points shortly after the opening bell. Advancing issues overpowered losers by a margin of about 7 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 815 issues up, 571 down and 481 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 123.61 million shares. Analysts said high technology stocks helped revive the blue chip sector after a morning lull. Weakness in the bond market had pressured stocks in earlier trading. ``IBM is leading on the upside,'' said Dennis Jarrett, technical analyst for Kidder, Peabody & Co. ``It's just a case where people expect the market to pop.'' Analysts attributed the market's earlier weakness to ongoing worries about the Treasury's quarterly refunding and concerns about whether yields would have to be forced higher to attract Japanese investors. Foreign investors, particularly the Japanese, are an important source of funds into U.S. credit markets. The three-part auction, which started Tuesday with the sale of $10 billion in three-year notes, continued today with the sale of $10 billion in 10-year notes. The final auction on Thursday will comprise $10 billion of 30-year Treasury bonds. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks was up 1.51 at 183.84. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was 1.06 higher at 355.80. Among actively traded issues on the NYSE, IBM had jumped 2{ to 103{, Baxter International was up } to 24, Haliburton had gained 2] to 44} and Federal National Mortgage was up 1[ at 34[.
AP880219-0074 	X	The City Council has determined there may be a free lunch, but it won't be gourmet. The council on Thursday agreed to halt meals provided at its meetings by members of the Dallas Restaurant Association because of a possible conflict of interest if they consider measures affecting restaurateurs. The restaurants had been serving such fare as baby spring chicken and chocolate decadence cake since the council stopped a city food service that had cost $4,600 per year. Mayor Annette Strauss has written C. Gus Katsigris, president of the association, thanking the association for ``gracious and delicious luncheon service.'' But she said the lunches must be discontinued because they ``may be subject to misinterpretation.'' ``I'm disappointed,'' said Katsigris. ``I don't think we can influence anyone with a cup of soup and some salad.'' Although it appears the city will resume food service for the council members, not eveyone favors the idea. Councilman Jerry Bartos said he supports canceling free lunches altogether: ``I'd be just as happy with a sandwich on whole wheat out of my own pocket.''
AP881014-0137 	X	A Coast Guard helicopter rescued three people from a burning shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico today after the men radioed for help, officials said. Chief Petty Officer Mark Kennedy of Coast Guard Air Station-Ellington said the helicopter was dispatched to the 70-foot commercial shrimper, Master Warren, shortly after 3 a.m. when the three notified authorities that the vessel was ablaze some 13 miles southwest of Galveston. The boat was about five miles from shore, he said. ``They found the vessel fully engulfed in flames and the three people standing as far back as possible,'' Kennedy said. ``They seemed to be suffering from smoke inhalation, so after they were hoisted off the vessel they were taken to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston.'' Doctors there found the men in good condition and they were not admitted, Kennedy said. The owner and operator of the Master Warren, which is based in Port Arthur, was identified as Banh Prinh, and the two crew members were identified as Bob and Pan Nguyen, Kennedy said. Coast Guard crews continued to battle the fire aboard the shrimper this morning. ``Just about the time that the helicopter crew was hoisting the people, a patrol boat from the Coast Guard base in Galveston arrived at the scene and began fighting the fire,'' Kennedy said, adding that another boat was expected to arrive later and tow the shrimper to shore.
AP880928-0128 	X	The Connecticut Board of Parole today denied early release for the man convicted in the 1979 strangulation of a 14-year-old Stamford girl after an emotional plea from the victim's father. ``It is an insult to our daughter's memory that he could even be considered eligible for parole in less than nine years,'' Charlie Hoyt told the parole board during a brief hearing today at Somers State Prison. Bruce D. Williams Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter under a 1980 plea bargain agreement. A rape charge was dropped under the agreement. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in the death of Hoyt's daughter Sandy, who was lured to Williams' Stamford home with the promise of her first baby-sitting assignment. Last week, Hoyt presented the board's chairman, Richard Reddington, with more than 23,500 petition signatures urging that Williams be denied parole. Williams, 35, appeared briefly before the board today, asking the three-member panel to review his prison record and his efforts to obtain a college degree while in prison. He did not mention the girl's death. While addressing to the board, Hoyt broke down and had difficulty getting through his statement. ``If there are any doubts in your minds about this monster, then I suggest that the board take some time and view his videotaped confession,'' Hoyt said. It took the board members only 10 minutes in executive session to decide to deny Williams' bid for release. When they emerged, Reddington told Williams that because of the ``extreme seriousness'' of his offense, his request was being denied. The board scheduled another hearing for September 1994 with next potentional rlease date of Jan. 12, 1995. ``I'll be there,'' Hoyt said. In 1983, Hoyt's lobbying helped prompt legislators to enact a law that allows victims of most serious felonies to testify at an inmate's parole hearing. Hoyt began his petition drive aimed at keeping Williams behind bars hoping to collect 10,000 signatures, but ended up with more than twice that. ``People want to do something about the system,'' he said last week. Hoyt, who now lives in Fairield, says Williams called Sandy and said he was a doctor and needed someone to watch his child while he went on an emergency call. He took her to his house. Though Williams' young child was in the house, he tied Sandy to a bed, raped her and then strangled her, Hoyt said.
AP880831-0232 	X	The new director of the Miss America Pageant says there will be so many changes in Saturday's production that he fears raised eyebrows among fans of the 67-year-old tradition. But before anyone gasps, Leonard Horn is quick to point out that the swimsuit competition is still in place _ even though he believes there may be other means of proving a young woman's fitness. The winner still will take her stroll down the runway, a much longer runway this time, to the tune of ``There She Is.'' And the show still will feature an elaborate stage production, but new musical director Donald Pippin has created a livelier tempo that's not quite rock 'n' roll but just as spirited. Horn is more concerned about the long-time supporters of the pageant who bought seats even in the lean years when it was weathering attacks from feminists. Some of those supporters have unhappily learned they've been bumped from their box seats to make room for bigwigs representing the eight corporate sponsors and even some high-rollers from Atlantic City casinos. Horn also knocked out a production number and replaced it with video segments showing the finalists being interviewed by the judges. He eliminated a prepared speech each inalist gave in the evening gown competition in favor of asking the women unrehearsed questions. ``It won't be a cutesy question,'' he said. ``It will be sufficiently provocative to elicit an intelligent response which might give us further insight into her ability to articulate under pressure.'' The changes were necessary to keep the pageant up to date and attract the younger, female audience that had stopped watching the show in recent years, Horn said. ``Some people believe the pageant has gotten stale,'' said Horn, who took over when Albert Marks retired last year after 37 years. ``All we're trying to do is give it the vigor it once had ... and reconfirm that it's a positive program that deserves people's respect.'' For the 51 contestants, from the states and the District of Columbia, a week of pageantry and preliminary competitions lead to Saturday night's nationally televised finale. Reaching Atlantic City has been a rocky trip for some contestants. In th District of Columbia, the entire pageant was restaged after national pageant officials found problems with the judging. The original winner, Edwina Richard, became first runner-up and has said, ``I feel like I became a victim.'' In Georgia, the winner, Frances Frazier, has denied accusations she was promised the crown when she was a runner-up the year before. Earlier this year, a former Georgia pageant board member wrote to national officials saying she had firsthand knowledge that blacks were not being given a fair shot at the crown. Miss California not only had to watch in dismay as a defeated contestant loudly denounced the pageant but also had to respond to rumors she suffers from anorexia nervosa, the eating disorder. In the New Jersey state pageant, some contestants grumbled that one of the judges was acquainted with the winner. About 80,000 young women enter local contests that lead to the Miss America Pageant. More than $5 million in cash and tuition scholarships is available this year. Miss America receives at least a $30,000 scholarship and the income from a year of personal appearances. Gary Collins will serve as host of the two-hour special for the seventh year. His wife, 1959 Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, will be co-host. The show airs live on NBC-TV at 10 p.m. EDT Saturday. Performances in the talent category this year will be mainly singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. But there will also be belly dancing, an Irish dance and a gymnastics act. This year's Miss America, Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, won her title in part by performing a Hawaiian-Tahitian dance in a hot-pink costume with a bare midriff. Following preliminary competitions and interviews with the judges, the top 10 finishers will compete for the title before a TV audience estimated at 70 million viewers. Judging the finalists will be Richard Dysart and Blair Underwood of television's ``L.A. Law''; NBC News correspondent Deborah Norville; Miss America 1971 and broadcaster Phyllis George; actor George Peppard; actress Eva Gabor; columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers; Olympic ice skating gold medalist Brian Boitano; movie producer Lili Fini Zanuck; model agency founder Eileen Ford; Parade magazine publisher Walter Anderson, and William Farley, chairman of Farley Industries.
AP900202-0154 	X	President Alan Garcia said Friday he will attend the Feb. 15 drug summit with President Bush in Colombia, reversing his earlier decision to boycott the meeting if U.S. troops were still in Panama. Garcia said he decided to go to the meeting after Bush announced his intention to withdraw by the end of the month troops sent to Panama to remove Gen. Antonio Manuel Noriega from power. Presidents Virgilio Barco of Colombia and Jaime Paz Zamora of Bolivia are also set to attend the summit, which is to take place in Cartagena, Colombia. They are to discuss strategies to fight drug trafficking in their respective countries. The three Andean nations are the source of most of the world supply of cocaine, most of which is sold in the United States. Garcia cited the ``gravity of the drug problem'' and said he will go with a ``decisive and positive proposal'' to combat trafficking. Bolivia and Peru produce 90 percent of the world's coca leaf. Most of Peru's coca harvest is transformed into paste and shipped to Colombia, where it is refined into cocaine. Bolivian traffickers formerly did the the same but increasingly are producing refined cocaine and smuggling it directly to the United States and Europe, according to U.S. drug officials. The drug trade brings billions of dollars in clandestine revenues into the three countries each year. Bush last year proposed spending $2.2 billion over the next five years to fight the drug trade in the three Andean nations. Among the topics the four presidents are expected to discuss are military and police aid to fight smugglers and leftist guerrillas tied to drug trafficking, crop eradication and substitution programs, cooperation in stopping the laundering of drug money, and the extradition of drug suspects. Garcia had pulled out of the meeting after U.S. troops landed in Panama Dec. 20 to topple Noriega, saying, ``I cannot meet with the leader of an invading nation.'' Peru had planned to send a high-level delegation to the summit even if Garcia did not go. On Jan. 7, Garcia said he would attend the summit if U.S. troops were first withdrawn. In announcing his decision to go, Garcia said Friday he trusted Bush's promise to withdraw the troops by the end of February. ``This removes one of the obstacles in the way of my attendance,'' Garcia told reporters at the Government Palace. ``I have no reason to doubt the announcement he made before Congress.'' Bush said Wednesday in his State of the Union address that all ``additional troops'' sent to Panama would be withdrawn by the end of the month. About 27,000 U.S. troops were in Panama during the invasion. About 13,000 troops had been stationed at U.S. bases there before the invasion, and the same number are to remain after the February pullout. Garcia has been highly critical of the U.S. actions in Panama, and charged the United States intended to break the Panama Canal treaties of 1977, which call for the United States to cede control of the Panama Canal at the end of the century. Garcia also recalled his ambassador in Washington and suspended for one week joint anti-drug operations with U.S. drug agents and Peruvian police in protest.
AP881204-0009 	X	A man stabbed his 8-year-old daughter to death and critically injured his three other children Saturday in a predawn rampage through the family home, police said. Michael Wayne Nida, 31, also cut his wife and then slashed his own wrists and stomach, and was arrested for investigation of homicide, police said. He was listed in serious condition at Sutter General Hospital. His wife, Diana Nida, received a superficial wound in the hand during the attack and was treated and released from University Medical Center. Neighbors said they watched horrified as the man fatally stabbed the girl with a 10-inch knife in the driveway, then apologized to her. When police arrived, they found four stabbed children lying in the living room. Officers were attacked by a pit bull dog, which they shot. Eight-year-old Laura Nida died at the medical center a short time later, police said. April, 4, and John and Erick, 7-year-old twins, were listed in critical condition Saturday night following surgery for multiple stab wounds. Police said neighbors had indicated that Nida might have been under the influence of drugs, though they gave no details. The Sacramento Bee quoted neighbors as saying that Nida often used crack, amphetamines, marijuana and alcohol. Shortly after the attack began, Mrs. Nida ran out of the house, naked and bleeding, and screaming ``He stabbed my babies and he cut me!'', witnesses said. Neighbor Terry Lauer said Nida emerged through the front door and approached his wife, saying: ``It's OK, man, I just want to talk to her.'' Lauer said he told him to go back into the house, and Nida did. Moments later, however, he ran from the front door again, this time chasing the 8-year-old girt with what Lauer described as a bowie knife. ``He caught up with her and they both ended up on the ground,'' Lauer said. ``I saw him pick her up by the hair, then stab her twice with the knife. Her body went limp.'' Lauer said Nida then knelt over his daughter, cradling her body in his arms. ``I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you,'' Lauer recalled Nida saying. Nica then carried the lifeless girl back into the house.
AP880708-0010 	X	George Bush campaigned behind enemy lines on Thursday with a foray into Massachusetts, while Michael Dukakis charged the vice president with favoring $7 billion in new taxes and said, ``so much for iron-clad no-tax commitments.'' Dukakis, who will fly to Atlanta in 10 days to claim the Democratic presidential nomination, also said Bush had made a ``rather late commitment'' when he said Wednesday that he would name a Hispanic American to his Cabinet. Before leaving on a Western campaign swing, the Massachusetts governor added that he would select a running mate ``in the not too distant future,'' but did nothing else to clarify the reigning mystery of the presidential campaign. Bush, whose own nomination is set for the Republican National Convention in New Orleans next month, flew to Dukakis' political base of Boston. There he met with Bay State Republicans and spoke to leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church, which counts Dukakis among its followers. The vice president got a warm reception from the Greek group, which had heard a day earlier from Dukakis. Bush said it was just as well they didn't appear together. ``Too much charisma can be dangerous to your health,'' he said to laughter. The vice president met with President Reagan before leaving Washington, and the two men directed their aides to work closely to maximize Bush's chances of victory in the fall. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater also disclosed that Reagan may campaign on Bush's behalf in California when he vacations there this summer. California, the nation's largest state with 47 electoral votes, is Reagan's home. But Bush has fared poorly there in polls, and his aides are eager to cut into Dukakis' presumed lead in the state. Reagan is expected to campaign two days a week for Bush beginning in the fall, and Bush said Thursday the two would probably make some joint appearances. ``The president feels he can be especially helpful with conservative Republicans, Democrats and other key groups which are not registered Republicans, but which have voted for the Reagan-Bush ticket in '80 and '84,'' said Fitzwater. Reagan will be at his California ranch during the Democratic convention, but Bush said he himself may campaign during the first two days of the convention, hoping to ``get a little bit of ink'' in the news media during Dukakis' big week. In addition to his trip to Massachusetts, Bush dispatched New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu to Washington for a news conference designed to tar Dukakis. Sununu said tens of thousands of ``refugees'' are fleeing Massachusetts and Dukakis' administration each year and moving to New Hampshire. ``If Michael Dukakis fulfills his promise to do for the rest of the nation what he did for Massachusetts, then we are in serious trouble,'' he said. Dukakis has seemed to lose the political momentum in recent weeks, and he sought to regain it with his charge that Bush had forsaken his pledge to oppose any type of tax increase. He said the vice president supports a provision in trade legislation that calls for $1 billion in taxes for job training programs and also supports recently signed catastrophic illness health-care legislation with $6 billion in new taxes. ``So much for iron-clad no-tax commitments,'' Dukakis said of the centerpiece of Bush's campaign. Bush, in Boston, replied by making reference to Dukakis' signing of a cigarette tax and his support for another tax measure. ``I'm against raising taxes, and I think recent events here in this state that I don't plan to go into demonstrate we have a different view on taxes,'' he said. The Bush campaign also quarreled with Dukakis' assertion about the trade legislation and the catastrophic illiness health-care legislation. ``He is dead wrong on both counts and he is trying to blow smoke into the room,'' said spokesman Mark Goodin. In his home state, Dukakis said he expected to conclude work by the middle of next week on legislation to wipe out a looming budget deficit for the 1988 fiscal year, and on a package of tax increases and spending cuts for next year. Dukakis has been criticized repeatedly by Bush for agreeing to a new cigarette tax and other measures as part of the budget plan, for a total of $250 million in additional taxes and fees. Dukakis also scoffed at Bush's pledge before a Hispanic group in Texas to name a Hispanic member to the Cabinet. ``It strikes me that this is a rather late commitment,'' said Dukakis, who made a similar pledge a year ago. ``I don't know where he has been for the last eight years.'' Later, in Dallas, Dukakis spoke before the same group Bush had addressed a day earlier, and again jabbed at Bush over the pledge to appoint a Hispanic member of the Cabinet. ``Some people think it's enough to wake up after eight years and then promise opportunity for one Hispanic. I want to stand with you and create opportunity for 20 million Hispanic citizens across the country,'' he said. Dukakis also resurrected the issue of Reagan's veto of plant-closing legislation, using it against Bush. ``The president opposes it, the vice president opposes it, I don't know why.'' He said workers deserved the 60-day notice the legislation would provide before a plant could be closed and said the issue represented ``the fundamental difference in what a Democratic administration would mean to this country.''
AP900721-0051 	X	Madrid's suspension of aid to Cuba underscores pressure for democratic change in the former Spanish colony and further isolates Fidel Castro at a time when his main benefactor, Moscow, is getting stingier. ``It's an abrupt and historic decision,'' said political scientist Manuel Alcantara, a professor of Latin American affairs at Madrid's Complutense University. ``Because of the events in Eastern Europe, Spain feels some kind of responsibility about Cuba, to work for change there.'' As of today, 18 Cubans were in the Spanish mission in Havana, the Spanish news agency EFE reported. Nine sought refuge today, it said, and on Friday five entered the embassy. The four others sought refuge last week. Spain says it will not expel the asylum-seekers and will try to negotiate their departure from Cuba. Cuba calls all those who have sought refuge in the Spanish, Czech and Italian missions ``scum'' and habitual vagrants. Spain's secretary of state for international cooperation, Luis Yanez, told reporters in Brussels on Thursday that Spain was suspending $2.5 million in direct grants-in-aid to Cuba, the country's total this year to the island that was a Spanish colony for 406 years until 1898. While the sum is not substantial, another Spanish Foreign Ministry official hinted Friday that the move probably would not be the last to try to pressure the government of President Fidel Castro to grant more freedom to Cubans. ``More measures will be necessary,'' said Yago Pico de Coana, director general for Latin American affairs. He said it would be imprudent to elaborate. Spain has also recalled its ambassador in Havana for consultations. Cuba already has had to cope with a trade embargo by the United States and a loss of support from the Soviet Union and from East European countries that shed their Communist governments since last year. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose reforms Castro has criticized, is not as forthcoming on aid as in the past. Castro repeatedly has rejected Western-style balloting and said his country has no need for Soviet-style reform _ despite pressure from Gorbachev. As criticism of Cuba has appeared in official Soviet media, Castro has called on Cubans to brace for possible cuts in the Soviets' $5 billion in yearly aid. U.S. sources last year said there had been substantial reductions already, as evidenced in the marked decline in the purchase of sugar, which the Soviet Union buys from Cuba at prices substantially higher than world market levels as a form of subsidy. Castro also has lost his two closest Caribbean allies _ Panama's Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was toppled in a U.S. invasion in December, and Nicaragua's leftist Sandinistas, who were defeated by a U.S.-backed opposition coalition in elections Feb. 25. Yanez said the Spanish aid cutoff effectively severed Cuba's ``umbilical cord'' with Spain that afforded access to the European Community. He said resumption of the aid was contingent on ``the resolution of problems through political channels.'' Cuba has been attempting to reach some kind of aid agreement with the 12-nation West European trading bloc but without success. A Spanish government spokesman, who is customarily not identified, denied that the decision to suspend aid represented a major shift in policy toward Cuba. He said the action was in keeping with remarks Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez made to Castro in March about the need for the Marxist nation to move toward democracy. Spain has maintained cordial ties throughout its own authoritarian and democratic administrations with the former colony. Both Gen. Francisco Franco and the democratically elected administrations that have governed Spain since his death in 1975 have assured Castro easy credit to purchase Spanish goods and finance long-term projects. Cuba's total commercial debt with Madrid is estimated at about $900 million, making Spain Cuba's second-most important creditor after the Soviet Union, to which Cuba owes an estimated $3 billion. The conservative Madrid daily ABC, an outspoken opponent of both the Castro and Gonzalez governments, pointed out that Yanez's annoucement didn't affect Spain's soft-loan program to Cuba, for which $11 million are earmarked this year _ nor its commercial credit and guarantee program designed to back up Spanish exports to Cuba. The Spanish Export Credit Insurance Co. held about $780 million in debts on exports to Cuba last year. Cuba consumes 15 percent of Spain's trade to Latin America, according to Economy Ministry figures.
AP900713-0202 	X	Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady says he will oppose further reductions of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's powers if Congress passes legislation stripping the agency's authority over stock-index futures. Brady offered the olive branch at a Senate committee hearing Thursday on the Bush administration's plan to transfer control over stock-index futures to the rival Securities and Exchange Commission. One futures industry official said he saw Brady's remarks as an indication that the secretary thinks ``he's losing'' in the race to win Senate approval. ``I will oppose more sweeping changes to the CFTC authority if the administration's bill passes in its present form,'' Brady told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. But outside the hearing, when asked what he would do if Congress doesn't pass the bill, Brady said: ``I think it will pass.'' A spokesman for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Andrew Yemma, declined comment but noted that in the past the Merc has favored merging the SEC and CFTC over stripping the futures regulator of some of its authority. At the Chicago Board of Trade, spokesman Michael O'Connell also declined comment on the specifics of Brady's proposal but restated the BOT's position that ``we are against the proposed legislation and stand by the CFTC as the regulatory body that should oversee all futures markets.'' ``We are opposed to anything that weakens the CFTC,'' said John Damgard, president of the Washington-based Futures Industry Association. Although he hadn't seen Brady's statement, Damgard who was in Chicago to give a speech, noted: ``I think there's a sense on Brady's part that he's losing. If this went to a vote right now, we're pretty confident we would take the day on an up or down vote.'' Stock-index futures, often used in program trading strategies by large institutional investors such as pension funds, allow investors to trade on the movement of a basket of stocks without having to buy the underlying stocks. The CFTC and the futures industry oppose the administration bill, saying it would cripple the agency's ability to regulate other futures products while drying up market liquidity and driving business out of the country. But the SEC and the Treasury Department argue the move is necessary to curb wild price swings in the stock markets arising out of price differences between the futures and securities markets. ``Stocks and stock-index futures are one market linked together by electronics,'' said Brady, who first advanced that opinion while heading a presidential task force that investigated the 1987 stock market crash. He noted that in the 42 years between 1940 and 1982 when stock index futures first began trading, there were only three instances when the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by more than 6 percent, while there have been four instances since the 1987 crash. In an apparent attempt to allay concerns that the bill is the first step toward a complete dismantling of the CFTC which oversees the futures industry, Brady said ``the administration's proposal is not the proverbial `camel's nose under the tent.' ``The way the markets are now functioning makes no further shifts in regulatory jurisdiction necessary _ not Treasury bond futures to the SEC, not a full merger of the SEC and CFTC,'' he said. He urged passage of the bill to prevent further market disruptions. Noting that debate on the bill would lead to a political ``bloodletting,'' Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., complained that the administration should have settled the dispute. Instead ``we find ourselves acting as a referee between the SEC and the CFTC'' which he described as ``two agencies acting like children.''
AP880921-0251 	X	The stock market drifted aimlessly in quiet trading Wednesday, still seemingly in the ``summer doldrums'' with autumn about to arrive. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials edged up 3.02 to 2,090.50. But declining issues slightly outnumbered advances in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 689 up, 697 down and 536 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 127.40 million shares, against 142.22 million in the previous session. Nationwide, consolidated volume in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 148.74 million shares. Activity was curtailed somewhat by the absence of investors who were observing the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. The Labor Department reported Wednesday morning that the consumer price index rose 0.4 percent in August, matching its July increase. The latest figure was in line with advance estimates on Wall Street, and thus did not stir up much excitement. Still, brokers said there was some relief at the suggestion in the data that inflation wasn't gathering much momentum. Bond prices staged a modest advance in the credit markets, putting yields on long-term government bonds just a shade above 9 percent. ``Apathy and lethargy continue to be the key words to describe conditions in the stock market,'' observes the Merrill Lynch Market Letter in its current edition. Newmont Mining climbed 2 to 36\ on word that Minorco was offering to acquire Consolidated Gold Fields, which owns just under half of Newmont. In the blue-chip sector, General Electric rose \ to 43; International Business Machines gained { to 113\; Philip Morris rose 1 to 96}; General Motors dropped ] to 73~, and American Telephone & Telegraph was unchanged at 26{. Regina Co. tumbled 10 to 7 in the over-the-counter market. The company, a manufacturer of floor care products, said late Tuesday it would report a loss for the current quarter, citing a slowdown of orders and other problems. Precious metals stocks were mixed, holding their ground even as the price of gold fell below $400 an ounce for the first time in more than a year and a half. ASA Ltd. rose { to 36{, while Hecla Mining dropped ] to 13~. As measured by Wilshire Associates' index of more than 5,000 actively traded stocks, the market increased $4.70 billion, or 0.18 percent, in value. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks gained .20 to 152.64. Standard & Poor's industrial index rose .64 to 310.11, and S&P's 500-stock composite index was up .43 at 270.16. The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market picked up .81 to 384.91. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 298.97, up .34.
AP880706-0281 	X	Irving Bank Corp. is backing a sweetened merger offer from Banca Commerciale Italiana SpA, which rival Bank of New York Corp. contends is still inferior to its own hostile bid. Irving said on Tuesday that its management had negotiated an amendment to the outstanding offer by Banca Commerciale, Italy's second largest bank, for 51 percent of Irving's common stock to include a dividend in the form of stock warrants to Irving shareholders. Irving said the sweetened offer made the overall transaction worth at least $79.50 per share, which the bank holding company's board of directors deemed superior to Bank of New York's ``best and final bid.'' Under a complex restructuring plan that also would include the sale of assets and a special cash dividend, Banca Commerciale has offered $80 cash a share for 51 percent of Irving's common stock, or a total of about $760 million. The new agreement also provides for Irving to distribute a dividend in the form of stock warrants to all Irving shareholders before the Banca Commerciale tender offer. The warrants, one for every four shares of Irving stock, would have a term of seven years and an exercise price of $65 per share of Irving stock. The new deal means Banca Commerciale would be offering the same amount of money for Irving shares even though the shares would be worth less to the Italian bank because of the distribution by Irving. Irving said BCI's financial adviser, Lazard Freres & Co., put the value of the warrants to shareholders at $4 to $7 per share of Irving common stock. Irving stock closed at $71.37{ per share, up 12{ cents, in New York Stock Exchange composite trading Tuesday. Bank of New York rose $1.25 per share to $36.12{. Bank of New York responded that its bid for all of Irving's stock remained superior. Owen Brady, a spokesman for Bank of New York, said BNY's financial adviser Morgan Stanley & Co. projected that if Irving stock sold for $45 a share after a merger with BCI, the warrants effectively would add no more than $1.35 per share in value to BCI's previous offer. Bank of New York, which owns a 4.9 percent stake in Irving, is offering $15 in cash and 1.575 shares of its own stock for each of Irving's common shares outstanding. The offer is valued at around $68 a share or $1.2 billion. Bank of New York has offered to sweeten its offer by slightly raising the stock portion of the bid and adding other shareholder incentives, including a special cash dividend, if Irving agreed to abandon its anti-takeover ``poison pill.'' The company also has gone to court seeking to remove the defensive mechanism, which would make an unsolicited merger prohibitively expensive. Irving steadfastly has rejected Bank of New York's takeover advances, which surfaced last September. Estimates of the value of the offers have differed widely. The Irving board said analyses by its advisers, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc., said the Banca Commerciale offer was worth $74 to $79.50 a share. Robert Felise, an executive vice president at Irving, said a separate analysis by Lazard Freres valued the sweetened BCI offer at $80 or more per share. BCI's advisers valued the Bank of New York offer at $72 to $77 a share.
AP901010-0076 	X	After decades behind the Iron Curtain, hundreds of Etruscan artifacts have returned to Italy in a major show from museums in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The 1,200 artifacts, which were nearly inaccessible to Westerners for decades, have come home to central Italy, where the Etruscan culture flourished until the 1st century B.C. The exhibit is being hailed as a chance for scholars and the public to rediscover Etruscan masterpieces hidden away for decades. It also is seen as a sign of exciting times to come in the art world, as the new democracies of Eastern Europe begin to exchange exhibits with countries that were ideological foes. ``This brings together an extraordinary number of masterpieces that were very little known,'' said Massimo Pallottino, president of the National Institute of Italian Etruscan Studies. ``It's something of exceptional importance.'' The exhibit in a Gothic castle in Viterbo, 50 miles north of Rome, was organized by the State Museums of Berlin. It includes Etruscan artifacts from 26 museums in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the former East Germany, as well as the Soviet Union. The Etruscans were a powerful empire that dominated Italy before succumbing to the Roman Empire. They were known for commercial flair, an elaborate religion and a brilliant artisan tradition, which included the finest goldwork in ancient Europe. The Viterbo show brings together a wide range of Etruscan artifacts, ranging from a simple ceramic urn shaped like a house dating from the 9th century B.C., to elaborately carved sarcophagi from the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. The highlights include the contents of an 8th century B.C. tomb of a man known as the Warrior of Tarquinia. Among the 104 pieces are engraved bronze shields, weapons, bracelets, rings and even a razor for the afterlife. Another rare item is the ``Tile of Capua,'' a 5th-century B.C. plaque with writing believed to be part of a funeral ritual. It is the second-longest existing piece of Etruscan writing, which scientists have never succeeded in translating. Several carved stone and alabaster sarcophagi with scenes of battles or the trip to the afterlife illustrate the Etruscans' talent for sculpture. On top of a few lies a likeness of the dead person, often propped up on one elbow as if to enjoy a good Etruscan meal. Also in the exhibit is gold jewelry, including tiny earrings etched to resemble shields or bunches of grapes from the 3rd to 5th centuries B.C. Many Etruscan treasures wound up in German and Russian hands in the 19th century, before Italy passed a law limiting exports. Germans, in particular, did much of the early research on the Etruscans and were interested in acquiring the pieces. Many of the items in the exhibit were difficult for Westerners to see during Communist rule in Eastern Europe, due to the difficulty of obtaining tourist visas. ``Even some of our experts hadn't seen them,'' said Carlo Maria Cardoni, director of the exhibit. For the Italian organizers, the novelty of having treasures from Eastern European museums was matched by the novelty of working with museum officials trained under communism. ``Their architect still goes around with a wooden ruler and a pencil,'' said Cardoni, shaking his head. ``Let him see a computer that in 35 minutes lays out the show, and it's like hitting him in the head with a hammer.'' The Germans were also uneasy about the idea of making a videocassette of the exhibit, Cardoni said. ``I just went ahead with it anyway,'' he shrugged. The show, which closes Sunday, has toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and may eventually go to France or Japan, Cardoni said. Art experts say the show is an example of the revolution that is occurring in cultural exchanges now that Communist governments have fallen or become more moderate. ``As curators and scholars, there's always been an international interest in sharing the cultural wealth of one nation with another,'' said Jillian Slonim, public information director of the New York-based American Federation of Arts. ``On the practical level, the circumstances have radically changed in the last short while, along with the changes in the governments.''
AP901014-0006 	X	Tens of thousands of people on Sunday protested the skyrocketing cost of living that they blame on government reforms to liberalize the economy. The protest by trade unionists in Constantine, this North African country's third-largest city, came two years after economic riots swept the nation. ``That's enough, the poor are dying,'' the protesters cried, brandishing empty food baskets, as they marched through the streets of Constantine, 300 miles east of the capital. The crowd presented a list of its grievances at regional government offices and in a letter to President Chadli Bendjedid, Algerian TV reported. They demanded lower food prices and job protection. Bendjedid introduced sweeping economic and political reforms in Algeria after the riots in October 1988, where army troops gunned down scores of Algerians protesting declining living standards. But market reforms are coming slowly and sales of Algeria's principal export, oil, have been unable to revitalize a stagnant economy marked by official unemployment of 25 percent.
AP880615-0168 	X	Members of a truck convoy carrying aid to Nicaragua were turned away at the Mexican border today by U.S. Customs officials and then formed a human chain to block traffic on the principal bridge over the Rio Grande. A Mexican federal officical broke up the bridge blockade about 12:15 p.m. The blockade began when Customs officials detained a convoy truck and its driver as he attempted to cross the bridge in defiance of federal authorities. Earlier Wednesday, Customs agents stopped the Veterans' Peace Convoy to Nicaragua a block from Bridge No. 1 and attempted to route it to an inspection area other than the one at the bridge, but the group refused to budge. ``We're insisting that we be allowed to proceed right up to this inspection area, as previously agreed upon,'' said Gerry Condon, a convoy organizer. ``The difference is we know this inspection area; that's where the media is, that's where our supporters are, that's the agreement we had with them. We're not going to let them lead us by the nose and take us out of sight of people.'' One convoy vehicle, driven by Bob Livesey of Dorchester, Mass., later drove up to the bridge, where Customs officials refused to allow it to turn south toward Mexico. Another vehicle, driven by Hal Muskat of San Francisco, was detained about noon. ``My instructions are that I am not to allow you to leave,'' said James Purser, chief Customs inspector in Laredo. ``We're going to keep on trying to get our vehicles down here to the border one at a time,'' Condon said. As police and Customs officials stood by the roadblock, convoy members and supporters sang the song, ``Give Peace a Chance,'' and chanted ``Let the Convoy Pass.'' Witnesses said a small caravan left the convoy campsite for the bridge five miles away shortly before 9 a.m. About 20 supporters of the group held signs that said, ``Embargo South Africa, Not Nicaragua'' and ``Let The Convoy Pass.'' The group must submit to a Customs inspection to enter Mexico. Customs officials said that the group is being asked to comply with normal export procedures and that it has played up the issue to attract media attention. About 200 convoy members and supporters held a rally Tuesday night at its camp. Many shouted, ``Viva Nicaragua libre!'' (``Long live free Nicaragua!'') when candles were lit during the rally, which featured leftist folk songs and an appearance by Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Texas. ``I'm here to do what I can to see to it that the convoy gets across the border and to Nicaragua to deliver the humanitarian aid that they have,'' Leland said. Notables including Jesse Jackson and actor Ed Asner also have urged the U.S. government to allow it to pass. Leland met earlier Tuesday with U.S. Customs officials in Laredo and spoke by phone with Treasury Secretary James Baker trying to persuade him to ease the ban on donating vehicles to Nicaragua, said convoy member Tom Hansen. About 30 tons of food, medicine and clothing are loaded on 38 vehicles. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has told the convoy the cargo may be taken to Nicaragua, but that leaving the vehicles there would violate a trade embargo in effect with that leftist-ruled country for three years. Violating the embargo could result in fines of up to $50,000 and up to 10 years in prison. In addition, Condon said, Customs officials have told the convoy members that if they plan to go to Nicaragua without intending to return the vehicles within 30 days, the vehicles would be seized and the drivers subject to arrest. Condon said Tuesday the convoy did not intend to violate any laws, but added that the group was prepared to face a seizure when it reached Customs at Laredo's Bridge No. 1 today. Convoy members contend that the vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, are a form of humanitarian aid exempted from the Nicaraguan Trade Control Regulations. Asner spoke on the phone to convoy participants Tuesday. The nighttime rally also included the reading of a message Jackson sent to Baker, urging him to allow the convoy to pass. ``I hope that you will be guided by their example, expressed in their words, `Feed the children, not the war,''' the Mailgram from Jackson said. The convoy left from four different regions of the United States on May 21 and has been camped in Laredo since June 7. The U.S. government, which supports the Nicaraguan Contras fighting the leftist Sandinista government, imposed the trade control regulata in May 1985.
AP900210-0104 	X	DE KLERK: Stability is stability. Stability is a situation where people can feel safe, where people who want to go to work can do so, where people can live a normal life without intimidation, without threat. Stability is a situation where you do not have arson in a country because of political debate and differences. Stability is a situation where you do not have deaths as a result of political strife. That is the sort of stability we are striving for. Obviously, in any country, at all times, you have crimes and we go to great lengths to draw the necessary distinctions between ordinary and politically related instability. QUESTION: Mr. President, when you talk about a fair and just preliminary to negotiations, will you go beyond the state of emergency, and discuss as well the negotiation process, the establishment of full citizenship rights for the Black people of South Africa? DE KLERK: Thank you for that question. We have just won an election stating that as our goal. That is the mandate that my party asked of the electorate and that is the mandate that we received. There is a misconception that we do not want to give full citizenship rights to all South Africans, also to black South Africans. As a matter of fact, we have already received such a mandate from the white electorate in an election in 1989. It is no longer a question whether all South Africans must get full citizenship rights. The question is how to structure it, how also to accommodate the diversity in a non-discriminatory manner, of our total population. The fact that we have minorities, but nonetheless that clear commitment is the system must give full class-A citizenships to all South Africans, irrespective of race or color. DE KLERK: Once again, I do not want to speak on his behalf. QUESTION: Mr. President, while in custody, Mr. Mandela indicated that he would act as an intermediary or facilitator between the government and the ANC. Do you expect to continue to deal with him now on that basis? DE KLERK: I follow an open-door policy and should come forward and should he be prepared to play the role of facilitator, to interest himself in promoting a climate for negotiation, should he interest himself in promoting talks, even talks about talks, yes, that open door is also open to him. QUESTION: President De Klerk, I was wondering whether the presence of the Rev. Jackson here in South Africa had anything to do with the release of Mandela? (Laughter). DE KLERK: As far as the release of Mr. Mandela is concerned, his presence is totally irrelevant. QUESTION: President, can I ask you: did Mr. Mandela give you any assurance that he would call for peace in this country? DE KLERK: I did not ask him. QUESTION: President, from your last reply, when you said that he is prepared to act as a facilitator, does that mean he has not given you his agreement to enter negotiation? DE KLERK: His willingness to act as a facilitator has been published widely and over a fairly long period now. I did not discuss it with him as such again last night. QUESTION: Mr. De Klerk, could you possibly describe Mr. Mandela's reaction when you told him he would be released tomorrrow? DE KLERK: I do not think that I would like to try to do that QUESTION: Returning to the question of the lifting of the state of emergency, the stability required, does this imply that you will wait until there is complete peace in the Natal province, and do you think that that realistically will happen within the few weeks time that some of your ministers have given as a time span for that lifting? DE KLERK: There is an element of uncertainty, obviously, with regard to everything which lies in the future. None of us can exactly say what will happen tomorrow and the day after. It is really our hope that with the steps which we have taken, that it will make a contribution and that will bring us soon to the situation where it can be considered. We review this situation almost on an ongoing basis, almost on a day-to-day basis, and we are as anxious as anybody else to have the state of emergency lifted as soon as possible. QUESTION: You said that the lifting of the state of emergency would be a matter for negotiations. With whom do you propose to negotiate? Mr. Mandela, the ANC, who? DE KLERK: No, I did not say that is matter for negotiation. I said that the question of political prisoners is a matter for negotiation. The state of emergency was imposed by the government because of a state of instability throughout our country. It will be a government decision to lift it, and the test will be whether the stability has been restored sufficiently so that we can do so. QUESTION: But you did say that you have discussed it with Mr. Mandela, didn't you? DE KLERK: Yes, obviously, because it is a matter which is being raised from many quarters as also being a stumbling block, and in that sense it was discussed. QUESTION: Mr. President, may I ask you: have you already or are you about to inform world leaders, and if so, whom? DE KLERK: I have informed our minister of foreign affairs a few hours ago and in all probability he has undertaken an exercise so that they will not just read it in the press. It is general custom, which we adhere to, and that I am sure he has done. I did not speak to anybody. QUESTION: Are you, sir, concerned at all for the safety of Nelson Mandela, and if so, how? DE KLERK: Yes, in my opening address, or rather, in another statement I indicated that, yes, I think there is reason for concern about his safety. There are all sorts of people who might threaten his life. I think radicals from the very far left might be tempted to do so, and I think there is also a risk that it might come from radicalists from the right. Many publicc figures are being threatened throughout the world almost in all countries, and with him having such a high profile, I think, yes, there is a real risk, and one must take every precaution to ensure that noghing happens to him. But when he leaves prison, then he will be moving to his own circle of friends, and in all probability, as in the case of Mr. Sisulu and the other prisoners which we released, there was no request to the state to give any assistance with regard to their security. QUESTION: Mr. President, I wonder if I may ask you to define the mandate? How do you define full constitutional rights? Is that one man, one vote? DE KLERK: Can we save that for the press conference of next week? That is the type of thing I would likee to address then. Thank you very much.
AP880513-0063 	X	Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms swept through Alabama and northern Florida today after large chunks of hail pelted portions of Louisiana and high winds ripped down power lines in Arkansas. Showers and thunderstorms eased over the Pacific Northwest early this morning. Strong thunderstorms developing late Thursday night along a cold front crossing Washington and Oregon produced strong and gusty winds. The Pendleton, Ore., and Yakima, Wash., airports recorded winds that whipped up to 60 mph. Thunderstorms over the lower Mississippi Valley on Thursday night produced one-inch-sized hail, while hail as big as golf balls lashed an area near Spearsville, La. In Norphlet, Ark., high winds downed power lines. Meanwhile, scattered showers that extended from Lake Michigan to southern Iowa early this morning were developing ahead of a cold front that was rapidly moving across the upper Midwest. Dry weather prevailed across the rest of the nation, with fair skies in most areas. Today's forecast called for showers and thunderstorms from the Ohio Valley into New England, with most from the eastern Great Lakes region through New York into Vermont; rain over the northern Pacific Coast region; and mostly sunny over the rest of the country. High temperatures were forecast in the 70s or 80s over much of the nation; in the 60s along the northern half of the Pacific Coast region into much of Washington, and from the upper Mississippi Valley into the lower Great Lakes region; in the 50s across the upper Great Lakes; in the 90s over Oklahoma and the inland areas of southern Texas; and in the upper 90s and nearing 110 over the desert Southwest. Temperatures around the nation at 3 a.m. EDT ranged from 31 degrees at Grand Forks, N.D., to 88 degrees at Phoenix, Ariz. Other reports: _East: Atlanta 69 cloudy; Boston 52 fair; Buffalo 68 windy; Charleston, S.C. 62 foggy; Cincinnati 62 fair; Cleveland 65 fair; Detroit 65 windy; Miami 75 fair; New York 54 fair; Philadelphia 54 fair; Pittsburgh 54 fair; Portland, Maine 45 fair; Washington 60 fair. _Central: Bismarck 38 fair; Dallas-Fort Worth 65 fair; Denver 57 fair; Des Moines 71 cloudy; Indianapolis 66 fair; Kansas City 69 fair; Minneapolis-St. Paul 47 windy; Nashville 60 cloudy; New Orleans 56 fair; St. Louis 70 fair. _West: Albuquerque 64 fair; Anchorage 48 showery; Las Vegas 86 fair; Los Angeles 63 fair; Phoenix 90 fair; Salt Lake City 61 fair; San Diego 64 fair; San Francisco 57 fair; Seattle 52 rain. _Canada: Montreal 59 rain; Toronto 66 windy.
AP880610-0289 	X	Computer chiefs at some of the nation's biggest companies have nice things to say about IBM, or nothing to say at all, according to a survey in the forthcoming issue of InformationWeek. Ninety-three percent of the corporate information managers who responded to the InformationWeek survey agreed that International Business Machines Corp. is a positive influence on the marketplace, while none disagreed and 7 percent said they were undecided. But of the 50 executives invited to participate in the survey, 19 declined to participate in spite of promises of anonymity. Their names were chosen from the top echelon of the Fortune 500 and InformationWeek's own list of the 100 biggest computer users. On other questions, 26 percent said IBM exerts unfair influence on the competition while 58 percent disagreed and 16 percent said they were undecided. Sixteen percent said IBM was too big, while 58 percent disagreed and 26 percent were undecided. Sixty-four percent said IBM was fairly treated by the media, while 13 percent disagreed and 23 percent were undecided. The report is part of the magazine's special IBM issue, due out Monday. Because of the small and select size of the sample, the results are not necessarily applicable to computer users in general.
AP900810-0050 	X	The dollar was higher against all other major foreign currencies in early European trading today amidst continuing concern over the Middle East crisis. Gold prices were higher. Traders said they expected the dollar to continue gaining ahead of an Arab League meeting in Cairo today and on reports of further Iraqi troop movements toward Kuwait and toward the border with Turkey. ``The market is reserved,'' said a trader at a major West German bank in Frankfurt. ``The (Middle East) situation looks like it can only get worse.'' In Tokyo, where trading ends as Europe's business day begins, the dollar rose 0.07 yen to a closing 149.75 yen. Later, in London, it was quoted at a higher rate of 150.10 yen. Other dollar rates at midmorning compared with late Thursday: _1.5974 West German marks, up from 1.5915 _1.3455 Swiss francs, up from 1.3385 _5.3607 French francs, up from 5.3340 _1.7985 Dutch guilders, up from 1.7930 _1,170.50 Italian lire, up from 1,164.75 _1.1473 Canadian dollars, up from 1.1467 In London, the dollar rose against the British pound, and was quoted at $1.8690, compared with $1.8720 late Thursday. Gold opened in London at a bid price of $387.00 a troy ounce, up from $385.25 bid late Thursday. At midmorning, the city's major bullion dealers fixed a recommended price of $388.75. In Zurich, the bid price was $388.75, up from $385 late Thursday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold rose $3.84 to close at a bid $388.01. Silver rose in London to a bid price of $4.90 a troy ounce, from Thursday's $4.87.
AP880608-0177 	X	Drug smugglers using small planes easily evade federal rules requiring the registration of aircraft and pilots, a government informant told Congress on Wednesday. The witness, testifying from behind a screen and identified only as the former bookkeeper of an international drug ring, said the federal registration rules were ``very easy to beat. Nothing to it.'' The witness told the House Public Works and Transportation Committee of airplane bills of sale that never were sent to the Federal Aviation Administration, of fictitious names and addresses reported for buyers and sellers, and of signatures scrawled illegibly on FAA forms and modifications _ such as installation of long-range fuel tanks _ that went unreported to the government. The FAA did not pursue such gaps in documentation and in some cases required no records that would make it easier to track down aircraft owners and pilots, the witness said. ``I didn't see a vast amount of brilliance in the smuggling community,'' said the man, who was referred to by the legislators as ``Mr. Smith.'' ``If you give them an opportunity to make mistakes and leave a paper trail, it seems to me they'll make mistakes and leave a paper trail.'' Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Calif., chairman of the committee, said 64 percent of the cocaine and marijuana seized in the United States last year was captured on small planes owned by individuals or businesses. He cited a report by the Office of Technology Assessment, a research arm of Congress, that estimated that there are 1,300 to 3,500 drug-smuggling flights by small planes entering the country annually. In what has been the usual procedure in the spate of drug hearings held by Congress during this election year, the witness was accompanied by several armed Capitol police officers who stood guard inside and outside the hearing room. The man said he was a former member of the federal witness protection program and was on probation after pleading guilty to state charges of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine and racketeering. He said he had worked for a ``loose confederation'' of Americans, Colombians, Bahamians and others who smuggled cocaine into the United States aboard aircraft. He was responsible for the registration and ownership documents of more than 40 planes used by the participants, some used for legitimate businesses they owned and others for smuggling. To disguise the planes' ownership, the witness said he often had foreigners sign registration forms and use difficult to trace American mailing addresses. He would at times use addresses of apartment complexes without supplying apartment numbers, and arrange to have people who lived at the complexes watch for piles of undelivered mail and relay it. The witness also said mechanics who modified the planes he used often knew why the equipment was being installed on the aircraft. ``As a result, they had no interest in making any documentation of the work which they would have had to sign, for fear of jeopardizing their licenses,'' he said. At the same hearing, four drug investigators complained that they were frequently hindered by federal regulations that made it possible for smugglers to hide their identities. ``Aircraft identification and registered owner identification is an elusive veil behind which the smuggler finds refuge,'' said Carol Knapik, an undercover detective in the Broward County, Fla., sheriff's office. She also testified from behind screens. Janet Hale, an assistant secretary of the Department of Transportation, told the lawmakers that the FAA was trying to improve its registration systems so it could provide more information to law enforcement agencies. The public works committee is considering legislation that would require the FAA to improve its record-keeping system.
AP881222-0235 	X	Ignore the wheelchair and arthritis. Her 80 years weigh lightly upon the mind and wit of M.F.K. Fisher, whose gifts to the world of food and literature are still mounting. But shed a tear for the grand dame of gastronomy: Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher denies herself the pleasure she gives her army of admirers in the 17 books and scores of magazine pieces that for 50 years set a lean and spicy standard few can match. ``I never read anything I've written,'' she snapped. ``I don't care to go back. I never read a word of print about me or by me.'' She wouldn't argue with going back to being able to use her hands for typing. Fate has ruled that she must dictate into a tape recorder. There's no question of her not doing it. Writing is as important to her as air. ``I am compulsive about it,'' admitted the Michigan-born author, who wrote such tasty morsels as ``How to Cook a Wolf,'' ``The Gastronomical Me,'' ``Consider the Oyster'' and her pungent ``Alphabet for Gourmets.'' Chafing among cushions in her little wine-country house, she added, ``But it's like pulling teeth. It's just awful. I can't dictate to a person so I dictate secretly. I don't make many mistakes, you know. It's my newspaper training. ... I don't have any errors once I get it down on paper, thank God.'' In 1937, the world's food writers discovered a tough new kid on the block when they eyed this paragraph leaping from the pages of ``Serve It Forth,'' Mary Frances' first book: ``The quails are an artful lure to the most refined of palates, and the rabbit stew, steaming, aromatic, is made just as tempting with an onion or two, pepper freshly ground, a little bacon and a dash of cheap, pure wine.'' A somewhat less literate reporter observed, ``It's a shame you don't get to read your good stuff like that.'' She was not impressed. Others are. It was once said of her crisp prose: ``She writes about food as others do about love, but rather better. ... Fisher writes not as a specialist but as a whole human being, spiky with prejudices, charming, short-tempered, well-traveled and cosmopolitan. ... She is a person, not a gourmet masked as a writer. Her passion comes from inside her.'' That was 35 years ago. Except for such indignities as two hip replacements, a corneal implant and the arthritis, nothing has changed, and she remembers everything between times _ three husbands, magazine pieces, the books that ``never made me any money,'' the travels in Europe. Of all her mates, said Mary Frances, ``my real husband was Jimmy Parrish (Dillwyn Parrish).'' They lived in a stone house surrounded by a vineyard and garden in Vevey, Switzerland. It was there, she said, that she learned from her Italian Swiss neighbors to cook vegetables in their own juices ``with sweet butter or thick olive oil to encourage them a little; tomatoes and onions and sweet peppers and all the summer things.'' She credits her start in food-writing on an episode during prohibition when she was living in Whittier, Calif., and her newspaperman father, Rex Kennedy, was teaching at a nearby college. She was working in a postcard shop. One afternoon she had a half-day off and decided to go the public library, where she found an Elizabethan cookbook on a table. ``It smelled so good ... the binding. I started writing,'' she said. She showed her writing to Alfred Fisher, the man who became her first husband. She had just turned 21 when they married, and 11 days later they set off to France and three years in Dijon, where he got his doctorate and she earned a degree at the University of Dijon. Back in the states, her writing started making the rounds. At 26, she sold her first magazine story, ``The Standing and the Waiting,'' and it conjured visions, full of verbs and wide swaths of color. The most scholarly of her work is her translation of legendary gastronomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's ``The Physiology of Taste,'' her favorite work. Smoothing her red polka-dot dress, she peered out the window of the small, busy house she has lived in for 18 years, craning to see who was coming to visit her next. They come all day long, for a few moments in her ``youthful'' presence. They come professionally or as friends, for interviews, a publisher's conference, a chat, advice or perhaps to drop off a particularly nice piece of cheese or share a plateful of the chincoteague oysters she loves so much. She calls her visitors ``strays and wayfarers.'' They sit with her near a large picture window in her Sonoma County house on the edge of the old Bouverie Ranch, in Jack London country. But in her eighth decade, Mary Frances is not overwhelmed with the way things have gone with the world. ``We're suicidal,'' declared the mother of two daughters. ``Our doom is sealed. I take a very dim view of us as a human race, the only one that kills itself and everything around it. ... We've poisoned the earth and the land and the water. What else is there to poison? ... I don't have any hope for us at all.'' We looked out on her green meadow, rolling to the trees, peaceful, and the harsh pronouncement seemed a long way away.
AP880418-0308 	X	Home Shopping Network Inc. sued Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. on Monday, accusing the investment firm of fraud in connection with its sale of $100 million in HSN convertible bonds to European investors last year. The shop-by-television retailer said in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., that Drexel fraudulently induced Home Shopping to allow a new conversion price to be set for swapping the bonds for HSN stock. The suit also accused Drexel and the head of its high-yield investment bond group, Michael Milken, of secretly funneling the securities to its regular network of ``junk bond'' buyers and then acting in conjunction with the network to manipulate the HSN stock price downward during the 30-day period for setting the new conversion price. A Drexel spokesman, Steve Anreder, said the firm had not yet seen the lawsuit but ``it sounds like Home Shopping Network is unhappy with the market performance of its securities, over which we have no control.'' HSN's action comes against a background of a broad government inquiry into Drexel's operations that arose partly because of the firm's reported past business links with speculator and insider-trader Ivan F. Boesky, now serving a three-year prison term for securities fraud. Drexel has denied any improper activities and hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing. The HSN suit asked for invalidation of the price-reset provision in the bond sale and requested unspecified monetary damages for securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other violations. HSN Chairman Roy Speer said that in addition to the lawsuit, the company filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission against Drexel and Milken charging them with manipulating HSN's stock. When the bonds were sold last April, they carried an original conversion price of $25.80 per share. At that price, the company would have had to issue about 3.9 million shares of stock to redeem all the bonds. But HSN said that after the bond offering was closed, it agreed at Drexel's request to include a provision to allow a new conversion price to be set at the 30-day average of HSN's share price prior to the April 22 conversion date plus a 20 percent premium. At the time of the bond issue, HSN was trading at about $18 a share on the American Stock Exchange, said Nando Di Filippo, HSN executive vice president. He said the stock had fallen to about $8 a share when the reset period started on March 10 and has fallen as low as $4.87{ a share since then. Although the reset period does not expire until Thursday, Di Filippo said it appears the conversion price will be about $6.50, which he said could result in the issuance of up to about 14 million shares of stock. That amount would not mean a change in control of the video retailer, but it would dilute the value of the company's outstanding stock, he said. Home Shopping, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., operates two television networks that offer items ranging from electronics equipment to jewelry for sale to viewers who call while the items are displayed. For the year ended Aug. 31, 1987, the company reported a profit of $29.5 million, or 33 cents per share, on sales of $582.1 million.
AP881013-0068 	X	A boat capsized in a river in the northern state of Punjab and at least 13 people drowned, United News of India reported today. The accident occurred in Ferozpure district late Wednesday, the news agency said. The boat carrying 35 people overturned in a river between the villages of Khidar Pindi and Casuwala, about 220 miles northwest of New Delhi, the agency said. The remaining passengers were rescued, the agency said.
AP880509-0131 	X	Ronald Reagan held both Gorbachevs spellbound with Hollywood stories during the Geneva summit, according to the latest tales from the White House, but after Raisa Gorbachev sparkled in dinner table conversation, Nancy Reagan fumed: ``Who does that dame think she is?'' Former White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan, in his book, ``For the Record,'' published Monday, portrayed a first lady who tried to keep presidential spokesman Larry Speakes from uttering the word ``cancer'' when a malignancy was found in her husband's colon and who kept Regan from riding the helicopter to Bethesda Naval Hospital because helicopters were too ``presidential'' for staff members' use. And he told of a president who perks up in the presence of women _ and unfailingly offers a fatherly wave to the pretty stewardesses across an airport tarmac. Beyond his disclosure of Mrs. Reagan's reliance on a Nob Hill astrologist, Regan's book gave out-of-school tales about a first lady with a pervasive, protective role in her husband's presidency. The Iran-Contra arms and money affair made Mrs. Reagan's ``sensitivity to criticism more acute than ever,'' Regan wrote, and as a result Mrs. Reagan gave him frequent directions on how to handle the matter. ``The first lady's telephoning was so frequent that I was spending two or three times as much time talking to her as to the president,'' he said. Mrs. Reagan was influential in Regan's unceremonious departure from the White House. By then, hard feelings between the two were common knowledge in Washington. In recalling all _ the latest in a series of White House gossipy memoirs about disarray within the Reagan presidency _ Regan described how Raisa Gorbachev, the stylish wife of the Soviet leader, upstaged Nancy Reagan at their first social session _ a dinner during the 1985 Geneva summit. Mrs. Reagan was hostess, he wrote, but Mrs. Gorbachev ``did not confine herself, as most other wives of heads of state and government did in such meetings, to cross-chat with Mrs. Reagan on palace housewifery and other harmless subjects. ``Mrs. Gorbachev was a highly educated woman _ a professor of Marxist-Leninist theory,'' Regan said. ``At this dinner party and the later one at the Soviet Mission, she did not hesitate to make use of the opportunities offered to her to educate the president of the United States on the intellectual and philosophical basis of Soviet policy. ``It was evident that she was mistress of her subject, an intellectual with a truly impressive grasp of a specialty that she regarded as the key to understanding Soviet society and the world beyond,'' Regan recalled. ``Reagan listened to Mrs. Gorbachev's extremely detailed and fervently argued opinions with gallant courtesy. ``Gorbachev, like any husband in his circumstances, kept his peace,'' Regan said. ``Mrs. Reagan, however, chaffed under the monologue. After the door had closed behind the Gorbachevs, she said, `Who does that dame think she is?''' As for Reagan, he entertained the Gorbachevs with stories about his acting career. They questioned him about how movies are made and how the Hollywood stars live. ``The Gorbachevs devoured every detail,'' Regan said. ``Like any other movie buffs, they were very pleased to be in the company of somebody who had known Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart and nearly every other famous movie star personally, and was able to describe what they were really like. Regan wrote dryly that the president did not tell the leader of the communist world about his role of driving communists from the union during his terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan tends to glow in the company of women, Regan wrote: ``The presence of Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick or Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole at a Cabinet meeting always made for a heightened presidential mood; he was more amusing, more talkative, more of a participant than a presence. Regan said everyone who travels with the president has come to believe that Pan American World Airways assigns its prettiest stewardesses to the plane carrying the White House press corps. ``This happy circumstance did not escape the president's notice,'' he said. ``When Air Force One landed, the president always looked for thePan Am stewardesses from the press plane and gave them a fatherly wave. They waved back enthusiastically, pretty young women in their uniforms smiling at the most famous man in the world. ``It was a moment everyone looked forward to on presidential journeys.''
AP880405-0247 	X	Chrysler Corp. workers, anxious to receive the same benefits that General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. workers received in new contracts last fall, are preparing contract demands for talks beginning April 18. Members of the United Auto Workers union's 140-member national Chrysler council were to begin arriving in Kansas City, Mo., today for a meeting with national UAW leaders and elected union bargainers. By Friday, the council planned to have discussed and approved demands that will guide how the industry pattern contract, established at the two larger companies, can be installed at the smallest Big Three automaker. The Chrysler contract, covering 59,500 active and 8,000 laid-off workers, expires Sept. 14. Talks are scheduled to begin April 18, instead of mid-July as usual. The two sides agreed to early talks to stem damage inflicted by friction over Chrysler's closing of an assembly plant in Kenosha, Wis., and the abortive sale of its 28,000-worker Acustar Inc. parts subsidiary. Chrysler was stunned by the speed and severity of the union's opposition to the proposed Acustar sale. Angry workers at locals across the nation began preparing ``strike packages'' _ lists of grievances over locally strikeable issues _ and stopped cooperating in crucial management-union programs aimed at improving quality and production efficiency. UAW Vice President Marc Stepp, who will lead negotiations with Chrysler, told workers at the time that he would give local unions with grievances permission to strike immediately. A few strikes at key assembly and parts plants could have crippled Chrysler as quickly as a national strike. Chrysler quickly backed down from the proposed sale in early March and agreed to early contract talks, a request it had refused last fall after the union wrapped up contracts at Ford and GM. Negotiators on both sides are limited to working within the pattern contract, which forbids layoffs except during declining sales of a particular product and requires automakers to continue paying workers whose jobs are lost to productivity improvements, new technology or transfer of work to outside suppliers. The pattern contract also includes joint six-month, plant-by-plant studies that will examine ways to strengthen operations and keep work inside each company. The UAW hopes the studies will make it harder for automakers to pit plant against plant in competition for a shrinking number of jobs. The UAW is expected to seek a two-year contract instead of the usual three-year pact so that its contracts with all Big Three makers will expire together in 1990. The union also will seek more representation on the Chrysler board of directors. UAW President Owen Bieber has a board seat, but the union believes holding more seats will give it more control over Chrysler decisions. Bargainers will work against an artificial target deadline instead of a strike deadline, so Chrysler faces no risk of a companywide strike if talks fail. Industry analysts expect a quick settlement. But a failure at the table would sour relations and make talks more difficult when the two sides were forced to resume bargaining in the summer.
AP880615-0285 	X	Early June brought a slight lull in domestic car and light trucks sales, which declined 4.1 percent from a year ago, but industry analysts said the dip stemmed from one-time rather than economic factors. ``There's no reason to think that underlying demand just for these 10 days has gotten slower,'' Kathleen Heaney, analyst with Nikko Securities International in New York, said Tuesday. ``Nothing's different in the economy for consumers all of a sudden.'' Domestic car sales in the nine selling days from June 1 to June 10 were down 4.8 percent from the same period a year earlier and domestic light truck sales were down 2.7 percent. The eight companies that build passenger vehicles in the United States sold 198,647 domestic cars and 112,945 domestic light trucks in early June, down from 208,699 cars and 116,000 trucks a year earlier. Industry analysts said sales were higher in early June 1987 because a new round of buyer incentives had just been launched. They noted that 1988 spring sales have held steady and consumer confidence remains strong. Car sales were down during the period for all domestic makers except Toyota Motor Corp., which was just beginning U.S. production last year, and Mazda Motor Corp., which began U.S. production last September. ``The last 10 days of May were very strong and may have borrowed some sales that normally would have occurred in the first 10 days of June,'' said Michael Luckey, president of Luckey Consulting Group in Cresskill, N.J. Luckey predicted sales will be higher during the rest of the month. ``The consumer remains in a buying mood,'' he said. General Motors Corp. sold 6.2 percent fewer domestic cars and 4.5 percent fewer domestic light trucks than in early June 1987. GM's combined car and light truck sales were down 5.7 percent from a year earlier. Ford Motor Co.'s domestic cars sales were down 3.2 percent and its domestic light truck sales lagged 6.9 percent behind year-earlier sales. Ford's combined domestic car and light truck sales were down 4.7 percent from a year earlier. Chrysler Corp.'s domestic car sales fell 6.4 percent but its domestic truck sales, which include the hot-selling Jeep lineup, rose 2 percent from early June 1987. Chrysler's combined domestic sales were down 2.5 percent from a year earlier. GM, the industry leader, held 45.6 percent of the combined domestic market, slightly less than its 46.8 percent share a year ago. Ford's share held nearly steady at 31.2 percent, while Chrysler's rose to 17.5 percent from 16.3 percent a year ago. Honda Motor Co.'s domestic car sales fell 0.3 percent, Volkswagen of America's sales were down 8 percent and Nissan Motor Co.'s sales fell 27.6 percent from early June 1987. Nissan's sales of domestically built trucks jumped 83.8 percent, reflecting the company's decision earlier this year to build more trucks than cars at its assembly plant in Smyrna, Tenn.
AP880622-0304 	X	Stock prices surged this morning in active trading, bolstered by the momentum of a late rally in the previous session and a strengthened dollar overseas. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials jumped 34.68 points to 2,143.85 by 10 a.m. on Wall Street, putting it at the highest level since the market crash eight months ago. Among broader market barometers, the New York Stock Exchange composite index of all listed issues rose 2.02 to 155.31. On the American Stock Exchange, the market value index rose 1.78 to 308.66. Gaining issues outnumbered declines by about 9-to-1 on the NYSE, with 982 up, 171 down and 306 unchanged. Volume totaled 44.8 million shares after the first 30 minutes of trading. IBM led the NYSE's most-active list, jumping 2} to 123. Other notable blue-chip gainers included Boeing, up 1] to 57{, General Electric, up | to 44[, and Eastman Kodak, up ~ to 46]. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrials rose 25.24 points to 2,109.17. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 9-to-5 in nationwide trading of NYSE-listed stocks, with 937 issues up, 543 down and 467 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 155.06 million shares vs. 116.75 million previously.
AP880411-0039 	X	Average retail gasoline prices jumped more than a penny-a-gallon during the past two weeks nationwide and motorists can expect the increases to continue, an analyst said. The 1.18 cent-a-gallon increase for all grades of gasoline pushed the average price to 96.14 cents in the period ended April 8, according to the Lundberg Survey. Wholesale prices increased at twice the retail rate, analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday. ``This means retailers lost a penny of their operating margin during the period and it means that there is more price pressure to come in the immediate future,'' she said. According to the survey, prices per gallon at self-service pumps were: regular unleaded, 86.80 cents; premium unleaded, $101.84; regular leaded, 83.97 cents. Prices at full-service pumps were: regular unleaded, $116.93; premium unleaded, $127.20; regular leaded, $112.51.
AP880618-0014 	X	A convicted robber who doubled as a street vendor and poet has been sentenced to hang for the murder of reggae star Peter Tosh and two of his friends. A jury of eight women and four men took six minutes Friday to convict Dennis Lobban, 33, on three counts of murder. Justice Carl Patterson then sentenced him to hang. Throughout the trial which began Monday, Lobban insisted he was innocent. He claimed he was drinking with friends far from Tosh's house the night of Sept. 11, 1987, when Tosh, radio disc jockey Jeff Dixon and Wilton ``Doc'' Brown were gunned down during a robbery at Tosh's home. Four others survived the attack. Lobban, a convicted felon with a long police record, was out on parole when the murders were committed. Steve Russell, 26, of Kingston, who had been charged jointly with Lobban, was freed on Thursday. Russell's lawyer argued successfully that the prosecution failed to show Russell was involved in the slayings. Russell claimed he only drove the killers to Tosh's home without going inside or knowing they were going to kill Tosh. Lobban is a ``higgler,'' or street vendor, and a ``dub poet,'' who recites poetry to reggae music. He has been convicted of eight previous felons, ranging from illegal possession of firearms to armed robbery. Lobban was escorted from court by armed guards and taken to prison to join 188 other people on death row. Any appeal would go to the Jamaican Court of Appeal. The final court of appeal is the Privy Council in England. Tosh, 42 years old at the time of his death, was nominated for a Grammy in 1985 for his album, ``Captured Live.'' In 1963, Tosh, Bob Marley and Neville Livingstone formed the group The Wailers, which catapulted reggae's easy rhythms from the slums of Kingston onto the world stage. Born Winston Herbert MacIntosh, Tosh left The Wailers in 1973. One later Tosh group was Word, Sound and Power. Outside Jamaica, Tosh was perhaps best known for his collaboration with Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger on the Smokey Robinson song, ``(You Got To) Walk and Don't Look Back,'' and for his hit, ``Legalize It,'' a plea for the legalization of marijuana.
AP900125-0033 	X	Sen. Bob Dole's proposal to boost aid to Eastern Europe and Panama by cutting funds from major recipients like Israel and Egypt is ``shortsighted and detrimental'' to U.S. interests, 22 Republican House members say. The House members wrote to President Bush on Wednesday to express ``our strong opposition to the Dole foreign aid plan,'' which would slice money from Israel, Egypt, Turkey, the Philippines and Pakistan. ``We believe this is the wrong approach to the burgeoning needs of Eastern Europe,'' said the House members, led by Reps. Vin Weber of Minnesota and Bill McCollum of Florida. ``To reward one ally at the expense of another would be shortsighted and detrimental to American interests,'' they said. At the same time, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, Dole's Republican colleague from Kansas, said she supported Dole and hoped his plan would lead to ``serious review and substantive reform'' of foreign aid. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, has not taken a stand on the issue, but he is holding meetings with Democratic colleagues to discuss foreign aid, his aides said. Kassebaum, who has introduced legislation to change the way foreign aid is divided up, criticized Congress for ``earmarking'' _ locking up _ 80 percent of the foreign aid budget. As a result, U.S. officials have no flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances, she said in a speech on the Senate floor. ``With earmarking, we have set up a system that prevents us from responding to opportunities'' like those in Eastern Europe, she said. Dole suggested changing the 1990 foreign aid budget that earmarks about $3 billion to Israel, slightly less to Egypt, about $500 million each to Turkey and Pakistan and some $160 million in economic aid to the Philippines. His plan would trim 5 percent from the big recipients, creating about $400 million that could go to Eastern Europe and Panama. Many have criticized Dole's plan. ``It's not going anywhere. Period,'' said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Debate on the 1991 foreign aid bill is expected to start soon, once the Bush administration unveils its requests next week. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, has said his panel will hold hearings ``reexamining U.S. foreign aid priorities in light of the vast changes in the international situation.'' ``As far as I'm concerned, every program in the fiscal 1991 foreign aid appropriation will be reviewed,'' Leahy said in a statement. On Jan. 18, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with Bush administration officials and later said he had ``reasons to believe'' U.S. aid to his country would hold steady at $3 billion a year through 1991. But he expressed concern about aid beyond next year.
AP901107-0196 	X	At an unusual prayer breakfast, South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha urged three black African leaders Wednesday to ``join hands'' in regional cooperation. Botha, who represented President F. W. de Klerk, addressed the heads of state as ``my African brothers'' during the informal meeting, which was punctuated by joking and laughter. The breakfast host was Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, head of the seven-nation Frontline States, a regional bloc that once led efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. The other two leaders were President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who maintains close contacts with South Africa, and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, the current chairman of the 51-member Organization of African unity. President Bush sent a congratulatory message, saying the meeting ``marks a new era in Africa.'' The get-together over eggs, bacon and croissants signaled a further easing of tensions between white-led South Africa and its anti-apartheid neighbors. Zambian officials said it was made possible by de Klerk's recent steps toward dismantling apartheid, including legalizing the African National Congress, freeing political prisoners including the ANC leader Nelson Mandela, and lifting the state of emergency in black townships. The ANC, outlawed for 30 years in South Africa, had its headquarters in the Zambian capital of Lusaka until early this year. Kaunda, once one of the most vocal African critics of apartheid, said the theme of the meeting was ``peace, unity and reconciliation.'' Botha told the black African leaders that South Africa could help economic development in the largely impoverished region, adding: ``We in Africa must join hands and move closer together.'' ``South Africa must play its rightful role in southern Africa and we are ready to play that role,'' Botha said. Ugandan President Museveni said he got the idea for such a meeting from a prayer breakfast he attended with U.S. congressmen two years ago. He wanted to organize something similar, he said, but as he was not a good Christian he asked Kaunda to be host. Three other African heads of state, Quett Masire of Botswana, Pierre Buyoya of Burundi and Metsing Lekhanya of Lesotho, were invited but did not attend.
AP900220-0246 	X	New European business and better profit margins on North American sales boosted Whirlpool Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings nearly 21 percent, the appliance manufacturer said Tuesday. Whirlpool said earned $49.4 million, or 71 cents a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $12 million, or 17 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 1988. The year-earlier period included a $45 million loss on the sale of Whirlpool's kitchen cabinet business. The company's 1989 fourth-quarter results include $9.2 million in writedowns connection with Whirlpool's plans to close its Mount Sterling, Ky., plant. Revenue totaled $1.57 billion, up from $1.02 billion in the fourth quarter of 1988, the company said. For the year, Whirlpool said it earned $187.2 million, or $2.70 a share, on revenue of $6.29 billion, up from $94.1 million, or $1.36 a share, on revenue of $4.42 billion, in in 1988. Whirlpool became the world's largest appliance concern with the January 1989 acquisition of a $470 million stake in the appliance division of Dutch electronics giant NV Philips. In line with the agreement, the company said 1989 results included all of the revenue of the joint venture, Whirlpool International BV, and 53 percent of its net earnings. Whirlpool International's performance and strong sales in North America helped boost earnings, the company said. However, these gains were offset by several factors, including higher interest expense and taxes, Whirlpool said. David R. Whitwam, Whirlpool chairman and chief executive officer, predicted flat sales to come and said wage cuts accepted by Whirlpool workers in Evansville, Ind., would help keep costs competitive. Whitwam predicted appliance sales would be down slightly in the first half of 1990, possibly rallying in the second half of the year.
AP880814-0081 	X	A peace activist broke a 63-day liquid-only fast _ one day for each million dollars allegedly spent on ``Rambo III'' _ by biting into a giant pizza with a pepperoni peace sign and delivering it to Sylvester Stallone's door. Jerry Rubin, a Southern California campaigner against cinema violence and war toys, didn't see Stallone but was more graciously received Saturday than in a previous visit to a Stallone residence when someone squirted him with water over a wall. The actor's housekeeper even obliged when Rubin needed to do a retake of his stunt for TV cameras. Rubin's wife, Marissa, and two friends were on hand as the activist went to Stallone's home and, with media watching, presented the pizza to a housekeeper. When a television crew arrived late, Rubin went back to the door and got his pizza back to re-enact the event. At one point, the unwieldy, 3-foot-wide pizza slipped off its cardboard platter and onto the concrete driveway. After his first bite in 63 days, Rubin said he was looking forward ``to watching movies with popcorn again.'' One of the placards carried by the group read, ``Sly, Give Pizza A Chance.'' Rubin said he hoped his attempt at humor would open a line of communication with Stallone and other makers of violent films. ``We need to reach them to open up that dialogue because it has gotten out of hand,'' he said. ``In 10 or 20 years from now we're going to pay a sad price, because these films not only have a negative effect on children but they have a negative effect on everyone.''
AP900424-0061 	X	Hundreds of policemen deserted their posts or stayed home today after anti-monarchist mobs beat to death six of their colleagues in daylong rioting, government sources said. At least three police stations in the capital were seen to be empty. Almost none of the capital's 4,000 policemen were walking the streets. A few armed policemen entered deserted police stations late today but allowed no one to enter. A 10-hour curfew restricting people to their homes began at 7 p.m. and some policemen in jeeps and trucks patrolled the city. Monday's violence was the worst since April 6, when police opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators, and threatened the fledgling pro-democracy movement in this Himalayan kingdom. Until this month, King Birendra had exercised virtually absolute power. Five civilians were killed by police gunfire in Monday's unrest and, according to the state-owned Rashtriya Samachar Samiti news agency, 15 policemen were missing. Only one policeman had been found by late today. The mobs accused police of condoning and sometimes joining an underground pro-monarchist group blamed for a wave of crime since a new government headed by pro-democracy forces took office last week. Two policemen captured early Monday were beaten for more than six hours before they died. Four more policemen were dragged from a police station and lynched by hundreds of people. The crowds also set afire the zonal commissioner's office, which houses a police station. Today, two policemen in riot gear stood guard outside the charred building. They were the only policemen seen on foot during an hour-long tour of Katmandu. ``There are no policemen anywhere in the city,'' said a taxi driver who said he had been driving the streets for six hours. ``Even traffic policemen are absent today.'' One government source said the policemen were either ``unofficially withdrawn or are too scared to come out.'' Senior police officials could not be located for comment. But shops opened and streets were clogged with traffic today after a ten-hour curfew clamped on Monday night was lifted at 6 a.m.. There were no reports of violence. ``The tremendous amount of confidence the people have in this government is compensating for the absence of police,'' said Home Minister Yog Prasad Upadhyay. ``This is apparent from the fact that ... the country is peaceful.'' Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai met with King Birendra today to discuss the situation, officials said. No details of the meeting were available. A scheduled meeting of the Cabinet was postponed, officials said on condition of anonymity. There had been indications a shake-up in the top ranks of the police force might be forthcoming after the Cabinet meeting. Bhattarai and his government, a coalition of democrats, Communists, royalists and independents, took office last Thursday after an eight-week campaign against the previous regime, which was subservient to the king. King Birendra caved in to the campaign on April 8, two days after police shot and killed 200 demonstrators as they marched on the palace, according to witnesses. The government said 10 people were killed and 107 wounded in all of Nepal on that day, but two days later Birendra lifted a 29-year ban on political parties. Within 24 hours of the new government taking office, the capital of 250,000 people was faced with a rash of arson, mugging and looting, which residents blamed on a right-wing pro-monarchist group called Mandale. The Mandale, an abbreviated form of Nepal Vidyarthi Mandal, or Nepal students group, went underground in 1979 after Birendra officially banned the group because of its violent tendencies.
AP900627-0210 	X	In a move that completed a tumultuous, six-month shakeup of top management, Apple Computer Inc. hired Robert Puette, a longtime Hewlett-Packard Co. executive, to lead the company's domestic division. As president of Apple USA, Puette will be responsible for all sales, marketing and support activities in this country. Puette, whose appointment was announced Tuesday, worked 24 years at Hewlett-Packard, where he led the launch, development and expansion of its worldwide personal computer business. Most recently, he was general manager of Hewlett-Packard's Personal Computer Group. ``Bob Puette's arrival marks a major milestone in the development of Apple's USA business,'' said Michael Spindler, Apple's chief operating officer. ``He has a proven ability to effectively manage large, complex organizations. He's demonstrated exceptional business and technical expertise in the global personal computer market. And he's known for his strong and thoughtful leadership.'' Puette, 48, joins Apple on July 1. He fills a vacancy left by the sudden resignation in January of Allen Loren. Puette will report to Spindler, who was promoted to his position after Loren resigned. Apple, ranked No. 2 behind Hewlett-Packard in the personal computer market, badly needs help in the domestic market. The job of Apple USA's president is considered so tough that several leading candidates turned it down, industry sources said. High prices for its computers have lost the company sales in homes, schools and small businesses. In addition, morale in Apple's U.S. operations has been shaken by layoffs and employee unrest over various corporate issues, including high salaries paid to key managers, analysts said. ``I think that this is the turning point for Apple USA,'' Puette said. ``I think the turmoil is going to pretty well disappear and you're going to see some strong marketing messages from the company.'' New, low-cost machines expected to be announced later this year will have a significant impact on the market, Puette predicted.
AP880512-0201 	X	Thunderstorms drenched the Texas Gulf Coast on Thursday as rain fell across much of the lower Mississippi Valley. Most of the nation had sunny skies. Southern California sweltered, while showers were widely scattered across Wisconsin and Michigan, northeast Florida and the northern Pacific Coast. Heaviest rainfall during the 6 hours ending at 2 p.m. EDT included 4.10 inches near Corpus Christi, Texas. Other reports were of less than one-half inch. Temperatures at 3 p.m. EDT ranged from 44 degrees at both Houghton and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., to 108 degrees at Palm Springs, Calif. The nation's morning low was 18 degrees at Gunnison, Colo. Friday's forecast called for rain and occasional thundershowers in northern New England, the lower Great Lakes and the upper Ohio Valley and across much of Florida, and showers from the northern Pacific Coast across the northern Plateau. High temperatures were expected to reach the 50s and 60s over northern Maine, the Great Lakes, the upper Mississippi Valley and along the northern and central Pacific Coast; the 90s to about 110 degrees from the desert Southwest through inland portions of southern California, and the 70s and 80s elsewhere.
AP900113-0096 	X	President Ion Iliescu on Saturday reversed a decision to ban the Communist Party, calling it a ``hasty decision,'' and instead said the issue will be decided in a national referendum. Iliescu responded to widespread protests Friday by announcing that the Communist Party, the sole ruler of Romania from 1948 until last month, had been outlawed. In a nationwide television and radio broadcast, Iliescu said the governing National Salvation Front had been criticized for the action, and he said the people will decide the fate of the Communists in a Jan. 28 referendum. ``It was a hasty decision, contrary to the democratic spirit,'' Iliescu said of Friday's announcement. Iliescu complained that popular pressures had even led some Front members to consider resigning. ``Then we realized that in this way, we would leave an open road to anarchy and chaos in the country. which would be a genuine national disaster,'' said Iliescu, who took office after the popular revolution that ousted Ceausescu. ``We need the massive support of the whole country.'' ``The Communist Party self-destructed or was removed from political life on Dec. 22,'' he added, referring to the day dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. ``The Front is against any leading role of any party. We are in a dramatic moment because we inherited an extremely difficult decision from the dictatorship. We need patience, wisdom and unity,'' he said. The Jan. 28 referendum also will include the question of whether to reinstitute the death penalty, which was abolished by the revolutionary leadership after the executions of Ceausescu and his wife, Elena. There have been nationwide calls to bring back the death penalty by those who feel life imprisonment is too lenient a punishment for crimes committed by Ceausescu cronies as well as by members of the Securitate, Ceausescu's dreaded special police. Police said 11 Securitate members will stand trial Monday in Timisoara, the birthplace of the revolution, where street protests of official foot-dragging led the army to assume control Friday night. The army controlled the city, the birthplace of Romania's revolution, on Saturday after local leaders were forced to resign amid street protests demanding the ouster of Communists from the revolutionary government. The army takeover apparently was an administrative measure and did not mean the region was under martial law. The army's support was crucial to Ceausescu's overthrow. Shooting continued until Friday in Timisoara and the city of Arad near the Hungarian border, between army units and members of Ceausescu's Securitate, the Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug reported. Thousands of people took to the streets on Friday in Bucharest, Timisoara and Brasov to demand reinstatement of the death penalty for Securitate members and to protest the participation of Communists in the interim government. No demonstrations were reported in Romania on Saturday. Lorin Fortuna, the leader of Timisoara's local National Salvation Front council, resigned after demonstrators complained the council was doing nothing about Securitate forces being held, according to a police official who identified himself only as Capt. Streza. The Securitate defendants to be tried in public on Monday in response to the popular pressure include a general, whom Streza did not name. The army took power to guarantee law and order and uninterrupted municipal services until elections planned by Jan. 19, Streza said in a telephone interview, quoting Maj. Gen. Gheorghe Popescu, commander of the armed forces in Timis county. The county's chief city is Timisoara. A new administrative council will be elected by representatives of factories and other organizations and institutions within the region, according to a Tanjug report. All leading members of Romania's Communist Party are under arrest for investigation of their role in the regime run with an iron hand by Ceausescu, who was overthrown Dec. 22 and executed Christmas Day. The Ceausescus' three-hour trial at an undisclosed location 60 miles from Bucharest was described Saturday in the newspaper Libertatea, which carried an interview with Niki Tedorescu, whom it identified as their attorney. ``They refused any cooperation with us. They did not understand what we said,'' Tedorescu recalled. ``Ceausescu kept repeating that he did not recognize the tribunal.'' ``They denied they had any property, or any luxury property,'' said Tedorescu, who was interviewed at a military hospital where he was recovering from a bullet wound received in the fighting in Bucharest. After his overthrow, Romanian media reported the feudal splendor in which the Ceausescu family lived while their countrymen did without the most basic commodities. ``I didn't expect them to be so uneducated,'' Tedorescu said. ``Both of them, but especially her (Mrs. Ceausescu), were disobeying all the laws of grammar.'' Mrs. Ceausescu was touted by the regime as a key intellectual with major scientific achievements. Officially, she held a doctorate in chemistry. ``I was surprised they looked so well, even in the state they were in, trembling with fear. I thought that in spite of their age, they looked better than me, and I am much younger.'' Asked his last words to Ceausescu after the death sentence was passed, Tedorescu answered: ``According to the law, I asked him if he objected to the (death) sentence, and he indicated no. He was convinced in my opinion that he would not be executed.'' The Ceausescus were executed shortly after the trial.
AP881103-0171 	X	Each of the presidential candidates have pledged that if elected, he will appoint a member of his transition team to work with U.S. nuclear arms control negotiators, senators who chair an oversight group said Thursday. The promises by Vice President George Bush and Gov. Michael Dukakis were made in response to requests from the Senate arms control observer group. Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., co-chairman of the group, said the pledges will help the ongoing U.S.-Soviet effort to work out a treaty making deep reductions in the superpowers' stockpile of long-range atomic weapons.
AP881122-0151 	X	An American among hostages taken into Beirut from a TWA jetliner hijacked in June 1985 testified Tuesday that Moslem radicals threatened to put them back on board and blow up the plane. Allyn Conwell, testifying at the trial of confessed hijacker Mohammed Ali Hamadi, also said he was convinced he would be shot when he and others were initially taken from the plane. Hamadi, a Lebanese Shiite Moslem, is charged with murder and air piracy in the hijacking during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. Hamadi has confessed to the hijacking but denies killing Stethem. Conwell, a 43-year-old Houston executive, said the last 39 American hostages aboard the seized TWA jetliner were taken off the plane while Hamadi and his accomplice were sleeping. He said four American servicemen earlier had been removed from the plane by Hezbollah, a radical Shiite Moslem group backed by Iran, while the remaining Americans were in the custody of Amal, a more moderate Shiite militia. As delicate negotiations for the hostages' release ran into snags, Amal officials told Conwell ``the original hijackers were getting very upset over the lack of progress in negotiations,'' he testified. ``I was told the intention was to return all the hostages to the plane and blow it up,'' Conwell said. The hostages were shifted around different locations in Beirut until their release, he said. Conwell, who said he had been so ``terrorized that I was virtually immobile'' after the plane was hijacked on a flight from Athens to Rome, told the court that conditions improved for the hostages once they were under control of Amal. ``I was under the impression that Amal absolutely did not approve of the hijacking and the murder of Stethem,'' he testified. ``I think they acted to the best of their ability in a chaotic situation.'' During a break in the court proceedings, jailers could not free Hamadi from the court security room in which he is locked and had to use a cutting torch to open the door. Hamadi was arrested at Frankfurt Airport in January 1987 after customs officials found liquid explosives in his luggage.
AP880324-0197 	X	A turkey chase left 71-year-old Lucille Andrews stuck in the mud in her car for two days. ``Miss Curiosity'' had a wonderful time. When she was located Wednesday by frantic relatives, the St. Clair County woman said she spent her time spying on wildlife, and wasn't concerned about food and water. ``I was no more scared than I am right now,'' Mrs. Andrews said from her home. ``I knew someone would find me.'' The air and ground search began after she was reported missing Monday afternoon. Mrs. Andrews said she had been out driving, and caught site of a turkey. ``I saw that turkey going out there and I thought, `You fool thing. If you got a nest out there, I'm going to follow you and find you,''' she said. She followed the turkey across a field, but her car got stuck in a swampy ditch. ``At night, I locked the doors and rolled up the windows and went to sleep. During the day, I looked around and thought, `Boy I'd like to have my house up on that hill,''' she said. Mrs. Andrews didn't see the turkey again, but did see three deer and a bear cub. ``The moon was shining so bright that I raised my head up and there was a little old bear. He was just a baby,'' she said. While Mrs. Andrews communed with nature, her eight children, most of her 15 grandchildren and assorted friends and relatives formed a ``family posse'' that combed the woods around her house. ``We were driving everywhere,'' said grandson Mark Andrews, 21. Andrews said his grandmother, who walks with a cane because of arthritis, is called ``Miss Curiosity'' by family members because ``she's always doing something.'' ``I hate housework and all of that stuff, but I do love to drive,'' Mrs. Andrew said. ``If I had to stay in the house I think I would die.''
AP901001-0186 	X	Rangers and tourists celebrated Yosemite's unique status as the granite gem of the Sierra on the park's 100th birthday Monday. A moment of silence recalling the tranquillity before humans came to Yosemite Valley highlighted a centennial ceremony in sun-drenched Sentinel Meadow. The silence was broken only by a blue jay's shrieks. ``Yosemite is not just for today; it is for the children and their children tomorrow,'' said Yosemite Indian Jay Johnson, reciting a traditional Miwok Indian blessing. Lee Stetson, who depicted naturalist John Muir during the ceremony, said ``wilderness is a necessity ... as fountains of life and fountains of people. If enough of us go among spirits of this wilderness, ... we need not despair.'' President Bush, restricted by the Middle East crisis, did not attend as expected, leaving it to other federal officials to depict the legacy of Yosemite in the majestic Sierra range. ``Given all the history relating to Yosemite and all of its controversies, still it's a marvelous place for the American public to see,'' Superintendent Michael Finley said in an interview. The history ranges from Muir's unswerving commitment to make Yosemite a national park in the late 1800s to lighting-caused fires that blackened 23,000 acres this summer, forcing an 11-day closure. Critics blame the National Park Service for failing to carry out a 1980 plan to remove most public facilities from the narrow valley, which is visited by 3.4 million people a year. Park Service Director James Ridenour said this summer that funds will be budgeted to relocate maintenance facilities. Another issue involves a concession contract with Yosemite Park & Curry Co., a subsidiary of the MCA entertainment conglomerate. An environmental group announced plans last week to take over the contract to run the park's hotels, restaurants and concession stands. The contract expires in 1993. Despite such issues, Finley said the Park Service has been a good steward of Yosemite and its famous features such as El Capitan, Half Dome and Yosemite Falls. ``We believe we've seen 100 years of preservation, and we're working hard to ensure that the next 100 years are even going to be better for the visitors and the park,'' Finley said. ``We've undertaken major programs for restoration of the ecology, reintroduced Bighorn sheep, recovered peregrine falcons - up to four nesting pairs at this point,'' he said. ``We're restoring trampled down meadows, replanting oak trees, have a major program to restore the Merced River and will undertake another program on the Tuolumne River and our lakes.'' No one would appear to know more of Yosemite's history than 87-year-old Carl Sharsmith, who has served as a naturalist in Tuolumne Meadows almost every summer for six decades. ``My duties are light,'' Sharsmith said. ``I get a group and go for a bit of a walk and chat along the way - three hours at the most.'' The park's centennial is attracting more attention in the area than did the historic formation of the park by Congress on Oct. 1, 1890. Back then, the weekly Mariposa Gazette, the closest community newspaper, put the story of Yosemite's beginning on page 2.
AP880616-0262 	X	The stock market tumbled today, mirroring a plunge in bond prices and wiping out gains posted in the previous two, record-setting sessions. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, which struggled to reach its second consecutive post-crash high Wednesday, was down 37.69 points at 2,093.71 an hour before the closing bell. Volume on the Big Board came to 139.77 million shares. Losers led gainers by about 3 to 1 with 388 up, 1,105 down and 442 unchanged as of 3 p.m. on Wall Street. While the Dow was off the entire session, the key index fell through the psychologically important 2,100-point level in mid-afternoon. Analysts had hoped that the Dow was solidly above the mark and that it would serve as a floor for a further advance. Market watchers said the decline was triggered by disarray in the credit markets, which were reacting to an unsubstantiated report in a West Germany newspaper that indicated the central Bundesbank might be tightening monetary policy. ``There are some indications that Japan might be doing the same, and that says effectively that if the Federal Reserve wants to keep the dollar stable, it will not give interest rates much room to decline,'' said Hugh Johnson, senior vice president at Frist Albany Corp. The Treasury's bellwether 30-year issue was off 1\ points, or $12.50 per $1,000 in face value at midday. ``Everybody is picking up on its cue,'' Johnson said. The dollar also fell in value. ``Let's face it, it's the rates that call the turn,'' said Larry Wachtel, first vice president at Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. ``The whole stock market turns on interest rates.'' A pull-back in stock prices has been anticipated since the Dow has climbed more than 200 points in recent weeks. But analysts described today's drop, which was exacerbated by profit-taking, as jolting. ``In the last two days, the market's performance has been impressive,'' Johnson said. ``This just points out what thin ice we're on.'' Analysts fear a crack in the confidence that has been building, but lower stock prices also could bring out some bargain hunters. ``We would use any weakness as a buying opportunity,'' one trader said. Among actively traded issues, Texaco was down ] at 49{. The oil company, which will face off against Carl Icahn it its annual shareholders meeting Friday, announced a joint venture with a Saudi Arabian oil company. General Electric was off } at 42}. The company said it will acquire Borg-Warner's chemical division for $2.31 billion in cash. Elsewhere, Deere Co. was off 2\ at 46{, Philip Morris was off 1[at 83[, and Smithkline Beckman was off 8| at 46]. The pharmaceutical company predicted 1988 operating earnings will be below last year's levels. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 2.41 at 152.26. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was off 2.02 at 306.76.
AP881101-0078 	X	Four people were fatally shot and eight wounded in gang-style attacks across Southern California on Halloween and early today, and a 15-month-old boy died a day after he was shot in the head outside a birthday party. An unidentified 20-year-old man was killed early today while walking on a street in Monrovia, about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles, sheriff's Deputy Detta Roberts said. A gang connection was being investigated; no arrests were made. In southwest Los Angeles, a 19-year-old man reputed to be a gang member was killed late Monday night when rival gang members ambushed a group of young people as they left a liquor store, officials said. Four people were wounded, one of them critically. The name of the man who was killed was not immediately released, and there were no arrests. In San Diego, two unidentified men were killed and three men wounded in three street shootings Monday night, authorities reported. Dalafayette Polk, the toddler injured in the birthday party shooting Sunday in the Watts section of Los Angeles, died at 12:30 p.m. Monday, said Paitoon Wisuskeow, a nurse at Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center. Nine other people were wounded in the shooting Sunday night, one of the worst outbreaks of street violence by youth gangs. Police had made no arrests by early today. In downtown Los Angeles, a 15-year-old identified by police as a gang member was shot twice Monday night by by gang members driving by, said police Officer J.R. Smith. The teen-ager was reported in satisfactory condition at California Medical Center today.
AP900112-0236 	X	Stock prices fell sharply today as new inflation worries and market declines in Tokyo and London set a gloomy mood for Wall Street. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials tumbled 44.16 points to 2,716.51 by noontime in New York. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 8 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 173 up, 1,394 down and 301 unchanged. The Labor Department reported that the producer price index of finished goods rose 0.7 percent in December, exceeding most advance estimates for that measure of inflationary pressures. The index finished 1989 with an increase of 4.8 percent, its biggest in eight years. Analysts said the news dealt an abrupt setback to hopes on Wall Street for any further moves soon by the Federal Reserve to relax its credit policy and encourage lower interest rates. Stock traders also were absorbing word of overnight declines in the Japanese and British markets, where interest-rate and inflation worries have also been weighing down enthusiasm lately. Among actively traded blue chips, General Electric dropped 1 to 63}; Exxon ~ to 48[; International Business Machines 1 to 98~; Coca-Cola 1| to 74}, and Philip Morris ~ to 39[. Precious-metals stocks, which have been rallying of late along with the price of gold, bucked the downtrend. Homestake Mining gained ] to 22[; ASA Ltd. 1[ to 62], and Newmont Gold ] to 54}. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 2.94 to 189.84. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 4.46 at 374.89. Volume on the Big Board came to 92.37 million shares at noontime, up from 76.09 million at the same point Thursday.
AP901024-0272 	X	Polly Peck International PLC, the troubled British food and electronics conglomerate, asked for court assistance Tuesday to sort out its $1.95 billion debt woes. The decision to apply for a court-appointed administrator followed weeks of wrangling with creditors over financing. The company, which was forced to suspend trading of its shares on the London stock market Sept. 20, said in a brief statement its board ``resolved'' to take the action. A Polly Peck spokesman added, ``The company believes that taking this step will result in the survival of the company and its operations as going concerns.'' Court administration is a form of bankruptcy which enables the company to reduce its debt in an orderly fashion with the guidance of the British courts. It does not always mean the company concerned will be liquidated. The court administrator will decide whether Polly Peck's debts can be serviced through existing operations or through a partial or full liquidation of the company. Company officials held a series of meetings with bankers throughout the day Wednesday. In the past week Polly Peck chairman and chief executive Asil Nadir has tried to round up financial support in Turkey and northern Cyprus. Polly Peck, which has operating subsidiaries in the United States, urkey and Japan, has been operating under a temporary debt standstill agreement since Oct. 5. The company sought the moratorium after creditors withdrew about 100 million pounds, or $195 million, in short-term financing and pressed for answers on the financial status of the company after its share suspension. The moratorium was scheduled to expire Nov. 9. Nadir has been dogged in the British press by allegations of links to a reputed Polly Peck share-support scheme. The company and Nadir, who was questioned by the Serious Fraud Office Sept. 20, have denied any knowledge of wrongdoing. Bankers have called Polly Peck's troubles a crisis of confidence. They said in the early stages of talks that they were inclined to give the company time to sort out its financial troubles. Polly Peck's status, however, deteriorated sharply in recent days as bankers pressed the company for answers about Nadir's finance-hunting trip to Turkey and northern Cyprus. Their growing unease was signalled by calls for early repayment of outstanding debts, and more significantly by the move of National Bank of Canada on Monday to petition the British courts to liquidate the company to meet its debts.
AP901126-0043 	X	The Foreign Ministry said today Iraq's failure to free 1,000 Soviets could lead to a ``tougher attitude'' toward Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Foreign Ministry spokesman Vitaly Churkin demanded the immediate release of the Soviets. He also told reporters Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze met with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq for four hours today to reiterate the demand that Iraq withdraws its troops from Kuwait. Churkin said Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia would meet with Shevardnadze on Tuesday to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. He said Iraq agree to allow 1,000 Soviets, mostly contract workers, to leave during November but that only about 350 were permitted to do so. When Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, there were about 8,000 Soviets, including several hundred military advisers, in Iraq. About 3,000 Soviets, including women and children, were allowed to leave shortly after the invasion and about 1,000 left during September and October. Churkin said Iraq agreed to allow another 1,000 to leave in November, but is not living up to its promise. ``Iraq is not keeping its agreement that our citizens will not be prevented from leaving,'' he said. ``This is totally abnormal and unacceptable.'' He added, ``If Iraq does not immediately remove obstacles and allow our citizens to leave, this will complicate the present situation even further and force us to take a tougher attitude.'' Churkin said that to his knowledge, no Soviets were being detained at potential military targets. ``All (Soviet) nationals are still where they were before the crisis,'' he said. Iraq has prevented hundreds of foreigners from leaving Iraq and Kuwait since Saddam Hussein's troops overran the emirate four months ago. It has been slowly releasing some foreigners.
AP880504-0257 	X	Dall Forsythe, son of ``Dynasty'' television star John Forsythe, is getting his own dynasty of sorts _ New York state's budget. Gov. Mario Cuomo on Wednesday named him budget director. Forsythe, whose mother is actress Parker McCormick, succeeds R. Wayne Diesel, who announced his resignation last week to join an investment bank. Forsythe joined the Cuomo administration as deputy budget director in January 1986 and became director of Cuomo's Office of Management and Productivity in September. He had previously worked at Shearson Lehman Brothers as a senior vice president for investment banking and has a doctorate in political science from Columbia University and has taught political science and finance at Columbia. Forsythe, 45, will be paid $92,059. The budget director is the governor's chief fiscal adviser and is largely responsible for handling the executive branch's end of state budget negotiations. The budget director also is largely responsible for formulating the governor's annual budget proposal.
AP881109-0125 	X	Right-wing extremists spray-painted swastikas and pro-Nazi slogans on a synagogue in a Bavarian village on the eve of ceremonies marking the Kristallnacht anniversary, police said today. The swastikas and words ``Heil Hitler'' were sprayed Tuesday on the synagogue's outside wall in large letters with black paint, police in Binswangen said. Binswangen is a small village in southern West Germany. Police said they removed the swastikas and Nazi slogan in time for a 50th anniversary Kristallnacht ceremony in the synagogue today. The Binswangen synagogue was one of hundreds of Jewish houses of worship attacked by Nazis on Nov. 9, 1938. The Moorish-style synagogue was reconstructed after the war. Police said they had not identified any suspects.
AP900615-0031 	X	The nation's mayors, much like the White House and Congress, aren't quite sure how big of a peace dividend will result from planned cuts in defense spending. But they want half _ whatever the amount. The mayors open their annual summer meeting here today poised to demand that much of the defense savings be funneled to cities to help ease education, drug and housing problems they increasingly blame on the White House and Congress. ``The federal government has walked away from the cities of America and now we are beginning to see the dangerous results,'' said Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, a leading spokesman for the mayors. ``There are signs that cannot be ignored, even through the best set of rose-colored glasses,'' Flynn said. He listed among his examples gang violence in his and several other cities and recent tensions in New York resulting from court proceedings against whites accused of participating in a mob attack last summer that left a black teen-ager dead. ``This isn't a Republican or a Democratic problem alone or a big-city problem alone or a liberal or conservative mayors' problem alone,'' Flynn said. ``This is an American problem that is gnawing at the social conscience of the American public.'' Flynn this year moves up to the vice presidency of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is dominated by big-city Democratic mayors who are frequent critics of the Republican Bush administration. But even the organization's Republicans are voicing rising frustration with White House priorities. ``We have considerable mandates placed upon us by the federal government with less and less funding to carry them out,'' said Republican Mayor Robert Isaac of Colorado Springs, Colo., who takes over as president of the conference. ``We are not asking for a handouts. We are asking for fairness.'' The mayors will debate dozens of policy statements on an array of issues, with a clear consensus in advance of the meeting in favor of a proposal to demand that cities get half of any peace dividend. But after a decade of cuts in federal aid to cities, few mayors are optimistic their demand will be met. ``I'm not so naive as to believe the White House and the Congress are going to listen to us mayors,'' Flynn said in an interview Thursday. ``What we as an organization have to do is generate political support. American cities are in deep trouble.'' The mayors also will consider adopting dozens of policy statements on health care, housing and other issues _ many similar to stances taken at past meetings. Another asks the federal government not to hurt local real estate markets by selling at bargain-basement prices properties it controls because of savings and loan failures. Isaac, whose area has been hard hit by S&L failures, also is lobbying to get the federal government to surrender some of the properties to local governments for affordable-housing programs. ``Money for housing programs has been drying up,'' the Colorado Springs mayor said. ``I see this as a tremendous opportunity to do some good.'' The six-day meeting opens today with the first joint meeting of organization task forces on drug control and homelessness. At a meeting last week to plan the conference, several mayors said street tensions in their cities appeared to be on the rise heading into the summer months. ``This isn't a time for happy talk,'' said Flynn. ``A decade of neglect of America's cities has created an abominable mix that presents a dangerously tense situation for this summer and years to come.''
AP900504-0088 	X	Falling scenery, curtains that won't go up and revolving stages that refuse to turn have caused a series of mishaps in London theaters in the last 10 days, prompting a safety investigation. The latest incident occurred Thursday night at a gala opening at the Royalty Theater of ``A Clockwork Orange.'' The curtain refused to go up for the second half of the Royal Shakespeare Company production. The star-studded audience downed free drinks offered by the embarrassed management as stage staff struggled for 15 minutes before getting the curtain to go up. On Monday, the Stephen Sondheim musical ``Sunday in the Park with George'' at the Lyttelton Theater was halted in mid-performance when a wooden tree, part of the scenery, fell from a hook as it was being carried off the stage. It narrowly missed an actor. Performances at the Lyttelton were canceled the next day. ``It is an extremely complicated set. It has simply been bad luck, but we can take no chances,'' said a theater spokesman. It was the second mishap to hit the musical. On April 23, an iron bar fell, but nobody was injured. On April 24, a hydraulic jack at the Olivier Theater broke down, preventing the revolving stage from turning. The play ``The School for Scandal'' was canceled in mid-performance when stage staff failed to get it working again. The comedy was playing to a packed house. Tickets were refunded. The actors' union Equity said in a statement this week that a working party comprising representatives of the union, stage staff and theater managers had been set up to investigate safety on stage as a result of the incidents.
AP900417-0212 	X	General Electric Co., buoyed by new orders in its aircraft engine and power systems divisions, on Tuesday reported a 12 percent profit gain for the first quarter. GE reported earnings of $950 million in the three months ended March 31, up from $849 million in the first quarter of 1989. Earnings per share were up 13 percent, to $1.06 from 94 cents. Revenue rose 6 percent to $12.6 billion in the first quarter of this year from $11.9 billion a year earlier. ``Very strong earnings improvements were reported by GE Capital, Power Systems and Aircraft Engines,'' said GE chairman John F. Welch Jr. Other divisions with higher earnings included lighting, medical systems, transportation systems, and electrical distribution and controls. He said new orders for power generation were up 60 percent from the first quarter of 1989, while orders from the company's medical systems division were 25 percent ahead of last year. The company reported a total backlog of $35 billion in the aircraft engine division, following new orders from Lufthansa and from Aeroflot, the Soviet national airline. GE said operating profit from its major appliances division was even with last year, while profit and revenue from its broadcasting arm, NBC, were ``somewhat below'' the first-quarter figures in 1989. Operating profit from its materials division was down considerably, which the company attributed to slower demand for cars, appliances and housing. GE said growth in earnings per share was slightly higher than net earnings because of a $10 billion share repurchase program announced last year. Under the program, the company bought back 11.6 million shares for $728 million in the first quarter, bringing total shares acquired to 15.3 million, for a total $963 million, since the program began in November 1989.
AP880509-0083 	X	A U.S. cargo ship accidentally struck and sank a Chinese fishing boat in the East China Sea, leaving 17 fishermen missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. Xinhua said the U.S. ship, the President Monroe, left the scene immediately after the accident Friday afternoon and made no effort to rescue the fishermen. U.S. Embassy spokesman Mckinney Russell said the Chinese Foreign Ministry notified the embassy of the accident, but that he had no other information. ``It's still an alleged incident as far as we are concerned,'' Russell said. ``We haven't been able to confirm there was a collision. We don't know where the (U.S.) vessel would have come from or where it was bound.'' Lloyds Register of Ships says the President Monroe belongs to American President Lines of San Francisco. It is a 860-foot long container weighing 40,627 tons. Xinhua said the accident took place off the port of Lianyugang in coastal Jiangsu province. It said the Chinese boat carried 20 fishermen and was registered to the Jiangsu Fisheries Corp. The report said the Foreign Ministry ``reserves the right for further representation.'' Russell said he interpreted that to mean the Chinese might sue the American shipping company if an investigation supported their version of events. He said he did not expect any political repercussions.
AP880726-0067 	X	Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh says Oliver North is trying to turn his trial from a criminal to a political one and should not be allowed to use politics to win a six-month delay. Walsh urged U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell on Monday to reject North's motion for a delay until after the presidential election. ``Having failed in several attempts to avoid completely the trial of this case, while proclaiming his innocence in speeches, the defendant Oliver L. North is now grasping at the criminal defendant's maneuver of last resort _ delay,'' Walsh said. ``This trial in particular should not be held hostage to a media which the defendant himself has strenuously sought to inflame,'' Walsh said in a brief filed with U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell. Walsh also rebutted North's contention that his actions had been approved. ``The government knows of no presidential decision that North can point to as authorizing his activities,'' Walsh said, adding: ``The government also is not aware of any superior, except North's co-conspirators (Robert C.) McFarlane and (John M.) Poindexter, who knew enough about North's activities to have conveyed even informal or implicit approval.'' Had Walsh found Reagan responsible for authorizing North's activities, the prosecutor would have been unable to charge North in March with defrauding the United States because North would have been acting with the necessary presidential approval. The prosecutor included 15 newspaper clippings reporting North's recent speeches about his case and in support of Republican congressional candidates. He quoted North's own statement after his indictment last March: ``I have now been caught in a bitter dispute between the Congress and the president over the control of foreign policy. ... It is a shame that the new battleground for such a fight will be a courtroom.'' Delaying the trial would give court approval to ``North's transparent attempt to transform this trial from a criminal into a political one,'' Walsh argued. A retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and former White House aide, North is the first of four defendants scheduled to be tried on charges including a conspiracy to defraud the United States by illegally diverting profits from U.S.-Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Last Wednesday, one of North's attorneys, Barry Simon, told the court that `no fair-minded person could argue that this trial should be started seven weeks prior to the presidential election. The intense publicity generated during the final seven weeks of a presidential campaign would deny (North) a fair trial.'' But Walsh said, ``To the extent that North's trial may become a political issue in the upcoming elections, North bears at least a substantial measure of responsibility, and therefore has little credibility in complaining.'' Walsh said North has made many pretrial speeches and statements ``in which he had claimed that the charges should be evaluated in a political context.'' Walsh said North's trial could begin Sept. 20 as planned with an impartial jury despite the presidential campaign and urged Gesell to reject North's motion for a six-month delay, which Walsh said was filed ``simply as a stalling tactic.'' Walsh said courts in the District of Columbia are well trained by their experience with Watergate and other political scandals to conduct trials in cases which receive a lot of publicity. He said the trial would draw media attention no matter when it occurred and that much of this publicity has been favorable to the defendants. Of the 16 counts against North, Walsh said those involving false statements and obstruction of justice, personal enrichment and tax fraud could easily be tried Sept. 20. To meet that date for the conspiracy, theft of government property and wire fraud charges, Walsh said Gesell would have to modify a July 6 order granting North access to additional classified documents. Walsh enclosed a letter from CIA general counsel Russell J. Bruemmer to support such a modification. Bruemmer said some of the documents already had been provided, others including excepts from the President's Daily Brief on intelligence matters, and summaries by the Central American Joint Intelligence Task Force could be ready in four weeks, but others are not readily available and would require several months to gather. Walsh noted that Gesell ordered the documents on the basis of a meeting with defense lawyers from which prosecutors were excluded. Walsh said no defense argument he could envision would make the documents relevant to the case. He indicated that most of them refer to other government covert actions abroad and said no other covert action had ever involved the transfer of funds from one operation to another. Walsh asked Gesell to require North to come up with more specific reasons for seeing items before they are ordered turned over to him. Gesell did not rule on the motion immediately.
AP880623-0098 	X	A Justice Department spokesman says a bicycle messenger wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed ``Meese is a Pig'' was not admitted to its headquarters because he was ``inappropriately attired.'' ``Just as we would not permit somebody to come strolling in here with a bathing suit, for example, I think it's reasonable to have some kind of standard,'' spokesman Patrick S. Korten said Wednesday. He said the messenger, Christopher Stalvey, ``was inappropriately attired.'' Stalvey, who said the incident occurred June 10, visited the American Civil Liberties Union this week to tell legal director Arthur B. Spitzer about the encounter. ``We are prepared to bring suit if they say this is their policy,'' Spitzer said. ``It seems like a perfectly clear case of discrimination based on the content of the T-shirt.'' Korten, spokesman for Attorney General Edwin Meese III, said ``this is an interim policy until a firm determination can be made on how such matters ought to be handled.'' Korten ``obviously doesn't understand what the First Amendment is all about,'' said Spitzer. ``If they had a rule that said no T-shirts, that might be an acceptable rule. But apparently they have a rule that says no T-shirts that insult Ed Meese. Presumably, this guy would have been allowed in if he was wearing a T-shirt that said `Reagan-Bush '84'.''
AP880815-0248 	X	EDITOR'S NOTE _ Back in 1964, a man running for the White House could still bring his campaign to the people without a vast apparatus of hired image-shapers, consultants, security forces _ anxious glances at the latest quickie polls to tell him what to say. Perhaps one of the last candidates to present himself largely unencumbered was Barry Goldwater of Arizona. An AP reporter who covered this and many another run for the White House recalls how it felt in simpler times.
AP880909-0185 	X	The death toll rose to 56 in the Aug. 28 air show disaster at a U.S. air base and a newspaper said Thursday that insurance coverage of the Italian stunt-flying team involved falls far short of estimated damage. An insurance official said, however, that organizers of such an event usually pay the largest portion of the damage. Two more West Germans died of severe burns from the accident at the U.S. Air Force Base in Ramstein and 28 people were reported in critical condition. Two Americans are among the dead. Marco Fraquelli, an official of the Milano Assicurazioni insurance company of Milan, Italy, said each of the three planes that crashed was insured for $1.4 million, for a total of $4.2 million. The Berliner Morgenpost quoted Fraquelli as saying his company expects damage claims from the crash of the three jets from the Frecce Tricolori team to reach about $120 million. ``In case of disasters like the one in Ramstein, usually the government and NATO agree on payment of damage to the victims and their relatives,'' Fraquelli told The Associated Press. Three Italian stunt-flying jets collided at low altitude at the air show and one hurtled into a crowd of spectators and exploded. Jurgen Dietzen, a spokesman for Rhineland-Palatinate State Interior Ministry said 160 people remained hospitalized. Dietzen said the last two deaths occurred between Wednesday and Thursday.
AP901130-0100 	X	A court has fined a hunter $180 for killing another hunter he thought was an elk, the Swedish national news agency TT reported Friday. ``I saw something in the woods. I thought it was an elk and Shot,'' the 70-year-old elk hunter told the court. The victim was a Bird hunter. The elk hunter was convicted of causing another person's death. The shooting occurred in a central Sweden forest in September. The court accepted the hunter's testimony that the shooting was accidental. Swedish courts generally impose light sentences in such cases.
AP901105-0200 	X	He recommended to the class a collection of Robinson poems for which he had written an introduction some years ago. ``I read this through last night to see if I agree with myself, which I don't always, and I must say I do, so it's safe.'' Later Dickey was reading from the critic Edmund Wilson, who wrote in passing that he thought Emily Dickinson was overrated. Dickey's eyes left the page, rolled upward, and he shook his head. ``No, no, Edmund. You're wrong about that, dead wrong,'' he said, then continued reading. ``Mr. Dickey has opinions all right,'' said a student, Alan Asnen. ``You have the feeling he knows what he's talking about. I think he knows ... everything. He certainly knows poetry, and loves it.'' Dickey at one moment appears hard and demanding and at the next soft enough to cry on. Lecturing from his place at the head of the table, he rarely glances at the notes spread before him. Instead, as he talks, his gaze flits from face to face, lighting on each randomly, like a pollenating bee. When he reads a poem aloud he yields completely to the lust of language and rhythm and imagery. The effect sifts through the room like perfume. He caresses each word, his soft voice adding its own poetic sauce. At the end, he holds the final lines in his mouth, tasting them, and raises his face to the class with a spreading glow of satisfaction. ``Cut,'' he says at last, ending the spell. ``Go to black, or whatever it is they say in Hollywood when it can't get any better.'' James Dickey, Georgia born, has been writer in residence at the University of South Carolina for 23 years now. But he is no campus decoration, seen only at book signings and sherry parties. Clearly, he loves the classroom. ``A lot of American writers feel that teaching is an imposition keeping them from their work,'' he says. ``I don't. Teaching forces you to get your own ideas straight. They vary from year to year, but when you get in front of a classroom you at least have to say what you think and how you feel.'' So Dickey teaches two courses, four classes twice a week, although the school has asked him to drop one, a workshop on modern American poetry, to give him more time to write. Lack of time, however, doesn't seem to have hampered him so far. He has eight projects in the works, including a sequel to his 1987 novel ``Alnilam'' which he considers ``20 times better'' than ``Deliverance.'' He's also working on a book of collected poems, a book of literary criticism and a fourth children's book. Just last month he brought out a book of poems titled ``The Eagle's Mile'' which he brought with him to class. ``There will be a signing at the bookstore Saturday,'' he said. Then he added in a conspirator's whisper, ``I'm going to take roll.'' Then he reminded the class of aspiring young poets yearning to be published of what the poet Conrad Aiken said about bringing out a new book of poetry. ``He said waiting for the reaction is like dropping a feather into the Grand Canyon and listening for the echo.'' James Dickey continued: ``For everybody in this class I wish only one thing, that you concentrate your efforts to one end. ``Not to publish. Not to be famous. Not to make money, because that just ain't going to happen no matter how good or famous you are. ``Concentrate all your energies toward writing something that will stand up, that will move people, that will stay with them, disturb them, amplify what used to be called their souls. ``Do that. Do that. There is hope for all of us.'' Class dismissed.
AP880512-0326 	X	A substantial number of workers at a General Electric Co. defense plant here will be laid off because of a drop in orders from the Pentagon, the company announced Thursday. Arthur Glenn, vice president of GE's Defense Systems Division, refused to say exactly how many workers would be laid off or when. However, GE officials informed the state it would lay off about 900 workers over the next 18 months because of a decrease in defense-related orders, according to a state economic affairs official. The first phase of the layoffs is scheduled for July, according to the official, who asked not to be identified. The unexpected announcement by the company came only three months after GE promised stable employment at its Pittsfield businesses this year. The company had laid off 1,000 workers last year when it closed its transformer plant. The ordnance division, which employs 4,700 people, makes guidance systems for Trident submarine-launched nuclear missiles, components of the Bradley fighting machine, which carries infantrymen, various high-speed guns and other military products. ``The market we serve we thought, up to a year ago, to be at least in a sustaining basis and somewhat of a growth basis,'' Glenn said at a news conference. He blamed the sudden turnaround on government cutbacks in ordnance contracts. ``As pressure gets tough on defense budgets, government customers have to make difficult decisions,'' Glenn said. He said a government contract the company recently lost to Northrup Industries had little to do with the layoffs. ``We had really planned our business based on not winning that contract because there was so much controvery over whether the Air Force wished to use our technology,'' Glenn said. ``Certainly if that contract had come, I would not have had to take as severe an action as we're going to have to take without it.'' Glenn also said a decrease in orders would mean a slowdown in Bradley fighting machine production, from 550 yearly to about 350. He said he told the company's 500 management employees Thursday morning about the impending layoffs. Neither managers nor union officials could be immediately reached for comment. GE now employs about 6,700 people in the ordnance and plastics plants in the city, the number it had employeed in 1983, before the company began expanding the ordnance systems division with 1,400 new employees by late 1986. Workers at the company were dealt a major blow in the fall of 1986 when GE announced it would close its transformer division in Pittsfield. GE announced in August 1987 it was reorganizing the ordnance division to eliminate the engineering and manufacturing department and replace it with a Division Effectiveness Operation to improve efficiency. ``The steps we are taking are usually taken by businesses in trouble and we are not in trouble,'' division Vice President Nicholas Boraski said at the time.
AP880804-0097 	X	Conservative Republicans said Thursday that George Bush is headed for defeat in November if he chooses a running mate from the GOP's ``establishment blue-bloods.'' Bush, the certain Republican presidential nominee, is weighing a number of choices for the ticket's No. 2 spot and has indicated he will wait until the GOP convention in New Orleans Aug. 15-18 to announce his decision. Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, R-N.H., chairman of the Coalition for a Winning Ticket, declined to single out the group's ideal vice presidential candidate. But he did say conservatives were disappointed by the selection of Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey as the convention's keynote speaker. Kean, who has been mentioned as a possible Bush running mate, is from the party's moderate wing and, like Bush, has an Ivy League background. ``The problem of the Bush campaign is that it is attracted to establishment blue-bloods. What the Bush ticket needs is a transfusion of red corpuscles from the conservative wing of our party,'' Humphrey said at a news conference. Humphrey said a number of other possible Bush running mates from the party's moderate wing also were not acceptable to conservatives, including Richard Thornburgh, the former Pennsylvania governor who has been chosen to succeed Attorney General Edwin Meese III; Gov. Jim Thompson of Illinois; former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, and former Tennessee Sen. and White House chief of staff Howard H. Baker Jr. ``If George Bush selects an establishment Republican as his running mate, we believe we are headed for a disaster in November,'' Humphrey said. He described Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, Rep. Jack Kemp of New York and Gov. John Sununu of New Hampshire as acceptable to conservatives. He was equivocal on other possible candidates, including Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, Dole's wife Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. He said, however, that conservatives would probably not be enthusiastic about them.
AP880328-0053 	X	Gunmen seriously wounded the mayor of a Manila suburb and killed seven of his bodyguards today in the bloodiest attack in the capital blamed on communist rebels. Gunmen also shot dead a businessman. Police said Mayor Prospero Oreta of suburban Malabon suffered three gunshot wounds in the mouth, chest and arm but was out of danger after surgery. Seven of his bodyguards died in the attack and another was in serious condition. The ambush occurred as military units in various parts of the country were on full alert in anticipation of stepped up rebel attacks marking Tuesday's 19th founding anniversary of the now 24,000-member communist New People's Army. Seven hours after the ambush, three men in a car shot a businessman while he was driving in suburban Quezon City, just north of Manila, police said. The victim, who died at a hospital, was identified as Francisco Castro. Police said they had no idea who his attackers were or what their motive was. But the victim's brother, Jose Castro, vice president of the Manila chapter of the leftist People's Party, told reporters he believed he was the real target. Radio and newspaper reports said police Manila had received a call from the Alex Boncayao Brigade, the communist guerrilla unit operating in the Manila area, claiming responsibility for the ambush on Oreta. Police declined to confirm the reports. Armed forces spokesman Col. Oscar Florendo confirmed such a call had been received, but added the army could not yet say if the guerrilla unit was behind the attack. The Alex Boncayao Brigade has been blamed for the killings of more than 150 policemen and soldiers in daylight ambushes on Manila's streets since last year. Before today, the attacks have killed one or two people. The rebels had announced they would soon kill officials as well as police and soldiers. President Corazon Aquino said she was ``shocked and saddened by these acts of violence.'' ``I have always asked our people to resort to the ways of peace,'' she said in a statement. ``My hope is that as democracy in our country gains a strong foothold, violence and terror will gradually rescind.'' Investigators said Oreta and his party were riding in a van and a car to a flag-raising ceremony at the Malabon town hall when six men waiting at an intersection opened fire with automatic weapons. Cpl. Mario Odulio said the killers were armed with AK-47 and M-16 automatic assault rifles as well as 9-mm and .45-caliber pistols. Police recovered more than 40 spent shells at the scene, Odulio said. He said the killers escaped aboard a van and a jeep. Police said they believed the killers belonged to the Sparrow Unit, an assassination squad of the New People's Army, but were also looking into the possibility local politics was involved. Malabon, a fishing community in Manila's northern suburbs, was among the places where last January's local elections were hotly contested. Oreta is a brother-in-law of Rep. Tessie Oreta, younger sister of Mrs. Aquino's assassinated husband, former Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr.
AP880809-0153 	X	Gangs of Roman Catholics set street bonfires and threw rocks, bottles and firebombs at security patrols early Tuesday after two Catholics were killed, apparently by Protestant extremists. The sporadic rioting in Catholic areas that began Monday night also marked the 17th anniversary of Britain's abandoned policy of detaining suspected guerrillas without trial. Police believe the two Catholics slain Monday were killed in reprisal for attacks last week by guerrillas of the predominantly Catholic Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, England and West Germany that killed six people and wounded 37. A spokesman at Belfast's police headquarters said no violence was reported during the day Tuesday. Police said security forces came under 83 separate attacks during the overnight fighting, but the spokesman said fewer than 500 people probably were involved in the clashes that occurred throughout the British province. Officials reported eight policemen were hurt, none seriously, and four of 12 civilians injured were hospitalized. The IRA and its supporters continue to commemorate the introduction of the internment law on Aug. 9, 1971, even though it was abandoned amid worldwide criticism in 1975. Officials said police and soldiers were attacked with bombs, rocks, bottles and bricks and the patrols responded by firing plastic bullets. Some shots were fired at police, the officials said, but they did not report any gunshot casualties and said at one point security forces fired live ammunition into the air to disperse rioters. Eleven people, including two teen-age girls, were freed on bail by courts after being charged with riotous behavior. An 18-year-old man from Catholic west Belfast was charged with throwing a gasoline bomb and assaulting police and remained in jail. Some bonfires flamed out of control and damaged buildings, including a Baptist church, before the night's violence subsided with demonstrators making their traditional protest of banging garbage can lids. The two men killed Monday were Seamus Morris, 17, shot to death on a Belfast street, and Peter Dolan, 25, a beer-truck deliveryman slain when he tried to block the gunmen's getaway. Their deaths raised the known death toll to 2,675 from the sectarian violence that began in 1969. Stanley Whittington, president of the Methodist church in Ireland, called for the determined pursuit of ``mindless murderers'' who cross the border to take refuge in the Irish Republic. He spoke at the funeral of William Hassard, 60, one of two construction men shot to death last Thursday by IRA terrorists because they were working at a police station at the border town of Belleek. The IRA seeks to unite Northern Ireland, where Protestants outnumber Catholics 3-2, with the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic.
AP881018-0227 	X	AP900519-0001 	X	U.S. Customs agents on Friday unveiled a fortified tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border and said it had been used to smuggle at least a ton of cocaine into this country. ``It was like something out of a James Bond movie,'' Customs spokeswoman Judy Turner said. The tunnel dubbed ``Cocaine Alley'' was about the length of a football field and 30 feet underground, authorities said. They said the smuggling operation included a warehouse and elaborate entryways on both sides of the border. U.S. authorities and Mexican Judicial Police raided the tunnel late Thursday, using jackhammers and torches to break in, said Thomas McDermott, head of the U.S. Customs Service in Arizona. Law enforcement officers found about 25 to 30 pounds of marijuana, but made no arrests. McDermott told reporters that U.S. officials working with Mexican Judicial Police arrested two men earlier this month in connection with the smuggling ring. McDermott said authorities also confiscated the Agua Prieta, Mexico, house of businessman Rafael Francisco Camarena and two of Camarena's businesses _ Douglas Building Supply Co. and Douglas Redi-Mix Concrete. One entrance of the tunnel is in the house, and the other end was in a warehouse on the U.S. side of the border. Camarena was not in custody. McDermott declined to say whether there was a warrant for his arrest. In Mexico City, the Attorney General's Office said two people were arrested in the house. The Attorney General's communique was unclear if those were the same people mentioned as arrested by U.S. officials. Their names were withheld. The northern end of the tunnel was in a Douglas Building warehouse built eight months ago about 200 feet north of the fence that divides the two cities. It was just one block from the unmarked Customs enforcement building and four blocks from the international port of entry. McDermott said that in Camarena's house, excavation was hidden in the family room beneath an 8-by-12-foot concrete slab holding a pool table. He said that when an operator turned a small mechanism shaped like a garden faucet, a hydraulic lift boosted the slab, with pool table, about 5 feet into the air. ``It was a tremendously sophisticated operation,'' McDermott said. ``This the most unique smuggling operation I have ever come across.'' The tunnel was 5 feet high, 4 feet wide, well lighted, and lined with supports to prevent cave-ins, authorities said. At various points were compartments where up to 5 tons of drugs could be stashed. Smugglers used a cart to load cocaine and ferry it through the tunnel, which was up to 40 feet below the surface on the Mexican side and 30 feet on the U.S. side, officials said. On a tour of the warehouse, reporters were shown the northern entrance: a grate which, when lifted, revealed a 7-foot drop to a gangway about the size of a small bedroom. That led to a 30-foot-deep well down to the tunnel proper. Over the well was a pulley and hoist system apparently used to raise drug packages. The entrance and well were lined with concrete block. ``It was just an exceptionally, professionally engineered tunnel,'' Ms. Turner said. ``It was something that you and I in the ordinary world would only find in the movies.'' The smugglers were probably also using the tunnel to transport profits back to Mexico, said Drug Enforcement Administration agent Gerard Murphy. McDermott said it probably took several months and $1.5 million to $2 million to build the tunnel. The house and the warehouse, which provided cover for moving large amounts of dirt, were built eight months ago. McDermott said a geological survey team found the tunnel through tests which detected ``an anomaly, something below the ground that shouldn't be there.'' Further tests helped pinpoint the tunnel. Ms. Turner said Customs agents who suspected the tunnel's existence used aerial surveillance to track the shipment of 2,258 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $102 million from Douglas to a spot outside Phoenix on May 11. They confiscated the haul and arrested Caesar Thomas Howard, 44, of Mesa and Joseph Edward Osborn, 31, of Tempe. The cocaine was transported from the warehouse in a false-bottomed, flatbed truck and had been destined for Southern California, McDermott said. He said authorities knew of no other tunnels, but said they would be looking. ``This investigation is far from being over,'' McDermott said.
AP900419-0202 	X	Grain and soybean futures prices edged lower in early trading today on the Chicago Board of Trade amid fears that Moscow's reprisals against Lithuania could jeopardize U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union. Reports that the Soviet Union had cut off oil shipments to the breakaway republic triggered speculation that the United States will back away from granting the Soviets most favored nation trade status. The designation would allow for freer trade between the superpowers. Forecasts for increasingly wet, warm weather in the Midwestern croplands prompted further selling this morning. Rain was expected in the region today and Friday, and the National Weather Service has predicted above-normal temperatures for the Midwest during the latter half of next week. Higher prices for soybean meal in Europe helped to limit losses in the soybean market. In early trading, wheat futures were } cent to 1{ cents lower with the contract for delivery in May at $3.63} a bushel; corn was { cent to 1 cent lower with May at $2.72} a bushel; oats were { cent to 1 cent lower with May at $1.56{ a bushel; soybeans were { cent lower to \ cent higher with May at $5.94\ a bushel. Cattle futures were mixed in early trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange while pork futures advanced, led by a surge in pork-belly prices amid bullish chart signals. Live cattle futures were .05 cent lower to .20 cent higher with April at 79.82 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .10 cent lower to .05 cent higher with April at 84 cents a pound; live hogs were unchanged to .35 cent higher with April at 56.90 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .68 cent to 1.58 cent higher with May at 60.90 cents a pound. Cattle futures were mixed on Wednesday while pork futures were mostly higher.
AP900321-0265 	X	The Food and Drug Administration has barred government agencies from buying certain drugs from Abbott Laboratories, charging the company failed to correct violations of quality standards at a suburban Chicago plant. The FDA also said it would not approve any new drug applications by the North Chicago-based pharmaceutical giant that involve certain products made in the plant. In a letter to Abbott dated March 14 but not released until Tuesday, the FDA said some of the company's products are adulterated because of improper manufacturing practices. The agency's district director in Chicago, Raymond Mlecko, said FDA investigators did not find unsterile products at the plant, but did see violations of federal manufacturing requirements. The letter warned that the FDA was prepared to take more severe measures, including seizing products and shutting down manufacturing operations, if Abbott did not quickly correct the alleged problems. Donald Wright, Abbott's corporate vice president of quality assurance, said the FDA action resulted from a misunderstanding about the extent to which the firm has worked to correct the problems. Wright said the problems should be remedied soon and would have no material effect on Abbott. A health industry analyst, Michael Harshbarger of Chicago Corp., said the FDA letter had ominous implications. ``This is not a slap on the wrist,'' he said. An FDA report in November cited the Abbott plant for failure to maintain proper sterilty, failure to follow up on quality problems and in at least one case, making improper changes in records designed to show that a drug was made in an approved manner. The drugs involved are an antibiotic called erythrocin lactobionate and a batch of an anti-inflammatory steroid sold under the brand name A-MethaPred that is given to patients in hospitals to treat severe arthritis and lupus _ a chronic inflammation of the tissue around the joints. Mlecko said there was no evidence that the problems pose any immediate public health risk.
AP900710-0071 	X	Militant Cuban exile Orlando Bosch today rejected a government offer to trade prison for a restrictive house-arrest program that would return him to his family after the past 14 years in jails. Bosch said the offer would require him to tell the FBI of any contacts with Cuban exile groups that advocate violence, said his daughter, Myriam. ``He's willing to agree to all of the conditions except that one,'' Ms. Bosch said. ``He's not going be an informant. The FBI can do their own work.'' Ms. Bosch said her father informed his attorneys of his decision this morning, and they were to notify immigration officials. A source with the Justice Department said the government will not negotiate the offer. ``Bosch won't accept the conditions, and he won't be released unless he does,'' the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The proposal presented to Bosch by immigration officials Monday night was a departure for the Justice Department, which has maintained for years that the anti-Castro activist would continue his terrorist ways if released. ``He's just not prepared to send a message out that he's an informant,'' said attorney Henry Adorno. ``He believes that lists are kept by people like Joe McCarthy and Fidel Castro.'' On Monday, Bosch's wife, Adriana, had criticized the conditions for his release, but appeared to encourage him to accept the deal, calling the conditions ``better than jail.'' The 63-year-old former pediatrician suffers from ulcers and declining health after years in Venezuelan and U.S. jails. The conditions would have required Bosch to wear an electronic monitoring device, remain at home for 21 hours a day, keep a log of visitors and allow his telephone to be monitored, said Richard Smith, director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami. Smith said Bosch also would be subject to unannounced searches and lie detector tests, and if instructed, must present himself for deportation within 72 hours. ``They're just messing with his head,'' Myriam Bosch said. ``Knowing how they work, I think they probably did this knowing my father would not accept it.'' Justice Department spokesman Dan Eramian in Washington said the government decided to offer Bosch parole for humanitarian reasons, but will continue the two-year effort to deport him. Thus far, 31 nations have refused to accept him. The offer appeared to be an attempt to resolve what has become a cause celebre for Miami's staunchly anti-Castro Cuban exile community, which has held rallies and demonstrations on his behalf. Bosch has been held since 1988, when he was arrested for parole violations and for reentering the country illegally. According to CIA documents, he ran bombing runs on Cuba in the early 1960s. In 1968, he was convicted in a bazooka attack on a Polish freighter at the Port of Miami and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was paroled in 1972 and fled the country in 1974 after he was subpoenaed to testify in an inquiry into the killing of a Miami exile leader. Accused of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people, Bosch spent 11 years in Venezuelan jails. He denied involvement in the bombing and was acquitted in three separate trials. The parole conditions would require Bosch to wear an electronic monitoring device, remain at home for 21 hours a day, keep a log of visitors and allow his telephone to be monitored, said Richard Smith, director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami.
AP881102-0125 	X	The Reagan administration told the Supreme Court today that mandatory drug tests for some railroad workers and U.S. Customs Service employees are vital to public safety and confidence in government. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, in an unusual move, appeared himself to plead for testing of rail workers after train accidents. ``This is a case about railway safety,'' he said. It is about ``the hazards created by use of drugs and alcohol by those in charge of trains.'' Solicitor General Charles Fried, the administration's top courtroom lawyer, defended the Customs Service drug testing program. ``There is rather special, urgent and symbolic significance'' in assuring the public that the agency responsible for preventing drug smuggling has a drug-free work force, Fried said. ``The Customs Service is indeed entitled to take a fine filter to show to itself, its workers and the public that (workers) are not involved in drug use,'' he said. The drug tests were attacked as a ``humiliating invasion of privacy'' by Lois Williams, representing the Customs Service workers. ``Innocent persons have a great deal of reason to be apprehensive,'' she said. Lawrence Mann, an attorney for the railway workers, said the drug tests are unconstitutional because they are incapable of proving on-the-job impairment. ``Neither the alcohol nor the drug test can demonstrate impairment,'' he said. The tests can show the presence of a residue from a drug that may have been taken by ``someone 60 days ago in the privacy of home.'' The two cases will provide a crucial test for mandatory drug testing in the American workplace. Thornburgh's appearance underscored the importance of today's two-hour argument session. Benjamin Civiletti was the last attorney general to argue a case before the justices when he appeared in 1980 to present the Carter administration's side in a case involving the deportation of an alleged Nazi. Thornburgh last argued a case before the high court in 1977 when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division. In today's cases, the justices agreed to decide whether the nation's railroads may require all employees involved in accidents to take drug tests; and whether the Customs Service may impose the tests for those seeking drug-enforcement jobs. Both cases involve governmental authority to test workers for the presence of drugs. The eventual rulings by the court, expected sometime in 1989, will not deal with drug tests for private employees. But the decisions could have an important psychological impact on whether businesses will demand that their workers undergo such tests. Tests conducted by federal, state or local governments will be affected directly by the court's action. In the railroad case, the Federal Railroad Administration issued regulations in 1985 aimed at alleviating ``a significant safety problem'' caused by alcohol and drug use among employees. The agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, generally requires railroads to take blood and urine specimens after accidents, incidents and rules violations. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that the tests are unreasonable searches banned by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. ``Accidents, incidents or rule violations, by themselves, do not create reasonable grounds for suspecting that tests will demonstrate alcohol or drug impairment in any one railroad employee, much less an entire train crew,'' the appeals court said. Government lawyers have said that from 1972 through 1983, railroad accidents linked to drug or alcohol abuse killed 42 people, injured 61 and caused some $19 million in property damage. In the Customs Service case, the government contends the need to fight drug smuggling justifies mandatory tests for those applying for or holding drug-enforcement jobs. Workers in such sensitive jobs must provide urine samples in restroom stalls as a person overseeing the procedure waits outside the stall. Testing was authorized under an executive order President Reagan signed in 1986. The Reagan administration has said the tests are needed to prevent agents who use drugs from being bribed or blackmailed. Any sacrifice of personal privacy is outweighed by the need to stop drug smuggling, the administration said. The National Treasury Employees Union, in challenging the tests, said they subject workers to a humiliating invasion of privacy. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the tests for Customs Service workers in such sensitive jobs.
AP901026-0196 	X	A midshipman was expelled from the Naval Academy for having sex on campus with a woman who had accused him of rape. The junior midshipman, who was not identified by the academy, was initially accused of raping the woman, but academy spokesman Noel Milan said investigators never found enough evidence to support the allegation. ``Very early on, it was determined that there was not enough evidence to proceed with the (rape) case,'' Milan said. The student told authorities he met the woman at a downtown bar, brought her back to the academy and had sex with her early May 13, a Navy official said. The midshipman was found guilty of violating a rule that bars midshipmen from having sex on academy grounds and expelled earlier this month, Milan said. Officials are considering whether the midshipman may also have to reimburse the academy for his education. ``That decision is yet to be made,'' Milan said. The expelled student may be required to serve time in the Navy or reimburse the Navy for the cost of his education. The expulsion is the latest of several reports of mistreatment involving the 4,500-student academy. Annapolis police are investigating a report that a midshipman broke into a woman's home Sept. 8 and chased her around her house until she locked herself in a bedroom. A female midshipman resigned last spring after reporting she was handcuffed to a urinal. Other women and minorities later came forward with stories of mistreatment at the academy by male officers and students.
AP880416-0043 	X	Pie throws, singing mailmen and free antacid tablets greeted frenzied procrastinators rushing to meet the midnight deadline for filing their federal income tax returns. Post offices across the country were open until midnight Friday to place the all-important April 15 postmark on tax returns, or on envelopes containing Form 4868 requesting an automatic four-month extension of the deadline. Paul Monroe, regional manager for H&R Block in Boston, said he sees the same people every year. ``They look forward to the excitement of April 15th. The adrenalin starts flowing,'' Monroe said. ``It's like a non-contact sport.'' In New York City, thousands of people crowded the main post office. Many spread their receipts on benches, tables or the marble floor, nervously glancing at the clock until they finished, then heaving a sigh of relief, their faces glowing. Free antacid samples were distributed outside, and a toy office opened an ``IRS Stress Relief Clinic'' which invited frustrated taxpayers to come in and yell at a dummy. ``This is insane,'' John Zoilo said as he slaved over his returns. ``The last time I felt this harassed was when I got married, and that's why I'm now divorced. ``But I must admit, there's no better place to do this if you're going to be late than the Eighth Avenue post office,'' he said. ``You're among thousands of procrastinators.'' New York's Internal Revenue Service center expected to be deluged with about 2 million tax returns today, said IRA spokesman Neil O'Keefe. Another half-million people were expected to file for extensions. Nationwide, the post office expected to handle 30 million tax returns in the final days before the deadline, said Postal Service consumer advocate Ann Robinson in Washington. Returns not postmarked by midnight could be subject to a late filing penalty, possibly up to 25 percent of the taxes owed. Last-minute tax filers backed up traffic for several blocks near Chicago's Main Post Office Friday night, but other taxpayers got a chance to vent their anger at the IRS by throwing pies at a mock IRS agent. For $1 or $2 a pie, passers-by tossed whipped-cream concoctions in the face of Scott Goodman, part owner of the Superior Street Cafe, who posed as IRS agent ``Shirdolph Yurback'' to raise money for charity. ``You know what I'm going to do with your taxes?'' he asked one passer-by. ``I'm going to fund a study of South American insects.'' The woman stopped, plopped down $2 for a large pie and slammed it at point-blank range into the mock agent's face. ``That felt great,'' the unidentified woman said. At a post office in Springfield, Mass., postal worker Bill Mannila entertained tardy taxpayers by lip-syncing ``Return to Sender,'' while dressed in a costume that was half Elvis Presley, half regulation grays. A six-piece band of postal workers also was on hand, joined by a postmaster who belted out ``Pennies From Heaven'' and ``King of the Road.'' ``It's like a zoo, but it's fun,'' said Springfield Technical Community College Professor Bill Herd, who along with colleagues and students helped taxpayers fill out more than 100 forms. ``People are not so mad about paying their taxes. They come in here with a frown and they leave with a smile.''
AP880420-0278 	X	Grumman Corp.'s planned expansion here is evidence that oil-dependent Houston is trying to get more involved in aircraft and aerospace industries, according to a local development official. Grumman officials said Tuesday the company's Southwest Regional Development and Production Center will be built on a 66-acre parcel of land, and will include an office building and several other structures. The project will mean 1,000 new jobs in the next year and an initial investment of $10 million over two years. ``Grumman feels betting a large part of our company future on Houston is a good bet,'' J.J. Bussolini, Grumman vice president for business operations, said at a news conference. Lee Hogan, president of the Houston Economic Development Council, said Tuesday's announcement illustrated Houston's efforts to get involved in aircraft and aerospace industries. ``We are now as interested in that as the price of oil,'' he said. Bussolini said Grumman was convinced to select Houston with incentives to locate at Ellington Field, a strong work ethic shown by employees at its existing Houston operations, an excellent pool of potential employees and cost savings for construction and operations of new facilities compared with other parts of the country. Grumman, an aircraft and aerospace company with annual sales of more than $3.5 billion, now employs about 500 people in Houston and 33,000 people worldwide. Grumman said work in Houston will include civil space programs, manufacturing and development on Air Force missile programs and engineering support for Grumman programs throughout the country. None of the new Houston jobs would be the result of transfers from other Grumman facilities, Bussolini said. Company officials said Houston's job count could grow to 2,000 or more, depending on the outcome of several NASA and Defense Department programs. The Bethpage, N.Y.-based company selected Houston from among other potential sites in Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. The new center will be built on land Grumman leased last year from the city at Ellington Field, a former Air Force base now owned by the city. The land originally was earmarked for Grumman's civil space unit for NASA space station work, but NASA selected rival bidder McDonnell Douglas Corp. for the job. The new project culminates efforts by officials of the Houston Economic Development Council. ``The loss of the space station contract was a serious setback to our corporate plan,'' Bussolini said, but added that Houston officials kept encouraging the company to add to its presence in the city.
AP901009-0222 	X	An unpleasant diagnostic test known as broncoscopy grew so popular for a time among doctors at North Monroe Hospital that some of them made up a ditty about it. ``He bronchs them once, he bronchs them twice, he bronchs them once again,'' the doctors crooned. Dr. Henry Jones mentioned the popularity of this procedure and the song when he gave a deposition in a lawsuit against the hospital and its owners, Hospital Corporation of America. Other doctors also worried about the apparent zeal with which this and other tests and procedures were done at the hospital. Dr. George Ellis, in another sworn deposition, said some doctors who had received hospital favors overused bronchoscopy, a potentially risky procedure in which a tube is threaded into the lungs to look for disease. ``I think they performed bronchoscopy when it was unnecessary, and I think they did it too often on patients,'' said the radiologist. He complained to hospital staff and said he soon saw his own referrals disappear. Dr. David Raines told of one of his patients who went to the North Monroe emergency room with chest pains. The man was admitted and referred to a cardiologist. The cardiologist sent him to a pulmonary specialist, then an ear, nose and throat doctor, then a rheumetologist. Each specialist performed a series of hospital tests. ``He was aggressively investigated, which was obviously a financial thing,'' said Raines. Hospital officials declined comment, citing pending litigation.
AP901020-0110 	X	Here at a glance are the developments in the Persian Gulf crisis for the of October 14 to October 21:
AP900508-0157 	X	The Soviet Union has been given another go-ahead to buy more grain from the United States, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday. Undersecretary Richard T. Crowder said Moscow now has permission to buy up to 22 million metric tons of U.S. grain without further consultations, an increase of two million tons. A long-term grain agreement between the two countries specified initially that Moscow could buy up to 12 million tons of grain a year without further U.S. approval. That limit was raised to 16 million tons last October and to 20 million tons in December. The new limit of 22 million tons applies to the 12-month period that began Oct. 1. The agreement itself runs through Dec. 31. Officials said the increase resulted from talks with the Soviets in recent days and takes into consideration recent large purchases of corn by Moscow. In all, since Oct. 1, the Soviet Union has bought about 18.9 million tons of corn and wheat for delivery in 1989 and 1990. Those orders include more than 15.6 million tons of corn and 3.3 million tons of wheat. Purchases also include 342,300 tons of soybeans, 1.2 million tons of soybean meal and 7,300 tons of barley. In 1988-89, sales were a record of more than 21.7 million tons, including more than 16.3 million tons of corn and nearly 5.4 million tons of wheat. A metric ton is about 2,205 pounds and is equal to 39.4 bushels of corn or 36.7 bushels of wheat or soybeans.
AP881210-0036 	X	Residents shut themselves in after dark, drew curtains and answered callers warily as police hunted for a gunman believed responsible for four shootings in as many nights. The first victim was killed outside his auto customizing shop on Monday. Three men were wounded by shots fired into their homes on each of the next three nights. Police on Friday had patrols closely watching neighborhoods in this township of 23,000 people on Long Island. ``We can only assume that the killer has gotten scared because of the extra patrols, or else he's taken the night off. We just don't know,'' Detective Sgt. William Armstrong of the Southampton police said late Friday. The shootings have enough in common to point to one sniper, but police so far say they haven't found a common thread that would point to motive. All the shootings have occurred after dark, most around dinner time, within a two-mile radius in the towns of Southampton and Riverhead. The two towns are about 75 miles east of New York City and near the exclusive beach communities favored by the city's wealthy. The victims, all blue-collar men in their 30s, were shot with either a small-caliber rifle or a lightweight shotgun. Friends and relatives described them all as hard-working family men and were at a loss to suggest a motive. ``It's scary,'' said Barbara Bouchard, who lives next door to one of the victims. ``This is stuff you hear about in New York City. Around here, the most serious thing is they catch people shoplifting.'' An anonymous caller believed to have been the gunman contacted Riverhead police after the first shooting Monday and said, ``death to drug dealers and crooked cops,'' according to a source involved in the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. A similar call came after the second shooting on Tuesday, he said. But police said none of the victims was known to have dealt drugs and they apparently did not know one another. ``There is a definite link with the four,'' said the source. ``We think there is a reason for these shootings, a perverted type of thing.'' Southhampton police Chief Conrad Teller said the victims appeared to have been specific targets and not chosen at random. But, he said, ``we have nothing concrete to connect them.''
AP880812-0116 	X	The federal annex building on Spring Street now officially is the Martin Luther King Jr. federal building. President Reagan signed a law renaming the building Thursday. It makes the annex the first federal building in the nation to bear King's name. ``I think it's appropriate that the honor comes to Atlanta because this is the birthplace of Dr. King,'' said Rep. John Lewis, who introduced the bill in December. The federal government began a $10 million renovation project three years ago at the 1930s building. Agencies that have moved in since include the Food and Nutrition Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Air Force Engineering Office.
AP901205-0142 	X	Rep. Edolphus ``Ed'' Towns, a liberal Democrat from Brooklyn, N.Y., was elected chairman Wednesday of the Congressional Black Caucus for the 102nd Congress. ``It's official. You can give me your condolences,'' Towns joked after the vote. He will succeed Rep. Ronald V. Dellums, D-Calif. Towns, elected to a fifth term last month, said the caucus will meet early in the new Congress to discuss its goals. ``The civil rights bill will be something we will push very hard very early in the Congress,'' he said in an interview. The bill was defeated this year when the Senate failed, by one vote, to override President Bush's veto. Towns noted that the caucus will have 26 members next year, the most since it was founded in 1970. In addition, it will have its first Republican U.S. representative ever: freshman Gary Franks, R-Conn. ``We look forward to working with him,'' Towns said. ``It might take us a little longer to get things done, but that's good.'' Towns, 56, was elected to Congress in 1982 from a diverse district that includes the impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant section as well as the wealthier Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. In Congress, Towns has established himself as a solid liberal, in touch with his constituents but above the political infighting of his district.
AP900112-0255 	X	Stock prices took their sharpest drop in three months today, battered by revived inflation worries and fears of higher worldwide interest rates. Shortly before the close, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was down 76.37 points at 2,684.30.
AP900115-0077 	X	The new government today promised to consult all opposition parties on the timing of elections this year but said it would make the final decision on the balloting. Trials were scheduled to begin today for members of the Nicolae Ceasescu's hated Securitate secret police in Timisoara, police said. Protests in the western city ignited a popular revolution last month that toppled the Communist dictator. Other trials for Ceausescu colleagues, including one of his sons, will begin this week on charges of aiding genocide and bringing on economic ruin, state television reported. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were found guilty of such charges and executed Dec. 25. Dragos Munteanu, a spokesman for the governing National Salvation Front, said no decision has yet been made to delay the scheduled April parliamentary vote, despite opposition parties' demands for more time to organize their compaigns. He said the government would consult the opposition parties and delay the elections ``if the political forces are for it.'' But he added that he favors holding the vote as soon as possible. Munteanu said the hasty decision to outlaw the Communist Party Friday night, a move that the provisional government overturned Saturday in favor of submitting the issue to national referendum, showed the need for quick elections. The questions of banning the party and capital punishment will be submitted to a national referendum Jan. 28. Calling the party ban a mistake made of inexperience, Munteanu said, ``This is one of the reasons to have the elections as soon as possible, to have a legal government, a parliament.'' Romanians still have to learn the principles of democracy, he said. ``When I speak about learning democracy, even the government has to learn it,'' he said. ``We don't have real statesmen and politicians. They have to learn it.'' In its report Sunday, state television showed Valentin Ceausescu, a son of the deposed dictator; former Communist Party Secretary Emil Bobu; former Interior Minister Tudor Postelnicu; Marin Neagoe, who directed personal security for Ceausescu; and Dimitru Popescu, former director of the Sociopolitical Academy. The five are being investigated for abetting genocide and sabotaging the economy, which was squeezed dry by Ceausescu's payoff of Romania's foreign debt of more than $10 billion between 1982 and 1989, Romanian television said. Interim Foreign Minister Sergiu Celac told reporters that Romania's economy is in ``almost complete ruin'' and that the country needs massive food imports to feed its 23 million people. The genocide allegation refers to the thousands killed during December's popular uprising _ during which Securitate units fought army troops and civilian revolutionaries _ as well as victims of political repression during Ceausescu's 24-year reign. The exact charges to be levied at the trial have not been disclosed. Valentin, Ceausescu's eldest son, was a member of the Communist Party's policy-setting Central Committee. Bobu was Ceausescu's closest associate in running Romania after the dictator's wife, Elena. Ceausescu's youngest son, Nicu, and his daughter Zoya were arrested soon after he was overthrown. But they were not shown on television over the weekend. There was no indication exactly when or where the trials would take place, but interim President Ion Iliescu told a mass rally Friday that the trials would be public and televised.
AP900313-0184 	X	``Are you going to die?'' asks Charlie Brown when Janice, his little friend in the hospital bed, says she has leukemia. ``Good grief, Charlie Brown!'' cries Linus. ``What kind of question is that?'' A blunt one, asked in a different kind of ``Peanuts'' special that CBS is showing Friday night. Rest assured, though, that the ending is upbeat, in keeping with medical fact and the nature of Charles M. Schulz. Schulz, who has drawn the wise and whimsical characters of his ``Peanuts'' cartoon strip since 1950 and did his first TV special in 1965, hadn't thought of making his next one about a child who develops leukemia. What became Friday's ``Why, Charlie Brown, Why?'' began, he says, with an idea from Sylvia Cook, a nurse in California who works with young cancer patients at Stanford Children's Hospital. She proposed a five-minute film for them in which cancer and its treatment were explained by the ``Peanuts'' gang. He recalls that he pointed out a few problems, including that animation is expensive. That didn't stop Cook, Schulz says. ``Gradually, her idea changed, and she finally decided that it'd be more important if we could do a film that would show the people around the person who was ill just what is going on,'' he says. Wth the aid of the American Cancer Society, that's ultimately what happened. It helped that Schulz came to believe the film would make a good ``Peanuts'' special for TV and shouldn't be limited to hospital showings. The gentle lessons of Friday's show include the early symptoms of leukemia and what can be expected in treatment of the disease. A key part of the program _ the survival rate of children stricken with leukemia _ is only obliquely noted, mainly because a mass of statistics would be as out of place in a ``Peanuts'' special as a visit from The Simpsons. Little Janice, in chemotherapy treatment that she notes will cause her temporary hair loss, quotes her doctors as saying she should get well. The survival rate for children is high, according to ACS spokesman David Lehmann. He says the society estimates 2,500 children will be stricken with leukemia this year, 1,900 of them with its acute form. However, thanks to advances in treatment, 71 percent are expected to survive, he says. Schulz, who worked with the society in preparing Friday's special, downplays his role in it. ``I didn't go into making this thing because I wanted to teach the world all about this,'' he says. ``This was the idea of the cancer people. It was their project. My only job was to make it palatable, to give it some kind of story and try to tell the things they wanted told, yet make it so that people wouldn't turn it off.'' Schulz, 67, who lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., about an hour's drive north of San Francisco, estimates Friday's is his 25th TV special since ``A Charlie Brown Christmas.'' He still draws the seven-day-a-week ``Peanuts'' strip that by CBS' estimate appears in more than 2,200 newspapers worldwide. He reckons he's drawn 15,000 of the strips since he began them 40 years ago. More than a few cartoonist have groused that the constant pressure of a daily strip at times has put them up against the wall, if not under it. No such gripes are heard from Schulz. ``No, quality is the only thing that worries me,'' he says. ``I don't worry about getting them done. I'm always worrying that I'll just end up doing the same things over and over. ``Just to try to keep the thing alive, and be trying new things, that's the hard part. Just getting it done is nothing. I think cartoonists who say it's hard to keep up the schedule are just lazy, that's all.''
AP880819-0215 	X	The chairman of Texas Air Corp. Friday defended a decision by the company's subsidiary, Eastern Airlines, to lay off 4,000 employees and cut service as a way to ``stabilize the company'' by cutting losses. Frank Lorenzo, testifying at a federal court hearing on Eastern's plans to eliminate service to 14 cities, said the layoffs and schedule changes were a necessary step to save the financially troubled carrier. ``If Eastern's management is not permitted to take the actions to save this company, then Eastern may run out of cash,'' Lorenzo said, rejecting suggestions by union attorneys that he was trying to bust organized labor at Eastern by transferring the carrier's assets to Continental Airlines, another Texas Air property. Three labor unions that represent Eastern employees have challenged the plans and obtained a temporary restraining order that bars the airline from making layoffs. U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker is holding hearings on the union's bid for a permanent injunction. Lorenzo defended the proposed cutbacks ``as an attempt to stabilize the company ... and decrease the losses.'' Eastern currently is in federally supervised contract negotiations with two of its unions, the Association of Air Line Pilots and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Lorenzo denied suggestions that Texas Air planned to merge Eastern's operations into Continental. Union attorneys produced a draft of a speech that Lorenzo was to give to Japanese investors in 1986 after Texas Air had purchased Eastern. The draft said that the purchase of Eastern gave Texas Air leverage over the unions. ``Eastern's airplanes can be repainted and moved over to Continental where they will be flown by non-union pilots,'' the speech draft said. But Lorenzo said the draft was prepared by an investment banking firm. It was unclear from the testimony if Lorenzo ever delivered that portion of the speech.
AP900402-0166 	X	Sen. Bill Bradley announced Monday that he will seek a third term on Capitol Hill, quashing speculation about a 1992 presidential bid by saying he planned to represent New Jersey for the full term. ``I'll say the same thing in 1990 that I said in 1984 ... that I will serve my six-year term,'' the Democrat told about 150 people gathered at Montclair State College. ``I can't conceive of anything that would change it.'' A poll of Democratic state chairmen from throughout the nation recently put Bradley, 46, at the top of their list for the presidential nomination in 1992. Bradley, however, said he wants to make his contribution representing New Jersey. Bradley, a Rhodes scholar from Denville who played basketball for Princeton University and the New York Knicks, is seen as one Northeasterner who would be acceptable in more conservative regions. His wife, Ernestine Schlant Bradley, a professor of German and comparative literature at Montclair State, introduced her husband. Speaking beneath an arch of red, white and blue balloons inside the college's student center, he talked of children, the environment and education. ``I want to make sure the kids of New Jersey get their share,'' he said. Bradley planned a second campaign stop at a water treatment plant outside Camden, N.J., later in the day. The senator is running what is expected to be a $10 million campaign to keep his seat. Aides say most of the money will pay for television advertising in the expensive New York and Philadelphia media markets and fend off possible negative campaigning by the GOP. Republican Christine Todd Whitman, 44, of Far Hills, N.J., said she will run a positive race strictly on the issues, including tax and spending. Bradley declined her challenge to cap his campaign spending at $3 million. He reaffirmed, however, his support Monday for public financing of campaigns, spending limits, limits on contributions by political action committees and reduced television costs for candidates. Mrs. Whitman, former president of the state Board of Public Utilities and a former Somerset County official, anticipates running a $1.5 million race. A possible GOP primary candidate is John Scott, chairman of the Conservative Caucus of New Jersey. Candidates have until April 12 to file for a place on the June 5 primary ballot. As of Friday, no other Democrat had filed. Bradley built a national record through 1986 tax reform and his positions on Third World debt and trade relationships with Canada, Mexico and Japan. In his 1978 race against Republican Jeffrey Bell, Bradley captured 56 percent of the vote. In 1984, he defeated Mary Mochary with 64 percent of the ballots cast.
AP900224-0163 	X	``Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.'' Yo. Edgar Allan Poe, meet Sylvester Stallone. Stallone took a detour during filming of ``Rocky V'' to visit the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, a house where the poet and short-story writer lived for two years. Park ranger Joelle Wagner said Thursday she answered a knock at the locked front door Feb. 12 to find the creator of movie hero Rocky Balboa on the doorstep with co-star Talia Shire and a bodyguard. ``I was flabbergasted,'' she said. ``I had to take a few moments to compose myself.'' As the group toured the three-story structure, one of four houses Poe rented while living in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844, Stallone told Ms. Wagner he had written a movie script about the author of the poem ``The Raven.'' ``He's just in awe of Poe,'' Ms. Wagner said. ``He said he really admired him.'' Stallone, the lead in such action movies as ``Rambo'' and ``Tango and Cash,'' did not say if he wanted to portray Poe, she said. Ms. Wagner said the trio viewed the park's slide show, which describes Poe's life from his childhood in Richmond, Va., his time at West Point and his literary life in Philadelphia, where he was most successful as a poet, short-story writer, literary critic and editor. Poe died in 1849 in Baltimore as he was traveling to New York. Stories at the time said he collapsed in the street of an alcohol or drug overdose. While touring the house, Stallone discussed Poe's life and literary works with his friends, according to Ms. Wagner. ``There wasn't much I could tell him'' about Poe, the park ranger said. She said Stallone bought a book on the writer. Movie publicist Dave Fulton said Stallone wrote the script because he believes the writer ``gets within the soul'' of people and poetry. ``He's a big fan,'' Fulton said. Poe also wrote ``The Fall of the House of Usher,'' ``The Black Cat,'' and ``The Murders of the Rue Morgue,'' which established the mystery or detective short-story form.
AP881102-0007 	X	A man convicted of a felony for munching on grapes at a grocery store was ordered to pay 40 cents in restitution and $600 in court costs. Eli Bradley Jr., 52, could have been imprisoned for up to four years on the charge of larceny from a building. But Jackson County Circuit Judge Russell E. Noble on Wednesday delayed the sentence and said he would consider removing the conviction from Bradley's record if he stayed out of trouble until Oct. 4, 1989. ``I'm going to appeal this because I'm not guilty of no felony,'' Bradley said after the hearing. ``Any felony on your record works against you for the rest of your life. If they can do what they did in this court, nobody is safe in the courts.'' Bradley was arrested March 4 while leaving a grocery store. Security guards testified during his trial that they saw Bradley eating several handfuls of grapes while shopping. Bradley testified that he ate no more than two or three grapes to be sure they were seedless before buying more than 1{ pounds of grapes along with other groceries for $13.25. Prosecutor Joseph Filip offered in June to reduce the charge to misdemeanor shoplifting. Defense lawyer Richard L. Wilkins chose to go to trial on the felony charge, which he considered easier to defend. A jury convicted Bradley in September. ``This matter, in my opinion, could have been handled with much less expense as a misdemeanor, not a felony,'' the judge said Wednesday. Assistant prosecutor Donald Ray said his office probably would oppose removal of the felony conviction next year even if Bradley stayed out of trouble. Filip said the September verdict showed the community agrees that ``we don't want people stealing from stores.'' In the Republican prosecutor's re-election campaign, his Democratic challenger, Paul R. Adams, has chided him as having ``made the county safe for grapes.''
AP900619-0044 	X	``The guy was pointing his gun under people's desks and killing them one by one. I just saw the bottom of the carpet and just prayed.'' _ Rick Langille, a manager at a Florida auto loan agency where a gunman opened fire, killing eight people.
AP900105-0289 	X	The nation's unemployment rate held steady at 5.3 percent last month as gains in service industries offset the ninth consecutive monthly drop in manufacturing jobs, the Labor Department said. The steady civilian jobless rate, which ended 1989 just under the level where it began, gave private analysts hope Friday that the economy's current sluggish growth will not worsen into a recession.
AP881025-0055 	X	Carla Southwell shed tears of joy when she saw her 8-month-old son for the first time since she was jailed almost seven weeks ago for hiding her two daughters from her ex-husband. The tears of joy turned to tears of anguish moments later. ``He didn't even remember me,'' she said, sobbing. The 26-year-old Kent City woman alleges her ex-husband, William Southwell, sexually abused the girls, ages 4 and 5, during unsupervised visits. Southwell, 30, has denied the charges, saying the girls were manipulated by their mother. An ongoing investigation has turned up no evidence that he abused the girls. On Sept. 7, Ms. Southwell was jailed for contempt of court and ordered held until the girls are surrendered. Her fiance, Kelly Erhart, and relatives are caring for the Ms. Southwell's son, fathered by Erhart, who is not part of the court order. In a telephone interview Monday from the Kent County Jail, Ms. Southwell said she shares a cell with 10 to 20 other women, including one facing a murder trial. She said she has had to fight off one attack. ``I do a lot of writing letters, reading, praying,'' Ms. Southwell said. ``And thinking.'' In a videotape shown at a hearing last month, the couple's daughters indicated they had been abused. Ms. Southwell said she has not been in contact with her daughters, but is confident they are safe and healthy. ``I think about them constantly,'' she said, choking back tears. ``This is the worst thing that a loving mother could ever have to go through.'' Before making a decision on custody, Circuit Judge George Buth said he wants the children to be evaluated by the county Department of Protective Services. Otherwise, he said, he fears Ms. Southwell may run away with the girls. ``The children are a battleground in this case,'' Buth said Friday. ``They're the ones suffering.'' Buth said he is concerned that Ms. Southwell made the allegations against her ex-husband during a custody evaluation that was in the father's favor. ``I can't say I've made up my mind whether sexual abuse has occurred,'' said Southwell, also of Kent City. ``If Carla's so sure I sexually abused them, why doesn't she give them up to protective services like the judge ordered so professionals can make a decision? I think my kids' lives need to be straightened out and Carla's not doing that.'' Ms. Southwell, who has had temporary custody of the children, alleges the agency did a poor job in investigating her previous allegations and she said they lack concern for the children. Southwell said custody was recommended for him because his ex-wife denied him access to the children. ``This is the fifth time I've gone over two months without seeing them because Carla wouldn't let me,'' he said. Though a physician testified at a custody hearing that one of the girls had injuries typical of sexual abuse, an investigator with the Sheriff's Department said there was no evidence to prove Southwell was guilty. ``I believe that in her own heart and mind she believes this, but we can't prove that it happened,'' Sgt. Ken Kleinheksel said. ``All we got was a very confused statement from a child.'' Ms. Southwell said she will stay behind bars until she is assured her ex-husband will not have contact with their daughters. ``It's very difficult to accept the fact that I can't see my daughters, but I'll hang on and I'll fight to the last day,'' she said.
AP880620-0136 	X	The Reagan Justice Department was ``asleep at the switch'' three years ago when a Pentagon investigator discovered that defense contractors and private consultants were illegally obtaining Pentagon weapons secrets, Sen. Charles E. Grassley said today. Attorney General Edwin Meese III denied the accusation, saying at a news conference that the prosecution of defense procurement cases has been one of the department's top priorities and that ``at no time has this department had to be dragged into any indictment where the evidence is there.'' Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a floor speech that a top Justice Department official grabbed the microphone from the investigator in October 1985, as the investigator was about to testify about his findings. Grassley, who chaired the House Judiciary subcommittee at the time, said, ``I stopped the hearing at that point. I wish now I hadn't. There wasnt anything in that testimony that could have jeopardized that case.'' ``The public must be made aware of the fact that the Justice Department was asleep at switch,'' Grassley said, because it was investigating a single company and ignoring reports of widespread abuse in procurement, including bribery. The October 1985 testimony alleged that private consultants were regularly receiving classified details about U.S. weapons systems. ``The Justice Department could have pursued this aggressively more than three years ago but they didn't,'' he said in an earlier interview with the Associated Press. The 2-year-old probe has focused chiefly on Navy weapons-buying. It became public last week when FBI and Naval Investigative Service agents conducted coast-to-coast raids on the offices of past and present Pentagon officials, private consultants and contractors. U.S. Attorney Henry Hudson has said privately that perhaps as many as 200 indictments could be expected out of the investigation, a government source said Sunday. In October 1985 Grassley was chairman of the Senate Judiciary administrative practices subcommittee, a panel which he used to examine defense procurement practices. Grassley is a frequent critic of what he calls widespread waste and abuse in Pentagon spending. Grassley said Justice Department officials blocked the testimony of Robert Segal, a Defense Department investigator who was the Pentagon's liaison with the Justice Department's Defense Procurement Fraud Unit. The DPFU was a special Justice Department office set up to investigate waste in the military budget. It was well known in the Justice Department that some elements of the Pentagon and the Justice Department held DPFU in low esteem and there is speculation that when the current allegations first came to light the matter was steered away from the agency and into Hudson's office. Segal, who worked for the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service, was prepared to testify that private consultants regularly received classified Pentagon documents that should not have been available outside the government, Grassley said. Segal also reported at the time that ``many of these (defense) companies appear to have espionage units whose main function is to obtain copies of highly classified documents in order to give their companies a competitive edge,'' Grassley said. Grassley said the allegations predated the current investigation. ``This goes back much before what we're seeing now,'' he said. Segal's testimony, which he never got to deliver but which was released publicly at the time, said that a defense procurement criminal case against GTE Corp. ``is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. ... The investigation involves at least 25 companies. ... Many of those companies are household words. ... The primary focus of the case is ... the indiscriminate distribution of both proprietary and highly classified government documents by individuals within and without the government.'' Justice Department official Victoria Toensing interrupted the key part of Segal's testimony before he could give it and demanded that it be halted, saying that he was touching on areas that concerned criminal matters pending against GTE. After the contents of Segal's testimony came out in the news media, the Justice Department issued a statement saying that ``The release by Sen. Grassley's staff of erroneous, misleading and inflammatory information about a criminal case that is currently pending trial is most unfortunate and regrettable. ... Justice must not be allowed to become a political football.'' Responding to Grassley, Meese told a news conference that ``Investigating and prosecuting defense procurement fraud has been one of the department's top priorities for several years.'' The attorney general said that since 1985, the defense procurement fraud unit has obtained about 43 indictments and criminal informations in significant cases, has obtained 35 convictions and has recovered some $32 million. When asked about Segal's testimony that the department had not vigorously pursued the passing along of confidential information, Meese said that ``I can assure you that at no time has this department had to be dragged into any indictment where the evidence is there.'' Meese also said there were a number of spin-off cases that grew out of the GTE probe which are being prosecuted. He did not identify them. President Reagan, attending a summit meeting of the leaders of western democracies in Toronto, refused to comment Sunday on reports that former Navy Secretary John Lehman Jr. may have warned his longtime ally, military consultant Melvyn Paisley, that Paisley was under investigation. ``I am not going to comment until we have all the information,'' Reagan said. Lehman has not returned numerous phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. Paisley, a former top Navy official and close friend of Lehman, has emerged as a principal target of the investigation. The FBI is looking at Paisley's dealings with a number of major defense contractors that hired him as a consultant shortly after he left his Navy job in April 1987. Grassley said the scandal results from an atmosphere caused by ``a business-as-usual, good-old-boy network where people move from the Pentagon to cushy jobs in private industry and everybody looks out for their friends.'' Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, interviewed on ABC-TV's ``This Week with David Brinkley,'' said the Reagan administration concentrated too much on obtaining more money for the Pentagon, without paying enough attention to how it was being spent. ``We had people being selected for their ideological beliefs, for their salesmanship, but not for good sound management. I think the emphasis has been on salesmanship and getting the money and the management end of it has been the last of the list of priorities,'' said Nunn, D-Ga. His view was echoed by Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who also appeared on the ABC show. ``The decisions in the Lehman Navy were really highly centralized in a few people right around the secretary, John Lehman, and he had a very strong view about people who were with him and people who were against him. And some of the people who were with him may be a little shady characters,'' Aspin said.
AP880425-0300 	X	About 3,000 black autoworkers returned to work Monday after staging a 10-day strike in defiance of their union to protest divestment arrangements made by Ford Motor Co. The wildcat strike began April 15 at the South African Motor Corp.'s main plant in Pretoria. The company, known as SAMCOR, said its entire paid-by-the-hour workforce joined the strike, and the production loss was estimated at between 1,800 to 2,000 vehicles. The workers were protesting an agreement signed last year by Ford, SAMCOR and the National Union of Metalworkers under which Ford donated the bulk of its minority holding in SAMCOR to a trust administered by the workers. The trust was intended to fund development projects in the communities where the workers live. But the workers maintain they should receive the dividends directly. According to an industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the strikers decided to resume work while negotiations with the union continued to resolve the dispute over the dividends. The union had no immediate comment on the matter. Prior to its disinvestment late last year, Ford owned 42 percent of SAMCOR. The corporation was formed in 1985 when Ford and Anglo American Corp., South Africa's largest conglomerate, merged their South African auto operations.
AP880809-0037 	X	England ``celebreighted'' the birth of a royal baby at 8:18 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 1988, tourists ``migreighted'' to the Kentucky town of Eighty Eight, and even mathematicians ``apprecieighted'' the chubby numeral. Buckingham Palace announced Monday that the Duchess of York, wife of Prince Andrew, gave birth to a 6 lb. 12 oz. daughter, their first child, who is fifth in line to the British throne. Mother and child are well, the palace said. A Palace statement said Andrew, the Duke of York and second son of Queen Elizabeth II, was with his wife, the former Sarah Ferguson, when she was ``safely delivered of a daughter at 8:18 p.m. (19:18 GMT) today.'' In Hackensack, N.J., Kelli-Lee O'Brien came into the world at 8:08 a.m. EDT Monday weighing 8 pounds, 8{ ounces. Her mother's doctor, making his eighth delivery in his 2-week-old private practice, has eight children. ``Everybody thought they were joking with all the eights coming up,'' said Jean Werner, head nurse in the delivery unit at Hackensack Medical Center. The magic of 8-8-88 wasn't lost on the Chinese, whose word for eight, ``baat,'' rhymes with ``faat,'' the Cantonese word for prosperity. They threw lavish parties. Merchants in Hong Kong used the date to promote everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken to real estate, while Hong Kong gamblers tested their luck in a special lottery with a sweetened jackpot. Michigan gamblers bought more than 10,520 state Lottery tickets with the 8888 combination, and officials said Connecticut's state lottery sold out its 8888 tickets when sales hit a predetermined limit: $8 million. Tascosa National Bank in Amarillo, Texas, offered 88-day personal certificates of deposit at 8[ percent interest (with a minimum deposit of $8,888). Numerologists said Monday, 8-8-88, was especially lucky for marriage, and thousands of Israeli couples had registered to marry on the date. Reception halls around the country were booked solid, the daily Jerusalem Post reported. In Eighty Eight, Ky., about 500 well-wishers cheered Tom Accardo and Deborah Muhlbeier, who got married at 8:08 p.m. CDT. The bride carried eight white roses. Their 8 foot, 8 inch-long wedding cake was topped with an ``88.'' ``Our marriage is magical. It's just the icing on the cake and I'm telling you it's thick icing,'' said Mrs. Accardo, 34. ``The biggest part of it is the people of Eighty Eight. The town has been incredible.'' The couple had not set a date yet when they learned of the festivities planned in the small farm community of 150 residents, from a television news report in their distant state of Wyoming. ``Deb just looked at me and said, `Wouldn't that be fun to go in there and get married on 8-8-88 in Eighty Eight, Kentucky?''' recalled Accardo, 29, a salesman. In attendance at Eighty Eight was Pearl Russie, who drove up to the Eighty Eight Market in her Oldsmobile Delta 88. Her license plate: ``ANY 88.'' As Ms. Russie, 45, explained: ``I'm an 88 freak.'' Eighty Eight's post office handled 25,000 pieces of mail for people wanting the EIGHTY-EIGHT 8-8-88 cancellation, said Fred Van Fleet, the U.S. Postal Service's area manager. The day also began the centennial anniversary of the American Mathematical Society based in Providence, R.I. ``Eight is, from a standpoint of pure arithmetic, the second cube, the sixth Fibonacci number, and the sum of the first three digits of pi,'' wrote former Scientific American magazine columnist Martin Gardern in a news release. ``Applied to the outside world, eight takes on more glamour as the notes of an octave, the arms of an octopus, the eight-cylinder motor, stock market eighths, the figure-8 knot, the skater's figure 8, the eight-hour work day, behind the eight ball, old Spanish pieces of eight, and the eighth wonder of the world.'' At least until 9-9-99.
AP900225-0056 	X	The leader of the Sajudis reform movement said Sunday that independence for Lithuania could be achieved this year after his group claimed a landslide victory in the Soviet Union's first multiparty election. In balloting for the Baltic republic's 141-seat parliament Saturday, voters appeared to have chosen the country's first legislature not dominated by Communists. The main contenders were the Sajudis Popular Front, which has led the drive for independence, and the reformed Lithuanian Communist Party. On the street outside the Sajudis headquarters, passers-by gathered excitedly around posters announcing the victory. Unofficial returns showed that of the 90 races decided, Sajudis-endorsed candidates took 72 seats and non-Sajudis candidates took 18, said Rita Dapkus, head of the Sajudis information agency. ``If that is not a landslide, then what is?'' Algimantas Cekuolis, a Sajudis officer, said at a news conference Sunday. ``It is a very clear indication of what the people of Lithuania think.'' Sajudis gathered the election results by calling local election commissions, and the tallies were believed to be reliable. Official results were not expected until Monday. Mrs. Dapkus said 45 races had no majority winner and will be decided by runoff votes on March 10, while six were invalidated by insufficient voter turnout or other factors. They will be decided in April. Turnout among the 2.56 million eligible voters was about 75 percent, officials said. Vytautus Landsbergis, Sajudis chairman, said the results showed Lithuanians trust his movement. ``We have a common and very clear goal. Our clear goal is statehood and the independence of Lithuania,'' he said. ``This goal is achievable this year.'' The new Parliament's chief task will be navigating the Baltic republic's difficult course to secession from the Soviet Union. Sajudis wants talks with Moscow to prepare for an orderly secession, which would break a 50-year-old tie that began with Lithuania's occupation by the Red Army in 1940 and its annexation later that year. The movement supports a neutral, sovereign Lithuania characterized by a market economy and guarantees for human and cultural rights. Although Sajudis dominated the voting, Landsbergis did not rule out a strong role for the reformed Communists in a coalition government selected by the new Parliament. He stressed the close ties between Sajudis and reform-minded Communist Party members. ``Probably we will not ignore the party as an administrative power and partner,'' said Landsbergis, who easily won election as a parliament deputy from northern Lithuania. But, he said, the hard-line Communists, who oppose independence, would probably not be welcome in the coalition. The participation by Sajudis and at least six other parties in parliamentary elections was a first in the Soviet Union. In December, Lithuania became the first of the 15 Soviet republics to legalize non-Communist parties. The reform Communists won 22 seats, but 13 of those were in districts where they were backed by Sajudis. Candidates from the Lithuanian chapter of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which remains loyal to Moscow and opposes full independence, won seven seats. Two non-party independents also won seats without Sajudis backing. The Communist winners included the party's first secretary, and Lithuanian President Algirdas Brazauskas, who in December defied Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and led his party to split with moscow. Among the 72 Sajudis winners were 46 independents, 13 reform Communists, nine Social Democrats, two Greens and two Christian Democrats. Moldavians voted Sunday in their first free elections under Soviet rule and expressed hopes their new Parliament would be able to win greater sovereignty from Moscow. The main challenger to the Communists in Moldavia was the Moldavian Popular Front, which likes to compare itself to Sajudis. The Red Army occupied Lithuania in June 1940 in accordance with the secret terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union divided central Europe between themselves. Lithuania's old Parliament was coerced into voting to join the Soviet Union the next month, and Lithuania was formally annexed by the Soviets on Aug. 24, 1940. Lithuania had emerged as an independent state in 1918 with the collapse of the Russian empire in World War I.
AP880913-0152 	X	Standing on South Africa's doorstep, Pope John Paul II called on the people of this desert nation Tuesday to assist victims of racial discrimination who are ``deprived of their legitimate rights.'' The pope, on a one-day visit to diamond-rich and bone-dry Botswana, praised the nation as ``an island of peace in a troubled sea.'' Botswana, a landlocked country of 1.1 million people, has never fought a battle in its 22 years of independence despite bordering such turbulent places as Angola, Mozambique, South-West Africa and South Africa. ``You are a peace-loving and friendly people who believe in the basic equality and human dignity of every man and woman,'' the pontiff told about 2,000 people who greeted him at the airport, including a choir of bare-breasted, teen-age schoolgirls. Later, in a speech at the Cathedral of Christ the King, the pontiff clearly referred to South Africa and its apartheid policies of racial segregation, without mentioning the country by name. ``You have witnessed the plight of those who are subjected by law to discrimination,'' the pontiff told the audience in Gaborone, 10 miles from South Africa's northern border. ``I gladly support your desire to be close to those who are unjustly deprived of their legitimate rights and lack decent living conditions.'' The pope arrived Tuesday from Zimbabwe, the first stop on his five-nation tour of southern Africa. He travels Wednesday to Lesotho, a mountain kingdom surrounded by South Africa, where he is likely to make additional comments on apartheid. The pontiff is not visiting South Africa on this trip but the Vatican has said he may do so in the future. At an afternoon mass in Botswana's national stadium, John Paul renewed his call for regional peace to a crowd of 50,000 _ more than Botswana's entire Catholic population of 45,000. Several thousand of those attending were from South Africa, according to church officials. ``What are the causes of humanity's fears?'' the pontiff said. ``It is the absence of justice and peace in our lives, and in the world, that so often troubles us and arouses our fears.'' ``Nation still lifts sword against nation. There is much training for war,'' he said. South Africa has raided Botswana several times in past years killing alleged guerrillas of the African National Congress. The pope was serenaded by several hundred members of a women's choir and received gifts from Catholic parishes around the country. Two parishes from western Botswana brought crosses they had carried by foot and car across the Kalahari desert, which makes up 80 percent of Botswana. Botswana has a Western-style, multiparty democracy, a rarity in Africa. Diamond mines make it relatively wealthy on the continent but it remains heavily dependent economically on South Africa. On papal matters, the Vatican said Tuesday the pope would return to Africa next year, with stops in Tanzania and the island nation of Madagascar. There has been speculation that the trip, expected next May, also may include Angola and South Africa. Vatican spokesman Joaquim Navarrro, traveling with the pope, said neither country was ``on the program,'' although he confirmed that Angolan bishops had recently sent an invitation to the pope.
AP900503-0209 	X	A jury was selected Thursday for Raymond Buckey's second trial in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case, the longest and costliest criminal proceeding in U.S. history. The seating of 12 regular jurors and six alternates came less than a month after attorneys began their inquiry to find panelists unbiased by publicity surrounding the first Buckey trial. Opening statements were set for Monday. Buckey, 31, who has been a defendant for nearly seven years, was acquitted of 40 molestation charges Jan. 18, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, was acquitted of 12 charges. But prosecutors decided to retry Buckey on eight counts on which the jury deadlocked. A total of 13 charges were unresolved by that jury, but the prosecution dropped five of those counts. The first trial lasted nearly three years and cost $13 million. The eight remaining charges being tried involve three children who attended the now defunct McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach _ a dramatically diminished group compared to the hundreds once described as alleged victims. Buckey and his lawyers, who had hoped for dismissal of all remaining charges, have accused District Attorney Ira Reiner of playing politics with the case. They say he decided to retry Buckey to further his own ambitions to become California attorney general. Reiner has denied any ulterior motives. Parents of McMartin school children campaigned loudly to have Buckey retried in the week after his acquittal on most charges. They conducted a letter-writing campaign, went on national TV talk shows and held press conferences to espouse their views. Deputy District Attorneys Joe Martinez and Pam Ferrero have said they hope the new trial can be concluded in six months. But Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg warned prospective jurors at the outset that the trial could continue into 1991.
AP880821-0040 	X	Three men and a women fled East Germany Sunday by swimming across a river to West Berlin, narrowly avoiding a patrol boat and clambering up a river bank to safety, news reports and West Berlin officials said. West Berlin police said the woman in the group injured a foot in the early evening swim of about 260 feet across Berlin's Spree River. The others were uninjured. West Germany's ARD television showed video footage of the escapees swimming the last 10 feet to the West Berlin bank just as the East German patrol boat approached a few yards away. ARD said the film was taken by a Briton who happened to be on the western bank at the time. The report did not provide the names of the escapees or of the person taping the scene. The Wall separating communist East Berlin from West Berlin is located on the eastern side of the river at the spot where the escape took place. However, the western bank of the river is the actual border, with the water in East Berlin territory. A West Berlin police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said East German border guards did not shoot or otherwise attempt to stop the escapees. No shots were fired from the patrol boat. Police said they did not know how the four got past the Wall, which is 10 feet high in most sections. The three western sectors of Berlin are controlled by the United States, Britain and France. East Berlin is the Soviet sector of the city, which is located 110 miles east of the West German border.
AP900511-0141 	X	A court-appointed trustee says he will sell Jim Bakker's former satellite network to Oral Roberts University for $6 million at the end of the month unless he finds a buyer for the entire PTL complex. ``I do have a firm deal with Oral Roberts University. However, in the contract, I expressly reserved the right to sell all the assets until the point of approval of the sale of just the network,'' the trustee, lawyer Dennis Shedd, said Thursday. The 500-acre Heritage USA Christian retreat founded by Bakker in Fort Mill and 1,700 acres of undeveloped PTL land in South Carolina have been for sale along with PTL's broadcasting holdings since April 1988. Shedd filed legal papers in Columbia on Thursday asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thurmond Bishop to approve the sale of just the television production equipment and PTL satellite and cable leases to the Tulsa, Okla.-based university May 31. The Roberts ministry has been plagued by tight finances, especially since donations to television evangelists plummeted following the 1987 scandals of Jimmy Swaggart and Bakker. In September, Oral Roberts, a 72-year-old faith healer, closed his City of Faith hospital and medical school and put his home and other ministry-owned property on the market to repay $25 million in debts. The Tulsa World newspaper quoted Roberts' son Richard as saying God told his father ``in what my dad believes is his last major charge from God, to create a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week global Christian, charismatic healing network.'' Richard Roberts said regents approved the offer this week, and the university made a down payment of $1 million raised from longtime backers. Mark Swadener, chief financial officer for the ministries, told the newspaper he thought the network could provide a vital source of revenue for the university. He called the plan to purchase the network ``an act of faith.'' The ministry also was seeking guaranteed access to the airwaves at a time when secular networks are displacing evangelists on Sunday mornings in favor of news shows and cartoons, the newspaper reported. Bakker was convicted last fall of fraudulently raising $158 million from PTL contributors and is serving a 45-year prison sentence in a federal prison in Minnesota. In Charlotte, N.C., the evangelist who introduced Bakker to church secretary Jessica Hahn pleaded guilty to lying to a federal grand jury about why he set up the meeting, which eventually led to Bakker's downfall. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Potter was expected to sentence John Wesley Fletcher later this month, Fletcher's lawyer said Thursday. The perjury count could carry a sentence of eight to 14 months. Fletcher denied during a September 1987 appearance before the grand jury that he brought Miss Hahn to a hotel to have sex with Bakker. He later testified he had lied. The broadcast network purchased by Roberts is operating with a skeleton staff of about 10 employees. It broadcasts shows produced by other evangelists such as Jerry Falwell, James Robison and Richard Roberts. At the time PTL declared bankruptcy in June 1987, the satellite network was carried on 1,300 cable systems that had 12 million subscribers. According to court papers filed Thursday, that has slipped to 800 systems with 6.4 million subscribers. Even in its weakened condition, the PTL network would be a major plum for Roberts, said Jerry Rose, president of the National Religious Broadcasters Association. ``You're still talking about a major network that has an awful lot of potential,'' Rose said. Besides PTL, there are four other religious satellite networks in the United States: Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, the Southern Baptist Convention's ACTS network, Paul Crouch's Trinity Network and Jimmy Allen's LIFE TV. Other evangelists such as Roberts buy time on those four networks.
AP900928-0022 	X	``Fear matters,'' says Georgia State University economic forecaster Donald Ratajczak, so it doesn't surprise him if the Bush administration is dancing away from using the word ``recession'' to describe the state of the economy. It doesn't surprise Alfred Kahn, either. A retired Cornell University professor, Kahn was chairman of President Carter's Council on Wage and Price Stability. He recalls what happened in 1978 when he suggested that unless inflation were brought under control pronto the nation might face a deep depression. Stuart Eizenstat, a presidential aide, called up and asked him if he might just quit using that word. So next time out, Kahn used ``banana'' when he meant ``depression.'' He talked about The Great Banana of 1929. He said if inflation weren't brought under control, the nation might have a big banana. Kahn learned a political lesson. Fear matters and words alone can trigger fear. Recession is a loaded word, and economists who can't agree on whether the country is in one yet concur that the word itself can spur one on. ``Fear matters,'' said Georgia State's Ratajczak. ``But obviously what's in the pocketbook matters, too. If the pocketbook is still jingling, fear can soon be overcome.'' ``People start looking at their budgets and seeing what they can live without. They tend to make business slow down when they do that,'' said Bob Dieli, an economist for the Northern Trust Co. of Chicago. Small wonder that when the bad news came out Tuesday, six weeks before an election, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, ``We don't believe we are in a recession right now.'' He was commenting on the Commerce Department's report that the economy grew at a stagnant annual rate of 0.45 percent in the second quarter of this year. And small wonder, at least to linguist Walker Gibson, that Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, says he'd like to redefine recession. Gibson is founder of the Committee on Public Doublespeak of the National Council of Teachers of English. The usual definition is that a recession occurs after six months of decline in the gross national product, the total value of new goods and services in the nation. Greenspan told Congress last week he'd prefer a less rigid definition. A true recession, he said, is a ``cumulative unwinding of economic activity.'' Richard Rahn, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said he can't blame the White House for refusing to label the economy's current state a recession. ``If I were the president, I wouldn't say we were in a recession, either,'' Rahn said. ``They are not in a position to give judgment calls the way we and other outsiders are. They are the guardian of the statistics. They need to be very, very cautious.'' The fear that the word recession triggers, said Gibson, tells something about language itself. The word ``recession,'' he said, ``almost certainly started as a euphemism for an even more fearsome word, depression. ``But it's been used so long as a euphemism that it's lost its power to euphemize,'' he said. ``Now they talk about `downturns.'''
AP900110-0091 	X	Police blocked highways today, and an official said 15,000 people were detained following the assassination of a former defense minister, the most prominent victim of the nation's 10-year-old guerrilla war. Enrique Lopez Albujar was killed Tuesday when three Shining Path rebels armed with machine guns killed him near a shopping center in a Lima suburb, police said. He died at a military hospital with at least 10 bullet wounds. Witnesses said the four gunmen fled in an automobile. Police units aided by six helicopters searched through Lima and its outskirts Tuesday night and early today, stopping about 8,000 cars in a search for suspects, police said. Most of the 15,000 detained were taken in for not carrying documents and are expected to be released in the next few days, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on condition of anonymity. Lopez was the first person who had served on the Cabinet to be killed in guerrilla violence that has claimed the lives of hundreds of federal and local officials _ more than 130 in 1989 alone. The main guerrilla faction is the Shining Path, a fanatical Maoist-inspired group that has been fighting to topple Peru's elected governments since 1980. Witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press said Lopez had an office in the shopping center and usually arrived at the same time every day, often accompanied by a bodyguard. Speaking to reporters at the government palace, President Alan Garcia said Lopez was entitled to a military guard and that he didn't understand why Lopez was alone when he was attacked. ``It pains me and I regret that he was alone in spite of the situation of war we are living in,'' Garcia said. Lopez was named the country's first defense minister by Garcia, taking office in 1987 when the ministry was formed. Previously, the army, navy and air force had their own ministries. He served until May, when he was replaced by army Gen. Julio Velasquez. Shining Path began its insurgency in Ayacucho, in the Andes mountains 235 from the capital. In the past year, it has stepped up assaults in Lima. Last fall, it tried to disrupt municipal elections by killing local officials across Peru. But Peruvians defied death threats and turned out in large numbers to vote on Nov. 12. Peruvians expect the Shining Path to step up attacks as presidential elections slated for April draw closer. The Shining Path operates throughout the highlands, including in the Huallaga Valley, part of the coca-producing jungle in the northeast and the single largest source of coca-leaf in the world. Authorities say the rebels operate in league with drug-traffickers in the valley, protecting them from police in exchange for a share of drug profits. The government says more than 17,500 people, including government forces, civilians, guerrillas and American reporter Todd Smith of The Tampa Tribune have been killed in the insurgency. Authorities routinely accuse the Shining Path of massacring peasants, but in November Amnesty International accused government forces of becoming equally savage in their effort to crush the insurgency. The London-based human rights group said both sides were guilty of torture, mutilation and murder.
AP900115-0125 	X	Here are the number of times members of the House were mentioned on nightly news programs on CBS, NBC and ABC in 1987 and 1988, according to a new study. The list contains the names of some members who are no longer members. It also contains the names of members who were elected after the study closed, denoted by an ``X'' following the name.
AP900329-0213 	X	A major shareholder of embattled General Development Corp. has outlined a rescue plan calling for the sale of assets of the scandal-plagued Florida builder. United Capital Corp. filed the restructuring plan Wednesday in response to a letter from the indicted builder saying serious inquiries had been received about buying the Miami-based company, its assets or stock. GDC pleaded guilty to a mail-fraud conspiracy charge March 22 in federal court amid allegations the company priced 10,000 homes well above fair market values and kept buyers from learning the difference. United Capital, a New York-based real estate company that holds 12.6 percent of GDC's common stock, has asked GDC's board to delay any major decisions until its annual meeting May 4 to give stockholders a voice in the company's future. United Capital paid an average of almost $13 a share for GDC stock in 1988. GDU stock was up 50 cents to $4.75 a share in early New York Stock Exchange trading today. The restructuring plan filed by United Capital with the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed selling the company's time-sharing and utility businesses and undeveloped commercial property. The plan also offered short-term operating funds and pledged to complete infrastructure improvements in GDC's planned communities, a big worry for homeowners. GDC acknowledged it ``is experiencing severe financial pressures in large part'' because of the criminal investigation. In a separate SEC filing Tuesday, United Capital called for the ouster of six directors and suggested a replacement slate. GDC responded Wednesday by naming Chesterfield Smith, a senior partner with the Tampa-based law firm of Holland & Knight, to fill one of the vacancies left by the resignation of GDC's top two executives days before the indictment. Smith is a former president of the American Bar Association. ``It's my hope that whatever harmed (GDC's) reputation in the past, my associates and I will correct,'' Smith said. Prosecutors alleged that the 35-year-old GDC, which has developed nine Florida communities, pitched its houses at inflated prices primarily to out-of-state buyers looking for retirement homes.
AP900416-0155 	X	Mario Vargas Llosa said Monday he will continue his presidential campaign and participate in an election runoff against Alberto Fujimori, a political neophyte now favored to win Peru's presidency. ``I will go to the second round fighting for the reforms that our country needs,'' the celebrated novelist said in a brief statement following a two-hour meeting with campaign strategists and leaders of his center-right Democratic Front coalition. Vargas Llosa said he had been ready to end his candidacy to save Peru the turmoil of two more months of election campaigning but was persuaded to continue for the good of this Andean nation, wracked by economic problems and a violent guerrilla uprising. He had been seriously considering dropping out of the runoff election after a disappointing showing in the April 8 opening round, according to key figures in his campaign. Fujimori, the descendent of Japanese immigrants and a political unknown when he started the campaign, ran a close second to Vargas Llosa and has emerged as a favorite in the runoff because he is expected to pick up the support of voters who favored leftist candidates. Vargas Llosa said a major factor in his decision was the constitutional requirement for a runoff if no candidate receives a majority of votes, effectively barring by law from withdrawing his name from the second round. That appeared to confirm reports he was participating in the runoff, expected to be held in late May or early June, to fulfill a legal requirement and was not enthusiastic about continuing his presidential campaign. Key supporters said the novelist had been considering dropping out because he was reportedly discouraged by the prospect that he would lose the runoff or, if he won, face the prospect of governing the country without control of Congress. Vargas Llosa, author of such celebrated books as ``The Green House,'' ``Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter'' and ``Converations in The Cathedral,'' went into seclusion with his family last Wednesday to mull over the decision on whether to continue the race. He said Monday night hoped the second round of campaigning would produce a ``clean debate'' on the best ways to solve Peru's problems. News commentators and political figures close to the writer had said earlier Monday they were convinced he would stay in the race. Some of Vargas Llosa's closest supporters have stressed the need for a runoff to ensure that Peru's next president can claim a popular mandate to deal with the country's problems. Due to the growing violence by the Shining Path guerrillas and the country's severe economic problems, Peru needs a president elected with majority support, Manuel d'Ornellas, editor of the Expreso newspaper and a close friend of the writer, said last week. ``The mandate that Fujimori would receive after Vargas Llosa's resignation could be questioned in the future, opening the doors to a possible military coup,'' d'Ornellas wrote in a column in his paper. Fujimori had been given little chance of making the second round a month ago. But a late surge propelled him into second place in the field of nine candidates. Vargas Llosa had hoped for a majority to avoid a second round but received only 32 percent of the votes. Fujimori, an agricultural engineer and former university rector running as an independent, received nearly 30 percent. Fujimori is favored in the runoff because Vargas Llosa is unlikely to receive support from the left-of-center ruling Aprista Party and Peru's leftist parties. Vargas Llosa harshly criticized the leftists' policies, while Fujimori conducted a conciliatory campaign. Fujimori avoided specifics in his campaign, stressing instead general goals like improved health care and revitalized industry. Analysts say Fujimori also benefited from voter concerns about the harsh economic austerity measures advocated by Varsa Llosa and suspicions about the old-line politicians in the Democratic Front. The Democratic Front also fell far short of gaining a majority in the congressional elections. Without support in Congress, Vargas Llosa would have great problems as president imposing his economic austerity program aimed at reviving Peru's moribund economy.
AP900614-0002 	X	The bodies of two climbers missing on Mount McKinley were found by rescue helicopters hovering near the 16,000-foot level of North America's tallest peak, a National Park Service spokesman said. The bodies of Michael Koshuta, 33, of Centreville, Va., and Stuart Jones, 29, of Washington state were spotted Tuesday afternoon, said spokesman John Quinley. No hometown was immediately available for Jones. The men were declared missing Tuesday, one day after a troubled Japanese climbing party that suffered the season's first fatality was airlifted off the mountain. There was no effort to remove the bodies from the 15,800-level because of the slope of the mountain and the threat of avalanche. Officials will decide later when it will be safe to return, Quinley said. The men were roped together and appeared to have died after a fall, the spokesman said. They were last sighted June 1 at the 16,100-foot level. Mount McKinley is 20,320 feet tall. Koshuta and Jones were experienced mountaineers who had climbed elsewhere in the Denali Range, Quinley said. There were no immediate clues as to what caused the accident or when it happened. The two climbers were scheduled to complete their descent four days ago. Three food caches they left along their planned route down the mountain hadn't been touched, Quinley said. Denali National Park rangers began looking for them Monday as rangers and two Army Chinook helicopters rescued three frostbitten, ill Japanese climbers and lowered the body of a fourth Japanese to 14,000 feet. The helicopters began looking for the missing Americans on Tuesday. The body of Hairoaki Ito, who died Sunday of altitude sickness, was expected to remain at 14,000 feet until friends could arrange for its removal or until an Army helicopter is called to the area on other business, Quinley said.
AP901206-0061 	X	The man accused of killing Rabbi Meir Kahane says he believes a Jewish man shot the militant Jewish leader to death, according to reports published today. State Supreme Court Justice Alvin Schlesinger set bail Wednesday at $300,000 for El Sayyid Nosair, 35, of Cliffside Park, N.J., during a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court. Nosair is accused of shooting Kahane to death Nov. 5 as the rabbi finished speaking to a Jewish group at a midtown Manhattan hotel. He also is accused of wounding two other men and threatening a third while fleeing. He was stopped when a U.S. Postal Service police officer shot him in the neck a block from the hotel. New York Newsday and The New York Times reported today that Nosair gave a statement to police in which he said he believed a Jewish man did the shooting. Newsday said Nosair claimed the gun was placed next to him as he lay wounded in the street. Nosair also said in the statement that he went to see Kahane's lecture because he agreed with much of Kahane's anti-Arab rhetoric. Groups of Jews and Arabs nearly came to blows in a raucous confrontation outside the courtroom at Wednesday's hearing. ``No bail for murderers!'' yelled the Jews, and the Arabs shouted, ``God is great! Thanks be to God!'' as they met in the 13th-floor hallway. Nosair's lawyer, Michael Warren, was accompanied by an Egyptian lawyer, Abdel Halim Mandour, who said he was helping in the case. Nosair came to this country from Egypt in 1981. ``We will raise the bail as quickly as we can,'' Warren said. Warren had asked that bail be set at $100,000. He said Nosair had never been arrested before, has a wife and child and other relatives here, and was a responsible city employee. Nosair, a university-trained engineer, worked as a boiler tender. Assistant District Attorney William Greenbaum opposed bail, telling Schlesinger that the prosecution had witnesses, the murder weapon and ballistics evidence to tie the defendant to the crimes. Schlesinger scheduled another hearing for March 4.
AP880309-0390 	X	Unisys Corp., striving to show its commitment to standards in the computer industry, announced technology agreements Wednesday with American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Unisys said the agreements would bolster its use of Unix, a computer operating system or ``traffic cop'' that was developed by AT&T and is gaining popularity among commercial computer users. In addition to working with AT&T to enhance Unix, Unisys said it was licensing a computer chip design from Sun Microsystems, known as Sparc, that would be used in future Unisys computers running Unix. Unisys, the world's third-largest computer company, said its strong support for Unix set it apart from its two larger rivals, International Business Machines Corp. and Digital Equipment Corp. The company said its business based on Unix doubled last year and amounts to more than $500 million a year. ``There's no doubt by now that Unix is going to be a very sizable portion of the information systems industry,'' Jan Lindelow, Unisys senior vice president for corporate marketing and services, said in an interview.
AP900713-0082 	X	A woman who has camped for two years in front of the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. died was ordered today to get out of the way of workmen building a museum. Chancery Court Judge George Lewis said he would send in sheriff's deputies at noon Saturday to move protester Jacqueline Smith if she defied his order. Ms. Smith promised to stay. ``Right now, I don't have no intention of moving no place,'' she said as she left Lewis' courtroom. Lewis denied her request to delay the hearing days while she tried to find a lawyer to represent her. He said she has had ample time to find a lawyer. Ms. Smith has been camped on a sidewalk in front of the Lorraine Motel, where she was a former employee and resident, since March 1988. She contends the motel should be used as housing for the homeless, not as a museum. King was assassinated at the Lorraine in 1968. The $9 million museum, called The National Civil Rights Center, is being built by the state, county and city governments. It is to open July 4, 1991. Lewis said Ms. Smith must carry on her protest somewhere other than the museum site. She has refused requests to move to a sidewalk across the street. ``The court has no alternative except to order her out of the way of the construction,'' Lewis said. His order came on a petition from Jameson-Vaccaro Construction Co. Inc., the primary contractor for the museum. Anthony Vaccaro, project manager, said Ms. Smith is camped in a spot that must be torn up for utility lines.
AP880906-0206 	X	Trading of stock-index futures has begun in Japan, theoretically giving investors a new opportunity to protect themselves if and when the big rally in the world's largest securities market ends. Although stock-index futures have been blamed by some critics for playing a significant role in the October stock market crash in the United States, there seems to be little concern the same thing could happen in Japan, where trading in index futures began Saturday.
AP901024-0243 	X	Avon Products Inc. said Wednesday its third quarter profit jumped 29 percent on slightly higher sales of its beauty goods. Avon earned $44.6 million, or 63 cents a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30 compared to $34.6 million, 46 cents a share, a year earlier., Sales rose 5.9 percent to $830.8 million from $785.1 million in the same quarter of 1989. For the first nine months of 1990, Avon's profit rose 34 percent to $107.3 million, $1.42 a share, compared with $80.3 million, 97 cents a share, a year ago. Nine-month sales jumped 3 percent to $2.33 billion from $2.27 billion in 1989. ``Our strong third quarter reflects continued profit improvements in the U.S. and the Americas, continued reduction in interest expense and a lower tax rate,'' said James E. President, president and chief executive officer of the New York-based company. Third-quarter sales in the company's international unit jumped 8 percent while those for Avon's domestic unit rose 2 percent. The company cut its debt during the quarter to $603.3 million, down from $1.09 billion at the same time last year and $838.1 million at the end of 1989. Avon is trying to sell half of its 60 percent interest in its Japanese subsidiary and should know soon if the transaction can be completed this year, Preston said.
AP901009-0030 	X	The dollar narrowed losses against the Japanese yen and ended slightly lower Tuesday in Tokyo following approval by the U.S. Senate of a deficit reduction plan. Share prices erased early gains and fell. The dollar ended the day at 129.95 yen, down 0.10 yen from Monday's 130.05-yen close. It opened lower at 129.65 yen and ranged between 128.95 yen and 130.35 yen. Tuesday's close was the lowest since Mar. 15, 1989, when the dollar closed at 129.88 yen. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 134.89 points, or 0.57 percent, ending at 23,495.11. The index at late afternoon fell about 550 points from the day's high before narrowing the losses toward the end of the afternoon session, traders said. They said the index fell as market players, discouraged by the slowdown in the yen's surge against the dollar, started selling issues. Meanwhile, the dollar inched up in mixed trading after opening lower following a ``substantial amount'' of dollar selling in the Sydney market, which opens earlier than Tokyo, dealers said. They said the dollar turned upward in the late morning when the Bank of Japan made ``rate check'' phone calls to some Japanese banks. A rate check does not involve any market activity, but is a tactic the central bank uses to make banks voluntarily refrain from too much dollar selling. Also, reports that the U.S. Senate gave final approval to a $500 billion deficit-reduction plan helped support the dollar, said Yoshikazu Kuroda, a dealer with Fuji Bank. The Senate passed an emergency bill on a voice vote Monday night that would let the government open normally Tuesday morning and the House concurred, 362-3. The vote came just as dollar trading closed in Tokyo. The White House said President Bush would sign the legislation and that all federal employees should report to work as scheduled. But the dollar will remain weak despite temporary fluctuations, according to Toru Kanai, a foreign exchange analyst with New Japan Securities Co. ``There are no positive factors to encourage dollar buying now,'' he said. ``In addition to already serious worries over the U.S. economy, market players are heavily discouraged by the House's disapproval of the budget plan,'' Kanai said. Expectations that the Federal Reserve Board will lower interest rates are also depressing the dollar, dealers said.
AP900516-0060 	X	Clashes between government troops and Communist rebels in the northern and central Philippines have left 25 people dead, the military said today. Troops killed 11 rebels and suffered six dead in an encounter Monday with an undetermined number of Communist New People's Army guerrillas in the town of Claveria, 270 miles north of Manila, a military report said. A separate report said four soldiers and one rebel were killed Tuesday when a guerrilla band ambushed a military patrol on the central island of Negros, 300 miles south of Manila. In the Negros city of Bacolod, two rebels were killed in a shootout with troops Tuesday, one day after a soldier was gunned down by suspected rebels. The rebel army, which operates in most of the Philippines' 73 provinces, has been fighting for 21 years to establish a Marxist government in the country.
AP881203-0140 	X	Federal inspectors say they were impressed with the pilots at Continental Airlines and found no serious flaws with the management. The Federal Aviation Administration reported Friday on the Continental inspection, conducted in October, which did find some shortcomings in record-keeping and listed 142 specific items in which there were technical violations of federal regulations. Among the concerns raised by the FAA inspection team were that Continental pilots on numerous occasions did not get enough rest between flights, that records were incomplete and that manuals often were not up to date. The inspection by a special team of investigators was similar to those regularly scheduled at all major air carriers and not prompted by any specific incident or concern. Many of the 142 violations cited in the report were not considered to be major. For example, a flight attendant was found with no flashlight, ``fasten seat belt'' signs were found missing on the back of some aircraft seats, and an inspector observed two pilots eating their meals at the same time while at cruising altitude _ all technical violations of regulations. Among other items cited in the report were pilots who failed to record maintenance discrepancies in a log after items were fixed, a pilot not making proper altitude callouts during a landing and a crew failing to use an anti-ice mechanism while descending in possible icing conditions. But the team of FAA inspectors said that overall, ``team members were very impressed with the professionalism displayed by Continental cockpit and cabin crews while conducting en route inspections. Cockpit resource management was evident on all flights.'' The FAA report said the inspectors conducted 358 en route inspections at Continental beginning last Oct. 13. The FAA said Continental's management ``is adequate for the scope of the operation'' but that at times there are problems with the flow of information from upper and middle management to first-line supervisors and personnel. Flight and training manuals have not been brought up to date because of the introduction of a wide array of aircraft to the airline as it expanded and absorbed other air carriers, the FAA said. Some manuals were not accurate in the location of some emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers on certain aircraft, the report said. The inspection team said that Continental's training program ``is in compliance'' with regulations but it said training records did not always clearly reflect in summary sheets when a pilot's performance was unsatisfactory. In addition, inspectors were not able to adequately determine whether Continental pilots are in full compliance with flight and duty regulations because of poor record-keeping. ``On numerous occasions Continental Airlines flight crews received less than the (amount) of reduced rest required by Continental's operations manual pilot scheduling policy,'' said the report.
AP881226-0111 	X	Radioactive gas leaked from the Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant for 10 minutes Monday morning, but no one was injured and there was no danger to the public or employees, a spokeswoman said. The release of xenon-krypton occurred while technicians were taking a test sample, Northeast Utilities spokeswoman Barbara Luce. She said the accident did not affect operations at the plant. The spokeswoman said the release was measured as two-hundredths of a millirem, a unit used to measure radiation exposure. By comparison, she said, a diagnostic chest x-ray involves between 20 and 30 millirems of radiation. Luce also said that there are daily, planned releases of the gas of less than a millirem. The gas is produced during fission. The utility notifed state and government officials of the accident and were investigating, Luce said.
AP880811-0094 	X	Here are provisions of the drought relief bill that President Reagan signed today. The new law: _ Authorizes $3.9 billion for relief for drought-stricken farmers. _ Provides payments for farmers who lose more than 35 percent of their crops because of drought, hail, excessive moisture and related problems. _ Furnishes 65 percent of income lost from damage to the portion of the farmer's harvest exceeding the 35 percent level, and provides 90 percent of income lost from damage to the portion of the crop exceeding the 75 percent level. _ Combines two existing livestock feed assistance programs and streamlines machinery for making it available to farmers who otherwise would produce their own feed. _ Caps benefits at $100,000 for each individual. Bars benefits for those with $2 million or more a year in gross farm income. _ Requires that those who receive crop loss benefits must purchase federal crop insurance next year if their losses this year total more than 65 percent. _ Provides that farmers will not have to return income-support payments received in advance if their losses represent less than 35 percent of their crop. This helps producers whose payment level has been lowered by drought. _ Requires producers receiving disaster benefits on 35 percent to 100 percent of their crop to repay these advance income-support, or ``deficiency,'' payments but not until July 31, 1989. _ Blocks an increase of 50 cents for each 100 pounds of weight in the dairy price-support level that was scheduled for January. Increases the level by 50 cents a hundredweight for April, May and June of next year. _ Allows the Agriculture Department to sell corn to ethanol producers at reduced prices but limit participation to producers who use no more than 30 million bushels of ethanol annually. The secretary of agriculture is free not to implement the program.
AP900911-0002 	X	President Bush won resounding bipartisan praise Tuesday for a speech explaning his Persian Gulf policy as a leading Democrat warned Iraq's leader that if he starts a war, ``we will finish it.'' But Democrats showed less enthusiasm for portions of the president's address to lawmakers that emphasized the inability of congressional budget negotiators to reach a deal on the deficit. Moments after Bush assured Congress that Iraq's aggression against Kuwait would fail, House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., responded in the official Democratic reaction: ``The president has asked for our support. He has it.'' Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, of Kansas, said, ``If there are any fence-sitters on the president's decisons in the Middle East, this speech ought to push them off the fence.'' Dole said Bush reminded lawmakers that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ``has sounded the wake-up call on the defense front. It's a little premature to be spending a peace dividend when we're deploying 140,000 troops on the sands of Saudi Arabia.'' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., a frequent Bush critic, was just as effusive on the Persian Gulf policy, saying Congress ``has real respect for what has been achieved by the president in marshalling the international community.'' But Kennedy was among Democrats expressing some discord over Bush's comments that ``Most Americans are sick and tired of endless battles in the Congress and between the branches over budget matters.'' ``The use by the administration of this crisis in order to enhance the defense budget,'' Kennedy said, ``will not be tolerated or accepted.'' Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, ``Democrats are quite angry'' about Bush's remarks on the budget, and added, ``If the president and the Republicans think that because of the Persian Gulf they are riding high and can get their way on a budget agreement, that's not going to happen. This speech didn't help on the budget.'' Bush was called ``a courageous leader'' by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H. said the president gave ``a very tough, steely speech. He just drew the line. It's important that the American people continually be reinformed and reinforced as to what the stakes are here.'' Rep. Larry Smith, D-Fla., a frequent critic of Republican policies, backed the president's prediction that Saddam Hussein's aggression would fail, saying he hopes Saddam ``gets the message and begins to act on it.'' But he said Bush could have could have acted more quickly in trying to get American civilians out of Kuwait and Iraq before they became hostages. That remark did not sit well with House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich, of Georgia, who countered, ``I don't know of any practical method by which we could have intervened once the invasion took place.'' House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin, D-Wis., said Bush broke little new ground, but ``essentially laid out in one document a very comprehensive argument for our position in the Gulf.'' Gephardt contrasted his party's backing for the administration with criticism of Germany and Japan for not doing enough to support Operation Desert Shield. While concentrating on the United States' response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Gephardt also stumped for the Democratic position in crucial budget talks, reminded Americans of Bush's new willingness to raise taxes, and called for cuts in expensive defense programs. And he indirectly criticized Bush and his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, for the lack of an energy policy during the past decade. Gephardt said the United States was in the Persian Gulf ``not simply for oil, or to save emirs and kings, but to defend the most fundamental values of a more stable and decent world.'' ``Firmly, clearly and unequivocally, wemust say to (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein: Let our people go. Let Kuwait go. And if you start a war, know that we will finish it.'' Declaring that the nation's vital interests are at stake, Gephardt said ``We cannot and will not permit the invading forces of a fanatical regime to control half of all the oil reserves which are the lifeblood of the world economy.'' Criticizing German and Japanese contributions so far for Operation Desert Shield, Gephardt noted that those countries, along with members of NATO, ``depend far more heavily on Mideast oil than we do.'' ``When countries like Egypt can stand beside us, when young Americans stand on front lines, only miles from the threat of poison gas, the least the Japanese and Germans can do is support us _ and not just with words; they must respond to our potential sacrifice of lives with at least a financial sacrifice of their own.'' Referring to closed door budget talks underway at Andrews Air Force Base, Gephardt said Democrats offered cuts in domestic programs but ``will never abandon the cause of working families.'' He contended Bush has given a ``commitment to raise taxes,'' and said the higher tax burden must be borne by wealthy Americans. Without specifically mentioning the Republican administrations of Bush and Ronald Reagan, Gephardt criticized the nation's free-market energy policies of the past decade. He said the nation ``must not be permanently faced with a choice between standing up against aggression or standing still in gas lines.'' He also pushed hard for proposed Democratic cuts in the defense budget, saying the planned ``Star Wars'' anti-missile system, the radar-evading B-2 bomber and the MX missile ``are costly systems designed for a Cold War that we have already won.''
AP900407-0127 	X	The United States last month secretly proposed a ban on some land-based missiles with multiple nuclear warheads but the Soviet Union said the plan was too limited, according to a published report. The New York Times reported in its Sunday editions that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev responded to the proposal last week, complaining that it excluded submarine-based ballistic missiles. A letter containing Gorbachev's reply was delivered to President Bush Friday by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the paper said, quoting administration officials it didn't name. The White House refused to confirm the offer or refusal, the Times said. The offer signals an attempt by Bush to put his stamp on arms reduction talks which thus far have followed proposals made during the Reagan Administration, the Times said. The rejection of the proposal caught the White House by surprise, the Times said, adding that Bush administration officials believe the Soviet Union's tougher position reflects a move by Soviet military officials to assert themselves. One unidentified White House official told the Times that Secretary of State James Baker III first presented the proposal to Shevardnadze last month in Namibia, where both were attending independence ceremonies. The proposal would ban mobile land-based missiles with multiple warheads, followed by the eventual elimination of all land-based missiles with multiple warheads. Administration officials said Moscow showed little interest in the first stage of the Bush plan, the Times reported. That first step, which could have been considered as part of the strategic arms treaty being negotiated this year, would have prevented the United States from deploying 10-warhead MX missiles on rail cars. It would have forced Moscow to remove its 10-warhead SS-24 missiles from railroad launchers and put them in stationary silos. The United States bases more of its ballistic missile warheads at sea, while the Soviet Union has most of its missiles on land.
AP900626-0016 	X	Attorney General Don Siegelman hoped for a strong turnout today to carry him past teacher-lobbyist Paul Hubbert in a Democratic runoff for the right to challenge Republican Gov. Guy Hunt. Hubbert led a six-candidate field in the June 5 primary with 32 percent of the vote against 25 percent for Siegelman, and remained the front-runner in weekend polls. The three-week runoff has been bruising. Siegelman tried to close the gap with negative ads, and the candidates accused each other of racist tactics. Whoever wins the Democrati nomination, once tantamount to winning the governor's office in Alabama, will face an uphill battle against Hunt. The preacher-farmer in 1986 became Alabama's first GOP governor in 112 years thanks to a split in Democratic ranks. He is favored in the polls over either Hubbert or Siegelman. An estimated 31 percent of Alabama's 2.4 million registered voters cast ballots in the primary, and analysts forecast lighter turnout today. Siegelman said if voters whose candidates lost in the primary returned to the polls today, it could spell victory for him. Hubbert, 54, has been executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association for 21 years. He built the teacher organization into one of the most influential forces at the Statehouse. Siegelman, 44, a former executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, was state manager of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. He won two terms as secretary of state and then the attorney general's office in 1986. Siegelman has depicted his opponent as a man opening classroom doors to child molesters, while Hubbert has exploited Siegelman's admission he smoked marijuana in college. Siegelman accused Hubbert of using ``racist code words'' in calling for a workfare program to replace welfare, while Hubbert's camp said a Siegelman ad warning about a black leader's influence amounted to ``racist tactics.'' The black leader is Joe Reed, the No. 2 man behind Hubbert at the teachers union.
AP900514-0052 	X	The United States and Iran have signed a $105 million settlement of some 3,000 financial claims, bringing the two countries one step closer to re-establishing economic relations, a U.S. official said today. The settlement deals primarily with so-called ``Small Claims'' for under $250,000 that stem from the 1979 Islamic revolution, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. It clears the way for the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal to deal with about $16 billion in major claims, whose resolution in turn could open the way to normalizing economic ties between the two nations, the official said. The settlement accord was signed late Sunday night or early this morning by Timothy Ramish, U.S. agent to the tribunal, and Iranian Agent Ali Nobari, according to the American official at the tribunal. The most recent settlement talks between U.S. and Iranian officials occurred shortly after the release of American hostages Frank Reed and Robert Polhill by pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon. But U.S. and Iranian representatives to the tribunal have repeatedly stated the talks dealt only with financial arbitration and not with the six remaining Americans still in captivity in Lebanon. Last week a U.S. State Department official in Washington, who commented on condition of anonymity, said he could not predict whether resolving its financial disputes will result in the release of remaining hostages or was in any way related to the release of Polhill and Reed. The Small Claims package dealt primarily with Americans who left behind personal possessions or were owed salaries by Iranian companies when they fled Iran during the revolution. They were settled for a total of $50 million. The settlement also provided $55 million for repayment of a loan from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The tribunal was set up as part of the Algiers Accord of 1980, which resulted in freedom for the American hostages held by Iranian militants at the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days. The tribunal has three Iranian, three American and three third-nation arbitrators. The biggest claim still before the tribunal, valued at up to $11 billion by Iran, is for military equipment which Iran ordered but did not receive as a result of the embargo imposed by the U.S. government. After the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, Iran canceled contracts for $9 billion worth of weaponry, including four destroyers under construction that were later taken over by the U.S. Navy. Remaining major claims, totaling about $5 billion, were filed by American oil companies for property and operations expropiated by the Iranian government, as well as for broken contracts.
AP900611-0026 	X	In giving political newcomer Alberto Fujimori a landslide presidential victory, the people of this economically crippled nation rejected the free-market shock therapy advocated by novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. Fujimori, an agronomist and the son of Japanese immigrants, captured Sunday's runoff by 13 to 19 points, according to exit polls conducted by independent firms. Official returns were not expected for at least three weeks because of poor communication with mountain and jungle regions. Vargas Llosa, a celebrated novelist, conceded defeat three hours after polls closed. He told supporters he wished Fujimori ``success in the difficult responsibility the Peruvian people have placed on him.'' He urged Peruvians to put the bitterly fought campaign behind them. Vargas Llosa had been the early favorite. He won the most votes in the first round of voting on April 8 _ but not the majority needed for election. Fujimori, a 51-year-old former university rector, ran a shoe-string campaign against Vargas Llosa's well-heeled Democratic Front coalition. A political unknown just months ago, Fujimori gained the support of Peru's poor, Protestant evangelists and leftists opposed to Vargas Llosa's plans to privatize state industries and lift price controls. He takes charge of a country where four in five people lack a steady job, annual inflation is 2,000 percent and violence related to the Maoist-inspired Shining Path insurgency has claimed more than 18,500 lives in the last decade. ``I realize it will be a titanic task,'' Fujimori said soberly Sunday night, addressing reporters. He invited all political parties to participate in his government in areas where agreements could be reached. Fujimori's critics accused him of ties to the Aprista Party of President Alan Garcia. Many people blame the populist policies of Garcia, who by law could not run for re-election, for Peru's desperate economic situation. Fujimori, who begins his five-year term on July 28 in a country weathering its worst economic crisis of the century, has said little about the makeup of his administration. He has said, however, that he would not appoint members of the Aprista Party to his Cabinet. Vargas Llosa, 54, had pledged harsh austerity measures to revive the economy while Fujimori advocated continued price controls and subsidies for basic goods and services. Fujimori said his government would stress economic development over military and police repression as the best way to fight both leftist guerrillas and cocaine trafficking. He did not indicate where the money would come from for economic development. The Peruvian treasury is $100 million in the red. Peru is the world's main source of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine. The U.S. government is pressuring Peru to reduce its coca production, and has offered to send U.S. soldiers to train Peruvian troops in jungle warfare methods to fight guerrillas. Fujimori said he shared Vargas Llosa's view that Peru ``must be reinserted into the world financial community'' and said he would seek to renegotiate Peru's $20 billion foreign debt. Garcia suspended foreign debt payments early in his government and international lending agencies eventually cut off credit to Peru. Many attributed Vargas Llosa's loss to a multi-million dollar media campaign that angered people in this country of 22 million people where the average annual income is $900 and the minimum wage is $45 a month. Vargas Llosa is widely associated by the South American country's indigenous and mixed-race majority with the European-descended coastal elite. Thousands of campaign supporters paraded and celebrated early today outside the run-down headquarters of Fujimori's Change 90 party in downtown Lima. The independent polling firm Apoyo gave Fujimori 51.1 percent of the vote to 37.8 percent for Vargas Llosa, with 11.1 percent blank and null votes. POP, another independent polling firm, showed Fujimori with 56 percent and Vargas Llosa 36.5 percent. POP put blank and null votes at 7.5 percent. Nearly 10 million Peruvians were registered to vote, and the law requires them to cast ballots. As the polls opened Sunday, armored helicopters crisscrossed Lima's skies. Tanks and troop carriers patrolled the streets of the capital, home to about 7 million people. Little violence was reported around the country on Sunday despite threats by the Shining Path to disrupt the elections. At least 10 bombs exploded Sunday in Huancayo, a highland farming center 120 miles east of Lima. Police said that one, placed by guerrillas at a polling station, killed one person and wounded eight. In a separate attack, rebels shot and killed three brothers. Police said a note was found on one of the bodies that said, ``This is how informers die.'' Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, said Sunday that he would seek improved relations with countries of the Pacific basin. ``I understand that in the land of my ancestors there is great interest in my election,'' he said.
AP901220-0122 	X	A publisher has refused to halt distribution of a directory of charitable organizations that the Council of Better Business Bureaus says contains ``stale and unreliable information'' about the council's evaluations of charities. The action came to light Thursday as the council issued an alert to its members and to users of its Philanthropic Advisory Service. The alert says the council did not review, approve or collaborate on the directory published by the Taft Group in Rockville, Md. The directory is called Charitable Organizations of the United States. It lists about 700 charities, with information including whether they claim to meet the council's standards for charitable solicitations. James H. McIlhenny, president of the council, said in the alert that the book contains 120 references to evaluations by the council and 11 of them are wrong. He said Steven J. Cole, vice president and senior counsel of the better business group, wrote to the directory publisher last month asking that further marketing and distribution be suspended pending discussion of the council's objections. The alert said that Taft responded earlier this month that it is ``willing to discuss modifications in future printings regarding specific errors which you may wish to bring to our attention. Nevertheless, we unequivocally reject any request to discontinue or inhibit full distribution and sale of the present edition.'' Marty Mattare, president of the Taft Group, declined comment except to say that the issues raised by the council were under discussion between the two groups. She said officers of the council and the publishing firm would be meeting ``in several weeks.'' The Council of Better Business Bureaus says it promotes ethical standards of business practices and protects consumers through voluntary self-regulation and monitoring activities. It is a private agency whose members include major businesses and better business bureaus in the United States and Canada. The Taft Group is a division of Gale Research Inc. of Detroit, whic is affiliated with the Thomson Information-Publishing Group of Stamford, Conn., and Toronto.
AP880917-0065 	X	The biggest athletic show on earth opened today with a record number of nearly 10,000 Olympic athletes from 160 countries marching under a massive security blanket and the jealous glare of communist North Korea. A colorful, 3{-hour spectacle mixing ancient Korean rituals with space-age technology kicked off 16 days of athletic competition at the Seoul Summer Games. The Games will provide a showcase for South Korea and produce the first all-out East-West gold rush since the 1976 Montreal Games. ``I'm glad the sky is so high and so blue,'' Yuk Hee-Jin, a 17-year-old Korean high school student, said on entering the stadium. ``I believe God is blessing my country for its years of hard work and preparations for the Olympic Games.'' After mutual boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games, Soviet bloc and Western athletes strode into Seoul's sun-washed Olympic Stadium in closed ranks to the tumultuous roar of a sellout crowd of 70,000. On the streets of downtown Seoul meanwhile, police arrested about a dozen radical students today for mounting an anti-Olympic protest, witnesses said. But no tear gas was fired to quell the protest and no injuries were reported. At least a billion others watched the Olympics via a 115-nation, worldwide television hookup. NBC alone paid $300 million for television rights to the Games, which cost the South Korean hosts $3.1 billion for stadiums, arenas and various support facilities, all of which were in place well before the start of the Games. By decree of the International Olympic Committee, North Korean television was blacked out. The communist nation had demanded to co-host the Games, but Olympic officials said only one nation can do so. Superlatives of the Seoul Games included: the most athletes (9,633), the most countries (20 more than at Los Angeles), the most gold medals (237) and the most venues (34 for 23 official sports and three demonstration sports). Communist North Korea sparked a mini-boycott that failed to sway its biggest political allies, including the Soviet Union and China. Of the countries following North Korea's boycott, only Cuba ranked as a sports power, while Ethiopia had hopes in the marathon. Both also boycotted the Los Angeles Games. The other no-shows _ Albania, the Seychelles, Madagascar and Nicaragua _ are not regarded as major sports nations. On the eve of the opening ceremonies, North Korea again displayed its wrath, saying in an official Communist Party statement that South Korean President Roh Tae-woo's call for a ``successful opening of the Olympics ... will help intensify the fascist rule, increase the danger of war and mean tolerating the schemes to perpetuate the division of the nation.'' Similar criticism of the Games has come from student radicals in the south, hundreds of whom staged scattered anti-Olympic, anti-government, and anti-U.S. demonstrations in Seoul as the Olympic torch arrived in the capital Friday. But none of the demonstrations came near the heavily guarded Olympic facilities or the torch procession. They also failed to arouse popular support. In one protest at the Kookmin University, about 300 students burned an effigy of President Reagan as well as a U.S. flag. But the anti-Americanism of the radical students found no echo in the Olympic stadium, where the crowd gave one of its loudest accolades to the U.S. team. For South Korea, the Games offered a worldwide showcase for its emergence from a developing country to an Asian industrial power whose exports include computers, automobiles and super tankers. To guard against internal or external threats to the Games, South Korea has marshalled a 120,000-man security force and placed its 650,000-member armed forces on heightened alert. Although not directly involved in Olympic security, the 40,000-member U.S. ground forces were placed on ``increased alert'' and a U.S. Navy carrier task force patrolled off the coast. South Korea has stressed the Games' theme of reconciliation and of ``Harmony and Progress'' _ a theme symbolized in the omnipresent South Korean flag at the center of which is a sunlike disc combining the opposing forces: the red Yin and the blue Yang. The strains of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, lauding the brotherhood of man, resounded through the stadium as the procession of Olympic athletes got underway. From his box which appeared to be enclosed in bullet-proof glass, Roh rose to declare the Games of the 24th Olympiad officially open. Iran, in line with its fundamental Islamic beliefs, was the only country in the procession to have a Korean man, not a woman, carry the signboard bearing its name. The first competitions scheduled for after the ceremony today were women's platform diving, soccer, men's volleyball, men's basketball, boxing and taekwondo, a demonstration sport at these Games. The first gold medal was to be awarded Sunday morning in the women's air-rifle competition. The United States, Soviet Union and East Germany were expected to garner the most medals. As a prelude to the Stadium ceremony today, a flotilla of nearly 400 boats sailed majestically on the nearby Han River, led by a dragon drum ship. The stadium extravaganza, involving 1,500 performers, blended taekwondo demonstrations, age-old Korean folk dances, electronic synthesizers, rock music and sky divers. It also provided the first suspense of the Games in the form of some white doves, who perched on the unlit Olympic torch basin as a platform carrying flame-bearers rose upwards. When the torch was lit, exploding into an inferno, the doves scattered, and it could not be determined if any were killed.
AP900721-0111 	X	The heat is on in the henhouse, but the flame is out. Chickens don't like to mate in high temperatures, when they also become sluggish eaters, says Frank Jones, a poultry expert at North Carolina State University. That means layers aren't laying as often as they do in lower temperatures and the birds that are supposed to gorge for slaughter are taking their time about it, said Jones and Holly Farms spokesman Gordon Miller. ``They're subject to a lot of the same stresses we are as humans,'' Jones said. ``That means there will be less mating. They don't really feel like eating.'' Turkeys react the same way to summer heat, which has been in the 90s in North Carolina, the nation's top turkey producer and the No. 4 chicken producer. The state is expected to sell more than $1.5 billion worth of poultry this year. Miller said consumers may end up getting burned. If the heat continues, fewer birds could be on the market in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas and fewer eggs could drive up prices. Perdue Farms Inc. spokesman Steve McCauley doesn't believe that higher prices are a given. He said Friday that since the heat is an annual summer ailment, most growers are prepared. ``Typically, if a flock is affected, it's because something went wrong _ fans broke, alarms didn't work,'' McCauley said. ``But one flock is a few thousand birds and Perdue processes 1.6 million a week, and that's Perdue alone, so the loss of a flock or two would never have a significant impact on prices,'' he said.
AP880325-0303 	X	The successful rehabilitation of First City Bancorporation of Texas Inc. is hindered by the apparent failure of some debt holders to accept current conditions for tendering their bonds, according to the head of a private group seeking to complete a $1.5 billion restructuring of the company. ``Each day of delay costs money,'' said A. Robert Abboud, a Chicago investor, in a speech to the French-American Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. As of last week, 51 percent of First City's $225.8 million in bonds had been tendered, but the restructuring deal requires 90 percent participation by the close of business next Tuesday. ``It's not in their best interest to hang onto the bonds if they're going to crater the deal in the process,'' Abboud said. Caving into demands for better terms could set a negative precedent for similar transactions in the future, he said. Senior debt holders have been offered 45 cents on the dollar for their debt, while subordinated debt holders have been offered 35 cents. ``On a liquidation basis, their investment is worth zero,'' Abboud said, referring to the $100 million in subordinated debt. ``Once the preconditions are established, we have to stick to them.'' ``The professionals in the market should understand that (banking) is not a regular industry,'' Abboud said. ``The institutions that are so integral to our financial system should know this.'' He did not elaborate. Abboud is trying to restructure Houston-based First City using $970 million in assistance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., $500 million infusion of capital raised privately by an investor group headed by Abboud and a spinoff of $1.79 billion in book value of poorly performing assets. First City, the state's fourth-largest bank holding company with 59 banks in Texas and one in South Dakota, grew quickly during the Texas oil boom, but was hammered by energy and real estate losses when oil prices plummeted. For 1987, the company posted a $1.1 billion loss. Abboud, who become chairman under the federal bailout plan, said he was optimistic a deal could be closed by March 31. Besides a successful tender, First City still needs to renegotiate unfavorable leases. First City shareholders already have voted to support the Abboud plan.
AP900724-0230 	X	Eagle-Picher Industries Inc. is seeking class-action status for 65,000 asbestos-related claims to avoid arguing the same issues repeatedly in individual cases. The company said Monday it has filed a request for class-action status with U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in New York, who last week was given authority to reorganize the Manville trust. The $3 billion trust, which was formed as part of the 1988 bankruptcy reorganization of Manville Corp., has run out of money to pay about 130,000 new claims. Manville was driven into bankruptcy court by thousands of lawsuits by victims of asbestos-related diseases. Eagle-Picher, which reported settling 7,800 asbestos claims in the first six months of the year, said it believes the Manville trust will have to participate in the settlements. A federal judge in Cleveland recently authorized creating a national class-action to settle more than 100,000 asbestos lawsuits crowding U.S. court dockets. Negotitations have begun on structuring the settlement mechanism. Eagle-Picher has been inundated with lawsuits by people who say their health suffered from exposure to an asbestos-based pipe sealer Eagle-Picher made for ships during World War II. Eagle-Picher said its own settlements for the first half of the year averaged $5,900. About 11,300 new plaint too ridiculous to comment on. ``Since when is it against the law for a senator to talk to one reporter?'' she asked, adding that ``no prearrangements'' were attached to Metzenbaum's comments. Meanwhile, the Times reported in today's editions that Thompson invested $100,000 with a federal regulator, Paul G. Heafy, who also was involved in Thompson's negotiations to buy an insolvent bank in Oklahoma. The newspaper reported that the investment, which was to buy distressed loans from federal regulators, did not violate conflict of interest laws, but Senate investigators wanted to look into the financing of the deal. Heafy is chief liquidator for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Oklahoma City. The Times said he and Thompson refused the Times' requests for interviews.
AP900810-0142 	X	Q: Do you think Americans need to be careful in travelling to others places than the Middle East? A: Well, I think they've always _ always been advised to be careful of travel, but I'm not prepared to say nobody should travel to any place in the Middle East. I'm not prepared to say that at all. Q: What about outside the Middle East? A: I'd be careful wherever you go, these days. Q: Speaking of trips, did you have any concern about your own trip to Kennebunkport, that you'll be able to stay on top of things while you're up here _ A: I think we're going to have a safe trip. Are you referring to the safety of the trip? Q: (Off mike.) A: No, I can easily stay here. We have a highly complex and highly efficient communications. I have some of my top advisers here. Others will be coming up there from time to time. I expect to see Jim Baker up there very soon. And I'm in very close _ I will be in very close touch with Pentagon officials or whoever's behind National Security Council right now, it'll be General Scowcroft. So I'm determined to _ that life goes on. I will have a busy schedule _ busier than I'd like to have had _ of contacts. In fact, I've got a list of calls that I'll be making over the next couple of days _ not all to the Middle East, incidentally. And so it'll be a little different than I'd hoped but I think I'm doing the right thing. I think the American people want to see life go on so long as they understand that their President and his top officials are on top of a troubled situation. So, that's the way I looked at it. And if I find it gets _ matters seem to be _ require my going back, it's an hour and a half to go back. So, I think we're in pretty good shape on that. Q: (Off mike.) A: Yeah. I mean, you've seen the telephone in my golf cart, or boat. Word of honor, well, I talked, you know _ where was it? We talked to _ where was it when we were out in the Fidelity last time? STAFF: (Off mike.) A: No, no. No, no, well, that was one, yeah, that was one. But, no, the other day we were out in _ and talked overseas, I believe it was, but in any event, I think it's _ I should reassure the American people that the communication is extraordinarily good. And if I found that I needed meetings with these top officials or with foreign officials and it would be more convenient to do it in Washington, it's very easy to go back. Q: Any concern _ (inaudible) _ Mr. President? A: No. I think the American people will support what I'm _ you mean on this? Q: You're going _ you're on a vacation at the same time as _ A: No, not at all. Q: Thank you. A: When I'm going to be working _ normally, you know, what I've said is, ``Look, if I'm on vacation, I want to have a vacation, and I don't want to try to kid the American people that I'm working _ play and play hard and then work like hell the rest of the time when you're in Washington.'' And I think I've done that. Go to work early in the morning, go home late at night. This one will be different because there are some tasks that I must undertake up here, but _ so, it'll be a little _ it'll be legitimately a combination of work and play, but I don't want to deceive the American people. Just tell them what you think and ask for their support. And I think people will understand that. So, that's the way _ that's the way I approach this. You know, what you don't want to do is appear to be held hostage in the White House to events. And I'm not going to do that. That's why we have all this sophisticated intelligence. So, I feel all right about it.
AP880418-0195 	X	NASA said Monday it will ask contractors this summer to submit proposals for a $1.2 billion program to design and build an advanced space shuttle booster rocket in a government-owned plant. Under the plan, the winning contractor will design, build and operate the plant. The rockets to be built there will be used by the shuttle program well into the next century. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration gets its shuttle rockets from a single private source, Morton Thiokol Inc., whose manufacturing facilities are situated in Utah. A government-owned plant will enable NASA to change contractors if it becomes dissatisfied. The request for proposals will be issued in June or July, NASA said, so the advanced solid rocket motor will be available for launching after Oct. 1, 1993. The new booster will enable the shuttle to carry 12,000 more pounds of cargo to orbit than the current 65,000 pounds. That increase will be equivalent to 2.4 extra shuttle missions a year on a 14-flight schedule. ``To achieve the level of process control and automation needed for high quality and reproducibility, NASA has concluded that a substantially new facility is required,'' the space agency announcement said. The overall cost for development and testing the booster is $1 bilion. The facilities will be budgeted at $200 million to $300 million. The site has not been announced, but NASA officials have told Congress the prime candidates are Bay St. Louis and Yellow Creek in Mississippi and an area near Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA says the government plant must be accessible by rail and water. J.R. Thompson, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said five firms have expressed an interest in making the rockets. United Technologies, Atlantic Research, Aerojet and Hercules were interested in operating a government-owned plant, he said, while Morton Thiokol wanted to improve its Utah facilities. Contractors bidding for the plant will be required to propose a private-financing option for the facility, both for a government site or a location of the contractor's choosing.
AP880711-0010 	X	Europe and the United States are beginning to adopt similar strategies for disposing of wastes, spurred by common recognition that there's not enough space to bury it all and burning causes too much pollution. ``For centuries, Western Europeans marveled at the luxury of available land in North America,'' says a report from the non-profit Institute for Local Self-Reliance. ``This luxury allowed for ready access to disposal sites for solid wastes, as well as for a casual disregard of the maintenance of soil fertility for agriculture.'' But as that luxury decreases, new methods are being tried. A company in Oakland, Calif., has long collected wine bottles, washed them and sold them back to vintners at less than the cost of new bottles. Now the practice is spreading to Michigan, Massachusetts and New York. Italy has passed a law that in 1991 will ban all packaging unless it can be recycled or will decompose naturally. The institute report favors recycling, but says little has been invested in it and that some professional planners are skeptical. Neil Seldman, one of the authors, nevertheless sees recycling as the path that must be followed. ``You'll have the bottle manufacturers asking for a national bottle bill because they don't want to have to deal with 50 different bottle bills, so I would say that within a few years we will have that,'' he predicted. State bottle bills typically require consumers to pay a small deposit which is refunded by shops when the empties are returned. The bills have been strongly opposed by business interests, especially container manufacturers. Brenda Platt, the institute's staff engineer, said that some communities, states and governments are now setting a three-tiered set of priorities for disposing of waste: _First, ``source reduction,'' or discouraging the use of materials that become waste. Seldman cited a proposal in Philadelphia that would put one tax on bottles, and a double tax on ``secondary packaging,'' the cardboard or plastic that goes around a six-pack. _``Source separation,'' the separate handling of different kinds of waste in both homes and businesses. Ms. Platt spoke approvingly of a ``three container'' system in some communities of West Germany, with a green container for one type of waste. ``If you don't put your recyclables in the green can, they'll take away the green container and give you maybe a black one, and you're labeled as the slob of the neighborhood,'' she said. ``Peer pressure can do a lot to encourage recycling.'' _Large-scale burning and burial of waste only as a last resort. ``Iowa, New York, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy have endorsed this hierarchy,'' she said. The report says the average American produces about 1,300 pounds of waste annually, compared with a little over 1,100 pounds for the average West German. The U.S. figure is for 1986, the German figure for 1984. Disposal methods vary widely. The United States burns only about 5 percent of its waste, while Switzerland burns more than 60 percent. The United States still can bury nearly 85 percent, while mountainous Switzerland can find space for less than 20 percent. Switzerland recycles over 20 percent or uses it as compost for farmers, twice the proportion in the United States. The institute is a research organization that serves local governments, citizen groups and industry. The West German government's Marshall Fund of the United States financed the study.
AP901010-0181 	X	Junk bond financier Michael Milken probably won't get a chance to face his main accuser, Ivan Boesky, before sentencing. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they do not plan to call the inside trader to testify against Milken at a pre-sentencing hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Carroll also said the government was dropping one of four alleged illegal transactions against Milken on which it planned to present evidence and testimony at the planned two-week hearing. The move not to include Boesky in the unusual hearing, scheduled to begin Thursday, was not a great surprise. Boesky was the main source of information against Milken but also was susceptible to attack from defense lawyers. Milken has pleaded guilty to six felony counts and has agreed to pay $600 million in penalties in connection with the biggest government probe of Wall Street fraud. He faces up to 28 years in prison when sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood. Sentencing was delayed for the hearing into uncharged allegations against Milken raised by the government in its lengthy pre-sentencing memorandum. Wood has said the hearing is designed to shed light on Milken's character. In a telephone conference with the judge and Milken's attorneys, Carroll said the government was unlikely to call Boesky to the witness stand. But they did not rule out the possibility altogether, he said. Carroll also said to save time the government was dropping from its presentation an inside trading allegation involving Milken and Boesky in securities of MGM-UA Entertainment Co. Boesky also was a central player in two of the other transactions being aired - stock manipulation charges in Wickes Cos. securities in 1985 and a web of alleged wrongdoing in the 1985 takeover of Storer Communications Inc. The third alleges insider trading in Caesar's World Inc. securities in 1983. The Caesar's and Storer transactions involve new charges against Milken not contained in the government's original 98-count indictment last year or earlier Securities and Exchange Commission charges. Wood has given each side a total of 20 hours to present eestimony and cross-examine witnesses at the hearing. The burden of proof on the government is lower than at a trial, though. Boesky, who was sentenced to three years in prison and paid $100 million in penalties to settle insider trading charges, is widely reviled on Wall Street and would have given Milken attorney Arthur Liman a broad target to discredit. Boesky was not regarded as a successful witness when he testified earlier this year against former stock speculator John A. Mulheren Jr. Boesky was perceived as combative on the stand and was forced to admit a litany of serious lawbreaking. Instead, Carroll said the government's first three witnesses on the Wickes transaction would be former Boesky head trader Michael Davidoff and former Drexel employees Cary Maultasch and Peter Gardiner, who worked under Milken in Drexel's Beverly Hills, Calif., high-yield bond department. Carroll said the Wickes testimony would be followed by testimony on Storer and then Caesar's. The prosecutor also disclosed that former Drexel trader James Dahl and mutual fund manager Prescott Crocker were among about 10 planned witnesses on the Caesar's deal. The witnesses for the Storer transactions were not disclosed. Prosecutors last week gave defense lawyers a list of 17 possible witnesses and Wood has ordered the government to say in what order it would call them, to help the defense prepare its case. The witness list also includes former Drexel chairman Frederick Joseph. Liman indicated during the conference call that Milken would be present at the hearing in Manhattan federal court.
AP881030-0048 	X	The plight of whales trapped by Arctic Ocean ice got worldwide attention, and the part played in their rescue by two Soviet icebreakers got the special attention of members of a third grade class. ``I feel sorry for every living creature that has to go through this,'' said Lisa DeLack, a third-grader at Centennial Elementary School in Loveland. Lisa convinced her teacher and school principal that the Soviets deserved some thanks for their help in freeing two California gray whales off the north coast of Alaska. A third whale disappeared and was presumed dead. ``I saw the whales and the Russians helping and I thought it was very nice of them to do it,'' Lisa said. So she and her classmates penned their appreciation on blue-lined school paper, some illustrated with drawings of whales. Their letters were sealed in an envelope and mailed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. Centennial principal Sam Simonetta says it's natural for the children to respond to animals, be they pets or wild creatures thousands of miles away. `They like them and they're concerned about them,'' Simonetta said. ``When someone came in and was willing to help our country, it made these kids feel real good about it,'' he said.
AP901112-0047 	X	Iraq has said it might attend a proposed Arab summit aimed at avoiding war in the Persian Gulf, but only if the meeting also deals with the Arab-Israeli dispute. King Hassan of Morocco proposed the emergency summit on Sunday as a ``last chance'' for peace. There were new signs, meanwhile, of cracks in the alliance against Iraq. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak was quoted today as saying that Egyptian soldiers will not enter Iraq even if U.S. and other troops attack. He said his troops could, however, enter Kuwait as a peacekeeping force. At the same time, the European Community said it would urge Baghdad to accept a U.N.-brokered solution concerning the hundreds of Westerners held by Iraq. The EC wants countries negotiating hostage deals with Iraq to work together and thereby prevent tensions among nations in the anti-Iraq alliance. Meanwhile, an Arab summit attended by Iraq appeared possible. On Sunday, Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council said Iraq would attend the summit under three conditions. Those were that Baghdad be consulted in advance on the agenda, that the timing and location be chosen so Saddam could attend, and that the agenda include not just the gulf crisis but all Middle East issues - including the Palestinian question. The council, led by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, also suggested it would not allow certain topics to be discussed. It did not specify which ones. ``The proposed summit should not be part of efforts to prepare the political theater as a cover for American aggression against Iraq and the Arab nation,'' the statement said. In Tunis, the Palestine Liberation Organization issued a statement saying it agreed with King Hassan's initiaive. Saddam has long demanded that a solution to the crisis be linked to the Palestinian issue. He made the offer shortly after his Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. King Hassan suggested that the summit be held in Rabat, the Morrocan capital, in a week. But he said he would attend a summit wherever it might be held. Morocco, outspoken among Arab nations in condemning the Iraqi invasion, has committed more than 1,200 soldiers to the U.S.-led multinational force based in Saudi Arabia. In an interview with British television, Saddam again urged dialogue on the crisis and said he did not believe the world was united against him. The major powers and ``a number of countries'' are lined up against Baghdad, Saddam acknowledged. ``But to say that the world is unified against Iraq is indeed not a correct thing to say. ``In the statements of the U.S. and Britain, they themselves are voicing their concern that the unity - so-called unity against Iraq - is perhaps ... suffering from a split,'' Saddam said. Secretary of State James A. Baker III received assurances from key allies last week that they will accept nothing short of an unconditional Iraqi pullout. However, officials said China, France and the Soviet Union reportedly expressed concern that Washington might attack Iraqi forces without giving the U.N.-ordered trade embargo enough of a chance. There were also signs of cracks in the Arab alliance against Iraq. When Baker visited Cairo last week, a senior U.S. official said the United States is confident that Egypt would fight alongside U.S. forces if war broke out. But asked by his party's newspaper, Mayo, whether Egypt would send troops to Iraq following a U.S.-led attack, Mubarak said: ``No, we have nothing to do with Iraq.'' But if the anti-Iraq allies invaded Kuwait, he said, ``We do not mind at all entering Kuwait as peacekeeping forces ... although I do not hope for this day at all.'' In Washington, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the Bush administration must have the support of the American people if the nation is to go to war with Iraq. ``The last thing we need is to have a war over there, a bloody war, and have American boys being sent and brought back in body bags and yet not have the American people behind them,'' said Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga. ``We've gone that route one time. We don't need to do it again.'' In Brussels, meanwhile, European Community foreign ministers said they would step up pressure on Iraq to open talks with a U.N. envoy on the fate of hundreds of Westerners that Baghdad is holding. They said they would encourage about 40 nations to pressure Sadam into accepting mediation by such an envoy. In other developments: -Foreign Minister Qian Qichen of China met today with Saddam in Baghdad. A Chinese diplomat said talks focused on how to achieve a peaceful solution to the gulf crisis. -In Tokyo, Foreign leaders gathered for Emperor Akihito's enthronement were pessimistic about a peaceful solution to the gulf crisis, an aide to Vice President Dan Quayle said on condition of anonymity.
AP901211-0016 	X	The Navy's A-12 stealth aircraft program, already under attack for cost overruns and schedule delays, now is the focus of a criminal probe, the Defense Department says. ``The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri presently is conducting and directing a criminal investigation into the overpayment of progress payments,'' the Pentagon's inspector general, Susan Crawford, said Monday. Crawford made the disclosure at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the attack plane, designed to replace the Navy's aging fleet of A-6 Intruders aboard aircraft carriers starting in 1995. ``Both the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which works for me, and the Naval Investigative Service are working in a joint fashion under the direction of the U.S. attorney,'' she said. The plane's contractors, McDonnell Douglas Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., are based in St. Louis. The Navy announced last week that it was removing three top overseers of the A-12 program, including two admirals, for failing to disclose serious flaws in the aircraft's development. Five weeks after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told Congress in April that the program was on track, it was disclosed that the A-12 was 18 months behind schedule and more than $1 billion over the planned $4.7 billion cost. Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett told Cheney last week that he was forcing Vice Adm. Richard C. Gentz, commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, to retire by Feb. 1. Garrett also said he was reassigning Rear Adm. John F. Calvert, the program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs, and Capt. Lawrence S. Elberfeld, A-12 program manager, and writing each a letter of censure. But Garrett said he would not stop Elberfeld's scheduled promotion to rear admiral. Garrett, testifying before the House panel Monday, faced criticism for that decision from Rep. Andy Ireland, R-Fla. ``I wonder what message you send when you include censure and a promotion as well,'' Ireland asked. ``The message is already clear,'' Garrett responded. ``That you can be promoted,'' Ireland interrupted. The Navy secretary argued that the promotion of Elberfeld was based on his 20 years of service and the censure even with the promotion would be ``embarrassing and debilitating'' to Elberfeld's future career. An internal Navy report and the Pentagon inspector general's investigation indicated last week that the government did not sufficiently challenge overly optimistic cost and schedule estimates of the contractors. The Navy report said McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics contract officials failed to tell the Navy of cost and schedule problems. Garrett testified that briefings from the Navy's management team on the A-12 program ``gave no indication of risk that the contract would not be completed within its ceiling price, nor any risk that first flight and the follow-on test program would not be achieved.'' The Navy secretary blamed ``human errors in judgment'' for problems with the aircraft that were never reported. He added that although the current procurement system works, individuals ``find it very hard to push bad news up to the top.''
AP881005-0074 	X	A new series of mistakes by air traffic controllers at O'Hare International Airport has plagued one of the world's busiest airports, which already is the subject of a federal safety investigation, officials say. Controllers at the airport made one error Sunday and two Friday, bringing the number of recorded errors at O'Hare this year to 29, officials said Tuesday. By comparison, Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport has had six errors this year, and Washington's National Airport two. In one incident Friday, two Air Wisconsin jets came near each other when a controller apparently mistakenly gave one of them an order to descend from 14,000 feet to 11,000 feet, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. In the day's other incident, an American Airlines jet and a Delta Air Lines jet came within 400 feet vertically and a mile horizontally when the pilot of the American apparently failed to repeat an order to reduce speed and the controller did not seek confirmation, the Chicago Tribune reported today. On Sunday, two United Airlines jets came within 500 feet of each other horizontally after the pilot of one plane apparently followed an order intended for the other, the newspaper said. The FAA requires airplanes in the area to be separated a minimum of three miles horizontally or 1,000 feet vertically. The incidents occurred just two months after the National Transportation Safety Board issued a report saying that chronic understaffing, mandatory overtime, outdated equipment and inadequate training had contributed to mistakes at O'Hare. And now NTSB officials are worried that the trend has not been reversed, said regional director Carl Dinwiddie. The FAA, which has 90 days to respond to the NTSB report, has not yet replied, said an NTSB spokesman in Washington. Both agencies are investigating the recent errors. Joe Bellino, regional representative of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said O'Hare's radar room on Friday was ``a zoo.'' With Friday's 3,842 takeoffs and landings _ 11 below the record set the day before _ there should have been 18 journeyman controllers and several ``developmental'' controllers on duty. But Bellino said there were only 14 controllers in both categories, and the problem was made worse when the controllers who made the errors were temporarily relieved of their duties, giving those who remained even more responsibilities. ``We had airplanes all over the sky,'' Bellino said. ``We were buried all day long.'' The FAA could not immediately say how many controllers were on duty Friday, but spokesman Donald Zochert said the total number of controllers working at the airport has risen from 87 last year to 94 as of Sept. 1. There are now six new developmental controllers and one new journeyman.
AP900925-0203 	X	Women reporters covering the U.S. military buildup in male-dominated Saudi Arabia exulted when the invitation came to join female soldiers in their exercise classes. Exclusive! We gloated. But the chance to swim and sweat with the U.S. women in uniform nearly backfired when the three reporters - myself included - walked through the front door of the $80 million gymnasium at a Saudi air base. Several Saudi custodians, all men, leapt up and followed us to the registration desk, complaining loudly that we had violated custom by using the front entrance. Women, they said, must enter through the rear door. Our timing, it appeared, couldn't have been worse: we had committed this faux pas on a Friday - Islam's holy day - during Moslem prayer time. The Saudis were not the only ones who were annoyed. `You nearly ruined it for all of us,'' one angry Air Force nurse told the sheepish reporters. ``They almost kicked us out.'' The military women had fought hard for the privilege of using the gym three times a week, and they dreaded the idea of losing it. The culture clash was an example of the hidden challenges that American women encountered in Saudi Arabia, a country where females don't vote, don't drive, don't go out in public without covering their faces and heads with veils, don't socialize in meeting places and rarely hold jobs that bring them in contact with the general public. Most Saudi women seem to accept the social structure that is based on the laws of Islam. They say they are put on a pedestal in their homes and treated generously by their men. The female reporters - writers, television and radio correspondents, photographers and television camera crews - have been treated fairly by both Saudi and American officials in terms of access to events and opportunities to cover the U.S.-led military deployment. We have slept on cots in the desert with the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, N.C. We have visited Egyptian paratroopers near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border; interviewed the powerful Saudi petroleum minister; and toured the strategic petroleum refinery at Ras Tanura. In deference to Saudi custom, we cover our arms, wear longer skirts and keep bare skin to a minimum. But none of us wear the black cloaks known as abayas or head coverings. The heat argues against wearing stockings. We act generally as we do in the United States: eating in restaurants, sipping coffee in the hotel lobbies. But we remain oddities on the social scene, the only women attending an Arabian nights dinner under a big tent hosted by Saudi prince, for example. We were warned about the muttawa, the so-called religious police who enforce the Islamic dress code and insist conservative standards are upheld. But an informal survey indicated none of the reporters has been accosted by the muttawa, who have the power to make arrests. On the streets or in the souks (markets), our small cadre of female reporters has grown accustomed to sares from curious Saudis, but the incredulous looks did not interfere with work. The major complaint - and the biggest frustration - is the ban on driving. We must hire taxis, drivers or rely on male colleagues to ferry us around, an expensive inconvenience in a country with a modern system of interstate highways. The U.S. Embassy also advised women not to sit next to a man to whom she was not married. In one case, I drove to a remote post on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border with a male colleague, 300 miles from the coastal city of Dhahran, to meet with the governor of the province. The trip would have been impossible without a male escort. Air travel was potentially a problem because Saudi custom dictates women must be accompanied by a male relative. Expatriate women have to obtain a letter approving their travel from their sponsoring company. Airports have check-in lines designated for ``males'' and ``families.'' Saudi officials seemed to ignore the rules for the foreign reporters. I was never asked about my marital status, for instance, when I flew to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in the company of an American male reporter. Female reporters benefit from the famed Saudi hospitality and generosity. When one reporter mentioned she had lost a contact lens, her host insisted on having his driver take her the next day to the clinic for a replacement. At Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd's daily Majlis - a combination of a town meeting and a magistrate's court - Saudi citizens ask the governor of the Eastern Province to resolve problems ranging from land disputes to homelessness. After meeting the prince, I jokingly told himII had some problems he could solve. Pressed on what theywere, I assured him I was only kidding. That night, I received a call from the prince's worried press officer. ``You mentioned you had some problems and the prince wanted to know if there was anything he could do,'' the press officer said. ``A car to take you shopping? Some interviews? Anything?'' --- EDITOR'S NOTE - Joan Mower, a Washington reporter for The Associated Press, reported from Saudi Arabia for four weeks.
AP900209-0028 	X	To most, Carolyn Warmus is a bright, energetic schoolteacher. To police, she is an obsessed woman who pumped nine shots into her lover's wife, then met the man for drinks and sex. It took a year of intense legwork by two detectives to put together the case that made a murder suspect out of the 26-year-old computer science teacher and insurance heiress. Warmus was charged with second-degree murder Monday. Police said she shot Betty Jeanne Solomon, 40, nine times on Jan. 15, 1989, then drove to a local hotel to meet her lover, fellow schoolteacher Paul Solomon, for drinks and a sexual tryst in her car. Her attorney, Charles Fiore, maintains his client is innocent. He said Thursday that she passed a polygraph test taken on the advice of her family attorney five days after the slaying. Warmus was not the initial suspect in the killing. Solomon was. ``You can compare it to a large puzzle with many, many pieces,'' said Lt. Cornelius Sullivan, head of detectives in Greenburgh, a New York City suburb near White Plains. Police would not say when their focus shifted to Warmus, daughter of a wealthy Michigan insurance executive, but a vacation trip to Puerto Rico five months after the killing may have been key in highlighting Warmus' alleged obsession with the dead woman's husband. Police said Solomon, 39, told investigators that Warmus followed him and a friend, Barbara Ballor, 28, to Puerto Rico. Once there, they said, she called a member of Ballor's family pretending to be a police officer and made disparaging comments about Solomon in an apparent effort to break the couple up. Police traced the call back to Warmus. Investigators then focused on other telephone records. The paper trail led them to Vincent Parco, a private investigator in New York City who told police he sold Warmus a silencer and a .25-caliber handgun, the same type of weapon used to kill Mrs. Solomon. Police say they linked the weapon that Parco sold to the killing through ballistics evidence, but did not elaborate. The weapon has not been recovered. On Thursday, Parco's New York City pistol permit was suspended and Parco agreed to give police his weapons, said city police spokesman Detective Joseph McConville. Law enforcement sources said Warmus knew Parco because she had hired him before to investigate an ex-boyfriend, a married bartender who lived in New Jersey. Police said Warmus, who lives in a high-rise on Manhattan's East Side, told Parco she needed the gun for protection, but Parco's ex-partner, Gabe Laura, told the New York Post she offered him three different reasons. ``We figured her for a flake,'' Laura said, adding, ``We told her to get us some proof about what she was saying and sent her away.'' Warmus and Solomon had been having an affair for a year, according to an indictment unsealed Monday. They met in 1987 at an elementary school in Greenburgh. At the time of Mrs. Solomon's murder, police said, Warmus wanted to intensify the relationship; Solomon wanted to cool things off. Investigators said he ended the affair after his wife's death. In her statement to police, Warmus said she called Solomon at home hours before the murder and they talked for 45 minutes about everything from his 15-year-old daughter Kristan's basketball team to a bar mitzvah he attended. They agreed to meet for drinks at a Yonkers hotel bar at 7:30 p.m. Mrs. Solomon was killed between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., police said, adding that Warmus knew Mrs. Solomon would be home alone. Warmus told detectives they left the bar at 10:30 p.m., went out to her car in the parking lot and had sex before leaving each other about 11:30 p.m. Her attorney said Warmus frequently had dinner with the Solomon family at their home and that neighbors knew both her and her car. ``It would be a pretty good trick for her to knock on the door, kill her ... and leave and not be seen or have her car seen,'' Fiore said. Warmus' father is president of American Way Life Insurance Co. in Southfield, Mich., whose assets reportedly are about $150 million. She grew up in Birmingham, Mich.
AP880521-0006 	X	Ticket scalpers, familiar outside rock concerts and sports events, have invaded unlikely turf: a dance for middle-school students. The dance scheduled for Friday night was canceled after the Vernon Junior Women's Club discovered that the $3 tickets were being sold for as much as $10 apiece by student scalpers. The league sponsors dances with the Parks and Recreation Department. A limited number of tickets are sold because the dances are held in a gym that can accommodate only 250 people. There are about 1,100 middle-school students in town. That situation led to students' duplicating tickets and now selling them at inflated prices, club President Peggy Jackle said. She said she hopes the cancellation of the dance will serve as notice to the scalpers that the future of the dances depends on their conduct.
AP900624-0032 	X	Thousands of relics left by a lost Indian tribe in the ruins of their famed cliff houses were methodically looted before the turn of the century. Now a band of ``reverse archaeologists'' wants to bring them home. Before Congress outlawed the practice in 1905, collecting baskets, pots, tools and other everyday household items from Anasazi Indian ruins was a thrilling romp through history for explorers hired by East Coast collectors. Like the swashbuckling treasure hunter in the ``Indiana Jones'' movies, they took the ancient ruins of a culture that vanished before Europeans reached the New World. Most of the loot eventually found its way into museum display cases. Large collections are housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Museum of the American Indian in New York, among others. But a group of volunteer researchers is eager to bring them home to the Four Corners area of the Southwest where the Anasazi pioneered farming and built dense communities hundreds of feet high in scenic cliffsides. Julia Johnson, the director of the volunteer Wetherill-Grand Gulch researchers, decried the looting at a recent symposium on the early Anasazis, known as the Basketmakers, in Blanding, Utah. The group wants to reverse the actions of 1890s explorers and return the artifacts to museums as close to the ruins from which they were taken as possible. To help achieve that and to help scientists study the Anasazi, 5,000 pages of documents and 500 photographs have been compiled on the museum artifacts to trace their origins. Since many of the early-day explorers kept meticulous diaries, ``it's possible in some cases to identify exactly which hole something came out of,'' said Fred Blackburn, a biologist who joined the ``reverse archaeologists.'' Blackburn, 40, and his colleagues crawl through Grand Gulch in Utah, about 100 miles west of Cortez, searching for signatures the explorers carved into cliff walls. By matching the individual artifacts on display in Eastern museums with the diaries, Blackburn's group can supply a research base for scientists studying the Basketmaker era of the Anasazi, he said. The ruins were virtually cleared out and their treasures carted off by the time Congress forbade the practice in 1905, Blackburn said. ``And the expeditions weren't real researchers,'' said Blackburn, whose wife, Victoria Atkins, is an archaeologist. ``There's so much we don't know about the Basketmakers.'' The Basketmaker Anasazis lived in the area from about the time of Christ until the year 700, Blackburn said. They are believed to be the farming pioneers of the tribe that built a thriving civiliation in the famous cliff houses of Mesa Verde National Park. Their Pueblo Anasazi descendants disappeared from the area, apparently driven by a long drought, in about 1300. ``We're putting this together so researchers can go back and find out what the origins of these people were, their customs, where they came from and where they went,'' Blackburn said. He started with the diary of Charles Cary Graham, who with Charles McLoyd began excavating Grand Gulch in 1890. The pair met Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason just as the latter two were riding out after discovering the landmark Balcony House at Mesa Verde. Wetherill, a nearby rancher and amateur archaeologist, hired Graham and McLoyd to bring artifacts from Grand Gulch to the local historical society. The collection later ended up at the Field Museum in Chicago. As news of the rich ruins spread, other expeditions followed, explorers erasing clues to the mysterious Anasazi's past in their diligence to gather prized artifacts. One likely site for any relics returned to the region would be the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, a town north of Cortez. Initial efforts will try to arrange artifact loans, with the eventual goal of establishing permanent exhibits, volunteers said. Fund-raising is under way to pay for lobbying visits to museums that house large Anasazi collections. Blackburn, who specializes in studies of Bighorn sheep, says his strong ties to the Four Corners area prompted his ``reverse archaeology'' work. He's especially fascinated with evidence of the Anasazis ability to co-exist with the sheep that used to roam the area in large numbers. The fledgling ``reverse archaeolgist'' movement _ looking for artifacts in museums to bring them back to historic sites, rather than the other way around _could provide clues to true archaeologists enabling them to unravel the mystery surrounding the demise of the Anasazi, he said. ``Archaeology is really pretty new here in southwest Colorado,'' he said. ``And there hasn't been much done on the Basketmakers. ``There are a lot of parallels between the Anasazi and what we have today. Overpopulation and drought were a major problem for them and many archaeologists think that's what drove them out of here. Overpopulation and drought are big problems for us, too.''
AP900121-0064 	X	Two opposition leaders expelled from Haiti were welcomed Sunday by fellow exiles in Miami, where they asked for support in ridding their Caribbean homeland of the government of Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril. Dr. Louis Roy, co-author of Haiti's 1987 constitution, arrived on a noon flight after being thrown out of his country for the second time in 30 years. ``I was arrested yesterday afternoon and put in jail,'' the 74-year-old civil-rights leader said after arriving at Miami International Airport. ``This morning, I was put on a Miami flight. They didn't even tell my why I was arrested.'' Asked if he was physically abused, he said ``Yes, I was beaten ... in the police department.'' Avril, who took power in a September 1988 soldiers' revolt that ousted military leader Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, has promised to hand over power after elections this year. Avril declared a state of emergency Saturday and arrested dozens of critics who expressed doubts about his commitment to democracy. Roy, founder of the Haitian Red Cross, was first banished in 1957, when Francois ``Papa Doc'' Duvalier was in power. Also addressing reporters Sunday was conservative leader Hubert de Ronceray, 65, who was expelled Saturday. He said that the killing that led Avril to declare a state of siege was an assassination meant for him. De Ronceray said Avril's armed forces were aiming for what they thought was his car when they killed an army colonel driving a similar auto near de Ronceray's home. He said his political colleagues had warned him that Avril wanted him ``destroyed,'' so he changed his Friday schedule. ``They made a mistake and killed the colonel,'' he said. ``Thirty minutes after he was killed, the guards arrived for me.'' The former vice minister of education under Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier said he was then arrested, beaten and thrown in jail. Once there, he said, guards slapped him, beat him with sticks and gun butts and even put a cigarette in his eye, which was noticeably red. ``It is clear the United States must help Haiti to stop Mr. Avril,'' he said in a news conference and rally at the Haitian-American Republican Council of Dade County. De Ronceray said his party would refuse to participate in the upcoming elections in Haiti because of Avril's military regime, which he said only ``promised elections to get help from foreign countries.'' ``There's no possiblity of democracy with Mr. Avril,'' he said. ``He is a dictator.'' Members of Miami's Haitian community joined de Ronceray in asking the United States to help them oust Avril. About 40 Haitians attended de Ronceray's news conference, and several hundred later rallied in the neighborhood called Little Haiti in opposition to Avril and support of the expelled opposition leaders. ``The United States is fighting for democracy in the world,'' de Ronceray said. ``Mr. Avril is demonstating he is able to block the democratic process.''
AP880912-0203 	X	NEW YORK _ Stringent security on the one hand and a trusting openness on the other mark the dealing in New York's exotic Diamond District. Barbara Mangiameli was an outsider who proved remarkably successful in that environment _ until that day when she was murdered and the $500,000 in diamonds she had been carrying disappeared. It's a story worthy of a movie plot.
AP880720-0110 	X	At least 40 people suffered broken bones or heat exhaustion after the crowd surged toward the stage at a rock concert, authorities said. The incident occurred at Greenville Memorial Auditorium just before the start of a concert Tuesday night featuring David Lee Roth and Poison. ``They got caught up in the action, scared to death, being pushed up against the stage. They were sort of crushed between the crowd and the stage, and they couldn't breathe real good because of that,'' said Pat Browning, county Emergency Medical Service director. Several spectators suffered broken bones, EMS said. The building is air conditioned, but the crush of people made the temperature soar in front of the stage, said Clifford Gray, executive director of the auditorium. Four ambulances were called to the auditorium and an infirmary was set up, Gray said. Nine people were taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital, a spokeswoman said. ``Those people (the crowd) just don't have any regard for human life,'' said Inez Jones, whose daughter Terry was one of those treated at the hospital.
AP881105-0070 	X	Rare furniture designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright will return to its original home in Springfield following efforts by Gov. James R. Thompson and more than $800,000 in donations. Thompson said Friday he has negotiated deals for the state-owned Dana-Thomas House museum to buy the furniture, a $704,000 double pedestal table lamp, a $20,000 drafting table and four dining room chairs costing $120,000. ``There are only a few major pieces from the Dana home that are still privately owned, so the opportunities to purchase them, either at auction or by private sale agreements, are extremely rare,'' Thompson said. Experts describe the Dana-Thomas house, built by Wright for $60,000 around 1903, as one of the finest examples of the architect's Prairie School houses open to the public. The house, commissioned by Susan Lawrence Dana and now maintained by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is one of the most completely furnished of all Wright's buildings. The lamp was purchased by the Dana-Thomas House Foundation through a direct sale arranged without fee by Christie's auction house in New York, Thompson said, noting that it is scheduled to arrive upon final payment next June. ``Considering the near-hysteria surrounding the acquisition of authentic Wright pieces and the rapidly escalating prices being offered by collectors, we were pleased that Christie's agreed to the private sale of this rare lamp,'' he said. The chairs were bought from a Colorado family and were returned to the Dana House in September. The drafting table will be bought from a private owner through Christie's.
AP881108-0218 	X	Lowell P. Weicker Jr., the maverick three-term Republican senator whose liberal positions often enraged his party's more conservative wing, was ousted Tuesday by moderate Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman, the state's attorney general.
AP880505-0303 	X	Oil futures prices have tumbled in the wake of a report showing domestic inventories of gasoline and crude were at higher-than-expected levels. In Wednesday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, June contracts for West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, fell 17 cents to close at $17.20 per barrel. Among refined products for June delivery, wholesale unleaded gasoline lost 0.56 cent per gallon, settling at 49.72 cents, and wholesale heating oil dropped 0.57 cent to 46.20 cents per gallon. The American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based trade organization, reported late Tuesday that domestic gasoline supplies grew by 5.9 million barrels in the week ended April 29, while crude stocks shrunk by 700,000 barrels. Those figures in particular sent prices lower in London and New York, because they left more inventory than was expected, said Mary L. Haskins, an analyst at the Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. When inventories rise faster than demand, prices tend to fall. Wednesday's declines also reflected continuing market perceptions that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would be unable to agree on a way tighten up its production, even when it meets next month in Vienna, Ms. Haskins said. Technical factors also contributed to the day's declines, she said.
AP881008-0141 	X	A man accused of raping, knifing and shooting three teen-age runaways was found guilty Saturday of murdering one of them. A Kitsap County Superior Court jury found Daniel J. Yates guilty of aggravated first-degree murder and other charges in the attack last year. The same jury now will hear more testimony before deciding between a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Yates, 33, a tattoo artist from nearby Bremerton, was accused of taking the boy and two girls he picked up Sept. 17, 1987, to an isolated area, raping them at gunpoint, and tying them up. Bunnie Lynn Brown, 13, was shot in the head during the attack and died two months later. The other girl, 15, and the boy, 13, survived. Yates was also found guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree rape. Kris Brown, the mother of the murdered girl, smiled, cried and hugged a supporter when the verdict was read. The 15-year-old girl, who survived gunshots and a slashed throat, also was in the courtroom for the verdict. In closing arguments Friday, Kitsap County Prosecutor Dan Clem pointed at Yates and said, ``The state has presented to you an ugly, violent picture with that man at the core.'' The isolated area where Yates took the three had ``no houses, no lights, no traffic _ perfect place to rape and murder,'' Clem said. Yates raped the teens at gunpoint and tied them up, and while binding them he had time to premeditate murder, Clem said. The death penalty can be given only when murder is premeditated. Yates raped a girl, tied her up, then shot her in the eye and ear, but she remained conscious and watched as Yates sodomized a boy, Clem said. After the assailant left she freed herself and ran barefoot down the gravel road to get help, the prosecutor said. ``Who should she run into but the defendant?'' Clem said. ``This nightmare shouldn't happen to anybody.'' Yates slit the girl's throat in the second encounter, but ``he's still not done,'' Clem said. ``He strangles her, smashes her face into the ground.'' The girl played dead to make Yates leave, he said. The defense maintained that Yates attacked the children only after one of the girls consented to have sex with him, and the three then threatened to double-cross him for money. ``I am not denying to you _ Daniel Yates is not denying to you _ that he cut, choked, shot and strangled'' the teens, defense attorney Judith Mandel told jurors. But ``there are different versions of these events,'' she added. The three teens are from Bremerton, across Puget Sound from Seattle.
AP901117-0079 	X	He performed in places like Madison Square Garden more times than Frank Sinatra, Jack Dempsey and lots of other big names. But after 11,697 shows, animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams performs his last death-defying act Sunday with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. ``Everybody asks me, `Why now?''' he said in the thick German accent he hasn't lost since he came to the United States 22 years ago. ``I want to step down when I am really good. I don't want to be like Ali, Sugar Ray, `Another fight, another fight.' '' A U.S. citizen since 1979, he calls himself ``German-engineered but a proud American'' and often sports a cowboy hat and a Western-style shirt. Though he's 56, Gebel-Williams remains enviably trim, 141 pounds with a ruddy complexion and his trademark sweep of blond hair. He announced two years ago that he would retire from ``The Greatest Show on Earth'' at the end of the 1990 season. He plans to settle at his winter home in Venice, Fla., with his 20 Bengal and Siberian tigers. After 42 years on the road, he said, training 20 tigers is getting a little riskier because he has lost some of his quickness and his eyesight is not what it used to be. And glasses wouldn't look so hot with his skin-hugging tights and sequined boleros, he joked. ``When you have 20 tigers, it's not easy to act like nothing can happen,'' he said. ``I've been like their father, their brother. I've been in charge always. But when one tiger is hurt, they always blame me.'' His domination in the ring comes from a soft-spoken training method based on mutual respect that separates him from his chair-and whip-wielding predecessors like Clyde Beatty and Mabel Stark, who taught animals to fear them. Gebel-Williams strokes his elephants' trunks, pats the tigers and mumbles commands in German, Indian or English. He welcomes animal rights advocates to attend his training sessions. ``That's the difference between me and everybody else,'' he said. ``I did everything with open doors. ``In 21 years never did somebody say I treated an animal wrong.'' Gebel-Williams began his career when he joined Circus Williams in Germany as an usher at 12. He became so much a part of the Williams family, who had hired his mother as a seamstress, that he added their name to his. By the 1960s, he was well-known as one of Europe's top animal trainers. In 1968, he caught the eye of Irvin Feld, owner and producer of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, who bought the entire Circus Williams to get their star to come to America. Now Gebel-Williams will yield the ring to his 20-year-old son, Mark. But he won't yield the tigers because he's afraid they won't transfer their devotion to his son. Mark's act will include the African and Indian elephants, white Lippizaner horses, zebras and camels. ``I think it's time for Mark. I have to step back,'' said Gebel-Williams, adding that he'll continue to work with the animals behind the scenes. Gebel-Williams said he didn't plan anything special for his last show, explaining that a change in routine would confuse the animals. And he hopes no one calls for a speech. ``It'll be very tough, but as long as I don't have to talk I can get through it,'' he said. After a lifetime with the circus, it would be impossible for him - and his tigers - to give it up entirely, he said. ``I believe some of my tigers will miss this. Maybe once in a while, I'll take them in the ring in Venice, turn on the music real loud, and let them pretend.''
AP900621-0099 	X	The Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to political patronage today, ruling that government employers generally may not base hiring, transfer and promotion decisions on someone's party affiliation. By a 5-4 vote, the justices said refusing to hire, transfer or promote people for politically partisan reasons in most cases violates their constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and association. The court said partisanship may play a role in such employment decisions only when political affiliation is an appropriate requirement for carrying out a job, such as a high-level policy adviser. ``Unless these patronage practices are narrowly tailored to further vital government interests, we must conclude that they impermissibly encroach on First Amendment freedoms,'' Justice William J. Brennan wrote for the court. The decision reinstates a lawsuit by three Illinois residents against Gov. James Thompson and Republican leaders in the state. Its sweeping prohibitions apply as well to federal and local government employers. In a landmark 1976 ruling and a 1980 sequel, the high court significantly weakened the political patronage system, sometimes called the ``spoils system.'' The rulings prohibited government employers from firing anyone _ even some policy-making and confidential government workers _ solely because of their political party unless party loyalty is a requirement for effective performance. But those decisions dealt only with firings. Before today, the court never had said partisanship can play no role in hiring, transfers and promotions as well. The court also struck down patronage powers of government employers in laying off and rehiring public employees. In other action, the court: _ Expanded police powers by allowing them to search a home when they are let in by someone they mistakenly believe has authority to consent to a warrantless search. In a 6-3 ruling in a case from Chicago, the justices said evidence from such searches may be used in court as long as police, at the time of the entry, reasonably believe the person who granted them access shared authority over the premises with the owner. _ Reinstated a former wrestling coach's lawsuit against an Ohio newspaper, ruling that allegedly libelous statements in the case can be treated as assertions of fact, not merely opinion. But the 7-2 ruling did not appear to reduce significantly the free-speech protections from libel law that opinion traditionally has been given by the nation's courts. For the first time, the court said the Constitution's First Amendment does not require a special, separate privilege for stated opinions. The decision makes clear, however, that the fact-opinion distinction will remain important in libel cases, and courts may continue to throw out lawsuits that seek damages for someone's stated opinions. _ Generally barred states and energy consumers from bringing federal antitrust suits against energys producers accused of conspiring to fix prices. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said only direct purchasers of energy _ in this case utility companies _ may file such suits. A federal appeals court had upheld the Illinois patronage policy in hiring, transfers and promotions but banned such considerations in layoffs and rehirings. It said layoffs are too similar to firings. Brennan said employee loyalty to government policies can be ensured without widespread patronage. ``A government's interest in securing employees who will loyally implement its policies can be adequately served by choosing or dismissing certain high-level employees on the basis of their political views,'' he said. Brennan was joined by Justices Byron R. White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor dissented. In a dissenting opinion, Scalia wrote, ``Today, the court makes its constitutional civil-service reform absolute, extending to all decisions regarding government employment.'' In the Illinois patronage case, two men and a woman who said their job status suffered because they did not vote in Republican primaries or give money to the party sued the governor, the state GOP and the heads of several state agencies. Cynthia Rutan said she repeatedly was denied promotions to supervisory positions in the state Rehabilitative Services Department because she did not support Republican candidates. Franklin Taylor, an equipment operator, said he was denied an Illinois Transportation Department transfer to another county because party officials opposed it. James Moore said the state Corrections Department has refused to hire him since 1978 because he could not get the backing of key GOP leaders. The three sued for more than $1 billion in damages. Their suit also seeks to shift control of the state employment system to a court-appointed federal receiver. During oral arguments before the justices last January, their lawyer, Mary Lee Leahy of Springfield, Ill., said Thompson's office has controlled all new hires since 1980. In all, 62,000 civil service jobs are under the governor's jurisdiction. She previously had submitted to the court a form used to screen state employees who seek a promotion and live in Sangamon County. The form asks employees to declare how they, or in some cases their parents, voted in primary elections. It also asks whether the person would be willing to work for Republicans during an election. Lawyers for Thompson and state GOP leaders argued that hiring political allies stimulates good government because the employee is likely to appreciate the job and, in turn, serve the public well. Today's decision means all the lawsuits remain alive. Several groups from the state, including Independent Voters of Illinois and Common Cause-Illinois, argued in a ``friend-of-the-court'' brief, ``A politically conditioned employment system inhibits the free functioning of democracy, rather than advancing it, since it seeks to assist only a single favored political party and to dissuade all other political activity.'' In a similar brief, lawyers for the AFL-CIO said, ``Allocating governmental resources purely in the interest of partisan politics grants the favored party an advantage that threatens the legitimacy of our governmental structure.'' Lawyers for the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, however, urged the justices to uphold the Illinois system. ``The prospect of employment is a significant incentive to political effort (and) opportunities to implement the administration's democratic mandate are enhanced significantly by patronage hiring,'' the Puerto Rico lawyers contended. ``These are compelling state interests which outweigh the possible First Amendment impairment resulting from patronage hiring.'' No other state filed a brief in support of the Illinois system. The cases are Rutan vs. Illinois Republican Party, 88-1872, and Frech vs. Rutan, 88-2074.
AP900110-0173 	X	The former director of immigration under Manuel Antonio Noriega, charged with selling passports and visas, left the Vatican Embassy on Wednesday and gave up to U.S. troops, an embassy official said. Former director Belgica de Castillo and her husband, Carlos Castillo, left the nunciature of their own accord, said the Rev. Joseph Spiteri. Still inside is Capt. Eliezer Gaytan, chief of Noriega's personal security force. The Castillos sought refuge shortly after U.S. troops invaded on Dec. 20. Deposed dictator Noriega himself holed up in the embassy from Dec. 24 to Jan. 3 before turning himself over to U.S. soldiers. Spiteri said a U.S. military vehicle picked up the Castillos and took them to a U.S. base. Panama's new government said Monday that eight former immigration officials, including Mrs. Castillo, were being charged with corruption for selling visas and passports. Attorney General Rogelio Cruz announced Wednesday that a private law firm had filed a complaint against Manuel Solis Palma, who served as acting president for six months in 1988, but was never recognized by the United States, which considered him a Noriega puppet. The complaint accusing Solis Palma of ``usurping public functions and committing crimes against political liberties'' was being investigated, Cruz said. He said Solis Palma, now a private citizen in Panama, asked for a guarantee he would not be arrested if he agreed to meet with authorities for questioning. Solis Palma replaced President Eric Arturo Delvalle after Delvalle tried to fire Noriega in February 1988 and was acting president until Sept. 1, 1988. New U.S. Ambassador Deane R. Hinton presented his credentials to President Guillermo Endara on Wednesday and said U.S.-Panamanian relations were ``perfect'' following Noriega's ouster. ``I see no problems now,'' Hinton said, speaking to reporters in Spanish after meeting Endara. ``We will support and work with the democratic government of Panama.'' John Grant McDonald, the new British ambassador, also presented his credentials but made no statement. Panamanians continued to pick over the remains of the building in downtown Panama City where Noriega had his military headquarters, toting away everything from furniture to track lighting and pornography. The building, heavily damaged by fighting in the invasion, will be demolished on Thursday, Housing Minister Raul Figueroa said. Foreign Minister Julio Linares said Panamanians linked to Noriega have taken refuge in the embassies of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba and the Vatican. All but the Bolivian mission are surrounded by U.S. troops. Cruz said two of the 12 Panamanians who sought refuge in the Peruvian Embassy were suspects in the killing of Maj. Moises Giroldi, who led an unsuccessful coup attempt against Noriega on Oct. 3. He did not identify the two but said the Foreign Ministry would tell Peru ``they are not being persecuted politically'' and so could not be given asylum. Noriega's family is in the Cuban Embassy. Linares said Panama is considering their request for safe-conduct to the Dominican Republic but must first decide whether they can be charged with any offenses.
AP880909-0022 	X	Young men who go out at night with romance in their hearts and condoms in their wallets should find another storage place, medical researchers say. Ozone, a major component of smog and a product of lightning storms, damages the latex in condoms, and any practice threatening to tear condoms' packaging and expose them to air should be avoided, the researchers said. ``It's not something you should subject to putting in your back pocket, or sitting on, or in any way damaging,'' said Russell P. Sherwin, a researcher at the University of Southern California School of Medicine in Los Angeles. Ozone is a lung irritant produced when industrial pollutants and nitrogen oxide react in the presence of sunlight. It reaches high levels in U.S. cities inhabited by a total of 75 million people, the federal Environmental Protection Agency estimated earlier this year. U.S. sales of condoms _ fueled in part by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's endorsement as protection against AIDS _ totaled $290 million last year and should jump 20 percent more this year, market analysts have said. Sherwin and fellow researchers tested 20 unrolled, unpackaged latex condoms, exposing them to air containing 0.3 parts per million of ozone for 72 hours, a level comparable to a ``Stage 1'' smog alert in Southern California. Afterward, all but two condoms had obvious holes in them and 11 burst at pressures far below those that condoms unexposed to ozone-containing air were able to withstand, the researchers said. Examination of the ozone-exposed condoms with an electron microscope also revealed deterioration, the researchers reported in a letter in Friday's Journal of the American Medical Association. ``The effect on latex of 0.3 parts per million of ozone for 72 hours is serious and deserves consideration for all phases of condom storage, including the storage and dispersion of non-packaged condoms by sexually transmitted disease prevention and family planning clinics,'' the researchers wrote. Sherwin said in a telephone interview Wednesday, ``The package seemed to provide protection as long at it was intact, as long as it wasn't perforated or crinkled.'' He said the researchers are continuing studies and plan to issue formal findings, including whether another common pollutant _ nitrogen dioxide _ can penetrate typical condom packaging, as it does other kinds of packaging, and cause condoms to become faulty even when unopened. ``The general advice that we offer on condoms holds,'' said Dr. Robert Staab, vice president of scientific affairs for Schmid Laboratories Inc., the nation's No. 2 condom-maker behind Carter Wallace Inc. of New York. ``That is that they are going to remain safe and effective for a normal life of a product, which is in years, as long as you keep them away from heat, light and ozone,'' Staab said Thursday from the company's Little Falls, N.J., headquarters. The company's packaging is designed partly with ozone in mind by choosing ``only raw materials that will seal properly'' to keep out heat, light and ozone, Staab said. Schmid makes Ramses, Sheik and Koromex latex brands and Fourex natural skins brands, but the researchers declined to identify any of the brands of condoms involved. Natural skins condoms also are susceptible to damage from exposure to the environment, Staab added. Recent recalls of several condom lots have increased concern about their dependability, the California researchers said. ``Our general advice is if upon opening a condom and it doesn't look right, don't use it,'' Staab said.
AP901102-0037 	X	Testimony in Round 2 of a comatose woman's right-to-die case ended without any opposition to letting her die. Her doctor and her state-appointed guardian agreed with family members and friends of 33-year-old Nancy Cruzan, who has been in an irreversible coma since 1983. Dr. James C. Davis, who opposed removing a feeding tube when the family first sought court permission to let her die three years ago, changed his mind. He said during a Circuit Court hearing Thursday he favored the mercy death because he was convinced there was no hope for any improvement. He said living for years in a coma, without feeling or thought, was a terrifying prospect. ``I think it would be personally a living hell,'' Davis said. Asked if he would want someone to end his life if he were in her place, Davis replied: ``I think anyone would choose that if they had observed that condition.'' The U.S. Supreme Court, in its first right-to-die decision, last summer rejected a request by Ms. Cruzan's parents to end her life, ruling the state could bar such moves if victims had not made their desires known. Ms. Cruzan left no written instructions about what she would want done under such circumstances. The family went back to court, saying they had new witnesses who could support their claims that she would want to die. Judge Charles E. Teel, who ruled in the parents' favor before he was overruled, said he would rule on the new petition by Jan. 1. Joe Cruzan testified he knew his daughter would rather die than spend the rest of her life as a ``vegetable.'' ``My God, I wouldn't be here today if I thought there was any question,'' he said, his voice cracking. Two former co-workers and a former employer also said Ms. Cruzan told them she would not want to live if she ever suffered permanent brain damage. She went into a coma after a 1983 car crash. Doctors say she will never recover but could remain alive for 30 years or more in her currentcondition. Ms. Cruzan's state-appointed guardian said he agreed with the Cruzans and her personal physician that the feeding tube should be removed. ``I think it clearly is not in her best interest to go on this way,'' said the guardian, Thad McCanse. ``I'm convinced Nancy would not want to live like she is now.'' Debi Havner, who now lives in Enid, Okla., and Marianne Smith of Joplin, testified that while working with in 1978 at a school for severely handicapped children in Joplin, the three once agreed none of them would not want to be kept alive artificially. Tom Turner, the former owner of an Oklahoma office products store where Ms. Cruzan worked briefly in 1981, said in videotaped testimony that she also discussed her opposition to certain life-sustaining measures with him. ``She said such things as `Vegetables can't hug their nieces,''' Turner said. ``Her family was a major portion of her life, and if she couldn't have them, she didn't want to live.''
AP880501-0083 	X	An upcoming report by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop will declare that nicotine is an addictive drug, the head of the federal Office of Smoking and Health said Sunday. Dr. Ronald M. Davis said he hopes the report will spur the public to understand that cigarette smoking ``is more than just a simple habit.'' ``We have to at least give it the serious attention that we do for the illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, etc.,'' Davis said on CBS-TV's ``Face the Nation.'' Government officials have been saying for years that nicotine is an addictive drug ``just like cocaine, just like heroin and other drugs that people commonly accept as addicting,'' he said. ``But this report, which will be released in a few weeks, looks at the evidence in far greater detail than we've ever looked at before. It compares this drug nicotine versus other drugs,'' he said. The report would be the first by a federal official with as high a rank as the surgeon general to declare nicotine addictive. Davis noted that the 1986 surgeon general's report on smoking, which documented the health hazards of passive smoking, accelerated the trend toward restricting or banning smoking in public places and in the work place. Among the changes triggered by that report is the recently inaugurated ban on smoking on commercial airplane flights that last two hours or less. Although Davis did not say exactly what steps should be taken once the surgeon general issues his report, he questioned some current ways that cigarettes are distributed. ``Why ... do we sell tobacco products in vending machines?'' he asked. ``We don't allow other addicting drugs to be sold in vending machines. Why do we allow free samples of the product to be sent through the mail? Or to be passed out on public property where kids and others have free access to them? When we call this drug an addicting drug, we have to take it more seriously than we currently do.'' Attempts to reach tobacco industry officials for comment on the upcoming Koop report were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for the Tobacco Institute and a spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. did not answer phone calls made to numbers listed for their homes on Sunday afternoon. Davis attributed the lack of federal regulations on cigarettes to the historical social acceptability of smoking ``and probably the political influence of the tobacco industry.'' But Davis said he believes that as fewer people smoke, as it becomes a less socially acceptable activity and as people become more aware of the hazards of smoking, ``we'll begin to take actions that we've taken long ago for most other consumer products.'' He said lower tar, lower nicotine cigarettes are not the answer because some people smoking such cigarettes ``actually start to smoke more cigarettes per day, or inhale more deeply, or puff more frequently.'' Davis noted that overall, only 27 percent of the adult population currently smokes cigarettes, compared with 42 percent of adults in 1964 when the first surgeon general's report documenting some health risks of smoking was released. But he said higher smoking rates are occurring in certain population groups, specifically blue collar workers, the unemployed, certain racial and ethnic minority groups and young women. ``Young women smoke at a higher rate than young men, which is the only age group at which we see women smoking more than men,'' he said, attributing that in part to advertising ploys indicating that cigarette smoking is a form of women's liberation.
AP881207-0243 	X	The true legend of the Traveling Wilburys began when George Har..., er, Nelson Wilbury needed to record an extra song at short notice and invited two of his dinner companions to lend their voices. Nine days and 10 songs later, the result was one of those happy accidents that proves there's more to the music business than accountants and estates. You won't find the names George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne on ``Volume One,'' the debut album by the oddly-named Traveling Wilburys. But the dark glasses and pseudonyms can't hide those familiar talents. Orbison died at the age of 52 on Dec. 6 of a heart attack. ``We definitely didn't want to treat this like a supergroup,'' said Petty, or Charles T. Wilbury Jr. ``I don't even like the term all that much. But we were aware that it would be viewed as such. We look at the Wilburys as a completely other persona as ourselves.'' Harrison mentioned to Lynne and Orbison over dinner last spring that he needed a new B-side for a 12-inch single release. The other two said they'd help him put together a song. The former Beatle had to retrieve his guitar, which he'd left at Petty's California house during a visit a few days earlier, Petty said. The lead Heartbreaker was also asked to join in on the record. Since all the nearby studios were booked, the three amigos had to impose on another friend who had recording facilities in his house. Dylan said he'd be glad to offer his assistance. ``We all sat around the grass at Bob's house and wrote this song called `Handle With Care' and recorded it that night,'' Petty recalled. ``When it was all done it sounded really good.'' Much too good, they thought, for a B-side. So they kept on writing and recording. ``It was a very innocent thing, really,'' Petty said. ``We were just kind of enjoying it and we were deep into it before we realized almost what we were doing.'' That spontaneity, and a lot of humor, comes through on the record. ``Volume One'' sounds like a group of friends, albeit extremely talented friends, enjoying themselves together. All five trade lead and backing vocals and strum guitars. The results are a cross between Harrison's early '70s solo work and the electronic flourishes Lynne brought to the Electric Light Orchestra. Orbison's ``Not Alone Any More'' is in the vein he's mined for a quarter-century and the three songs Dylan dominates are some of his best work in years. The song ``Dirty World'' pokes fun at Prince with a series of sexual double-entendres and the wickedly funny ``Tweeter and the Monkey Man'' is littered with Bruce Springsteen references. The record was a true collaboration, Petty said. On ``Tweeter,'' for instance, he and Dylan spoke lyrics into a tape recorder then edited them into a story. Other Wilburys added the chorus, he said. Credit a non-rocker, Prince Charles of Great Britain, with the name Traveling Wilburys, Petty said. Harrison and Lynne performed at the Prince's Trust concert last year and were complimented by the host following the show, he said. The prince said the two should form a band, and when they asked for a name, he suggested the Traveling Wilburys, Petty said. The quintet quickly adopted the persona. Harrison is identified throughout as Nelson Wilbury, Lynne is Otis Wilbury, Orbison is Lefty Wilbury and Dylan's called Lucky. The whimsical liner notes explain that ``the original Wilburys were a stationary people who, realizing that their civilization could not stand still forever, began to go for short walks.'' The offbeat sense of humor seemed to take the pressure off the participants and lent the album a certain mystique, said Paul Grein, author of the Chartbeat column in Billboard magazine. It's working _ the album debuted on the charts at No. 57 and shot to No. 23 in its second week, he said. ``It's destined to be a very big hit,'' Grein said. The Wilbury monikers also took some pressure off the businessmen, since Harrison, Dylan, Petty and Orbison are all contracted to different record companies. There are more than just joking reasons why all the names were left off the album jacket. Petty said the Wilburys have been approached to do a tour, and though no one's said no, they haven't all said yes, either. He hinted that the Wilbury family tree might be larger, but wouldn't say if a ``Volume Two'' is planned. There's the obvious risk of losing the spark that made this record special. ``I don't think anybody wants the Wilburys to be work,'' he said. ``I would leave the door open to that. We wouldn't rule it out because we had so much fun. I think it could be done again, but not right away. ``We were all very pleased with the way it came out,'' Petty continued. ``It's so nice when you get the spirit into the vinyl. That's what you strive for. I hope everybody smiles when they hear it.''
AP900102-0196 	X	Hungary's reform-minded government plans to privatize the Malev state airline, the deputy transport minister said Tuesday. In an interview with the Magyar Hirlap daily, Sandor Kalnoki Kiss said the government had already received many offers for Malev but planned to hire a professional company to handle the sell-off. ``We have not agreed with anyone but we give everyone a hearing and urge them to take part in the competition,'' Kalnoki Kiss said. He said that, while it would be difficult for the government to retain a controlling stake in the airline, his ministry would seek a guarantee to have a say in future company decisions, the news agency reported. Kalnoki Kiss gave no further details. Malev's 22-plane fleet flies to 40 countries in Europe, the Middle East and North America.
AP901212-0217 	X	Data General Corp. today announced today that Edson D. de Castro, the 52-year-old chairman of the troubled computer maker, would resign on Dec. 31. Vice Chairman Herbert J. Richman, 56, will retire at the end of its fiscal year in September. A company statement gave no reasons for the retirements of the two executives, who helped found Data General in 1968. Ronald L. Skates, the company president and chief executive officer, praised de Castro as ``an industry legend.'' He also commended Richman for leading the company's sales and marketing efforts. Skates said Richman deserved much of the credit for Data General's rapid rise in the market for mid-range minicomputers. That market has fallen on hard times. Data General has not enjoyed a profitable year since 1985, when its employment peaked at 17,700. Since then, the company has suffered a string of losses, and employment has shrunk to around 9,500. Analysts say Data General has responded with some strong products, particularly its AViiON workstations. But the minicomputer slump has continued to act as a drag on earnings, hampering the company's repeated efforts to turn a profit. The company lost $139 million in its most recent fiscal year. Revenues were $1.22 billion, compared with $1.31 billion the year before. Neither de Castro nor Richman will seek re-election to the board of directors, but Richman will continue to serve as executive vice president for the AsiaPacific region until he retires, the company said.
AP900607-0168 	X	South Korean President Roh Tae-woo left Honolulu Thursday afternoon for Seoul as he wound up his historic trip to the United States. On Monday, Roh held groundbreaking talks with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in San Francisco. Then, he flew to Washington to brief President Bush on the talks aimed at reducing tensions between North and South Korea. Roh spent about 18 hours in Hawaii relaxing from his high-level diplomatic contacts with the two superpower leaders. About 100 men, women and children from Hawaii's Korean community were on hand at Hickam Air Force Base for Roh's departure. Many of the women were dressed in hanboks, traditional Korean dresses.
AP900919-0023 	X	New Jersey and Indiana lawmakers are at odds over a Senate-approved measure that would allow states to close their borders to other states' garbage to protect shrinking landfill capacity. Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said his bill would give ``every state the right to determine its own destiny'' in managing trash. But New Jersey Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bill Bradley contend the bill could slam the door on states unprepared for critical landfill shortages. The Senate approved the measure Tuesday on a 68-31 vote. Lautenberg and Bradley say they will try to persuade a House-Senate conference committee to kill the bill. New Jersey is the largest exporter of solid waste to Indiana landfills, which Coats said are eight to 10 years from reaching their capacity. Indiana, he said, is afraid of being overrun by trash. But New Jersey says it's also in danger of being overwhelmed by garbage. Coats' proposal, offered as an amendment to the District of Columbia appropriations bill, would let states block garbage imports as long as they had a 20-year solid waste plan in place. Lautenberg and Bradley charged the measure would block development of a comprehensive national solid waste policy by pitting state against state. ``What goes around, comes around,'' Bradley said several times on the Senate floor, as he warned colleagues that 37 states and the District of Columbia export garbage and could find themselves in New Jersey's position. The New Jersey senators told reporters the garbage measure could be stripped from the district appropriations bill because the House has no similar garbage provision in its version. The district appropriations bill is also in danger of a presidential veto because it contains abortion funding language that led to two vetoes last year. If the garbage provision ``is knocked out, we'll be back next year,'' Coats said. ``At minimum, we have established a 2-to-1 majority to do something about this problem.'' Lautenberg accused Coats of playing election-year politics with the garbage issue by running television campaign ads that depict a caricature of a New Jersey man dumping garbage on a Hoosier stoop. Coats was among those accusing New Jersey of not doing enough to control its own waste crisis. ``New Jersey has to solve its problem in a sensible, non-polluting way,'' Lautenberg said, acknowledging the state's position had few adherents outside the Northeast. ``We knew we were on the less-popular side of the issue,'' he said. But Lautenberg argued that passage would let states impose ``unlimited, punitive fees on out-of-state garbage'' without Environmental Protection Agency review. ``A state writes its own ticket,'' he said. Lautenberg also warned the bill ``would force locked-out states to take desperate steps ... that may mean a rush to incinerators'' or illegal dumping.
AP900302-0137 	X	A wide area of Southern California rolled today with another aftershock of Wednesday's big earthquake, triggering a rockslide on a mountain road but no reports of significant damage or injuries. The quake shook Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. It also hit Orange County, where President Bush was addressing a noon anti-drug rally. The aftershock measured 4.7 on the Richter scale at 9:26 a.m., said Robert Finn, spokesman for the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. It was preceded today by a 2.5 quake at 2:52 a.m. and followed within two hours by about 10 quakes under magnitude 2.5, including a 2.4 at 10:41 a.m., according to Caltech. A rockslide closed Mount Baldy Road in the mountains north of Upland and only residents were allowed through, Caltrans spokesman Anthony Hughes said. ``It was scary and I'm shaking. But nothing fell or flew this time,'' said Melina Manning of Ontario, two miles south of the epicenter. ``All the pans and the lights swayed back and forth. It was mild compared to the other day but very scary especially because your nerves are shot from the other day.'' ``I was under the desk again. It was very strong here,'' said state Office of Emergency Services spokesman Michael Guerin in Ontario. The aftershocks came as Southern Californians bounced by the largest quake to hit the region in more than two years were sweeping up after millions of dollars in damage. City council members in Pomona _ hardest hit of several areas struck by Wednesday's earthquake _ said they would meet today to request that Gov. George Deukmejian assist them in obtaining federal or state funds to repair an estimated $10 million in damage in their city. The state Office of Emergency Services said Thursday the quake, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, caused at least $12.7 million damage in the cities of Claremont, Pomona, La Verne, Chino, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Montclair and Upland and the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino. The figure ``is very preliminary, based on information provided by cities and counties,'' said Guerin. The quake, felt along the coast from San Diego to Santa Barbara and as far east as Las Vegas, was centered on an unnamed fault three miles northwest of this city 40 miles east of Los Angeles. It toppled scores of chimneys, shattered hundreds of windows and collapsed one building's wall, but remarkably, caused no major injuries or deaths. Dozens of smaller aftershocks have rattled the area since. There was no official estimate of the number of injured other than ``several dozen'' from the OES. The most serious injuries, officials said, were a few broken bones. Only one person, a Pomona man, was known to have been left homeless by the quake. But the temblor spurred renewed calls for Southern Californians to prepare for the so-called ``Big One,'' a catastrophic earthquake measuring between 7.5 and 8 on the Richter scale of ground motion. A 1988 U.S. Geological Survey report said that a quake that size is at least 60 percent likely by the year 2018 on the southern San Andreas Fault. ``This is the handwriting on the wall and we better start looking at the design of some of our buildings,'' Pomona Vice Mayor Clay Bryant said Thursday. ``We've already been put on notice by a 5.5.'' Pomona Mayor Donna Smith said city inspectors were compiling a list of how many unreinforced masonry buildings remain in the city, which has several landmark structures more than 100 years old. She said 301 buildings in Pomona were damaged and 17 were declared uninhabitable. Pomona, Claremont and La Verne all declared local states of emergency Wednesday, but the La Verne City Council withdrew its declaration Thursday after determining damage was not as bad as first believed. The destruction was widely scattered throughout the region. In Pomona, for example, part of the south face of the 58-year-old brick-and-concrete Trinity United Methodist Church collapsed while the brick Pilgram Congregational Church a block away withstood the quake. At the city's historic Phillips Mansion, built in 1875, a chimney toppled onto a roof, causing an estimated $500,000 damage, but surrounding buildings were unscathed. Despite the damage, the quake was far less serious than the one that struck the Whittier area on Oct. 1, 1987. That one measured 5.9 and, together with a 5.3-magnitude aftershock on Oct. 4, killed eight people, injured more than 200 and caused $358 million in damage. The Richter scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs. An earthquake of 5 can cause considerable damage and 6 severe damage.
AP901130-0208 	X	Oil prices tumbled more than $4 per barrel today as President Bush held out the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the Persian Gulf crisis. Contracts for light sweet crude fell more than $1 per barrel in a span of several minutes while Bush was on television giving his assessment of the crisis. His remarks followed a vote late Thursday in which the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to push Iraqi troops out of oil-rich Kuwait if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein does not withdraw them by Jan. 15. Crude then kept falling sharply, sinking below the $30 per barrel threshold, after Bush's news conference had ended. By late afternoon, contracts for crude delivery in January were down $4.21 per barrel, at $28.70, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil's biggest move during the crisis was a fall of $5.41 per barrel on Oct. 22. Contracts for crude delivery in several later months were down by their daily limit of $1.50 per barrel. Bush said he would invite Iraqi's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to come to Washington in December to discuss the situation. Bush also mentioned the possibility that he would send Secretary of State James A. Baker III to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. ``The reaction is very much to his inviting Tariq Aziz to Washington and Baker to Baghdad,'' said Ann-Louise Hittle, a senior oil analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. The market had moved up earlier in the week in anticipation of the U.N. resolution, so Bush's comments indicating that he would send troops into combat if necessary did not move the market. The president said he would accept nothing less than a complete withdrawal of Iraqi troops and freedom for hostages held by Saddam. ``This has been a war premium market,'' Hittle said. ``We rose on expectation of the U.N. resolution being passed. With his comment today, we're losing that war premium and backing off.'' As oil plummeted, prices for refined petroleum products also fell. By early afternoon, home heating oil was down 6.42 cents at 87.10 cents a gallon on December delivery contracts. Unleaded gasoline fell 5.12 cents a gallon to 78.25 cents on December delivery contracts. Some of the contracts for product delivery in later months were down by their daily limit of 4 cents a gallon. Natural gas was off 7.5 cents at $2.415 per 1,000 cubic feet on contracts for delivery in January.
AP880830-0131 	X	The soloist for the Italian air force stunt team caused the fatal crash at the West German air show when he arrived too low and too soon at the point where the jets intersected, his commander said Tuesday. Lt. Col. Diego Raineri spoke to reporters shortly before the remains of the three pilots killed in the crash Sunday at Ramstein, West Germany, arrived at the airport. About 2,000 people were at the airport when the bodies arrived. Defense Minister Valerio Zanone will attend the funeral Wednesday for the pilots identified as Lt. Col. Mario Naldini, 38; the soloist, Lt. Col. Ivo Nutarelli, 41; and Capt. Giorgio Alessio, 31, who was the youngest member of the team. ``It is easy enough to tell what happened,'' said Ranieri, who as commader was coordinating the team's manuevers by radio from the ground at the time of the collision that sent one plane hurtling into the crowd. ``The first section of the formation flew in one direction and the soloist came in from 90 degrees, colliding with two planes,'' he said. Two of the three other planes in that group were damaged, he said. ``I was the only one (team member) to see the tragedy, but I don't understand what happened. The soloist came in early on the rest of the formation and at the same altitude,'' Ranieri said. ``The other section, composed of four planes, did not know what happened until the end of the manuever when the pilots saw the wreckage and the smoke on the runway,'' he said. Some Italian politicans called for a parliamentary investigation of the crash, called for the resignation of the defense minister and the Air Force commander, and criticized the Defense Ministry's decision to allow the team to continue its performances this year. ``The decision of the Defense Ministry to continue the next exhibitions of the national aerobatic team seems like an offense in front of the victims, the hundreds of injured at Ramstein and the pilots that died in the accident,'' said Greens party Deputies Rosa Filippini and Giancarlo Salvoldi. The two said they would demand an urgent meeting of the Chamber of Deputies to debate the tragedy. Deputy Flaminio Piccoli, a member of the dominant Christian Democrats and the president of the chamber's foreign committee, criticized the risks ``to the lives of the exceptional pilots and to the lives of the citizens and spectators'' and said it was necessary for the government and Parliament to investigate the tragedy. The organizers of an air show Satuday in Fribourg, Switzerland, announced they have asked the Italian team to withdraw because of the accident at Ramstein. They said the request was to show respect for the dead pilots and because the crash investigation is still underway. Also on Tuesday, organizers canceled a Sept. 11 air show in Venice. Ranieri, during his impromptu news conference, defended the decision to continue performances by the team this year. ``An experience like Ramstein cannot be erased from the memory, but the motivation to do our work has not changed very much,'' he said. ``The time to reconstruct the unit decimated by the accident will be months, probably years. We were the best in the world.''
AP880825-0159 	X	The value of U.S. agricultural exports is expected to jump 22 percent to a four-year high of $34 billion this fiscal year, up from $27.9 billion in 1986-87, the Agriculture Department said Thursday. In terms of actual quantity, shipments were forecast at 146 million metric tons in the year that will end Sept. 30, up 13 percent from last year. Both the value and quantity estimates were up from the previous USDA forecasts on May 26 of $33.5 billion and 145.5 million tons. Although the report cited no figures for subsequent years, it said export values may increase in 1988-89 due to higher prices but the volume of shipments may decline. The report said the rise in estimates since May stemmed from larger-than-expected exports of animal products, slightly larger subsidized wheat exports, and higher corn prices due to the drought. Noting that 1987-88 exports are now expected to be up $6.1 billion and 16.8 million tons, the report said, ``This largely reflects reduced competitor supplies; higher prices for grains, oilseeds and cotton; and increased U.S. export competitiveness'' helped by a lower-valued dollar and the Export Enhancement Program, or EEP. Under EEP, selected countries _ including the Soviet Union and China _ can get wheat and other designated commodities subsidized by the U.S. government. The new forecast showed the value of grain exports at $12.2 billion, up from $11.8 billion expected in May and 1986-87 shipments worth $9.33 billion. Oilseeds, mainly soybeans, were forecast at $7.6 billion, down slightly from $7.7 billion indicated three months ago. But that was up from $6.47 billion last year. Exports of livestock products this year were raised to $4.7 billion from the May forecast of $4.5 billion. In 1986-87, those were valued at $3.96 billion. Other major categories included: horticultural products, $3.7 billion this year, the same as indicated in May but up from $3.15 billion in 1986-87. Cotton export values were shown at $2.2 billion, the same as the earlier forecast. Last year's cotton shipments were worth $1.43 billion.
AP900202-0067 	X	Two Americans and an Israeli have been charged in a federal indictment with conspiring to arrange the sale to Iran of three Israeli-owned U.S.-made military cargo planes. The indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court stemmed from an undercover investigation by the U.S. Customs Service. The sale, in which Iran was to buy the aircraft for $12 million each, never went through. The men, allegedly middlemen in the deal, were charged with conspiring to cover up the true destination of the C-130E transports by submitting to the State Department false papers that said a Brazilian company would buy them. Prosecutors said the proposed sale violated the Arms Export Control Act in which the State Department must approve all transfers abroad of American-made military goods. It prohibits the sale of such goods to countries such as Iran that have supported acts of international terrorism. Assistant U.S. Attorney Baruch Weiss said he could not say whether Israel knew the planes were to be sold to Iran. The Brazilian company, which was not identified, allegedly was to receive $500,000 for providing the false information to the State Department, the indictment said. The defendants named in the indictment were Joseph O'Toole, 58, of Claremont, Calif.; Richard St. Francis, 40, of Fairfield, Conn.; and Ari Ben Menashe, an Israeli. All three were first arrested in April when the terms of the deal were finalized with an undercover Customs agent. The case was then presented to a grand jury, which returned the indictment, charging each with one count of conspiracy. Menashe has been jailed without bail since his arrest. The others are free on bond. Weiss said he could not give more information about the defendants. St. Francis, however, was identified in court papers as a vice president of the Connecticut office of Vienna, Va.-based TransCapital Corp. If convicted of conspiracy, the men face up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
AP880818-0267 	X	Housing construction rose a moderate 2.4 percent in July, the government reports, but economists warn that rising mortgage rates could make the two-month housing rebound a brief one. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new homes and apartments were built at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.49 million units last month after advancing 4.4 percent in June. Housing starts dropped a sharp 12.1 percent in May to the slowest pace in three years, and rising mortgage rates were blamed.
AP900316-0119 	X	There were 840 tornadoes in the United States last year, the second highest total on record, the National Weather Service reported Friday. The record is 907 tornadoes, recorded in 1984. There were relatively few fatalities in 1989, however, the Weather Service said. There were 48 deaths attributed to twisters, well below the 83 fatalities in an average year. Alabama suffered the most 1989 deaths with 21, according to the report. There were 9 deaths in New York, 5 in North Carolina, 4 in Georgia, 3 in Florida, 2 each in Louisiana and South Carolina and 1 each in Tennessee and Texas.
AP900706-0256 	X	The board of directors of The Pittston Co. has elected a new president and vice chairman, the company said Friday. Joseph C. Farrell was elected president and chief operating officer, and David L. Marshall was elected vice chairman, the company said. Both had been executive vice presidents. Paul W. Douglas, chairman and chief executive officer, said the promotions were part of the transition plan for his scheduled retirement in September 1991. Pittston suffered a $10 million first quarter loss it blamed on a 10-month coal miners' strike and by poor performance in its air freight business. The Greenwich-based company is engaged in the mining and marketing of bituminous coal through the Pittston Coal Group, Inc. and Pyxis Resources Co.; in air freight services through Burlington Air Express, Inc.; in security transportation through Brink's Inc.; and in home security services through Brink's Home Security, Inc.
AP880930-0056 	X	After nearly seven years of court proceedings, it took a jury just over two hours to reject the claim by former Gov. Edward J. King that he was libeled by a 1981 political column in The Boston Globe. But the former chief executive claimed he was vindicated anyway because the verdict issued Thursday found one sentence in the column was false. ``We did the very best we could,'' King said after the verdict in Suffolk Superior Court. He said he did not consider the lawsuit a waste of time because ``now we know that something the Globe never retracted was a false statement.'' King, who said earlier that he might run for governor again if he prevailed, said he and his lawyer would decide whether to appeal the ruling within 30 days. He had no comment on his political plans, ifany. After six days of testimony, the jury returned a special verdict slip that said former Globe columnist David Farrell was wrong when he wrote in a Nov. 8, 1981, column that King called a judge to demand harsher sentences in a gang-rape case. But when asked if they believed the statement discredited King among ``any considerable and respectable class of the community,'' the jury answered no and decided the case in favor of the Globe. King needed to prevail on each question on the verdict slip to win. John Driscoll, the newspaper's editor, said the verdict upheld freedom of speech. ``After seven years of litigation, the jury has reaffirmed the right of all people _ including columnists and cartoonists _ to speak and write freely about the actions of government,'' Driscoll said. Farrell, 62, who resigned from the Globe in 1985 and now works in public relations, said he was relieved. ``I'm very pleased and I feel vindicated. I always felt I did a good job writing the column,'' Farrell said. Asked if he still believes King called the judge, Farrell said, ``Yes.'' King, who joined the Republican party after losing the September 1982 Democratic primary to Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, filed suit in January 1982 against the Globe and several editorial employees, seeking $3.6 million. King testified that the column amounted to a charge of obstruction of justice and struck him like ``an ice pick in the ribs,'' causing him to lose sleep on more than 1,000 nights. On cross-examination, King acknowledged that he never publicly denied making the call. Globe attorney Joseph Kociubes argued that King, who was thinking of suing the Globe before the column, did not show evidence of financial, social or political harm. Farrell testified that he was told about King's purported call to Judge Herbert Abrams by state Treasurer Robert Q. Crane, an old friend of Farrell whom he considered a reliable source about Massachusetts politics. Crane testified that he was the source, but could not recall who told him about the call. Both King and Abrams swore that no call took place. Under libel law, a public figure such as King has the burden of showing not only that a publication was false but that it defamed him. Further, the governor must have shown that the column was published with ``actual malice'' _ that is, with knowing falsity or with ``reckless disregard'' for the truth.
AP880219-0250 	X	Prices dipped in dull trading on the London Stock Exchange Friday, hurt in part by weakness on Wall Street. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-stock index closed down 6.3 points, or 0.4 percent, at 1,729.8. Volume was a low 377.8 million shares, compared with 411.3 million Thursday. Prices were marked down at the opening in response to a fall Thursday in New York, brokers said. Prices barely moved for the next several hours because of a lack of trading and interest, they said. But prices slipped again in the afternoon when Wall Street failed to revive at its opening. The market currently is lacking direction because it is receiving contradictory signals about the direction of the economy, and is waiting for British companies to complete reporting their 1987 results, one broker said. Only a few companies have already reported their results, and the market needs some indication of how Britain's major banks and industrial concerns are doing, the broker said.
AP900906-0131 	X	About 30 nationalists gathered Thursday night at the foot of a statue of Vladimir Lenin in a Ukrainian city for a candlelight vigil to denounce 72 years of ``red terror,'' the Tass news agency reported. The demonstrators in Donetsk placed a garland of barbed wire around the base of the statue to the founder of the Soviet state, Tass reported. A ribbon attached to the wire said ``To V.I. Lenin _ on the 72nd Anniversary of Red Terror,'' the news agency said. Another streamer reportedly bore the words: ``100 million victims.'' Tass said the demonstrators, all members of a Ukrainian nationalist movement, held lighted candles in the vigil, which lasted about an hour. The Tass account was headlined ``Insulting Vigil at Lenin Monument in Donetsk,'' and said passers-by expressed anger and bewilderment at the protest. Police asked the demonstrators to disperse, and one of the participants tried to slash his veins to protest what he called illegal police actions, Tass reported. He received medical assistance, and the demonstrators dispersed, the news agency added. Donetsk, the center of the eastern Ukraine's Don River coal basin, was the site this summer of a one-day strike by miners demanding less interference from the Communist Party. Miners in Donetsk also joined a long, bitter coal strike in the summer of 1989 over low wages and consumer goods shortages. Statues of Lenin have been vandalized with increasing frequency across the Soviet Union in recent months, and some have been dismantled on the orders of local authorities, to the dismay of the Soviet leadership.
AP880918-0076 	X	The remains of Hurricane Gilbert passed across Texas Sunday, swelling rivers as hundreds of people began clearing debris from homes and businesses damaged by at least 41 tornadoes spun off by the storm. Bob Gibson, controller at the state's Emergency Operating Center in Austin, said Sunday night that his office was monitoring areas where flash flood and tornado watches were in effect until Sunday night, but had no reports of significant flooding. ``It's been actually pretty light tonight,'' he said. ``I think we're still lucky.'' Nearly 2 inches of rain fell Sunday at Quanah, northwest of Wichita Falls, which had a thunderstorm and high wind Sunday night, and some roads were under water in Ozona in West Texas Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service reported. The remains of Gilbert were moving out of Texas and into Oklahoma late Sunday night, the weather service said. Forecasters told residents of central Oklahoma and southeast Kansas to watch for possible flooding early Monday. In Texas, tornadoes touched down just to the west of Abilene Sunday at Lake Sweetwater and at Eskota, but only minor damage was reported, the weather service said. A total of 41 tornadoes swept the state as the remains of Gilbert headed northward, officials said. Two people were reported killed, both in San Antonio late Friday and Saturday. State officials said they did not expect to have a dollar estimate of damages throughout the state for a few days. Trees and roofs were blown away at Kelly Air Force Base, causing $3 million damage. Scores of apartments were destroyed or damaged at one complex. Telephone and electric service was knocked out in areas. An air-conditioning system at a Veterans Administration Hospital was damaged, prompting Mayor Henry Cisneros to declare a state of emergency so replacement parts could be flown in and the transfer of patients avoided. ``San Antonio was very lucky,'' Cisneros said. ``We could have had 15, 20, 25 or 50 people killed in this incident.'' In northeastern Mexico, Coast Guard aircraft picked up people threatened by swollen rivers Sunday, but a dam thought to be in danger was re-evaluated and declared safe, said Laureen Chernow of the state Emergency Management Council. At least 98 deaths and billions of dollars in damage were blamed on the storm in the Caribbean and Mexico. An additional 90 deaths were confirmed and more than 100 others were feared drowned after a rain-swollen river overturned four buses in Monterrey, Mexico. The Rio Grande in Terrell County in southwest Texas rose 30 feet overnight and was up to 12 feet above flood stage Sunday evening, officials said. But high water that had forced the closing of two farm-to-market roads had subsided, said Sonny Holleyman, a Terrell County deputy sheriff. The roads were reopened and a rock slide that also blocked one of those roads had been cleared, he said. Authorities in the Texas Hill Country, a ranching and farming area, kept an eye on the flood-prone Guadalupe River, but no flooding was reported. In San Antonio, telephone and utility crews worked to restore service, and residents of apartments and houses hit by tornadoes began cleaning up. A twister struck a mobile home near downtown early Saturday, killing 59-year-old Emily Dickens, who was thrown about 100 feet from her bedroom. Recently widowed, she was sharing the trailer with her son and daughter-in-law. ``We're all pretty much in a daze. We really don't know how to react to anything right now,'' said the daughter-in-law, Deborah Dickens. ``We'll take one day at a time. We'll clean up and eventually we'll get our own house put up if we get some money to buy lumber and tin.'' On Friday, a man was killed when a tornado knocked a tree onto his house in San Antonio. Sylvia Sulsh, 54, was taking a shower when the tornado struck her third-story apartment at The Lodge apartments, where at least 120 units were destroyed, 264 others damaged and some 300 tenants left homeless. ``There was all this insulation all over me in the shower. I got out of the shower and braced myself against the door and then I saw all the roof fall down in the living room,'' Ms. Sulsh said. ``I was open to the world, so I grabbed my nightgown and robe. I was more worried about getting my clothes on than being sucked out of the shower by the wind.''
AP881003-0010 	X	A keen-eyed captain of a West German cargo ship rescued two British fishermen who were close to death after six hours in the English Channel, Falmouth coast guard said today. ``They were just two heads bobbing in the water,'' said coast guard duty officer David Mayall. ``They were very lucky to be seen.'' With water temperature at 59 degrees, ``we would expect people to die after that length of time in the water,'' Mayall said. ``It was pure luck we spotted them,'' said Capt. Gunter Feicks of the Hamburg-registered Jan Becker, 3,170 tons, which was en route from Rotterdam to Waterford in the Irish Republic. Fishermen Fred Steel and Gregory Lett, both age 38 from Cornwall, grabbed life belts and jumped into the sea at 2 a.m. Sunday when their 60-foot boat, Semper Parates, sank from an unknown cause in 10 minutes off Land's End. Six hours later, the freighter passed by and Feicks, looking through his binoculars, spotted something in the water ``that shouldn't have been there.'' The ship called for help and a Royal Navy helicopter winched the two men from the sea and flew them to a hospital in Truro. They were suffering from hypothermia _ subnormal body temperature _ but were comfortable, the hospital said.
AP880326-0134 	X	Fire swept through a three-story apartment building early Saturday, killing six immigrants, including two children, as they huddled in their kitchen, authorities said. The fire started in a vacant second-floor apartment and spread to the hallway and third floor, said Newark Fire Department spokesman Larry Krieger. ``There was no one in the apartment when it started,'' he said. ``It was being remodeled and someone could have left something on.'' Three men, a woman and two young children died when their third-floor apartment was engulfed by flames, Krieger said. The victims were found in the kitchen, he said. Another man in the apartment, Juan Rodriguez, managed to escape by jumping out a window. Krieger said the seven, natives of the Dominican Republic, had moved in less than a week earlier. Identities of the victims were not immediately released because relatives had not been notified, Krieger said. He said one child was about 3 months old, the other 2 years old. Rodriguez and five residents of another apartment were taken to University Hospital, Krieger said, but hospital officials said their records indicated that only five people were treated. Three of the five, including Rodriguez, were admitted for observation and were listed in fair condition, hospital officials said.
AP900825-0061 	X	President Turgut Ozal of Turkey tells of glancing at the television screen just in time to see and hear President Bush saying he was about to call him up. The Turkish president walked into his office and picked up the ringing telephone. It was Bush. That's the way it often is in the Persian Gulf confrontation. Cable News Network's constant, live broadcasts from scenes of crisis and diplomacy lets leaders a world apart look over one another's shoulders as events unfold. In another era, information on crisis situations moved to diplomats and warriors over secret, coded, back channels. The world knew only what these movers and shakers wanted known. The Gulf crisis is broadcast around the world in color, often live, 24 hours a day on CNN. Among the most avid watchers are the world leaders who make the news, including Britain's Margaret Thatcher, France's Francois Mitterrand, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. CNN staffers in Washington are reminded of this by a photograph tacked to their bulletin board. It shows President Bush and his top advisers watching an Iraqi newscast, the CNN logo prominent in one corner. ABC's Ted Koppel, broadcasting from Baghdad, paid a rival the ultimate compliment by saying that the Iraqi foreign ministry was following events by watching CNN. And Turkey's Ozal, a key player, says he has kept his television tuned to CNN since Iraq troops crossed into Kuwait Aug. 2. An Associated Press reporter arriving for an interview recently found the president chuckling over a brawl between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. Each morning, Iraqi television sends CNN's Atlanta headquarters two or three messages advising what stories it plans to carry. Such a message might advise that ``at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time, Iraqi TV will be carrying a message from President Saddam Hussein to President Bush.'' Television has become a weapon in this war of nerves, just as it was when the Ayatollah Khomeini allowed U.S. camera crews to film frenzied mobs of Iranians denouncing ``The Great Satan'' America during the 1979-1980 hostage crisis. And it's getting on President Bush's nerves. Bush complained to reporters this week that they were asking harder questions of him than of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Ed Turner, CNN's executive vice president for news gathering, said the network tapes most Iraqi TV offerings and screens them before they are put on the network. But on Thursday, when Hussein appeared on television for 50 minutes with a roomful of English-speaking hostages, CNN stayed with Iraqi TV the entire time. The other American networks showed excerpts of the bizarre, profoundly disturbing scene. Turner, no relation to CNN founder Ted Turner, shrugs off any suggestion that the network is being used for propaganda by the Iraqis. ``The technology that permits all this is not going to be disinvented,'' he said. ``When we worry about being used or manipulated, or becoming a part of this story as opposed to being chroniclers, it seems to me that since the technology exists, it's a question of using it responsibly.'' Robert MacNeil, co-anchor of ``The MacNeil-Lehrer Hour'' on the Public Broadcasting service, said television is doing what wire services and newspapers have been doing for more than a century. ``It's just that television has speeded it up,'' MacNeil said. ``It's a kind of television version of the hot line that Kennedy and Khrushchev set up after the Cuban Missile Crisis.'' The international audience for CNN's broadcast is awesome. The network's broadcasts are seen in 95 countries, including 25 in Europe, 3 in the Middle East and 10 in Africa. ``We're virtually the primary source of news for many people, including many principals involved in the current crisis,'' said Peter Vesey, director of CNN International. ``It's gratifying, but it emphasizes once again our responsibility as journalists not only to get it fast, but to get it right.'' Ted Turner began with 1.7 million domestic subscribers and now has over 55 million. At any given time the evening newscasts of the other three commercial networks out draw CNN 10-to-1, but that is not a valid comparison since the cable network's audience is spread over a 24-hour day. Vesey estimates that CNN has nine million subscribers worldwide, but its audience is far larger, since the service is available unscrambled to people who have the right kind of equipment, but don't pay. The network observed its 10th anniversary last month and Newsweek, describing a celebration, headlined its piece ``CNN is the network of the new world it helped create.'' National Public Radio's Daniel Schorr, who was with CNN at the start, called it ``The world's intercom.'' CNN took out a three-age advertisement this month in the industry publication, Electronic Media, to brag about how far it's come. ``They laughed when we decided to create an all-news network,'' said the first page. ``Nobody's laughing now,'' says the second.
AP900106-0100 	X	Nicolae Ceausescu was a morose boy who dreamed of power while fellow children in his hometown pursued more innocent ideals, the former dictator's cousin recalled Saturday. Florea Ceausescu, who has spent his life a stone's throw from his infamous cousin's modest childhood home, depicted him as a cruel and selfish man with no time for anyone outside his immediate clique, and other long-time Scornicesti residents concurred. ``Even as a youngster he had the feeling that he would lead the people,'' the 71-year-old said of his cousin, nodding toward Ceausescu's first home. ``He was a cruel man, who worked only for his own people and had no feelings for outsiders.'' Florea Ceausescu lives across the street from the three-room hut where Ceausescu spent his first 12 years. He said Ceausescu showed no interest in neighbors on his rare visits, ``and we had no chance to talk to him because he was always surrounded by bodyguards.'' Municipal officials painted a picture of an inward, unapproachable man, whose dreaded Securitate secret police took over the town of 13,000 whenever the dictator visited. ``They would never announce his coming,'' Mayor Ilie Manea said. ``Around 500 Securitate would converge in town, and in the surrounding hills and forests, and the mayor's and local police's only job was to find enough people to get together a cheering crowd.'' The town, about 120 miles northwest of Bucharest, showed little sign Saturday of the violent upheaval that toppled Ceausescu and led to his and his wife's execution Dec. 25. But there was evidence of the depth of feeling against the dictator and his clique. The dirt floors of Ceausescu's childhood home were covered with shards of glass from broken portraits of the iron-fisted leader and his parents. The inside of a luxurious adjoining villa belonging to Ceausescu's sister, Elena Bobulescu, was in disarray, its cupboards ripped open and their contents strewn about. Florea Ceausescu, his face bearing uncanny resemblance to his cousin except for several day's growth of beard and deep lines etched by a hard life, smiled when asked if his name would cause him trouble. ``I will change my name,'' he declared. ``Everyone will now say that we are all bad because of the name.'' Ceausescu said he had little contact with his cousin after the future leader moved to Bucharest at age 12 and became an apprentice cobbler. But he recalled a moody, strange youth with a sense of mission. ``He would play for awhile, and then he would suddenly stop for no reason and say, `I've had enough,''' he said. ``He was a little strange. He never laughed, he was serious all the time.'' Nicolae Ceausescu's thirst for power was at least initally intertwined with idealistic strivings to improve the lot of a backward people, his cousin suggested. Shortly after his move to Bucharest, the young Ceausescu was arrested for illegal activities tied to his activism in the Communist Party, and he reappeared briefly in Scornicesti at age 14 after two years in prison. Before World War II, the Communists were a tiny group viewed as anarchist troublemakers by Romanian authorities. ``My father asked him `Why did you go to jail?'' Florea Ceausescu said. ``He answered, `I went to jail so we can work the land with heavy machinery and we can raise production.''' But all idealism appeared to be extinguished in the last years of Ceausescu's 24-year tenure at the helm of the country. The 1980s were marked by growing privation across the nation. The meager amount of national income left by Ceausescu's drive to pay off a massive foreign debt was consumed by extravagant construction projects of questionable value. ``The only thing important to Nicolae was not people but building monuments,'' his cousin alleged, saying his own small house nearly fell victim to the dictator's grandiose scheme to raze traditional village homes and move their owners into impersonal apartment blocks.
AP900103-0230 	X	A proposed merger of financially troubled CenTrust Bank with a bank owned by a billionaire cruise ship magnate was announced late Wednesday as part of a plan to ward off regulators from the Miami-based savings and loan. The non-binding agreement calls for CenTrust and Ensign Bank to begin negotiations to reorganize under a new holding company. The merger would include a cash infusion from Ensign's parent, Hamilton Holding Co., which is controlled by Carnival Cruise Lines Inc. principal owner Ted Arison. The merger would be contingent upon several conditions, including federal approval of CenTrust's plans to sell 63 of its 71 branches to Great Western Bank of Beverly Hills, Calif., according to a statement by both companies. Ensign Financial Corp., which operates New York-based Ensign Bank, has 27 branches in metropolitan New York and in Florida and reported federally insured assets in 1988 of about $2 billion. Last year, Ensign called off a $170 million takeover bid for Anchor Savings Bank of New York, a merger that would have created the nation's fifth-largest savings bank with assets of about $10.3 billion. The latest proposed merger is intended halt pressure from regulators seeking to reorganize CenTrust, which was criticized for its heavy investment in an expensive art collection and the lavish lifesytle of Chairman David Paul. In December, the federal Office of Thrift Supervision ordered CenTrust to sell its art collection, some of which had been kept at Paul's home, as well as limousines, a corporate jet and a sailboat. It also forbid CenTrust from increasing its executives' salaries or paying dividends to stockholders. State Comptroller Gerald Lewis on Dec. 20 gave Paul 21 days to resign or contest the complaint. A statement released by CenTrust said Paul would ``vigorously oppose'' removal. Lewis' complaint claimed Paul violated his duty as officer of a financial institution by using CenTrust employees to perform personal services, charging the company for personal bills and buying luxuries. It cited $30 million in art bought with CenTrust funds, including $12 million paid for Peter Paul Rubens' ``Portrait of a Man as Mars.'' The complaint also questioned Paul's $4.8 million salary from January 1988 to September 1989, when the thrift suffered pre-tax operating losses of $76 million. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington refused an appeal by CenTrust and ordered the bank to take back a $310,000 bonus paid to Paul in October. CenTrust, with $9 billion in assets, is Florida's largest thrift and the 22nd largest in the country. The statement issued late Wednesday did not place a price on the proposed merger or indicate how much would be paid to CenTrust shareholders.
AP881123-0038 	X	A train struck a car Tuesday at a railroad crossing in fog, killing five members of a family in the car and injuring three others, authorities said. The parents and three of their children were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. The other three children were taken to hospitals. The children were all under age 9. No one in the train was injured, and the train was sent on its way, according to the Highway Patrol. The crash occurred on a rural gravel road about five miles west of Valley City, said Dolph Oldenburg, a Barnes County correctional officer. State Highway Patrolman Roger Haga said the engineer of the westbound Burlington Northern train blew the engine's whistle before crossing the intersection. But fog covered the area, and the driver of the northbound car apparently did not see nor hear the train, the patrolman said. Two children were taken to Mercy Hospital in Valley City. One child wandered away from the wreck and was found about an hour later and taken to the hospital, Haga said. Mercy Hospital spokeswoman Connie Reed said a 5-year-old girl was transferred by ambulance to a Fargo hospital where she was in critical condition Tuesday night, and two boys, ages 4 and 6, were in stable condition in the Valley City hospital. The identities of the victims were not released. No other details were available.
AP900709-0086 	X	Leaders of the world's richest nations began their 16th economic summit today, urged by President Bush to harness ``the power and energy of free wills and free markets'' to bolster the troubled economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The seven leaders were deeply divided on how and when to provide financial assistance sought by Mikhail Gorbachev, but officials said a team of western bankers and other experts would be sent to assess Soviet needs. As the meetings began, the leaders lined up ``about half on one side, and half on the other'' over how to extend financial assistance to Mikhail Gorbachev, said White House chief of staff John Sununu. Bush has said he has ``big problems'' with extending direct aid to Moscow until it reduces military spending, moves more forcefully toward a free-market system and curtails the $5 billion a year subsidy to Cuba. A Gorbachev aide said Monday that western aid must be unconditional, explaining, ``We aren't taking orders.'' Bush met this morning with Francois Mitterrand and a French spokesman said both men stuck to their position: Bush opposes direct aid _ at least for now _ while Mitterrand favors ``all aid that is serious and useful.'' Officials said the leaders would approve an assessment team to recommend applications for western assistance. Sununu said the study might be conducted by a mixture of western financing agencies, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Bush is offering the Soviets technical assistance for transportation and agriculture and advice on developing free-market mechanisms. Sununu pointed out that the Soviets currently lose almost half their grain crop through faulty storage. Sununu noted that different countries view Soviet circumstances in different ways, perhaps a hint that Bush will not staunchly oppose direct aid from France, West Germany and Italy _ nations that are ready to proceed. Also meeting here are leaders from Britain, Japan, Canada and the European Economic Community. ``We are called upon as allies and as friends to work toward decisions that will bring new stability and prosperity to the world, by tapping the power and energy of free wills and free markets,'' Bush said in a statement opening the summit. ``These economic summits have become a framework for frank, constructive dialogue, a dialogue for progress that I believe will be advanced greatly in these next three days. A new world of freedom lays before us. Hopeful. Confident. A world where peace endures, where commerce has conscience, where all that seems possible is possible. ``So let us begin, in good faith, to set the stage for the new millennium.'' Soviet aid questions were a highly charged and undecided issue as the three-day summit began. Decisions were likely to come Wednesday in a final communique. From Moscow came a fresh plea for financial assistance. Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze told reporters at the Communist Party Congress,``I feel it would be advantageous, for us and the West.'' He said Moscow was looking to the west for ``credit, technical cooperation, personnel training, joint ventures and joint projects.'' Meanwhile, the summit partners faced a tangle of their own differences over trade and the environment. Europeans are resisting Bush's demand for phasing out farm subsidies over the next 10 years and, together with Canada, are pushing for agreement on new steps to halt global warming. Sununu sniped at European critics of Bush's go-slow policy on curbing carbon dioxide and other pollutants blamed for warming the global environment. ``I think West Germany got a lot of good grades for rhetoric,'' he said on ABC. ``If you take a good look at what the United States has actually done in terms of cleaning up our environment ... I don't think the United States has to take a back seat to anyone.'' Yet, a prominent U.S. environmental group, the Wilderness Society, quickly chimed in to say, ``the U.S. gets a failing grade, no matter how Governor Sununu tries to rejigger the numbers.'' Before calling the summit into session on the campus of Rice University, Bush met separately with Mitterand and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to discuss their $15-billion aid proposal for Moscow. The world has changed dramatically since the last economic summit in Paris. At that time, the West was considering a limited aid package to encourage the beginings of reform efforts in Poland and Hungary. Since that time the Berlin Wall has crumbled and most of the communist nations of Eastern Europe have been swept away, leaving the West groping for a way to respond to the dramatic changes. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady said today the chief message from Houston will be to urge East European nations to undertake necessary economic reforms before they receive Western assistance. ``There's no sense in pouring money into a system that isn't ready to receive it,'' he said on NBC.'' Despite temperatures in the 90s and humidity topping 80 percent, the city of Houston went all out to welcome the heads of government, their contingents and hordes of reporters. Air conditioning was pumped onto the outddor platform to make the arrival ceremony comfortable for the leaders. Bush was host Sunday night to a pre-summit rodeo, complete with bareback riding, barrel racing and a calf scramble. Japan's Toshiki Kaifu, a first-time summiteer, waived his cowboy hat as if he'd been doing it all his life. Mitterrand, Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and Kohl delayed their arrival until today. Kohl was in Rome to watch his West German team win soccer's World Cup; Andreotti was there to present it. Bush had been in Houston since Friday, arriving from London, where he saw the NATO allies adopt a U.S. proposal to rewrite NATO's war-fighting strategy as a way of lessening tensions with the Soviet Union. Bush, as summit host, received a letter from Gorbachev appealing for western help. Gorbachev's latest plea was expected to be aired fully during a working dinner tonight. Pressing the Soviet case, foreign ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov said Moscow was shrinking its military and moving toward a market-price system that would curtail Moscow's huge subsidies to Cuba.
AP900317-0138 	X	Bulgaria may send prosecutors to Britain to investigate the 1978 killing of a Bulgarian exile stabbed to death with a poisoned umbrella, the Foreign Office said Friday. Britain has blamed Bulgaria for the death of Georgi Markov, who fled to London in 1969 and worked for the Bulgarian service of the British Broadcasting Corp. He was killed by a poison pellet injected by an umbrella tip as he walked across London's Waterloo Bridge in September 1978. British officials suspect the murder was the work of agents of Bulgaria's Communist government, which was controlled by hard-liners until last year's reforms swept much of Eastern Europe. Britain has pressed the Bulgarian government to take responsibility. A Foreign Office spokesman said Bulgarian Ambassador Dimitar Zhulev told British officials Friday that Bulgaria was willing to send prosecutors to discuss the case with British officials. No date was given for a visit, and there were no further details.
AP880926-0186 	X	Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy is broke and will have to leave the luxurious suite he has occupied since fleeing here after a coup in neighboring Haiti unseated him Sept. 17, an official said Monday. Deputy Foreign Minister Fabio Herrera Cabral said Namphy was forced to leave Haiti so quickly _ only hours after the coup carried out by the Presidential Guard _ that he did not have time to bring money. Namphy's bills at the Dominican Concorde Hotel will be paid by the Dominican government but he will have to leave the hotel by week's end, the official said. In a televised interview, Herrera said Namphy has received some economic aid from a group of Haitian businessmen residing in the Dominican Republic and from Dominican friends. The deposed general is accompanied in exile by his wife, Gabrielle, and daughter, Melissa. Herrera denied that Namphy had made an official petition for permanent political asylum in the Dominican Republic, as was reported by a Foreign Ministry source last week. However, he admitted that Namphy has made it obvious he wants to stay in the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Herrera indicated that Namphy's presence in the Dominican Republic will not affect relations with Haiti. ``He (Namphy) says that he was never a politician, that he was a military man, that his military career is over now and that he is not interested in any political or military position,'' Herrera said, speaking about discussions he had with the former Haitian leader. ``It seems that Namphy never thought he would have to leave his country and ... because of the circumstances under which he had to do it he was unable to bring any money,'' Herrera said. The deputy foreign minister said Namphy's friends are searching for a modest but secure house for the deposed general and his family to move into by the end of this week. Herrera also denied rumors that Franck Romain, the ousted mayor of Port-au-Prince, left the Dominican Embassy in the Haitian capital. He said Romain, his wife, daughter and a group of about 10 other persons are still in the embassy waiting for the Haitian government to grant them safe conduct out of the country. Romain is the reputed leader of thugs known as Tonton Macoutes and is suspected of having ordered the attack at the St. Jean Bosco Church that left 13 persons dead and 77 wounded. The Sept. 11 massacre was mentioned by the soldiers who overthrew Namphy as one of the reasons for carrying out the coup. Namphy remains secluded in his hotel suite, refusing to speak with reporters. A waiter who is the only person authorized by security personnel to attend to Namphy's needs in the hotel said Namphy spends the day in white short pants, either reading or looking out the window of his suite. His wife and daughter also spend most of the time reading, said the waiter, who asked that his name not be used.
AP880301-0296 	X	William H. Spoor, returning as chief executive officer of the Pillsbury Co., said Tuesday the company has no intention of selling its Burger King subsidiary despite the chain's flat performance in recent months. Spoor, named Monday to replace John M. Stafford as Pillsbury's chairman and chief executive officer, also announced several management changes at the Minneapolis-based parent company. On Wall Street, Pillsbury stock rose 25 cents a share to $37 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Burger King, which generates 40 percent of Pillsbury's sales, reportedly has seen its share of the hamburger chain market fall in recent months after rapid growth in the mid-1980s. Burger King's share fell to about 16.8 percent in early 1987 from a 1986 high of 17.4 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported in December. The company has said its average sales per store have been flat at about $1 million for the past two years. ``I want to say without qualification that Burger King is central to Pillsbury,'' Spoor said in a statement at the conclusion of a two-day meeting of Pillsbury's board of directors. ``That was true yesterday, it is true today, and it remains true for the company's strategic future,'' he said. Spoor's statement made no mention of Pillsbury's other restaurant businesses _ Steak & Ale, Godfather's and Bennigan's _ and a spokesman said neither he nor Stafford was available for comment Tuesday afternoon. Spoor had retired from Pillsbury in 1985, but remained on the company's board of directors. His return as CEO was announced Monday in a statement that gave no reasons for Stafford's resignation. ``I pledge to take whatever steps are necessary in the next three months so that we will enter fiscal 1989 with momentum and a solid portfolio of businesses capable of returning superior shareholder value,'' Spoor said in his statement. ``We have a clear strategy that will lead us successfully into the 1990s. fiscal 1988 is a disappointment in many ways, but our future is bright and fiscal 1989, which begins June 1, will be an excellent year and gratifying to our shareholders.'' Pillsbury in fiscal 1987 reported its first earnings decline in 16 years: $182 million, or $2.10 a share, down from $208 million, or $2.38 a share, in fiscal 1986. Stock analysts who were projecting fiscal 1988 earnings of about $2.80 a share were told by Stafford in February to lower the projections by about 30 cents a share, a Pillsbury spokesman said. Spoor on Tuesday announced four promotions in the top management of the company: _John L. Morrison, was elected a Pillsbury executive vice president and was named chairman, U.S. Foods. He was formerly a Pillsbury vice president and president, International Foods. _Thomas R. McBurney, executive vice president, was named chairman, International Foods. McBurney served previously as chairman, U.S. Foods. _Jerry W. Levin, executive vice president, corporate development and chairman of The Haagen-Dazs Co., was given the additional responsibility for Pillsbury's Industrial Foods Business. Industrial Foods was previously a part of U.S. Foods. _James R. Behnke, senior vice president for technology, was made responsible for Pillsbury's research and development activities worldwide.
AP900415-0013 	X	You won't be through with taxes for the year even if you beat the midnight Monday deadline for filing your federal return. The average American will have to work through May 5 to satisfy the tax collectors. If that prediction by the Tax Foundation proves accurate, it will be the latest ``Tax Freedom Day'' on record and two days later than 1989. The reason is simple, the nonpartisan research organization said Sunday in announcing the mythical date: ``Tax increases will outpace the growth in individuals' income during 1990.'' Tax Freedom Day is the foundation's estimate of how long it would take an average person to pay his or her state, federal and local taxes if all income went for taxes until they were all paid for the year 1990. The calculations assume that all taxes are paid by individuals, including those collected from corporations. Until this year, the latest date was May 4, 1981, before a big tax reduction took effect. The foundation said subsequent watering down of several deductions, increases in Social Security taxes and state and local taxes, and a gradual economic slowing will have wiped out that reduction. For the millions of couples and individuals still struggling with 1989 returns, the Internal Revenue Service announced that its toll-free telephone service would remain open late Monday night to answer technical tax questions. The Postal Service said most post offices in cities with at least 30,000 population planned to station clerks at curbside to receive returns. Neither the IRS nor the Postal Service estimated how many returns were likely to be filed Monday night. However, the IRS said it expects to receive about 23 million this week _ or one of every five that will be filed this year. About 6 million couples and individuals unable to file their returns on time were expected to receive a four-month extension by filing Form 4868 instead. The extension is automatic _ but only if Form 4868 is accompanied by a check for estimated taxes owed. Another 650,000 or so Americans abroad, including military personnel, qualified automatically for a two-month extension just by having their main business, home or duty station outside the United States and Puerto Rico. A number of people have tax years that ended on days other than Dec. 31, 1989, and thus have other filing deadlines. Still others will simply miss the filing deadline, do nothing about it and subject themselves to separate penalties for filing late and paying late. Taxpayers who file their returns with the IRS Service Center in Andover, Mass. _ residents of New England and most of upstate New York _ have until midnight Tuesday to file. That is because Monday is Patriots Day, a legal holiday, in Massachusetts. When all the returns are counted later this year, they are expected to total 111 million, an increase of about 1 million from 1989. About four of every five returns are qualifying for refunds, slightly above last year's figure. Refunds are averaging more than $850. If IRS estimates of how long it takes to prepare a return are correct, procrastinators should not wait too late Monday before beginning the task. The agency guesses the average person requires 2 hours and 32 minutes to learn about the law and Form 1040, another 3 hours 10 minutes to fill it out, and 35 minutes to copy, assemble and mail it. That adds up to 6 hours and 17 minutes _ not counting the 3 hours and 7 minutes of recordkeeping required. And that total does not include the time required to do a Schedule A for itemized deductions (1 hour and 47 minutes plus recordkeeping), a Schedule B for interest and dividends (44 minutes) or any other supplemental form. While the conservative Tax Foundation was highlighting the overall growth of taxes, the Democratic Study Group was marking the filing deadline by decrying a shift of tax burden away from the rich. The organization, which includes most liberal Democrats in the House, released an analysis indicating that since 1980, the total federal tax burden for the three-fifths of the population with low to middle incomes rose, the next highest 20 percent realized a net cut of only about $45 and ``the 1 percent of households with the very highest incomes ... (had taxes cut) by an average of more than $12,000.''
AP900802-0141 	X	A frail, repentant Roswell Gilbert regained his freedom Thursday after spending more than 5 years in prison for the 1985 ``mercy killing'' of his ailing wife. The 81-year-old Gilbert acknowledged publicly for the first time that he was wrong to kill his wife of 51 years, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease and osteoporosis. ``I shouldn't have killed my wife, now I know that,'' said Gilbert, whose case focused national attention on the killing of an ailing loved one. ``It's difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't been through this trauma, a mental trauma really,'' said Gilbert. He said his wife's illness ``created just a complete state of desperation in my mind ... it's a lousy excuse, but that's what it was.'' Gilbert shot his wife, Emily, twice with a 9mm Luger in March 1985 in their Fort Lauderdale apartment. He was serving a mandatory minimum prison term of 25 years on a murder conviction when he was granted clemency on humanitarian grounds Wednesday by Gov. Bob Martinez and the Florida Cabinet. Gilbert, who suffers from heart and lung disease, wants to regain some of the 40 pounds he lost in prison and ``recoup my health.'' He chuckled at reports that his death may be imminent. ``I'm a tough old rooster ... don't believe it,'' said Gilbert, who said he would probably ignore his daughter's pleas to stop smoking. ``Daddy has very bad emphysema and one of the main things I'm going to do is really insist he quit smoking,'' said daughter Martha ``Skipper'' Moran, the Gilberts' only child. The retired engineer was examined in January and a medical report showed he suffered from heart and lung disease and was considered ``at high risk of death at any time,'' because of his age and physical condition. Gilbert, who left the North Florida Reception Center with a handful of possessions in a small brown paper bag, described prison as a ``human zoo.'' ``It's been plain awful for a freedom-loving person like myself,'' he said. Besides a hamburger, a shot of bourbon and a nice soft bed, Gilbert said he was looking forward to seeing his three grown grandchildren soon. ``I haven't had a good look at them for a long time,'' he said. He left the prison for a friend's home in an undisclosed location. His daughter said she expected him to resettle in Fort Lauderdale. The lawyer who prosecuted Gilbert at the murder trial, Kelly Hancock, said he was relieved that the state decided to free Gilbert. ``His health is deteriorated, and I think his release puts to an end a very, very tragic case _ a case that made us all more aware of the problems of the sick and the elderly have,'' said Hancock, who's now in private practice and publicly sought Gilbert's release in recent weeks. Actor Robert Young, who portrayed Gilbert in a 1987 television movie, ``Mercy or Murder?,'' also said he was elated with the news of Gilbert's clemency. ``That's sensational,'' said the 83-year-old Young, best known for his roles in the TV series ``Father Knows Best,'' and ``Marcus Welby, M.D.'' Although the two men never met, Young said he spoke with Gilbert many times by telephone. ``We had wonderful chats,'' said Young. ``There was no self-pity in him at all. It was a remarkable experience for me to play the role and get to know the man.'' Mrs. Moran, who lives in Baltimore, said she believes her mother would say: ``It's about time they let him out.''
AP900131-0010 	X	President Bush is expected to sign legislation that provides for trade sanctions against China, but allows the president to suspend them if he finds it is in the national interest. The Senate voted 98-0 late Tuesday for the measure, which was passed by the House in November before Congress' two-month holiday break. Prompted by Beijing's crackdown last June on pro-democracy demonstrators, the sanctions are part of a $9.7 billion measure authorizing activities of the State Department for the 1990 and 1991 fiscal years. The legislation would suspend: _Financial underwriting through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation for U.S. companies doing business in China; _Aid under the Trade and Development Program; _Issuing licenses for controlled munitions or crime control and detection equipment; _Export of U.S.-built satellites, certain bilateral nuclear cooperation and liberalization of multilateral export controls. Most of the sanctions reflect actions Bush himself had already taken in the wake of the bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing on June 4, and their place in the bill is regarded as mostly symbolic. The administration already has begun to lift some of those sanctions, including the one barring export of satellites, citing improved conditions in China. The bill approved Tuesday would permit Bush to terminate any of the sanctions if significant political reform occurs in China or if Bush finds waiver of the sanctions is ``in the national interest'' of the United States. There was almost no debate on the bill, in contrast to the showdown last week over whether to uphold Bush's veto of a measure that would have protected Chinese students in the United States from deportation. The Senate narrowly upheld the veto after the White House waged an all-out campaign to pressure Republican senators to back the president. An administration official described the fight as ``not a battle over how to handle China, but a battle over who should be handling China.'' Democrats used the occasion to again accuse Bush of too-cozy relations with a regime that has done little to adhere to U.S. human rights standards. The largest amounts in the bill _ $3.3 billion this year and $3.7 billion next year _ are for the State Department, primarily for salaries and the expenses of running embassies and consulates around the world. Also included are about $2 billion over two years for the U.S. Information Agency and $600 million for the Board for International Broadcasting, which runs Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Not voting were Sens. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo.
AP900601-0048 	X	President Roh Tae-woo will invite Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to visit South Korea when the two meet next week, newspapers said today. A North Korean official denounced the planned meeting. Several Seoul newspapers quoted high-ranking government sources as saying Gorbachev will be invited to visit Korea after his trip to Japan, planned for next April. The Roh-Gorbachev meeting Monday will be the first between leaders of the two countries, which have no diplomatic ties. The Soviet Union is a close ally of Seoul's rival, communist North Korea, to which it provides arms. North Korea's official news agency today quoted a Foreign Ministry official as denouncing the planned meeting between Roh and Gorbachev. ``If President Gorbachev has a meeting with Roh Tae-woo, which we do not think will take place, it will be a serious political issue,'' the official was quoted as saying. The report by the Korean Central News Agency was monitored in Tokyo. ``We consider that the president of the Soviet Union, an ally of ours, is quite able to analyze and judge what a serious political consequence will be entailed by his meeting with Roh Tae-woo, who is seeking only the split of Korea,'' the report said. The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and capitalist South at the end of World War II in 1945. The two sides fought the Korean War in 1950-53. A South Korean official said today that the agenda for the Roh-Gorbachev talks will include the normalization of relations between Seoul and Moscow, economic cooperation and peace measures on the divided Korean peninsula. Kim Kim Chong-hwi, presidential assistant for foreign affairs, expressed optimism about the chances for formal relations. ``The meeting itself shows that the Soviet Union recognizes the Republic of (South) Korea,'' he was quoted as telling the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper. Dong-A Ilbo said Roh and Gorbachev are expected to agree on an early establishment of diplomatic ties, possibly before September. Seoul officials hope the Roh-Gorbachev meeting will help ease tension on the peninsula. They believe improved ties with the Soviet Union will result in better relations between the two Koreas.
AP880429-0249 	X	Gov. Rose Mofford filed amended financial-disclosure forms Friday to cover transactions omitted from sworn documents she filed over the past 10 years, and she apologized for what she called an honest mistake. Mrs. Mofford's predecessor, Evan Mecham, who was impeached and removed by the Legislature earlier this year, is under criminal indictment on charges of omitting a $350,000 campaign loan from his disclosure forms. Questions about Mrs. Mofford's forms had been raised a week earlier by an Associated Press story detailing discrepancies between her filings and other state and county records, and Attorney General Bob Corbin began an investigation Monday. Failure to file a complete disclosure statement can be a felony or a misdemeanor under Arizona law. The amended forms covered land, loan and partnership transactions omitted from earlier forms filed by Mrs. Mofford. ``I now believe that these items should have been disclosed earlier,'' she said at a news conference. ``I made an honest mistake.'' As secretary of state for 10 years before becoming governor upon Mecham's impeachment, Mrs. Mofford was in charge of the office where disclosure forms are filed, and she said that aspect was especially embarrassing. ``I'm very sorry,'' she said. ``I want to emphasize that it was never my intent to hide anything from anybody.'' Asked how her position differed from that of Mecham, who said he made ``an honest mistake'' in failing to list the $350,000 loan and had not meant to hide anything, Mrs. Mofford replied, ``Mine are very small amounts of money.'' As recently as Monday, Mrs. Mofford described reports about the undisclosed transactions as ``nitpicking.'' On Friday, however, she said was turning over 150 pages of documents about transactions to Corbin's office together with copies of her income tax returns. Mrs. Mofford declined to make her tax returns available to reporters but distributed some papers on all the properties, loans and partnerships the AP had cited. She also disclosed an interest in one additional partnership. ``On the investigation of the allegations against Rose Mofford, I have no comment because the matter is under investigation,'' Corbin said. Mrs. Mofford said she had decided not to list the items because her interest in them was linked to T.R. Mofford, whom she divorced in 1967 but with whom she remained on good terms with until his death from cancer in 1982. She said that her former husband had given her an interest in a number of properties before his death and that she had paid his hospital bills ``in excess of $30,000.'' ``I have never made any profit,'' she said. ``I was paying my husband's bills.'' Mrs. Mofford and her aides acknowledged, however, that she had not listed her former husband's gifts under a reporting section that requires disclosure of gifts above $500 or, alternatively, listed the money she advanced to his estate for hospital bills in a section covering amounts of more than $1,000 owed to or by the officeholder. ``Its a bad judgment call. I admit it. I'm sorry. I hope that I haven't embarrassed the state,'' she said. Mecham did not immediately return messages left at his home and office. Nancy Puffer, founder of a group Mecham supporters known as Concerned Arizona Voters, said she saw little difference between Mrs. Mofford's problems and Mecham's, especially given Mrs. Mofford's 10 years as head of the office that administers disclosure laws. ``You would hope that she would know them backwards and forwards,'' Ms. Puffer said. ``If anyone is in a position to know them, it would be her.'' ``It leaves a little doubt in my mind if she can handle the office _ how well prepared she is,'' she added.
AP880802-0052 	X	Pat Robertson has completed his journey from religious broadcaster to presidential candidate and back, returning to the Christian Broadcasting Network as co-host of ``The 700 Club.'' ``For better or worse, the health of this ministry depends on this program. It is our bread and butter,'' Robertson said Monday after the first broadcast of the revamped program, which included the introduction of a new co-host, Sheila Walsh, a gospel singer and songwriter from Scotland. Robertson, who founded CBN, left the network in 1986 to pursue his political goals. In 1987, when the Southern Baptist minister formally announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, he installed his son, Tim Robertson, as president of CBN and one of three hosts of the program. During that period, donations dwindled. CBN officials blamed the decline on scandals in other television ministries, changes in ``The 700 Club'' format and a poor economy in oil states where many CBN donors live. Robertson later said his absence was the reason for the drop. During that time, CBN laid off more than 1,000 employees _ about half its workforce _ and cut its operating budget by more than 40 percent. Ratings for ``The 700 Club'' also dropped, giving rise to the format unveiled Monday. Gone were the dramatic recreations of religious conversions and the public prayers for healing that marked the old program. Robertson said the new formula for the 90-minute program will be one-third news, one-third ministry and teaching and one-third lifestyle features. Robertson still plans to campaign for Vice President George Bush during the presidential election. ``When I leave that desk,'' he said, pointing to the studio desk from which he delivers the news and commentary segment of the program, ``I am no longer a newsman. When I'm there, I will try to report the news fairly.''
AP880822-0037 	X	Stock prices fell on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday, while the dollar edged up. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues, a 80.06-point winner Friday, lost 130.24 points, or 0.46 percent, to close at 28,079.18. The dollar closed at 133.88 yen, up 0.48 yen from the last week's close after moving between 133.80 yen and 133.95 yen. Trading was moderate on the stock exchange's first section, with volume at 600 million shares. Exchange dealers said the yen-dollar rate was not likely to change much for the moment because if the U.S. currency touches the 134-yen level, investors are likely to sell the dollar.
AP901107-0157 	X	Japan will continue as the No. 1 foreign customer of American farmers at least through the turn of the century, maintaining its lead over the European Community, according to Agriculture Department trade analysts. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Japan once again topped foreign buyers of U.S. agricultural products at an estimated $8.3 billion, compared with the EC's imports of $7 billion. Emiko Miyasaka of the department's Foreign Agricultural Service said she expects Japan to maintain its lead over the 12-nation EC ``at least in the 1990s.'' Miyasaka said Tuesday in a telephone interview that Japan's top ranking as a foreign buyer of agricultural products appears solid through the turn of the century despite the EC's plan to unify economically by the end of 1992. Beyond the 1990s, however, she said the situation is too uncertain for predictions at this time. Miyasaka was asked to elaborate on a report by her agency last week which said Japan ``is likely to be among the strongest export growth markets'' for U.S. farmers. ``This optimism is based on the expectation that Japan's economic growth, while slowing, is expected to be the strongest of all industrialized countries, fueling consumer demand,'' the report said. Further, there has been some liberalization of Japan's agricultural imports through the current Uruguay round of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. ``Since 1964, when it emerged as Asia's first billion-dollar market for U.S. farm products, Japan has steadily expanded its agricultural imports,'' the report said. Japan moved in front of the EC as the top U.S. farm market in 1988. Bulk commodities such as corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, tobacco and logs are the big-ticket items, but Miyasaka and other analysts believe there are greater market opportunities for high-value products like beef, vegetables, citrus fruit, fruit juices and processed wood products. In 1988, the U.S.-Japan Beef Agreement opened the door to growing sales of beef - from a value of $556 million in 1987 to $1 billion last year. U.S. exports of fresh, frozen and prepared vegetables rose to $253 million by 1989, the report said. Sales of french fries, for example, rose to $79 million from $37 million in 1983. A thorn in this trade development has been Japan's rice policy, which effectively bars imports, part of a national policy to protect domestic growers. The United States has called on Japan during the GATT negotiations to ease the restrictions. Miyasaka noted that the U.S. position on Japanese rice is part of an overall bid under GATT to reduce trade restrictions all over the world. In any case, she said, whatever Japan does about its rice policy will not keep that country from continuing as the leading foreign market for American farmers. --- WASHINGTON (AP) - A plan calling for modest cuts in farm payments has been approved by the European Community, but U.S. farm organizations are watching closely to see what happens when it goes before international negotiators. ``It's a step,'' said Dave Lane of the American Farm Bureau Federation's Washington, D.C., office. ``But it'll still probably go right down to the wire.'' The Uruguay round of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is scheduled to conclude Dec. 31 in Geneva. Late Tuesday, in Brussels, Belgium, the 12-nation EC endorsed a carefully worded proposal that sought to soothe fears of governments that their farmers would be hurt by reductions. At issue was a proposal to pare farm subsidies by 30 percent over 10 years, starting in 1986. Some reductions have already been made. The EC proposal, which had been due Oct. 15, will be submitted to the trade talks as the community's opening position in the final round of bargaining. Meanwhile, a coalition of 29 U.S. farm organizations and commodity groups on Tuesday released a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills and Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter declaring that no GATT agreement on agricultural trade would be preferable to one that ``papers over'' fundamental differences with the C. The American farm groups have bitterly attacked the EC's system of export subsidies and certain other practices that bear on world agricultural trade. ``As the deadline approaches without any encouraging sign from the EC that problems dealing with market access, export subsidies, and health and sanitary issues are truly negotiable, we are becoming increasingly concerned that a final agricultural package may be fabricated to once again paper over our differences,'' the groups said. The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Grange were joined by 27 commodity and agricultural trade associations representing a wide variety of products, including meat, soybeans, nuts, avocados, raisins, peaches, cattle, corn, pork, turkeys, wheat, and fresh fruit and vegetables. --- WASHINGTON (AP) - Milk production has been rising this year and so has the output of some major dairy products, according to a monthly report by the Agriculture Department. In September, butter production was estimated at 84.8 million pounds, up 4 percent from a year earlier. Total cheese output, excluding cottage cheese, was reported Tuesday at 477 million pounds, up 6 percent. Non-fat dry milk for human food was reported at 50.6 million pounds in September, up 13 percent from a year earlier. But ice cream production, at 62.9 million gallons, was down 1 percent from September 1989, the report said.
AP901029-0074 	X	The Supreme Court today let stand a ruling that the at-large system used in Norfolk, Va., city council elections violates the rights of black voters. A federal appeals court panel last Aug. 18 ordered the city to switch to a single-district election system that will ``remedy the vote dilution arising out of the at-large election system.'' The Norfolk City Council has seven members, elected to staggered four-year terms. Elections for three or four of the council seats are held every two years. Candidates with the most votes citywide win, and do not need a majority of the votes cast. A group of black voters and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued in 1983, contending that the at-large system used since 1918 illegally blunted the political clout of black voters. Norfolk, one of Virginia's largest cities, is 35 percent black in population. Blacks also comprise 35 percent of the city's registered voters. The city council did not have a black member until 1968, and since then has had one black member most years. The NAACP and black voters who sued said if city council members were elected from seven single-member districts, black voters would be in the majority in three of the seven districts. The city's voting dispute reached the nation's highest court once before, and in 1986 was sent back to lower courts for more study. U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. in Norfolk ruled in 1988 that the at-large election system did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, but a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his ruling. The panel, by a 2-1 vote, said the at-large system gives black voters ``less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the electoral process and to elect representatives of their choice.'' The panel said those who sued ``do not seek proportional representation, and the act does not require it.'' But it said the lack of success blacks have had in winning more ``token representation'' on the city council show the existence of ``white bloc voting ... in Norfolk.'' The appeals court panel ordered Clarke to block all future at-large elections and to require the city to come up with a new election system in a ``reasonable, specified time'' to be reviewed under Voting Rights Act standards. ``If the city fails to enact a legal plan, (Clarke) should prepare a single-district plan for the conduct of future elections,'' the appeals court panel said. The full 4th Circuit court split 5-5 in refusing to review the three-judge panel's decision. The panel's decision was held in abeyance pending today's action by the Supreme Court. The panel's ruling that the city elections system must change now will take effect. In their appeal, city officials said the August decision forcing a change ``is nothing more than a decision to require ... proportional representation.'' ``If that ruling is correct,'' the appeal said, ``then all at-large election systems are imperiled.'' Asked for its views, the Bush administration told the court to reject the city's appeal. ``Although the court of appeals' analysis is not without flaws, the court's errors ... either do not affect the outcome of the case orare too closely tied to its particular facts to be of general significance,'' Justice Department lawyers said. The case is Norfolk vs. Collins, 89-989.
AP901013-0109 	X	A Greenpeace ship seized by the Soviets after it approached an Arctic nuclear test site was released Saturday and headed for Norway, a member of the environmental group said. None of the 42 activists detained were charged following more than five days at a naval base near the port of Murmansk, about 900 miles north of Moscow, Canadian activist Steve Shallhorn said by radiotelephone from the ship. The ship was expected to reach the Norwegian port of Kirkenes by early Sunday. Last Monday, the Soviet Coast Guard fired warning shots from deck-mounted machine guns before boarding the MV Greenpeace. Four environmentalists in a rubber raft had earlier managed to reach one of the Novaya Zemlya islands in the Barents Sea and collect radioactive soil and other samples, Shallhorn said. The ship was towed to the naval base, where it was held for violating Soviet territorial waters. Shallhorn said the four activists spent 10 hours on the island before being captured. Novaya Zemlya was a primary nuclear test site from 1958 to 1963. Environmental groups claim it was last used in 1988. ``They tried to hide samples in their packs, their pockets, even their socks, but the (Soviets) went through everything with a Geiger counter and found everything,'' Shallhorn said. He said the 35 Western and seven Soviet activists had been generally treated well during the detention, and were guarded by at least 13 armed men under KGB command. The Greenpeace was ordered to leave Soviet territorial waters following an investigation by the KGB security police and the Soviet Prosecutor's Office, the Soviet news agency Tass reported. The vessel was on a two-week anti-nuclear protest voyage along the Arctic coastline. On Wednesday, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov said the Soviet Union agreed with the Greenpeace goal of ending nuclear weapons testing. But, he said, ``no matter what the mission or how noble the objectives may be, the laws of our country cannot be violated with impunity.'' According to Greenpeace officials in London, Novaya Zemlya was chosen for the protest because of fears it would again become a major test site after the closing down of the Soviet Union's main test range in the Kazakhstan republic in central Asia. The site is about 370 miles from Norway. Unconfirmed reports that nuclear tests would be resumed there prompted protests from Nordic governments.
AP900619-0196 	X	The speaker of the Arizona House stripped two committee chairmen of their posts and threatened to resign Tuesday as she struggled for control of her rebellious Republican caucus. Speaker Jane Hull stripped Reps. Don Aldridge and Jim Skelly of their chairmanships, of the Public Institutions and Rural Development and House Judiciary committees, respectively, for voting against her. Mrs. Hull has clashed with conservative Republicans over a proposal to freeze the state's property tax rate and to pass along an income tax windfall to taxpayers. The proposal was offered by fellow Republican Margaret Updike, who said she wanted to ensure the Legislature didn't use the $170 million windfall or a property tax hike to balance a deficit budget. Majority Whip Chris Herstam tried to kill the proposal on a procedural motion. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting against him. But after Mrs. Hull threatened to replace any chairman who voted against Herstam, all Republicans except Aldridge and Skelly fell into line, giving Herstam a 32-25 margin. Rep. Brenda Burns sent Mrs. Hull a note during the debate, saying the conservatives would back down if she promised to allow a vote on Ms. Updike's proposal later. But Mrs. Hull refused to promise and tore up the note on the floor. She challenged the conservatives to try to remove her as speaker, and said she might resign. Later, after a three-hour closed caucus, Mrs. Hull said she had come ``pretty darned close'' to resigning, but decided against it ``because we were able to sit and rationally discuss the budget.'' House and Senate leaders have been trying for two weeks to drum up votes for a bipartisan budget and tax package, but conservative Republicans and a few Democrats in each chamber have balked. There has been talk of passing the $3.5 billion budget, which includes a deficit of about $400 million, without a tax package to fund it. Without specific legislation to the contrary, the windfall _ which has been passed on to taxpayers in past years _ would revert to the state, and the property-tax rate would be increased from its current 47 cents-per-$100 assessed valuation to whatever level would cover the deficit. Skelly, a 20-year veteran of the Legislature, is not seeking re-election and said losing his committee chairmanship was not significant because the session is almost over and no more committee meetings were scheduled. Aldridge said he was unwilling to give in to save his chairmanship. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Mark Killian, a leader of the conservative faction, said the conservatives still opposed the budget but recognized they could not block its passage. ``Some of us went and talked to the speaker and kind of put up the white flag,'' he said. ``There's another day and another war. Maybe we can do better next year.''
AP880409-0129 	X	A jury Saturday found John Zaccaro Jr. guilty of selling cocaine to an undercover officer two years ago, rejecting defense arguments that he was entrapped by a pretty state trooper. The jury deliberated for slightly more than two hours before finding the son of 1984 vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro guilty of selling one-quarter gram of the drug in February 1986, while he was a student at Middlebury College. Zaccaro, 24, sat impassively as the verdict was read, his parents and other family members behind him. He faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. A sentencing date was not immediately set. Outside the courthouse, Ferraro read a statement acknowledging that her son had done wrong in the case. But she also criticized Addison County State's Attorney John Quinn for ``prolonging the agony for two years'' regarding her son's fate. Ferraro promised to appeal the guilty verdict. She said she and her husband, John Zaccaro Sr., had tried to set up a plea agreement shortly after their son was arrested, but Quinn would not allow a plea bargain that would not include a felony conviction. ``We, as his parents would not allow him to plead guilty'' to a felony, she said. Ferraro said there were several drug cases recently in Vermont in which plea bargains were easily arranged and light sentences were given to defendants convicted of selling larger quantities of drugs. In her statement, Ferraro blamed the case on four people: her son; Quinn; former Middlebury police detective Sgt. David Wemette, who initiated the investigation after rumors circulated that Zaccaro had earned the campus nickname of ``the Pharmacist''; and herself because of the pressure her 1984 candidacy put on her family. Ferraro refused to answer reporters' questions as she and her family walked to their car and drove off. Quinn said the verdict ``sends a message that drug pushers will not be tolerated in Vermont. In my mind, it's been difficult dealing with the publicity in the case. I don't care who his parents are.'' The state's attorney has an unlisted home telephone number and could not be reached for further comment on the question of plea bargaining. The verdict came at the end of a six-day trial, more than half of which was taken up by jury selection. Zaccaro's defense attorney, Charles Tetzlaff, presented no witnesses, but told jurors in closing arguments that they should find his client innocent by reason of entrapment. In his instructions to the Vermont District Court jurors, Judge Francis McCaffrey said they could find Zaccaro innocent by means of entrapment if they believed he was induced to commit a crime he normally would not commit. Entrapment could not be used as a defense if the jury had considered the lesser charge of possession, the judge said. Tetzlaff said police acted improperly by sending an attractive female undercover agent to Zaccaro's apartment to buy cocaine. He asked the jury to send a message to police that society should not condone such activities. Quinn told jurors that the issue was whether Zaccaro sold cocaine to state trooper Laura Manning. ``Yes, she was deceptive. She's not going to the defendant's house dressed in a uniform. That would be ludicrous,'' Quinn said. ``I can't deny Laura Manning is attractive. I can't deny she's female. But I can deny she was bait.'' He described the deal as just another sale for Zaccaro. ``When he takes a packet off the tray, he opens it up, being the good merchant that he is ... looks at it, wraps it up'' and gives it to Manning, Quinn said. Earlier Saturday, the final prosecution witness, state police chemist Frank Durkee, testified that a packet of powder Zaccaro sold to Manning tested as cocaine. Tetzlaff, who rested his case soon after Durkee's testimony, had said in his opening statement: ``The defense will not dispute the allegation that he sold a regulated drug. This is a case of improper and overzealous police conduct.'' The attorney also said that Manning, an officer on her first undercover assignment, had brought up the subject of drugs, not Zaccaro. Manning testified Friday that she went to Zaccaro's apartment with instructions to buy one-quarter gram of cocaine. When asked what she said to Zaccaro, Manning responded, ``I said, `A couple of people told me that you could sell me some coke.''' ``And what did he say?'' Quinn asked. ``Sure,'' Manning quoted Zaccaro as responding. The judge banned the use of Manning's tape-recorded drug buy as evidence in the trial. He also refused to allow prosecutors to use items taken from Zaccaro's car, including documents described as drug records, $1,630 and eight grams of cocaine. The barring of the evidence in the car resulted in the dropping of a second charge against Zaccaro, possession with intent to sell. The defense also had raised the argument that Zaccaro was unfairly singled out because of the publicity surrounding his mother, but the Vermont Supreme Court refused to overturn the charges on that basis.
AP900905-0084 	X	Belgium's national dish _ golden-brown fried potato sticks sprinkled with salt and covered under a blob of mayonnaise _ is getting healthier again. The consumer group Test-Achat said Wednesday new legal standards for frying fats, which came in the wake of a damning 1987 report on Belgium's unhealthy ``frites,'' have done the trick. ``The statistics indicate a considerable improvement over three years ago,'' Test-Achat said in its magazine.
AP900619-0031 	X	A man who shot and killed a policeman trying to arrest him for a double murder said he held ``no grudges'' before being put to death in the electric chair in Arkansas' first execution in 26 years. John Edward Swindler, 46, was pronounced dead at 9:05 p.m. Monday, three minutes after being given 2,300 volts of electricit in the big oak chair. Arkansas became the 14th state to carry out an execution and Swindler the 130th inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 let states resume use of capital punishment. Swindler was condemned for the 1976 murder of Fort Smith policeman Randy Basnett, who was shot at a gas station while trying to arrest Swindler for two murders in South Carolina. Swindler was later convicted of those slayings as well. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution on Saturday. In final remarks dictated in his cell to Roman Catholic Monsignor John O'Donnell, Swindler said: ``I have no animosity toward anyone. No grudges.'' ``I hope this brings to light the injustice of capital punishment and the need to abolish it,'' he said. Swindler's body was to be turned over to O'Donnell for cremation. Swindler's family didn't want the body. ``He has professed that he believes in Satan, and I hope he gets to see him real soon,'' his brother, Robert E. Swindler of Lexington, S.C., said recently. The last person executed in Arkansas was Charles Franklin Fields, who was electrocuted in 1964 for rape. R. Gene Simmons, convicted of killing 16 people, including 14 family members, is scheduled to be die Monday by injection. Because Swindler was sentenced before Arkansas changed its method of execution from electrocution to injection, he was given a choice of either method. He left the choice up to authorities, who selected the method specified in his sentence. Shanon Howard, the daughter of Basnett's widow, Cindy, said after the execution, ``All I can say is justice has been done.'' ``This is Randy Basnett's day,'' said Randy Manus, who was selected as a witness to the execution. A handful of demonstrators for and against the death penalty gathered outside the prison as the execution approached, including several members of the Fort Smith Police Department, some in T-shirts decorated with a lightning bolt and the slogan ``Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over _ John Swindler, 1990.'' Some of those opposed to the death penalty sang ``Amazing Grace.'' When told of Swindler's death, several police officers cheered, grinned, shook one another's hands. One broke into song. On Sunday, about 50 members of Amnesty International held a 26-minute vigil commemorating 26 years without an execution in the state. The human rights group implored Gov. Bill Clinton ``not to end the decency of the past 26 years by reinstituting this brutish form of violence.''
AP900309-0192 	X	A group of House staffers spent more than $28,000 going to Europe to plan a trip for lawmakers, but received a jolt just before their return flight _ the bosses decided to stay home. The decision to scrap the travel _ after the staffers had gone to London, Paris, Rome and elsewhere _ has triggered a dispute between the two lawmakers who planned it. Rep. Frank Annunzio, D-Ill., the chief organizer, canceled the trip. He said he didn't want to use a military plane during the U.S. invasion of Panama, which began while the advance team was in Europe. But Rep. Doug Barnard Jr., D-Ga., said he suspected his colleagues got ``cold feet'' because of harsh winter weather in Europe and bad publicity at home. According to House records, the six-member advance team spent more than $28,000 for lodging, meals, commercial air transportation and other expenses between Dec. 13-20. The staffers and members contended they learned useful information regardless of the cancellation. The lawmakers were to have traveled in January to gather information on Europe's move toward a unified financial system. Aides to Annunzio and Barnard also now disagree over whether the January itinerary was even set. The lawmakers' respective advance teams scouted different cities. Curtis Prins, staff director of the Annunzio-led House Banking subcommittee on financial institutions, said the military jet would have taken members to Strasbourg in France, London, Brussels and Rome. Those were the cities visited by Annunzio's staffer on the advance mission, subcommittee economist Gregory Hallisey. Five House Government Operations subcommittee staffers traveled for Barnard to Paris, Brussels and Madrid. One of those staffers, Peter Barash, said the stops had ``not been fixed'' by the members. Barash was staff director of the Government Operations subcommittee on commerce, consumer and monetary affairs, a job he left on March 1. Barnard is chairman of that panel and also serves on Annunzio's subcommittee. A sixth congressional staffer on the trip was assigned to Barnard's committee by Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office. Barnard bristled over Annunzio's decision to cancel the trip, maintaining it is vital lawmakers planning to restructure the U.S. banking system learn firsthand about Europe's move toward unified financial services by 1992. Barash said he held useful meetings with foreign tax authorities, U.S. officials involved in tax enforcement, representatives of the European Community and U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials. ``We've been doing serious and hard work,'' he said. Annunzio said in an interview that he canceled the trip because ``I could not in good conscience justify using military personnel'' and equipment when the U.S. forces ``were fighting and dying'' in Panama. He said the military jet transport, a version of the commercial Boeing 707, ``might have been needed in Panama and I wanted to make sure it would be available for that purpose.'' Barnard, in a separate interview, said, ``I doubt if we're that limited'' in military equipment. He said several members who originally signed up had dropped out before the invasion, leaving so few lawmakers that use of a military plane couldn't be justified anyway. Barnard added he knew of previous trips where ``at least a minority of people got cold feet'' because of potential adverse publicity. ``It sounds alluring to go to London, Paris and Madrid, but when it gets down to going in wintertime, it's not as appealing and they change their minds,'' he said. Barnard said he would like to reschedule the trip for Congress' Easter break. Annunzio noted members will be busy with primary and general elections this year, but he said he would revive the trip ``if I see interest.'' Prins, staff director of Annunzio's subcommittee, said 19 House members were signed up at one point for the January trip, and the party would have reached 41 including military escorts, spouses and staff members. The number of House members had dwindled to 12 just before the cancellation, Prins said, but he and Annunzio insisted the trip would have gone ahead with that number if the invasion had not intervened. Prins acknowledged ``if we had many more defections,'' the trip would have been canceled even without the invasion.
AP901128-0040 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has postponed a trip to Oslo next month to receive the Nobel Peace Prize because of domestic political and economic problems, Tass reported today. The official Soviet news agency said Gorbachev hoped the Nobel Committee would agree to postpone the Dec. 9-10 ceremonies and present him the prize at a later unspecified date. Gorbachev postponed the trip ``due to the crucial situation in the country and the president's preoccupation with affairs that require his constant attention,'' his press office said. In Oslo, Nobel Committee secretary Geir Lundestad would not comment on the Soviet request. Gobbachev is struggling to hold his geographically and ethnically diverse country together in the face of mounting nationalism and independence drives by the 15 republics. The Soviet Union also faces a grave economic crisis.
AP900307-0183 	X	Four-time winner Rick Swenson regained the lead Wednesday in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, while a musher miles behind him was trying to scare off curious buffaloes. Lavon Barve and three-time champion Susan Butcher were minutes behind Swenson about a third of the way through the 1,158-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. ``There's a lot of strong teams this year,'' said Butcher, warning that there's still plenty of time for surprises. ``We've got a long way to go yet.'' Swenson led the race Monday topping the Alaska Range at 3,500-foot Rainy Pass, but was overtaken by defending champion Joe Runyan at Rohn on Tuesday. He had a cut on his face and a cracked plastic runner on his sled as he mushed away from this Athabascan Indian village of 110 people at Iditarod milepost 367. Swenson said the damage wouldn't stop him from reaching McGrath, the next checkpoint 48 miles from here, where he either would repair the runner or change sleds. Behind Swenson on the trail through Farewell Burn, eighth-place racer Tim Osmar of Clam Gulch fired shots into the air to clear the trail of several buffaloes. The Iditarod Trail is named for a tiny ghost town it passes through. The race commemorates the 1925 emergency delivery by relay dog teams of life-saving diphtheria serum to Nome. Butcher won the race in 1986, 1987 and 1988 and took second place last year. Swenson won in 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1982. He has finished in the top 10 every year since 1973, when the Iditarod was started.
AP880516-0118 	X	The White House described the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan today as a ``welcome first step,'' and expressed the hope the entire force will be gone by the end of the year. ``We look forward to seeing the withdrawal proceed on schedule and will continue to monitor the progress,'' said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. After a bloody eight-year occupation of their neighbor, the Soviets began withdrawing troops on Sunday. The spokesman said that the U.S. policy of support for the freedom fighters that have battled the Soviets ``remains steadfast.'' The United States has said that it will continue to supply weapons and other materials to the resistance fighters as long as the Soviets continue their support of the Kabul regime. Under the Geneva accord on Afghanistan, half of the estimated 115,000 troops are scheduled to leave by August and the rest by February. Fitzwater said the withdrawal was ``a welcome first step in the Afghan peoples' desire for independence and self determination.'' ``As the Soviets leave, we remain confident that a broadbased government chosen by the Afghan people and not imposed from outside will replace the Kabul regime,'' the spokesman added. Asked if the administration believes Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will pull out all his troops, Fitzwater responded in the affirmative. ``We obviously hope the withdrawl can be complete by the end of the year,'' Fitzwatar said. Asked if that included Soviet advisers as well as troops, he responded, ``A Soviet's a Soviet.''
AP880713-0267 	X	A new management team is in place today at Coleco Industries Inc., and the company that brought Cabbage Patch Kids to the marketplace is seeking protection from its creditors in bankruptcy court. The West Hartford-based company on Tuesday gave up a months-long battle to reach an agreement to reorganize its debts with its banks and bondholders, announcing it had filed for federal bankruptcy court protection from creditors. Coleco said it filed for Chapter 11 protection late Monday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The filing will permit the company to continue operating while it reorganizes its finances. The Coleco board appointed J. Brian Clarke, currently president and chief operating officer, as president and chief executive officer. Clarke replaces Morton E. Handel, who is recovering from open-heart surgery. Handel submitted his resignation as chief executive officer because of the company's need for a full-time CEO during this period. He will continue as chairman of the board. The Chapter 11 filing had been expected ever since Coleco announced in March it suffered a $105.4 million loss for all of 1987 and would miss an April interest payment on its debentures. Coleco said the filing did not include the company's Canadian and other foreign subsidiaries. Telephone calls seeking comment from company officials on Tuesday were not returned. Coleco owes more than $100 million to a group of foreign and domestic lenders. In March, shortly after it announced a $47.4 million loss for the first quarter, the toymaker proposed a $335 million debt restructuring plan. But late last month, Coleco was forced to abandon the plan because it failed to win approval of the company's debtholders. The company said Tuesday it was no longer able to obtain working capital financing because of the failed plan and because some creditors had started to attach its assets. Over the past year, the toymaker slashed its work force in an effort to cut costs. It currently has fewer than 600 employees in the United States, down from an average of 2,500 last year. It also has sold several of its product lines to raise cash. ``What is going to emerge is going will be very different from what went in,'' said analyst David Leibowitz, senior vice president of American Securities Corp. Five years ago, Coleco was on top of the toy world with its Cabbage Patch Kids. The company sold $1 billion worth of the dolls over two years. The Cabbage Patch craze prompted Coleco to expand its product lines and make acquisitions. Coleco bought the company that makes Scrabble board games, acquired the license to the popular Trivial Pursuit board game and bought the company that makes Wrinkles stuffed animals. But the Cabbage Patch fad abated and analysts said the company did not pare its costs soon enough. When the toy industry slumped in 1987, Coleco was hit particularly hard. The company suffered losses in four of the past five years, including $215 million over the last two years. It recently lost the license to market Trivial Pursuit because of its precarious financial state. But Coleco said Tuesday it managed to retain the license for the valuable Cabbage Patch line. Coleco said it had extended its license with Original Appalachian Artworks Inc. until Dec. 31, 1994.
AP900510-0129 	X	Medical personnel who use Pulmanex Manual resuscitators are being asked to return the devices because of a defect that in some cases could be fatal to patients. The Food and Drug Administration said Life Design Systems Inc. of Carrollton, Texas, is voluntarily recalling resuscitators with model numbers beginning with 90, 91, 95 or 96 and ending with a 0, 1, 2 or 3 after the hyphen. The recalled models have lot numbers 9321 through 9361 and were made from Nov. 17 through Dec. 27 last year. In five previous recalls, Life Designs Systems has recalled other models of the resuscitator for various reasons, the FDA said. The agency said it did not know of any deaths that have resulted from any of the faulty resuscitators. The resuscitator subject to the latest recall comes in adult, pediatric and neonatal sizes. It consists of a mask that is placed over the patient's mouth and nose and is attached to a plastic bag. Squeezing the plastic bag forces air into the patient's lungs. In faulty resuscitators, the rear valves can become dislodged and prevent air from reaching the person being resuscitated, the FDA said. If the problem is not recognized in time, the patient could die.
AP880818-0101 	X	A small earthquake rattled central Utah early today, but there were no reports of damage or injury. The quake struck at 6:44 a.m. and registered 4.6 on the Richter scale of ground motion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Service at Golden, Colo. It was an aftershock of an earlier temblor. Initial reports of the quake came from Price, East Carbon and Helper. The quake's epicenter was 34 miles south of Price. The Carbon County sheriff's office said it received numerous calls, and the Emery County sheriff's office also received a few calls from residents asking about the earthquake. The central Utah area was hit by three quakes on Sunday, the largest of which was 5.6 on the Richter scale. The temblors caused minor damage and were followed by about a dozen aftershocks on Monday. Seismologists had said aftershocks could continue through mid-week. The Richter scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one number means a tenfold increase in magnitude. Thus a reading of 4.5 reflects an earthquake 10 times stronger than one of 3.5. An earthquake of 3.5 on the Richter scale can cause slight damage in a populated area and a 4 can cause moderate damage in the local area.
AP880722-0120 	X	Jesse Jackson issued an emotional appeal today for supporters to back the Democratic ticket and told Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen that he will be keeping up the ``street heat'' to make sure they don't forget his constituents. ``It is in order and it is right to support this ticket because of our access to it and our relaionship with it,'' Jackson told several hundred delegates as Dukakis and Bentsen looked on. ``We have every reason to be hopeful, to be excited, to know that we are close to where we are going, a long way from where we started,'' Jackson said. ``And in our lifetime you and I will be in the White House.'' He introduced Dukakis as ``a man I've come to know, to respect ... a man I've come to ... love because of his own sensitivity to family,'' Jackson added: ``I bring to you a man I plan to watch up close ... when he becomes ... the next president of the United States _ Michael Dukakis.'' The group erupted in applause and shouts of ``Duke, Duke.'' ``We're going to need you, we want you, we can't win without you,'' Dukakis responded. Jackson issued a blistering attack on the Reagan record and called for Democratic unity. A progressive agenda will be won with ``a combination of street heat and leadership,'' he said. He promised Dukakis, ``There will be enough heat to cook our meat and enough heat for George Bush to get out of the kitchen.'' Jackson recalled that when Lyndon B. Johnson was added to the ticket in 1960, some civil rights activists were concered. But Johnson rose to the occasion, Jackson said. Turning to Bentsen, he said, ``In a real sense, your occasion is now... You ask us to trust you. All we can ask of anyone is that they not betray that trust.'' Jackson repeated that he wants neither a job nor a title with the Dukakis operation. ``I want to serve, free to serve at my own pace, free to serve, free to challenge,'' he said. He said he expects his own relationship with the ticket will influence some policies. ``What does it mean to me in practical terms?'' Jackson asked. ``The contras have lost a vote.'' Bentsen _ who has voted for aid to the Nicaraguan rebels _ and Dukakis politely joined the applause as delegates chanted, ``No contra aid.'' Jackson, who had been the last survivor in the Democratic field against Dukakis, had endorsed the ticket at Thursday night's closing session of the party's convention. At the end of the long road, Jackson said, ``I feel fantastic.'' But it was clear he would have to do some selling to whip up enthusiasn for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket. Jesse Jackson embraced the Democratic ticket he had wanted to head and gave the Democrats the unity send-off they sought for victory in the November election. As he strode from the podium where he joined Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis on Thursday night, Jackson said, ``We have a good ticket and a good team. And if the unity that is expressed here tonight is sustained and expands, we will win and we will deserve to win.'' Asked his own feeling at the close of the convention, he said, ``I feel fantastic.'' With the dust hardly settled from his own presidential campaign, Jackson today was looking ahead to new political ventures. He called a meeting today of his 1,200 delegates to include them in his plans to campaign for the Dukakis ticket, raise money for his own political action committee and register voters. It appeared Thursday night that he would have to do some selling to whip up enthusiasm among some delegates for the team of Dukakis and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. Signs reading ``No Contra aid'' printed up by members of the Vermont delegation were held up by several Jackson delegates around the hall. Dukakis opposes aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, while Bentsen has voted for it in the past. ``He's against peace,'' said Vermont delegate Cindy Milstein who mentioned several pro-military stands by Bentsen. But Jackson officials circulated a statement from him to his delegates before the vice presidential vote, urging support of Bentsen. The brief statement said that while he disagrees with Dukakis and Bentsen on some issues, ``our interest converges in building a coalition to beat the Republicans this fall.'' Jackson's appearance in the hall later was clearly appreciated. At the mention of his name by Dukakis, a deafening cheer went up from both Jackson and Dukakis delegates. At first Jackson sat unnoticed in a VIP box with former President Jimmy Carter, an uncustomary role for Jackson, until Dukakis waved to him. Jackson stood, gave a thumbs up and the delegates erupted in emotion.
AP880912-0251 	X	The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials edged up 3.56 points to 2,072.37. But declining issues outnumbered advances by nearly 4 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 605 up, 789 down and 525 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 114.88 million shares, against 141.54 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index dropped .21 to 150.63.
AP881208-0255 	X	The following are the most popular videocassettes as they appear in next week's issue of Billboard magazine. Copyright 1988, Billboard Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
AP881110-0182 	X	Vandals painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs at a Jewish cemetery in Rhode Island and in the office of a Jewish student organization in New York one day after a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. ``I can't even find the word for it, it's so hurtful,'' James Oppenheim, president of the Jewish Student Union at the State University of New York at Binghamton, N.Y., said Thursday. There was no sign of forced entry at the office and sanctuary in the basement of the student union, Oppenheim said. The group has about 200 students that coordinate activities on the campus, which has about 5,000 Jewish students. ``I think it's politically motivated because they didn't do any damage that we can see,'' Oppenheim said. Police were taking fingerprints in the rooms but had no suspects, said Raymond Dye, vice president of student affairs. On Wednesday night the Jewish group sponsored a candlelight vigil to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night the Nazis began their first organized assaults against the Jews in Germany and Austria. In Woonsocket, R.I., vandals painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans at a 95-year-old Jewish cemetery, but police were uncertain whether the attack was related to Kristallnacht observances. A woman visiting B'nai Israel Cemetery Tuesday found her son's headstone among the approximately half-dozen covered with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. The main road to the cemetery also had been inscribed with anti-Jewish slogans and the German word for Jew, ``Juden.'' ``Today when I went to the cemetery, it was a very terrible reminder of things that have happened to us in the past,'' Temple B'nai Israel President Edith Wittes told those assembled for a Kristallnacht memorial service. In addition to the Nazi symbols, there were other images with possible links to Satanic worship, such as skulls and an inverted cross with its arms turned down. ``The sickness that made Adolf Hitler possible is alive and well today, in our own community,'' said Rabbi Joel Chernikoff.
AP880412-0167 	X	Cher completed her transformation from pop singer to top actress at the 60th Annual Academy Awards when she won the Oscar for her role as the superstitious young widow of ``Moonstruck.'' ``I want to really say something,'' she said when she accepted the award Monday night. ``When I was little my mother said, `I want you to be something.''' ``I don't think that this means that I am somebody, but I guess I'm on my way,'' Cher said. She was nominated by the Academy once before for ``Silkwood.'' Cher, known for her outrageous garb at past Oscars, was slightly subdued this time in a black sequined gown with see-through netting and strategically placed spangles. Backstage, she said of her getup: ``I think Theda Bara would probably be proud of me,'' referring to the famed ``vamp'' of the silent screen.
AP881028-0284 	X	After more than a week of overdosing on mega-deals, the fear of failure has given Wall Street traders and speculators a reason to just say no to merger mania. Dragged down by sharp declines in key takeover issues, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials fell 24.35 points on Thursday, closing at 2,140.83. The new wave of multibillion-dollar buyouts relies heavily on debt, and many observers are concerned that the financing of these deals ultimately may prove too fragile. ``This is not business as usual,'' said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Nikko Securities Co. International Inc. of the high level of debt mandated in these transactions. ``When you take a blue-chip company and turn it into a buffalo-chip company, it's not a good situation.'' Reflecting skepticism over Kohlberg Kravis Robert & Co.'s ability to fund its $20.3 billion tender offer for RJR Nabisco Inc., Nabisco's stock fell $2.75 share to $82. Other takeover issues also lost substantial ground, including Kraft Inc., which fell $3 to $94.50; West Point-Pepperell Inc. plunged $3.37{ to $44.50, and Pillsbury Co. slipped $2.12{ to $58.87{. Also down were so-called ``whisper'' stocks, which had risen on spillover speculation. ``There's too much debt supporting the nation's corporations, that's what this is telling us,'' said Philip Puccio, a senior vice president at Dillon Read & Co. Amplifying worries over the size of the recent deals were two developments. In the corporate bond market, where the billions needed to finance the deals are raised, a $1.15 billion junk bond sale for Campeau Corp.'s takeover of Federated Department Stores hit a major snag. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has urged banks to be cautious about lending money for multibillion-dollar takeovers and buyouts. Greenspan's warning came in a letter to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday. ``Institutions have participated in so much of this debt financing that (the financial community) is starting to worry,'' said Puccio. ``They're afraid that if this thing does keep building the way it is and corporate America becomes a house of cards, it can collapse the way the stock market did.'' Transactions that are dependent upon a high level of debt are losing much of their allure. For example, Wall Street Journal report that U.S. Shoe Corp. is considering a leveraged buyout was said to be a factor in sending the company's stock tumbling $1.37{ to $24.25. Before the recent rash of deals, analysts agree, such a report would have driven the company's stock higher. In the junk bond market, underwriter First Boston Corp. said that while it had not officially withdrawn its offering for the Federated deal, it was engaged in discussions to restructure the transaction. Proceeds from the sale of these high-risk bonds were destined to pay off bridge loans used to cover the short-term costs of the Campeau takeover announced last spring. A delay could spell trouble for the banks and investment houses that provided that financing. ``If this causes some players to sit on the sidelines because they committed too much capital, then maybe they'll think twice next time,'' Brusca said. Because the recent deals all involve huge amounts of borrowed money, they could be devastated by higher interest rates or the inability of a company to sell off assets to cover the debt. Some observers also fear there aren't enough investors interested in purchasing billions of new junk bonds. But Michael Dahood, an analyst at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., contends there is a hefty appetite for larger deals. ``I don't think deals that have a sound economic basis should have any difficulty getting funded,'' he said. The problem, however, is broader than one firm and one transaction. ``I'm concerned about the fact that at any point in time there are a lot of firms that are highly leveraged,'' said Gregg Jarrell, former Securities and Exchange Commission economist and now a professor at the University of Rochester. ``No one can really know the full extent of what could happen if the economy turned down,'' he said.
AP880227-0037 	X	A 36-year-old East German man fled uninjured over the heavily fortified border to West Germany by climbing fences under cover of darkness, border police said. The man crossed the frontier late Thursday near the West German community of Philippsthal, 90 miles northeast of Frankfurt, said border police in Kassel. The escapee was not identified. At least 17 people have fled over East Germany's border with West Germany and the Communist-constructed Berlin Wall since Jan. 1, according to West German officials.
AP881110-0275 	X	The most urgent problem facing the president regarding manufacturing is the twin deficits. Beyond that, our concerns will unfold as the new Congress attempts to put through a number of mandated benefits which are linked to the deficit ... like mandatory health insurance, the parental leave issue, the dual-shop question and increased minimum wage. That's pretty tough medicine to apply to a lot of companies trying to compete in the world marketplace. The president has got to be alert to these heavy burdens on the competitive capabilities of companies and try to head off as many as possible in terms of the entire payment burden being placed on an industry.
AP901107-0150 	X	Republican Bob Smith says he's just a ``common man'' who will push conservative issues as a U.S. senator, such as maintaining the defense budget and supporting the ``Star Wars'' program. Smith made fiscal conservatism the overriding theme of his campaign to replace retiring Republican Sen. Gordon Humphrey. He voted against the recent federal budget compromise because it contained tax increases, which he said could be avoided. Despite that, President Bush campaigned in New Hampshire for Smith, who stayed in Washington because of House votes. Smith says one of his greatest accomplishments in three terms in the House was his leadership last year in defeating the 50 percent congressional pay raise, a claim derided by his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Sen. John Durkin. ``I'm a common man, representing common people with common goals and values and a whole lot of common sense, and I'm real proud of that,'' says Smith, 49. Born in Trenton, N.J., Smith lives in Tuftonboro. A veteran who served on a Navy supply ship during the Vietnam War, Smith was a high school history teacher and real estate agent before being elected to Congress in 1984. He consistently supports defense spending, including for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or ``Star Wars,'' program, and says any defense spending cuts due to improved relationships with unfriendly countries should be gradual. Smith opposes abortion except to save the life of the mother, but says he would support an exception for rape and incest if it meant enactment of federal anti-abortion legislation. He easily won the GOP Senate nomination in September over a pro-choice opponent. He opposes the Equal Rights Amendment and favors the death penalty for violent criminals. Smith served on the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees. He and his wife, Mary Jo, have three children.
AP880722-0314 	X	The state's largest savings and loan holding company, First Texas Financial Corp., is seeking federal help for its troubled thrifts, company officials said Thursday. A proposal submitted to federal regulators by First Texas includes financial backing from New York investor Saul Steinberg's Reliance Insurance Co., and private funding by First Texas Chairman and Chief Executive J. Livingston Kosberg and Dallas real estate developer Richard C. Strauss. First Texas Financial is the parent company of Dallas-based First Texas Savings Association and Houston-based Gibraltar Savings Association. The plan would provide more than $250 million in private funds in return for an undetermined amount from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., a First Texas spokeswoman who wished to remain anonymous said Thursday. ``I can confirm there has been an offer and that we are optimistic about it, but at this time, we don't know how much federal money is involved,'' she said. With 44 branches in the state, First Texas has assets of $3.4 billion. Gibraltar, with 53 locations and assets of $6.1 billion, is the state's largest thrift. Together, the two thrifts lost $169.9 million in the first quarter. The Federal Home Loan Bank is in the midst of implementing the Southwest Plan, a program to merge, close or consolidate more than 100 insolvent thrifts in Texas. Regulators have announced three consolidations of 11 thrifts in Texas since February involving $2.2 billion in FSLIC aid. The president of the FHLB in Dallas, George Barclay, said he hopes to close or merge 20 more thrifts by Sept. 30.
AP880716-0139 	X	It's no secret that bondholders usually get the short end of the stick when it comes to things like corporate takeovers or restructurings. Unlike stock prices that often skyrocket even at the hint of a merger, corporate paper usually suffers as bondholders worry about a company being saddled with additional debt once a deal is completed. And unlike stockholders who have final say over such a deal, bondholders are relegated to a passive, non-voting role. A group of investors, though, is working to change that through the recently formed Institutional Bondholders' Rights Association. The fledgling group, believed to be the first of its kind, has two goals: to help institutional investors respond promptly to specific situations threatening the value of debt investments; and to develop basic means for protecting the interests of institutional investors, association president Richard S. Swingle explained in a recent interview. ``Widespread corporate restructuring _ including mergers and acquisitions, management buyouts and bankruptcy reorganizations _ has underscored the need for an organization that will help safeguard the interests of institutional bondholders,'' Swingle said. ``Recently, it has become typical for a corporation to finance a restructuring by drastically increasing its debt load. Often the result is a reduction in the credit quality of existing corporate debt held by institutions,'' he said. Eight companies have joined the association since its inception earlier this month, among them: Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Prudential Life Insurance Co. of America and Loomis, Sayles & Co., all holders of billions of dollars in corporate debt. The association, looking for more strength in numbers, hopes to have at least 25 members in a year and up to 100 in the next three to four years. Swingle, who is also a vice president at T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., said that as specific situations arise the association will assist institutional investors in taking the appropriate action. For example, he said, the group may develop a set of provisions to insert in corporate debt agreements that would guarantee institutional investor rights. Such provisions would assure that no corporate transaction could benefit shareholders at the expense of bondholders. In addition, Swingle said, the association might form ad hoc bondholder groups to negotiate terms or defeat an asset sale, or work with a corporation's management to preserve existing debt value in a reorganization. ``By helping institutions respond cooperatively to specific restructuring situations _ and by building explicit protection for institutions into corporate debt agreements _ we hope to guarantee that rights of institutional investors are afforded greater consideration when a corporation alters its financial structure,'' Swingle said.
AP880810-0255 	X	An engine caught fire on a United Airlines jet during takeoff Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of 102 passengers and five crew members, authorities said. Seven people were injured. The twin-engine Boeing 737 bound for Chicago was taxiing down a runway at Little Rock Regional Airport about 9:30 a.m. when the fire was spotted and the takeoff was aborted, United spokesman Charles Novak said. Airport firefighters doused the burning engine, he said. Many of the passengers, who exited through emergency door and window exits, jumped from the wing of the plane to the ground and were injured. Seven people were treated at hospitals, authorities said. Most of the passengers caught the next flight out to Chicago. Novak said airline officials had not determined what caused the fire. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were at the airport late Wednesday to investigate the accident.
AP880811-0120 	X	This tiny republic is issuing four postage stamps dedicated to the fight against AIDS, the government said Thursday. The stamps, due to come out in the next few days, were prepared in conjunction with an international congress on AIDS in San Marino in October. ``The set carries a warning but at the same time hope,'' a government statement said. The stamps cost about 18 cents to 71 cents each. San Marino, an enclave in Italy's Apennine mountains, claims to be the world's oldest republic, founded in 301. Tourism and its postage stamps and coins are its chief sources of income.
AP880909-0210 	X	With youngsters back in school, satiated by the usual overflow of mindless summer entertainment, the fall movie season traditionally turns to more adult fare, particularly high caliber dramas destined for Academy Award consideration. This season, social comment, which has not been in strong supply in recent years, makes a return to the screen with such subjects as armed hate groups, infanticide, political protest fugitives, as well as another look at the Vietnam War. Already playing in the nation's theaters is ``Betrayed,'' a drama starring Debra Winger and Tom Berenger about the right-wing underground in the Midwest. At the other end of the political spectrum is Sidney Lumet's ``Running on Empty,'' with Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch and River Phoenix. The movie concerns a family of 1960s radicals who have been living underground and on the run for 15 years. ``Bat 21,'' with Gene Hackman and Danny Glover takes another hard look at the Vietnam War. ``The American movies of the 1930s and 1940s made a big impact on me because of their social content,'' says Costa-Gavras, the Greek-French director of ``Betrayed'' and other political films, including ``Z'' and ``Missing.'' ``When I first saw `The Grapes of Wrath,' it made an indelible impression on me. I deplore the fact that Hollywood retreated into a dream world in the last few decades. But I see hope for the future. There are too many young and talented filmmakers who want to comment on the world's ills.'' Social commentary won't be the only significance of the autumnal movie season. Following a record summer at the nation's box offices, Hollywood anticipates a rousing fourth-quarter finish to what may be its biggest box-office year. ``No Drought at the Box Office'' bannered the trade paper Variety in predicting a record $1.65-billion theater gross for the summer. With ```Crocodile' Dundee II,'' ``Coming to America'' and ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'' breaking the $100 million barrier and ``Big'' well on its way, chances are good that 1988 will top last year's $4.25 billion. The 22-week Hollywood writers strike apparently will not affect the supply of films to the world's theaters. ``There is an abundant supply of product,'' said Herb Steinberg, spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. ``The Christmas pictures are in the can, and films now in production will carry into next year. And there are plenty of scripts ready to be filmed.'' Cheryl Rhoden of the Writers Guild of America acknowledged that the strike ``slowed some projects down.'' But she said the effects of the walkout on theatrical production are harder to measure than television, where the fall season was decimated. Fall movie-goers may notice a few more rough edges than usual because the numerous script revisions normally made in the course of theatrical filming were not permitted during the lengthy walkout. Here's what else is on tap for the fall season: Having little success in comedies, Whoopi Goldberg returns to drama with ``Clara's Heart,'' directed by Robert Mulligan (``To Kill a Mockingbird''). Meryl Streep is accused of murdering her baby at an Australian court trial in ``Guilty by Suspicion.'' Diane Keaton returns to drama in ``The Good Mother,'' directed by Leonard Nimoy (``Three Men and a Baby''). ``Criminal Law'' stars Kevin Bacon in a story about a serial killer. Jeremy Irons plays twins in ``Dead Ringers'' with Genevieve Bujold. Burt Lancaster plays a grandfather whose family visits him in ``Rocket Gibraltar.'' Clint Eastwood directed his homage to Charlie Parker in ``Bird,'' with Forest Whitaker (``Good Morning, Vietnam'') as the legendary sax man. ``Imagine: John Lennon'' traces the late Beatle's stormy life in rare footage from his estate. Hard to believe, but the musical will make a comeback _ sort of. Gregory Hines will appear as a dancer seeking help from oldtimer Sammy Davis Jr. in ``Tap.'' ``Heartbreak Hotel'' is listed as a musical drama starring David Keith and Tuesday Weld. Animation fans will be able to see two new features this fall: Disney's ``Oliver and Company,'' a reworking of ``Oliver Twist'' with the voices of Bette Midler, Billy Joel and Huey Lewis; ``The Land Before Time,'' a prehistoric family adventure from Steven Spielberg and Don Bluth, who combined on ``An American Tale.'' Since comedy is still king, there will be plenty of laugh-seekers in the fall market. Peter O'Toole, Steve Gutenburg and Darryl Hannah appear in a comedy-fantasy about a haunted English mansion. ``Heart Break Dance,'' a comedy-drama about family life in a New England town, marks Don Johnson's emergence in feature films. He stars with Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels. ``The Accidental Tourist'' reunites the crew of ``Body Heat'' _ William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and writer-director Lawrence Kasdan _ in a comedy about a travel writer and a dog trainer. Rebecca deMornay plays an FBI trainee who goofs up in ``Feds.'' Sally Field and Tom Hanks are would-be standup comics in ``Punchline.'' Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for laughs in ``Without a Clue.'' In ``Moon Over Parador,'' Richard Dreyfuss appears as an actor who impersonates a Caribbean dictator. Want some adventure? ``Gorillas in the Mist'' features Sigourney Weaver as the ill-fated student of ape behavior, Dian Fossey. And Don Ameche and friends are back in ``Cocoon: The Return.'' In the action line, Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell appear in the drug-war ``To Kill a Sunrise.'' ``The Beast,'' with Jason Patrick, concerns a Soviet tank crew in Afganistan. In ``Last Rites,'' Tom Berenger portrays a Catholic priest who protects a girl marked for death by the Mafia. ``Alien Nation'' casts James Caan, Mandy Patinkin and Terence Stamp in a sci-fi cop thriller. All these films come from the eight major releasing companies. Many others will be emanating from the ever-growing independent companies.
AP880928-0189 	X	Pride, not profit, inspires Conrad Industries Inc. to embroider the patches that adorn the space suits of the astronauts, the company's president says. Conrad has embroidered the patch for Discovery, designed in tribute to the seven Challenger astronauts, as it has for every manned mission since Apollo 12, the second moon landing. The Discovery patch shows a stylized shuttle rising into the the sky on a plume of fire and smoke and streaking through a red, V-like vector. A multi-rayed sun creeps over the horizon and the Big Dipper hangs in the sky. NASA said the sunrise represents a new beginning; the launch, a safe mission; and the red vector, the symbol of aeronautics, the traditional strength of the space agency. The seven stars of the dipper symbolize Challenger astronauts. The patch has five colors, but such emblems can have up to 19, compared with three colors in a typical commercial or military design, said company president Bernhard Conrad. ``We sometimes spend a dollar and charge a dime. But we do it for the prestige, the satisfaction and the chance to sell to collectors,'' he said, adding that the emblems represent only a small part of its $11 million annual volume.
AP880930-0097 	X	Federal health inspectors and Pentagon investigators have begun a joint probe of claims by Lockheed workers that they are endangered by chemicals believed to be used in making the top-secret Stealth fighter. A three-member team from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration made a visit Thursday to the aerospace company's Burbank plant, where 75 employees have filed suit complaining they suffer from ailments brought on by exposure to hazardous substances used in their top-secret jobs. A team of military physicians, toxic material experts and other specialists from the Department of Defense are expected to be at the plant by Monday, according to an announcement Thursday by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., whose district includes the Los Angeles suburb where the plant is located. In addition to the lawsuit, about 150 employees have filed worker's compensation claims related to exposure to the chemicals. The employees, some of whom work in Lockheed's highly classified plant nicknamed the ``Skunk Works,'' where the U-2 reconnaissance planes were built, have said the top-secret nature of their jobs has hampered their efforts to seek treatment from private physicians. Attorney Timothy Larson, who represents the workers in the suit and compensation claims, said five of his clients and an unknown number of workers have died since 1986. Lockheed workers claim composite materials used in the Stealth fighter, designed not to reflect radar, and chemicals used to mill or clean them are causing rashes, nausea, dizziness, memory loss and lack of concentration, Berman said. Similar symptoms have been cited in the Seattle area by workers at Boeing plants, where many of the same materials are used on commercial aircraft. In Washington, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wants to determine whether workers in aerospace facilities with DOD contracts are being exposed to hazardous chemicals without adequate protection. No state or federal OSHA inspector has conducted a full-scale inspection of the top-secret Skunk Works since the safety agency was founded 16 years ago, high-ranking OSHA sources told the Los Angeles Times this week. An OSHA inspector with a nuclear-materials security clearance from the Department of Energy was admitted to the secure section of the plant Thursday and will remain there for several days, an OSHA official told the Los Angeles Times. ``He will look first into the specific complaints contained in the lawsuit and media reports and after that will decide whether to expand this into a wall-to-wall general inspection,'' said the spokesman, not identified by the Times.
AP900706-0073 	X	Officials from the two Germanys began negotiations today on the final phase of unification, and Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere of East Germany said Berlin should be the new German capital. Meanwhile, in southern Leipzig, farmers said they would dump 2,640 gallons of milk on the streets Monday to protest the loss of business following the economic merger of the German states, the ADN news agency said. Elsewhere, a bomb threat forced the evacuation of East Germany's Parliament while lawmakers were in a session unrelated to the East-West talks. No bomb was found, and the lawmakers returned after about 30 minutes. De Maiziere led the East German delegation in talks today on combining the political systems of the German states. An economic treaty went into effect Sunday that united the German economies. Officials have spoken of all-German elections as early as December. In an interview with ADN, de Maiziere said the pact should give East Germans the same rights as West Germans. He also said the treaty should make Berlin the capital of a united Germany. West German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble led the West German delegation. Also today, 100,000 metal workers held one-hour ``warning strikes'' to demand higher wages and job protection, said union spokesman Detlef Kuchenbecker. About 10,000 marched through East Berlin to press their demands. Prices have soared in this new free-market society following the economic merger and metal workers have held strikes daily at various plants. East German stores have stocked their shelves with more expensive West German products, forcing up prices. There have also been widespread reports of price gouging by East German stores. De Maiziere and other officials have criticized the price rises. The costs of some foodstuffs varied by 100 percent from one region to another. ``There's no way that can be justified merely by higher transportation costs or overhead,'' de Maiziere told legislators Thursday. ADN reported price rises of 400 percent to 600 percent in northern Mecklenburg and Pomerania regions and said there were long shopping lines in southeastern Dresden. ``There are cities in the GDR (East Germany) where the average price levels are way above those in West Germany,'' said Economics Minister Gerhard Pohl. ``We need certain guarantees that GDR citizens ... won't be exploited.'' Several thousand metalworkers struck at seven plants near Leipzig, where pay talks deadlocked two days ago, according to ADN. The union wants East Germany to adopt the West German system of stipulating salary scales and job descriptions in huge collective contracts by which all the workers in a specific industry are bound. In southwestern Erfurt, 9,000 workers rallied outside their union headquarters as contract talks began, ADN said. The negotiations later collapsed, the agency reported. Workers are demanding that pay levels be brought up to West German standards by next year. The average East German earns less than half the average West German salary. Rents are being kept low to help compensate during the transition from 40 years of socialism to capitalism. But unemployment is expected to surge into the millions as East Germany faces stiff competition from West Germany. East Germany's Communist regime was overthrown last autumn.
AP900420-0167 	X	The state Senate voted 34-23 Friday to give final approval to a one-year ban on a hormone used to boost cows' milk output, making Minnesota the second major milk-producing state to do so. The Minnesota House passed the ban Thursday 68-59 despite protests from the state's dairy farmers that the action would put them at a competitive disadvantage. The measure follows a similar one approved by the Wisconsin Legislature last month. Minnesota and Wisconsin combined produce about 24 percent of the nation's milk. Rep. Chuck Brown, who led the charge for the moratorium in the Minnesota House, said he has received assurances that Gov. Rudy Perpich will sign the measure into law. Under the legislation, non-medical use of bovine growth hormone, known as BGH or bovine somatotropin, would be banned for a year. The protein is a synthetic version of a hormone that naturally appears in cows and is expected to win approval of the Food and Drug Administration for commercial use later this year. Brown and state Sen. Steve Morse urged the ban, saying more time is needed to study the potential effects of the drug on animals and humans. The legislation would keep the ban in effect as long as Wisconsin enforced a similar moratorium or if a consortium of states representing at least 40 percent of the nation's milk production adopted a ban on BGH. The Wisconsin Legislature approved a temporary moratorium last month that is awaiting the signature of Gov. Tommy Thompson. He has not said whether he will sign the measure. The companies that produce the hormone, Monsanto Agriculture Co., Eli Lilly Co., Upjohn Co. and American Cyanamid, have lobbied against such measures, saying the hormone has been more than adequately tested. Supporters of the synthetic hormone, including dairy farmers, a pharmacist and a veterinarian, took issue with opponents' contentions that the drug may not be safe and argued against legislative impediments on new technology. ``There's no credible evidence that there's any health hazard,'' said Rep. Jim Girard. ``This is just another tool to allow farmers to increase their production.'' Rep. Harriet McPherson likened BGH to milk machines, embryo transplants and other technological advances that have increased milk production.
AP881206-0005 	X	A former FBI agent who was the top agency contact for Jackie Presser's role as a Teamsters informant was jailed Monday for refusing to testify at the embezzlement and racketeering trial of two union officials. ``My position is the same as Friday,'' Robert S. Friedrick told U.S. District Court Judge George W. White, who revoked Friedrick's $1,000 bond and ordered him jailed to try to force him to testify under a grant of immunity. Friedrick's attorney, William D. Beyer, has appealed the judge's contempt citation of Friday to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Friedrick invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called as a witness Friday. Prosecutors had tried to have three of his sworn sworn statements admitted as evidence but White ruled the material untrustworthy. Beyer said the Friedrick interviews on Jan. 8, 9 and 13 of 1986 conflicted with Friedrick's earlier testimony. Because there were two versions of his statement, Beyer said any new testimony could conflict with one or the other version and might put Friedrick in jeopardy of perjury charges. Government attorneys indicated they wanted to call Friedrick to the stand to prove that Presser's FBI informant ``handlers'' never authorized the union's hiring ``ghost employees'' who were paid for doing no work. Stephen H. Jigger, a government prosecutor, said Friedrick's testimony was crucial because, of three Presser FBI ``handlers,'' Friedrick sometimes was the only agent who attended meetings with Presser and Anthony Hughes, a co-defendant and recording secretary of Teamsters Local 507 in Cleveland. Hughes and Harold Friedman, a Teamsters international vice president and president of Local 507, are charged with plotting a $700,000 scheme to hire ``ghost employees.'' Presser, who was Teamsters international president, was indicted on similar charges, but died July 9 before going on trial. After Friedrick, who was fired by the FBI in August 1986, repeated his unwillingness to testify, deputy U.S. marshals took him into custody. The U.S. Marshal's Service said he was taken to the Justice Center lockup. The judge said Friedrick could be jailed for up to 18 months for criminal contempt. Jigger also asked the judge to consider delaying the trial to give Friedrick time behind bars to reconsider his unwillingness to testify. Jigger said the prosecution has just one more witness to call. William C. Lynch, a senior Justice Department trial attorney also on the prosecution team, said the grant of immunity would rule out use against Friedrick any testimony he gives in the current trial. The judge excused the jury until Wednesday for procedural arguments outside the its presence.
AP900607-0004 	X	Columbia will have to be rolled back to the hangar next week so NASA can repair a hydrogen leak, a move that leaves the shuttle's astronomy mission up in the air and disrupts the year's flight plans. ``Safety's the first priority, and we've got an item here which we absolutely have got to put to bed and we're going to do that,'' launch director Bob Sieck said Wednesday. The leak had forced NASA to scrub last week's launch of the shuttle with the $150 million Astro observatory. On Wednesday, a test in which super-cold liquid hydrogen was pumped into Columbia's big external fuel tank confirmed the leak is in a tight cavity between two metal plates that connect the orbiter and the tank, Sieck said. To fix the leak, the orbiter will have to be separated from the tank in the hangar, he said. Even then, it will be hard to pinpoint the leak because it seems to occur under extremely cold conditions only, Sieck said. Sieck declined to estimate when Columbia might be able to lift off. NASA officials have said it will take about a month to return the shuttle to the hangar and perform repairs. The move will take place sometime next week. The Astro mission is one of six remaining shuttle flights scheduled for 1990. It's virtually certain now one of the missions will be pushed into next year or later because of Columbia's problems. But Sieck said preparations for Atlantis' secret military flight in July will continue. Shuttles have been moved from the launch pad back to the hangar twice because of mechanical failures and once because of payload problems. When last week's launch attempt was scrubbed, Columbia's mission already was two weeks late because of cooling system repairs. ``It's always disappointing when the hardware is bad to you, and that looks like what we've got here,'' Sieck said. ``But we're reminded it's a complex system and things don't always go for the plan.'' Astro, an on-board observatory consisting of three ultraviolet telescopes and one X-ray telescope, was to have gone up in 1986. But the Challenger explosion postponed the mission, depriving NASA of the chance to see Halley's Comet. Comet Austin, discovered last year, is on its way out of the solar system, and the chances of seeing it grow slimmer every day.
AP881026-0132 	X	Republican George Bush today portrayed Michael Dukakis as the odd man out in opposing a reduction in capital gains taxes, and said his Democratic opponent is ``just itching to repeal'' income tax cuts enacted in President Reagan's first term. Fortified by new polls showing him with a double-digit lead, the vice president attacked Dukakis at a luncheon sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club and the Women's Economic Club. Playing it safe, Bush stuck to time-tested themes. The GOP nominee has proposed slashing the capital gains tax on profits from stocks, real estate and other assets from its current top of 33 percent to 15 percent. Dukakis denounced it as a tax break for the wealthy and said it would give Bush himself a $22,000 tax break annually. Defending his plan as a way to spur investments and create jobs, Bush said, ``Over the years, it's been endorsed by everyone from John F. Kennedy to Lloyd Bentsen to my running mate, Dan Quayle, to Ronald Reagan and George Bush.'' Bentsen is Dukakis' vice presidential running mate. ``It is not a tax break for the rich. It is a break for those who want to have a job in this country and I am for it,'' Bush said. ``Unfortunately, my opponent's only experience with business is regulating it and taxing it,'' Bush said. ``He's never run a business. He's never started a business. He's never met a payroll. He doesn't understand how when you're starting out, you need people to join you in taking risks. So he paints my proposal as an effort to help the rich.'' ``Wrong,'' Bush told his audience of 1,600 people. The vice president also said that since Reagan took office in 1981, the administration has cut personal income tax rates by an average 27 percent. He said there has been an undeniable link between low taxes and economic growth. Bush said Dukakis was asked during the Democratic primary race if he would repeal the 1981 tax cuts. He said Dukakis shrugged his shoulders and called the tax cut ``one of the worse bills that Congress every could have passed'' and ``a government-made disaster.'' Bush said, ``Those sound to me like the words of someone who is just itching to repeal one of the most successful economic policies in our history, and I know why. He has proposed mandated new spending, both by government and by business, that will cost ... billions and billions and billions.'' He said that if elected on Nov. 8, he will tell Congress that ``the American people, in electing me, voted against a tax increase'' and that instead, spending increases should be limited to the inflation rate. Bush told a GOP barbecue in Lima, Ohio, on Monday that the election was about keeping the country strong economically and militarily. ``We cannot gamble America's future on a president who hasn't had one single day's experience in national defense matters or foreign affairs,'' Bush said, winning cheers from the audience. A handful of hecklers shouted noisily at him during his speech, and Bush said, ``I'm glad they're here.'' He urged the audience to ask the protesters how high interest rates and inflation were during the last Democratic administration, and then supplied the answers _ 21 percent for the former and in double digits for the latter. Working his way toward the battleground state of California, where he will campaign later this week, Bush planned stops today at rallies at a stockyard in Sioux Falls, S.D., and at a high school in Billings, Mont. In the evening, he was flying to Tacoma, Wash., to campaign there Thursday morning. Whereas Michigan offers the prospect of 20 electoral votes, South Dakota has only three and Montana has only four. However, all three states are on Dukakis' blueprint for reaching the 270 needed to win the White House, so Bush is doing his best to keep them out of the Democratic column. His campaign was bouyed Tuesday by news of two new polls indicating that Bush has solidified his lead in the two weeks since the last presidential debate. A CBS News-New York Times poll showed Bush with a 13-point advantage, 54-41 percent, while a Gallup poll showed Bush with a 14-point edge, 53-39 percent. With things going his way, Bush stuck to a familiar theme Tuesday: hammering Dukakis about the economy during stops in Ohio in Canton, Columbus and Lima.
AP900704-0136 	X	A judge sentenced a defense contractor to three years in prison and fined him $750,000 for faking quality tests on engine bolts used in thousands of military and commercial aircraft. ``This is a very egregious case motivated primarily by greed and avarice,'' U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima said Tuesday in sentencing Norman D. McHaffie, 56, former president of McHaffie Inc. of Sylmar. ``The actions of McHaffie literally weakened and endangered the national defense,'' Tashima said. No accidents were attributed to McHaffie bolts. The bolts were used in the Air Force B-1B strategic bomber, the Navy-Marine Corps F-18 Hornet fighter-attack aircraft, the Navy-Air Force A-7 Corsair II jet attack fighter, the Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter and the Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon. They also were used in thousands of Boeing Co. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. commercial jets, the government said. Jack Gamble of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group said executives at the world's largest manufacturer of jetliners cooperated in the government investigation. ``We did quality checks on every (McHaffie-tested) bolt we had, and we had no bad bolts,'' Gamble said. Tashima also sentenced McHaffie's quality control supervisor, James Hicks, 45, of Sepulveda to 18 months in prison for participating in the scheme to submit false test certifications to the government. A shop floor manager, William Whitham, 37, of Lancaster, was previously sentenced to 20 weekends in prison. McHaffie pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy and two counts of submitting false test certifications to the Department of Defense. The other men also admitted wrongdoing. Prosecutors contended that McHaffie saved more than $1.5 million by failing to properly test some 9 million bolts between 1979 and 1989. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen A. Mansfield said it was the longest-running fraud against the government by a defense contractor uncovered so far. McHaffie told Hicks and Whitman to create fake test data and fabricate reports to conceal the fraud, according to a federal complaint filed March 29. The government alleged bolts sent to General Electric Co.'s engine division failed testing by an outside laboratory. The discovery that many of the company's bolts failed to meet testing requirements also led to a massive effort to discard them from parts suppliers, prosecutors said. General Electric alone spent at least $4 million to test a sample of bolts, the government said. McHaffie shut down in June 1989 and sold off its assets.
AP880606-0167 	X	Firefighters on Monday mopped up remnants of blazes that charred nearly 2,200 acres in three Southern California counties, including one fire that destroyed six buildings and another started by boys playing with a toy rocket. No one was injured in any of the fires, officials said. In southeast Montana, hundreds of firefighters worked in 100-degree heat and winds of up to 25 mph to fight a wildfire that surged across 6,000 acres of grassland and timber on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation Monday. Twenty smoke jumpers parachuted into the most difficult area at mid-morning, and officials called in a total of 400 firefighters during the day, said Keith Mosbaugh, fire boss for the interagency team trying to control the blaze. He said firefighters do not expect to contain the blaze before Thursday. No one was injured, Mosbaugh added. The fire broke out late Saturday or early Sunday and may have been caused by children playing with matches, said Mike Caprata, a fire management forester with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Lame Deer. The cause was under investigation. The largest California blaze burned 1,800 acres on the outskirts of Desert Hot Springs, a community of 6,000 people 110 miles east of Los Angeles, said Cheri Hill, a dispatcher-clerk for the Riverside County Fire Department. Crews hoped to control the fire, or extinguish most of its flames, by Monday evening after more than 200 firefighters contained its spread 12 hours earlier, she said. The wind-whipped fire destroyed three homes and three other buildings and damaged another home, she said. The cause of the fire, which started Sunday afternoon in the center divider of Highway 62 about 4{ miles north of Desert Hot Springs, was under investigation, Ms. Hill said. Despite 15 mph to 30 mph winds, crews expected to control a 220-acre fire in the San Bernardino National Forest about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles by Tuesday morning, after containing it at 8 a.m. Monday, said forest spokeswoman Lindsay Maierhofer. The blaze of unknown origin burned in dense pinon and juniper trees and destroyed an abandoned mining shack. It was reported early Sunday afternoon, and 390 firefighters, four helicopters and three air tankers were sent to the battle. A 170-acre brush and grass fire near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles, was controlled at 9 p.m. Sunday, nearly seven hours after it was reported, said county fire department Capt. Patrick McIntosh. The fire was started by three teen-agers who were playing with a model rocket, he said. The three boys, ages 15, 16 and 17, were taken into custody and later released to their parents, McIntosh said, adding that ``the fire department will seek cost recovery from the parents for the firefighting operations. He said 150 firefighters fought the fire with equipment that included two fire-retardant-dropping planes.
AP901001-0146 	X	The Federal Reserve will move quickly to lower interest rates now that negotiators have reached agreement on a deficit-cutting plan, many economists predicted Monday. But these analysts said the interest rate relief will be too little and too late to avert a recession. This forecast was made on the eve of a key meeting Tuesday of the Fed's top policy-making group, the Federal Open Market Committee. The panel, composed of Fed board members in Washington and Fed regional bank presidents, meets eight times a year to set interest rate policies. President Bush told reporters Monday that he was looking for the Fed to lower interest rates ``once they see that a sound budget agreement has been put into effect.'' Bush and congressional leaders have pledged to try to write the agreement into legislation and enact it by Oct. 19. Many economists expected a vote at Tuesday's meeting to nudge short-term interest rates down by about one-fourth of a percentage point. The actual rate cut, they said, might come as early as next week. Some economists said the rate cut would be enough to prompt commercial banks to lower their benchmark prime lending rate from 10 percent to 9.5 percent, although there wasn't universal agreement on this forecast. Analysts who expect a fairly prompt Fed easing move noted numerous statements Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has made that the central bank stood ready to lower interest rates following a credible, multiyear deficit reduction package. ``Greenspan has got to ease. If he doesn't, he is telling the financial markets that he doesn't view the deficit agreement as credible,'' said David Wyss, chief financial economist with DRI-McGraw Hill. Wyss said that if Congress showed evidence of moving quickly to approve the budget agreement and the September unemployment report, due out on Friday, showed a further rise in the jobless rate, then the Fed would move perhaps as early as next week to cut the federal funds rate from 8 percent to 7.75 percent. The Fed funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other for overnight loans, is the bellwether rate the Fed often uses to signal changes in its credit policies. Allen Sinai, chief economist of the Boston Co., said while he was looking for a quick rate cut on the Fed's part, markets should not expect anything beyond a quarter of a percentage point drop, given the inflationary pressures arising from a doubling of oil prices since August when Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait. ``The Fed is being tossed back and forth by the Iraqi event,'' Sinai said. ``It wants to ease because of an impending recession but aggressive easing is very hard to do as long as the inflation threat is as great as it is.'' David Jones, an economist at Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a government securities dealer in New York, said regardless of whether the Fed eases immediately or waits until Congress actually passes the budget agreement, the rate cut will not be in time to keep alive the current recovery, which has already lasted a peacetime record of eight years. ``The handwriting is on the wall,'' Jones said. ``The Fed has already waited too long if it had hoped to avoid a recession.'' Jones and many other analysts believe the first economic downturn since the 1981-82 slump will begin sometime in the final three months of this year. While a number of analysts forecast a Fed easing move to support a budget deal, this forecast was not universally shared. Jerry Jordan, chief economist of the First Interstate Bancorp of Los Angeles, said it would be a mistake for the Fed to rush to support the budget deal with lower interest rates. Jordan, one of a group of economists who monitor Fed actions as part of the Shadow Open Market Committee, warned that Fed efforts to ease rates ran the risk of allowing the higher inflation from this year's oil shocks to become embedded in the economy. Many analysts who believe the Fed will begin to ease rates in coming months said they looked for those rate cuts to accelerate early next year once it becomes clear the country is in a recession. Jones said the Fed will be forced next year to keep pushing rates down because the banking system - which already faces heavy losses from collapsing real estate markets - will move slower than it has in the past to lower the cost of loans to businesses and consumers in response to Fed easing moves.
AP880723-0060 	X	Johnny Carson, poking fun at Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton for the 35-minute speech that had Democratic conventioneers shouting and snoozing, invited him to appear on his ``Tonight Show.'' ``It would be great,'' Carson told his studio audience Friday night. ``We won't have to book any other guests.'' Carson said Clinton had been invited to appear on his late-night show next week. The governor's press secretary, Mike Gauldin, said in Little Rock that the invitation had been received, but didn't know if Clinton had accepted. Clinton's speech Wednesday night nominating Michael Dukakis for the Democratic presidential nomination was widely panned for its length _ Clinton had been allotted 15 minutes _ and its content, which many described as boring. In his monologue, Carson said the 5-foot-7 Dukakis looked taller when he delivered his acceptance speech Thursday ``because he was standing on a transcript of Gov. Bill Clinton's speech. ``It's kind of a sad footnote. Clinton's speech is still going on. Because of the greenhouse effect, it's still trapped in Atlanta,'' Carson said. Jackie Speer, an Arkansas State Police trooper assigned to the Governor's Mansion, said he believed Clinton was asleep when Carson's monologue began, and said the governor was not available for comment. When he returned to Little Rock on Friday, Clinton told reporters, ``Everybody knows I can make a speech. Now everyone knows I can blow one.''
AP881027-0099 	X	A Playboy magazine photographer will not be allowed to screen Providence College students for a ``Women of the Big East'' pictorial at either the Roman Catholic college or a Providence hotel, officials said. Photographer David Mecey had planned to meet with Providence College students for part of a Big East athletic conference layout scheduled for the April 1989 issue, Playboy spokeswoman Cindy Rakowitz said from New York. Mecey, who planned to stay in Providence from Wednesday through Friday, intended to interview and photograph women in various locations, including the Providence Marriott Inn where he had a reservation. The planned feature would include nude and semi-nude photos. The hotel's name and number were listed on a Playboy leaflet and in a quarter-page advertisement to appear in today's edition of The NewPaper, said Anne Trumbore, an employee at the weekly alternative newspaper. But Stephen McCarthy, the hotel's resident manager, said that when officials realized Wednesday morning who Mecey was, they decided not to allow him to conduct business at the hotel. Mecey was told by hotel officials when he arrived Wednesday night that he could not conduct interviews on hotel property. ``If he wants to stay here, he can. He has rented a room and we are in the business of renting rooms,'' said general manager Rene Neidhart. ``But he did not have our authorization to use our name in any advertisements, and he cannot interview or photograph in the hotel.'' ``I'm not entirely taken aback, but I think that's pretty drastic,'' said Rakowitz when informed of the Marriott's decision. ``That's sort of eliminating the rights of the individual to make a freedom of choice _ but a hotel is private property.'' Playboy also was banned from interviewing or staying at the Sheraton Tara in Braintree, Mass., when it interviews Boston College students in mid-November, said Jeff Cohen, Playboy's managing photo editor. Some people who arrived at the Marriott looking for Mecey were escorted off hotel property by security guards, said McCarthy. He said several people, both women and men, were removed from the lobby and floors. Playboy had decided against seeking the cooperation of administrators at any of the schools it will visit, deciding instead to advertise off-campus and in college newspapers. Playboy had hoped to run an ad in the Cowl, the student newspaper at the 3,800-student college, but students and administrators decided against it, said a school spokesman, the Rev. John McGreevy. Officials at St. John's University in New York, another Catholic school, decided earlier this month against running an article about the Playboy feature in its student newspaper. ``I'm still confident that we will recruit our women,'' said Rakowitz, who said about 20 women were wanted for the feature. ``I've never come into a problem at a hotel. I think it's sort of repressing.'' Other schools in the Big East Conference are Villanova University, in Villanova, Pa.; Washington's Georgetown University; Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.; the University of Connecticut; the University of Pittsburgh; and New York's Syracuse University.
AP880524-0147 	X	``M. Butterfly'' was chosen best play and ``Into the Woods'' was picked as best musical of the 1987-88 New York theater season by the Drama Desk, it was announced Tuesday. ``The Phantom of Opera,'' which lost the top musical prize, won the most awards _ seven. It picked up awards for actor in a musical, Michael Crawford; director of a musical, Harold Prince; music, Andrew Lloyd Webber; orchestrations, Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Cullen; set design, Maria Bjornson; costume design, Maria Bjornson; and lighting design, Andrew Bridge. Ron Silver was named best actor for his performance as a greedy Hollywood mogul in David Mamet's ``Speed-the-Plow,'' while Stockard Channing was chosen best actress for her portrait of a woman slowly going mad in Alan Ayckbourn's ``Woman in Mind.'' ``M. Butterfly,'' written by David Henry Hwang, tells the bizarre story of a French diplomat who has an affair with a transvestite Chinese opera singer. The play also won awards for its director, John Dexter, and for featured actor, B.D. Wong, who plays the opera star. ``Into the Woods,'' an adult fairy tale musical, captured five prizes. Besides best musical, it won for featured actor in a musical, Robert Westenberg; featured actress in a musical, Joanna Gleason; lyrics, Stephen Sondheim, and book of musical, James Lapine. Patti LuPone was named best actress in a musical for her raucous portrayal of Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter's ``Anything Goes.'' The show also won the best revival award as well as a prize for choreography, which went to Michael Smuin. The prize for featured actress in a play went to Christine Estabrook who played a retarded woman in ``The Boys Next Door,'' while an ensemble acting award was given the cast of the off-Broadway musical ``Oil City Symphony.'' Special Drama Desk awards were also announced for Michael Feinstein; Actors Equity Association, the Theater on Film and Tape Collection at Lincoln Center and the Yale Repertory Theater. The Drama Desk, which was started in 1949, is an association of New York drama critics, editors and reporters.
AP880220-0040 	X	A commuter plane crashed in heavy fog Friday night after takeoff from Raleigh-Durham Airport, and all 12 people aboard were feared dead, officials said. American Eagle Flight 378 was en route to Richmond, Va., with 10 passengers and two crew members when it went down in a wooded area at 9:27 p.m. about a mile from the 10,000-foot runway, said airport spokeswoman Teresa Damiano. ``I show them as fatal,'' said V.H. Steed, night duty officer with the Federal Aviation Agency in Atlanta. Witnesses said they heard an explosion and saw a fireball before the twin-engine plane with a seating capacity of 19 went down near a small residential area, Ms. Damiano said. She said no homes were hit. ``There are no anticipated survivors,'' she said. ``Indications are that the plane is in several pieces. There was a small bit of fire that was contained. There was no indication to the tower that the plane was in any danger prior to takeoff.'' Shortly after midnight, a woman was escorted into the terminal sobbing and asking, ``What happened?'' The woman, who declined to give her name, said her 13-year-old son was on the flight. She said she had received no official word on her son's fate. ``It sounded like a blast or something because they've been blasting down on this road, putting in sewer lines, and that's the way it sounded,'' said Mary H. Ward, who lives in a mobile home three miles from the airport. ``It wasn't too awful loud. It was kind of muffled. I wondered what it was, but there was nobody here but me so I didn't go out and look around.'' At Richmond International Airport, several people were waiting for information on the crash and on arrangements for travel to North Carolina, said a ground supervisor for American Airlines who refused to give his name. ``They can't believe it happened,'' said the man. ``Some people wish it was them.'' Most of the passengers were from Richmond, and the crew was based in Raleigh, he said. Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington will arrive Saturday, Steed said. American Eagle, an affiliate of American Airlines, had recently resumed flights from its base at Raleigh-Durham after filing for bankruptcy reorganization Jan. 15. The airline abruptly ceased flights Jan. 14, leaving some passengers stranded. In its bankruptcy filing, AVAir Inc., which operates American Eagle, claimed $9.2 million in assets and $12 million in liabilities.
AP901030-0157 	X	Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly hitting a neighbor woman over the head with a wine bottle during an argument about loud music, authorities said. Rose's neighbor Gabriela Kantor accused Rose of grabbing her keys and tossing them off a balcony before emptying a wine bottle and swinging it at her, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Roger Hom. Rose was arrested and booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. His business manager posted the $5,000 bail, said Deputy Bill Linnemeyer and arraignment was set for Nov. 20. Kantor was taken to a hospital for observation and released. In a statement, Rose denied both striking the woman and playing music loudly. Rose met with attorneys Tuesday to discuss whether to file a complaint seeking an injunction against Ms. Kantor, said Bryn Bridenthal, a spokeswoman for his record company, Geffen Records. ``He's been having problems with this woman for the past eight months,'' Bridenthal said. In an earlier incident, deputies went to Rose's apartment Aug. 1 to ask him to turn down his stereo. Rose later filed a complaint saying one deputy forced his way into the apartment while others tried to provoke him. Critics of the Los Angeles-based Guns N' Roses band have called the band's lyrics homophobic and racist. The band gained notoriety earlier this year after an obscenity-laced acceptance speech for a music award on live television.
AP880516-0209 	X	The keepers of clarinetist Benny Goodman's musical legacy on Monday unveiled a trove of performances by the King of Swing not previously available to collectors. A lilting, playful, swinging version of ``Sweet Georgia Brown,'' driven by Goodman's clarinet and spiced with a Zoot Sims saxophone solo, reverberated through a conference room of the Yale Club. The number was the first cut in a 50-minute recording released by Yale University and Musicmasters at a news conference in the club. Before now, that performance had been heard only by diners at the Rainbow Grill in Rockefeller Center in June 1967. It was part of 400 unreleased tapes Goodman bequeathed to Yale when he died two years ago. Yale music professor Harold E. Samuel said the new album is a sampler of the tapes in the Goodman archive. Future releases will be devoted wholly to particular playing dates or recording sessions. Samuel described the performances as ``a more spontaneous, relaxed Benny Goodman than you would find on many of his other recordings.'' Selections on the record include ``If I Had You'' from a 1955 gig at Basin Street East in 1955, ``Poor Butterfly'' at the 1958 Brussels World Fair and ``Cherokee,'' taped at Park Recording Co. in 1958 but never released. The album closes with a Fletcher Henderson arrangement of ``Blue Room,'' performed by a Goodman band that included drummer Louie Bellson and trumpeter Randy Sandke. ``I never stop being thrilled by this music,'' said Goodman's daughter, Rachel Edelson, who said she wants to make new generations aware of ``the scope of his contributions to the field of music.'' ``My children, at age 8 and 4, are learning it very very well,'' she said. ``Sometimes they complain about listening to it all the time, but I want them to know it, and I play it nonstop.'' She said that except for a scene in the 1938 movie ``Hollywood Hotel,'' no film exists of the quartet composed of Goodman, drummer Gene Krupa, pianist Teddy Wilson and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, because moviemakers then would not show black and white players together. ``I knew about my father being the first white musician to have hired blacks, but I simply had not been aware of the level of resistance that he met and that he simply didn't care about,'' Mrs. Edelson said. Royalties from the new releases will pay the cost of maintaining the Goodman archive, which, in addition to the tapes, contain 1,500 arrangements, 5,000 photographs, scrapbooks and other memorabilia. Goodman died in 1986. Yale already has cataloged and indexed the arrangements, which Samuel said will be ``a boon to performers and scholars for generations to come.'' Preserving the tapes, dating from the 1950s, has been the first order of business, Samuel said. Most of the 1950s tapes are acetate and must preserved on sturdier digital stock. ``There might be only one playing left on some of the acetates, and that one playing has to be a transfer onto more permanent material,'' he said. Identifying the performances and choosing the best for commercial release is being done by Loren Schoenberg, an authority on Goodman's work. ``Goodman was a fantastic perfectionist, and we have an obligation to him not to release anything that he would not have released himself,'' said Samuel. The albums are being marketed in the three popular formats _ long playing record, tape cassette and compact disc.
AP900827-0010 	X	Children don't play outside here in the summer, and they go to school armed. Nearly everyone is enlisted in the battle against Public Enemy No. 1 _ mosquitoes. Williston, located at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, is a kind of mosquito mecca. The rivers create an ideal breeding ground for hundreds of thousands of the insects. ``They're bad,'' says 23-year-old Kellee Cox, who moved to the area from Fargo last spring. ``I can't believe it. I've got a million mosquito bites. ``I went into my back yard and got swarmed with them,'' she says, revealing dozens of irritated red bites on her arms. ``They just swarmed over me and attacked me like killer bees.'' It isn't a new problem; explorers Lewis and Clark complained about the bugs during their brief visits to the rivers' confluence in 1805 and 1806. A historian called a mosquito attack of 1947 the worst on record. Some say the mosquitoes enjoy the predominantly Norwegian blood of the town's 13,000 residents. Others have proposed getting rid of the bugs by building a bubble over the town or setting up huge fans to blow them away. For years several agencies, including the impressive-sounding Vector Control District board, labored unsuccessfully to put down the insect uprising. ``Too many people were running the same program,'' says Bill Cole, chairman of the vector board. ``Things weren't getting done.'' But a new idea emerged from a heated city meeting last summer at which residents were challenged to come up with their own ideas for mosquito control. Two housewives joined a pediatrician, two teachers and the owner of a day care center to form the Bug Busters _ a volunteer group that studied ways to control the pests while protecting the environment. They enlisted the local high school, a woodworking club and the Army Corps of Engineers to make about two dozen mini-houses along the river, each designed to attract bats and sparrows _ natural mosquito predators. ``We're not importing bats or anything like that,'' said Bug Buster Jackie Stenehjem. ``The bats are already here. We're just hoping they'll move out of town and move into the houses along the river.'' Before the Bug Busters, the spraying of newly discovered larvae had to be approved by several agencies, taking up to a week. Now the decisions are in local hands and extermination can start within 10 minutes. In April, voters approved an annual fee of $12 per household to help bolster mosquito control. Despite a rough week or two, this summer generally was better than last. But children still stay mostly indoors and when they they go to school, they take cans of bug repellent with their pencils and notebooks. Residents try to make the best of the bug situation, which they recognize is an unwinnable war. ``It's a numbers game we're playing,'' Cole said. ``We just want to get it down to where it's livable.''
AP880508-0039 	X	Authorities are extending mandatory birth control to the far northwest's ethnic minorities, but they will be allowed more children than majority Hans, an official report said Sunday. As of July 1, minority couples in cities of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will be limited to two children, and those in rural areas will be permitted three, the Xinhua News Agency said. Minority ethnic groups in Xinjiang total 8.6 million, or more than 61 percent of the population, the report said. Most Hans or ethnic Chinese, who make up more than 90 percent of China's 1 billion people, are limited to one child with the country struggling to feed and educate its spiraling population. However, the policy has been more relaxed toward China's 56 ethnic minority groups. The different standard toward minorities has been designed in part to win their loyalty to the Han-controlled government and allay their fears of being overwhelmed by ethnic Chinese.
AP901213-0030 	X	Frank Sinatra came home to New Jersey to celebrate his 75th birthday at a sold-out concert attended by celebrity pals and 19,000 adoring fans. The Hoboken native performed Wednesday at Byrne Arena, where celebrity guests included Tony Bennett, husband and wife Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, actor Roger Moore, Robert Wagner and his wife, Jill St. John, comedians Alan King and Joe Piscopo, Eli Wallach and entertainer Harry Connick Jr. Liza Minnelli joined Ol' Blue Eyes on stage in singing ``New York, New York.'' Sinatra's shows here on Tuesday and Wednesday kicked off his nationwide 75th birthday tour.
AP901119-0241 	X	Tens of thousands of workers made sick by asbestos will receive sharply reduced compensation payments from the Manville trust under a plan unveiled Monday to resolve the nation's biggest product liability case. The long-awaited restructuring is designed to insure payments to victims of lung cancer and other respiratory ailments, clear a court backlog and create a model for companies facing huge liabilities for asbestos products. The plan includes up to $520 million in new contributions to the trust by Manville Corp., which was driven into bankruptcy court in 1982 by mounting asbestos lawsuits. The trust was formed in the company's 1988 reorganization and faces more than 130,000 claims. ``These steps ... will more effectively, efficiently and Equitably compensate those injured by asbestos exposure,'' Manville chairman and chief executive Tom Stephens said in a statement. The plan was expected to be approved by U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who is leading efforts to resolve asbestos litigation. The judge Monday began a process to declare a class action to settle trust claims. A restructured trust would pay asbestos victims according to the severity of illness, rather than when a claim is filed. The plan slashes plaintiffs lawyers' fees to a maximum 25 percent of settlements. It also includes dismissing tens of thousands of lawsuits against the trust pending in state and federal courts nationwide. Asbestos health claims form the biggest product liability issue in U.S. history. Manville trust payments have averaged about $43,000, but are forecast to fall more than half for serious diseases and even more for less severe ailments. Claimants are to receive a maximum 45 percent of settlements until all claims are partially met. ``It is a terrible compromise,'' said Heather Maurer, executive director of the Asbestos Victims of America, an advocacy group representing 18,000 people. ``I$3,000 or $4,000 is in any way just compensation for their diseases and deaths.'' But architects of the plan said it was fair way to compensate victims given the limited funds available. The restructuring was ordered by Weinstein after the trust ran out of cash to pay new claims and said some would be deferred until long into the 21st century. ``Everybody is getting an (equal) share of the fair value of their claim,'' said GEne Locks, a Philadelphia plaintiffs lawyer. ``Some people are going to get it a little faster than others.'' Asbestos is a white mineral with natural insulation and heat resistance used widely for decades in shipbuilding, construction and other industries. A high incidence of lung cancer and other respiratory ailments attributed to asbestos began appearing in the 1970s. Under the Manville plan, payments would be made annually to claimants based on a percentage of the trust's available resources. Claims are split into two groups: cancer and other serious ailments, and lesser diseases. Payments would be made only to claims in the first group during the plan's first two years. An estimated 23,000 such claims are expected to get some money. The group includes relatives of workers who died before being compensated. The more than 100,000 claims in the second group would begin receiving payment in the plan's third year. Payments are to be made first to those with hardships, then according to disease severity, then to claimants over 70 years old and finally to those who filed first. Despite the progress, payments will not resume until Weinstein holds hearings and reviews the plan, or until expected court appeals by plaintiffs lawyers and other defendant companies are Heard. Lawyers estimate that payments might not resume for a year or more. The trust, formed in 1988, has paid out more than $1.1 billion to settle nearly 26,000 claims. A total of 163,000 claims have been filed and more arrive daily. The trust has $434 million in settled but unpaid claims, which will be met in full under the plan. Trust officials have blamed the cash crunch on more claims and bigger settlements than anticipated and faster case resolution. Critics have said the trust was badly managed, doling out too-large payments for minor ailments. The reduction in plaintiffs lawyers' fees from about one-third of settlements followed sharp criticism by Weinstein. ``The 25 percent limitation will over time provide the victims hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to their attorneys,'' Leon Silverman, the court-appointed adviser for the restructuring, said in his report to Weinstein. Dismissing lawsuits against the trust - primarily over the size of or delay in settlements - also should lead to savings. The trust expects more than $50 million in legal defense expenses this year. The plan establishes maximum settlements for specific diseases. They range from $350,000 for mesolthelioma, a fatal respiratory ailment, to $30,000 for pleural disease. Expected median settlements are about 40 percent of the maximum. Payments to all Manville claimants except those with urgent health or financial needs were suspended in July. The Washingon, D.C.-based trust originally was funded with about $3 billion in cash and Manville securities. Its main asset is 80 percent stock ownership of Manville, a Denver manufacturing and natural resources company.
AP900525-0043 	X	Government and business leaders said today President Bush's decision to continue favorable trade status for Beijing is welcome news for this British colony that relies heavily on commerce with China. Trade and Industry Secretary John Chan called Bush's move Thursday ``very good news from Hong Kong's point of view.'' In a statement, he noted that the business community and government had engaged in intensive lobbying during the past few weeks to explain how termination of special trade status would harm Hong Kong, which will return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Seto Fai, honorary president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association, said the U.S. decision will help prevent Hong Kong from sliding into economic recession. ``Hong Kong is already experiencing a slowing of economic growth and could not afford to stand a blow from the United States,'' he said. ``Now, we have at least another year to breathe.'' The news drew little response from the stock market, which had rallied sharply earlier in the week on expectation that Bush would renew China's most-favored-nation trade status. The blue-chip Hang Seng Index today rose 20 points in early trading before finishing the morning session virtually unchanged at 3,049. The market had gained 130 points in the preceding five sessions, largely on anticipation of the U.S. decision. Most-favored-nation status gives Chinese exports to the United States the lowest possible tariffs. Denial would send tariffs rising sharply on about $12 billion in annual imports from China of textiles, toys and other products. Much of the Chinese exports to the United States are produced in joint-venture factories set up by Hong Kong investors in southern China. About 70 percent of Chinese products sent to the U.S. market are shipped through Hong Kong, Seto said. ``Hong Kong nowadays shares an inseparable economic link with China. Any threat to sanction China economically would inevitably drag us into it,'' said Carson Chan, assistant director for the Federation of Hong Kong Industries. He said termination of the special trade status for China would have resulted in at least 20,000 Hong Kong people losing their jobs in industries such as trade, transportation and banking. Hong Kong's economy already is experiencing high inflation and sluggish growth, with the gross domestic product forecast to rise only 3 percent this year. Industrialists expressed confidence that the U.S. Congress will not reject Bush's decision, despite opposition by some lawmakers.
AP900716-0023 	X	A dancer for the rap group Heavy D & The Boyz died after falling 30 feet during horseplay at an arena, authorities said. Troy Dixon, 22, whose stage name is Trouble T-Roy, died Sunday evening of of injuries suffered in the fall, said officials at Wishard Hospital. Police said Dixon was standing on the third-level ramp at the Market Square Arena late Saturday when another group member, while fooling around, rolled a trash barrel down the ramp toward him. Dixon jumped on a 4-foot retaining wall to avoid the barrel and fell over backward to the ground, police said. ``It was an absolute freaky accident,'' said group manager Carol Kirkendaul. The Rev. Charles R. Williams, president of Indiana Black Expo, said the group had performed at the arena earlier Saturday as part of the Black Expo. The group, from Mount Vernon, N.Y., was on a 10-city tour and was one of the headline acts for Black Expo, which also featured the rap group Public Enemy. Kirkendaul said the group is in shock, and an upcoming concert in Detroit had been postponed. Heavy D & The Boyz won a Soul Train Music Award and a NAACP Image Award for their album ``Big Tyme.''
AP880625-0106 	X	The nation's capital had plenty of attention-grabbers last week _ a juicy Pentagon scandal, Ronald Reagan's last summit, a new $16 million House of Representatives phone system that went deaf _ but here's what Washington was really talking about: A fugitive ferret named Fuji, its combative owner, and a 5-year-old boy. Not even Carl Rowan's uninvited, underwear swimmer _ the 18-year-old suburban lad shot after taking an unauthorized dip in the columnist's pool _ could match the continuing drama. The ferret's owner, 19-year-old Jennifer Au, was on a weekend furlough from jail where she spent the week charged with contempt of court for not telling where Fuji is. The boy, Auston Jacob Simpson, was nearing the end of a painful series of six rabies shots. The story began June 3 when Auston's grandmother took him to the Docktor Pet Center in Manassas, Va., a Washington suburb. He stopped by a cage containing Fuji and two other ferrets. One bit him. Authorities then sought to kill each of the ferrets and test their innards for rabies. Two of the ferrets were sacrificed _ their heads cut off and their brains examined by health officials, who found the animals to have been healthy. But Fuji was spirited away by Miss Au, who worked in the pet shop. In court, charged with concealing the animal, she said she left the ferret at an abandoned house after making a deal over the telephone with someone she didn't know to have it picked up. The anonymous phone contact apparently was made after the biting incident became known to a group of ferret lovers. Miss Au told Circuit Judge Percy Thornton that said she saw the boy being bitten and that Fuji didn't do it. Moreover, she said, the ferret had been isolated in a cage for more than a month, and its continued good health proved it didn't have rabies. She said she had tried to comply with the judge's order to produce the animal by contacting ferret groups, but the judge was unsympathetic. ``You're putting this child at risk,'' Thornton said and found her in contempt. When she shouted at him, the judge ordered her jailed for three hours. ``I think your priorities are mixed up,'' said Thornton. A weekend went by and the ferret still had not been produced. Thornton ordered Miss Au to jail. ``If it were in this court's power,'' said the judge, ``I would put you through the same thing this child is going through.'' On Thursday, with the ferret still missing, Miss Au appeared before the judge for a bond hearing and was turned down. On Friday, Thornton issued the weekend leave and ordered the young woman back behind bars on Monday. Meanwhile, a second person _ a 24-year-old man who was not publicly identified _ was scheduled to begin the rabies shots after he said he was bitten by a ferret in the same store. The ferret battle was fought not only in court, but in the pages of the Washington Post. An editorial sided with the judge and his hard line. ``It is truly contemptible that this woman and her confederates have chosen to put a child through this torture rather than obey a court order and the dictates of common decency,'' said the Post. But in the same issue, writer Henry Mitchell allied himself with the ferret. ``There has to be some reasonable basis for thinking this particular ferret, despite testimony to the contrary, bit the boy, and from everything you could read of the case there was no reason to doubt the woman when she swore it was not her ferret,'' he wrote. The ferret story was not the clear winner in the talk-of-the-town competition. The Rowan-intruder story resurfaced when authorities decided to charge the uninvited swimmer and the young woman arrested with him in Rowan's back yard, but not to charge the columnist for shooting the young man. The on-again, off-again phone system in the House was a one-day sensation, causing impassioned denunciations from congressmen who found their link to constituents interrupted. And the Pentagon procurement scandal continued to bubble. The week's most telling quote came from Miss Au, when she was jailed on Monday: ``This is extremely stupid and ridiculous, needless,'' she said. ``This has gone too far.''
AP880705-0032 	X	Here are thumbnail sketches of figures in the burgeoning probe into allegations that defense contractors and consultants, many of them former military personnel, bribed Pentagon officials for contracting details to help win lucrative military contracts.
AP880405-0015 	X	Attorney General Edwin Meese's wife, Ursula, will undergo questioning shortly in the criminal investigation of her husband about her own $40,000-a-year job, say sources familiar with the case. The office of independent counsel James McKay is trying to determine whether longtime Meese friend E. Robert Wallach in effect helped supplement the Meeses' income by recommending Mrs. Meese for jobs, said sources familiar with the probe, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mrs. Meese has retained the same Washington law firm representing her husband, said James Rocap, one of Meese's lawyers. She will either make a federal grand jury appearance or be questioned by investigators from McKay's office. McKay said last week that his investigation of Meese, also encompassing an examination of the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Meese's job, would continue at least until the end of April. McKay last month subpoenaed records relating to Mrs. Meese's post with the Washington chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, said a lawyer for the chapter, James Bierbower. A lawyer for Wallach, George Walker, has told The Washington Post that Wallach had suggested Mrs. Meese for a job with a local radio station owned by the Bender family of Washington. Mrs. Meese took the position with the MS Society instead. However, Bierbower said the Bender Foundation of Washington, controlled by the same family that owns the radio station, is contributing the $40,000 a year that constitutes Mrs. Meese's salary with the MS group. Calls to the Bender Foundation seeking its reasons for paying Mrs. Meese's salary were not returned. Mrs. Meese has been a volunteer for the MS Society since 1981 and for the past two years has been in charge of a program called Operation Job Match, matching MS victims with employers. Mrs. Meese also was questioned in an earlier independent counsel's investigation of Meese in 1984. In that investigation, independent counsel Jacob Stein probed Meese's failure to include in his financial disclosure statements a $15,000 loan by Edwin Thomas to Mrs. Meese. Thomas later became Meese's assistant counselor at the White House. The independent counsel found no connection between the loan and federal jobs obtained by Thomas, his wife and his son. In another development Monday, Justice Department sources said Meese will face an ethics investigation by his own department's Office of Professional Responsibility if McKay doesn't seek an indictment. Such an inquiry ultimately could lead to a recommendation to President Reagan that Meese be fired. Former Assistant Attorney General William Weld's files on the attorney general's dealings with Wallach were moved to OPR last Friday, the sources said. Material collected by Weld's criminal division last year led to McKay's criminal investigation of Meese. McKay said Friday he has insufficient evidence to date to warrant seeking an indictment of Meese in connection with his involvement with a $1 billion Iraqi oil pipeline touted by Wallach or his involvement with the regional Bell telephone companies at a time when he held $14,000 in Baby Bell stock. In December, McKay said he didn't have sufficient evidence at that time to warrant seeking an indictment of Meese in connection with his assistance to scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp. McKay said that if he decides not to seek a criminal indictment of Meese, the independent counsel's office ``will refer all of those matters for review and action by the appropriate administrative authorities,'' a reference to OPR. OPR's chief, Michael Shaheen, denied assertions by Justice Department sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, that his office had begun examining Meese's ties to longtime friend Wallach last year. That review was halted when McKay launched his criminal investigation of Meese last May 11, the sources said.
AP900911-0270 	X	National contract talks between the United Auto Workers and General Motors Corp. continued Tuesday after a union executive told local leaders to prepare the troops for a strike. Negotiators were working against a midnight Friday deadline to reach a national contract covering about 300,000 active GM workers. UAW contracts with Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. also expire at the same time, but the union has chosen GM as its target for a strike. In all, more than 450,000 active auto workers are covered by UAW contracts with the Big Three automakers. The union's main bargaining goal is job security, and a union telephone recording said Tuesday that little progress had been made on that issue. ``The corporation must become more serious in their attitude,'' said UAW Vice President Stephen Yokich, in charge of the union's GM bargaining team. He told local union leaders they should be ready for a strike. ``I trust that you will do everything necessary to prepare the membership for a disciplined response to whatever action is required in the difficult days ahead,'' Yokich said. The last time the UAW struck GM over a national contract was in 1984, when the union staged a weeklong walkout at 12 assembly plants and the company's Technical Center in Warren, Mich. This year, members of UAW Local 659 at GM's AC Rochester West component plant in Flint staged a six-day strike that shut down seven assembly plants and parts of more than a dozen component factories. ``We haven't heard hardly anything,'' said UAW Local 662 Vice President Larry Howerton of Anderson, Ind. ``We're going to have to hear something pretty soon. We've got to be notified.'' There has been little news coming out of the talks this year. UAW and GM officials have been available to media only occasionally and when they have appeared, they rarely talked about contract details. They have preferred instead to say both sides were working hard and there still was time to reach an agreement before the deadline. So far, union officials have said tentative agreements have been reached on nearly all non-economic issues, such as military leave and jury duty provisions. But the economic issues, which include job security, are the tough ones. The UAW leadership has a strong strike authorization vote under its belt, clearing the way for it to call a strike against GM if an agreement cannot be reached.
AP881122-0059 	X	James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., says he was framed to cover up an FBI plot to kill the civil rights leader and wants the government to reopen his case. Ray, 60, was sentenced to serve 99 years for King's murder in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. The Tennessee parole board has scheduled a January parole hearing for him, but Ray says he is not hopeful. ``I doubt very much they'll give me a parole,'' he said. ``I think the only way I'll get out of here is through a jury. If they wouldn't grant me a trial I don't see how they'll grant me a parole.'' Ray pleaded guilty on the day his trial was to begin on March 9, 1969, but recanted three days later and has not received a complete trial to prove his innocence. He alleges the FBI threatened to jail his father and brother if he didn't sign a confession. Ray's father was a fugitive from prison and his brother spent several years in jail. In an interview at Brushy State Prison in East Tennessee with talk show host Morton Downey Jr., Ray claimed he was set up in a plot to kill King, whose calls for economic justice for minorities and effective use of non-violent protest drew the wrath of then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He said the government has refused his requests to review the evidence against him, has never conducted ballistics tests on the alleged murder weapon and has suppressed witnesses and investigations that could have cleared him. ``Since they won't, they must be hiding something,'' Ray said of the FBI. The show is scheduled to be aired Nov. 28. King was in Memphis the day of his assassination to support a strike by city sanitation workers seeking higher pay. Ray was identified from fingerprints on a rifle found near the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where King was killed as he stood on a balcony. Hosea Williams, an aide to King present when he was shot, said during taping Monday of ``The Morton Downey Jr. Show '' that ``I've never believed Ray killed Dr. King.'' Williams said King was convinced that Hoover's FBI was plotting his death. He also said he was surprised to find days after the assassination that ``Ray had no political philosophy. He was just a two-bit redneck hustler.'' Many blacks have expressed anger that the Tennessee board has scheduled a January parole hearing for Ray. Under a 1985 law providing parole hearings for inmates held for 20 years, Ray became eligible for parole consideration this month. The law was designed to allow the state to relieve prison overcrowding. James M. Brown, chairman of the Tennessee Voters Council and a member of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. State Holiday Committee, called Ray's parole hearing ``cruel, dangerous and shameful,'' and said he would ask Gov. Ned McWherter to call it off. He noted the hearing in January would coincide with the Jan. 16 holiday honoring King's birthday. But McWherter told reporters Monday that he will not interfere with the decision of the board, which by law is an independent state agency.
AP880413-0170 	X	Black Denison University students called off a two-day boycott of classes Wednesday after the school's president stiffened the punishment for two white students found guilty of racial harassment. The Black Student Union, which had called the boycotts Monday and Tuesday, suspended the action after university President Andrew De Rocco ordered the two whites to leave the campus for the remainder of the semester. The students, who have not been identified by the university, were given until 5 p.m. Wednesday to leave. The University Judicial Board, comprised of four students and four faculty members, had earlier found the white students guilty of racial harassment of a black student and ordered the whites be suspended for the 1988 fall term. That suspension will remain in effect, but De Rocco on Tuesday night announced the additional sanctions. ``The issues raised by this case have led to an expression of intense feelings on the campus among students, faculty and others, to an interruption of classes and to an atmosphere that is not conducive to the orderly processes of student and faculty life,'' De Rocco said. The two white students were accused of harassing Aaron Laramore, a black senior from Toledo. Laramore claimed in a complaint he filed against the students that they pounded on the wall between their room and his and yelled racial epithets. The white students testified in their judicial board hearing that their remarks came in a private conversation. But the Black Student Union said the slurs were aimed at Laramore, the dormitory's head resident. Most students continued to attend classes during the two-day boycott, which was accompanied by rallies to protest campus racism and the initial one-semester suspensions. Bheki Khumalo, a member of the Black Student Union, said Wednesday said the group was not fully satisfied with the university's latest action, but believed the protest had accomplished its goal. ``Evidently, this was the best the president could do,'' Khumalo said. ``We've laid the foundation for more things to come on our campus.'' About 80 of Denison's 2,100 undergraduates are black, according to the university, a liberal arts school about 25 miles northeast of Columbus.
AP901009-0233 	X	101. John Hugh MacMillan III, $730, Hillsboro Beach, Fla., inheritance (Cargill Inc.), 62. 102. Marion MacMillan Pictet, $730, Geneva, inheritance (Cargill Inc.), 57. 103. Whitney MacMillan, $730, Minneapolis, inheritance (Cargill Inc.), 61. 104. Cargill MacMillan Jr., $730, Palm Springs, Calif., inheritance (Cargill Inc.), 63. 105. Pauline MacMillan Keinath, $730, St. Louis, inheritance (Cargill Inc.), 56. 106. James Howard Marshall II, $725, Houston, oil, 85. 107. Joseph Albert Albertson, $725, Boise, Idaho, Albertson's Inc., 84. 108. William Morse Davidson, $725, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Guardian Industries Corp., 67. 109. Samuel Curtis Johnson, $720, Racine, Wisc., Johnson Wax, 62. 110. Barbara Piasecka Johnson, $715, Princeton, N.J., inheritance (Johnson & Johnson), 53. 111. Wallace Henry Coulter, $710, Miami Springs, Fla., blood equipment, 78. 112. Morton K. Blaustein, $700, Baltimore, inheritance (oil), 63. 113. Robert Henry Dedman, $700, Dallas, country clubs, 64. 114. William Michael Cafaro, $700, Hubbard, Ohio, shopping malls, 77. 115. Michael Robert Milken, $700, Encino, Calif., financier, 44. 116. George Phydias Mitchell, $700, Houston, oil, 71. 117. Carl Ray Pohlad, $680, Minneapolis, MEI Corp., 75. 118. Andrew Jerrold Perenchio, $665, Bel Air, Calif., television, 59. 119. William Redington Hewlett, $665, Portola Valley, Calif., Hewlett-Packard, 77. 120. John Richard Simplot, $660, Boise, Idaho, potatoes, 81. 121. Albert Lee Ueltschi, $655, Irvine, Texas, Flight Safety International, 73. 122. Jerry J. Moore, $650, Houston, shopping centers, 62. 123. Leon Hess, $650, New York City, Amerada Hess Corp., 76. 124. Oveta Culp Hobby, $650, Houston, media, 85. 125. William Ingraham Koch, $650, Palm Beach, Fla., inheritance (oil services), 50. 126. Amos Barr Hostetter Jr., $635, Boston, cable television, 53. 127. Helen Kinney Copley, $630, La Jolla, Calif., publishing, 67. 128. John Murdoch Harbert III, $625, Birmingham, Ala., construction, 69. 129. Richard Mellon Scaife, $625, Shadyside, Pa., inheritance, (publishing), 58. 130. Howard Butcher Hillman, $620, Greenwich, Conn., inheritance (industry), 56. 131. Tatnall Lea Hillman, $620, Radnor, Pa., inheritance (industry), 52. 132. Meshulam Riklis, $620, Beverly Hills, Calif., and New York City, finance, 66. 133. William Clay Ford, $610, Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., inheritance (Ford Motor Co.), 65. 134. Fred A. Lennon, $600, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, valves, 84. 135. Frederick Woodruff Field, $600, Beverly Hills, Calif., inheritance (media), 38. 136. Melvin Simon, $600, Indianapolis, shopping centers, 63. 137. Alexander Gus Spanos, $600, Stockton, Calif., real estate, 67. 138. Ralph Lauren, $600, New York City and vicinity, apparel, 51. 139. James Lawrence Walton, $580, Bentonville, Ark., Wal-Mart Stores, 68. 140. Shelby Cullom Davis, $575, Tarrytown, N.Y., investment banking, 81. 141. Charles Henry Dyson, $575, New York City, conglomerator, 81. 142. Roy Edward Disney, $575, Los Angeles, Walt Disney Productions, 60. 143. William Wrigley, $565, Lake Geneva, Wisc., Wrigley's, 57. 144. Donald John Tyson, $565, Springdale, Ark., Tyson Foods, 60. 145. Nelson Peltz, $560, Palm Beach, Fla., Bedford, N.Y., leveraged buyouts, 48. 146. Thomas Stephen Monaghan, $550, Ann Arbor, Mich., Domino's Pizza, 53. 147. Henry R. Kravis, $550, New York City, leveraged buyouts, 46. 148. George R. Roberts, $550, San Francisco, leveraged buyouts, 47. 149. Jeremy Maurice Jacobs, $550, East Aurora, N.Y., sports concessions, 50. 150. Thomas John Flatley, $550, Milton, Mass., real estate, 59. 151. Howard Kaskel, $550, New York City, real estate, 53. 152. Louis Larrick Ward, $545, Kansas City, Mo., Russell Stover Candies Inc., 70. 153. Estee Lauder, $540, New York City, cosmetics, 82. 154. Leonard Alan Lauder, $540, New York City, cosmetics, 57. 155. Ronald Steven Lauder, $540, New York City, cosmetics, 46. 156. Marshall Field V, $540, Lake Forest, Ill., inheritance (media), 49. 157. Robert William Galvin, $540, Barrington Hills, Ill., Motorola, 68. 158. Cordelia Scaife May, $525, Ligonier, Pa., inheritance (Mellon family), 62. 159. Laszlo Nandor Tauber, $525, Potomac, Md., real estate, 75. 160. James LeVoy Sorenson, $525, Salt Lake City, medical devices, 69. 161. Frank Batten, $520, Virginia Beach, Va., publishing, 63. 162. David Geffen, $515, Malibu, Calif., music, 47. 163. Roy Hampton Park, $510, Ithaca, N.Y., Park Communications, 80. 164. John G. Rangos Sr., $505, Pittsburgh, solid waste, 61. 165. Dorrance Hill Hamilton, $500, Strafford, Pa., inheritance (Campbell Soup), 62. 166. Charlotte Colket Weber, $500, Ocala, Fla., inheritance (Campbell Soup), 47. 167. Jerome Spiegel Kohlberg Jr., $500, Mount Kisco, N.Y., leveraged buyouts, 65. 168. Joseph S. Gruss, $500, New York City, oil, 87. 169. Henry John Heinz III, $500, Fox Chapel, Pa., H.J. Heinz Co., 52. 170. Robert Alfred Lurie, $500, San Francisco, inheritance (real estate), 61. 171. Bernard Francis Saul II, $500, Chevy Chase, Md., banking, 58. 172. Robert Staples Howard, $500, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., publishing, 66. 173. Dennis Washington, $500, Missoula, Mont., entrepreneur, 56. 174. John Orin Edson, $500, Seattle, manufacturing, 57. 175. Harold Brown, $500, Boston, real estate, 65. 176. Sheldon Henry Solow, $500, New York City, real estate, 62. 177. Joe Lewis Allbritton, $500, Houston, media, 65. 178. William Edward Maritz, $500, St. Louis, Maritz Inc., 61. 179. Richard E. Jacobs, $500, Lakewood, Ohio, shopping centers, 65. 180. Henry Earl Singleton, $500, Los Angeles, Teledyne, 73. 181. Erskine Bronson Ingram, $500, Nashville, Tenn., barges, 58. 182. Peter Stephen Kalikow, $500, New York City, real estate, 47. 183. Caroline Rose Hunt, $500, Dallas, inheritance (oil), 67. 184. Frederick Robinson Koch, $500, New York City, Monaco, inheritance (oil services), 56. 185. Charles Cassius Gates Jr., $490, Denver, Gates Corp., 69. 186. Maurice Raymond Greenberg, $480, New York City, American International Group, 65. 187. Alan Ashton, $475, Orem, Utah, WordPerfect, 45. 188. Bruce Bastian, $475, Orem, Utah, WordPerfect, 39. 189. Hope Hill van Beuren, $470, Middletown, Pa., inheritance (Campbell Soup), 56. 190. A. Donald McCulloch Jr., $470, Bryn Mawr, Pa., diet centers, 43. 191. William S. Paley, $460, New York City, CBS Inc., 89. 192. William Gordon Bennett, $460, Las Vegas, Circus Circus Enterprises, 65. 193. Patrick Joseph McGovern, $450, Nashua, N.H., publishing, 53. 194. Samuel Zell, $450, Chicago, real estate, 49. 195. John Jeffry Louis Jr., $450, Winnetka, Ill., inheritance (Johnson Wax), 65. 196. John William Berry Sr., $450, Dayton, Ohio, Yellow Pages, 68. 197. Barbara Tyson, $450, Fayetteville, Ark., Tyson Foods, 41. 198. Bernard F. Brennan, $450, Winnetka, Ill., Montgomery Ward, 52. 199. Franklin Parsons Perdue, $450, Salisbury, Md., chickens, 70. 200. Luigino Francesco Paulucci, $450, Sanford, Fla., food processing, 72.
AP880318-0060 	X	A black man went to the gallows alone today after a judge granted a stay of execution to the ``Sharpeville Six,'' who were aided in their appeal by an international clemency campaign. The pre-dawn hanging of Tsepo Letsoara, 24, concluded without fanfare, while world leaders, clergymen and politicians continued to plea with the government to save the ``Sharpeville Six.'' Letsoara was convicted of the murder of a black woman in a Port Elizabeth township in October 1985, during nationwide racial unrest. The victim, Grace Mvetye, was killed by the ``necklace'' method, in which a gasoline-soaked tire was placed around her neck and set ablaze. The ``Sharpeville Six,'' five black men and a woman, would have joined Letsoara on the gallows today had Pretoria Supreme Court Justice Willem Human not granted a one-month stay of execution Thursday. Human made his decision after defense lawyers presented evidence of perjury by one of the prosecution's chief witnesses. Human granted the convicts four weeks to apply for a retrial. The case was controversial because the six were convicted under the principle of ``common cause,'' which held them responsible for the September 1984 death of town councilor Jacob Dlamini because they among a mob of 100 that stoned and burned Dlamini to death in Sharpeville. Dlamini was killed on the first day of riots that lasted nearly three years and claimed more than 2,500 black lives. President P.W. Botha had ignored pleas from leaders of most Western nations and from countries and organizations around the world to stop the executions. The government said Human's decision ``proves the wisdom of the state president and his ministers in deciding not to impede the due process of law. The government also indicated a link between the scheduled hangings and a car bomb that exploded Thursday in Krugersdorp, killing three black people and injuring 20 people. The explosion occurred in a Magistrate's Court where the Sharpeville Six had been held briefly between their arrest and trial. Police offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a white man they say is a member of the outlawed African National Congress. The man was described as the prime suspect in the bombing. Deputy Minister of Information Stoffel Van der Merwe said neither pressure from overseas nor car bombs would persuade the government to interfere in a court case. The Star, an independent Johannesburg newspaper, reported today that Botha granted clemency three weeks ago to a black policeman who was sentenced to death for murdering a youth two years ago in Mamelodi, the black township outside Pretoria. A spokesman for the Department of Justice said Botha commuted Constable George John Sindane's death sentence to eight years in prison. The spokesman said Sindane was one of five people whose death sentences were commuted this year. In other developments Thursday, _ Attorneys said a $2.25 million wrongful arrest lawsuit was begun against the Ministry of Law and Order after charges of sedition and subversion were dropped against a black Roman Catholic nun and 13 others who lived in black townships outside Krugersdorp. Sister Bernard Ncube, president of the Federation of Transvaal Women, spent 16 months in detention, including 13 in solitary confinement, after being charged. The state alleged that the group established ``kangaroo'' courts, campaigned against the police and initiated a boycott of white-owned shops and buses. The charges were dropped Thursday after the prosecution refused to supply a court with details of the alleged acts. _Also, the attorney for freed African National Congress leader Govan Mbeki said the government denied his request for a passport, which he sought to visit his three children living in exile. Attorney Priscilla Jana said no reason was given for the denial. Mbeki was freed from prison in November after serving 24 years of a life sentence for treason and sabotage in connection with his activities as national chairman of the ANC. His oldest son, Thabo, is an executive member of the ANC in exile in Lusaka, Zambia. Since his release from prison, Mbeki has been restricted to the Port Elizabeth area, and banned from giving public speeches or news interviews.
AP900505-0095 	X	Thousands of Czechs joined U.S. veterans Saturday for a sun-kissed streetfest in the first celebration ever of the liberation of this beer-brewing city by American troops in World War II. Pubs were turned into imitations of Wild West saloons, and youths with American Army paraphernalia rode the streets on vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycles inherited from their parents. Up to 150,000 visitors were expected to descend on Pilsen, a city of 130,000, on Sunday, when President Vaclav Havel and U.S. Ambassador Shirley Temple Black were to preside over the close of the two-day celebration. Gen. George C. Patton's 3rd Army liberated Pilsen on May 6, 1945, just three days before World War II ended in Prague. By agreement with the Soviets, American troops came to a halt at the demarcation line cutting southwest through Czech territory, leaving the Red Army to conquer the Czechoslovak capital. ``Boy, everybody wanted to go on to Prague and get it over with,'' said Cpl. Ross Johnston, 75, an attorney from Zanesville, Ohio. ``But we had to stop here, wait for two weeks and then we were pulled out.'' The Communists barred any commemoration of the U.S. liberation of about 3,600 miles of Czechoslovak territory and marked May 5 as a day of liberation by Soviet troops. Six months after Czechoslovakia's peaceful revolution in December, however, the atmosphere in this grim industrial city had changed remarkably. American flags adorned the former bastions of Communist officials, and scores of U.S. veterans were in town for the celebration. Tens of thousands of people turned out Saturday morning to see the ceremonial inauguration of a monument to the 2nd Infantry Divison on Pilsen's downtown Republic Square. Those who lived long enough to see the return of Patton's men still remember the postwar atmosphere. ``It felt so right that our town was freed from the Nazis by a western army,'' Frantisek Kotva, a pensioner, mused over a mug of the city's famous beer. ``We all loved the GIs, but then we had to forget about them for a long time,'' he said, alluding to the four decades of Communist suppression that followed. Elsewhere in Czechoslovakia, the occasion was marked with quieter ceremonies. Ambassador Temple Black joined Jan Urban, the leader of the Civic Forum movement that led the revolution against the Communists, at the unveiling of a memorial to the U.S. Army in Vitejovice, about 70 miles southwest of Prague. A similar plaque was unveiled in the nearby town of Chodov. In Lipnik and Bevcou, crowds gathered to remember Martin Zeberski, a U.S. pilot killed there in August 1944. Havel and Temple Black will lead Sunday's festivities in Pilsen, which were to begin with a morning ceremony at the demarcation line and end with a ``country ball.'' ``I've been to several similar events, but this is much bigger than any of us expected,'' Johnston said. ``If the very president of the United States came here in person, he could not be shown more courtesy and respect than we were.''
AP900903-0069 	X	Gang members thwarted in an attempt to attack rivals rampaged through the city, killing one person and wounding up to nine others, police said Monday. The victims apparently were chosen at random during a four-hour spree of shootings and robberies Sunday night throughout this central California city of 350,000 people, said Sgt. Mike Guthrie. ``There doesn't seem to be any identifiable pattern,'' Guthrie said. ``I think it was more driving until they saw an opportunity and taking it.'' Police arrested four boys, ages 14, 15, 16 and 17, and confiscated five guns early Monday. All of those arrested are from Fresno, Guthrie said. Each was charged with one count of murder, six counts of attempted murder and seven counts of armed robbery. Their names were withheld because of their ages. One suspect remained at large and additional charges were pending against the four held, police said. Besides the three shotguns, one rifle and a handgun, police seized crack cocaine from one of the youths, Guthrie said. The rampage began after uniformed officers patrolled a drug-infested west Fresno neighborhood called ``the U,'' said Guthrie. Five gang members intended to shoot rivals, but left the area because of the police, Guthrie said. After the fatal shooting downtown, one juvenile left the group, Guthrie said. The other four robbed and shot people along an eight-mile stretch north to near Fresno State University, then headed back downtown, he said. ``This entire scenario was an afterthought,'' Guthrie said. The shooting spree was ``unprecedented in our city,'' he said. ``I can recall nothing of this magnitude ... There very easily could have been half a dozen or more murder victims.'' Police blamed the juveniles for the killing of a 47-year-old man and shootings that left six other men wounded. Two remained hospitalized Monday in serious condition, said Sgt. Dwight Williamson. The others weren't seriously wounded, he said. The victims' names were withheld released. Three other people were injured in shootings Sunday night and investigators were trying to determine whether the same youths were to blame.
AP900420-0005 	X	Beau Rambo, a 1{-year-old cocker spaniel, has a heritage that would make any genealogical name-dropper take notice. His great-great-grandmother was none other than Checkers, the dog immortalized by Richard Nixon. In his 1952 ``Checkers'' speech, the then vice presidential candidate rebutted charges that he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters. He cited the dog, a supporter's gift to his family, as one contribution he would keep. The family pet died in 1964 at age 12. The speech proved an overwhelming success, turning public opinion in favor of the GOP ticket: Dwight Eisenhower, who was running for president, and Nixon. Today, the lineage of the Nixon family pet carries on in Craig Patterson's Beau Rambo, who lives in West Point. Patterson discovered Rambo's lineage when he called the dog's Idaho breeder to obtain the pedigree. ``She said (Rambo) had some show dogs on his dad's side and she rattled off something about Nixon's Checkers,'' he recalled. Nikki Deines, a breeder in Emmett, Idaho, confirmed the lineage reads like this: Checkers Prize Package of Nixon fame begat Otis the Twelfth, who begat Miss Mollie Value, who begat Nikki's Beau Tamara, who begat Rambo.
AP880921-0125 	X	A black high school student says she was told to ``go back to the ghetto'' during a football game, prompting school officials Wednesday to promise to work toward preventing future racial clashes. Shana Cannell, a 14-year-old freshman, said a cheerleader at Pekin led other students in racially harassing blacks at the Sept. 2 game between the Peoria Lions and the Pekin Dragons. ``While I was playing in the (Peoria) band, Pekin High School students taunted my friends and me with racial slurs such as ... `go back to the ghetto,''' the teen-ager wrote in a letter to the Journal Star of Peoria. She added that ``one of the more vocal students was a Pekin cheerleader who was standing in front of her coach'' and referred to her by a common racial epithet. Jack Wilt, Pekin School District superintendent, said he has found no witnesses but has no reason to doubt the girl's story. Wilt said he plans on offering her a written apology. ``I can't pinpoint who made the remarks but I don't doubt they were made,'' Wilt said Wednesday. Ms. Cannell's father, Julian Cannell, the Peoria School District attorney, said an apology ``is not the answer.'' ``My speculation is the teachers and parents in Pekin don't care,'' he said. ``They must educate their children that overt racism will not be tolerated in our society.'' Chic Renner, president of the Pekin school board, said Wednesday that the remarks of a few students do not reflect the attitudes of everyone in Pekin. Wilt said there is a history of racial problems at athletic events involving Pekin and Peoria High, which has 1,200 students and a 39 percent minority enrollment. He noted that less than 1 percent of Pekin High's 2,500-member student body is black and only one or two black families live in Pekin. Renner is concerned the incident is rekindling the longstanding perception of Pekin as a racist community. ``I don't know how long we have to dwell on it,'' he said. ``We recognize the problem and are trying to deal with it and cure it.''
AP900503-0049 	X	The administration of Mayor Kurt Schmoke has reversed itself and approved a parade permit for a white supremacist ``skinhead'' group rather than face a threatened court challenge. Deputy City Solicitor Ambrose Hartman said the city reluctantly approved the permit Monday, despite objections from community leaders, after concluding it could not win should the group sue on the grounds that its right to free speech was being denied. The group, known as BASH, or Baltimore Area Skin Heads, said it wants to protest the arrival of Soviet Jews in the United States and would march within a month. The Baltimore Sun quoted an unidentified member of the group as saying the group selected a predominately white, working-class area of Baltimore called Hampden because it is ``one of the last white neighborhoods around.'' The group wants Marylanders to take a stand against race-mixing and what they say are other threats to white power, he said. Eleven churches, community organizations and other Hampden civic groups asked the city to deny the permit after learning of the planned rally last month. Referring to two wealthier Baltimore neighborhoods, the Rev. David Rimbach, pastor of the Hampden United Methodist Church, said: ``They're not going to parade though Roland Park or Charles Village, they are going to parade through Hampden, because they think it's a place of hate and violence. ``We don't want to be painted with those kind of colors any more,'' he said Wednesday. Skinheads are known for their shaved heads, heavy boots and Nazi insignia. They have been linked to racial and religious crime in more than two dozen states. ``What we resent more than anything is it adds to the reputation for intolerance we've gotten over the years,'' said Edward R. Jeunette Jr., past president of the Hampden Community Council. He said it ``doesn't represent a majority view of the people who live here.''
AP880604-0093 	X	Drug testing of Detroit's 5,000-member police force was ordered stopped, at least temporarily, by a federal judge who said he's not convinced the department has a widespread drug problem. U.S. District Judge Horace Gilmore ordered Friday that the testing be halted until a hearing can be held to determine the merits of the practice. The ruling came after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of 70 city employees seeking to stop the testing, which has been conducted on about 1,000 officers since it began May 26. ``It's ironic that out of the first 1,000 officers tested, the department said none tested positive for drugs,'' said William Werthheimer Jr., an attorney for the ACLU. ``That's not consistent with a departmentwide problem.'' The judge said his decision was based on a federal appeals court ruling last month in a case from Chattanooga, Tenn. The appeals court said that unless there is evidence of a widespread drug problem in a police department, mass testing violates Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. Detroit Police Department spokesman Fred Zaharoff said the department would abide by the decision, but declined further comment. The injunction granted by Gilmore prohibits the testing until 5 p.m. Tuesday, by which time the parties expect to hold a hearing on the merits of the tests. The Detroit police department has been rocked recently by suspensions of 14 officers for drug use and reports that an additional 100 officers are under investigation for crack cocaine use or other crack-related crimes. Under Detroit's drug testing program, police officers who test positive for cocaine or heroin would be subject to firing after a four-step retesting process. Officers testing positive for marijuana could remain on the force after a suspension and education program.
AP901023-0150 	X	Iraq said Tuesday that a former oil minister of Iran who was captured by Iraqi forces early in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war committed suicide two years later. The official Iraqi News Agency said its information came from an ``official source'' who was commenting on press reports that Iraq was still holding former Cabinet member Mohammad Javad Tondguyan. INA, monitored in Nicosia, did not say exactly when or how he died. The agency said President Turgut Ozal of Turkey, then prime minister, sought to gain Tondguyan's release on March 22, 1986, during a visit to Baghdad, and that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told him Tondguyan had committed suicide. On Monday, Iran accused Iraq of holding Tondguyan in a ``secret prison'' and demanded his immediate release. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said Iran had ``live and documented evidence'' Tondguyan was alive and that Iraq should show good will by releasing him at once. Tondguyan was captured while on a tour of the fronts in October 1980, a month after the Iran-Iraq war broke out. A cease-fire ended hostilities in August 1988. Saddam recently agreed to Iran's terms for a formal peace settlement of their border dispute as he tried to break out of the international isolation that followed his Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. Saddam subsequently withdrew his troops from sections of Iranian territory occupied during the conflict. The two Persian Gulf neighbors also have exchanged tens of thousands of prisoners of war. The Iraqi agency said Iraq formally informed Iran of Tondguyan's suicide through the International Committee of the Red Cross. It said Iraq also handed over to Iran all papers related to the investigation, a medical report and a death certificate in accordance with provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
AP900618-0130 	X	A Soviet pilot landed a passenger plane on a beach on Turkey's Black Sea coast Monday and asked for political asylum. Officials quoted him as saying he wanted to flee the ``undemocratic regime'' in Moscow. A government announcement said the pilot was alone in the Antonov-2 plane when it landed near Kumcagiz, a village in Kocaeli province. The official Soviet news agency Tass said the 12-seat plane was seized in Izmail, near the Ukrainian port of Odessa. The report offered few details. The Turkish statement identified the pilot as Valeri Yuricevic. Kocaeli Gov. Ihsan Dede said Yuricevic was married and had a child. He said the pilot recently separated from his wife. Tass said the pilot resigned several months ago from his job with an Odessa air crew. Officials quoted Yuricevic as saying during an interrogation that he escaped ``the undemocratic regime'' in his country and wanted to live in Turkey. Dede told The Associated Press that Yuricevic, 29, complained about harsh living conditions in the Soviet Union, where shortages are widespread and economic problems continue. He said the pilot did not elaborate. Dede said Yuricevic's request for political asylum was being examined. State TV showed the plane near the coastline. A village girl interviewed on television said residents watched the plane land. She said the pilot approached her after he got out of the plane and spoke to her in Russian. Another villager said the pilot was shaking and looked nervous. Villagers brought the pilot to the police station, Dede said. The plane, flying at low altitude, made the trip in two hours. Turkey's announcement said the plane was tracked immediately after it entered Turkish airspace and military planes were put on alert. However, the plane was allowed to land safely when authorities determined it posed no threat. There are no airports in the province. A government official, who requested anoynmity, said the Soviets immediately asked Turkey to return the plane and the pilot. Dede said local officials were waiting for a team of technical experts to move the plane, which sunk into the sand on the beach. When a Soviet air force captain defected to this country in a MIG-29 jet a year ago, Turkey allowed the plane to be flown back to the Soviet Union but sent the pilot to the United States upon his request.
AP900323-0243 	X	The dollar was mostly higher in domestic and foreign trading Friday but fell sharply against the yen as investors regained some confidence in the Japanese currency. Gold prices were lower. Analysts said a rise in interest rates in Japan and a recovery on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after a string of steep losses helped support the yen, which itself has fallen sharply in recent weeks. Jack Barbanel, president of First Global Asset Management Inc., said traders believed Japanese yields would go even higher, which would make the yen even more attractive. The dollar fell to 154.30 yen in New York from 155.095 late Thursday. In Tokyo early Friday, the dollar rose 0.24 yen to a closing 155.07 yen, and in London, it was quoted at a sharply lower rate of 153.85 yen. Overseas dealers said the dollar was hit in afternoon dealings by a report, later denied, that Japan was moving to issue dollar-denominated bonds in a bid to add a layer of intervention to help the sagging yen. The dollar also was hit by profit-taking before Friday's talks between Treasury Secretary James Brady and his Japanese counterpart, Ryutaro Hashimoto, in Los Angeles. Barbanel said the dollar's strong showing against other currencies was due partly to higher interest rates in the United States, and also to concerns about tensions between the Soviet Union and Lithuania. The dollar is seen as a safe haven in times of international political strife. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Thursday's quotes, included: 1.7135 West German marks, up from 1.7028; 1.5200 Swiss francs, up from 1.5120; 5.7720 French francs, up from 5.7415; 1,260.25 Italian lire, up from 1,255.50; and 1.17505 Canadian dollars, down from 1.17575. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Thursday's prices, included: 1.7100 West German marks, up from 1.7054; 1.5179 Swiss francs, up from 1.5150; 5.7645 French francs, up from 5.7505; 1.9249 Dutch guilders, up from 1.9210; 1,258.50 Italian lire, up from 1,255.50; and 1.1751 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1757. The pound recovered somewhat from its recent slide on Britain's economic woes and political uncertainty. In London, the pound rose to $1.6040 from $1.6015 late Thursday, but it fell in New York to $1.6010 from $1.6040. Gold fell $5.10 a troy ounce on the Commodity Exchange in New York, closing at $388.90. Later, Republic National Bank of New York quoted a bid of $389.10 a troy ounce, down $4.90. Gold fell in London to a late bid price of $386.95 a troy ounce from $393.05 bid late Thursday. In Zurich, the metal fell to a closing bid of $391.50 from $393 late Thursday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold rose 13 cents to close at a bid $393.65. Silver fell 4.1 cents to $5.043 a troy ounce on the Commodity Exchange. In London, silver fell to a late bid price of $5.04 a troy ounce, down from Thursday's $5.08.
AP900808-0061 	X	A heart valve manufacturer bowed to the demands of consumer activists and agreed to inform thousands of implant patients of potential defects. Shiley Inc. of Irvine, a subsidiary of New York-based Pfizer Inc., said Tuesday it will identify and notify 21,000 patients in the United States of product defects that could prove dangerous. Its notices will advise patients about the warning signs of mechanical valve failure and what steps to take should the device fail, company officials said. The announcement affects those patients who received the Bjork-Shiley 60-degree ``convexo-concave'' heart valve. The company voluntarily pulled the valves from the U.S. market in 1986 following reports of valve fractures. Roger Sachs, vice president and medical director at Shiley, said the firm was determining how patients will be notified. He said Shiley was negotiating with another company to compile a registry of implant patients. The decision comes after Public Citizen Health Research Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer organization, filed a lawsuit against Shiley and Pfizer to force Shiley to warn patients about the defects. A judge dismissed the suit in May after ruling that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had sole authority to issue such an order. ``If the company does what it says it is going to do, there is no question that some people who otherwise would die will live,'' said Public Citizen's director, Dr. Sidney Wolfe. ``I think they (Shiley) saw the handwriting on the wall and yielded to something they should have done a long time ago,'' he added. Originally, Shiley had cautioned only surgeons about the valve's problems, replying upon them to notify their patients. In March, the company mailed warnings to surgeons, cardiologists, primary physicians and emergency room practitioners. A statement issued Tuesday by Shiley said the decision to notify patients directly came in response to FDA concerns that physicians may not have effectively communicated the product's defects to implant patients. Shiley officials added they will ask the FDA to review the notices it will send to patients. FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said the agency could decide by early next year whether to require valve manufacturers to notify patients directly of any potential product defects.
AP880706-0117 	X	Pentagon officials raised ``the possibility'' that a military identification signal received by the cruiser Vincennes may have been sent by a military jet and not the Iranian commercial airliner shot down by one of the ship's missiles, Rep. Les Aspin said today. But a Navy spokesman, Lt. Brian Cullin, said, ``We do not believe there was another aircraft in the area.'' Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that possibility was raised Tuesday by Defense Department officials who met behind closed doors with House members to discuss Sunday's attack by the Vincennes, in which all 290 people on the Iranair jetliner died. Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard said Tuesday the Vincennes' sophisticated electronic equipment had picked up transmissions from Iran Air flight 655 on a military frequency, leading the crew of the cruiser to think it was firing at an Iranian F-14 fighter. The Pentagon officials who briefed the House members ``said they were examining a wide range of possibilities about what happened,'' Aspin said today. ``We pressed them on the military transmission angle, the fact that the Vincennes said it was receiving on a military channel'' from the airliner, he said. ``We were told that there were three possibilities. One is that the Airbus had in fact been broadcasting on both civilian and military frequencies; the second is the fact that people on the Vincennes made a mistake in reading the information, and the third is that there was a second plane that was a military plane,'' he said. ``The possibility exists that there was a military plane that was somehow masked'' by the airliner, he said. The Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system used by the Vincennes as part of the identification process ``is good, but it also has a lot of limitations,'' said Aspin, a Wisconsin Democrat. ``For one thing, it's not very good at determining altitudes,'' Aspin said. He said that if there were a second plane, its existence could be one explanation of the wide divergence between reports about the altitude of the Airbus. The Vincennes thought the Airbus was at about 7,000 feet, but Howard said Tuesday that the USS Sides, another ship in the area, had tracked the jetliner's altitude at above 12,000 feet. The Vincennes efforts to identify the plane were hampered by the lack of an airborne radar system in the vicinity, said Adm. William Crowe, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who on Sunday acknowledged that downed plane was an airliner. ``There was no air cover,'' Crowe said Sunday. The United States does operate E-2 Hawkeye and Airborne Warning and Control (AWACS) reconnaissance aircraft with sophisticated look-down radar in the region, but they were not aloft at the time of the incident. Crowe was asked on Sunday whether any other Iranian aircraft were in the area, and said ``there was an F-4 up later. Whether it had been up all the time or earlier, we're not able to determine. ... It didn't play a part in this.'' The F-4's and F-14's were among the U.S.-made weapons sold to Iran during the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979.
AP880220-0071 	X	The Soviets have become more open about announcing their space failures, but failed to announce the destruction of a spy satellite last month and gave out sparse details about a rocket failure, space-watcher Jim Oberg said Saturday. The official Tass news agency reported that the upper stage of the Proton rocket booster failed on Wednesday and that on Thursday ``the Sputniks entered dense layers of the atmosphere and ceased their existence.'' According to U.S. Space Command, the largest chunk of debris from the mission re-entered the earth's atmosphere Friday afternoon between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and a smaller chunk fell earlier near Australia. Besides the failure of the Proton, with three satellites aboard, the Soviets lost another satellite, Cosmos 1,906, on Jan. 31. The imaging satellite was launched on Dec. 26 and was ``blown up to prevent the film and equipment from falling into the hands of western intelligence agencies,'' Oberg said. Since Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, Oberg said, the Soviets ``have certainly released new material. But there remain severe limits. Military stuff is clearly beyond the limit.'' Still, Oberg said, Western technology can detect such events as the Proton failure, and Western news reports can force further disclosures from the Soviets. Penetrating the secretive Soviet space program is nothing new for Oberg, who has published his findings in a new book called ``Uncovering Soviet Disasters: Exploring the Limits of Glasnost.'' Long before Gorbachev's moderate reforms led to greater disclosure of problems in the Soviet Union, Oberg had pieced together hair-raising tales of disasters that for decades went unreported in the state-controlled media. Oberg has ``been working since childhood at this, watching their space program, looking for chinks in their secrecy, and driving through them.'' Soviet secrecy can be dangerous, Oberg wrote in his book. On Oct. 24, 1962, a Soviet space probe exploded into dozens of objects during the Cuban missile crisis, the confrontation that brought the superpowers their closest to nuclear war. Debris from the probe ``appeared without warning on American attack-warning radars in Alaska,'' Oberg wrote. ``The Cuban missile crisis was at its height, and for a few moments the unannounced and unpredicted Soviet space failure looked like the long-feared massive Soviet (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) attack.'' The debris burned up as it entered the atmosphere. But, Oberg said, the Soviets have never publicly acknowledged the event. Soviet media also have not reported on the most spectacular ``and probably the greatest disaster of the space age,'' the ``Nedelin catastrophe,'' which on about Oct. 24, 1960, killed scores of Soviets including Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, the commander in chief of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. The accident came three years after the Soviets launched the first satellite, ``Sputnik.'' Operating in the strictest secrecy, the Soviets launched two unmanned spacecraft on a probe to Mars, but both fell back into the atmosphere and burned up because their upper stages failed. A third booster was loaded with fuel, and the order was given to launch. But the main rocket engine did not ignite. ``It just stood there on the launch pad, bathed in searchlights and fuming with clouds of supercold liquid oxygen,'' Oberg wrote. ``Nedelin made a fatal error and committed a gross violation of elementary rocket safety standards,'' Oberg wrote. ``From the launch bunker, where he had prepared to watch the expected success, he ordered a team of engineers to inspect the rocket booster immediately. ...'' ``Since he was an experienced combat commander, he would not send men into peril he himself avoided, so he walked out to the base of the rocket while the inspection was being made.'' Although the main rocket failed to ignite, the uppermost stage continued to operate as though it were en route to Mars, and at the time when it would have separated from the booster, fired its own rockets. ``A million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen flared up in a pyre which must have been visible for hundreds of miles,'' Oberg wrote. The Soviet press carried an official obituary of Nedelin several days later, saying that he had ``died tragically in the line of duty'' in a plane crash. Not a word has appeared since then in the official press, although writings smuggled out of Russia or published by emgres have described the incident, and Oberg pieced together the evidence.
AP900403-0215 	X	The original stars of the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical ``Aspects of Love'' will recreate their roles in the Broadway production opening April 8 at the Broadhurst Theater. The two American actresses, Ann Crumb and Kathleen Rowe McAllen, and two British actors, Michael Ball and Kevin Colson, are part of an ongoing exchange between American and British Actors' Equity. Directed by Trevor Nunn, ``Aspects of Love'' originally opened in London's West End on April 17, 1989, where it continues to play to capacity houses. Set in France in the 1950s and based on David Garnett's novel, ``Aspects of Love'' traces the course, over 18 years, of a romance between a young English boy and a penniless French actress, through an affair that involves all those whose lives it touches.
AP901031-0146 	X	National Republican campaign committees have suffered multimillion-dollar drops in receipts and spending compared to the last non-presidential election campaign, a federal agency said Wednesday. The GOP committees still have spent far more this time around than their Democratic counterparts, which did not experience a decline in campaign fund-rasising, the Federal Election Commission said. As of Oct. 17, the FEC said, the Republican national, senatorial and congressional committees had received $30 million less and spent $26 million less than in the same period during the 1985-86 cycle. At the same time, the level of financial activity at the Democratic committees remained on a par with the previous off-year campaign cycle. Republican Party strategists have said GOP fund-raising efforts were hurt by President Bush's change of heart on taxes. Bush abandoned his no-new-taxes campaign pledge this fall and agreed to a package of spending cuts and new taxes to help reduce the federal deficit. Nevertheless, the GOP managed to outspend the Democrats this year by more than $118 million, according to the FEC. The three GOP committees raised and spent $159 million from Jan. 1, 1989, to Oct. 17, 1990. The three Democratic committees raised $37 million and spent $40 million in the same period. The Republicans contributed nearly twice as much as the Democrats directly to candidates - $1.8 million compared to just over $900,000, the FEC said. Coordinated expenditures, or indirect aid to candidates, came to $7.4 million for the GOP and $5.8 million for the Democrats. The GOP also has transferred much more money to state party committees than the Democrats - $3.7 million compared to $1.6 million. In addition, the national Republican Party operates two joint fund-raising committees that have distributed $1.9 million to 49 Senate candidates, the FEC said. Democrats have filed a complaint alleging that the committees - the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle 1990 and 1990-91 - are illegally circumventing campaign spending limits.
AP881017-0216 	X	Today is Wednesday, Oct. 26, the 300th day of 1988. There are 66 days left in the year. Today's highlight in history: In 1881, the Gunfight at the O-K Corral occurred in Tombstone, Ariz., as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and ``Doc'' Holliday shot it out with Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded. On this date: In 1774, the First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia. In 1825, the Erie Canal opened, connecting the waters of Lake Erie and the Hudson River. In 1942, the U.S. ship Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands during World War II. In 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed a measure raising the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour. In 1957, the Soviet Union announced that its defense minister, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, had been relieved of his duties. In 1958, Pan American Airways flew its first Boeing 707 jetliner from New York to Paris. The trip took eight hours, 41 minutes. In 1967, the Shah of Iran crowned himself and his queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne. In 1972, national security adviser Henry Kissinger declared ``Peace is at hand'' in Vietnam. In 1975, Anwar Sadat became the first Egyptian president to pay an official visit to the United States as he arrived to seek economic and military aid from Washington. In 1977, the experimental space shuttle Enterprise glided to a bumpy but successful landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California in a test witnessed by Britain's Prince Charles. In 1979, South Korean president Park Chung-hee was shot to death by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Kim Jae-kyu. In 1984, ``Baby Fae,'' a newborn with a severe heart defect, was given the heart of a baboon in an experiment transplant in Loma Linda, California. Baby Fae lived 21 days with the animal's heart. Ten years ago: President Jimmy Carter told a Democratic Party rally in Miami that he intended to sign an $18.7 billion tax cut measure, despite previous threats to veto it. Five years ago: Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger reported that the U.S.-led military incursion into Grenada was progressing ``extremely well,'' and said six U.S. servicemen had been killed since the invasion began the day before. One year ago: In Miami, an investor who had suffered heavy stock market losses shot and killed a brokerage manager and wounded his personal broker, then turned the gun on himself. Today's birthdays: The former archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal John Krol, is 78. French President Francois Mitterrand is 72. Actor Bob Hoskins is 46. Actress Jaclyn Smith is 41. Thought for today: ``You have not done enough, you have never done enough, so long as it is still possible that you have something to contribute.'' _ Dag Hammarskjold, U.N. Secretary-General (1905-1961).
AP880411-0074 	X	Wood storks have come home to roost in southern Florida, but but naturalists are worried that the endangered birds won't have a chance to rear their young before the rainy season. Summer deluges at the storks' two major ancestral breeding grounds would drench nestlings and disperse the fish the birds rely on for food, they explained. Last week, 620 pairs of wood storks were nesting at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a National Audubon Society refuge about 20 miles north of Naples that was once the primary stork-nesting area in North America. Another 75 pairs have taken up residence at Everglades National Park's Cuthbert Island. The two sites were believed to have been all but abandoned by North America's sole species of stork, a giant white bird with an iron-black head. ``We are ecstatic to be able to report these numbers,'' said Paul Hinchcliff, chief naturalist at Corkscrew. ``Whether or not there's enough time before the start of the rainy season to fledge enough young remains to be seen.'' Almost all previous attempts to nest so late in the year have ended disastrously, said John Ogden, who heads a wood stork study team at Everglades National Park. If they are unable to feed offspring, parent birds will abandon the colony, leaving hundreds of crying young birds to starve. Wood storks have not produced offspring in significant numbers at Corkscrew since 1984-85, when 353 pairs of birds successfully raised 530 young. Fifty years ago, it was common to see 6,000 to 8,000 pairs of storks nesting in the gray-boughed cypress trees. Since the early 1960s, however, storks have been spurning Corkscrew in favor of central and northern Florida and other Southern states. Between 1960 and 1980, the wood stork nesting population at Corkscrew dropped by 75 percent. The renewed Corkscrew colony represents almost 30 percent of the total U.S. stork population, estimated at 4,000. Historically, storks came to Corkscrew by the tens of thousands to nest in early winter, leaving plenty of time to rear offspring before the onset of rain. But human activity disrupted the annual cycle of high-water summers and low-water winters in Florida's wetlands. Much of the area that provided shallow feeding waters for wood storks during the early winter has been drained for farming or sudivisions. The birds have been forced to wait until late winter or spring for the deeper waters of the interior Everglades to drop low enough for them to efficiently feed. As result, nesting is delayed, and this year's young won't be ready to leave their nests until about mid-July, Ogden said.
AP880627-0173 	X	Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said Monday he will travel to Moscow in early August for his third meeting with Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov, and the second-ranking Soviet defense official will tour the United States in July. The exchange of visits is aimed at reducing military tension between the superpowers as part of a general widening and improvement in the U.S.-Soviet dialogue. In the first business session between the Soviet and U.S. defense secretaries, Carlucci and Yazov met in Bern, Switzerland, last March and for a second time during the Moscow summit May 31-June 2. The ``dialogue is not valuable for its own sake, but only as a means to enhance our security,'' Carlucci said in a speech at the National Press Club. ``Our discussions in Bern and last month in Moscow were candid and, I think precisely because of that, constructive.'' ``We have gained a great deal from having an opportunity to air our differences, and to explore ways that we might improve our relations,'' he said. ``As in our earlier meetings, our agenda will include exploring ways to avoid dangerous military incidents, and to expand military-to-military contacts.'' The Soviet first deputy defense minister, Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, will make a July 5-11 visit to the United States at the invitation of Adm. William Crowe, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staffs, the Pentagon and Soviet news agency Tass announced. Akhromeyev was in Washington last December for the summit, but the upcoming trip, ``will be his first visit outside the nation's capital,'' the Pentagon announcement said. Akhromeyev, the Soviet chief of staff, ``will tour military units from all four military services and will travel to Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota and New York during his visit,'' it said. Crowe and Akhromeyev will have joint news conferences on July 6 and July 11, and on July 11, the Soviet marshal will address a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Akhromeyev will not be allowed to view any classified training or equipment, the Pentagon said, but he will visit Camp Lejeune, N.C.; the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt; Fort Hood, Texas; and Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. The Soviet defense official will be allowed to view a new B-1B bomber, but will not be allowed to fly in one, the Pentagon added. In his speech, Carlucci said he was skeptical of the reform rhetoric of Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and of Soviet claims that ``they are shifting to a purely defensive military posture.'' ``For my part, I have indicated that the United States would welcome such a shift, but that in spite of Soviet claims, we see no change in the Soviet force structure and no reduction in resources devoted to the Soviet military, which continues to absorb between 15 and 17 percent of the Soviet'' gross national product, he said. ``Now is not the time to let down our guard,'' he said. ``There is every reason to believe that the Soviets see in our technology a way to derive not only economic but military advantage.'' ``If the end result of reform is a Soviet Union that is less expansionist, that reduces the resources it now devotes to the military, that delivers on its promises to respect fundamental freedoms and human rights, that is more open to dialogue with the West, then change will have been for the better,'' Carlucci said. ``On the other hand, if the end product of Soviet restructuring is nothing more than the development, perhaps even with Western assistance, of a stronger Soviet military machine, then we in the West will face a far more dangerous threat than we do at present,'' he said. An aide to Carlucci said that the exact dates and interinary of the trip to Moscow would not be announced until next month.
AP880622-0301 	X	Rain answered some prayers in the parched Midwest, where neighbors informed on water wasters by the hundreds, but as the nation buckled under record heat Eastern farmers began worrying that drought conditions were heading their way. More record high temperatures today were expected to burn lingering moisture from drought-choked soil in the nation's farm belt. Temperatures topped the 100-degree mark in 23 states Tuesday, the first day of summer, and set 67 records. However, ``it looks like things will be not quite as hot as they were the last couple days,'' said Hugh Crowther of the National Weather Service in Kansas City, Mo. Meteorologists forecast no major rainfall in the next few days, although widely scattered showers and thunderstorms dampened the central Plains and Great Lakes region this morning, while strong thunderstorms lashed parts of Wisconsin and Michigan. The heat and lack of rain also continued to shrink water levels on rivers, staunching traffic on parts of the Mississippi and Ohio as barges ran aground or became snagged in bottlenecks. ``I can't keep the (Mississippi) river open,'' said Cmdr. Michael Donohoe with the Coast Guard near Memphis, Tenn., where officials expect a towboat traffic jam of up to 1,800 barges. ``Mother Nature is going to make that decision for us.'' In an interview today on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America,'' Donohoe said the Army Corps of Engineers began dredging the river Tuesday night, and ``we hope to have the channel re-opened by Friday at noon.'' Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers managed to free a 26-barge tow that ran aground near Rosedale, Miss., reopening 730 miles of the Mississippi downstream from Memphis to the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rain fell Tuesday on part of the drought-ravaged northern Plains, but it was scarcely enough to quench dusty pastures. Lightning ignited dry timber and grass in northwestern South Dakota, where firefighters were trying to control two fires that burned a total 6,500 acres. At the Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, Jack Wilson, director of the Bureau of Land Management, told ``Good Morning America'' he was concerned about the coming forest fire season because of the drought and expected ``a considerable number'' of forests to be closed as the season progresses. Regis Krebs, a farmer from Beckemeyer, Ill., near St. Louis, discovered the fire risk when a spark from his combine set part of his wheat field ablaze. ``He lost a couple acres of wheat in about 10 minutes,'' said Fire Chief Vincent Pollman. ``Everything is bone dry and it went up quickly.'' On the Chicago Board of Trade, drought worries Tuesday drove corn futures prices up to their daily limit for the sixth straight day. Soybean futures also rose sharply while wheat futures retreated. Commodities analysts said the weather service's latest six-to-10 day forecast for hot, dry weather in the Midwest threatened further damage to corn, oat and soybean crops. ``With the corn crop, each week that goes by without rain means another 10 percent is lost,'' said Joel Karlin, an analyst with Research Department Inc. in Chicago. Some estimate anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of the U.S. corn crop already has been ruined. Marion Hartman, director of the Ohio Corn Growers Board, said today on the ABC-TV program, ``I don't want to call this a disaster, but it's approaching a disaster. Let's say it's getting critical.'' Hay was so scarce that a hay hot line was started in Dayton, Ohio, for farmers seeking fodder from as far away as Kansas. For the most part those with livestock face the choice of feeding hay stored for the winter, buying feed at higher prices or selling their herds in a falling market. ``I see tears. I see anger,'' said Laura Koenig of Stratford, Wis., who runs a program to help farmers deal with stress. ``I see very tired men, women giving up and walking away, children saying, `I don't want to go in the barn.''' ``There's no hay, no prospect of getting any,'' said O.H. Campbell, 71, of Henderson, Ky. ``I cut about 50 bales. I'm going to use that to feed this summer and then I'm going to sell the herd off.'' Many utilities hit record peak loads Tuesday and asked customers to cut back on electricity. Water use restrictions were widespread, prompting many residents of Oakland County, Mich., to inform on neighbors who violate them, officials said. ``The people have begun to realize the severity of this,'' said Al Beanblossom, assistant manager for the Waterford Township Water and Sewer Department. ``That's why I think people are turning in their neighbors.'' ``We laugh about it,'' Beanblossom said. ``We say, `Here comes another squealer.''' There was little laughter in the East, however, where signs of drought began appearing. Pennsylvania authorities on Tuesday warned the next two weeks are critical. ``Things are drying out pretty quickly out there,'' said Gene Schenck, spokesman for the state Agriculture Department. ``The hot sun and the breeze take the moisture right out of the soil.'' A weekly state survey of 225 farmers and county extension agents showed 80 percent reported their soil was short of moisture last week, Schenck said.
AP901010-0124 	X	A police sergeant on Wednesday began the somber roll call of the 270 people who died in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. In a silent courtroom virtually empty of spectators, Sgt. David Johnston began listing in alphabetical order the fate of each victim and where their bodies were found as documented by investigators and pathologists. All 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 died when it exploded over the nearby town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988. Eleven people in that Scottish town were also killed in the crash. Johnston, of Strathclyde police, told the first public hearing into the crash that he arrived in Lockerbie on Christmas Day to work with a unit collating information on the dead. The first name on his roll call was John Michael Gerard Ahearn, 26, a government bonds broker who lived in Rockville Center, N.Y. In a process lasting six minutes, Johnston told the court how the young American had been sitting in seat 30C in the economy class area. His body was found the day after the crash on the Lockerbie golf course. A postmortem exam put the cause of death as multiple injuries. Johnston said Ahearn was identified by dental records. The sergeant then continued with the list. The roll call is expected to take several days. Earlier, Johnston told how 17 victims, 10 passengers and seven Lockerbie residents, were officially registered as ``missing presumed dead.'' Most of the missing passengers were sitting in the fuel-laden wing section that crashed in a fireball in the Sherwood Crescent section of town, damaging or destroying about 20 homes. The missing local residents were from those homes. Several dozen bags of unidentified human remains and two bodies that could not be identified were cremated, police said. Johnston said for each casualty, a ``victim pack'' was compiled, listing all documentary material relating to their death. The officer also produced maps showing the location of each body and described how the victims were identified by several means, mainly dental records and fingerprints. Some were identified by distinctive features like tattoos. Two victims were identified by next of kin who were members of the medical profession. The officer described how police obtained proof that those missing had joined the doomed flight, in some cases recovering personal documents like driving licenses from the debris. The inquiry is focusing on the causes of death and airport security, but not criminal responsibility. Scottish police say they are investigating several radical Palestinian groups and Fraser has said he believes the bombers will be caught.
AP901206-0115 	X	Pope John Paul II on Thursday voiced support for a plan to combat rising anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, but Vatican officials declined appeals by a Jewish delegation to recognize Israel. A Jewish leader, Seymour Reich, said two days of talks between the Jewish delegation and the Vatican marked ``the beginning of a new chapter'' in the Catholic-Jewish relationship. But he said delegates of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations were ``somewhat disappointed'' the pope did not go further in his comments. The Vatican's new foreign minister, Monsignor Jean-Louis Tauran, cited the Vatican's traditional reasons for not recognizing Israel, including unsettled borders, the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinians' lack of a homeland. The pope hailed progress in relations between Jews and Catholics in his speech to the 30-member Jewish delegation and top Vatican officials. In particular, he praised a September plan drawn up by Jews and Catholics in Prague, Czechoslovakia, for fighting anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. The six-point plan included calls for setting up courses for priests to counter anti-Jewish sentiment, and omiting religiously divisive material from textbooks. The Prague meeting also branded anti-Semitism a sin. Jewish leaders have expressed concern about an upsurge of anti-Semitism in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, including the pope's native Poland. The pope praised the Prague meeting for coming ``to conclusions that are of great importance for the continuation of our dialogue and cooperation. It is my hope that these may be widely recognized and that the recommendations then formulated will be implemented wherever human and religious rights are violated.'' Besides the pope's endorsement for the plan to combat anti-Semitism, the Jewish delegation had sought the Vatican's formal recognition of Israel. But Reich, of Great Neck, N.Y., said they saw no change in the Vatican position on the Jewish State. Reich said the Jewish delegates told Vatican officials, ``there can be no full normalization of relations between the Catholic and Jewish communities until the Vatican has full normalization of relations with the Jewish state.'' Nevertheless, delegates said the one-hour papal meeting was warm. Lisa Palmieri-Billig of the Anti-Defamation League, quoted the pope as reiterating his wish to visit the Holy Land. ``I hope one day to be able to visit the holy sites, beginning with those of Abraham'' in Jerusalem, he said, according to Palmieri-Billig. ``That would be our joy,'' replied Rabbi David Rosen, according to Palmieri-Billig. Rosen is a representative of the Anti-Defamation League in Jerusalem. The Catholic-Jewish meetings were held to mark the 25th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, adopted during the Second Vatican Council. The document, considered a turning point in Catholic-Jewish relations, withdrew the accusation that the Jews were responsible for killing Christ.
AP901203-0022 	X	Church bells peal and a man with a megaphone mimics a crowing rooster as the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide rides into town on horseback to be greeted by thousands of adoring supporters. The fiery leftist priest, revered by the masses as a prophet, is taking his remarkable quest for the presidency across Haiti in a campaign imbued with messianic symbolism and patriotic fervor. He calls the campaign Operation ``Lavales,'' or Torrent, a biblical flood to cleanse Haiti of corruption and tyranny; its emblem is the fighting cock, representing Haiti's coming sunrise. ``With Aristide, Lord, there will be no dishonesty,'' the people chant as the slight, bespectacled cleric nicknamed ``Titid'' appears in their midst. Aristide, 37, has survived at least three assassination attempts and was expelled from his Roman Catholic order in 1988 for preaching revolution. He is widely regarded as the frontrunner among 11 candidates in the Dec. 16 election. Supporters say the charismatic priest offers the best hope of giving the impoverished Caribbean nation not only the first democratically elected president in its turbulent 186-year history, but the stability of a government with huge popular support. Critics accuse Aristide of demagoguery and say his a presidency based on emotional mass appeal would pose the threat of a theocratic dictatorship. That appeal has been evident on campaign stops across the country, from the slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital, to the northern city of Cap-Haitien, where an estimated 60,000 people took part in what was probably the biggest demonstration in the city's history. In Jacmel, a crumbling port on the southern coast, perhaps 5,000 people, including hundreds of students in brown and blue school uniforms, poured into the town square for a recent Aristide rally. Dismounting a horse he rode from the outskirts of the city, Aristide plunged into one of his trademark question-response orations in which the distinctions between national pride and Christian love are blurred. Aristide: ``Young people, you know what it is to be lovesick?'' Crowd: ``Yes!'' Aristide: ``Are you in love with Haiti?'' Crowd: ``Yes!'' All sing the lilting ``Haiti Cherie,'' or ``Darling Haiti,'' which is to Haitians what ``America the Beautiful'' is to Americans. Then Aristide: ``We are going to do away with injustice - totally.'' Together: ``Totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally.'' Aristide unexpectedly entered the presidential race in mid-October after Roger Lafontant, reputed former head of the Duvalier dictatorship's infamous Tonton Macoute militia, declared his candidacy. Lafontant was later disqualified on a technicality. Although no opinion polls have been published, the consensus among political observers is that Aristide commands much wider support than any of Haiti's veteran politicians. ``Aristide is the figurehead of a messianic movement, the incarnation of a collective dream,'' says Laennec Hurbon, a specialist on religious movements in the Caribbean. ``His responsibility to his following is not the same as that of a politician to his constituency.'' Aristide gained a nationwide following largely from radio broadcasts of his electrifying sermons in which he railed against successive military regimes that have ruled Haiti since the February 1986, when Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier was driven into exile. He is an adherent of liberation theology, which promotes political and social awareness among the poor. In September 1988, thugs armed with guns, machetes and spikes burst into Aristide's St. Jean Bosco Church during Mass, killing at least 12 parishioners and wounding 70. Three months later, Aristide, was expelled from the conservative Salesian Order for refusing to tone down his rhetoric. The only other presidential candidate whose appeal approaches Aristide's is the moderate Louis Dejoie Jr., who drew thousands of supporters on a recent campaign swing of the southern peninsula. Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official frequently mentioned as a favorite of the U.S. Embassy, which denies any preference, is also seen as running strongly. Bazin's National Alliance for Democracy andPProgress, the country's best-funded political machine, is expected to dominate Parliament after the election. If Bazin fails to win the presidency, he could still become prime minister since the president must chose a prime minister from among the majority party. Under Haiti's constitution, the president is head of state but the prime minister runs the government. Aristide has said he would ``embrace'' the next prime minister, but many Haitians see the potential for conflict. Voter registration has reached 3.3 million, or 92 percent of the electorate, according to election officials - a phenomenon largely attributed to Aristide's candidacy.
AP900706-0009 	X	Five young adults exploring a storm drain were found alive after being washed away by runoff from a thunderstorm Thursday night, authorities said. The five, who were among eight people 18 to 25 years old who were exploring the drain, were located about 350 yards inside the drain about 11:30 p.m., said Fire Department spokesman Brad Stewart. ``They're all alive,'' Stewart said. One of the eight, John Shaffer of Charleston, said he and two friends were able to escape the drain. ``We got washed down the tube,'' said Shaffer, 21. ``We got a quarter of the way down and the water got so high. We tried to get out and we got washed out. ``We were just exploring there,'' he said. ``It wasn't raining when we went in, but then the water came in.'' The storm dumped up to 1{ inches of rain in a two-hour period in the area, the National Weather Service said.
AP881211-0003 	X	Gov. Robert D. Orr said he has narrowed his list of candidates for Vice President-elect Dan Quayle's U.S. Senate seat to eight finalists. Orr said Friday that expects to name his selection sometime this week. A final background check of the finalists was being conducted over the weekend. The Indianapolis Star, in its Sunday editions, said Orr confirmed a list finalists that the paper had learned from sources. The eight, all Republicans, are U.S. Reps. Dan Coats and Dan Burton; former Indiana Secretary of State Edwin J. Simcox; state House Speaker Paul S. Mannweiler of Indianapolis; state Rep. Patrick J. Kiely of Anderson, chairman of the state House Ways and Means Committee; Lt. Gov. John M. Mutz; Indianapolis Mayor William H. Hudnut; and Marion County Prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith, the newspaper said. Orr told the newspaper Friday he had reduced a group of 50 candidates for the Senate seat down to 20 to 25 names and then down to the eight finalists. He said that the finalists who are from the Indianapolis area, such as Hudnut and Goldsmith, have a slight disadvantage compared with the other candidates because Indiana's other senator, Richard Lugar, is from there.
AP900706-0091 	X	A bride who got onto her husband's Harley Davidson while still wearing her wedding gown spent the night in a hospital after it got caught in the motorcycle's back wheel. Denise Hudson and her husband, Lee, planned to ride to Raleigh, N.C., for a Grateful Dead concert after getting married July Fourth at a park. But the train of Mrs. Hudson's full-length gown got caught and dragged her under the bike. Mrs. Hudson, 28, suffered a broken pelvis and a concussion. ``She's skinned and sore. It could have been worse,'' said Hudson, 30, who received minor cuts and bruises. Paramedics had to cut the cream-colored gown to pieces to free her. Mrs. Hudson will have to spend the next few days in Grand Strand General Hospital, and the next few weeks recovering from her injuries. ``We can always have another honeymoon,'' her husband said.
AP880220-0086 	X	Relief services for about 260,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be cut to the minimum because of the kidnapping of two Scandinavian employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the agency said Saturday. ``There will be noticeable changes in UNRWA services and activities because of security problems and the lack of freedom of movement,'' said agency spokesman Niall Kiely. ``We feel agency staff, be they foreign nationals or locals, are under threat to their physical safety.'' UNRWA employees Jan Stening, 44 of Sweden, and William Jorgensen, 58, of Norway, were kidnapped Feb. 5. UNRWA said Palestinians, acting independently of guerrilla factions, kidnapped the men for personal motives. Kiely said only four of the 14 international staff assigned to Lebanon remained in west Beirut and ``they are very heavily involved in the search for Stening and Jorgensen.'' He said he was ``reasonably hopeful'' that the Scandinavians would be released because ``there are no real setbacks'' in negotiations. He did not elaborate. Kiely said UNRWA has canceled a repair program for Beirut's war-ravaged Chatilla and Bourj el-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps ``because it can't be supervised.'' About 2,200 local relief workers serve with UNRWA at field centers in Lebanon. Kiely said another impact of the kidnappings in south Lebanon was that all UNRWA transports between Beirut and the southern port cities of Sidon and Tyre have been stopped both ways. He said agency operations such as schools ``have a certain momentum, so for the moment many services will continue to run as before.''
AP900906-0058 	X	The dollar sank in European trading this morning as traders concentrated on U.S. economic weaknesses. Gold was higher. The dollar closed in Tokyo at 141.65 yen, down 0.65 yen from its close Wednesday. That was the lowest closing rate since Oct. 25, 1989. Later in London, the dollar was quoted at 141.09 yen. Other dollar rates at midmorning compared with late Wednesday: _1.5557 German marks, down from 1.5630 _1.2968 Swiss francs, up from 1.2963 _5.2140 French francs, down from 5.2375 _1.7540 Dutch guilders, down from 1.7607 _1,160.50 Italian lire, down from 1,166.00 _1.1500 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1532 In London, the British pound was quoted at $1.9045, compared with $1.8990 late Wednesday. A trader in Milan, Italy, said the market expected bad news for the U.S. economy when employment figures are released Friday. London's major bullion dealers fixed a recommended gold price of $388.25 at midmorning, up from $387.75 Wednesday. In Zurich, the bid price was $388.00, from $385.75 late Wednesday. Gold in Hong Kong rose $3.57 an ounce today, to close at $387.59. Silver traded in London at a bid price of $4.84 a troy ounce, up from Wednesday's $4.78.
AP900801-0249 	X	The stock market recorded some spotty losses today as investors studied new signs of sluggishness in business activity. The Commerce Department reported that the index of leading economic indicators was unchanged in June, rather than posting the small increase many analysts had been expecting. Separately, a monthly report from the National Association of Purchasing Management showed a marked dropoff in its measure of activity in the manufacturing sector of the economy. Those developments reinforced expectations in the financial world that business growth was likely to remain meager at best in the near future. In that environment, hopes have flagged on Wall Street for any impending improvement in corporate earnings. But at the same time, interest rates have moved lower of late. In today's credit market activity, prices of long-term government bonds rose about $5 for each $1,000 in face value, lowering their yields to the 8.35 percent-8.37 percent range.
AP901119-0252 	X	CBS Inc. said Monday it expects to post a loss in the fourth quarter because of a weak advertising market and unexpectedly large losses on its television broadcasts of major league baseball. The company also said it expects lower earnings from continuing operations for all of 1991 compared with this year. The glum forecast comes as CBS reportedly planned a meeting with its affiliates board to propose a reduction in the estimated $160 million the network pays about 200 affiliated stations for carrying its shows. Media analysts said they expected CBS would post a loss for the last three months of 1990 and an earnings decline in 1991. Analyst Jeff Russell of Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. said CBS would lose about $35 million in the quarter and earnings will fall to about $205 million in 1991 from about $230 million in 1990. In reaction to the news, CBS shares dropped $4 to close at $159.75 in trading of New York Stock Exchange issues. CBS isn't the only media company suffering because of a slowdown this quarter in national ad spending growth. Capital Cities-ABC Inc., which operates the ABC Television Network, said last month as it reported a decline in profit in the third quarter that it expected a decline in earnings for the fourth quarter as well. Like CBS, Capital Cities-ABC has been hurt by losses on major league baseball coverage at its 80 percent-owned ESPN cable TV network. The third major network, NBC, is owned by General Electric Co. which does not report separately on its broadcasting subsidiary's performance. CBS's unspecified loss projected for the fourth quarter would be its first excluding special items since the company lost $20 million on continuing operations in the fourth quarter of 1986, spokesman Kewith Fawcett said. CBS earned $59.5 million, or $2.31 a share, in the fourth quarter of 1989. This was the first year of CBS's four-year baseball contract which allows it to carry several regular season games along with the league championship series, World Series and All-Star game. While the network reportedly expected to lose about $35 million in the first year of the $1.06 billion contract, the losses are said to have run much higher. CBS Sports President Neal Pilson has said only that the loss on baseball was under $100 million. On Monday, CBS said losses on baseball were ``higher than anticipated'' as the result of soft demand in the ad marketplace for time on sports programs and because the World Series and one of the two league championships were settled in four games instead of the maximum seven. The short series meant CBS had fewer nights of baseball on which to sell advertising. Games later in a series also tend to draw bigger audiences, making them more valuable to advertisers. CBS said its TV network would have had a loss for the fourth quarter even without baseball, because of the soft ad marketplace. It said the marketplace weakness has dampened demand for network, local TV and radio advertising, and said network ad prices have been particulartly soft for National Football League and primetime broadcasts, where CBS ratings have improved. In projecting a decline in earnings from continuing operations in 1991 compared with 1990, CBS cited the worsening economic climate for advertising and rising costs for entertainment programs and sports rights. Another reason is that the 1990 figures include profits on the coverage of the NFL Super Bowl and the National Basketball Association playoffs and championship that the network will not have rights to in 1991. ``As a result, the CBS Television Network is currently expected to show an operating loss in 1991,'' the statement said. Russell said his firm expects the CBS TV Network will post a profit of about $10 million for 1990 and lose about $35 million next year.
AP880328-0018 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 25,622.71 points, up 301.99 points, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Monday.
AP901003-0106 	X	Thousands of Egyptians are traveling to Kuwait and Iraq to bring home relatives or retrieve belongings ranging from birth certificates to mink coats. Others hope to resume old jobs or win positions vacated in the exodus of workers who fled after Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Before they go, the Egyptians must obtain permits from Iraq's consulate in Cairo. The papers, called ``facilitating documents'' rather than visas, allow entrance to Iraq and its ``governorate of Kuwait.'' Egypt has led Arab opposition to the Iraqi conquest, and strongly rejects Baghdad's annexation of its small neighbor. But Cairo has not prevented Egyptians from going to Iraq or Kuwait. ``Some of these people are very poor,'' said an official of the Interior Ministry, which keeps track of the reverse exodus by issuing permits to Egyptians who work outside the country. ``They have no alternative but to work there. They don't care if there's a war or not. We can't stop them.'' On Wednesday, applicants milled about outside the Iraqi Consulate, awaiting their documents. ``I want to see if my school is still open,'' said Mahmoud, a mathmetics teacher at a school in Kuwait who gave only his first name. He seemed in a quandary about the journey, wondering aloud whether he should take his wife. Men waiting with him strongly advised that she stay in Egypt. On Aug. 2, about 1.5 million Egyptians worked in the two Persian Gulf states. At least 400,000 fled in the days that followed, thronging refugee camps in Jordan to await ferries to Egypt. Western and Arab countries helped by sending aircraft and other aid. But as weeks passed, returnees began feeling secure enough to worry about possessions or jobs left behind. An Egyptian in Alexandria told of a friend who had worked in Kuwait for many years but fled the advancing Iraqis, leaving his car and other belongings. He went back last month and recently returned home in the car. It was stuffed with electric appliances, silverware, china and his wife's mink coat. Interior Minister Abdel-Halim Moussa said 5,062 Egyptians left for Iraq and Kuwait through mid-September. ``Some believe they can find jobs, because many Egyptian workers left for home,'' he said in an interview published Wednesday in Al-Ahaly, a weekly newspaper. ``Others leave to bring back their belongings and documents.'' Figures at the Iraqi Consulate were far below Moussa's, and a consular officer could not explain the discrepancy. He said the office issued only about 800 permits through mid-September, with hundreds more being processed. He said most were for Egyptians returning to jobs in Kuwait. Of about 15 men and three women outside the Iraqi Consulate, all but one said they planned to bring back family members or possessions. Fearing Iraqi harassment, all asked not be identified or allowed use only of first names. ``I love Kuwait. It's like my second home,'' said a man who worked there as an expert with the Kuwait navy. ``There's no way I'm going to work there for those people (the Iraqis). I'd fight them if I could.'' Ahmed, a burly man in dark glasses, said he was returning to Kuwait for his wife and three children. They were stranded by the invasion while Ahmed was vacationing in Cairo. Closely examining an Iraqi permit handed to a teacher, Ahmed told him: ``You'd better be careful. I hear the Iraqis are keeping the teachers and not letting them leave.'' Mahmoud, one of three teachers outside the consultate Wednesday, was the only one considering working in occupied Kuwait. Ahmed and two others attempted to dissuade him. ``The atmosphere in Kuwait is terrible now, destruction and terror,'' Ahmed said. ``The Iraqis hate us.''
AP900531-0237 	X	Chrysler Corp. Vice Chairman Gerald Greenwald's resignation, announced at a time when the automaker is scaling back and struggling to regain lost market share, is troubling to the company and investors alike, analysts say. Greenwald, the apparent successor to Chairman Lee Iacocca, said Wednesday he was resigning to head United Air Lines employees' $4.38 billion proposal to buy the carrier. He became the third top Chrysler executive to quit this month. Iacocca, 65, whose contract expires at the end of 1991, said when Greenwald was named vice chairman in November 1988 that the chairmanship was his to lose. But Greenwald, 54, flew earlier this week to Iacocca's villa in central Italy to discuss his plans with his longtime boss, a company spokesman said. ``Lee made a major effort to try and change his mind,'' an unidentified company source told The Detroit News. But Iacocca and Greenwald returned Wednesday to Detroit to make the announcement. ``It has to disturb investors that ... the person who has been designated as the next chairman of Chrysler would leave Chrysler just a few days after the Chrysler treasurer announced his resignation,'' said Ronald A. Glantz, senior vice president at Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. in San Francisco. ``Not only will investors be disturbed by the management succession, they will wonder what these managers know about Chrysler that we don't know,'' Glantz said. Greenwald's resignation, effective immediately, follows those of Michael Hammes, who was vice president of international operations, and Chrysler Treasurer and Vice President Fred Zuckerman. Chrysler also has seen its market share slide and its earnings dive. The automaker reported a 80 percent drop in earnings during the first quarter of this year. It made $71 million during the period, or 32 cents a share, compared with $351 million, or $1.50 a share in the first quarter of 1989. Its U.S. market share for cars and light trucks fell from 14.1 percent at the end of April 1989 to 12.4 percent at the end of April 1990, and an austerity program launched last October will slice $1.5 billion from Chrysler's $426 billion annual budget by 1991. Greenwald, vice chairman since November 1988, will become chief executive officer of the Chicago-based United Employees Acquisition Corp., an entity formed by the airline's three major unions to handle the buyout efforts. UAL stock was up $4.75 a share to $155.62{ in mid-day trading on news of Greenwald's move. United's pilots union led an ill-fated $6.75 billion plan to acquire the airline last year. The proposal collapsed after the union and its partners, which included senior management and British Airways PLC, were unable to get bank financing for the deal, sparking a stock market panic. After the acquisition, Greenwald, 54, will become chairman and chief executive officer of UAL Corp. and United Airlines, its chief subsidiary, the employee group said in a statement. Glantz added that Greenwald is putting himself in position to cash in on the buyout. ``He's paid about $1 million a year (at Chrysler) ... but his Chrysler stock options are worthless,'' Glantz said. ``In a leveraged buyout that works, you can make tens of millions of dollars, maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars.'' Chrysler spokesman Steve Harris said there has been no decison on who will replace Greenwald, but Glantz said the logical successor is Robert S. Miller Jr., 49, now Chrysler's chief financial officer. United Auto Workers union vice president Stan Marshall, who leads the union's Chrysler department, speculated that Robert A. Lutz, president of the automaker's Chrysler Motors Corp. subsidiary, also will have a shot at filling Greenwald's shoes. ``He's been the one out there pushing the cars while Greenwald held back on putting cars on the market,'' Marshall said. Harris said the recent resignations were unrelated to each other or to the company's belt tightening. ``This really shows the depth of Chrysler's management,'' Harris said from the company's Highland Park headquarters. ``There are some very talented people here. They are sought after.'' Hammes left May 17 to become an executive vice president for Black & Decker Corp. and vice president of Black & Decker's power tool group, Harris said. Zuckerman said he resigned, effective this summer, to look elsewhere for a position in ``corporate restructuring or other senior financial officer activities.'' Greenwald worked with Iacocca at Ford Motor Co. and followed him to Chrysler in 1979. He played major roles in securing federal government loans that saved Chrysler from bankruptcy in 1979, and in negotiating the purchase of American Motors Corp. in 1987. ``I can understand Jerry's interest in an opportunity like the one United Air Lines presents today,'' Iacocca said. ``He is a major management talent, and he'll have a chance to show it.'' Greenwald said the difficult part about resigning from Chrysler will be leaving Iacocca and other Chrysler executives. ``Looking back, the most gratifying period for me were those uncertain years,'' he said. ``I've been offered an opportunity to lead another great company during a period of major transition, and it's an opportunity I can't turn down.''
AP900228-0297 	X	The union representing workers at Nordstrom Inc. filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday, accusing the clothing retailer of widespread violations of wage and hour laws. The suit was the second to be filed against the upscale clothier in as many days. On Tuesday, a U.S. District Court suit was filed here by three Nordstrom shareholders who alleged they and other stockholders had suffered financial losses because company officials failed to disclose labor problems at the chain. United Food & Commercial Workers Union Locals 1001 and 367 and five current and former Nordstrom employees filed their suit in King County Superior Court. The suit includes in its class approximately 50,000 current and former Nordstrom workers in Washington, Oregon, California, Virginia, Utah and Alaska. The two locals represent about 1,500 Nordstrom workers in the Seattle area. Nationally, Nordstrom has about 60 stores and employs about 30,000. On Feb. 15, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries ruled Nordstrom had violated state laws by failing to pay some employees for time worked outside normal working hours. The state, acting on a complaint filed by the UFCW, found that workers had not been properly compensated for such things as attending meetings, delivering merchandise to other stores and customers, doing inventory work or writing thank-you notes to customers. Nordstrom said Monday it had made a $15 million provision for expected back pay claims by employees and adopted a procedure to handle the claims. The charge against fourth-quarter earnings was cited by the company as one reason why profits fell 34 percent in the period ending Jan. 31. Joe Peterson, Local 1001 president in Seattle, said at the time that the $15 million was far too little and threatened to sue if Nordstrom officials failed to negotiate a back-pay settlement with the union. Union officials have said claims could exceed $200 million in California alone. Nordstrom said claims forms had been sent to sales clerks in states other than Washington. In Washington state, those forms must be reviewed by the state's labor office and by the two union locals. Labor and Industries spokeswoman Karen Jones said Wednesday that the review had not yet taken place, and James Webster, attorney for Local 1001, said, ``They have not come to us to discuss that plan as they said they would in the papers.'' Webster said the union had ``hoped for a settlement from the outset,'' and was still willing to meet with company officials. The union lawsuit repeats the allegations made in the state complaint and alleges other violations of Washington and California labor laws, including that Washington employees were required to buy clothes from Nordstrom to wear at work. In a news release, Nordstrom co-chairman John Nordstrom said the company regretted the lawsuit, saying that once it was filed, ``local court rules place restrictions on our ability to communicate directly with our employees about their claims. This could slow down and perhaps bring to a halt the resolution process.'' Nordstrom said the company will continue trying to compensate for back claims, including seeking court approval to do so. The suit asks the court to order Nordstrom to keep proper employment records and award damages equal to twice the amount of wages unpaid, other damages to be determined at trial, and attorneys' fees. The union has said claims in Washington state may total $30 million to $40 million and run as high as $200 million in California. It had no estimate on likely claims in other states. To date, the union has received about 520 claims from workers worth about $2.5 million.
AP880406-0091 	X	Alan Paton, the country's best known author, was recovering today from surgery for an undisclosed ailment, a press report said. Paton, whose 1948 novel ``Cry, The Beloved Country'' drew a compelling picture of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation, was in ``fairly serious condition'' after Tuesday's operation, according to an unidentified heart surgeon quoted by the South African Press Association. A spokeswoman at St. Augustine's Hospital in Durban said today that Paton was in stable condition. The 85-year-old novelist underwent surgery after being admitted to the Durban hospital Monday, the news agency said. Paton's ``Cry, The Beloved Country'' is the second best-selling book ever in South Africa after the Bible. Paton worked in anti-apartheid politics for many years with the United Party and still contributes political commentary to South African newspapers. By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.
AP900530-0018 	X	Shining Path rebels assassinated two leaders of presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa's Democratic Front coalition in separate attacks, police said. The shootings took place less than two weeks before Vargas Llosa, a celebrated novelist and free-market advocate, faces centrist Alberto Fujimori in a runoff presidential election. Fujimori, a political newcomer, is favored to win the June 10 showdown. Felix Vega Riquelme, the former governor of Piura, was shot to death on Tuesday in the coastal city 530 miles northwest of Lima, police said. Hours later, in the Andean city of Cerro de Pasco, Prospero Delson Huaman was shot and killed, police said. Cerro de Pasco is 110 miles northeast of Lima. Vega was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle as he was getting out of a pickup truck, police said. An unidentified companion was seriously wounded. Delson was shot twice in the head by two rebels as he walked home from his job at the Centromin mining company, police said. Before the formation of the Democratic Front coalition, both men were leaders of the center-right Popular Action Party of former president Fernando Belaunde. The Maoist-inspired Shining Path has tried to sabotage the electoral process in Peru. Before April 8 general elections, the rebels called an armed strike in Lima and most of Peru's countryside. The government says more than 18,000 people have died in political violence since the Shining Path took up arms 10 years ago. Also Tuesday, police said villagers armed with sticks, stones and machetes battled over a disputed plot of land, leaving seven people dead. As many as 50 people were injured in the clash, which took place Monday night between the small Andean villages of Lircaycacca and Chinabamba, police said. The villages are 30 miles southeast of Huancavalica, an Andean city 145 miles southeast of Lima. The land battle followed three years of deteriorating relations between the two isolated villages, police said. Earlier clashes between the villages, each of which has 200 to 300 residents, resulted in injuries but no deaths, police said.
AP880224-0243 	X	St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children, once a leader in over-the-counter pain relief for youngsters, is slowly disappearing from medicine cabinets. The manufacture of the chewable orange tablets ended in December 1986 as Shering Plough Corp. of Madison focuses on chewable low-dosage aspirin products for adults concerned about preventing heart disease. Aspirin-free pain relievers and name-brand aspirin products competed with each other until the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a report in 1982, said giving aspirin to children suffering from chicken pox and influenza increased the risk of contracting Reye's syndrome. The illness is fatal in about 20 percent to 30 percent of the cases, and some survivors suffer permanent brain damage. The government in 1986 ordered warning labels on all aspirin bottles about the risk to children and teen-agers of contracting Reye's syndrome. The market ``dropped considerably from 1980 with the Reye's syndrome business,'' said Terry Kelly, a spokesman for Sterling Drug Inc. of New York, which still manufactures Bayer's Aspirin for Children. ``We feel there are certain patients for whom children's aspirin is appropriate,'' Kelly said. St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children, first marketed in 1949, was replaced with aspirin-free tablets called St. Joseph's Aspirin-Free Fever Reducer. Jim Saberton, a consultant with Kline & Co. Inc. in Fairfield, said Wednesday that the children's aspirin market has become relatively small with sales of about $15 million in 1986 compared with sales of about $115 million for the non-aspirin pain reliever acetominophen that same year. ``The risk and work involved in making aspirin is unattractive, especially since there's acetominophen,'' he said. St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children and Bayer Children's Aspirin each had about $5 million in sales in 1986, with the balance of sales taken up by generic brands, he said. He also said Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol products, which use acetominophen, cut heavily into sales of St. Joseph's, which once held 50 percent of the children's pain-reliever market while Bayer had the other half. Lewis Nolan, a Schering Plough spokesman, said, however, that his company disputes the link of aspirin to Reye's syndrome. ``It's been our position that there's been no scientific valid evidence to link aspirin and Reye's syndrome,'' he said. St. Joseph's Low Dose Adult Aspirin was introduced last month, although the company makes no claim in relation to aspirin's effectiveness against heart disease. The low dose aspirin product label advises it not be given to young children, he said. Kelly said his company showed higher sales of Bayer Children's Aspirin during 1987, although he could not say if it was due to Shering Plough leaving the market. ``I think the first increase you saw was ours last year. I cannot analyze why that is,'' he said.
AP900112-0032 	X	Proponents of artificial hearts fear the Food and Drug Administration's withdrawal of approval for the Jarvik heart could hurt research toward a totally implantable device, but most see it as a temporary setback. And they don't believe the action will have a serious impact on heart patients because other temporary heart-assist devices still are available as a bridge to a heart transplant. ``It is a shame because the Jarvik, for its limitation, did make some positive contributions,'' said Dr. Antonio Gotto, chief of internal medical services at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and past president of the American Heart Association. ``I hope this will be only a temporary, not a permanent, setback toward the goal of achieving a totally implantable heart.'' The FDA informed Symbion Inc. of Tempe, Ariz., this week that it was withdrawing approval for continued investigational uses of its artificial heart, both as a permanent replacement and a temporary bridge for patients awaiting a human heart transplant. The Jarvik heart, named after its inventor, Dr. Robert Jarvik, gained household recognition after it was implanted in Barney Clark on Dec. 2, 1982. He lived 112 days, his new heart tethered to a bulky external power system, before he succumbed to multiple organ failure. In revoking Symbion's approval, the FDA said it had found ``serious deficiencies'' in manufacturing quality control, monitoring of research sites, servicing of equipment, training of personnel and reporting of adverse reactions to FDA. Dr. Donald Olsen, director of the University of Utah's Institute for Biomedical Engineering, said he was ``surprised and disappointed'' by the FDA's action and hoped it would not hurt future federal funding of artificial heart research in general, particularly for totally implantable devices. ``Our concern, of course, is that this particular publicity will not have a negative influence'' on artificial heart development in general, said Olsen. ``But I would like to make sure (people know) that the artificial heart did not fail; it was a failure on the part of Symbion to meet the requirements of the FDA'' for improving the device. Gerson Rosenberg, a biomedical engineer who leads Pennsylvania State University's efforts to design an electric heart, said he did not think the decision to pull the Jarvik would hinder research. But others felt the decision could slow research in the field. ``By removing the Jarvik, you take the first and main artificial heart player out of the ballgame,'' said Dr. Jacob Kolff, who heads Temple University's efforts to develop the temporary ``Philadelphia Heart.'' ``That leaves a bit of a vacuum for those researchers who think there may be a future for an artificial heart,'' said the surgeon, whose father, Dr. Willem Kolff, developed the first artificial kidney in 1943. Withdrawal of the permanent Jarvik heart leaves only one other natural-heart replacement with FDA investigational approval, but that device is used only as a temporary bridge and only at Hershey Medical Center of Penn State. Other companies have approvals for temporary implants and for left ventricular assist pumps that help the natural heart work without replacement.
AP900601-0093 	X	A tanker carrying 375,000 gallons of fuel oil ran aground today in the Delaware River but was refloated a few hours later without any apparent leaks, authorities said. The Norwegian tanker Manhattan Princess, operated by Ahlers Shipping of Belgium, grounded on a muddy bottom on the New Jersey side of the river at 12:45 a.m. today, said Coast Guard Lt. Pete Hoffman. Coast Guard Lt. Pete Hoffman said two tugboats pulling on the tanker got it off the bottom with little trouble after high tide arrived about 9:15 a.m. Investigators found no leakage or ship damage, he said. The ship, drawing 37 feet of water, was en route to the Hess terminal in Pennsauken, N.J., when it wandered out of the 40-foot deep channel. An investigator went along with the tanker to look into the cause of the grounding, Hoffman said. The ease of refloating the tanker was an indication that the tanker wasn't very hard aground on the soft, muddy bottom, Hoffman said, and it also suggested that there wouldn't be any damage to the hull.
AP881126-0128 	X	Two mothers tipped police to drugs in their sons' bedrooms, leading to the arrest of one of the teen-agers and confiscation of cocaine from both, police said. The recent arrest of a 14-year-old Landover boy came after his mother told police that she had found the drug in the youth's room, said Carol Landrum, a spokesman for the police department. The son was charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute and was being held at Boys Village in Cheltenham, Landrum said. Police said they seized 19 grams of cocaine, which officers said could sell for $4,700 if divided into smaller amounts. Only one day earlier, another Landover woman told police she found nearly seven ounces of cocaine, with a street value police placed at about $47,000, under her son's bed and a handgun in his dresser drawer. Police did not immediately make an arrest in that case, Landrum said. Police declined to identify either woman. Police Chief Robert Zidek in neighboring Bladensburg, whose department offers parents a videotape showing how to search for drugs, said the mothers probably did the right thing to help their sons. ``They may have tried everything else, and nothing worked,'' Zidek said. He advises parents who think their child is using drugs to talk to the child first, get the child professional counseling and save calling the police as a last resort.
AP880220-0101 	X	Future peace talks between Nicaragua's leftist government and its Contra rebels are likely to have a political hue the Sandinistas never wanted. The government appeared to open the door to political discussions with its armed opponents by belatedly agreeing in principle last week to a proposal by the mediator of the negotiations, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua. That proposal called on the Contras to accept a cease-fire in exchange for four major concessions by the Sandinista government. The concessions were something the Contras had been seeking, and they were quick to accept the cardinal's plan. The government was called upon to grant unrestricted freedom of the press and a total, unconditional amnesty for political prisoners, renew a dialogue with its internal opposition and review its universal military conscription law. Whether it was a tactical error or a considered response, the Sandinistas delayed in taking a position that President Daniel Ortega has long and strenuously opposed. On innumerable occasions in the past, he has said he would never discuss political matters with the Contras. ``We don't want to create the impression that we don't want a cease-fire and are being intransigent,'' said Paul Reichler, a Washington, D.C., attorney who advises the Sandinistas. ``At all costs, we want the negotiations to go forward.'' Reichler's comments came in a chat with reporters Friday after Obando y Bravo abruptly suspended the latest round of peace talks a day before they were supposed to end and obliquely blamed the Sandinistas for the breakdown. Ortega said Saturday in Managua that the cardinal's proposal ``was not rejected'' by the Sandinistas and said his government ``is willing to continue the conversations.'' But a clarification was needed on the withdrawal of the Contras to enclaves during the truce, Ortega said at the close of a government meeting. He repeated that his government is willing to apply an amnesty once a cease-fire is in effect. Referring to the military draft, he said ``it is logical that with the end of the war the military service will not require the current volume (of soldiers).'' Ortega told the meeting on new economic measures aimed at fighting inflation that ``enemies of the revolution'' opposed the measures. He said the right, the extreme left and the opposition daily La Prensa should be careful not to stir up insurrection. The cardinal said after his return to Managua on Saturday that with the suspension of talks, ``We have given time for reflection since there is a lack of trust between the two sides.'' Appearances are of vital importance to both sides, with neither party wanting to be seen as the spoiler as long as there is any remaining chance the U.S. Congress might approve additional military aid for the Contras. In private talks with reporters, the Sandinistas made it clear that they were initially surprised by the cardinal's five-point proposal, then disappointed by his abrupt cancellation of the talks. Victor Hugo Tinoco, Nicaragua's deputy foreign minister, said Obando halted the negotiations Friday afternoon before he had a chance to deliver the government's formal, written response to the proposal the cardinal put forth Thursday. But Tinoco insisted that he had discussed the government's position at length with the cardinal Friday morning and had not been given any reason to believe that the cardinal was unwilling to continue the negotiations. The cardinal ``did not tell us he disagreed'' with the government's position, Reichler told reporters later. In its written response, the government declared its ``agreement in principle'' with the cardinal's proposal, but carefully conditioned its answers to his requests that it reconsider its mandatory draft law and grant an unconditional amnesty to the thousands of political prisoners in Nicaraguan jails. But before Nicaragua's formal response was delivered, Obando had canceled the talks, saying he was disappointed that both sides had not accepted his proposal, at least in principle. The remark was clearly aimed at the Sandinistas. But late or not, the government's response clearly put such political matters as press freedom and amnesty on the bargaining table for further talks and, given the opening, the Contras are likely to push for even greater concessions. The cardinal is expected to announce a time and place for a third round of face-to-face negotiations sometime this week. The first round of talks took place in San Jose, Costa Rica, in late January, only a week before the House rejected President Reagan's latest request for about $43 million in additional Contra aid. But the administration is considering a new bid for military aid for the rebels, and as long as that possibility exists, both sides will be playing their cards cautiously at the bargaining table.
AP900310-0154 	X	NBC's Jane Pauley, safely away from the woes and slipping ratings of the ``Today'' show she once co-hosted, starts life anew in prime time Tuesday with an appropriately entitled special: ``Changes.'' Her own changes include anchoring a prime-time news series that NBC once said might start this summer. However, it has no executive producer yet and may not arrive until fall or even January, she says. But she doesn't consider this the NBC News version of ``Waiting for Godot.'' ``I think it's very sensible,'' Pauley says of the delay. In her view, ``Corporations don't normally behave sensibly if there is some pressure to put something on the air. But this strikes me as a very rational way to approach a weekly series, and I'm very pleased with that.'' On Saturday, Pauley, who also has been filling in for Tom Brokaw on the ``NBC Nightly News,'' leaves for East Germany to start another documentary on sports there. A few more documentaries lie ahead after that. Tuesday's special is about three people and one couple whose lives are in transition. Work on the first story, about Frank Morgan, a 56-year-old acclaimed jazz saxophonist who spent much of his life in prison, began in December. That was the month that Pauley, her contract extended to 1992, bid adieu to 13 years of predawn wakeups for ``Today.'' She had told its audience in October she was leaving and got a hug then from her successor, Deborah Norville. But since January, ``Today'' hasn't exactly been hugged by viewers, even though Pauley took pains in October to assure them she wasn't at odds with Norville or co-host Bryant Gumbel, whom she called her friends. Although NBC executives say they have no research to indicate it, ``Today'' likely was hurt and ABC's ``Good Morning America'' helped by the turmoil preceding Pauley's decision to leave. Those off-camera troubles last year included the leak of Gumbel's caustic memo criticizing staffers, notably weatherman Willard Scott, and the decision of NBC executives, including ``Today'' vice president Dick Ebersol, to replace veteran ``Today'' news anchor John Palmer with Norville. Although NBC officials have said they expected a dip in ``Today'' ratings when Norville moved up from news anchor to succeed Pauley in January, the dip now is in its third month. ABC's ``Good Morning America'' easily won the important February ratings ``sweeps,'' the results used by TV stations to set their advertising rates. It averaged a 4.5 rating, which was good news for ABC affiliates. No so for NBC affiliates. ``Today,'' according to NBC's estimate, had a 3.65 average in the sweeps _ well below the 4.6 it had in February 1989 when it won the reveille ratings race. Each ratings point now represents 921,000 homes. Pauley, who last year kept a stiff upper lip and never publicly complained about the behind-camera woes at ``Today,'' is sympathetic to its current ratings problems. ``Well, I've been there before,'' she says, harking back to a time when she co-hosted ``Today'' with Brokaw and the Nielsen verdict was that ``Good Morning America,'' then hosted by David Hartman, had become No. 1. ``It was almost a relief when it finally happened,'' she says. ``Because from that moment on, we were able to scramble and get our act together and come back.'' She thinks the same thing will happen again, and that those in charge of ``Today,'' including new executive producer Tom Capra, will ``be able to put together something that comes on pretty strong.'' Pauley laughed uproariously when asked about an upcoming report in the National Enquirer confiding that NBC, on bended knee, had begged her to return to ``Today'' and that she has agreed to interview guests on two of five shows each week, starting in April. ``Totally bogus,'' she said. Her own thoughts about the ``Today'' turmoil and its effect on the show's ratings? ``Obviously, I can't personalize it,'' she said. ``And yet, I think that an explanation is that there were `dislocations,' shall we say, on the `Today' show. ... And I think that bothers people, especially early in the morning. ``It's not just that `Jane is gone.' It's just that there was too much disruption. In the morning, you want, er, regularity.''
AP900416-0171 	X	Yellow Creek used to run black for miles, with a stench that made people retch. Red blisters disfigured fish in the stream. People downstream blamed pollution from a tannery and aged sewage treatment plant in this town of 13,000 for their neighbors' cancer deaths as well as their foul well water. In 1983, the city engineer testified that 2.5 million gallons of raw or partly treated sewage had been dumped into Yellow Creek that year alone. Today, Yellow Creek sparkles as it winds quietly through the thickly forested Appalachian hills. People who live along the creek say water quality is probably the best they've seen in a decade and credit the $7.7 million sewage treatment plant built in 1986. Credit is also due to the Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens, a local environmental group that has labored since 1980, filing lawsuits, lobbying Congress, holding candlelight memorials for people they believe were fatally sickened by pollution, occupying city hall to demand that the creek be cleaned. But the black tide, although receded, left behind a legacy of health questions and lingering legal challenges. Neighbors suspect that years of tannery pollution deposited a layer of toxic sediment in the creek bed. And they're worried that a new court agreement will loosen pollution regulations. Over the years, word of Yellow Creek and its lessons has stretched well beyond this mountainous corner of southeastern Kentucky. The tactics and victories of the Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens are being studied by environmental groups across America, and in some cases, around the world. ``Remember, this struggle for the small community of Yellow Creek is in no way the only one,'' said M.M. Chiputa of the Southern African Environmental Network of Zaire. ``We have it, you have it and they have it.'' Yellow Creek has gained such attention largely because of Larry Wilson, the president of the citizens group. Wilson is environmental programs director at the Highlander Institute in New Market, Tenn., which holds training sessions for social activists who hail from Bhopal, India, to Dayhoit, Ky. As a polished insider of the national environmental movement, Wilson wields influence that last month drew more than 100 activists from Massachusetts to Arkansas to a meeting on the future of Yellow Creek. John O'Connor, executive director of the National Toxics Campaign in Boston, struck a common theme among many of the speakers at the March 31 meeting. ``We kind of feel if they can get away with poisoning people in Yellow Creek, they can get away with poisoning anyone in the United States,'' O'Connor said. Yet Yellow Creek is anything but poisonous today, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA environmental engineer Ron Barrow said results of a study of creek water and surface sediment, to be released later this month, will ``show significant improvements'' over a 1982 study of creek pollution. A standard EPA test using water fleas showed they not only survived but also reproduced in full-strength effluent from the new sewage plant. And Dirk Anderson, manager of the Middlesboro Tannery Co., says it ``has done an excellent job in meeting state and federal guidelines'' and ``installed the most efficient pretreatment system in the tanning industry today.'' He says the tannery's waste water ``is one of the best discharges in the United States'' and asks, ``What is the controversy?'' To many residents, the controversy remains vivid. An advisory warning residents of Bell County since the early 1980s not to swim in the creek, drink its water or eat its fish is still in force. Wilson asserts that he ``feels really comfortable'' in estimating that 100 deaths in the valley from cancer, leukemia and other illness can be linked to the pollution. A 1988 study of Bell County cancer rates, while failing to tie the illness to creek pollution, did show that residents face an increased risk of cancer. ``Those cancers that have been linked to occupational exposure to tannery work tend to be higher in Bell County than the comparison groups,'' said the report by Lorann Stallones, an epidemiologist with the University of Kentucky Medical Center. And a study done in the early 1980s by Vanderbilt University's Center for Health Services indicated that residents who drank well water tended to have higher rates of miscarriages, kidney and digestive ailments. A $31 million lawsuit filed by residents against the tannery in 1983 requested long-term health monitoring, a proposal supported then by a leading state health official. ``Toxic chemicals often take many years to produce their effects, and certainly there have been significant exposures in the past because of the tannery effluent,'' Dr. Arthur L. Frank of the University of Kentucky Medical Center said in a statement for the lawsuit. No long-term monitoring is underway, and the lawsuit is still pending in state court. Many of these concerns deal less with the creek's current water quality and more with the sediment on its bottom. A University of Louisville chemist probing the creek bed in 1987 found deep deposits of chromium, a byproduct of tanning. In research by the National Cancer Institute, chromium is suspected of causing cancer in humans. W. Hank Graddy III, attorney for the citizens' group, said the study indicated chromium was still accumulating ``even after all these years of litigation and trying (to) ... require them to adopt controls.'' Barrow, the EPA engineer, and Bill Phillips, an attorney for the agency, said they were not aware of any complaints about chromium deposits until a reporter posed questions about the matter earlier this month. That reaction, along with other official stances, has made Yellow Creek residents suspicious of government regulators, especially the EPA. Creek residents are worried, for example, about a new court document signed by the city, the tannery and the EPA that will alter the amount of chromium, cyanide, mercury, and bacteria allowed in tannery wastewater sent to the sewage plant. Graddy, Wilson and others contend the agreement will increase the permissable amounts and cause Yellow Creek to be polluted again. Attorneys for the city, tannery and EPA all say it would tighten pollution regulations, not make the situation worse. The agreement amends a 1985 consent decree that settled a 1984 lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. That suit alleged numerous violations of EPA regulations because raw sewage was spilling into the creek. The disagreement is so strong because each side is comparing the new document to a different prior arrangement: the officials assert the provisions strengthen the 5-year-old consent decree, and the environmentalists say they are weaker than those in an operative pollution permit dating from 1985. The citizens' group also opposes the agreement because it would reduce the fines levied against the city and tannery. Together, they have been fined at least $1.62 million for federal pollution violations, but collections would total only $177,400 under the pending amendment. ``The burden of proof is on the victims here,'' Wilson said, ``because government agencies and industry already have the money and lawyers in place to defend their position. ... ``We're overwhelmed,'' he said. ``We're fighting life and death.''
AP880504-0011 	X	African guerrilla leader Sam Nujoma is asking presidential hopefuls Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson to pressure South Africa into relinquishing control over South-West Africa, the territory known as Namibia. Nujoma, who heads the South-West Africa People's Organization, said he had met with campaign managers who promised him a meeting with the two Democratic candidates within the coming week. GOP contender George Bush has not responded to a similar request for a meeting, Nujoma said in an interview Tuesday. Nujoma, 58, said that despite claims to the contrary, South Africa is trying to strengthen its hold over the mineral-rich territory which it rules in defiance of a 1978 U.N. resolution calling for Namibian independence. Nujoma, who lives in exile in Angola, accused South African troops of arson and bombing attacks against Namibia's 1.5 million residents, including the burning of 14 church-run schools last month. South Africa has denied the charges, accusing SWAPO of the attacks. South African President P.W. Botha paid a rare visit to the territory on April 8, and proposed increased powers for his chief representative there. The proposal would weaken the ``transitional'' government established by South Africa in 1985 with a view to eventual independence for Namibia. ``South Africa has no intention whatsoever to leave Namibia,'' said Nujoma. The South Africans will have to be ``forced out by the combined resistance of the Namibian people and international pressure.'' He called on the next U.S. administration to pursue steps similar to the trade sanctions legislated by Congress in 1986 against South Africa. Nujoma said he had requested a meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz but had not received any response. A State Department official confirmed Nujoma had asked for a meeting, and said Shultz had yet to reply. Shultz has been criticized by conservative members of Congress, such as Rep. Patrick Swindall, R-Ga., for allowing Nujoma into the country in view of his organization's guerrilla activities and support from the Soviet Union. In a letter to Shultz, Swindall called Nujoma a ``terrorist and Soviet puppet.'' The United States supports a South African pullout and an independent Namibia, but its contacts with SWAPO have been limited. U.S. representatives are taking part in two days of talks in London with representatives from Angola, Cuba and South Africa on a plan for the pullout of South African forces from Namibia and Cuban troops from Angola. Cuba has an estimated 37,000 soldiers in Angola. Estimates for the South African military presence in Namibia range from 40,000 to 100,000. Nujoma said he was sure Angola would protect his group's interests at the talks and press its demands for Namibian independence. ``It will be a package, I am assured of this by the Angolan government,'' he said. If an agreement is worked out, SWAPO will stop its attacks against South African troops, he said. SWAPO says it killed more than 90 South Africans this year, but its claims cannot be verified. Nujoma conceded that SWAPO gets most of its arms and training from the Soviet Union, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Angola and several other members of the Organization of African Unity. But he added that if the United States wants to supply SWAPO with weapons, ``we will certainly accept it with great pleasure.'' Nujoma is on a three-week visit to the United States to attend several U.N.-sponsored seminars on Namibia and to highlight his organization's demands.
AP900916-0054 	X	Voters attacked election officials and smashed ballot boxes Sunday, claiming the country's first multiparty elections in 22 years were rigged in favor of President Omar Bongo. One election official was reported hurt in the violence, which forced the closing of the main voting station in the capital city of Libreville. Sunday was the first of two rounds of voting to elect 120 legislators from 520 candidates in the oil-rich West African nation of 1.2 million people. Bongo called the election and legalized opposition parties following a wave of protests earlier this year. Bongo had permitted only his Democratic Party to operate since shortly after taking power in late 1967. Violence began after voters at the largest balloting station, Libreville's Hotel de Ville, said they discovered stuffed ballot boxes before voting began. They smashed the boxes and assaulted officials, witnesses said. At several voting stations in the capital, particularly in the populous suburbs of Lalala and Venez-Voir, election officials asked voters to deposit unmarked ballots. Shocked voters cried out that the elections were ``a scandal.''Journalists saw ballot papers that did not match the official forms circulating in Libreville. In Tchibanga, a small town about 300 miles southeast of Libreville, an independent radio station reported voters ransacked the election office and town hall and beat up election officials. The attacks there began after voters learned there were not enough ballots, and some of the 37 opposition parties claimed their tickets had been removed from voting booths, the station reported. The government did not immediately respond to the charges of fraud. It also was not clear if ballots would be counted or whether future voting will be held. Bongo's opponents accuse him of corruption, nepotism and economic policies that cause unemployment. They have promised better health care, education, housing and roads. Bongo, one of a handful of civilian leaders in West Africa, has said his party is ready to entertain new ideas. The Democratic Party already was assured of 13 uncontested assembly seats. The death of Progress Party leader Joseph Rendjambe on May 23 triggered widespread rioting by followers who accused Bongo of orchestrating his murder. The unrest ended after French and Gabonese doctors performed an autopsy and concluded Rendjambe, a diabetic, died of natural causes. The worst violence occurred in Port Gentil, where demonstrators burned down the French consulate and took some foreign oil executives hostage. France sent troops and the hostages were freed. Gabon, which achieved independence in 1960, receives about 80 percent of its income from oil.
AP880725-0226 	X	How does an adult reviewer approach a movie such as ``Big Top Pee-wee''? Very carefully. If you lambaste it as an entertainment aimed at the 5-year-old audience, you might be accurate. But you could also be accused of being a kill-joy and a fogy. If you try to compare it with the innocent comedy of the silent screen, you might also score some points. But you could also be accused of hunting for gold in a pile of dross. So here goes. ``Big Top Pee-wee'' is a clever piece of pure entertainment conceived by Paul Reubens and executed by Pee-wee Herman, who are the same person. Those who loved ``Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' will adore this one. The story begins with Pee-wee waking up on the most antiseptic farm in the world. Everything is sunny and bright, matching Pee-wee's personality. The animals sleep on mattresss and eat flapjacks at a picnic table. Pee-wee's greenhouse is a wonder. With his magic food supplements, he can grow anything. Even hot dogs. Pee-wee's constant companion is Vance, a pure-white pig. Vance talks. With a charity seldom seen in comedians, Pee-wee gives Vance most of the punchlines. But then, how are you going to upstage a talking pig? Every day Pee-wee is scheduled for a sandwich lunch with his heartthrob, the local schoolmarm (Penelope Ann Miller). For such a shy man, Pee-wee can be aggressive. He throws his body on top of the schoolmarm, who resists him because the schoolkids are watching. And taking snapshots. Then the circus comes to the farm. A new set of animals are roaming the acres, as well as exotic circus people, such as the Italian aerialist (Valeria Golino), with whom Pee-wee falls in love. The townspeople object to having the circus in their midst, providing a modicum of conflict to the script. Centerstage at all times is Pee-wee Herman, a man with a squeaky voice, tight suit and white socks. He is, in the end, an endearing character, guileless yet savvy. He wears well, despite the inane circumstances in which he finds himself. Kris Kristofferson as the circus boss lends strength, though his three-inch wife (Susan Tyrell) stretches fantasy too far. Randal Kleiser directed in a straightforward fashion. Only one sequence is truly hilarious, and that is borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock. When Pee-wee finally makes love with the aerialist, we see a train entering a tunnel (``North by Northwest'') and skyrockets exploding (``To Catch a Thief''). ``Big Top Pee-wee'' was produced by Reubens and Debra Hill, and written by him and George McGrath. The rating is PG, perhaps for sexual innuendo. Running time: 87 minutes.
AP900612-0062 	X	A 17-year-old Israeli going to pray at the Western Wall was stabbed twice in the stomach today in the walled Old City, authorities said. A police roundup of Palestinian suspects set off more violence. The incidents came the day after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir won a vote of confidence in Parliament for his new right-wing government. Cabinet members today promised new steps to put down the 2{-year-old Palestinian uprising. Israel radio reported that the new defense minister, Moshe Arens, began consulting high-ranking army officers today on how to end the uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The new foreign minister, David Levy, suggested the army could withdraw from the occupied lands as part of a peace settlement. But he repeated the new government's opposition to Palestinian demands for statehood in the territories. The new government's agriculture minister, Rafael Eitan, who led Israel's forces in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, suggested on army radio that more Palestinians be deported. ``Instead of shooting at children you have to deport those responsible, the inciters, the organizers,'' he said. Since the start of the uprising in December 1987, 60 Arabs have been expelled to neighboring Lebanon. After today's stabbing in Jerusalem, police seized up about 100 Palestinians near Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City, said Jersualem police commander Arieh Bibi. The arrests set off a spate of stone-throwing at Israeli cars on Sultan Suleiman Street just outside the city walls, but no injuries were reported. The victim, identified as Yosef Edri, was in moderate condition at Sharei Tzadek Hospital, spokeswoman Orna Cohen said. He is a student at a yeshiva, or Jewish seminary, and is from Dimona in Israel's Negev Desert. Bibi told Israel radio that police had recovered the knife. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, meanwhile, soldiers destroyed three houses of Palestinians accused of throwing firebombs or killing suspected Arab collaborators and sealed two other homes of Palestinian suspects. One of the suspects, 25-year-old Abdel Hakim Shana, was convicted of murdering alleged collaborators and sentenced to life imprisonment. Soldiers tore down the four-room house owned by his father, which was home to a family of 12. The Supreme Court rejected appeals from some families of the suspects. U.S. policy opposes the demolition of houses as an unfair collective punishment. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories said there has been a marked decline in recent months in destruction of houses by the army. It said that through the end of May a total of 293 houses were destroyed and 173 sealed for security reasons. Several hundred others have been destroyed for being built without a permit.
AP880925-0059 	X	And of course, as far as the _ how we make it better _ yes, we can do better on interdiction, but we've got to do a lot better on inter _ we've got to do a lot better on education. And we have to do _ be tougher on those who commit crimes. We've got to get after the users more. We have to change this whole culture. You know, I saw a movie, ``Crocodile Dundee.'' And I saw the cocaine scene treated with humor, as though this was a humorous little incident. And it's bad. Everybody ought to be in this thing _ entertainment industry, people involved in the schools, education. And it isn't a Republican or Democrat or a liberal problem, but we have got to instill values in these young people. And I have put forward a many-point drug program that includes what I would do as president of the United States in terms of doing better on interdiction, and in terms of doing better in the neighborhoods. But I think we're all in this together, and my plea to the American people is: values in the schools.
AP880817-0342 	X	R.P. Scherer Corp.'s largest shareholder, waging a proxy battle Wednesday that could lead to the sale of the company her late father founded and estranged husband runs, said there's no reason to believe the capsule maker's brisk earnings pace will continue. Karla Scherer Fink, addressing shareholders at the company's annual meeting here in an effort to win three seats on Scherer's board, said the company's strong financial position makes this an opportune time to sell. But after an hour of civilized wrangling, Chairman Wilbur Mack adjourned the meeting until 10 a.m. EDT next Wednesday, when he said results of the balloting would be announced. Ballots were turned over to the accounting firm of Arthur Young & Co. for tabulation. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fink and her brother, John S. Scherer, were given an eleventh-hour boost when a state Court of Appeals judge ordered that a block of 9.3 percent of Scherer's stock, held in trust for them, not be voted. The trustee of the block, Manufacturers National Bank, indicated it would back management. In nationwide over-the-counter trading, Scherer closed up $1.37{ to $26.25. Speaking to about 200 people attending the meeting, Mrs. Fink, daughter of the company's late founder Robert P. Scherer, said, ``There are interested potential buyers watching closely what goes on here ... But they will not come forward in the kind of hostile environment the management has created.'' Mrs. Fink filed for divorce from Peter Fink, Scherer's president and chief executive, several months ago after the board rejected her proposal to sell the company. In his address to shareholders, Fink countered that ``to divert and to distract management and employees with a continuation of the controversy that has marked these past several months would be a grave disservice to the company and the shareholders.'' While management does not intend to ``put a for-sale sign on the door,'' he said, ``if a bonafide offer were to emerge, it would clearly be our board's duty to give it thorough and full consideration.'' After the meeting Mrs. Fink refused to predict the outcome of the vote. ``We're hoping,'' she said. In a statement released later, John Scherer said the pair was ``confident our candidates had won the two board seats ... We were not certain about the third seat. But as the meeting progressed and we learned the bank could not vote the trust, our optimism increased.'' Fink said the company ``wants to first determine what the outcome of this election is.'' Fink added that ``we simply cannot afford to be sidetracked by a headline-making personality conflict.'' Scherer, employing about 2,800 people at 22 facilities in 13 countries, is the world's largest maker of gelatin capsules for the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement industries. The company had $290.7 million in sales and $15.1 million in net income in its last fiscal year, ended March 31. Mrs. Fink and her brother control about 38.2 percent of the company but are seeking control over an additional 470,000 shares _ or 9.3 percent _ that are held in two family trusts set up by their father. The support of another shareholder, Cilluffo Associates, brings the total shares backing the pair to 39.9 percent. The two had sought removal of Manufacturers National Bank as administrator of the trusts, claiming it had conflicting interests. A probate court judge named an independent fiduciary to decide how the stock should be voted. A circuit court judge overturned that ruling, and the two asked the state court of appeals to reverse the circuit judge's ruling. The dispute has been marked by letters and calls to shareholders, advertisements and news releases.
AP900811-0020 	X	With Magellan safely in orbit around Venus today, exuberant NASA engineers started preparing the spacecraft for a mapping mission meant to reveal what forces shaped the landscape of the hellishly hot planet. ``We think we'll see lots of rocky surfaces, hills and dales and volcanoes,'' said Bill Johnson, chief engineer for Magellan's radar imaging system. Geologists hope the $744 million exploration will reveal ``the way the planet works internally, the way mountains are built and the way volcanoes work,'' said Steve Saunders, chief Magellan scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mapping is set to start next month. On Friday, Magellan plunged over the north pole of Venus, fired its braking rocket and dropped into an elliptical orbit that ranges from about 171 miles to 5,054 miles above the planet's surface. ``We made it!'' said Carolynn Young, a Magellan project team member. ``I had goose bumps from head to toe. It's wonderful.'' The spacecraft successfully jettisoned the retrorocket Friday night, laboratory spokesman Bob MacMillin said. He said engineers' plans for today included monitoring Magellan's performance and collecting precise information on its orbit _ details needed for successful mapping. Magellan's arrival at Venus broke a string of bad luck for NASA. Hydrogen gas leaks have grounded the shuttle fleet temporarily and a mirror focusing flaw severely impaired the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope. Magellan is equipped with radar designed to peer through the thick Venusian clouds and unveil the landscape of the second planet from the sun. On Sept. 1, it will start mapping by bouncing radar waves off Venus and capturing the echoes. NASA said the radar should be able to yield pictures and maps of about 90 percent of Venus at a level of detail 10 times better than in images produced by two Soviet Venera spacecraft that were launched in 1983. It should be able to detect features as small as about two football fields. ``It's like going to the Grand Canyon instead of having someone tell you about it,'' mission analyst Rob Lock said. Magellan project manager Tony Spear said some worthwhile pictures of Venus' surface may be produced by radar tests that start next Thursday, but ``it is most likely in September ... that we will get images of sufficient quality.'' Magellan was launched from the shuttle Atlantis on May 4, 1989, starting a roundabout 948-million-mile journey to Venus. It met the planet at a distance of 144 million miles from Earth. Venus is Earth's nearest neighbor other than the moon, and is similar to Earth in size, mass, density and position. Magellan may reveal similarities and differences between the two planets, including whether any of Venus' volcanoes are active and whether its surface features are formed by large-scale movements of gigantic plates of rocky crust. It also will look for signs that the bone-dry planet may have had oceans before a runaway ``greenhouse effect'' raised its surface temperature to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Saunders said Magellan has no ability to determine what caused global warming on Venus, but may find clues to when it started. Lennard Fisk, NASA's associate administrator for space science, called Magellan's arrival at Venus ``the beginning of one of the most exciting eras of planetary exploration'' _ a period that includes upcoming missions to Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, asteroids and comets. Magellan was the first U.S. planetary spacecraft launched since Pioneers 12 and 13 were sent to Venus in 1978, and also the first launched from a shuttle. Magellan, named for 16th century global circumnavigator Ferdinand Magellan, is 21 feet long and 15 feet wide. After firing the heavy fuel-filled braking rocket, its 3.7-ton weight dropped to less than 1.5 tons, Spear said.
AP900127-0040 	X	Lewis Mumford, a philosopher, planner, critic and educator who warned of the dehumanizing effect of technology, died in his spartan, functional country home. He was 94. He died on Friday ``of old age'' in his sleep, said his grandson, James Morss. ``He was frail, but there was no sickness.'' Mumford, best known for his writings on cities, culture and architecture, authored more than 30 books, including ``The City in History,'' for which he received the 1961 National Book Award. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Reagan in 1986. Recipients are honored for their lifetime contributions to American arts. The roots of Mumford's philosophy grew from the America of a century ago. He embraced the notion of self-reliance put forth by Whitman and Emerson. He also was inspired by Melville and Thoreau, who stressed the virtues of humanism and a personalized society. ``The test of maturity, for nations as well as individuals, is not the increase in power,'' he said near the end of his life, ``but the increase of self-understanding, self-control, self-direction and self-transcendence. For in a mature society, man himself, and not his machines or his organizations, is the chief work of art.'' Mumford urged people to turn away from faceless technology and return to human feelings and moral values. He vehemently denied accusations that he saw science as evil and wanted to destroy machinery with the hope of bringing back a pre-industrial society. What he feared, he said, was science without conscience and ``a dominant minority'' of those people who had mastered high technology holding power over others as a result. The illegitimate son of a businessman, Mumford was born in New York City on Oct. 19, 1895, and grew up on Manhattan's West Side. He attended night classes at City College for five years, but failing health prevented him from completing his degree. Instead, he took graduate courses at Columbia University and at the New School for Social Research. It was then he discovered the works of Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish town planner whose influence he called the most important in his life. After serving as a naval radio technician in World War I, Mumford became associate editor of The Dial magazine. His essays on housing and urban matters led him to become acting editor of The Sociological Review. Mumford was co-founder of the Regional Planning Association of America and served on the staff of the New York Housing and Regional Planning Commission. In the 1930s, he began weekly art columns and monthly architecture critiques for The New Yorker. From 1934 to 1951, he published four books that became known as the ``Renewal of Life'' series. They made his international reputation and landed him on Time magazine's cover. The volumes _ ``Technics and Civilization,'' ``The Culture of Cities,'' ``The Condition of Man,'' and the ``Conduct of Life'' _ established Mumford as a first-rate thinker. Visiting professorships at MIT, Dartmouth, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania followed. Among honors bestowed upon him were the President's Medal of Freedom in 1964, the Gold Medal of the Town Planning Institute, the Emerson-Thoreau Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Leonardo da Vinci Medal of the Society for the History of Technology and an honorary knighthood of the Order of the British Empire. He is survived by his wife, Sophia; his daughter, Alison Mumford Morss, and two grandchildren, James and Elizabeth.
AP900825-0159 	X	Stock prices rose today in what analysts described as a technical rebound from the market's free-fall slide of the past several weeks. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 173.02 points over the past three sessions, recovered 30.94 to 2,514.36 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. Gainers outnumbered losers by about 8 to 7 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 821 up, 720 down and 444 unchanged. Analysts said buyers were encouraged by hopes that the markets had gone too far in their appraisal of the potential calamities resulting from the showdown in the Middle East. But by near-unanimous agreement the mood in the marketplace remained cautious and touchy. It will take months, economists observe, to gauge the effects on business aactivity of the upsurge in oil prices and interest rates that followed Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. Even without that disruptive influence, the domestic economy was widely believed to have been verging on a recession as it began the second half of 1990. Among actively traded blue chips, General Electric rose 1[ to 59|; International Business Machines 1] to 98\; Boeing 2} to 45\, and American Telephone & Telegraph } to 31\. Federal National Mortgage gained 1} to 28]. The stock traded as low as 24~ Thursday before the company announced that it had earmarked as much as $500 million for buybacks of its common shares and warrants. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks rose 1.07 to 169.95. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 1.14 at 314.71. Volume on the Big Board came to 169.08 million shares with an hour to go.
AP900813-0090 	X	Daily massage can speed up the growth of premature babies who were exposed to cocaine in the womb, a study says. As a result, the babies were able to leave the hospital about four days earlier on average than non-massaged premature infants, researcher Tiffany Field said Monday. Faster-growing babies also become more responsive, which promotes interaction with parents, she said. Other research shows that parental involvement helps a child's development in the first year of life, she said. Fetuses are exposed to cocaine when a pregnant woman uses the drug. Such use raises the risk of premature birth. Field is a professor of pediatrics, psychology and psychiatry at the University of Miami Medical School. She reported preliminary results from the study at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, and discussed it in a later interview. The meeting concludes Tuesday. The study, still in progress, has so far produced data on 16 infants. They were born about 10 weeks before their due dates, weighing about 2.6 pounds. They had to stay 20 days to 30 days in a neonatal intensive care unit. Normally, such children then require about 20 days in the hospital simply to gain enough weight to be discharged, Field said. The massage program took place during this latter period. Infants were massaged with firmness, Field said. ``They love it when you give them a little pressure,'' she said. The routine included 10 seconds of working over the top of the head and down to the neck, and then 10 seconds going the other way, she said. Also massaged were the neck and shoulders, back, legs and arms. The chest and abdomen were avoided because the infants obviously did not like being touched there, perhaps associating it with painful medical procedures, Field said. After five minutes of massage, the babies' arms and legs were moved about for five minutes, and then came five more minutes of massage. The 15-minute sessions were done three times a day for 10 days. The massaged babies gained 28 percent more weight per day after the treatment than a comparison group of 16 premature infants who had also been exposed to cocaine, but who were not massaged, Field said. The difference appeared around the sixth day of the treatment and continued for at least a few days after it ended, when researchers stopped keeping track, Field said. Nobody knows why massage spurs growth, but perhaps it stimulates release of hormones that aid absorption of food, she said. Prior studies of premature babies have shown simply holding or paying attention to them did not cause them to gain weight, Field said. The massage treatment looks promising, said a prominent pediatric researcher, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton of Cambridge, Mass. But he cautioned that ``it has to be done with sensitivity to the baby's condition and responses.'' The massager must ease up in response to signals from the infant, he said. Massage had already been shown to speed up the growth of premature infants not exposed to cocaine, Field said. In one study, a 10-day course of daily massage spurred weight gain by 47 percent. The massaged infants were able to leave the hospital six days sooner, saving substantial sums of money in health care costs, Field said. About 10 percent of births in the United States are premature, amounting to 350,000 a year, according to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. Most premature infants weigh less than 5.5 pounds at birth. About 15 percent to 20 percent of premature infants die in the first month after birth.
AP881004-0099 	X	Democrat Michael Dukakis said today he was gaining ground on George Bush whom he called a failure as vice president. Republican Bush proposed a $100 million umbrella organization to encourage volunteerism, saying, ``I want our affluent to help our poor.'' While the two White House contenders campaigned in critical states _ Dukakis in Illinois and Bush in California _ the vice presidential candidates devoted their time to preparing for Wednesday night's debate. Republican Dan Quayle, who has studied at an undisclosed location in Washington, D.C., was leaving today for Omaha, Neb., for the debate, as was Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, who did his final preparations in Austin, Texas. Dukakis, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said Bush had failed in five missions: as part of an administration effort to increase U.S. sales in Japan, as head of task forces on regulatory reform, drug interdiction and international terrorism, and in an effort to recommend banking reforms. ``Mr. Bush was given five important missions by this administration and he failed every one. And that was before they asked him to pick a running mate in this election,'' Dukakis said. The Massachusetts governor, slightly behind Bush in recent polls, said he was ``beginning to turn this race around.'' He said the final weeks would be ``tough and competitive.'' Bush, in Sacramento, Calif., proposed creation of ``Youth Engaged in Service to America,'' an organization chaired by the president that ``will work with existing youth programs and will put an emphasis on programs that are started in our schools.'' The organization might develop some new volunteer programs but mostly would work in partnership with programs already under way, such as Peace Corps, the California Conservation Corps and others, said Bush campaign adviser Loret Ruppe, director of the Peace Corps. Bush said, ``I want our affluent to help our poor. I want our young to help our elderly. ... I want the young men and women of our tree-lined suburbs to get on a bus, or the subway, or the metro, and go into the cities where the want is.'' On Monday, Dukakis promised a presidency that would enforce civil rights laws while Bush pledged support for development of a space station in his administration. With the election five weeks away, the Democratic presidential nominee told black supporters on Chicago's South Side Monday night that the nation will be deciding between ``two different futures, two different roads to travel.'' And the choice of the GOP nominee will lead to an ``America of privilege _ an America where the very rich get even richer and the rest of us just get by. This is George Bush's America,'' Dukakis said. The vice president, who earlier Monday welcomed the return of the space shuttle Discovery and its five-man crew, told a rally in Redding, Calif., that he is committed to the creation of an operational space station by 1996. ``This goal is achievable, sensible ... and we will meet that goal,'' Bush said. The two candidates vowed to hold their second presidential debate either Oct. 13 or 14, despite the League of Women Voters' withdrawal of its sponsorship. The date will be determined by the length of the American League baseball playoffs. In announcing the decision, League President Nancy M. Neuman cited the campaigns' control of debate format and other details that would squelch any spontaneity. ``We have no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public,'' she said. The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, sponsors of the first presidential debate and the vice presidential encounter, quickly stepped in and agreed to take over sponsorship. Janet Brown, executive director of the commission, said the group hopes to keep the debate in Los Angeles and was seeking help from local groups to finance preparations, which the League had estimated at $500,000. Dukakis, in a rare appearance in the predominantly black Chicago neighborhood, paid tribute to late Mayor Harold Washington and the Democrat nominee's former rival for the nomination, Jesse Jackson. Jackson is a ``great son of Chicago'' whose ``sun still shines brightly over all of America,'' Dukakis told the audience. The candidate pledged that his administration would enforce civil rights laws, provide same-day voter registration and select judges committed to equality. ``We're going to aim high and enforce the civil rights laws of this country, not veto them; we're going to have a Justice Department that will inspire us, not embarrass us; and we're going to have an attorney general who understands what the word justice means,'' Dukakis said. Earlier in the day, the Massachusetts governor stopped in Dearborn Heights, Mich., where he spoke to students about drug use and helped destroy about $100,000 worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin by throwing it into a county incinerator. At a rally in Hartford, Conn., Dukakis responded to Bush's charge that the Democratic nominee is a big-spending liberal. ``The solutions we're proposing are not big-money solutions or big-government solutions,'' Dukakis said. ``And unlike Mr. Bush's tired old ideas, they won't leave America running in place. They'll make America the most powerful and productive country on earth.'' Meanwhile, the Democrat's campaign introduced two new ads following the recent theme of ``The Packaging of George Bush.'' The ads, which show campaign advisers sitting around a table, deal with the Reagan administration's environmental record and Bush's dealings with Panamanian ruler Manuel Antonio Noriega.
AP881108-0180 	X	Charles S. Robb, a former governor and son-in-law of President Lyndon Johnson, defeated a longshot GOP opponent Tuesday to become Virginia's first Democrat elected to the Senate since 1966. Republican George Bush overwhelmed Democrat Michael Dukakis for the state's 12 electoral votes. With 14 percent of the precincts counted, Bush had 166,202 votes or 58 percent and Dukakis had 118,962 votes or 42 percent. With 14 percent of the precincts counted, Robb had 203,493 votes or 73 percent, and Republican Maurice Dawkins had 76,874 votes or 27 percent. Robb and Dawkins, a retired black minister and Washington lobbyist, competed for the seat of Republican Paul S. Trible Jr., who passed up a bid for a second Senate term and plans to run for governor in 1989. Robb outspent Dawkins by about 10 to one. Also on the ballot was a pari-mutuel referendum. Virginia voters narrowly defeated horse-track wagering 10 years ago, but a lottery referendum passed easily last year. Five Democrats and five Republicans were expected to win re-election to the U.S. House.
AP880713-0097 	X	July 8 The Sun, Bremerton, Wash., on the resignation of Attorney General Meese: The last crony is leaving. Months, even years after propriety demanded it, Ed Meese says he'll resign _ sometime. Whatever conservative legacy he left the Justice Department and the courts is overshadowed by his cheapening of the office of attorney general and the chaos now paralyzing Justice. ... Meese has managed to slip through the net in four investigations, because the evidence against him always was circumstantial. It just happened that cronies who did favors for Meese soon ended up with lucrative government contracts, or federal jobs or other special favors. The best Meese's investigators could find was impropriety, not illegality. Yet the attorney general took the lack of charges as a ringing endorsement of his innocence. ... Meese is a deal-maker, a hustler. He never understood that the attorney general can't use his office to create a personal pork barrel. ... Does Meese leave any legacy except sleaze? ... He tried to weaken the Miranda Rule and abortion rights before a Supreme Court that was prepared to do neither. He embarked on an anti-pornography crusade, an odd priority for someone whose mission also includes fighting organized crime. He botched the early stages of the Iran-Contra probe, perhaps deliberately. Yet, Meese has shown one thing. An attorney general's politics are not as important as his credibility, his honesty and his ability to lead. After three years with a laughingstock for a leader, Justice needs an attorney general of high personal reputation. But the department must wait for the next administration to provide one.
AP881217-0051 	X	Student radicals and dissidents today attacked a government party office and staged anti-government demonstrations demanding the arrest of the disgraced former president, Chun Doo-hwan. News reports said about a dozen students briefly occupied an office of President Roh Tae-woo's governing Democratic Justice Party in the southern city of Chonju. ``Arrest Chun Doo-hwan,'' they shouted while attacking the office and destroying windows with rocks and steel pipes, according to the reports. Police, firing tear gas, retook the building in 20 minutes and arrested six students, the reports said. The other students ran away, they said. In southern Seoul, 1,200 radical students and dissidents held an outdoor rally denouncing Roh for blocking public efforts to divulge more details of misdeeds committed during Chun's administration. They dispersed voluntarily after a two-mile march down a main street. About 4,000 riot police were posted, but no clashes were reported. In the southern city of Kwangju, 300 people, mostly students, marched peacefully through downtown streets, shouting slogans demanding Chun's arrest, the South Korean news agency Yonhap said. They dispersed in two hours, it said. Chun, who left office in February, went into self-imposed rural exile last month after apologizing to the nation for corruption and other scandals involving his seven-year authoritarian rule. Chun denied personal wrongdoing, but some of his family members have been arrested for taking bribes or embezzeling official funds.
AP880810-0119 	X	Republican platform writers agreed today to keep Michael Dukakis' name out of their party document with the hope that after the Nov. 8 election the Democratic nominee ``will fade into oblivion.'' Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr opened the platform hearing by asking the delegates not to refer to Dukakis by name in the document. Orr, the committee chairman, said past GOP platforms avoided direct references to the Democrats' nominee. ``That's a very good idea since obviously after November 1988 Governor Dukakis will fade into oblivion,'' said New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu. ``We don't want anyone to have to refer to an encyclopedia to figure out what we have to say.'' The Democratic platform does not mention George Bush or Ronald Reagan by name. Sen. Bob Kasten of Wisconsin, a co-chairman of the committee, told reporters that none of the subcommittee revisions was ``giving anyone major heartburn.'' Kasten said the panel would seek to finish drafting the platform Thursday, a day ahead of schedule. The Republicans also released what they said was a GOP staff estimate of how much implicit promises in the Democratic platform will wind up costing taxpayers: $43.1 billion in 1989 alone. The full 106-member Republican Platform Committee today began reviewing the document anew line by line, after seven subcommittees spent Tuesday putting their imprint on 158 pages of staff-produced working papers. That draft is largely a distillation of policies from the 1984 GOP platform and stands that Bush has staked out on such issues as child care and education. It includes new planks on AIDS and the homeless, as well as the GOP's hard and fast line against abortion and higher taxes. Orr said the subcommittees were not making major changes, but emphasized, ``Until we're done on Friday, it's not a done deal, It's not over with.'' The subcommittees, taking advice from such Bush campaign emissaries as former Texas Sen. John Tower, resisted most moves to push the platform to the left or right. The defense subcommittee called for ``rapid and certain deployment of SDI as technology permits.'' The original draft, echoing Bush campaign language, had just spoken of deployment ``as soon as possible.'' In the family subcommittee, Lynn Glaze, a Delaware delegate, was rebuffed three times when she sought to soften the anti-abortion language. Her motions were tabled without discussion, as was her call for support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Bunny Chambers, a member of the conservative Eagle Forum from Oklahoma City who moved to table Glaze's amendments, said, ``I felt like we'd discussed enough (in the past). I didn't want to spend all the time on it.'' The family subcommittee also killed a plank on the special needs of ``little persons'' _ dwarfs. Committee members expressed confusion about the term `little persons'' and what the plank was doing in the draft. On AIDS, not addressed in 1984, the draft promises to ``not only marshal our scientific resources against AIDS, but ... protect those who do not have the disease.'' It is silent on the civil rights legislation for AIDS victims recommended by a presidential commission. The family subcommittee did amend the AIDS plank to say victims ``should be encouraged to seek early diagnosis and to remain on the job or in school as long as they are functionally able.'' The defense subcommittee balked at an amendment by its co-chairman, Angela ``Bay'' Buchanan, to declare a goal of U.S. ``space dominance.'' Buchanan, the former U.S. treasurer from Irvine, Calif., said she was satisfied with compromise language that space must be kept free and secure for all nations. Gone from the draft documents was the 1984 GOP declaration that ``we shall keep the peace by keeping our country stronger than any potential adversary.'' On taxes, the draft says, ``Republicans unequivocally reiterate the no-tax pledge we have proudly kept.'' Like the 1984 platform, the draft calls for the appointment of judges ``who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of human life.'' Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. of Connecticut skipped Tuesday's session to return to Washington, but planned to be back today to wage his uphill battle for liberal amendments. The draft documents back a line-item veto, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and ``a flexible freeze on current government spending.'' They endorse a child-care tax credit for families of modest means. Bush recently proposed a $1,000-per-child credit for families with incomes up to $20,000. The draft speaks of the importance of imparting to children ``the Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization and our ideals of liberty.'' The family subcommittee rejected an amendment to change ``Judeo-Christian'' to ``traditional.'' On abortion, the draft declares ``the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,'' and calls again for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. It says, ``Republicans deplore the apartheid system of South Africa,'' but warns against economic pressures that harm black workers and entrepreneurs there. The foreign policy panel added a plank declaring that, ``Republicans are strongly committed to obtaining the freedom of all Americans held captive by terrorist elements in the Middle East.''
AP880511-0307 	X	An outside review of the deadly 1984 gas leak at a Bhopal, India plant was intended to objectively assesses the cause of the disaster, Union Carbide Corp. says, although the resulting report provides little new information on the incident. The report released Tuesday by the firm Arthur D. Little Inc. supported Carbide's claims that sabotage by a disgruntled employee caused the disaster. It also refuted as ``physically impossible'' the Indian government's contention that the disaster stemmed from negligence. ``We wanted the world to know that somebody that had a reputation that was worldwide and sterling...would look at things critically,'' said Bud Holman, a Carbide attorney. The report did not provide a motive for sabotage or name the worker believed responsible. But Holman said the company and the Indian government knew the worker's identity, and it eventually would be revealed in court. He said the worker wanted to punish a superior who had demoted him. Ashok Kalelkare, a senior vice president of Arthur D. Little, based in Cambridge, Mass., presented the findings Tuesday to a London symposium sponsored by the Institute of Chemical Engineers of the United Kingdom. An Indian government attorney involved in the case on declined comment on the report today, saying it would be ``improper while we're in litigation.'' He insisted on anonymity. In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Carbide closed up 75 cents a share to $23.87{ on Tuesday. At least 2,850 people were killed and 20,000 injured when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a holding tank at Union Carbide India Ltd.'s Bhopal plant on Dec. 3, 1984. More than 500,000 people have filed claims in the case and the Indian government filed criminal charges against Carbide in December. The Arthur D. Little report theorized that a worker entered the plant's storage area during a shift change the night of Dec. 2, 1984, and hooked a rubber hose to the methyl isocyanate tank with the intention of ruining the tank's contents. The chemical produces a deadly gas when mixed with water. ``The results of this investigation show, with virtual certainty, that the Bhopal incident was caused by the entry of water to the tank through a hose that had been connected directly to the tank,'' the report stated. ``It is equally clear that those most directly involved attempted to obfuscate these events.'' The report was based on interviews with more than 70 former employees of the now-closed plant. Among those interviewed was an unidentified instrument supervisor who told investigators that the day after the disaster he discovered a gauge on the chemical tank had been replaced with a plug. Nearby, he also noticed a length of hose with water running from it, the report said. The report theorized that the gauge was removed, the hose inserted, and the hole filled with a plug once the water had been added to the tank. The Indian government contends that water got into the chemical tank when a worker failed to install a ``slip-blind,'' a device that prevents water from backing up, while cleaning a filter about 400 feet away. But Arthur D. Little's report asserted the theory was implausible for three reasons: the worker's hose pressure wasn't high enough to raise the water to the level of the chemical tank; a safety valve to prevent such a mishap was found in good working order after the accident; and pipes that would have remained filled with water after such an occurrence were dry. The report alleged that workers altered plant logs to hide that they tried to drain the tank after realizing water had been added. The consultant's report was highly critical of the Indian government, saying it stuck to the negligence theory despite evidence to the contrary and hindered Union Carbide's ability to discover what actually happened. The company finally got access to key plant records and through them the names of plant employees when a U.S. magistrate ordered India to produce copies of the documents as part of the civil suit to which it was a party
AP881214-0221 	X	Amid the frozen farm fields of Iowa, Judy Shelly answered a cry for help from a small wooden garage. Huddled inside were a mother and three children. They'd lost almost everything _ including their home. They had blankets, beds, a few sticks of furniture and a hot plate, but no bathroom or refrigerator. No money either. Forced off their farm, abandoned by husband and father, the family was struggling to survive. Their predicament is a sad but increasingly common sign of hard times in the heartland. As farmers lose their land, small-town factories shut their doors and housing costs rise, growing numbers of rural folks are joining the ranks of the nation's homeless. ``Rural homeless people are everywhere around us,'' said Louisa Stark, president of the National Coalition for the Homeless. ``They're living in barns and chicken coops. They're doubled and tripled up with families and friends. They're living under trees or, in some cases, sleeping in caves.'' Garages, too. The Iowa family had rented a nearby house after losing their farm last winter, but when the pipes burst and the landlord couldn't afford repairs, they moved into the garage because it was cheaper to warm with a kerosene heater. Shelly, who works for a farmers-assistance group, helped find them a place to stay. They moved on shortly after. People think rural America ``has been able to stand on its own two feet ever since the Depression,'' Shelly said. ``(They think) somehow they'll get by. They think you have the white picket fence, mom and dad sit down at the table and eat with the kids. That's not the way it is. ``The reality is urban life and rural life are not much different anymore,'' she added. ``We have people going without food. We have people going without heat.'' And people going without roofs over their heads. Up to 3 million Americans are homeless, the national coalition says. Some experts estimate 10 percent to 20 percent are in rural areas, but nobody knows for sure because they aren't as conspicious as people panhandling on city streets or sleeping on grates. ``Everybody calls the rural homeless invisible. In fact, they are,'' said Melanie Roth of the Housing Assistance Council in Washington, D.C., which deals with rural low-income housing needs. ``They don't wander the streets of small-town America,'' said Keith Luebke, co-director of the Welcome Inn Transitional Living Center in Mankato, Minn. ``They leave or they somehow hide themselves or hide their problems. They don't want anyone to know.'' Most of the newest rural homeless are working poor and farm families, says a report by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences. Compared with their urban counterparts, the report says, they're younger families dependent on two incomes; typically, one wage-earner loses a job and the remaining income isn't enough to pay the rent. They most often live in counties where employment is dependent on single troubled industries. These people face a Hobson's choice of moving in with friends or relatives _ or pulling up roots and leaving. The institute's report said some rural areas have a five-year waiting list for public housing. Though their numbers are just a fraction of those in the cities, the rural homeless get much less help _ fewer shelters, fewer soup kitchens, less money from charities. ``In short, the faint voice that has recently been given to the homeless in urban America has been denied the homeless of rural America,'' said a national coalition study on such problems in Appalachia and the South. Several studies have examined rural homelessness. Among the findings: _ More than three-quarters of community agencies responding to a Housing Assistance Council survey last year reported increases in rural homeless from 1981-82 to 1986-87. Of those, 38 percent said the increase was significant. _ In Ohio, the proportion of women among the rural homeless was twice that of urban homeless populations, according to a 1985 study. That's partly due to the higher percentage of married people among the rural homeless, 18.5 percent against 6.7 percent married among urban homeless. _ In Minnesota, 36 percent of adults in shelters and transitional living centers had jobs, compared with 24 percent in urban Minneapolis, said a 1988 study by the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless. _ In Iowa, a study found one of the larger groups in danger of losing homes was farm widows, many of whom live on just a few hundred dollars a month. The count of rural homeless should also include people who live in ramshackle houses or stay with friends and family, a common arrangement among down-and-out farmers, the experts say. It may be 21 people living in one house, nine children and three adults squeezed in a trailer or a family so crowded they sleep in shifts. ``You have people living on top of each other. Those are the hidden homeless,'' said Luebke. ``These people no longer have their own home or apartment. They have a roof over their head, but in real terms they should be considered homeless.'' Living conditions for others are so abysmal that social agencies say it's tantamount to being homeless. ``When people have a home where the roof is constantly leaking and the cold air can come in ... (and) there's no money to fix those things, that's not a home,'' said Norma Dell, director of Bethany House, a Kentucky social service center. Agencies around the country have files on people living in rat-infested shanties, rotting houses without walls or shacks without heat, water or toilets. Others describe a wheelchair-bound man living under a bridge after being evicted, an Indian family sleeping in an old school bus and drawing water from a horse trough, a man who lived in an abandoned refrigerator. Stark said she's heard reports from California of farmworkers living in groves of trees or taking shelter in caves.
AP881017-0276 	X	Insurance officials in California and Illinois have given their approval for Batus Inc. to acquire Farmers Group Inc., the companies said in a joint announcement Monday. The statement said affirmative action was taken by California Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespiee and Illinois Insurance Director John Washburn. Batus and Farmers, a California insurance company, announced Aug. 24 that they had entered into an agreement providing for Batus to acquire Farmers at a price of $75 per share in cash, or about $5.2 billion. Arizona, Idaho and Washington ruled favorably on the plan earlier but it still must be accepted by four other states.
AP900222-0227 	X	Stock prices advanced broadly this morning in early, moderate trading after the Tokyo market and other overseas exchanges regained strength. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials gained 7.66 points to 2,591.22 in the first half hour of trading. Advancing issues outnumbered losers by more than 2 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 620 up, 286 down and 467 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 21.87 million shares as of 10 a.m. on Wall Street. On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the key Nikkei index rose more than 400 points in early trading, but then plunged on a wave of computer-guided selling by foreign institutions. But the Japanese market recovered as investors gradually returned and computerized buy programs kicked in. By the close, the Nikkei index gained 92.51 points, or 0.25 percent, to move to 35,826.84. On Wednesday, the Nikkei plummeted more than 3 percent for its third-worst drop ever. The plunge helped set off a tumble on Wall Street, but the U.S. markets later recovered as institutional investors took advantage of bargains. This morning, the NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks gained 0.30 to 181.37. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was up 0.63 at 353.58. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials closed down 13.29 points to 2,583.56. Declining issues outnumbered advances by about 5 to 3 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 577 up, 963 down and 455 unchanged. Volume on the floor of the Big Board totaled 159.24 million shares, up from 147.30 million in the previous session.
AP901022-0139 	X	The African National Congress recommended Monday that Nelson Mandela meet rival black leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a breakthrough that could help ease the violence in black townships. The ANC proposed a meeting between itself and Buthelezi's conservative Inkatha Freedom Party ``in the near future,'' but did not specify a date. The ANC statement said both Mandela and Buthelezi should attend. Buthelezi said he welcomed the offer and was ready to consider a suitable time and place for the talks. Mandela is in Australia and will be traveling throughout Asia until early November. Since his release from prison in February, Mandela has turned down invitations from his old friend Buthelezi despite the ongoing violence between their supporters in the eastern province of Natal and in black areas outside Johannesburg. ANC leaders have harshly briticized Buthelezi and accused him of orchestrating the violence to obtain a meeting with Mandela and enhance his stature. Buthelezi has denied the charge and accused the ANC of trying to destroy all rivals. The ANC was conciliatory in its statement Monday. The group said ``it welcomed the steps being taken jointly by the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party'' to stop the violence. The two sides have been holding periodic peace talks, but neither Mandela nor Buthelezi has attended. About 5,000 blacks have died in the ANC-Inkatha power struggle since 1986 in Natal Province. The fighting spread to the Johannesburg area in August and has claimed 800 lives. The ANC and Inkatha, the two largest black opposition movements, both oppose apartheid but differ over tactics and a future South Africa. The socialist-oriented ANC has employed boycotts, strikes, protests and waged an armed struggle, recently suspended, in its battle against the government. Inkatha does not endorse any of those measures and favors capitalism. The ANC draws support across tribal lines, while virtually all Inkatha members are Zulus. The ANC also has opposed Buthelezi's role as leader of the KwaZulu homeland in Natal Province. The ANC considers the 10 black homelands part of the apartheid system. Buthelezi, meanwhile, sees the limited self-government in the homelands as an interim step on the road to black majority rule.
AP881121-0063 	X	Former President Jimmy Carter and three members of a Soviet volunteer organization have agreed to work jointly on housing projects for the needy next summer in Washington state and the Soviet Union. Carter met Sunday with the Soviet delegation at his home in Plains. He is active in Habitat for Humanity, a group that builds homes for the working poor. ``One of the things they (the Russians) wanted to do was housing work for the benefit of low-income people with children, and Habitat fit the bill,'' said Millard Fuller, Habitat's executive director, who also attended the meeting with the Soviets. ``We decided that next summer a group of 10 Soviets will come to Yakima and work with 10 Americans on the Habitat project there for five or six weeks,'' Fuller said. ``Then the group will go to the Soviet Union and work on a similar project there.'' Habitat has conducted home-building projects in more than 300 U.S. cities as well as Canada, Australia and developing nations. The Soviets delagation are members of a private volunteer organization, the Soviet Peace Fund, and were invited to the United States by Ploughshares, a Seattle-based organization. The Soviet delegation included Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman cosmonaut to walk in space. ``It's very important to look at each other eye to eye,'' said Ms. Savitskaya, who added that the project will help promote peace. ``This will help us to see there are not enemies among us but good friends.'' The project's ultimate goal is to have the Soviets and Americans working side-by-side in developing nations, organizers said, but no decision on that was reached.
AP901120-0204 	X	If, instead of heading for Las Vegas, a high-roller in 1980 bought a typical acre of U.S. farmland for $750 in hopes of turning a fast buck, the profit would hardly have been the stuff of a gambler's dreams. The speculator could have sold the one acre in 1982 for a record $823. That would have been a profit of less than 5 percent a year. But it would have been a profit. And there are more losers than winners at roulette tables. After the U.S. farmland boom of the 1970s peaked in 1982, however, it was downhill for years, with the bottom in 1987 at an average of $599 per acre. By 1990, according to the Agriculture Department, farm real estate prices nationally - including buildings as well as land - had recovered to around $693 per acre. These are only averages. No doubt there have been some speculative land deals that have resulted in somebody getting rich. But did speculators help run up farmland prices in the 1970s so much that the bottom was bound to fall out of the market in the 1980s? A USDA analysis says it is doubtful that speculation and easy credit policies led to the farmland bust. There is little doubt, however, that the slide in land prices was a huge factor in the financial crunch that gripped the nation's agriculture in the mid-1980s. Land is the main asset of farmers, and when values crumbled their collateral shrank, and so did their borrowing power. ``Many market observers said (farmland) prices reflected a speculative mania rather than expected farm income,'' the report said. ``Speculative manias, often called bubbles, occur when investors buy an asset intending only to sell it later at a higher price, rather than using it to generate income over a number of years.'' The report was written by Fred Kuchler and Abebayehu Tegene of the department's Economic Research Service and is in the November issue of Agricultural Outlook magazine. ``While there is some circumstantial evidence of a speculative bubble in the 1970s, the long-run stable relation between farmland prices and returns (as measured by cash rental rates) leads to the conclusion that bubbles have most likely not occurred in farmland markets,'' the report said. ``Rather,'' it added, ``expectations about future farm incomes and other economic factors have determined, and continue to determine, farmland prices.'' The report also said that many analysts believe ``aggressive lending policies touched off a speculative bubble in farmland prices'' during the 1970s. ``That conclusion appears to be incorrect, but the evidence does not rule out the possibility that aggressive lending, reflected in lower mortgage rates or greater volumes of credit, could have caused investors to re-evaluate their expectations,'' the report said. ``The lenders probably made farmland a much better investment.'' Recently the American Bankers Association released an independent study that said a liberalization of Farm Credit System lending policies nearly 20 years ago led to the boom-and-bust era in agriculture. According to the study, the cooperatively owned Farm Credit System - which includes federal land bank associations - was authorized by Congress in 1971 to raise its collateral limit for farm real estate loans. That meant larger loans to buy land. The bankers' study said the liberalization ``unleased a boom in land prices in rural America that saw the inflation-adjusted value of farmland nearly double from 1971 to 1980.'' But the bankers' study said the boom was unsustainable and that by the mid-1980s the average real value of farmland, after allowing for inflation, was almost down to its 1971 level. The USDA reports it is impossible to prove conclusively that speculative bubbles exist or do not exist. One reason is that economists do not agree exactly on how much income should be attributed to land. ``If there was no speculative bubble, the runup in farmland prices during the 1970s must reflect big shifts in expectations,'' the report said. ``Farmland investors might have believed that farm income would rise at a faster pace or that income would continue to rise at the rate of the 1950s and 1960s.''
AP881028-0248 	X	Just eight weeks after Florida's $55.1 million jackpot eclipsed lottomania in California, the Golden State is back with a $55 million-plus jackpot that will be North America's richest ever. Lottery officials and merchants said ticket sales for Saturday's drawing already were double what an average Thursday would rake in. The official estimate of ``over $55 million'' for the drawing is conservative, based on previous betting patterns in the two-year history of California's computerized lottery game, said lottery spokesman Bob Taylor. ``Over $55 million'' could mean several million dollars over, officials acknowledge. It all depends on how wildly Californians react to the 1-in-14-million chance of winning the jackpot, which would be paid in an annuity of at least $2.75 million before taxes for 20 years, for the cost of a $1 lotto ticket. The size of the jackpot depends on sales and jackpot rollovers, which fuel each other to produce the heavy gambling periods dubbed lottomania. When no one picks all six winning numbers out of a choice of 49 numbers, the jackpot is rolled over, or added, to the top prize for the next twice-weekly drawing. Four rollovers, including a $33.4 million jackpot Wednesday night, produced the current record prize estimate. The exact size of the jackpot depends on how many tickets are sold. Twenty cents of every $1 ticket feeds the jackpot. The California lottery produced a $51.4 million jackpot, North America's largest at the time, in June. It was evenly split between two players, an aircraft mechanic and a supermarket clerk. That record was eclipsed Sept. 3 by a $55.1 million prize in Florida that went to a 63-year-old real estate broker.
AP901010-0204 	X	Stock prices sagged again today, extending Tuesday's sharp decline. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down 78.22 points on Tuesday, was off 6.18 at 2,439.36 by 3 p.m. today on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by almost 5 to 2 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 420 up, 1,028 down and 495 unchanged. Analysts said rumors of increasing tensions in the Persian Gulf caused some fresh problems for the market. The atmosphere was already gloomy, they noted, following Tuesday's upsurge in oil prices to above $40 a barrel. Today crude-oil futures for November delivery pushed past $41 a barrel in early trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, then dropped back to the neighborhood of $39.50. Recession worries have intensified of late as analysts continue to cut their earnings estimates for a wide range of companies. Profit reports for the third quarter of the year will reach flood stage over the next couple of weeks. Motorola rose 1[ to 53~ in active trading after taking a 7-point drop Tuesday, when the company posted a quarterly earnings gain that fell short of expectations. Losers among the blue-chip industrials included Aluminum Co. of America, down 2{ at 57\; American Telephone & Telegraph, down ] at 31|; General Electric, down | at 52\, and Mobil, down ~ at 58|. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped .91 to 166.50. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down 2.66 at 300.39. Volume on the Big Board came to 133.34 million shares with an hour to go.
AP900423-0150 	X	A flight to Baltimore from San Juan, Puerto Rico, was diverted to Miami after passengers wrongly accused a fellow traveler of carrying a gun, an airline official said Monday. Passengers on American Airlines Flight 704 Sunday night told flight attendants that a man was ``acting a little strange,'' and that he had a gun in his briefcase, said Tim Smith, a spokesman at American's Dallas headquarters. ``The flight attendants then alerted the plane's captain, who decided to divert the plane to Miami'' shortly before 9 p.m., Smith said. ``The man was met by Dade County authorities who searched him and his baggage and found nothing.'' The man, who was not identified, spent the night in Miami and was rescheduled onto a flight to Baltimore Monday morning, Smith said. The airplane refueled during a 30-minute stop in Miami, then continued on to Baltimore's Washington International Airport, he said.
AP900215-0151 	X	President Bush complained testily Thursday about news accounts which he said portrayed him as deceptive, declaring he would hold fewer news conferences and initiate a ``new approach'' toward reporters. ``From now on, it's going to be a little different. ... So we've got a new relationship,'' Bush told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One to the four-nation Colombia drug summit. ``It will be pleasant. It will be fun. But it's different,'' said the president, who has averaged one question and answer session with reporters each week since taking office 13 months ago. Later, Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said the president was ``just kidding'' in asserting that he would have fewer news conferences and in declining comment on a series of questions. ``He was having fun,'' Fitzwater said. The president, who apparently read a wire service account of his testy mood on the plane, protested to reporters later: ``I'm not fuming.'' Bush's pique apparently was triggered by an ABC-TV report Wednesday night recapping instances in which Bush's words were belied by subsequent events. The president was criticized on the same score in a Feb. 26 article in The New Republic entitled, ``The Deceiving Line.'' Most recently Bush told a news conference on Monday that it wasn't time yet for a conference among the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France on the future status of Germany. ``Not at this juncture,'' he told the news conference. Yet, the next day, a major agreement was announced in Ottawa by Secretary of State James A. Baker III on a German reunification push that would include a summit among the four powers that vanquished Germany in World War II. ``When I told you ... that I didn't think there'd be a deal and there shortly was a deal, then I'm hit for deceiving you,'' Bush groused Thursday. Bush, a onetime CIA director, has conducted much of his foreign policy in secrecy. Two missions to China by national security adviser Brent Scowcroft came despite a Bush announcement in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown that he was barring high-level exchanges between the two countries. The president later insisted that Scowcroft's trips to Beijing were ``visits'' and not ``exchanges,'' and thus not covered by the Bush edict. Bush, who usually maintains a bantering relationship with reporters, said, ``I think we've had too many press conferences. It overdoes it. It's overexposure.'' By answering few questions directly, he said, ``I'm not going to be burned for holding out or doing something deceptive.'' The president, who slept the night before on Air Force One so he would be well-rested for Thursday's pre-dawn flight here, even gave a prickly response when asked if he had gotten a good night's sleep. ``I had a very good night's sleep. I can't get into the details of that because some will say it's too much sleep, some will say it's too little. ...,'' he said. Bush parried a series of questions from reporters, most of them dealing with the drug summit. ``I'm not going to discuss what I'm going to bring up,'' Bush said when asked about his agenda for the day's conference in Cartagena with the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. ``I'm not going to discuss whether there's any surprises or not. This is a new thing. This is a new approach.'' He then said his non-answers were ``a trial run'' for later dealings with the media. In fact, Bush, who answers reporters questions about once a week, planned to finish his day in Colombia with yet another news conference. Bush's comments with reporters came shortly before his jet touched down here, where a U.S. press center was set up at the airport. Bush flew by helicopter the 60 miles to Cartagena and was returning here before flying home to Washington. Asked about an NBC-TV report that Colombian President Virgilio Barco had made a deal with some drug lords in his country not to extradite them to the United States if they turned over drug labs, Bush snapped: ``I have no comment whatsoever on that. I have no comment on whether I know about it or not. I can't comment on whether it's true or not.'' Bush did not mention which particular news reports had irked him the most. However, Thursday's editions of the Washington Post had a story on what it called ``the debate between President Bush and the press over secrecy and deception.'' And ABC-TV had a news report on Wednesday night by White House correspondent Brit Hume on the same subject. Hume was one of several reporters invited to a recent off the record lunch at the White House with Bush, at which the subject reportedly came up. News accounts said that Bush told the reporters at the lunch that he had undertaken no further secret diplomatic missions _ like Scowcroft's clandestine visits to China. Then, the next day, it was disclosed that Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger had gone on a secret mission to London to notify U.S. allies of Bush's latest plan to reduce troops in Europe. Bush also gave what some have seen as misleading comments on his surprise seaside summit at Malta in December with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The president in September had said that there were no plans for a superpower summit before 1990, but he later revealed that the session had been arranged as early as last July.
AP900414-0093 	X	NASA opened Discovery's payload bay doors Saturday to remove the Hubble Space Telescope's batteries for recharging and to replace a faulty part in preparation for an April 25 launch. Technicians took out a faulty auxiliary power unit responsible for grounding the shuttle last week. A new unit was being installed to be tested Sunday and fired up briefly later this week. ``We haven't run into any problem,'' said Lisa Malone, a spokeswoman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ``We're looking good for the 25th.'' Hubble's six nickel-hydrogen batteries will be recharged for 5{ days in a laboratory at the Vehicle Assembly Building. NASA decided to take the batteries there because they can be recharged at a cooler temperature and thus retain more power. ``We will have a higher capacity in them than we would have had we been recharging at the pad,'' said Fred Wojtalik, a NASA project manager. ``This will make the opportunities for additional launch days a lot easier for us.'' The batteries will power Hubble from the time it is disconnected from the shuttle's power system during deployment until its energy-collecting solar panels are unfurled. Discovery was poised for launch Tuesday, but the mission was scrubbed four minutes before liftoff when the auxiliary power unit failed. NASA was not sure how long it would take to replace the 88-pound unit because the procedure had never been performed before at the launch pad. The work went smoothly, Malone said. The defective power unit was returned to the manufacturer, Sunstrand Corp. of Rockford, Ill., for testing. The shuttle's three auxiliary power units pressurize the hydraulic system, which is used to move wing and rudder surfaces and in the ship's braking and steering systems. NASA planned to close Discovery's payload bay doors Sunday as soon as the lengthy process of removing the batteries was completed. The chamber will remain sealed to reduce the risk of getting too much dust on the telescope's 94-inch mirror, the finest ever made, until the batteries are returned next weekend. The $1.5 billion telescope is NASA's most expensive and complex payload. Once it is in orbit above Earth's distorting atmosphere, it will be able to detect objects 50 times fainter and with 10 times greater clarity than the best observatory on the ground. Astronomers expect to study stars and galaxies so distant that their light has been traveling toward Earth for 14 billion years, close to the beginning of the universe.
AP900827-0058 	X	East Germany's former Communist economics czar, who is accused of corruption, has been released from prison because of failing health, officials said Monday. Doctors agreed that Guenter Mittag, 63, was too ill to remain in jail where he was being held in preventive custody, said East German justice officials who asked not to be identified. Mittag was responsible for economic policy in the Communist government that was ousted during last fall's pro-democracy movement. He had been in prison since December and is accused of corruption and sabotaging the country's economy. Other top officials under investigation by the new democratically elected government include former Communist leader Erich Honecker and longtime security chief Erich Mielke. Mittag suffers from acute diabetes, said East German justice officials. He is considered to be the most ill of all the former Communist party leaders under investigation.
AP900511-0067 	X	The dollar continued its slide against the Japanese yen in European trading this morning, but gained ground from Thursday's lower levels against several European currencies. Spot gold prices were driven sharply lower under the pressure of Japanese selling. The dollar closed in Tokyo at 154.15 yen, down 2.60 yen from Thursday's close. Later in London, it was quoted at 153.99 yen. Other dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Thursday: _1.6342 West German marks, down from 1.6368 _1.3995 Swiss francs, up from 1.3950 _5.5285 French francs, up from 5.5235 _1.8410 Dutch guilders, up from 1.8407 _1,206.00 Italian lire, up from 1,205.75 _$1.1770 Canadian, up from $1.1650 The British pound fell to $1.6728 from $1.6770 late Thursday. Some market players remained on the sidelines awaiting the U.S. government's release later today of the producer price index and retail sales figures. Concern that the U.S. economy is slowing also helped push the dollar lower, dealers said. Dealers said an overnight decline in the dollar's value against the Swiss franc and West German mark pushed it below a technical floor, resulting in widespread dollar selling. The franc has been rising because of high Swiss interest rates, strong Asian demand and the increasing tendency to view the franc as a ``safe haven'' currency, dealers said. Japan's major securities houses sold the dollar heavily in the morning. After lunch, they were joined by life insurers and other major market players, said John Radinoff, vice president of Goldman Sachs (Japan). ``The yen has been massively oversold, and people have been looking for excuses to sell dollars,'' Radinoff said. ``Over the next couple of days there will be some serious thinking going on over whether this is the start of a new trend or whether the dollar is just testing to find a new base,'' said Mahesh Trivedi, senior corporate dealer at Daiwa (Europe) Bank Ltd. ``We could be just near the beginning of a sharp rise in the yen,'' said Mark Austin, currency analyst at Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp. in London. Spot gold prices in London dropped as low as $367.50 an ounce in London this morning, off from $371.35 an ounce late Thursday. In Zurich, gold opened at $367.60 an ounce, down from $371.25 bid late Thursday. In Hong Kong, gold dropped $3.12 an ounce today, to close at $369.10. Silver bullion rose in London to a late bid price of $5.06 a troy ounce, down from $5.08 bid late Thursday.
AP900523-0016 	X	The only thing undeniable about ``Twin Peaks'' is that the series opened with homecoming queen Laura Palmer's body washing ashore, meticulously wrapped in white plastic tarp. OK, maybe even that's not true. Laura's lookalike cousin also arrived, very much alive, leading at least one TV critic to theorize that Laura Palmer killed Laura Palmer. Or rather, Laura Palmer killed her cousin and now is impersonating her. It's a whodunit gone amok. In ``Twin Peaks,'' we don't even know who's been done. And if you understand the bizarre, quirky, weird, offbeat episodic series brought to television by filmdom's offbeat, weird, quirky and bizarre director David Lynch, please fill the rest of us in. We're hopelessly confused. Tonight's season finale promises to resolve the Palmer murder in a small Northwest lumber town whose occupants are alternately obsessed with doughnuts, coffee, pie, logs, psychic visions, Laura's murder, tape recorders, birds, wife-beating, cocaine, draperies that glide silently and dancing dwarfs who talk backwards. Newsweek was so confused, it ran a chart titled ``The Story So Far (As Near As Anyone Can Figure).'' Los Angeles Times television columnist Howard Rosenberg said he was watching every episode and ``loving it. I think.'' Here's the basic plot, or a reasonable facsimile: Seventeen-year-old Laura Palmer turns up dead. Pie-loving FBI agent Dale Cooper comes to town to help doughnut-loving Sheriff Harry S. Truman solve the murder. Laura may or may not have been a drug dealer, but she most definitely was homecoming queen. Her mother has psychic visions. There is a woman who carries around a log. A one-armed man is ominously referred to. Cooper walks around talking into a tape recorder. Nadine wears an eye patch, lives for noiseless drapes and is married to ``Big Ed'' Hurley, who runs the town gas station. Josie Packard owns the local mill and has the hots for Truman. Everybody is sleeping with everybody else's husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend ... well, you get the picture. If you don't, take heart. ``Twin Peaks'' will be back in the fall, ABC announced this week. Oh, goody. That gives us all enough time to get over the motion sickness from trying to figure out this season.
AP901106-0160 	X	Democratic Sen. Paul Simon captured a second term Tuesday, fending off a challenge by Republican Rep. Lynn Martin, whose anti-tax message and late call for limiting the terms of Washington lawmakers failed to dent the popularity of the liberal incumbent.
AP900403-0051 	X	At least five bombs exploded in two cities today, ripping through a government building and the offices of business groups and labor unions. Police said no injuries were reported. The early morning blasts went off simultaneously in Salonica and Athens, the capital. Police said anonymous callers claimed responsibility on behalf of the leftist guerrilla groups May 1 and the Revolutionary Popular Struggle. The groups have asked voters to boycott Sunday's crucial parliamentary elections, citing ``political mockery'' by the leading parties, the Conservatives and the Socialists. The Salonica blasts caused extensive damage at the European Community's northern Greece information center, located on the 6th floor of an office building, and the Industrialists Association of Northern Greece, police said. In Athens, bombs caused minor damage at the National Economy ministry, and buildings housing the General Confederation of Greek Trade Unions and the Federation of Greek Industrialists, they said on condition of anonymity. In the past, the attacks of the terrorist groups have focused on economic targets and none has ever caused fatalities. Both groups say they oppose capitalism, imperialism and the U.S. military presence in Greece. Greeks vote Sunday for the third time in a year, hoping to break a political deadlock that has created compromise governments unable to confront an economy in crisis and growing terrorism. But pollsters predict the election will end like those in June and November 1989, with no party winning enough seats to control the government.
AP900518-0248 	X	Budget negotiators should limit next year's deficit cuts to $50 billion to $60 billion, far less than the law requires, say top fiscal experts for Congress and the Bush administration. The advice, if followed, would make it easier _ and less politically painful _ for participants in the budget summit to reach a deficit-reduction deal for 1991. White House officials and congressional leaders met in the Capitol Thursday for their second round of talks on the $1.2 trillion budget for fiscal 1991, which begins Oct. 1. That spending plan will have to contain an enormous amount of taxes or spending cuts to meet the $64 billion deficit ceiling mandated by the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget law. At Thursday's session, negotiators did not agree on what size of budget-cutting package they need. ``It's bouncing all over the ballpark, $60 billion, $45 billion, $50 billion,'' said Senate Budget Committee Chairman James Sasser, D-Tenn. Their own analysts gave them wildly differing figures about the size of the looming shortfall. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said next year's budget gap looks like it will be $149 billion to $159 billion. That would mean savings _ either new taxes or spending slashes _ of $85 billion to $95 billion to shrink the shortfall to the Gramm-Rudman target of $64 billion. The White House's Office of Management and Budget projected a shortfall of $123 billion to $138 billion. That would necessitate $59 billion to $74 billion in cuts to hit the Gramm-Rudman ceiling. Neither set of figures includes the cost of rescuing the country's savings and loan institutions, a bailout that could cost the government tens of billions of dollars next year. Yet according to participants, CBO Director Robert Reischauer and OMB Director Richard Darman agreed that savings should be limited to $50 billion to $60 billion. The two budget experts said deficit cuts exceeding that amount could slow an already weak economy. Many economists worry that taking more than that amount away from consumers and government contractors _ in the form of higher taxes or spending cuts _ could prompt a recession. Some negotiators have said that loosening the deficit targets in the Gramm-Rudman law could be one way of keeping automatic cuts from taking effect. Darman also presented negotiators with examples of the spending cuts the Gramm-Rudman law would impose next year if Congress and President Bush fail to enact a deficit-reduction plan. The law would trigger enough cuts to reduce the deficit to $64 billion. According to the budget chief, $30 billion in Gramm-Rudman cuts would mean a 10.4 percent cut in domestic programs and a 7.6 percent reduction in defense spending. A $60 billion cutback would pare domestic programs by 22.2 percent and defense by 15.2 percent. In January, Bush released a proposed budget asserting that only $37 billion in savings would be needed to reach the Gramm-Rudman deficit target. The administration says that since that time, projected costs of aiding the savings and loan industry have grown, interest rates have jumped and tax collections have dropped. Democrats point out that CBO and many private economists have been expecting the higher deficit figures for months. The budget talks are expected to last weeks or months. Both sides are being cautious in suggesting how to cope with a problem that could mean unpopular tax increases or spending reductions in an election year.
AP880301-0101 	X	The government intensified its crackdown on apartheid opponents today by introducing a bill that would outlaw foreign funding of political activity. The legislation, expected to be adopted during Parliament's current session, could cripple the operations of anti-apartheid organizations and churches spared during last week's crackdown on major black opposition groups. Eighteen groups, including the largest anti-apartheid coalition and largest labor federation, were barred from political activity. The new legislation, called ``The Promotion of Orderly Politics Bill,'' would prohibit all organizations from receiving money from abroad for political purposes. Many anti-apartheid, human rights and religious groups receive the bulk of their funds from overseas. The bill would empower the justice minister to declare certain organizations ``restricted'' and to take control of foreign funds sent to them. Money which is deemed to be earmarked for undesirable political activities will ``either be returned to the foreign source or dealt with as determined by the minister,'' the bill says. No court challenge of the restrictions would be allowed. The funding restrictions could be applied to politically related activities of anti-apartheid church organizations, which have vowed to step up protests because of bans on other groups. The South African Council of Churches, which includes most major Protestant denominations and is deeply engaged in civil rights work, has received more than 90 percent of its funds from abroad in recent years. The Roman Catholic Church, which cooperates with the council of churches but receives funds separately, also relies heavily on overseas financing. The Rev. Smangiliso Mkhatshwa, secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, said the bill might prove difficult to enforce. ``If the church says supporting the families of detainees and paying legal fees is the work of love, the work of evangelism, it is dificult to see how the government can define for the church what it pastoral and what is political,'' he said. Another section of the bill sets a penalty of two years in jail or a $2,000 fine for anyone who ``says or does anything'' to foment hostility or violence between of different racial, cultural or religious groups. The penalties would apply to anyone who displays any banner, emblem or slogan deemed to convey such hostility, and also to anyone who attends a gathering where such items are displayed. Helen Suzman, veteran Parliament member of the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party, said she planned to demand a special debate today on the arrests of prominent clergymen who were protesting the government crackdown. About 25 church leaders, including Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and more than 100 other protesters were detained briefly Monday after riot policeman blocked them from marching to Parliament with a petition protesting the bans on opposition groups. One of the arrested churchmen, Roman Catholic Archbishop Stephen Naidoo, said in an interview today that he and his colleagues considered it their duty to continue challenging the government. ``The church has got to take a stand on the morality of the use of political power,'' he said. ``If it being used by a minority for the protection of the minority and the oppression of the majority, then the church has got to point this out.'' In another development, government officials warned the country's largest conglomerate, the Anglo American Corp., that they would not tolerate its announced plan to defy the Group Areas Act _ the law that establishes racially segregated living areas. Apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the nation's 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services. An executive in Anglo's property division, Graham Lindrop, recently described the act as a sham and said his company was prepared to negotiate leases directly with black tenants renting apartments in the ``white'' Johannesburg neighborhood of Hillbrow. Currently, most of the thousands of blacks living illegally in Hillbrow are forced to have their leases signed by a third party and are vulnerable to exploitation and threats from their landlords. The government has indicated it might allow Hillbrow and a few other areas to become integrated, but it says violations of the Group Areas Act will not be tolerated in the meantime. ``The act still stands until changes are approved by Parliament, Piet Badenhorst, a deputy Cabinet minister, said Monday. ``There will be prosecutions.'' Anglo American's stance was praised by foes of the Group Areas Act and denounced as civil disobedience by the extreme-right Conservative Party.
AP880825-0040 	X	A witch doctor using a monkey as bait captured the companion of a notorious man-eating crocodile, but the 200-year-old killer croc remains at large, a newspaper said today. Bujang Sudin, a 16.4-foot long specimen weighing 397 pounds, was pulled from a river Saturday and sold to a nearby crocodile farm, the New Straits Times said. The newspaper said the witch doctor, Bakir Alias Yeop, lured the crocodile with the monkey and chanted, ``Bujang Sudin come.'' It said two other men then helped haul the crocodile from the river. The report quoted Abang Adris Abang Suhai, a police official in Sarawak state, 540 miles southeast of Kuala Lumpur. Police said the people of Sungai Sadong village in Sarawak had been complaining that a crocodile was troubling them and chasing them as they walked along the river bank. They wanted it caught. Police said they did not know if Bujang Sudin had eaten any humans. The crocodile's companion, however, has, and has been the subject of massive police hunts. He is Bujang Senang, which means ``easy-going bachelor'' in Malay, and he is believed to have been born about 200 years ago. Bujang Sudin means ``bachelor Sudin''. In 1984, Bujang Senang became famous in Malaysia when he killed a 51-year-old man who was in a boat near his home. On Aug. 2, 1982, the crocodile killed an 86-year-old man. Police sharpshooters scoured the rivers in an effort to track down the crocodile. Authorities called witch doctors from as far away as Indonesia to help. Police have stopped looking for Bujang Senang, although there have been occasional reports of him being sighted along various rivers.
AP900219-0165 	X	A chain saw is useful for cleanup and maintenance of your yard and garden, but observe some basics for safe and easy operation. Solo Incorporated, which makes chain saws, has these tips: _ When starting the chain saw, place it on level ground at least 10 feet from the gas can and fueling area. Hold the saw down by placing one foot on the rear handlebar while firmly holding the front handlebar with one hand. If your saw has only a top handlebar, hold it firmly on the ground, pulling up on the starting grip. _ Hold the saw firmly with both hands, maintaining a secure grip. This will help you avoid injury from kickback. Don't overreach or cut above shoulder height, and when cutting logs, only cut one at a time. _ In bucking timber, don't stand directly behind the saw while cutting. Position yourself so you'll be away from the direction of the log roll. Hold the saw on the right side of your body (outside the line of sight across the chain) to minimize chances of injury from an unexpected broken chain or kickback. Examine the log for internal stress _ a bowed appearance is an indication _ and avoid cutting the log on the wrong side, which can result in kickback. _ To avoid kickback while limbing, make sure the log is in a secure position and work on the safest side _ usually uphill and away from the fall of cut limbs. To avoid kickback, make sure the guidebar's tip doesn't come in contact with another branch, the side of a tree, or another object. When limbing, bend your knees slightly and position your right leg behind the front carrying handlebar. The left leg should be forward and away from the guidebar's contact range. Avoid standing on limbs, slash or debris. _ Survey the area before felling a tree. Is the trunk sound or hollow and rotted? What's the wind direction and speed? Which direction is the tree leaning in? Is the tree's crown denser and heavier on one side? When you've determined the answers to these questions, figure your escape route, which should be at a 45-degee angle back from the line of the fall. When you have checked this and cleared the small limbs and branches from the bottom portion of the trunk, you're ready to fell the tree. Stand away from the tree and maintain a balanced stance. Then start by making a careful undercut. This notch, cut to a depth of a quarter-inch, will determine the line of the fall and should be positioned at a right angle to the projected fall. _ Wear protective clothing each time you use a saw. These include goggles or a face mask, snug but comfortable work clothing, cuffless long pants, hearing protection, non-slip safety gloves, and boots with steel toecaps.
AP880401-0087 	X	Pope John Paul II heard confessions from 11 pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Basilica today in keeping with a Good Friday tradition he began in 1979. In the evening, the pope planned to carry a wooden cross in a torch-lit procession at the Colosseum recalling Christ's walk to his crucifixion on Calvary Hill in Jerusalem. Several hundred people were waiting when John Paul appeared shortly after noon in St. Peter's Basilica and stepped into one of the hand-carved mahogany confessional booths. Over the next 70 minutes, he heard confessions from a family of three Italians, a 40-year-old Italian steelworker and his 53-year-old friend, a 13-year-old Italian boy studying for his confirmation, a 59-year-old contractor from the Netherlands and his 27-year-old daughter, a 22-year-old American student from California, a Nigerian man studying in England, and a Spanish housewife. At the end of the confessions, the pope blessed the hundreds of people present and asked them to join him in prayer.
AP900524-0078 	X	Most of East Germany's anti-terrorist unit is made up of former members of the ousted Communist regime's feared secret police, a government spokesman said today. The Interior Ministry official said 109 of the 149 members of the special police unit worked previously as agents for the domestic security network known as the Stasi, which has been disbanded. The remaining 40 members came from the East German army, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. The anti-terrorist unit was formed in December under the reform-oriented caretaker government led by Premier Hans Modrow, who ran East Germany after the Communist hard-liners were ousted in November. Modrow's retooled Communist Party was voted out of power in the nation's first democratic elections on March 18. But the spokesman said none of the former secret police working in the special unit took part in the violent crackdown on demonstrations on Oct. 7-8 that helped fuel the peaceful revolt that ousted the former regime. East Germany is embroiled in debate over what to do with the 80,000 people who worked for the Stasi, which used a network of surveillance and informants to enforce the rule of the former Communist government. Some people have demanded investigations of former Stasi members and the estimated 100,000 informants and those who worked with them. Others argue the network was so vast that the investigation would amount to a witchhunt. But many former bureaucrats, intelligence specialists and law enforcement officials are considered by some people to be too valuable and experienced to be removed from their jobs. Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere and his Cabinet on Wednesday gave a vote of confidence to the embattled interior minister, Peter-Michael Diestel, who is reluctant to remove former Stasi members from the domestic security network. Many lawmakers, including those from Diestel's own archconservative German Social Union, have demanded the interior minister's resignation because of his propensity for hiring or retaining security specialists from the old regime. Opposition lawmakers say Diestel has more than 2,000 former members of the Stasi on the payroll. Diestel on Wednesday announced the formation of a new committee to oversee the dissolution of the Stasi and to decide what to do with files kept on an estimated 6 million East Germans. The committee includes prominent East German authors Stefan Heym and Walter Janka, church leaders, and members of a former citizens committee set up by the Modrow government.
AP880617-0220 	X	A cold front from Nova Scotia through the mid-Atlantic Coast into the lower Mississippi Valley brought showers and scattered thunderstorms Friday to eastern New England and the mid-Atlantic states. Showers and thunderstorms were spotty elsewhere in the nation. In Des Moines, Iowa, where rainfall was 7{ inches below normal for the year, showers on Friday only brought .01 inches to the area. Showers and thunderstorms developed in parched areas of the Southeast, from western North Carolina into south central Alabama, north central and northeast Texas and the central and southern Gulf Coast. Showers and thunderstorms were scattered in parts of eastern and southern Nevada, southwest Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico and central Colorado. Temperatures Friday afternoon were in the 80s or 90s across much of the nation. The coolest temperatures were in the 50s and 60s in the Pacific Northwest, the 60s from upper Michigan into northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania, and across much of New England. Temperatures were in the 70s from the upper Mississippi Valley and lower Great Lakes into the central Appalachians. Temperatures were already above 100 degrees across the desert Southwest. The lowest temperature for the nation Friday was 32 at Marquette, Mich. The national weather forecast for Saturday includes scattered showers and thunderstorms in the front range of the Colorado Rockies, the lower Mississippi Valley and parts of the Middle Atlantic and southern Appalachian regions. The rest of the nation will have mostly sunny skies. High temperatures will be in the 80s or 90s across much of the nation; in the 70s from the eastern Great Lakes through New England and along the California coast into the Pacific Northwest, with a few highs in the mid 60s; and, from 100 to 115 across the desert Southwest.
AP901023-0051 	X	The two Koreas met on the soccer field at Olympic Stadium today before more than 80,000 South Koreans, who cheered for both teams and roared approval for unification. South Korea's national team won 1-0, but the score was insignificant beside the diplomatic coup in having two enemy nations share a playing field for only the second time since World War II. The first time was two weeks ago in North Korea, when the northern team beat the south 2-1. Today's crowd was the largest to see a South Korean sports event since the 1988 Olympic Games. At the end of the game, spectators rose for a standing ovation as the athletes jogged around the stadium holding hands and waving. The teams exchanged shirts and waved them in the air. ``Our wish is unification,'' blared a unification song over the loudspeakers. The game, called North-South Unification Soccer, is the high point of a five-day visit by a 78-member North Korean sports delegation, the first from the Communist north to visit the south since the 1945 division of the peninsula. South Korean soccer players visited the north earlier this month. That visit was only the second civilian exchange between the countries in more than four decades. The soccer delegation returns to North Korea on Friday after rounds of sightseeing, dinners and talks on future sports exchanges. South Korean Sports Minister Chung Dong Sung and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yu Sun, agreed in principle to form a joint single team for the 1992 Olympic Games and other international sports events at talks in Pyongyang. They said further discussions would be held in Seoul. About 5,000 plainclothes police were positioned inside and outside the stadium. Spectators were searched twice and passed through metal detectors to get to their seats. Scalpers were asking $140 for tickets, 10 times the highest face value price. The teams of the rival Koreas entered the stadium side by side, holding hands and waving to thunderous applause. ``This is not purely sports festival,'' Kim said before the match began. ``It should lead to a unification festival.'' ``I hope this soccer match will be a spring board for national unification,'' Chung. Thousands roared in approval and waved colorful pompons. Spectators had been asked not to bring national flags, decorative placards or other paraphernalia which would be identified only with South Korea. A drum and bugle corps played and a gigantic electric signboard flashed the pictures of the ministers. The North Korean team threw half a dozen soccer balls signed with their signatures into the grandstand and screaming spectators raced to retrieve them. During the game, the South Korean crowd cheered wildly for plays by both teams. Radical students, who had said they would root for the North Korean visitors, were not visible. News reports said tickets were sold on an individual basis apparently to avoid large radical or dissident groups sitting together. The sports exchange comes at a time when South Korea and North Korea are seeking to find ways to ease tensions and work together for unification. The prime ministers of both Koreas met for the second time last week in Pyongyang, the north's capital, and have agreed to meet again in Seoul in December. A South Korean musicians' delegation returns Wednesday from a 10-day visit to the north. The Korean peninsula was divided into the Communist North and capitalist South in 1945 at the end of the World War II. The two nations fought a war in the early 1950s and a peace treaty was never signed. The border between the Koreas remains tightly sealed and is one of the most heavily fortified demarcations in the world with more than 1.5 million troops on either side.
AP901004-0179 	X	Archaeologists say the tombs of a mysterious city have yielded the first example of the use on children of an ancient art: carving or engraving teeth as a sign of beauty. Evidence of the engraving was discovered on the teeth of a young boy's skeleton found in the ruins of Montezuma's Balcony, whose civilization was far more advanced than any previously thought to exist in the region. Montezuma's Balcony is 310 miles north of Mexico City outside Ciudad Victoria, capital of northeastern Tamaulipas state. Its name is derived from that of Moctezuma, the Aztec king. Tamaulipas, which spent more than $53,000 on the project, plans to open the site to the public this year. Two canyons and a mountain surround the remote, 12-acre city. It is reached by a steep, rocky road that veers two miles off the main highway to 86 huge slabs of stone named the ``grand stairway.'' Only from the top of the stairway can the remains of more than 100 circular structures be seen, each up to 50 feet in diameter, built from stacked and fitted rocks. More than 100 skeletons were found in basements, along with ceramic fragments, food-grinding utensils, pipes, necklaces, arrowheads, knives and small figurines. The remains of the boy, no older than 5, showed evidence of the carving, called dental mutilation, in his two upper incisors and one lower incisor. ``This is a very rare find,'' said Jesus Narez, director of the Montezuma's Balcony restoration project. ``Until now, we have never detected dental mutilations in a person this young.'' In primitive cultures, dental mutilation is believed to be practiced only on adults. It still is done by some Brazilian, Indonesian and African communities. ``We think it hurts a lot, but . . . peyote, which was commonly used in those times, was probably used to put the child to sleep or dull the pain,'' Narez said. Several other things make Montezuma's Balcony unique, said Narez, curator-investigator of the architectural and cultural collections of northern Mexico at the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. He said two groups of people lived there: the Grassiles, thin and fine featured, and the Robustus, big-boned and heavy. Archaeologists chose the names. ``At least for now, we think they lived there together, but radiocarbon testing is being done to determine if they were there at the same time or if one group followed the other,'' Narez said. According to Narez, the city's 3,000 people probably lived between the years 600 and 1400. The elite occupied in the structures and were buried in their basements, and the others lived in wooden huts, he said. References to Montezuma's Balcony appeared in a researcher's report in the mid-1800s, and there was another report in the 1940s. Work on the site began in 1988 and was completed in August. Although their culture was higher than others in the area, the Montezuma's Balcony residents were not as advanced as the Teotihuacans, Zapotecs or Mayas of southern Mexico, who built pyramids and cities in the same period. Northern tribes like the Huastecas the warrior-like Chichimecas, led more primitive, simpler lives than the people of Montezuma's Balcony, Narez said. ``We never thought we'd find these types of buildings so far north,'' he said, adding that huge pieces of rock used to build the Montezuma's Balcony structures were moved with the aid of planks and rope. ``A tribal group with limited organization would not have had sufficient social structure to construct these buildings,'' he said. ``They must have had chiefs, priests, workers and so on.'' He said the site probably was chosen because only the side with the ``grand staircase'' would have to be guarded. Circular structures are typical of Huastecas. Dome-like huts of palm and wood built over basements were believed to lesson the impact of hurricanes and cyclones. Montezuma's Balcony may have been part of a commercial corridor, Narez said, because artifacts like pipes and necklaces show influences of tribes from farther north like the Kaddo, Adena, Apaches and Mississippians. He said how its people became extinct had not been determined. ``We can only guess at this point,'' he said. ``Climate changes may have made it hard to get enough to eat. There may have been frequent fighting with the Chichimecas. There may have been illness.''
AP900205-0083 	X	The senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said today his panel will look into a report that the Pentagon has stockpiled $30 billion worth of unnecessary supplies and equipment. Sen. John Warner of Virginia said that he and Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., the Armed Services Committee chairman, ``will go to work on the problem,'' described in a Senate Budget Committee staff report disclosed over the weekend. Warner, however, said he did not believe the value of unnecessary supplies was as high as $30 billion, saying he thought it was more like $10 billion. He said he based the lower estimate on discussions he had with an assistant secretary of defense, whom he did not identify. The report said that the Defense Department has roughly $100 billion in supplies and equipment stockpiled at various installations and that as much as $30 billion worth of the material is going to waste. ``They have a 13,000-year supply of a particular part for an F-14 fighter aircraft,'' Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., chairman of the Budget Committee, said today. ``There are a number of other instances similar to that.'' The Budget Committee's findings were based in part by staff aides' visits to military bases around the country and on interviews with Pentagon officials. The committee staff found, among other things, that there was a glut of supplies and that in many instances equipment was stored in the open and was deteriorating. The report's release came as Congress is beginning to weigh the Bush administration's proposed $295 billion budget for fiscal 1991, which begins next Oct. 1. Appearing on NBC-TV's ``Today,'' show, Sasser said, ``The Pentagon has over $100 billion in spare parts. About $30 billion of those spare parts would be characterized as excess, as not needed.'' The senator said the excess supplies included, among other things, ``a female dress shirt that was prepared and tailored for the military. And this is a result of a study that cost $3.2 million. ``They studied the number of sizes they needed and they concluded 40 sizes of the shirt weren't enough so they went up to 120 sizes,'' Sasser said. ``Now, $3 million of these shirts are still gathering dust in Pentagon warehouses and now they've shifted over to a different shirt style entirely.'' ``So this is an example of the kind of problems we have in Pentagon procurement practices,'' he said. Sasser also said the Defense Department has spent over $700 million in the past six to eight years for additional warehouse space. ``And now with the troops on the verge of returning from Europe, we're going to have just a glut of material that we're going to have to store or deal with some way,'' he said. ``So I predict we're going to see war surplus stores bulging at the seams again just as they did after World War II.''
AP900623-0084 	X	Seven guards at a prison operated by the District of Columbia have been charged with distributing crack, powdered cocaine or marijuana to inmates. The officers were named in six indictments unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. Their arrests were the result of a six-month undercover FBI investigation in which an inmate was an informant, officials said. Federal prosecutors said Friday that the probe revealed how guards at the Lorton Correctional Complex in Fairfax County, Va., enlisted inmates to make drug sales and arranged payments from outside the facility. They also alleged that the guards took bribes. U.S. Attorney Henry E. Hudson added, however, that the officers were not believed to be involved in a coordinated drug trafficking effort. ``What we have here are a number of isolated instances, all occurring at about the same time,'' he said during a Friday news conference. The investigation uncovered no widespread drug abuse by Lorton officers, said Walter B. Ridley, director of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. His department runs the complex. The FBI launched the investigation because Lorton inmates appeared to have continual access to illegal drugs, said Thomas E. Duhadway, director of the FBI field office in Washington. Officials said charges against the officers ranged from possession with intent to distribute to introduction of narcotics into a prison. Each faces at least three counts. A civilian also was charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. All those charged were released on personal recognizance bonds and ordered to appear for arraignments Monday in the Alexandria court.
AP900102-0001 	X	The University of Miami was voted national champion Tuesday in the second narrowest voting since The Associated Press began its postseason college football poll 21 years ago. Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, whose team finished second, was one of those who had a better choice in mind. ``You can justify why Miami won it. What you can't justify is why we didn't,'' Holtz said a day after the Fighting Irish defeated previously unbeaten and top-ranked Colorado 21-6 in the Orange Bowl. ``We played the toughest schedule, we had the best record ... and we beat the No. 1 team quite decisively,'' Holtz said in an emotional statement likely to renew debate over a playoff system. Miami won its third national championship in the last six years by beating Alabama 33-25 in the Sugar Bowl on Monday night. The Hurricanes and Notre Dame each finished with one loss, but Miami beat the Irish 27-10 on Nov. 25. ``There is no doubt in my mind that we're the best team in the country,'' Miami coach Dennis Erickson said. ``It just happens that it came down to two teams with one loss, and we beat them.'' Miami (11-1) received 39 first-place votes and 1,474 points, with Notre Dame (12-1) getting 19 first-place votes and 1,452 points. The 22-point margin was the second closest since the AP began its postseason poll of sports writers and broadcasters in 1968. The other two first-place votes went to No. 3 Florida State, the only team to beat Miami this season. Colorado fell to No. 4. Miami also was chosen No. 1 in United Press International's coaches' poll, and by USA Today-CNN. Erickson said the close vote will increase calls for a playoff in college football. ``The debate is going to go on until there is one. I really believe down the road there will be a playoff system,'' he said.
AP881007-0152 	X	Leftist rebels claimed responsibility Friday for a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the national legislature, which they called ``the lair of the corrupt.'' Radio Venceremos, the guerrillas' clandestine station, said the Thursday attack, which damaged a wall but caused no injuries, was an operation dubbed ``Armed with bazookas, the people will triumph.'' A projectile fired from a Chinese-made RPG-2 slammed into a wall of the unicameral National Assembly shortly before the day's session began. The impact startled spectators entering the building only a few yards from where the grenade struck. ``This audacious guerrilla action demonstrates the inability of the puppet armed forces, a useless army that is not even capable of guarding utility poles, nor highways, nor its own barracks, nor the National Assembly,'' said the Radio Venceremos broadcast. The broadcast characterized the Assembly as ``the lair of the corrupt and death-squad members.'' A congressional commission and several judges are investigating cases of alleged misuse of public funds by government officials. There have also been allegations right-wing death squads operated out of the Assembly building during the early 1980s, when thousands of suspected leftists were abducted and murdered. A 9-year-old civil war pits the rebels against forces of the U.S.-backed Christian Democratic administration. In 1982, the Assembly was the target of a similar rocket-propelled grenade attack, which also caused no injuries. About 65,000 people have been killed in the war, the majority of them civilians.
AP880714-0260 	X	Stock prices eked out a small gain today as the market absorbed the news of increases in the prime lending rate. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 4.98 to 2,109.35 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. Gainers slightly outnumbered losers in the overall count of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 708 up, 663 down and 545 unchanged. Many large banks across the country raised their prime lending rates today from 9 to 9.5 percent. Analysts said, however, that those moves were seen largely as a response to recent increases in open-market money rates and did not necessarily have much predictive value for the future course of rates in general. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said Wednesday that further increases in rates were not inevitable. In any case, brokers said traders were reluctant to commit themselves extensively either way in advance of Friday's report from the Commerce Department on the nation's trade balance for May. Millipore climbed 1| to 38~ and Worthington Industries, traded in the over-the-counter market, gained 1[ to 24]. The two stocks were added to Standard & Poor's 500-stock composite index, prompting buying by index funds set up to duplicate the performance of the 500. Motorola fell 1} to 50{. The company reported second-quarter earnings of 93 cents a share, up from 62 cents in the comparable period last year but below what some Wall Streeters had been looking for. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks rose .21 to 152.48. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was up .19 at 307.85. Volume on the Big Board came to 147.41 million shares with an hour to go.
AP900910-0236 	X	Woody Allen has added his next three pictures to his exclusive agreement with Orion Pictures Corp. as writer, director and producer. He will star in two of the three. Principal photography was recently completed on Allen's ``Alice,'' which will be released by Orion this fall. Also starring in ``Alice'' are Alec Baldwin, Blythe Danner, Judy Davis, William Hurt and Cybill Shepherd. The fall will also see the start of the last film under the existing agreement. The movie, as yet untitled, stars Allen and Mia Farrow.
AP900804-0086 	X	Financial disclosure forms for this year's House and Senate races show few exceptions to the rule that incumbents have the edge in fund raising, according to a Federal Election Commission analysis released Saturday. Candidates raised $279 million and spent $192 million from January 1989 through the end of June, the analysis says. The candidates still in this year's races reported having $158.8 million available to spend for the November elections. The data confirm the overwhelming advantage of incumbents, particularly in receiving donations from special-interest political action committees. Proposals to significantly restrict or even prohibit PAC donations and other incentives designed to level the playing field for challengers are included in campaign-finance overhaul plans now before Congress. Overall, when races for open seats are excluded, four of every five dollars donated to congressional candidates went to incumbents. The 441 incumbents seeking re-election to House or Senate seats reported raising a total of $196 million in the 18-month period covered by the study, with $74 million of that total coming from PACs. Including primary races there were nearly twice as many challengers _ 793 _ but they raised just $46 million, with $6. 3 million coming from PACs. The total of challenger loans to their own campaigns eclipsed their overall PAC receipts by more than $1 million. But challengers have matched or even surpassed incumbents in raising money in a dozen races, some of them this year's hottest contests. In Oregon, for example, Democratic challenger Mike Kopetski is essentially even with incumbent Republican Rep. Denny Smith in a race considered a toss-up. And in California, actor Ralph Waite, running as a Democrat, reported raising $235,000 as of June 30, more than twice the total raised by incumbent Republican Rep. Alfred McCandless. Two Virginia races have challengers beating their opponents at fund-raising. Democrat James Moran, mayor of the Washington suburb of Alexandria, reported a slight edge over incumbent Republican Stan Parris. Republican Rep. Frank Wolf is expected to keep his seat but is being beaten at the fund-raising game by Lyndon LaRouche, the perennial fringe presidential candidate who is running despite being in a federal prison for a fraud conviction. In Senate races, where six-year terms give plenty of time to raise money, incumbents enjoy huge fund-raising edges. The king of Senate fund-raising is Republican Phil Gramm of Texas, who raised $8.9 million from January 1989 through June alone, and as of June 30 reported $6.2 million in the bank. Democratic challenger Hugh Parmer had raised $1.4 million over the 18 months but had just $20,500 left to enter the final months of the campaign. Not far behind Gramm was New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley, who is considered a possible presidential candidate in 1992. Bradley raised $6.7 million over the 18-month period and had $4.3 million in the bank at the end of June. Republican challenger Christine Todd Whitman raised $228,000 and had less than $75,000 on hand. On the House side, members of the Democratic leadership have the biggest advantage. For example, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, the House majority leader and another potential 1992 presidential candidate, raised nearly $1 million over the 18-month period. His Republican challenger, Malcolm Holekamp, collected just $18,436.
AP880809-0244 	X	The dollar advanced strongly on domestic and foreign markets Tuesday after the Federal Reserve surprised traders by increasing its discount rate. Gold prices fell. Republic National Bank of New York quoted a bid of $426.90 a troy ounce as of 4 p.m. EDT, down from $430.20 late Monday. ``Raising rates in the face of a strong dollar probably was not expected,'' said Rick Gomes, a vice president at Irving Trust Co. Traders had not expected the Fed to increase the discount rate, the fee the central bank charges for short-term loans to member banks, because the dollar has been strong, Gomes said. Investors bought the dollar because higher interest rates make it more valuable. Gomes said it was possible the major industrial countries known as the Group of Seven _ the United States is one _ were putting their monetary policies ahead of their currencies. Gomes said there were rumors in the market that West Germany, Japan and other G-7 countries might follow the Fed's lead and increase their own interest rates. But Earl I. Johnson, a vice president at Harris Trust & Co. in Chicago, said foreign interest rate hikes would not stop the dollar's upswing. ``The only thing to put a cap on the dollar would be central bank selling,'' he said. Johnson called the Fed move confirmation of the economy's strength. The Fed's board voted unanimously to increase the disount rate to 6.5 percent from 6 percent. The increase, which took effect immediately, was the first change in the rate since Sept. 4 and put the rate at its highest in more than two years. An increase in the discount rate is the central bank's most direct way of pushing interest rates higher as a curb on economic growth. Economists have been concerned in recent months that continuing economic growth could spark a new round of inflation, partly because of the country's low unemployment, high production levels and the Midwestern drought. In Tokyo, before the Fed announcement, the dollar fell 0.39 Japanese yen to a closing 133.58 yen. In late London trading, after news of the discount rate hike, the dollar rose to 134.25 yen and in New York, it climbed to 135.15 yen from 133.725 yen late Monday. In London, the British pound fell sharply against the dollar. It cost $1.6830 to buy one pound, cheaper than $1.7022 late Monday. Sterling also dropped against the dollar in New York, closing at $1.6840, compared with late Monday's $1.7005. Other late dollar rates in New York, compared with late Monday's prices, included: 1.9204 West German marks, up from 1.90005; 1.6065 Swiss francs, up from 1.5883; 6.4710 French francs, up from 6.4115; 1,413.475 Italian lire, up from 1,402.00; and 1.2160 Canadian dollars, up from 1.2110. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Monday's rates, included: 1.5960 Swiss francs, up from 1.5857; 6.4325 French francs, up from 6.3950; 2.1570 Dutch guilders, up from 2.1435; 1,403.50 Italian lire, up from 1,399.50; and 1.2137 Canadian dollars, up from 1.2097. Gold prices fell under increased selling pressure after the discount rate rise attracted investors away from bullion. In London, gold dropped to a late bid of $426 a troy ounce, compared with $432.25 bid late Monday. In Zurich, gold closed at a bid $426 an ounce compared with $432 bid late Monday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold fell $3.39 to close at a bid $430.61 an ounce. In New York, gold fell on the Commodity Exchange to $427.40 a troy ounce, down from $430.40 late Monday. Silver slipped in London to a late bid of $6.60 a troy ounce, down from $6.78 late Monday. On New York's Comex, silver fell to $6.630 a troy ounce from late Monday's $6.675.
AP880301-0032 	X	The Defense Ministry claimed 229 Contra rebels and 90 soldiers loyal to the leftist Sandinista government were killed in 4,801 combat engagements in February. A statement issued Monday night said 39 civilians also were killed, 55 injured and 115 kidnapped during the period. The statement said U.S. Air Force planes violated Nicaraguan airspace 13 times. It said other planes, mostly leaving Honduras to resupply the Contra rebels, were detected 35 times in February. The Contra rebels, trained and supplied by the United States, have been fighting to oust the Sandinistas since November 1981.
AP881010-0019 	X	If the presidential race were to go to the candidate with the fastest plane, Republican George Bush would leave Democrat Michael Dukakis in his jetstream. One only need to hear the nickname of the Dukakis plane _ ``Sky Pig'' _ to get the general idea. The name comes partly from the bloated look of the aircraft, a stubby 20-year-old Boeing 737, but mostly the description is based on flying time: It takes the plane seven hours to cross the country _ a 4{-hour flight on most commercial airlines. Method of travel is just one of many contrasts of day-to-day life on the campaign trail for the two men who would be president. Because he's the vice president, Bush gets to draw from a fleet of fast Air Force planes hangared at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. As any plane the president flies automatically becomes ``Air Force One,'' whatever plane Bush is on becomes ``Air Force Two.'' Usually a converted Boeing 707 or a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9, Bush's planes are fast, meticulously cared for and flown by Air Force pilots. Bush's campaign reimburses taxpayers, in part, for the use of the plane, which is blue and white with the words ``The United States of America'' emblazoned across the sides. Dukakis' plane, chartered from Presidential Airlines, is the same aircraft that Bush's former rival, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, used. Designed for short-range flying, ``Sky Pig'' cannot cross the country without one or more refueling stops. That was fine for the kind of campaigning Dole did during the GOP primaries _ after all, Dole used to joke that he'd fly over a state and direct the pilot to land wherever he spotted a crowd _ but it poses some scheduling problems in the final weeks of a national campaign. Aides to Dukakis, however, say the candidate is comfortable with the plane, likes the ``Presidential'' designation on the side in green letters, and has no plans to trade it in for a sleeker model.
AP900830-0109 	X	Here is a text of President Bush's news conference Thursday: President Bush: Well I have a brief statement and then I'll be glad to take some questions. The United States is engaged in a collective effort involving the overwhelming majority of the member states of the United Nations to reverse the consequences of Iraqi aggression. And our goals, enshrined in five Security Council resolutions, are clear: the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the restoration of Kuwait's legitimate government, the stability of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and the protection of American citizens. What is at stake here is truly significant _ the dependability of America's commitments to its friends and allies, the shape of the post-postwar world, opposition to aggression, the potential domination of the energy resources that are crucial to the entire world. This effort has been truly international from the very outset. Many other countries are contributing. At last count, 22 countries have either responded to a request from Saudi Arabia to help deter further aggression, or are contributing maritime forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 665. And still others are providing other forms of financial and material support to these defense efforts or to countries whose economies are affected adversely by sanctions or by higher oil prices. And still others are paying a heavy economic price at home for complying with the United Nations sanctions. It is important that the considerable burden of the effort be shared by those being defended and those who benefit from the free flow of oil. Indeed, anyone with a stake in international order has an interest in ensuring that all of us succeed. The United States has large interests in the balance and has undertaken commitments commensurate with them, and we're more than willing to bear our fair share of the burden. This includes above all the thousands of men and women in our armed forces who are now in the Gulf, but we also expect others to bear their fair share. A number of countries already have announced their willingness to help those adversely affected economically by this endeavor. And it's essential, though, that this be a concerted and coordinated one and that all affected countries participate. It is important to get the priorities right and make sure that those most deserving of assistance receive it and that those most able to contribute do so. And for that reason, I directed an interagency effort to develop a strategy to accomplish this objective. The group's report was presented at yesterday's National Security Council meeting here, and this morning I approved an action plan. And our approach calls for substantial economic assistance to those states _ in particular, I'd single out Turkey and Egypt, who are bearing a great part of the burden of sanctions and higher oil prices. The plan also targets additional countries, including Jordan, the countries of Eastern Europe and others for special assistance. The United States will also seek burdensharing for part of our own effort. At the same time, we will be asking other governments, including Japan, the Republic of Korea, Federal Republic of Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, free Kuwait, and others to join us in making available financial and, where appropriate, energy resources to countries that have been most affected by the current situation. To facilitate this undertaking, I've asked Secretary of State Jim Baker and the Secretary of the Treasury Nick Brady to lead high-level delegations to the Persian Gulf, Europe and Asia. And I'll be getting directly in touch with the leaders of these countries before Secretaries Baker and Brady arrive to set forth, spell out our general objectives. Let me close by repeating what I said the other day in meeting with the congressional leaders. The basic pieces of our policy are in place. The Iraqi regime stands in opposition to the entire world and to the interests of the Iraqi people. It is truly Iraq against the world. But I want to make this point clear, we have no argument with the people of Iraq. The sanctions are beginning to take hold. And in the meantime, we want to ensure that countries contributing to this unprecedented collective response do not suffer for doing so. And what I've announced today and what I expect will be implemented in the coming days should help create a context in which sanctions against Iraq can be sustained with the intended effect. Another area where there has been unprecedented international solidarity is OPEC's willingness to take up the slack in oil production created by the embargo on Iraqi and Kuwait's oil. In this connection, I met this morning with our energy advisers who are watching the oil production situation very, very closely. And we are pleased with OPEC's decision to help take up the slack in crude oil production. And although we are in what I would see as a transition period, the situation appears manageable. At the present time, we don't anticipate major imbalances in the oil market. But we do have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve tested and available if it is truly needed. And our energy policy is resulting in increased oil production and fuel switching to natural gas and to other fuels. I also repeat my previous request for Americans to conserve and for all parties to act responsibly. Right now, the situation, I would say, is relative stable, and I am very pleased by the coordination that has taken place with so many countries in maintaining adequate fuel levels. MORE
AP901210-0137 	X	Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell will head a delegation of eight Democratic senators that will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel later this week. ``It is important for members of Congress to have first-hand knowledge of the serious issues in the Persian Gulf,'' the Maine Democrat said in a statement announcing the seven-day trip. A 19-member House delegation, meanwhile, was leaving Tuesday for a trip to Saudi Arabia that also will include a stop in Israel. That group is led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Anthony Beilenson, D-Calif., and Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the senior GOP member of the panel. ``Through meetings with our allies, briefings with U.S. military commanders and discussions with our servicemen and women in Saudi Arabia, I am hopeful that this trip will increase our understanding of the issues in the Middle East,'' Mitchell said. Joining him on the Senate delegation leaving Thursday will be: Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Richard Bryan, D-Nev.; Bob Graham, D-Fla.; Herbert Kohl, D-Wis.; Charles Robb, D-Va.; Richard Shelby, D-Ala.; and Paul Simon, D-Ill. The members of the delegation will travel first to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, where they are scheduled to meet with King Fahd. After military briefings and meetings with service personnel in Dhahran, they will go to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other officials. The delegation also is scheduled to visit Jerusalem and meet there with Israeli officials.
AP880803-0065 	X	A jury has convicted two Navajos in the shooting and burning deaths of two tribal police officers, but couldn't agree on a verdict for a third defendant, who now faces a murder retrial. The federal jury on Tuesday found Thomas Cly, 22, and Vinton Bedoni, 31, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of using a firearm in the December killings. Prosecutors said they would seek a new murder trial for the third defendant, Ben Atene Jr. Atene, 22, must be retried within 70 days under federal speedy trial rules. He was being held without bail in the Salt Lake County Jail. ``The people on the (Navajo) reservation were watching to see whether white man's justice worked,'' said U.S. Attorney Brent Ward, who added he had ``never been so pleased'' with a case since taking his post. Ward said Atene's next trial might be aided by more witnesses, who, in light of the two convictions, might admit to being at the murder scene. U.S. District Judge Thomas Greene set sentencing for Cly and Bedoni for Oct. 3. The first-degree murder charges each carry a possible life sentence and the weapons charges carry five years. The jury deliberated 48 hours before convicting Cly and Bedoni. Greene then ordered the jurors to continue deliberations for Atene. When they were unable to come to a decision 90 minutes later, Greene declared a mistrial in Atene's case. Greene denied a defense request to acquit Atene. First-degree murder charges were dismissed July 22 against Atene's 22-year-old brother, Marques Atene, when prosecutors acknowledged they didn't have enough evidence for a conviction. The defendants were charged in the slayings of officers Roy Lee Stanley and Andy Begay, whose charred bodies were found Dec. 5 inside a burned-out police truck in a remote southern Utah canyon. During the trial, prosecution witnesses testified that the officers were shot at the scene of a bonfire and drinking party on the night of Dec. 4. Alcohol is illegal on the reservation. Defense attorney Robert VanSciver said he planned to discuss the possibility of appeal with his client, Bedoni. Attorney Ed Brass said he was certain Cly would challenge his conviction. The verdict brought relief and sadness to Marie Holiday, whose brother was Stanley. ``I've been thinking about my brother Roy all during this trial,'' she said. ``I kept thinking about him, so I have this mixed feeling and I don't know how to describe it.'' The killings have divided the community of about 2,000 Navajos living in Monument Valley in southeastern Utah, she said, and she and her family have been ostracized by many of their neighbors. ``They all wept with us when my brother died, but then when these people were arrested for it, they all turned the other way,'' she said.
AP901205-0116 	X	Iraq has accepted President Bush's offer to hold talks on the Persian Gulf crisis, the State Department said today. ``We are engaged with them on dates and arrangements for the two meetings,'' the department said. Bush had proposed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein send his foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to Washington. Then, Bush said in making the offer last Friday, Secretary of State James A. Baker III would go to Baghdad. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, today, Bush said any talks would be mandated by U.N. Security Council resolutions that have been adopted since the crisis began. ``That means no concession of territory. That means freedom of innocent people that are held against their will. ... And that means the eventual security and stability of the gulf, although that's not specified by the resolution,'' Bush said. His comments came before the State Department announced that Iraq had accepted the offer to hold talks. Earlier today, Baker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he would not negotiate with Saddam on the trip and added a new warning: ``If force must be used, it will be used suddenly, massively and decisively.'' He said his meeting in Baghdad ``will not be the beginning of a negotation over the terms of the United Nations resolutions.'' Nor, Baker said, would he negotiate on subjects ``unrelated'' to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. ``I will not be negotiating the Palestinian question or the civil war in Lebanon,'' he said. ``Saddam did not invade Kuwait to help the Palestinians. He did it for his own self-aggrandizement.'' Saddam had said earlier that the Palestinian problem must be on the agenda in any dialogue with Baker. Joe Wilson, the deputy ambassador in Iraq, was called in by the Iraqi foreign minister to be told of Iraq's acceptance of the offer, the announcement said. Wilson and a number of other U.S. officials remain in the U.S. Embassy in Baghadad. Bush made last week's unexpected overture at a presidential news conference in Washington. It followed mounting complaints in Congress that the administration was rushing into war with Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait without giving diplmacy enough time for the pursuit of a peaceful settlement. Even so, Bush pledged the administration would not waver from the resolution approved last Thursday by the U.N. Security Council threatening a forceful eviction of Iraqi troops if they did not withdraw by Jan. 15. Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., urged Baker at today's hearing to provide Saddam Hussein with ``a way out'' of the crisis. He suggested one approach would be to propose the World Court resolve Iraq's territorial claims against Kuwait. ``If at all possible, make that a meaningful trip,'' Simon urged. Baker stressed that the U.N. resolution did not require the United States to attack Jan. 15 or a day after. Without elaboration, Baker said diplomatic steps were being taken in the search for a peaceful solution. However, Baker insisted that Iraq must withdraw from all of Kuwait, liberate all foreign hostages and permit the restoration of the ousted government. Bush, in making the offer to swap envoys, said Baker would not waver from the three demands. ``The best way to get that across is one-on-one, Baker looking him in the eye,'' Bush said.
AP881222-0153 	X	An unprecedented plan by Boston University to run Chelsea's troubled schools deprives parents of a say in their children's education, the state education commissioner and teachers unions charged Thursday. Education Commissioner Harold Raynolds said the Chelsea School Committee was abdicating its responsibility to run the community's schools and depriving Chelsea residents of a role. ``This is a sort of modern-day tragedy,'' Reynolds said. The private university has proposed taking over the management and operation of Chelsea's schools for 10 years. Schools in the industrial city north of Boston have among the lowest test scores and highest dropout rates in the state. The School Committee is the local school board in Chelsea and is expected to endorse the takeover. The Massachusetts Federation of Teachers opposes the plan. ``The citizens ought to control their schools, the citizens ought to determine the climate in which their children learn,'' said Annemarie DuBois, union director. ``It is not necesssary to take the public out of public education.'' The plan calls for BU to raise money from private sources and use students and faculty from its School of Education. Other elements in the proposal raised hackles, including the university's request for an exemption from state open-meeting and open-records laws and freedom from liability if students, parents or others sue it. The state wants those elements revised, and an amended plan was due Thursday. But it did not materialize. Peter Greer, dean of the School of Education, and university attorney Michael Rosen said those concerns were being worked out and a revised plan would be ready next month. Once the Chelsea School Committee agrees to the contract, it still requires the Legislature's approval. Greer said that at a public meeting last month in Chelsea, 38 out of 44 people spoke in favor of the plan. ``The people of Chelsea have said `Please do this,''' he said. Teachers unions have questioned the constitutionality of the plan but failed several weeks ago to persuade a judge to bar the contract from going forward. About 275 Chelsea teachers are represented by the 650,000-member American Federation of Teachers, which also opposes the plan. ``We delude ourselves into thinking this is a model or experiment that could be duplicated,'' said Bella Rosenberg, assistant to national AFT president Albert Shanker. This is ``a small school district that is about to become a colony of a very large university,'' Ms. Rosenberg said.
AP900202-0213 	X	Chrysler Corp. will shut down its car assembly plant in St. Louis and lay off 3,700 workers in a move that's likely to worsen already souring relations between the company and its union. Thursday's announcement, the latest in a series of moves by U.S. automakers to cut capacity in the face of slumping sales, makes it likely that job security will be the union's top priority when it opens contract negotiations with the nation's Big Three automakers this summer. Chrysler said its St. Louis No. 1 plant will close Sept. 21, one week after its existing contract with the United Auto Workers expires. As previously announced, Chrysler will eliminate one shift at the plant on Feb. 12. The company said it will transfer production of the Dodge Daytona to its Sterling Heights, Mich., assembly plant, and shift assembly of the Chrysler LeBaron coupe and convertible to its Newark, Del., plant. The St. Louis plant will be the third Chrysler has closed since late 1988. It was announced just one day before the company closes a Detroit plant and puts 1,700 other workers on indefinite layoff. The move angered United Auto Workers officials. ``Workers and their unions don't design the cars or develop the marketing plans,'' UAW President Owen Bieber and Vice President Stan Marshall, head of the union's Chrysler department, said in a statement. ``Senior management calls those shots, but when they miscalculate or screw up, they all stay in place while the workers are told to hit the street,'' they said. Chrysler spokesman Doug Nicoll said the timing of the St. Louis plant closing was dictated by the UAW contract, which expires Sept. 14. That pact doesn't allow the company to close a plant because of product transfers. It says plants may be shut down only if sales of its products slump badly. Chrysler used that as justification for today's closing of its Jefferson Avenue assembly plant in Detroit. That factory makes Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon subcompact cars, whose sales have fallen by more than 50 percent from their heyday of about 208,000 in 1986. The UAW has contested that closing, saying Chrysler didn't do enough to keep the design of the small cars fresh and market them properly. Some of the 1,700 workers laid off from Jefferson Avenue will be offered jobs at Jefferson North, a plant under construction next to the existing factory. That plant will begin producing a sport-utility vehicle in late 1992. Chrysler is shutting the St. Louis plant in two stages. Beginning Feb. 12, it will eliminate one shift, putting 1,900 of its 3,700 workers on indefinite layoff. In September, it will lay off the remaining 1,800 workers and close the plant. The announcement couldn't have come at a worst moment, said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at San Diego. ``I think this coming on top of Jefferson is going to create a lot of anxiety and hostility in the industry going into negotiations,'' he said. The UAW opens talks with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler in July. UAW President Owen Bieber said negotiating priorities will be worked out at a special union convention in May in Kansas City, Mo., but job security was more than likely to be the top issue. Michigan State University labor professor Dale Brickner agreed. ``Job security is going to be the barn burner,'' Brickner said. ``If we had strikes this fall, one or more, it certainly would not surprise me.'' Nicoll, the Chrysler spokesman, said the Delaware and Michigan plants would be idled in November to retool for the new cars and would resume production in December. Employment at each plant will increase by a few hundred workers, with laid off St. Louis workers getting the first cracks at the new jobs. The St. Louis closing is one in a series of temporary or indefinite shutdowns or production cuts at Big Three assembly plants nationwide. About 15,400 workers will have lost their jobs at 11 GM or Chrysler assembly plants because of indefinite layoffs between January and September. ``This isn't the last,'' Shaiken said. ``I think we will see something else at GM, particularly as contract time approaches.'' The closures come as auto sales slump and capacity at Japanese-owned plants grows. Within the last year, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. has opened a second assembly plant in Ohio and Nissan Motor Corp. has announced a huge expansion of its factory in Smyrna, Tenn. Since 1986, the best year in automotive sales history, GM and Chrysler have lost market share while Ford and Japanese companies, with the help of their new U.S. plants, have increased their shares.
AP900409-0201 	X	He's a composer for our time, a man who writes operas about the social condition of the modern world. Sir Michael Tippett, though better known in his native England than in America, has been called ``one of the three or four giant composers in the last half of the 20th century.''
AP901002-0033 	X	The Education Department says an investigation has determined that a graduate mathematics program at the University of California at Los Angeles discriminated against Asian Americans. Michael Williams, assistant secretary for civil rights, said Monday that the 30-month inquiry found ``a statistical disparity in the rates of admission to the mathematics department on the basis of race'' and ``an inconsistency in how Asian and white applicants who received the same evaluation ratings were treated.'' Seventy-five other departments were cleared of discrimination allegations, while eight departments were found to have inconclusive records, Williams said. The Office of Civil Rights also is investigating undergraduate admission practices at UCLA and at Harvard. As a result of the findings, Williams said UCLA must offer admission to five Asian-American students who had been ``discriminatorily denied admission.'' The university also must establish a uniform system of admission and improve recordkeeping ``to allow us to determine whether or not it is observing the civil rights laws.'' UCLA Chancellor Charles Young said the university will appeal the violation finding because ``we firmly believe that racially neutral criteria were used to make these decisions and that the OCR has no basis to conclude that discrimination exists at UCLA.'' ---
AP881023-0047 	X	The Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has started human testing of a treatment that doctors hope will enhance the body's ability to fight cancer and maybe dissolve malignant tumors. Two patients at the center were the first people to receive the treatment, in vitro sensitization or IVS, which previously had been tested only on mice, The Pittsburgh Press reported Sunday. Studies have shown the process fights remaining tumor cells in mice, the newspaper said. In some cases, the animals' cancer has been eliminated entirely. Researchers say it is too soon to tell what effect the treatment has had on the two patients. Their patients' identity and the type of cancer they had were not disclosed. The tests began in June. ``I have no question but that at some point in the intermediate-term future, this will be of therapeutic benefit,'' said Dr. John M. Kirkwood, one of two principal investigators in the study. Dr. Norman Wolmark, the other lead investigator, said the information gathered in the study should be useful in pointing the way even if there is no immediate effect on the two patients' tumors. ``I think the treatment can be modified in the hope that a successful tumor response will result,'' he said. In vitro sensitization involves removing a tumor and irradiating it to inactivate the tumor cells, researchers told The Press. The cells are combined with a bacterium commonly used to vaccinate against tuberculosis in order to stimulate the patient's immune system. The patient then is injected with the irradiated cells to produce sensitized lymphocytes, or cells critical to the body's natural defense against disease and infection, researchers said. Other steps in the complex treatment involve the use of the tumor-fighting hormone interleukin-2. Researchers told the Press it may be two years or more before enough patients are treated for a sufficient amount of time to know the effectiveness of the treatment. The groundwork for the treatment was begun more than five years ago at the National Cancer Institute in Washington by research scientist Suyu Shu. In 1986, Shu moved to the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, which is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, where he continued his laboratory work with mice. He recently left for the University of Michigan. Shu's approach, called adoptive cellular immunotheraphy, is not a widely used approach to cancer research. Most tumors are not recognized or only weakly recognized by the body's immune system and therefore continue growing because the immune system does little to attack them, said Dr. Ronald Herberman, director of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. ``This is basically the main reason there has not been great emphasis'' in research to enhance the immune system, he told the newspaper. Herberman said researchers, ideally, would ``like to see some almost immediate shrinkage of the tumor. But it may not happen that way.'' ``It's a tall order to expect this kind of treatment would actually make a large tumor melt away,'' he said.
AP881102-0037 	X	Sen. Dan Quayle is warning Republicans against overconfidence in the waning days of the presidential campaign, saying the GOP could end up like Thomas Dewey in 1948. Arriving here Tuesday night at the end of a long campaign day in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, Quayle said ``the polls have been all over the lot.'' ``We believe, in fact, we have a small but marginally insignificant lead,'' he told reporters. Two nationwide surveys released Tuesday night show the Republican ticket of George Bush and Quayle holding double-digit leads of 12 and 13 points in the final week before the election. Earlier, while campaigning for Indiana Lt. Gov. John Mutz, who is trying to succeed Robert Orr in Quayle's homestate of Indiana, the senator sought to deflect burgeoning speculation about whether his wife, Marilyn, might be appointed to fill his vacant Senate seat in the event of a Bush-Quayle victory next Tuesday. ``It's going to be Bob Orr's decision,'' Quayle said of talk within Republican Party circles in the state that Mrs. Quayle might be offered the vacant seat. During an interview last weekend on the syndicated program ``McLaughlin: One on One,'' Quayle's wife refused to flatly rule out such a possibility. ``I think it's a real honor for her to be considered,'' Quayle told reporters in Evansville. ``I'm not going to do anything to disrupt the discussion. ... Of course, we've got a family, and life is going to change a lot'' if the Bush-Quayle ticket is elected, he said. Quayle was appearing at a campaign rally today in this ``City on the Bluffs'' before traveling to Owensboro, Ky. He has appearances scheduled later in the week in Greenville and Spartanburg, S.C., and in Oklahoma and Alabama. The senator, who complained about last-minute scheduling changes dictated by the Bush campaign headquarters in Washington, seemed buoyed by two appearances in his homestate, one in Jeffersonville and the second in Evansville. Red, white and blue balloons sailed in front of a flag-waving, cheering crowd as the band struck up ``Back Home in Indiana.'' But when he arrived in Memphis in late evening, Quayle deflected questions which assumed a Republican Party victory at the polls. ``We believe this election could still go either way,'' he said. ``We're not taking anything for granted. That would be absolutely lethal.'' ``One way you can lose an election is to sit back, and relax, and we'll end up like Dewey did,'' Quayle said. He was referring to Thomas Dewey's upset loss to Democrat Harry Truman 40 years ago in an election that virtually all the experts had given to Dewey.
AP881230-0020 	X	With 36.5 miles of shelves and more than 1.1 million different books, John Zubal thinks his bookstore offers the largest collection of titles for sale in the world. He hopes the Guinness Book of World Records will think so, too. Zubal, 49, says he's writing the editors of the Guinness Book once he has gathered supporting evidence. And there's quite a bit of it. Four warehouses, packed with books from floor to ceiling, house Zubal's volumes, arranged alphabetically by categories. The complex is so large that, until recently, his 49-year-old wife, Marilyn, used roller skates to retrieve customer requests. Guinness lists W. & G. Foyle Ltd. of London as the bookstore with the most shelving at 30 miles, while Barnes & Noble Bookstore in New York City is listed as the largest book building with 154,250 square feet of books, said Sheelagh Thomas, a deputy editor for Guinness in England. Zubal said he has 78,000 square feet of books, and more titles than any other store because he has few duplicate books, textbooks or remainders such as those sold at Barnes & Noble and Foyle. Bibliophiles from as far way as Japan visit his store regularly, he said. But if you want to learn how to ski or groom your pet, don't go to Zubal's. ``We don't have too many (books) for the casual reader,'' Zubal said recently. ``Mostly our books are for the scholar and most are sold by mail order. We are not too concerned with what is being published now.'' Fewer than 2 percent of Zubal's tomes were published after 1960, he said. Some of the biggest categories are literary criticism, anthropology, philosophy, theology and history. Zubal estimated he has 250 books alone about Charles Dickens and 1,000 on Shakespeare. ``We do a lot of business in World War II books,'' said Zubal. ``We think there are about 6,000 books published on World War II, and we have 3,000.'' Zubal acquires most of his books from contacts who tell him of literary estates or bookstores for sale. ``I used to hit the flea market circuit but now I let the younger guys do it,'' said the bookseller, who travels to Europe several times a year to buy and sell. Zubal also owns autographed editions by James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. While Zubal said all his books are for sale, ``there are books I mark up to scare off the fainthearted.'' He was not ready to dicker over an autographed edition of ``Finnegan's Wake'' priced at $3,000. ``I'm in no hurry to sell it,'' he said. ``It's money in the bank.'' Once Zubal submits his claim to Guinness, Ms. Thomas said, he will need to submit two forms from witnesses validating his claim and a color photograph. Ms. Thomas said editors would have to determine if his claim to have the most individual titles would merit a separate record category. ``That is always a possibility, but we can't make any promises,'' she said.
AP880812-0099 	X	President Reagan's spokesman today denounced House-passed legislation to withdraw all U.S. investment from racially segregated South Africa, while supporter announced a campaign to ensure its passage in the Senate. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the bill would ``destroy America's flexibility'' to seek change through diplomatic pressure. ``Such moves are more likely to stymie progress toward ending apartheid rather than to accelerate its end,'' Fitzwater said. The House on Thursday adopted, on a 244-132 vote, the South Africa sanctions bill, which also would impose a near-total trade embargo. The bill faces threats of a Republican filibuster and a Reagan veto. Supporters hailed the dramatic measure as a last-chance opportunity to bring strong economic pressure to bear to help end South Africa's apartheid system of racial separation by expanding the less sweeping sanctions adopted in 1986. But Republicans said the bill represents a ``scorched earth'' policy that amounts to declaring economic war against South Africa, a war they said would hurt the blacks it is designed to help by causing millions to lose their jobs. ``Apartheid is a morally wrong and politically unacceptable system which is the root cause of South Africa's disorder,'' Fitzwater said. ``However, the imposition of sanctions is not the solution,'' he said. ``Sanctions would hurt the very people that we seek to help. They would destroy America's flexibility, discard our diplomatic leverage and deepen the crisis.'' Groups supporting the bill told a news conference they still lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto but believe they could get it signed by Democrat Michael Dukakis if he is elected. Robert Brauer, legal counsel to Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., said proponents were meeting with key Senate aides today to discuss strategy for the Sept. 8 debate of the sanctions bill in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Damu Smith, executive director of the Washington Office on Africa which has lobbied for an end to apartheid, said his organization will intensify a grass-roots campaign against a threatened Senate filibuster. GOP members called on the House to reverse course and adopt a policy of ``black empowerment'' to increase the economic and political power of blacks and weaken the foundations of the apartheid system. But Rep. Howard Wolpe, D-Mich., and other sanctions supporters said that course simply will not work. ``Black economic empowerment in the face of apartheid is an impossibility,'' Wolpe said as the House voted down a trio of Republican-sponsored amendments designed to dilute or change the legislation. With the House and Senate eager to adjourn for the fall elections, little time remains to push the bill through Congress, especially since both houses likely would be faced with votes to override a presidential veto. In a policy statement, the administration said Reagan's senior advisers will recommend that he veto the sanctions bill if it emerges from Congress in its present form because it ``undermines the president's ability to conduct foreign policy.'' It was likely that Senate opponents of the measure would launch a filibuster, since there is no limit on discourse in that chamber. Opponents have refused in the past to agree voluntarily to limit discussion on such issues, forcing the chamber to a cloture vote to shut off debate, a vote that requires the support of a two-thirds majority. Many Republican opponents accused the House Democratic leadership of staging a political vote to score points among black voters for Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and for political activist Jesse Jackson on the eve of the Republican National Convention. ``Some of us wonder if the real purpose of this bill is to be responsive to the Jackson-Dukakis foreign policy,'' said Rep. William Broomfield, R-Mich. ``We are not bringing this bill to embarrass Republicans,'' said Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif., principal sponsor of the measure. ``We are here to free black South Africa. This has nothing to do with presidential politics.'' Dellums said White House officials, citing ongoing peace negotiations in southern Africa, had asked him repeatedly over the last several days not to bring up the bill until after Congress returns from its Labor Day recess. He said he agreed to do so, but only if Reagan promised in writing not to veto the bill if it reached his desk. Dellums said that in the end, the White House declined to make such a promise and he decided to go ahead. In an emotional summary that drew a standing ovation from his colleagues, Dellums told the House: ``I listened to those who said this is going to hurt blacks, it's going to hurt corporations. But human beings will struggle for their freedom, in peace if they can, in violence if they must. ... That pales every single argument you have made. We must end the madness of apartheid.'' The disinvestment legislation has its roots in the economic sanctions voted by Congress in 1986 and still in effect. They banned all new public and private loans and investments in South Africa and barred certain imports and exports. The bill contains these major provisions: _All U.S. investment in South Africa would be banned and U.S. corporations with such investments would be compelled to divest them. The investment ban would not apply to any business in which blacks or other non-whites have at least a 90 percent ownership interest. _All South African imports to the United States would be banned except for certain strategic minerals and publications. The 1986 sanctions law banned only agricultural products, coal, textiles, uranium, and military vehicles. _All U.S. exports to South Africa would be prohibited with the exception of agricultural products, publications and U.S. public and private assistance. _The bill bars a U.S. company or vessel from transporting crude or refined oil to South Africa. Americans also would be forbidden to engage in the production of nuclear material in South Africa.
AP900930-0028 	X	A rapist says his life was ruined by a judge who called the victim a ``pitiful woman'' as he rejected a prison sentence worked out in a plea bargain. ``He has created a living hell for me,'' said Mark Edward McCulloch, who accepted a 4{-year prison term offered by prosecutors but was placed on probation for two years. ``I was ready to go to jail.'' McCulloch now fears for his safety, saying, ``I can't walk out of the door without fear of losing my life. He put me at risk. Anyone can take a shot at me.'' Gov. Bob Martinez and others called for the resignation of Seminole Circuit Judge Kenneth Leffler after the sentencing, but the judge is returning to the bench Monday under a self-imposed limit restricting his cases to civil suits. McCulloch rented a room from the victim, a 40-year-old Casselberry woman, for two years and accepted full responsibility for the rape April 9. The woman said her tenant became infatuated and obsessed with her. Leffler, who presided over the woman's 1987 divorce trial, said at the sentencing, ``I'm almost of the belief that she is a victimizer of men.''
AP880916-0216 	X	A Findlay man sitting in a downtown restaurant was arrested Friday after someone allegedly overheard him making threatening remarks against Vice President George Bush, police said. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, campaigned in the northwest Ohio city Friday morning. Police said Charles T. Rode Jr., 35, allegedly made threatening comments about 9 a.m., shortly before Bush's arrival. Police and Secret Service agents arrested Rode, who did not resist and was not carrying a weapon, police said. He was held until Bush left the city and then was taken to the Lucas County jail in Toledo, where he was being held without bond Friday night on a charge of threatening the vice president.
AP900328-0151 	X	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher underlined the need for restraint on all sides in the Lithuania crisis during a 50-minute telephone conversation Wednesday with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, her office said. The phone call, arranged in advance through diplomatic contacts, was timed to precede Mrs. Thatcher's meetings Thursday and Friday with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Britain and with President Bush in Bermuda on April 13. Mrs. Thatcher's office gave no details on Gorbachev's response on Lithuania but said she emphasized the need for restraint and negotiations and expressed hope the crisis could be settled in a way suitable to both sides. ``The people of Lithuania have made clear their wish to determine their own future,'' Mrs. Thatcher said to the House of Commons Tuesday. She said Britain had never recognized the 1940 Soviet annexation of Lithuania though it was recognized ``in fact'' in the 35-nation Helsinki accords in 1975. ``Undoubtedly, that is a very difficult situation, both for President Gorbachev and for the people of Lithuania,'' Mrs. Thatcher said. ``I believe that it calls for great restraint on both sides. Force is not an appropriate way to settle the position. I hope it will be settled by restraint on both sides and by their discussing it so that they come to a satisfactory conclusion. ``That view was also taken by the 12 foreign secretaries of the European Community,'' she said. Mrs. Thatcher's spokesman, who by custom was not identified, said the conversation also covered other world events, including the East German elections, prospects for German unification, and the prime minister's visit to Kiev in June.
AP880427-0128 	X	Mayor Edward I. Koch said he stands by his criticism of the Rev. Jesse Jackson before New York's Democratic primary, but says he regrets that his belligerent style and sharply worded attacks offended Jackson's supporters. In a statement released hours after Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward called on the mayor to apologize for his ``divisive'' remarks, Koch said he had ``articulated my concerns in a way that, regrettably, offended a large number of people, both black and white.'' ``I would hope they will look beyond my style to the substance of what I said, which I believe was fair political criticism. ``The words I used were too sharp. These are words I have used for years. Because of the particular sensitivity of this situation, I should have been more careful in my choice of words.'' It was highly unusual for Ward _ the city's first black police commissioner and a Koch appointee _ to comment on political matters that did not directly involve the police department, but he said he felt the need to do so because he was being asked regularly about Koch's anti-Jackson efforts. In a letter that appeared in today's editions of The New York Times, Koch said, ``It was never my intent to draw political lines with racial or religious borders.'' Ward said today he was ``absolutely'' satisfied that the mayor never intended to insult the black community. Koch's attacks on Jackson have brought a continued backlash and have prompted early efforts to form a coalition to defeat the mayor next year, when it is expected he will seek a fourth term. When asked if Koch was apologizing to Jackson as well as his supporters, the mayor's press secretary, George Arzt, responded: ``Whatever the letter says. We're not going beyond it.''
AP901211-0160 	X	The original Budweiser brewery will pay $6.5 million to leave government control next year and link with its U.S. counterpart, a news agency said Tuesday. Budvar, the small brewery in the southern Bohemian town of Ceske Budejovice, known as Budweis in German, has brewed its namesake beer since the 19th century. Adolphus Busch, a Bavarian native, acquired the rights to sell the beer in North America early this century. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., the world's largest beer producer, tried to set up a joint venture with Budvar in 1988, but Communist authorities nixed the deal at the time. Efforts for ties between the companies were renewed following last year's democratic revolution. Government authorities sought compensation from Budvar in exchange for independence and the right to use the famous trademark. Budvar workers went on strike Monday in an effort to speed up the talks. Antonin Kratochvile, general manager of the state-controlled brewery chain Jihoceske Pivovary, said Monday that Budvar had agreed to pay the group $6.5 million for independence. ``After long negotiations which lasted almost a year the conflict was finally resolved,'' the official CTK news agency reported. CTK said the brewery would be independent in January. ``The Budvar beer is being brewed again for local distribution and export as well,'' CTK added. Details of a possible U.S-Czech joint venture have not been disclosed.
AP900320-0113 	X	Environmental Protection Agency auditors are reviewing the agency's handling of an unusual case that put the bite on dozens of dentists because they sold old fillings whose toxic ingredients ended up in the soil. The case has attracted the attention of lawmakers because it tests how far the government can reach to hold parties accountable for toxic waste contamination. Last week, the EPA inspector general's office said it was assigning auditors to conduct a 60-day review of the case before determining whether additional study was necessary. The review comes at the request of a Pittsburgh dental supplier who claims the agency overstepped its authority. The case hinges on amalgam _ the stuff that fillings are made of _ and whether it can be considered a ``hazardous substance'' after it has been removed from peoples' teeth. Amalgam is a hard, durable alloy. Dentists often save old fillings or leftover amalgam and sell it to processors, who break it down into mercury or silver. The EPA alleged in 1987 and 1988 that Pittsburgh dental suppliers Roy Ott, his son Ken, and other companies sold amalgam to metal processor Eugene Bourdeaudhui. As a result of Bourdeaudhui's efforts to break the amalgam down, the agency said soil in Willington, Conn., became so polluted with toxic mercury that it required a $710,000 cleanup in 1985. In seeking out responsible parties to pay for the cleanup, the EPA stunned the nationwide dental community by going after not only Bourdeaudhui but also 58 dentists and several dental suppliers who did business with him. All the parties have settled with EPA, according to attorney Robert Ging of Confluence, Pa. His clients, the Otts, agreed last November to pay the government $30,000 because they said the expense of further legal challenges was too great. In announcing several of the settlements last year, the EPA said the agreements ``demonstrate that members of the dental community understand that they have a responsibility to make themselves aware of dental amalgam's ultimate disposal method and that the dental community _ which controls the disposition of waste amalgam _ rather than taxpayers, should bear the cost of cleanup.'' But Ging said in an interview Tuesday that the principle involved compelled the Otts last month to ask EPA Inspector General John C. Martin to review the case. ``Mr. Ott and his son were so offended by the waste and the injustice of the whole procedure that they felt it ws worth their time and effort to bring this to the attention of the Congress and the people,'' Ging said. Several lawmakers agreed with the Otts that the case raised basic fairness questions. ``The fact that dental amalgam is considered a hazardous waste under Superfund comes as a surprise to many,'' said Rep. Doug Walgren, D-Pa., in a letter last year to EPA. ``A substance which is in my mouth _ and the mouths of millions of Americans _ and is deemed `safe' by dentists and the American Dental Association hardly seems a candidate for Superfund coverage.'' Walgren also said it ignored ``a common sense standard of reasonableness'' to hold Ott and the dentists responsible for the actions of a ``third party'' in Connecticut. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the Otts obtained EPA documents they said demonstrated excessive charges by contractors for the cleanup. ``We share your concern that contractors may be charging excessive fees under the Superfund law,'' Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a letter to the family several weeks ago.
AP900516-0061 	X	Pan American World Airways called on the United States and foreign governments today to establish uniform anti-terrorist security measures for all air carriers. In a full-page advertisement carried in The New York Times and the Washington Post, Pan Am said security measures ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration were required for American airlines, but not for foreign carriers. ``To be effective, security systems must come about through a cooperative team effort among governments, their agencies and airlines,'' it said. ``To do otherwise would be to perpetuate the present patchwork of rules and regulations.'' The advertisement, signed by Pan Am Chairman Thomas G. Plaskett, came one day after the President's Commission on Aviation and Security and Terrorism released a critical report on airline security. The commission was convened to investigate the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 259 people on the plane and 11 people on the ground. Pan Am suggested that security systems could be supported by government funds or a surcharge on all international air fares. ``Governments of all nations must take direct responsibility ... by providing whatever resources are necessary for improving the security of international air travel,'' the airline said. The presidential commission's report called on the government to consider ``preemptive or retaliatory military strikes'' against terrorist enclaves in other countries to combat air terrorism. A system should be set up to notify passengers of credible terrorist threats, it said, and the government should take more seriously the possibility of terrorist strikes in the United States.
AP901220-0185 	X	RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The Pentagon warned Saddam Hussein today that U.S. air power will be ready to attack Iraq by Jan. 1 - even if all ground forces are not ready for war by that U.N.-imposed deadline for him to withdraw from Kuwait. The statement came from a top aide to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney the morning after a senior U.S. commander here raised eyebrows by saying American ground troops might not be ready to fight Iraq until a month or more past the United Nations deadline - and that he would urge President Bush not to order any attack until the full U.S. deployment was ready for war. Cheney spokesman Pete Williams said Cheney ``was not displeased'' by Lt. Gen. Calvin A.H. Waller's candid assessment. Still, today's statement by Williams and other comments by senior military officers here appeared clearly designed to give the deadline more teeth to counter any interpretation of Waller's remarks as possibly undermining Bush's demand that Saddam meet the deadline or risk attack. ---= WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, trying to blunt criticism in Congress, says U.S. allies have spent more than $9 billion for the American-led military showdown with Iraq and ``the support is there.'' Some lawmakers have accused Germany and Japan - wealthy nations dependent on oil imports - of letting the United States shoulder the financial and military burden of the Persian Gulf crisis. Sen. Jim Sasser, D-Tenn., said Saudi Arabia was reaping a windfall profit of about $150 million a day in increased oil sales and have contributed only $987 million in cash and material - equivalent to about 6.5 days' worth of those profits. Sasser, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said Japan had pledged $4 billion to the gulf effort and had paid $374 million through Nov. 30. Germany, he said, had offered $900 million and paid $330 million. ---=
AP900515-0190 	X	'' with Shevardnadze interview
AP880609-0227 	X	President Reagan joined with President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire in offering praise Thursday for Jonas Savimbi, the guerrilla leader trying to overthrow Angola's communist government, the White House said. During their 15-minute White House meeting, the two presidents also thanked each other for backing solutions to problems in southern Africa and Angola, where the United States has been pressing for the pullout of pro-government Cuban military forces, said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. The White House issued a statement later Thursday saying Reagan and Mobuto agreed to support the goal of independence for South Africa-controlled Namibia and peace and reconciliation between the Angolan government and the UNITA guerrillas in Angola. Accusations that Zaire tortures prisoners and commits other human rights abuses were not raised at the White House session, Fitzwater said. The accusations were disputed by Mobutu in a brief talk with reporters. ``You can only oppress a people if they do not have confidence in you, which is not the case in Zaire, contrary to what has been written,'' he said. Mobutu, on a private visit to the United States, said the main purpose of his White House call was to thank Reagan ``for all he has done for Zaire in the framework of the friendship and solidarity which exists between our two countries.'' He also congratulated Reagan ``for the successes he had during the Moscow summit .. he has given a glimmer of hope to all of humanity.'' The Zairean president was also meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary James Banker and with officials of the World Bank, which last year granted his country an $80 million loan.
AP881110-0196 	X	The International Monetary Fund announced today that it is granting the west African republic of Ghana a loan of $497 million under its new, easier terms for the poorest countries. Interest will be at only 0.5 percent, instead of the usual 6 to 7 percent or more, and there will be a 5 1@2 year grace period during which only interest need be paid. Ghana will get 10 years to repay the principal. It will get the new money in six semi-annual disbursements, which can be suspended if Ghana fails to meet agreed conditions. Ghana already owes the fund $628 million. The fund did not announce the details of its conditions, but said the government of Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings has undertaken to speed up ``structural reforms.'' It added that the government is also trying to help the country's poorest and most vulnerable groups.
AP880720-0291 	X	GTE Corp. is cutting back in the expensive and competitive business of building telephone network switches by turning over 49 percent of its operation to American Telephone & Telegraph Co. GTE will own 51 percent of a joint venture with AT&T, then reduce its ownership to 20 percent after five years and zero after 15 years, under an agreement in principle announced by the companies Wednesday. The venture will consist of GTE's network switching business, which employs about 2,000 workers in the Phoenix, Ariz., area and about 3,000 in factories in the Chicago suburbs of Northlake and Genoa, Ill. AT&T will give the joint venture licenses to use some of AT&T's own advanced switching technology. It will continue to run its own network switching business independently of the joint venture. AT&T dominates the U.S. market for network switches, which are basically computers installed in the central offices of phone companies that are loaded with complex software to handle high-tech communications. The newest switches are being upgraded at enormous expense to handle simultaneous transmission of voices, computer data, video signals and other information over the same circuits. The deal eases GTE out of a costly business where it has been an also-ran with about 10 percent of the market, consisting mainly of the GTE local phone companies, said John Bain, an analyst for Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. Financial arrangements were not disclosed, but since GTE's contribution is substantially larger it is reasonable to assume that AT&T will be making some kind of payment to GTE, GTE spokesman Thomas Mattausch said. GTE's customers should benefit because the joint venture will work on enhancing GTE switches using the latest in AT&T technology, the companies said. The companies' switches happen to be similar, so there is plenty of room for sharing of technology, Mattausch said. In the long term, AT&T is likely to steer GTE customers toward AT&T switches, Bain predicted. GTE has reduced its involvement in other parts of the communications equipment business in recent years by entering joint ventures with West Germany's Siemens AG and Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. ITT Corp., following a similar pattern, reduced its involvement in the network switching business at the end of 1986 by placing its telecommunications equipment business in a European-based joint venture with France's Compagnie Generale d'Electricite.
AP901130-0011 	X	Here is the text of U.N. Security Council Resolution 678, passed 12-2 Thursday, which gives Iraq until Jan. 15 to withdraw from Kuwait or face possible military action by member states: The Security Council, Recalling and reaffirming its resolutions 660 (1990), 661 (1990), 662 (1990), 664 (1990), 665 (1990), 666 (1990), 667 (1990), 669 (1990), 670 (1990), 674 (1990), and 677 (1990). Noting that, despite all efforts by the United Nations, Iraq refuses to comply with its obligation to implement Resolution 660 (1990) and the above subsequent relevant resolutions, in flagrant contempt of the Council, Mindful of its duties and responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance and preservation of international peace and security, Determined to secure full compliance with its decisions, Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, 1. Demands that Iraq comply fully with Resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and decides, while maintaining all its decisions, to allow Iraq one final opportunity, as a pause of goodwill, to do so; 2. Authorizes member states cooperating with the government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement Security Council Resolution 660 and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area; 3. Requests all states to provide appropriate support for the actions undertaken in pursuance of paragraph 2 of this resolution; 4. Requests the states concerned to keep the Council regularly informed on the progress of actions undertaken pursuant to paragraphs 2 and 3 of this resolution; 5. Decides to remain seized of the matter (keep the matter under active consideration).
AP900510-0013 	X	Thirty years ago today, predominantly Protestant West Virginia said yes to a Catholic and played a pivotal role in the making of a president. When John F. Kennedy routed Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey in the state's Democratic primary on May 10, 1960, he put to rest the notion that a Catholic couldn't be president, experts said. ``It propelled John Kennedy to the nomination and undermined the religious issue,'' said West Virginia Wesleyan professor Robert Rupp, who is organizing a symposium Wednesday to discuss the role of religion, the media and campaign techniques in what he calls ``The Primary That Made a President.'' ``The West Virginia primary really was the difference in John Kennedy's success or defeat,'' said Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's former speechwriter. ``Given the handicap of his religion and to some extent the handicap of his age, he knew he would not be the choice of bosses in the back rooms. He had to win in the primaries and, above all, he had to win in Protestant areas,'' Sorensen said Wednesday. Kennedy's advisers expected the worst from West Virginia, about 90 percent Protestant at the time, although Kennedy had won five of nine earlier primaries. Kennedy beat Humphrey in West Virginia, 236,510 votes to 152,187. Although the vote made political history, West Virginia's people and the grinding, inescapable poverty some of them lived in made a lasting impression on the scion of a wealthy Massachusetts family. ``He had seen poverty before,'' Sorensen said. ``But the long-term hardship faced by many of the people he met in West Virginia, the look on their face and the stories they told made a very deep impression on him. It wasn't a theory any longer.'' Kennedy spent more time campaigning in West Virginia than anywhere else. His advisers, supporters and family members hit every chicken dinner, student rally and ladies' auxiliary meeting they could. ``It was an exhausting campaign. We went to every hill and hollow,'' Sorensen said. When he was asked about his Catholicism, Kennedy's standard response was to talk about his family's military service, a vote-swaying appeal in a state with a high percentage of soldiers, sailors and airmen. ``He said, `Nobody asked my brother about his religion when he died for his country in World War II,''' said Charles Peters, who managed Kennedy's Kanawha County effort and is now editor of the Washington Monthly. Kennedy also had Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., son of the most popular president in West Virginia, on his side. ``That was as if God's son had said it's all right to vote for this Catholic,'' Peters said. West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler, a first-term congressman at the time, was convinced Kennedy's religion would cost him the state. He changed his mind after he saw the Kennedy family in action. ``It impressed me so much that they, as a family team, knew exactly what needed to be done without any kind of chitchat,'' Hechler said. The Kennedy and Humphrey campaigns differed markedly. Kennedy chartered a plane at one point to fly to campaign stops; Humphrey rode around in a bus. Kennedy's theme song was ``High Hopes'' by Frank Sinatra; Humphrey had a folk singer. But the Kennedy high style didn't scare off the simple folk of West Virginia. Peters said he advised against bringing Jacqueline Kennedy to campaign in West Virginia. ``I thought she would come across as a snobbish, Northeast woman who would contrast unfavorably with the down-to-earth Muriel Humphrey,'' Peters said. ``Instead she was a big hit.''
AP880512-0035 	X	Pat Robertson says he will end his run for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination but will form a political action committee to fund and train conservative Christian political candidates. Robertson announced Wednesday in Washington that he had offered his endorsement to Vice President George Bush, who has mathematically clinched the GOP nomination, and indicated he would withdraw from the race on Monday. However, after Robertson's announcement, an aide, Richard Pinsky, said Robertson would suspend his campaign rather than withdraw outright, and would release his delegates, but at a later date. After his meeting with Bush, Robertson was asked by reporters at the White House whether he was withdrawing. ``I will be making that official on Monday,'' he replied. And asked whether he would be releasing his delegates, he answered, ``Of course, I will be releasing them.'' The Robertson campaign later put out a press release saying Robertson had spoken with reporters about the meeting with Bush and told them ``he is not withdrawing from the race nor is he releasing his delegates.'' The campaign did say Robertson would make a statement about his campaign status on Monday. Calls to Robertson headquarters requesting a clarification were not returned Wednesday night. The new political action committee _ Americans for the Republic _ will actively support Christian candidates, according to Barbara Gattullo, a spokesman for Americans for Robertson, Robertson's campaign organization. She said the staff of Americans for Robertson would switch to the new organization, keeping the same office in Virginia, after the papers are filed with the Federal Election Commission. In an interview with The Virginian-Pilot & The Ledger-Star of Norfolk, Robertson said he likely would return to his job as the Christian Broadcasting Network's chief executive officer, a job his son has held since Robertson announced his candidacy. That came as a surprise to CBN officials. ``I don't have a comment to make,'' CBN spokesman Benton Miller said Wednesday. ``None of the staff or I ... have been provided any information by him at this point concerning what his future plans are.'' Robertson had appeared since 1967 on the ``700 Club'' program that is the flagship of the network. He left the program in 1986 to organize his presidential campaign and in September 1987 resigned both as the network's chief executive officer and as a pastor in the Southern Baptist church to run for office. The network immediately reported a dramatic drop in revenues and began laying off personnel. At the time, spokesmen refused to blame Robertson's political ambitions for the shortfall. Robertson, who has spent more than $22 million on his campaign, has 46 delegates to the national convention. Of the March 8 Super Tuesday primaries, Robertson failed to win any. He placed third behind Bush and Kansas Republican Sen. Bob Dole in his home state of Virginia.
AP880505-0023 	X	The nation's biggest junk bond underwriter has had a change of heart about its practice of letting employees buy into its own deals, one week after being accused in Congress of favoring them over its customers. Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. announced Wednesday that employees and partnerships formed by employees will no longer be permitted to purchase new issues of bonds underwritten by the firm. The investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in hearings last week, released documents showing Drexel employees reaped huge profits by purchasing bonds underwritten by the firm and then quickly reselling them, in one case within 17 days. Employees were permitted to buy bonds during initial offerings of much-sought issues, even when the practice denied bonds to public customers, the documents showed. Drexel was instrumental in developing the market for the high-yield, high-risk junk bonds, which allow companies without a track record of earnings to obtain financing based on whether they have sufficient cash flow to pay off their debts. Junk bonds have been frequently used in corporate raiding. Of the $32 billion in junk bonds issued in 1986, 40 percent were underwritten by Drexel, according to a congressional report. Drexel chief executive Frederick Joseph, in a letter to Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of both the committee and subcommittee, stuck by his assertions that the employee purchases were proper, but said the firm was worried about appearances. ``I indicated we supported such purchases; nonetheless public perception is important to financial institutions such as ours and we recognize that even the best of motives can be misunderstood,'' he said. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the subcommittee, said Drexel's letter leaves a number of questions unanswered, including whether Drexel will be able to trade for its own accounts and pass profits on to employees in the form of bonuses. He said he would also like to know if employee accounts will be able to trade in the secondary market, which is heavily influenced by the underwriting firm. Steven Anreder, a spokesman for Drexel, said the firm had no comment beyond its brief announcement. Dingell, in a statement released by an aide, called Drexel's decision ``a very good step,'' adding, ``It should lay to rest questions associated with the fairness and legality of that particular practice.'' However, the aide, Dennis Fitzgibbons, said Dingell has made no decision regarding his committee's ongoing investigation of Drexel. Dingell has been criticized by Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., for subpoenaing Michael Milken, chief of Drexel's junk bond unit, to appear before the committee even though Milken had indicated in advance he would refuse to testify based on his constitutional protection from self-incrimination. When he refused to testify, Milken confirmed he is under investigation by a federal grand jury in New York, which is reported to be looking into insider trading allegations. Dingell said the firm's retreat on employee purchases ``indicates that the behavior of the committee was correct and fair in bringing these matters to light.'' Junk bonds pay higher interest rates than those issued by established companies and are considered riskier investments. They have been used by corporate raiders to finance unfriendly takeover attempts.
AP881207-0020 	X	Coal mine owners are generally pleased with a Supreme Court ruling shielding them and their insurance companies from paying up to $13.6 billion in additional black lung benefits but an attorney for miners claimed a partial victory. The justices ruled 9-0 on Tuesday that a group of miners estimated to number between 94,000 and 155,000 is ineligible to seek disability benefits for the disease. The group consists of those who missed deadlines for filing court appeals after they were denied benefits. Mark Solomons, a lawyer representing the mine operators, said, ``The industry is going to be pleased.'' But Solomons said a second part of the Supreme Court's ruling will spur additional litigation for a smaller number of miners hoping to receive benefits. In that section, the justices voted 5-4 to permit some miners who worked less than 10 years in the mines to seek disability pay for black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis, a respiratory ailment caused by prolonged inhaling of coal dust. Between 8,000 and 10,000 miners with pending claims could be in line to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits under that part of the high court decision. The court said even if miners have less than 10 years on the job, they are presumed to be eligible for benefits if they display medical evidence of the disease. Paul Smith, a lawyer representing miners, said the ruling is a significant _ if only partial _ victory for the workers. ``The presumption makes a big difference,'' he said, because it shifts the burden of proof to the government to deny such claims. ``It's very difficult to prove you are disabled by black lung disease,'' he said. Congress created a special industry-supported fund to pay off claims by miners with the disease. Coal mine operators already owe the fund some $3 billion that was lent to it by the federal treasury. The Reagan administration had urged the justices to deny the claims of miners who had missed earlier filing deadlines. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said nothing in federal law requires the government to reopen settled claims. ``There is not even a colorable basis for the contention that Congress has imposed a duty to reconsider finally determined claims,'' he said. But Scalia said Congress also never intended to exclude from benefit eligibility miners who worked less than 10 years. ``We do not sit to determine what Congress ought to have done given the evidence before it, but to apply what Congress enacted _ and ... the exclusion of short-term miners from the benefits ... finds no support'' in a 1977 law aimed at making it easier for miners to seek benefits, Scalia said. The high court overturned a ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had ordered the Labor Department to take a fresh look at claims that were denied in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The appeals court had directed the department to use the liberalized standards adopted by Congress in 1977 to determine benefit eligibility for a group numbering from 94,000 to 155,000. The cases involved potential benefits estimated at $13.6 billion. In other cases, the court: _Threw out an appeal by an unwed California father seeking to restore a parental relationship with his 7-year-old daughter. Eight days after hearing arguments in Edward McNamara's case, the court dismissed the appeal for procedural reasons and left unanswered whether unwed fathers have the same parental rights as unwed mothers. _Ruled unanimously that federal employees holding sensitive intelligence-agency jobs are not entitled to administrative hearings when fired as security risks. The justices reversed a ruling requiring a hearing for a National Security Agency employee who says he was dismissed for homosexual activities.
AP901125-0020 	X	A gunman who infiltrated from Egypt sprayed four Israeli vehicles with assault rifle fire Sunday, killing four people and wounding 24, the army said. The army said the lone gunman killed three Israeli army soldiers and a civilian driver for the national Egged bus company on the Israeli-Egyptian border, about 15 miles northwest of the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat. The gunman escaped back into Egypt. A senior Egyptian security source said an Egyptian border policeman assigned to the area of the attack had been arrested as the suspected assailant. Earlier reports from Cairo said the gunman had fired from the Egyptian side of the border. In Amman, Jordan a fundamentalist Islamic group Sunday claimed responsibility for the attack. The extremist Islamic Jihad-Beit Al-Maqdes, or Islamic Holy War-Jersualem, said the attack was carried out by ``one of our units operating in the land of Arabism and Islam, the land of Egypt.'' Defense Minister Moshe Arens called the attack ``a most serious incident'' and said Israel expected Egypt to take all the necessary steps to prevent such assaults. A military commander identified only as Brig. Gen. D. said on army radio that an Egyptian man ``whose identity is not clear to us at this moment'' infiltrated into Israel at the distance of about 300 yards from the scene of the shooting. ``He entered a dry riverbed, reached the road and lay in wait on the roadside,'' the commander said. The assailant opened fire on an army van, containing just the driver, who was injured but carried on for a few hundred yards and stopped. Another military car, also containing only one person and heading from Eilat to a nearby base, was hit by several bullets. The soldier inside was mortally wounded, drove for a few hundred yards and died, the commander said. Next came a military bus. The driver thought there had been an accident and stopped. He got out with his weapon but was shot dead ``at very close range'' before he could fire back. Finally, the attacker fired on an Egged bus carrying civilians working at military installations in the area. He wounded a security guard, who shot back, hitting the assailant. ``We found signs of blood showing that he was hit. I think this prevented a heavier tragedy,'' the commander said. ``The terrorist apparently intended to board the bus and take it over. He (the guard) did not let him come on board. He climbed down through the door and shot him, and from that moment the terrorist began running away.'' Reporters at the scene saw a red and white passenger bus with its windshield covered with bullet holes. Police forensic experts were seen picking up bullets around the bus. Isaac Bar-Moshe, press officer at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, said the gunman had used a Soviet-made Kalashnikov semiautomatic rifle. If the attack was indeed committed by a member of Egypt's uniformed forces, it would be the second. On Oct. 5, 1985, an Egyptian border police officer went berserk and shot dead four Israeli children, two women and an elderly man near the border in the Sinai Desert. Before Sunday, the latest attack on an Israeli target in Egypt was on Feb. 4, when gunmen ambushed a tour bus, killing nine Israeli vacationers. The attack took place on a desert road between Cairo and the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya. Egypt is the only Arab state to have a peace treaty with Israel. After the treaty was signed in 1979, Israel began withdrawing from the Egyptian Sinai peninsula, which it occupied in 1967. Between 1984 and 1987, two Israeli diplomats and six Israelis were wounded in Cairo in a number of attacks claimed by an Egyptian terrorist organization, Egypt's Revolution.
AP900419-0172 	X	U.S. foreign policy is gaining support at the United Nations and there is less emphasis on linking foreign aid to how a recipient country votes, the American ambassador says. Some Arab envoys, however, expect the Bush administration and Congress to put pressure on recipients of American aid to rescind a General Assembly resolution adopted in 1975 that equates Zionism and racism. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, the U.S. permanent representative, told reporters recently the idea of linking U.S. foreign aid to supportive U.N. votes ``never rose to massive proportions, and the fact is that there is less focus now on scorecarding in aid than there was before. ``I don't think at this stage one can say this is completely a dead letter, but I don't see it rising to high prominence. ... I don't believe there is such overwhelming interest in it. ``I think we, in fact, should give assistance where we believe it is in our broad foreign policy interests to do so, all factors considered.'' The ambassador said nothing of the Zionism-racism resolution and Arab statements, made later, that some members of Congress wanted to penalize nations that did not follow the U.S. line. In Decemb is chairman. ``We have a list of who the aid recipients are and how the vote was, and do they understand their aid is in jeopardy?'' Moynihan said. ``I mean, enough is enough. ``The Soviet Union ... no longer rewards that behavior. Have they learned it and do they know that this country is angry about that because they have put peace in jeopardy in a place they had no business bothering in? ``What does it mean to Chile? What does it mean to Sri Lanka? Whose business is it in the Ivory Coast to cause instability in the Middle East?'' Moynihan called the document ``a low point'' in U.N. behavior and an attempt to politicize the General Assembly. Nearly 70 percent of political resolutions received unanimous support in the 44th General Assembly last year, according to the latest voting report. That compares with 64 percent in 1988, 60 percent in 1987 and 58 percent in 1986. It said other U.N. members voted with the United States 23.3 percent of the time on the 16 issues, which ranged from the invasion of Panama to the annual question of accepting Israel's credentials. When all General Assembly votes are examined, the figure declines to 16.9 percent. Some U.N. diplomats say voting the same way does not guarantee an identical point of view. They also suggest that, if more countries are voting with the United States, changes in U.S. policy may be the reason.
AP881008-0031 	X	Nearly 350,000 Chileans took to the streets in a joyous rally to celebrate President Augusto Pinochet's defeat in a referendum, but at least 40 people were injured in violent clashes with police. Half a dozen people lay on the street behind Santiago's national palace Friday evening after police fired tear gas and water cannons at a crowd of several hundred anti-government demonstrators and then charged, nightsticks swinging. The demonstrators had come from the peaceful rally at an outdoor park, where the crowd estimated by police at 350,000 swayed and sang to popular Chilean music. About 18 foreign reporters also were injured Friday in the demonstration at the national palace and other incidents, which they described as unprovoked attacks by police. At least six were treated at clinics for head injuries. Earlier Friday, soldiers at an army barracks near the rally site fired birdshot and pellets at passengers in cars who flashed the victory sign at them, Radio Cooperativa reported. Fifteen people were injured, including one who underwent surgery to remove a pellet from his head, the radio said. A spokesman for the Santiago Central Emergency Hospital told The Associated Press that nine people were treated there for gunshot wounds, and a tenth was taken to a neurological hospital for surgery. A spokesman for the National Police said there was no one available to comment on the incidents. Friday's rally was organized by the opposition political groups that urged Chileans to vote ``no'' in Wednesday's referendum in which Pinochet, 72, lost his bid to remain president until 1997. His defeat sets the stage for presidential elections in December 1989 and the inauguration in March 1990 of the first freely elected president since Pinochet, commander of the army, toppled Salvador Allende in a bloody coup in 1973. Opposition leaders want Pinochet to move up the date of next year's elections, and vowed Friday to press that demand even though the aging commander-in-chief firmly rejected it Thursday during a speech broadcast nationwide. ``If we (opposition groups) join together with more force, I think the situation will change,'' said moderate Socialist Ricardo Lagos, a leader of the 16-group opposition coalition. ``You have to give the defeated a couple of days to recover from the shock.'' Many of the 3.8 million Chileans who voted against Pinochet also want early elections. ``Chi Chi Chi. Le Le Le. Get Out Pinochet,'' chanted the crowd at the rally. Funerals for two people killed during anti-government demonstrations Thursday night were set for today. Police acknowleged they shot a 31-year-old man and said a 14-year-old boy was shot by an unidentified gunman, police said. Two others who were shot by unidentified gunmen was hospitalized in serious condition Friday, police said, adding that eight officers were injured in clashes with demonstrators Thursday. Dozens of people were arrested Thursday and Friday. Most were released after brief detentions. Among the foreign journalists injured were Christopher Morris, an American freelance photographer for Newsweek, and Liliana Nieto, an American photographer for the Long Island, N.Y. daily Newsday. They and at least three others were treated at Santa Maria Clinica for head injuries. A group of about 50 foreign journalists, mostly Latin American, walked to a National Police station and filed a complaint protesting ``the lamentable events against the dignity of reporters ... by national police and other security forces'' and asked for guarantees of their safety. Eva Miranda of Argentina, a spokeswoman for the journalists, said two reporters _ Eduardo Sanjuan and Jordy Villaroel from TV-3 in Barcelona, Spain _ were hospitalized Friday after they were beaten by police.
AP900524-0109 	X	Kelsey Grammer of ``Cheers'' was jailed Thursday for a drunken driving probation violation. The 35-year-old actor, who plays brainy psychiatrist Frasier Crane on the hit NBC series, surrendered to the Van Nuys Muncipal Court and was taken immediately to County Jail. He showed up in court with a toothbrush stuck in his shirt pocket. Since his February 1988 conviction for drunken driving, he has failed to make several court appearances to prove he completed a drug rehabilitation program. Municipal Court Commissioner Patricia Schwartz last week ordered Grammer to serve a 30-day sentence for failing to attend the program and failing to serve 10 days on a state road crew. The commissioner also ordered Grammer to show up in court Thursday with proof he served at least one day of work on a California Department of Transportation road cleanup crew and enrolled in a 90-day drug rehab program. Documentation presented by Grammer on Thursday established he had completed those obligations, the court clerk said. Grammer still faces possible possession of cocaine charges. In April 1988, police stopped his car for expired license tags and a routine check showed an arrest warrant had been issued for missing a court appearance. While riding in the police car, a packet of cocaine fell from his pocket, officers said. Earlier this month, Grammer surrendered to authorities on arrest warrants involving both the drunken driving and cocaine arrests. The incarceration shouldn't affect production of the show, which is currently shut down between seasons.
AP900618-0029 	X	Last month, Communist North Korea turned over what it said were the remains of five U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War. Now American officials say they're not sure whose remains they have. The remains were handed over to to a U.S. congressional delegation in an emotional Memorial Day ceremony in the truce village of Panmunjom in what was billed as the first return of U.S. Korean War dead since 1954. Only two of the five bodies were identified by name by the North Koreans, based on dogtags they said were found with them. They were U.S. Army 1st Lt. Jack J. Saunders, 27, of Ogden, Utah and Army Cpl. Arthur Leo Seaton, 20, of Chester, Pa. But the United Nations Command said today that the bodies, which were sent to the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu for identification, were not those of Saunders and Seaton. ``While North Korea has indicated name association for two of the five remains, dental and physical characteristics of the remains were compared with the dental and physical records of the those two individuals, with negative results,'' the command said. The command said its findings were preliminary, but said it did not appear that the other remains returned were those of Saunders or Seaton either. ``Until the identification process is complete, we can't even be sure they were the remains of Americans,'' the command added. The soldiers' relatives have been told of the findings, the command said. The other three sets of remains were not identified by North Korea, but it said at the time of the return that they were believed to be those of another Army servicemen and two U.S. Air Force members. All five were believed to have been prisoners of war who died in Hwanghae Pukto province, south of North Korea's capital of Pyongyang. Saunders and Seaton had been listed as missing in February 1951, the Pentagon said. According to U.S. military, 8,172 U.S. soldiers remain unaccounted for from the war. The return of the remains was widely seen as a sign of healing and reconciliation after decades of emnity, an effort by North Korea to improve relations with the United States. The two countries do not have diplomatic ties. The United Nations Command says 33,629 U.S. soldiers were killed and 103,284 wounded in the war. More than 2 million Koreans were killed. The 16-nation command, led by an American general, was formed at the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War to help South Korea repel invaders from the North. There were large-scale returns of remains of U.S. war dead in 1953 and 1954. Then, after years of no returns, the North Koreans announced May 14 that they would turn over the remains of the five. Ho Jong, North Korean's deputy permanant representative at its U.N. mission, said at the time that the Communist government was prepared to discuss the return of more remains. He said the move was an ``eloquent illustration'' of North Korea's wilingness to ``settle pending issues with the U.S. government in a good way.'' North Korea acknowledged for the first time in January 1988 that it was still holding the remains of U.N. Command war dead.
AP901007-0034 	X	Four hunger strikers, who lost a total of 151 pounds protesting the U.S. training of Salvadoran soldiers, ended their 35-day fast Sunday after doctors warned of permanent health damage. ``Our cause continues,'' said the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Roman Catholic priest from Lutcher, La., after the strikers ended their fast at a morning news conference. ``The bread we received today is nourishment for us to recommit ourselves.'' Bourgeois was among nine protesters who began the fast Sept. 3, praying, carrying signs and marching outside Fort Benning. The group demanded that the United States cut all military aid to El Salvador and stop training Salvadoran soldiers at the base's Army School of the Americas. The United States is spending some $315 million in aid to El Salvador this year, much of it economic and food aid for an economy racked by a decade-old civil war with leftist guerrillas. A Democratic task force has pressed the Bush administration for restrictions in next year's planned $85 million in military aid to the country in wake of investigations into the slayings of six Jesuit priests in the capital of San Salvador in November 1989. Five of the original protesters dropped the fast over the last two weeks. Remaining were Bourgeois; Jim Barnett, a Dominican priest who served in El Salvador and plans to return now; Charlie Liteky of Washington, D.C., who won a Medal of Honor by pulling 20 wounded men from under enemy fire during the Vietnam War; and David Scott, an ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran from Detroit. Bourgeois said the four decided to end the strike after doctors warned that their weight loss could cause permanent health damage. He said Liteky was warned he could sustain severe kidney damage. Bourgeois said he lost 38 pounds, Liteky 40, Scott 35 and Barnett 38.
AP881104-0125 	X	The chief of the state Board of Insurance has been placed on leave while the board investigates allegations of foot-dragging in the largest insurance company insolvency case in Texas history. The board also said Thursday that the Travis County District Attorney's Office will review the agency's handling of the National County Mutual Fire Insurance insolvency case for any criminal wrongdoing. National County Mutual, a Dallas company with 125,000 auto insurance policyholders statewide, was declared insolvent last week and taken over by the insurance board. The company was $54 million in the debt. The board said recent criticism prompted it to initiate the investigation into the department's delay in taking control of National County Mutual. Several lawmakers complained the insurance board's staff knew of the company's problems since at least 1986 and should have moved earlier to protect its policyholders. During the examination, Commissioner Doyce Lee will be placed on leave, board members said. Board members said Lee recommended doing the independent audit and contacting the district attorney. But they said complaints by state lawmakers and consumer interest representatives forced them to put him on leave. Lee, 47, commissioner since 1985, said he agreed with the decision. ``I think it takes the pressure off of me and the board, and the agency can go about its business of regulating the industry. That will give time for the air to clear,'' he said. State Rep. John Gavin, D-Wichita Falls, chairman of the House Insurance Committee, supported the board's action. ``Most of the problem seems to be a lack of communication within the agency. The left hand and the right hand don't seem to work very well together,'' he said. Insurance board members attribute many of its problems to a major reorganization of the agency and rapid expansion of the staff, from about 850 employees to 1,300 in the past 18 months.
AP880422-0071 	X	Riot troops broke up the second anti-American demonstration in this capital in as many weeks, hurling tear gas grenades and firing into the air to stop about 200 protesters headed for the U.S. Embassy. At least one person was arrested. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The protesters, chanting ``Embassy, embassy!'' had been part of a crowd of about 2,000 people who marched peacefully to the National Congress earlier Thursday to demonstrate against the Honduran government and U.S. policy in the Central American country. Five people were killed during a riot April 7 in which about 2,000 demonstrators sacked and burned the U.S. Consulate and offices of the U.S. Information Service. Those protesters were angered over the deportation to the United States of a Honduran man accused of drug trafficking. About 50 riot police and army troops threw tear gas grenades into the 200 demonstrators as they advanced on the U.S. diplomatic mission Thursday night. The tear gas dispersed the protesters momentarily, but they regrouped, cutting off a small contingent of what appeared to be young and ill-trained troops who shot long bursts of fire from their M-16s into the air. The sound of shots sparked panic in the neighborhood. Some demonstrators taunted the troops and threw stones at the soldiers, who at intervals advanced behind metal shields. During the milelong march earlier Thursday, protesters chanted slogans calling for the expulsion of the approximately 1,100 U.S. troops based in Honduras, the removal of U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels from Honduras and the defense of the Honduran Constitution. They condemned the government of President Jose Azcona Hoyo and what they called his subservience to Washington. Honduras is the United States' staunchest ally in Central America. ``Yankee garbage, out of Honduras!'' and ``If the Yankees don't get out, in Honduras they will die!'' shouted the demonstrators. The marchers, most of them students, walked to the National Congress, where they listened to speeches condemning Azcona and the United States. About 500 demonstrators proceeded from there to the nearby Central Penitentiary, where they shouted for the release of inmates they consider political prisoners. A group then tried to go to the U.S. Embassy. One of the issues the marchers protested was the forced extradition of Juan Ramon Matta. Honduran police, working with U.S. agents, arrested Matta at his Tegucigalpa home on April 5 and had him flown to the United States. The Honduran Constitution prohibits the extradition of Honduran citizens. Matta is in federal prison in Marion, Ill., awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges. Matta is also wanted for questioning in the 1985 torture-slaying in Mexico of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. The U.S. Embassy estimates damage to the consulate building in the April 7 riot at between $4 million and $6 million and has asked for reimbursement from the Honduran government.
AP880818-0034 	X	Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen is aiming his pitch at Democrats who strayed from the party to vote for Ronald Reagan as he tours his home state on behalf of the Democratic ticket. Although confident of his own popularity in Texas, Bentsen has to persuade some of his more conservative state supporters to vote for Michael Dukakis if Democrats are to win the state's 29 electoral votes. Bentsen on Wednesday appealed to those voters both in public and in private, as he traveled from the city of Fort Worth to the ranching area of San Angelo to a medical center in Lubbock to the oil town of Tyler. ``I know that this county is principally Republican,'' Bentsen told the 250 people gathered for a picnic at Fort Concho in San Angelo. ``I also know that Lloyd Bentsen carried this county by 58 percent last time.'' He told them that Dukakis' selection of a Texan for the ticket showed the Massachusetts governor was ``reaching out ... ready to listen to differing viewpoints.'' He then traveled to Lubbock, where he was greeted at the airport by a dozen supporters carrying ``Bentsen _ U.S. Senator'' placards _ but none of the Dukakis-Bentsen signs he'd like to see. He attended a demonstration of a new program to diagnose rural patients via television at the Texas Tech medical center, and then slipped away to meet with some 200 to 300 longtime supporters of his Senate campaigns to make his pitch in private. The meeting was closed to the press. Later, in Tyler, he met with another support group _ again out of the view of reporters. And again, Bentsen's Senate paraphernalia was in abundance but nothing for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket. Robert Cargill of nearby Longview, one of those invited for the dinner sponsored by East Texans for Texas, said Dukakis' addition of Bentsen to the ticket might be enough for him to support it. ``Maybe,'' he said. Bentsen is also explaining to his constituents, both in his appearances and through television ads, why he is running at the same time for re-election to his Senate seat. Texas law allows him to do that, and if he didn't his Republican opponent, Rep. Beau Boulter, would automatically win a six-year term. If he won both races, Bentsen could resign from the Senate and force a special election, giving the Democrats a chance to hold the seat. As he traveled, Bentsen was peppered with questions about his personal wealth and his health, as a result of the release of records Monday by his Washington office. The disclosures showed the 67-year-old senator is in good health, although he has been treated for high cholesterol. His financial records revealed he has earned more than $3.8 million over the past five years, but they don't disclose his net worth. ``I don't know what my net worth is,'' he said. ``Frankly, I haven't made out a financial statement that has given me my net worth in a number of years.'' As he's been hunting for conservative votes, Bentsen also has been taking some shots at Republican George Bush's choice for a running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle. ``I guess we'll have an early season on quail,'' he told reporters. Bentsen brushed aside the age difference between him and the 41-year-old Quayle. ``It's not the miles on you, it's the depth of the tread,'' he said.
AP900925-0091 	X	The nation's economy nearly came to a standstill in the second quarter, edging up a feeble annual rate of 0.4 percent, the government said Tuesday. Many of the nation's top economists believe a recession is imminent - if not under way already. While White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said ``we don't believe we are in a recession right now,'' he acknowledged the latest Commerce Department report on the gross national product ``is certainly cause for concern. It's not good news.'' The department's revised report on the GNP - the nation's total output of goods and services - was the lowest since a 0.3 percent rate during the last quarter of 1989 and showed the economy weakening even before the Persian Gulf crisis. ``The economy was headed toward a recession before Iraq, and Iraq was just the nail in the coffin,'' said Allen Sinai, chief economist for the Boston Co. A recession ``seems inescapable,'' he said. Surveys following Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait - and the subsequent oil-price spiral - showed many top economists forecasting an imminent recession. The National Association of Business Economists reported Tuesday that more than half of the 71 professional forecasters responding to its survey in late August and early September said a recession already has begun or will begin in the fourth quarter of 1990 or the first quarter of 1991. And half of the top economists surveyed each month by Blue Chip Economic Indicators now believe the economy will enter a recession this year. ``In a sharp revision of earlier views, 50 percent of the 50 panel members replying ... now think the long-delayed recession will start this year,'' wrote R.J. Eggert, the newsletter's editor. ``Of those expecting the recession to begin this year, three believe it actually began in the second quarter, six expect the downturn to begin in the current quarter and 16 have pegged the fourth quarter of this year as the starting date.'' Sinai pointed to negative economic data already available for July and August and said, ``It looks like the recession started in the third quarter.'' ``The economy ground to a halt in the second quarter and is in the process of contracting right now,'' added Richard W. Rahn, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A price index tied to the GNP was unchanged at an annual rate of 3.9 percent in the second quarter. But with the surge in oil prices, inflation as measured in the Consumer Price Index jumped 0.8 percent in August alone. The higher prices will be reflected in the third-quarter GNP report. The price of oil before the Iraqi invasion was less than $20 a barrel. It reached a record $38 a barrel at one point on Monday. Since oil is used in producing so many consumer goods as well as for heating and transportation, any price increase not only slashes available funds needed to feed economic growth but also feeds inflation. The department originally had estimated the economy grew at a 1.2 percent rate from April through June, after advances of 1.7 percent in the first quarter and 2.5 percent in 1989 and 4.5 percent in 1988. But it said Tuesday that more complete data showed weaker net exports and lower inventory accumulation than first thought. The new data showed net exports declining by $9.2 billion rather than $4.5 billion, and inventories totaling $19.8 billion rather than $22.4 billion. ``But there really were no areas of strength,'' Sinai said. Consumer spending, which represents two-thirds of the nation's economic activity, rose just 0.2 percent, down from 1.1 percent in the first quarter. Business investment fell 4.7 percent after a 5 percent gain from January through March. Housing construction plunged 11.2 percent after advancing 15.1 percent in the first quarter. Government spending rose 6.2 percent but most of that was by the federal government. State and local spending was down 0.6 percent. If the economy were in a recession - generally described as two consecutive quarters of negative growth - it would end the nearly eight years of expansion that began after the 1981-82 downturn. The Commerce Department also reported today that after-tax corporate profits fell a revised 0.6 percent, worse than the 0.2 percent drop first reported and their poorest showing since a 5.9 percent decline in the third quarter of 1989. They had risen 0.5 percent in the first quarter and 1.7 percent in the final quarter of 1989. The various changes left the GNP growing by $4.5 billion in the second quarter. After removing the effects of inflation, the GNP totaled an annual rate of $4.16 trillion.
AP880630-0184 	X	The United States' foreign debt burden climbed to $368.2 billion in 1987, a sharp 36.8 percent rise over the previous year, as the country lengthened its lead as the world's largest debtor nation. The Commerce Department said the new debt total was $99 billion higher than the $269.2 billion in debt to foreigners that the United States owed at the end of 1986. The debt means that foreigners now own more in U.S. assets than Americans own abroad. For 1987, the government reported that foreign holdings in the United States increased to $1.54 trillion from $1.34 trillion at the end of 1986. American investments overseas totaled $1.17 trillion at the close of 1987, up from $1.07 trillion a year earlier. The difference between foreign investments in this country and American holdings overseas represents the $368.2 billion debt burden the country is carrying. The country now has a debt load greater than the combined total of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, the Third World countries with the largest debt burdens. Critics have charged that the transformation of the United States from the world's largest creditor nation, a position it held as recently as 1983, to the world's biggest debtor is the chief failure of President Reagan's economic policies. Democrats, who hope to use the issue to their advantage in this year's presidential campaign, have charged that the burgeoning debt is eroding America's political and economic standing in the world. But the administration on Thursday sought to minimize the annual accounting of the country's investment position, contending that the figures were a sign of strength showing foreigners still believed America was an excellent place to invest. The United States had an investment surplus of $89.4 billion as recently as 1983. That surplus fell to $3.5 billion in 1984 and disappeared altogether in 1985, the year the country became a net debtor for the first time in 71 years with a debt of $110.7 billion. America's investment surplus has evaporated as the country ran up huge merchandise trade deficits during the 1980s, transferring billions of dollars into the hands of foreigners to pay for color televisions, stereo equipment and automobiles. These dollars, now in foreign hands, have been reinvested in the United States in everything from government bonds to real estate, triggering alarm bells and calls in Congress for curbs on foreign investment. Commerce Undersecretary Robert Ortner, briefing reporters Thursday, said the administration was adamantly opposed to curbs being placed on foreign investment in the United States. He also objected to comparing the United States to Third World countries, saying unlike Brazil, the United States owes its debt in its own currency. Private economists have contended that the growing debt burden has already begun to lower Americans' standard of living as more and more money must be transferred into the hands of foreigners in the form of interest payments and dividends. But Ortner said he believed most Americans regarded the entire debate as a ``big yawn.'' He said that even with the growth in foreign investment, the debt still represents only about 4 percent to 5 percent of the country's total assets. Ortner said foreigners own about 17 percent of U.S. Treasury securities and about 12 percent of manufacturing assets in the United States. ``I am not calling this report good news. I am trying to argue that it isn't terrible news,'' he said. Ortner refused to make any projection about how large the debt would grow in coming years, but private economists have estimated it could top $1 trillion in the early 1990s before it begins to level off. ``We are losing control over our own economy and our capital markets. This money doesn't come free,'' said Lawrence Chimerine, president of the WEFA Group, an economic consulting firm in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, said the United States has become hostage to the whims of foreign investors. He said foreign uneasiness with a plunging U.S. dollar and rising interest rates was an underlying cause of last October's stock market collapse. ``As long as the United States has to rely on foreign financing of such magnitudes, events could at literally any moment trigger a sharp turndown in our economy,'' he said. The Commerce Department report said that foreign direct investment in the United States, defined as ownership of at least a 10 percent stake in a company, had climbed 18.8 percent to $261.9 billion in 1987. The nation whose citizens had the biggest share of that investment was Britain, with $74.9 billion, followed by the Netherlands at $47 billion and Japan at $33.4 billion.
AP881027-0283 	X	Tenneco Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $7 million on Thursday, compared with a $117 million loss posted for the same period last year. Tenneco's 1988 third-quarter earnings amounted to 2 cents per share. Revenue for the 1988 quarter was $3 billion, compared with $2.8 billion last year. Third-quarter results included an after-tax loss of $42 million from discontinued operations of Tenneco Oil Co., which is being sold to several different buyers for an estimated $7.3 billion. That compares with a loss from discontinued operations of $101 million for the same period last year, which includes the discontinued operations for 1987 of Tenneco Oil and the since-sold Tenneco West operations. ``We continue to work toward further strengthening of our remaining businesses and managing them for maximum earnings, cash generation and return on assets through a focus on cost containment, efficiency enhancement and accelerated disposition of underperforming assets within each of the divisions,'' said James L. Ketelsen, chairman and chief executive officer. For the nine months, net earnings totaled $224 million, or $1.39 per share, compared with a net loss of $42 million for the 1987 nine-month period. Revenue for the nine months was $9.6 billion this year and $8.7 billion last year. With the sale of its oil and gas properties, Tenneco's biggest units will be the profitable natural gas pipeline and its Case IH farm equipment manufacturing sector. Tenneco also maintains shipbuilding, automotive packaging and chemicals units.
AP900914-0286 	X	A United Airlines workers group announced Friday they were ending an agreement with an investment partnership to acquire the carrier's parent, UAL Corp. But in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the worker group, United Employment Acquisition Corp., said it was still interested in acquiring the Chicago-based airline. ``In light of current market conditions and in order to maximize the flexibility of UEAC to pursue any appropriate transaction for the acquisition of UAL, UEAC and Condor Partners L.P. entered into the termination agreement dated as of Sept. 13, 1990,'' the filing stated. The disclosure, which came after the markets closed Friday, ended an agreement between UEAC and Condor, an affiliate of Coniston Partners, to help UEAC, a company formed by United's unions, acquire UAL. Coniston Partners is the largest shareholder of UAL. Last October, news of the collapse of an employee-management leveraged buyout of UAL prompted a 190-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average. Officials at United Airlines refused to comment on Friday's announcement by the employee group. A representative at Coniston Partners called the move a ``non-event'' and a ``tactical move.'' They refused to comment further.
AP880330-0310 	X	AB Volvo of Sweden announced that it has bought the bus division of British Leyland, making the major Scandinavian automaker a leading bus manufacturer in Western Europe. The purchase was announced Wednesday in London and Goteborg, Sweden. Volvo acquired the bus division from Leyland's management, which took over the company from state-owned Rover Group PLC in January 1987. Under the deal, Volvo acquires Leyland's two plants in Farington and Workington in northwestern England with a total of 1,850 employees. The plants make the well-known red double-decker buses. Volvo, Sweden's largest and most profitable industrial company which has diversified into food and trading, has already taken over General Motors Corp.'s truck division. Volvo's latest purchase makes it the world's second- largest bus maker after Daimler-Benz AG of West Germany. Volvo did not disclose the price it paid for Leyland's bus division, which will boost Volvo's bus production by 40 percent, to about 5,500 units a year. Volvo's bus output rose by 16 percent to a record 3,920 units last year, hitting maximum capacity at its main Swedish plant and a smaller facility in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The British bus subsidiary will continue to operate as an independent entity although Volvo plans to build about 1,000 of its own buses at the Leyland plants by 1990, a Volvo spokesman said. Volvo's main markets are Scandinavia, central Europe and South America, while Leyland buses are mostly marketed in Britain and in British Commonwealth countries. Volvo's bus division last year accounted for 2 billion Swedish kronor, around $340 million, or only 2.2 percent of the company's total sales of 92.5 billion kronor, or $15.7 billion. Leyland is expected to show a small profit for 1987 on sales of roughly 1 billion kronor, or about $170 million.
AP881209-0252 	X	David P. Bloom, the would-be financial adviser who bilked investors out of $15 million to fund a lavish lifestyle of expensive artworks, luxury cars and posh homes, was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison by a judge who called him ``amoral, not immoral.'' Asking the judge to give Bloom, 24, a shorter sentence than the three-year term handed master Wall Street criminal Ivan F. Boesky, Bloom's lawyer described him as a ``greedy young man and a product of our times.'' ``When he grew up, greed was on the ascendency,'' said the lawyer, David W. O'Connor. ``David Bloom shouldn't wind up being the scapegoat of the 1980s.'' But U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein said he was imposing the stiff sentence because it was ``absolutely essential'' to send a message to those who act through ``greed and insatiable lust for despoiling innocent people.'' The high-living Bloom, whose massive swindle scheme earned him the title ``Wall Street Whiz Kid,'' pleaded guilty last March to one count each of mail fraud and securities fraud. Most of the investors he conned were friends of his parents, according to prosecutors. In a 15-page sentencing memo to the judge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert L. Plotz said Bloom ``victimized close friends of his parents'' and ``betrayed the trust not only of these friends but also of his parents.'' Noting that several of Bloom's victims had turned over pension plans and individual retirement accounts to him, the memo said Bloom ``took everything he could from people who loved him; in so doing, he exhibited a legal and moral depravity.'' ``I have betrayed my own sense of morality and values and betrayed the trust and love of numerous people around me,'' the short, bespectacled Bloom, standing with his hands crossed in front of him, told the judge. He conceded he was ``deserving of punishment'' but O'Connor urged the judge to show leniency because ``this is not Ivan Boesky or (convicted inside trader) Dennis Levine.'' Boesky, who pleaded guilty to securities law conspiracy and is cooperating with investigators, was sentenced to three years in prison last December. Levine, an investment banker caught in a massive insider trading scheme, was sentenced to two years in 1986. O'Connor called Bloom's crime ``a bizarre aberration,'' and told the judge that a stiff sentence was ``not going to discourage the next screwball who comes along.'' But Edelstein concluded Bloom was ``remorseless, completely lacking in conscience. He was a predator, completely insensitive.'' Edelstein sentenced Bloom to four years on each count and, in an unusual move, ordered the prison terms to run consecutively as spectators in the crowded courtroom gasped. ``He went on his way without any thought of the pain, suffering and misery he was inflicting,'' said a disgusted Edelstein. ``He was amoral, not immoral.'' The judge said Bloom had ``cannibalized his family and friends.'' He also ordered Bloom to make ``full restitution.'' No fine was imposed. Edelstein could have sentenced Bloom to 10 years in prison and $20 million in fines. According to prosecutors, the boyish-looking Bloom used deceit and fraud to parlay a college investment club into a multimillion-dollar investment operation with about 140 clients. Bloom, who was not registered as an investment adviser, wooed investors for his now-defunct Greater Sutton Investors Group Inc. by falsely claiming his clientele included the Sultan of Brunei, the Rockefeller family and entertainer Bill Cosby. A 1985 Duke University graduate with an art history degree, Bloom told clients he was putting their money into the stock market when he actually was using it to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included art works worth $5.5 million; an $830,000 condominium on Manhattan's Upper East Side; a Long Island beach house worth $1.9 million; and two cars _ an Aston-Martin convertible and a Mercedes-Benz _ worth $200,000. Among the paintings Bloom purchased with other people's money were works by John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent. Bloom began sending his investors bogus account statements that claimed to show their securities holdings, according to the charges. Bloom also was charged with using new clients' funds to pay ``profits'' to older clients. Last January, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges against Bloom, who settled by agreeing to turn over his assets to a court-appointed receiver and to stay out of the securities industry for the rest of his life. Under the settlement, Bloom neither admitted nor denied the SEC allegations but criminal charges were brought in March. Bloom waived indictment and pleaded guilty March 31 to one count each of mail and securities fraud.
AP880729-0067 	X	Three Sinhalese extremists and a soldier were killed and militants torched buses on the first anniversary of an accord aimed at ending Tamil separatist violence, police said today. Most shops, offices and businesses were closed today in Colombo, the capital, and its surburbs. Police said people were afraid to open their businesses because of possible violence by Sinhalese radicals opposed to the Indian-brokered peace accord. A 24-hour curfew went into effect at 6 a.m. today in the island's south after radical Sinhalese nationalists called for a general strike. Residents in the northern city of Vavuniya, about 125 miles northeast of Colombo, said by telephone that Indian soldiers also declared curfews in some areas in the island's north and east until Sunday morning to prevent attacks by Tamil rebels. The peace accord is opposed both by Tamil rebels fighting for five years for independence in the north and east of the island and by the Peoples Liberation Front, an extremist group from the island's majority Sinhalese community. The Sinhalese say it makes too many concessions to the minority, while the Tamils say it does not meet their demands for independence. Three men were killed by police in separate incidents in which Sinhalese extremists tried to attack government property, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity. He said a Sinhalese Sri Lankan soldier was fatally shot in a battle with extremists in Hambantota district in the south. In southern and central Sri Lanka, strongholds of the Sinhalese extremists, at least eight government-owned buses were set afire Thursday night and this morning, the police spokesman said. Electricity supplies to at least four towns in southern Sri Lanka were cut Thursday night after Sinhalese extremists bew up electrical transformers, he said. A railroad engineer was injured when his train was hit by a firebomb as it pulled into Colombo, police said. Only a few government-owned or private buses were seen running. In the island's north, nearly 50,000 Indian soldiers deployed under the peace accord were put on alert after Tamil rebels called for a demonstration to protest the peace pact. On Thursday, 14 Sinhalese farmers were killed by Tamil rebels near Padaviya village, about 100 miles northeast of Colombo. The peace accord, signed by India and Sri Lanka on July 29, 1987, calls for the government to grant limited autonomy to minority Tamils in exchange for the rebels giving up their fight for a separate Tamil nation. India agreed help disarm the Tamil rebels. But violence has persisted in the Tamil areas of the north and east because the main Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, refused to accept the accord. India is involved in the conflict because of the sympathy of its own Tamil minority of 60 million for the island conflict. Before the peace pact was signed, Sri Lanka regularly accused India of training and supplying the rebels. More than 8,000 people have been killed since the ethnic war began in 1983. Tamils, who are mostly Hindus, make up 18 percent of Sri Lanka's 16 million people and say they are discriminated against by the Sinhalese. The Buddhist Sinhalese make up about 75 percent and control the government and the army. More than 400 people have been killed since the accord was signed in attacks blamed on Sinhalese extremists. Most of the victims have been government officials or members of the governing United National Party of President Junius R. Jayewardene, who signed the accord.
AP900329-0129 	X	The United States and the Soviet Union should review their nuclear fail-safe systems, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Thursday. ``If nationalists or terrorists overran a Soviet nuclear storage site in one of the republics, would the superpowers coordinate their actions?'' Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., asked in a speech on the changing threat worldwide. Ethnic unrest in Azerbaijan and Lithuania's declaration of independence March 11 have led Moscow to resort to military force. The Bush administration, Nunn said, should urge the Soviet Union to join the United States in conducting separate, but parallel reviews, of fail-safe and control programs. Nunn also suggested using the Nuclear Risk Reductions Centers for talks about how the two superpowers could avoid an inadvertent nuclear war. In his second major speech in a week, Nunn acknowledged the lessening Soviet conventional threat and questioned whether the Bush administration is correctly characterizing the Soviet's modernization of its strategic forces. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has said unequivocally that there has been no change in Soviet strategic forces and that the only change at all has been in improving their forces. ``The administration has tended to overstate its case,'' Nunn said. U.S. intelligence, he said, has found a cutback in the Soviet's Blackjack bomber production. In addition, the Soviets have ceased patrolling U.S. coasts with its Yankee-class SSBM and patrolling north of Canada with its nuclear-armed Bear-H bomber. In his speech, delivered on the Senate floor, Nunn also discussed: _His complaints last week that the administration's fiscal 1991 defense budget has several major holes Congress will fill if the Pentagon doesn't. Cheney disputed some of Nunn's allegations and said the Pentagon is accounting for rapid changes in Eastern Europe in fashioning a spending plan for fiscal 1992 to 1997. ``It is crucial to note, however, that Secretary Cheney made no claim that the administration's fiscal 1991 budget request reflects all these assumptions,'' Nunn said Thursday. Questioned about Nunn's comments, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said Thursday: ``It would be very difficult, if not _ dare one say _ imprudent, to send up a '91 budget on the basis of things that haven't happened yet. As events change, we will adjust our plans accordingly.'' _The likelihood of the Soviet launching a ``go-it-alone'' attack on Western Europe. The chances of such an offensive is remote, according to Nunn, who also said the Kremlin would have a difficult time re-establishing ``a credible threat of a large-scale conventional attack on NATO.'' _The dispute within the Bush administration over the potential for reversing the dramatic events in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. CIA Director William Webster has told Congress it will be difficult; Cheney disagrees. Shortly after Webster's comments, Cheney said the CIA director's testimony ``was not helpful'' to Bush's policies.
AP900916-0022 	X	Police in western Bangladesh opened fire on transport workers striking against alleged police harassment and 15 people were injured, according to news reports Sunday. The indefinite strike halted bus traffic in 16 districts and stranded thousands of bus passengers, the government-owned Dainik Bangla newspaper reported. Police and demonstrators clashed in Pabna, 75 miles northwest of Dhaka, the paper said, but it did not specify how many of the injured were protesters and how many were police. It also did not say how many were wounded by the gunfire. Police said they opened fire when the workers tried to storm an office of the road transport authority. On Saturday, 50 people were injured when pro-government workers and opposition-backed laborers clashed, using homemade bombs and knives, over the ouster of a union leader in Adamjee, 10 miles south of Dhaka, police said.
AP901208-0079 	X	A series of aftershocks jolted northern Japan on Saturday following several earthquakes, and police reported landslides, cracked roads and damaged buildings. There were no reports of injuries from the series of quakes Friday evening near Takada, 140 miles north of Tokyo. A total of 10 aftershocks had been recorded following the first and strongest earthquake Friday evening, which registered 5.5 on the Richter scale, the Central Meteorological Agency said. No Richter readings were available for the aftershocks. All the quakes on Friday were centered at a depth of about three miles in western Niigata Prefecture along the coast of the Sea of Japan, it said. Police said the earthquakes caused a 75-foot section of a road to sink, set off 30 landslides, and created cracks in roads and the ground at 60 locations. The hardest-hit area was Takayanagimachi, a town of 4,000 people, where a dozen homes suffered minor damage, including broken furniture and window panes, police said. The Richter scale is a measure of ground motion as recorded on seismographs.
AP880221-0063 	X	A shot fired from an army watchtower near the Irish border killed a young civilian Sunday, according to a military statement that expressed regret at his death. Witnesses said 23-year-old Aidan McAnespie was shot in the back while walking to a regular weekly Gaelic football game in Aughnacloy, County Tyrone, near the border with the Irish Republic. The Dublin government immediately requested details of the shooting, which comes at a time when relations between Britain and the Irish Republic have been severely strained. The Royal Ulster Constablulary said a soldier at the vehicle checkpoint was in military custody and the shooting was under investigation. An army statement said it ``deeply regrets'' the death, which it said occurred when a weapon was fired from an observation tower at the permanent military checkpoint near the village. McAnespie, who lived in Aughnacloy, was said to have worked at Monaghan in the Irish Republic, according to Press Association, the British domestic news agency. Relations between Britain and Ireland have been severely strained recently after two British decisions concerning sectarian warfare in the predominantly Protestant British province of Northern Ireland. Britain's Court of Appeal upheld the convictions of six Irishmen sentenced to life in prison for two Irish Republican Army bombings that killed 21 people in 1974. The court rejected arguments that new evidence undermined the confessions and forensic findings that sent them to prison. The IRA is fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland and unite the province with the Irish Republic, which is predominantly Roman Catholic. Britain also decided last month not to prosecute any Northern Ireland police officers connected with the police shootings of unarmed Roman Catholics in an alleged ``shoot-to-kill'' policy against Irish nationalist guerrillas.
AP900128-0061 	X	Julia Staniszewski says she hadn't seen some of her neighbors in this wooded suburb for at least a year. But when Avianca Flight 52 crashed thunderously into a nearby hillside, they came running. ``The radio went off and everything went dark but there was absolute silence,'' the 85-year-old longtime resident said Sunday, recalling, as did others, the eerie absence of engine noise before the crash. ``I stayed in bed until neighbors came looking for me 15 minutes later to check that I was OK.'' The Boeing 707 clipped the tall oaks near Mrs. Staniszewski's house before breaking into pieces and coming to rest in a mess of twisted steel, killing 73 people aboard the craft and injuring 86. Three days later, residents of this affluent community of about 340 people 35 miles east of New York City say the enormity of the tragedy is just beginning to hit home. ``We were on automatic pilot until last night,'' said Richard Hassanein, whose home sits two houses from the wreckage. ``We couldn't think about ourselves.'' Hassanein's wife, Adrienne, said she still feels numbed. Mrs. Hassanein was one of the first to reach the scene after the red-and-orange jet crashed. ``It sounded and felt like an earthquake,'' she said. ``The scene was terrible. It was almost surreal. You don't forget something like that.'' The plane tore part of the rear deck off a house, but damaged no other homes on Long Island's North Shore. Even so, the community will never fully recover from the emotional impact, Mrs. Hassanein said. On Sunday, residents dressed in running gear, many with dogs in tow, looked on in disbelief as investigators dug for clues. Most suitcases and other personal effects were hauled away Saturday, but the odd shoe or piece of clothing remained amid broken seats, inflated life vests, oxygen masks and bits of fuselage. Police guarding the wreckage looked around in dismay, occasionally picking up an item of clothing or passport, then silently letting it fall. ``I don't want to be here,'' one officer said. ``No one does.'' The quiet search recalled the strange silence that preceded Thursday's crash. All four engines stopped before the plane went down, indicating it may have run out of fuel. ``I was paying bills, watching television and listening to the wind, when I heard a thud. I thought lightning had struck,'' said Marjorie Isaksen, whose home sits above the crash site. Mrs. Isaksen said she heard about the tragedy about 15 minutes later when a friend phoned to check on her. ``My reaction was utter disbelief,'' she said. ``I didn't really realize what had happened until I knelt beside an injured man lying on a stretcher and lay my coat over him,'' Mrs. Isaksen said. ``His face was swollen and bloody. I cried when I was alone with him.'' Mrs. Isaksen said, however, that the tragedy still hasn't ``set into my brain.''
AP880922-0002 	X	A new generation of skyscrapers is about to alter the skyline of Atlanta, previously dismissed as sterile and nondescript. Even homegrown architect John Portman, whose glass towers and soaring atriums for years defined Atlanta and who in the past criticized post-modern architecture as a step backward, has given a nod to the style in his latest project, a 60-story office building planned for downtown Atlanta. Much of the excitement over the pending transformation of the capital of the New South started last fall with the opening of the 50-story IBM building. Officially called One Atlantic Center, it is a slender, post-modern tower of stone with tall arched entryways and Gothic finials, dramatically crowned by a 100-foot-high, eight-sided copper pyramid topped by a golden lantern. Rush-hour traffic on Interstate 85 slows to a cautious crawl as drivers gaze its way. At night, the lights in its crown command attention from all over town. Architecture writers have used words like ``gracious,'' ``truly wonderful,'' ``serene,'' ``imposing'' and ``glamorous'' to describe the tower. ``It certainly projects a vibrance to the rest of the world,'' said Roy Cooper, vice president for economic development with the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. ``It's just beautiful. Everybody's just staggered by it.'' The tower is a dramatic departure from the glass boxes common in modern architecture and contrasts with the sleek look of most of the city's tallest buildings. Its influence shows up in at least three other skyscrapers going up in Atlanta, and the design of the proposed Promenade skyscraper complex was altered to complement the rose-colored IBM tower. New York architect John Burgee, whose firm designed the IBM building with design consultant Philip Johnson, won't take credit for transforming Atlanta's skyline. But he said the city's image, as defined by the way it looks, is undergoing a change. ``Atlanta has been looking for its identity,'' Burgee said in a telephone interview from his New York office. ``It's an historical city (but) its architecture and image is not strictly historical. You think of Atlanta and you think of `Gone With The Wind.' Now, there is an attempt to come up with a visual image. ``We all know Peachtree Street, but you don't think of its buildings,'' he said. ``Like in New York, the Empire State Building; Chicago, the Sears building; San Francisco, the TransAmerica building. Atlanta doesn't have that. It's moving toward that, very definitely.'' Burgee and Johnson also are behind One Ninety One Peachtree Tower, a post-modern skyscraper planned for downtown Atlanta. Another planned project grouped in the ``Son of IBM'' building spurt is the Promenade in the tree-lined, historic Midtown section, a complex of three office buildings and a hotel being developed by AT&T and the Atlanta-based Landmarks Group. When unveiled last year, it was designed with an exterior of glittering green glass. But when Promenade officials saw the excitement over the nearby IBM Tower, its architects, Thompson, Ventulett & Stainback, redrew the plans to use rose glass above rose-toned stone and topped with a gray steel spire. The most recently announced skyscraper is a downtown giant by Portman, whose imprint is already deeply felt in Atlanta, primarily through the Peachtree Center and the towering cylindrical Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel. Portman's new building is slated to begin construction next year and, at 60 stories, will eclipse One Atlantic as the Southeast's tallest building. Unveiling the design in May, Portman said it was ``respectful of the past but, like this city, is audacious and bold and forward-looking _ the beginning of post-post-modern architecture.'' Dale Durfee, a professor of architecture at Georgia Tech, said completion of the IBM tower signaled the acceleration of a change in the look of the city that began a decade ago. ``Atlanta was pretty much plain vanilla,'' he said, ``with no development of architectural significance.'' Burgee echoed that appraisal, saying, ``It was pretty nondescript. It might be anyplace. If they took you (to Atlanta) blindfolded and took off the blindfold, you wouldn't have a clue where you are.'' Durfee said that 10 years ago, Atlanta was groping to form an identity and had no demand for the type of buildings now are going up. Today, however, companies want sophistication in their office buildings, Durfee said, and corporate sponsorship of building projects has changed the rules of skyscraper financing. Some say that all the building activity simply makes good business sense. ``Sure, there's competitive prestige. Good architecture is good business,'' said Truman Hartshorn, chairman of the geography department at Georgia State University and a specialist in urban affairs. A good-looking building, he said, ``is easier to sell to the financing people as well as the tenants.'' Hartshorn said he expects the new projects in Atlanta will bring special recognition. ``I think it's going to open some eyes,'' he said. ``We have prestige with our cultural buildings, but I don't know that our office buildings are that distinctive nationally. ``These aren't just ultra post-modern. They're classic. They're different.''
AP900606-0089 	X	Here are excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad. June 4 The Dallas Morning News on honorariums: Apparently, the political liabilities connected with accepting speaking fees have become too great for 34 senators. A spot check by Congressional Quarterly magazine has found that the lawmakers are either declining all honorariums from outside groups or directing the money to charity. That number is 15 more than last year. For many voters, the practice among lawmakers of accepting speaking fees from the same special interests that seek to influence them has become a striking symbol of what is wrong with Congress. Last year, House members, in exchange for a pay raise, voted to ban honorariums beginning in 1991. But the Senate refused to follow suit. Instead, the senators adopted a wimpish plan to abolish speaking fees gradually, reducing the amount they can keep each year by the amount they receive in cost-of-living salary increases. Judging by the Congressional Quarterly survey, however, a fair number have taken it upon themselves to end the payoffs immediately. Good for them. ... Ideally, the Senate will come to its senses soon and ban honorariums altogether, with or without a pay raise. Until then, one can only hope that these examples of self-denial catch on.
AP880520-0236 	X	President Reagan asked the Senate on Friday to ratify a United Nations treaty against torture and ``demonstrate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhorrent practice.'' Reagan said, however, that if the treaty is ratified he will declare that the United States does not recognize the competence of an international committee it sets up to investigate charges of systematic torture in the United States. ``I believe that a final United States decision as to whether to accept such competence of the committee should be withheld until we have had an opportunity to assess the committee's work,'' the president said. The treaty was unanimously adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1984 and was signed by the United States last month. ``It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment,'' Reagan said. ``Ratification of the convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.'' The treaty requires each signatory country to either prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or extradite them to other countries for prosecution. ``By giving its advice and consent to ratification of this convention, the Senate of the United States will demonstrate unequivocally our desire to bring an end to the abhorrent practice of torture,'' the president said. Reagan also submitted to the Senate for ratification a treaty signed in Montreal in February, under auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization, providing for international cooperation in combatting terrorism at airports.
AP880504-0163 	X	A federal appeals court today extended the midnight deadline for the government's illegal alien amnesty program in New York state, giving many aliens with U.S.-born children on welfare another two weeks to register. The state has been seeking a 60-day extension and the court's order will apply until another hearing the week of May 16, said Chris Braithwaite, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office. The amnesty program allows illegal aliens who have lived in the United States since Jan. 1, 1982, to apply for legal status and U.S. citizenship. The deadline runs out at midnight tonight, but New York state asked for the extension because there was initial confusion about the program's application to parents of U.S.-born children on welfare. The order by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applies only to the illegal alien program in New York state. It was not immediately determined whether it would apply to all aliens or only those with U.S.-born children. The Immigration and Naturalization Service urged those eligible for legalization to apply by midnight tonight ``as it is not clear what the impact of this order may be.'' The court told lawyers for the state and the INS to work out specifics of the order, including which illegal aliens would be affected, Braithwaite said. If the sides could not agree on an order this afternoon the court said it would issue its own order, he said. Greg Leo, an INS spokesman in Washington, said he understood that any order ``will only apply to a limited class of people ... who may be ineligible for amnesty because their children have received AFDC benefits.'' The action may only affect several hundred people in New York, Leo said. The issue arose because aliens who are likely to need public assistance, such as welfare, are among those who cannot be accepted in the amnesty program. The state asked whether poor illegal aliens with U.S.-born children who receive welfare in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program can qualify for amnesty. Technically the children are the welfare recipients, because they are U.S. citizens. Braithwaite said there are ``a lot'' of such families, but he had no count. The INS initially said the parents of such children would not be eligible, then said they would be eligible, Braithwaite said. Because of the confusion, the state sued the INS for a 60-day extension of the deadline and a $100,000 advertising campaign explaining the policy. Leo cautioned that illegal aliens not involved in the litigation should apply by tonight's midnight deadline. ``INS strongly urges anyone eligible for amnesty to apply by midnight tonight as this is the deadline for virtually all potential applicants,'' he said. ``It would be tragic for people who are eligible for this program not to come forward by midnight on the basis of misinformation.''
AP880330-0012 	X	President Reagan says former national security aides Oliver North and John Poindexter are not being presumed innocent on conspiracy, theft and fraud charges in the Iran-Contra scandal. ``Someplace along the line, many of us have forgotten that you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,'' Reagan told a group of regional reporters on Tuesday. ``What has happened, I think, in the case is it's just everyone is accepting guilt on the basis of accusation.'' North, Poindexter and arms dealers Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim pleaded innocent last week to charges that they defrauded the government of more than $17 million by diverting profits from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Although he once again spoke out on behalf of his indicted former aides, Reagan backed away somewhat on Tuesday from his assertion last week that North is still an American hero. Reagan said he was referring to the Marine's wartime record. ``I think I was too short in my remark when I answered the question,'' Reagan said. ``I should have augmented that and said why, and that is: Look at the record and at the honors and the medals that have been awarded him for bravery in combat,'' Reagan said. ``And I have to say those were heroic actions and he is a valid hero.'' North, who has announced he will retire from the Marine Corps in May, received a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War. He said after his indictment that he might attempt to subpoena the ``highest-ranking'' government officials to testify in his defense. Reagan declined to say on Tuesday whether he would testify on North's behalf.
AP900522-0229 	X	The government and the ruling party on Tuesday adopted a new economic policy guideline aimed at meeting promises made in recent trade talks with the United States. The new guideline calls for opening Japan's markets to more foreign goods, making fiscal and budgetary policy changes to conform with other trading partners, and increasing foreign aid. ``We must push forward the adjustment of Japan's economic structure in order to improve the nation's standard of living and promote consumer benefits in accordance with world economic growth,'' said a government statement. The policy was adopted by the Government-LDP Economic Structural Adjustment Board, which consists of bureaucrats and lawmakers from the governing Liberal Democratic Party. It marks a major revision in the direction suggested for Japan's economy. A 1986 guideline, known as the Maekawa Report, urged a drastic shift from heavy reliance on exports to increased domestic demand to reduce the country's trade surpluses. In recent months, however, a number of government and LDP panels have called for less emphasis on expanding domestic demand and more on international cooperation and benefits for Japanese consumers, who now pay some of the world's highest prices. The new guideline suggests that Japan's economy already has been transformed to a domestic orientation and notes that its trade surplus has been decreasing. ``For us to assume a role and responsibilities compatible with our position in the international community, ... it is an extremely important theme for Japan to promote the adjustment of our economy to a more internationally cooperative style,'' it said. In addition to improved living standards, the guideline calls for shorter working hours and longer vacations. In its interim report on the U.S.-Japan Structural Impediment Initiative talks, released in April, Tokyo promised to streamline its complicated distribution system, tighten the anti-monopoly law and increase government spending on public works to help improve the nation's standard of living. The report said such measures would lead to a reduction of Japan's $49 billion surplus in trade with the United States. The new guideline, like the trade report, calls for easing the Large Scale Store Law, which U.S. trade negotiators say makes it hard for foreign stores to open outlets in Japan.
AP901029-0206 	X	EDITOR'S NOTE - The kibitzers this night include a playwright from Spain, a drug dealer, a Queens housewife, a master chess player from Harlem, a biker and assorted yuppies. They are in a hotel next door to the old theater where Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov sit hunched over their chessboard. They watch the action on closed-circuit TV and debate the players' every move, their politics, their diet, their very nose scratchings.
AP901106-0004 	X	Pianist Leon Fleisher's tragedy was losing his right hand to a crippling muscle disorder. His triumph was showing the world that it hardly mattered. After building a new life for himself in the past quarter-century as a conductor and teacher, Fleisher, 62, returned to the concert stage last weekend for a bravura piano recital featuring solo works for the left hand only. His homecoming performance in the Kennedy Center's crowded Terrace Theater was praised by music critics with the same enthusiasm that greeted his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1944, when he was a gangly 16-year-old from San Francisco. Several works on Saturday night's program were written for other great pianists who, like Fleisher, were unable to use their right hands. They included Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, who suffered the same ailment as Fleisher, and Viennese pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. It was Fleisher's first solo recital in a major concert hall since he was stricken more than 25 years ago. When Fleisher withdrew from the concert stage in April 1965, on the eve of a European tour with the Cleveland Orchestra, his right-hand fingers had become weak, numb and beyond control. Once hailed by The New York Times as ``the finest American pianist of his (and probably any) time,'' Fleisher was devastated. ``I had the sense that my whole world had dropped out from under me,'' he said. ``My whole life's direction pointed toward the abyss. For two years, I struggled with, `Why did this happen to me?' I was wallowing in self-pity.'' He was rescued by Dina Koston, a former student at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, who persuaded him to become co-director and conductor of the Kennedy Center's resident chamber music ensemble, the Theater Chamber Players, in 1968. ``She came up with a suggestion that took me out of that abyss and showed me I could still function as a musician,'' Fleisher said. Thus began his resurrection as guest conductor of many of the world's major symphony orchestras, an opera conductor, associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony and artistic director of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Mass. Meanwhile, Fleisher completed 30 years of teaching at Peabody last spring, and is busy recording the known repertoire of left-hand piano concertos with the Boston Symphony. He plans to write his memoirs under the title, ``Eighty-Eight Keys And No Lock.'' Doctors have never diagnosed his affliction, which he dismisses as ``writer's cramp.'' A subsequent bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful nerve disorder of the wrist and hand which Scriabin and Robert Schumann also suffered, was cured surgically. These ailments are common to professional pianists, typists and others whose work requires sustained, repetitive wrist motions. ``Man was not created for the computer keyboard or the piano,'' Fleisher said. Fleisher said he practiced ``incorrectly, even stupidly,'' for six to eight hours a day for 20 years until the muscles of his right hand ``just curled up and said, don't beat on me anymore.'' The damage was irreversible. No matter. Fleisher is too busy savoring his rich new life to waste time fretting over the past. ``I've learned a lot,'' he said. ``What you think are the most important things in the world are not the most important. What's important are relations with people, nature, the world around us. That's where it's at.'' Fleisher said his handicap has ``somehow opened my ears,'' making him a good listener for the first time in his life. He believes it also has improved his teaching by forcing him to verbalize his musical concepts, instead of demonstrating them on the keyboard. The ecstasy of conducting has been a revelation, he said. He recalled conducting the Boston Symphony in a performance of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2. ``It took my breath away,'' he said. ``It was like riding the crest of a tidal wave. It was incredible.'' He also enjoyed ``some extraordinary moments'' conducting a community orchestra in Annapolis, Md., whose amateur musicians ``got so caught up that they rose to levels they never knew they were capable of.'' Just as he has finally learned to play the piano properly, using forearms and shoulders rather than hammering away with curled fingers, Fleisher has become aware of the hazards of such ordinary objects as doorknobs. ``It's a totally unhealthy design,'' he said, curving his fingers around an imaginary doorknob and twisting his wrist. ``Door handles are much better.''
AP881029-0109 	X	Michael Dukakis opened a 10-day final push in his underdog bid for the presidency Saturday by promising a crowd of about 10,000 at a rousing rally that he would fight for American farmers and workers. Dukakis stopped on a trip to California to visit Sioux Falls for a ``Salute to Rural America,'' a fairgrounds event with an audience including supporters bused in from Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. ``They want you to forget their record,'' Dukakis told a boisterous crowd of about 10,000 people. ``Rural Americans have lost a lot, but they haven't lost their memories.'' The Democratic presidential nominee blamed Reagan administration farm policies for a drop in farm exports, falling crop prices and the loss of 250,000 family farms in the past eight years. Dukakis promised an administration sympathetic to small towns and said rival George Bush instead wanted to give a $40 billion tax break to the nation's wealthy. ``They want to help the people who live high off the hog,'' Dukakis said. ``We want to help the people in this country who raise the hogs.'' Dukakis, surrounded by elected officials from the five states, told his audience that the ``Republican philosophy is the fewer farms the better.'' ``Every farm and ranch in this country counts, and every small town is somebody's home,'' Dukakis said to enthusiastic applause. Dukakis ridiculed Bush's promise to wage a ``kinder, gentler'' campaign in the final weeks, a pledge Bush made just before resuming harsh attacks on Dukakis. ``I wish his handlers would make up his mind,'' Dukakis said. Sioux Falls was the first stop for Dukakis on a final-push campaign trip that will bring him to an average of four cities a day. Still well behind Bush in most polls but encouraged by a recent tightening of the race, Dukakis is keeping a high television profile during the waning days of the campaign to help him spread his message. Dukakis tailored his Populist appeal to rural and farm issues, accusing the Reagan administration of turning its back on family farmers and rural communities. He also criticized a Friday decision by the administration to refuse a request by U.S. rice farmers to investigate Japan's trading practices and said the decision was an ominous harbinger of the trade policies Bush would bring to the White House. ``This decision is only the latest instance of the Republicans' refusal to stand up for American jobs and American farmers in world markets,'' Dukakis said in a statement. ``The facts are so unequivocal that this decision raises grave doubts about the Republicans' intention to enforce the new trade act.'' In contrast, Dukakis said, he and running mate Lloyd Bentsen would demand that foreign countries with access to U.S. markets open their doors to U.S. products. And he said a Dukakis administration would bring to rural America reasonable price supports for farmers, financing for economic development in rural communities, an immediate $100 million investment in rural health care, and agressive enforcement of worker safety guidelines _ a hot issue in this state, where the John Morrell & Co., meatpacking plant was fined $4.3 million Friday after being accused of violations of safety standards. Dukakis met with several Morrell workers before addressing the rally, and he questioned the timing of the fine. ``We're not going to wait until 10 days before the election to do something about it,'' he said of safety problems in the meatpacking and other industries. He also said the Farmers Home Administration was waiting until six days after the election to mail out notices to 90,000 family farmers, telling them they will have to refinance loans or face foreclosure. Dukakis said he could sense the race was tightening and joked about his vision of the outcome. ``This one is going to go down to the wire and it's going to be one by a nose,'' Dukakis said. ``If this one is one by a nose, I don't have to tell you who's going to win.'' Dukakis headed from South Dakota to California for an evening rally with supporters in the Watts section of Los Angeles. On Sunday he is taking a train tour through several California communities. Dukakis is on the road through Election Day, scheduled to arrive home on a cross-country flight that gets him to Boston shortly after the polls open.
AP881020-0264 	X	A Disney-controlled company seeking to acquire Polaroid Corp. is considering a plan to dismantle the instant camera pioneer if its hostile takeover succeeds, court testimony has revealed. Shamrock Holdings Inc. President Stanley P. Gold testified Wednesday on the first day of a critical legal battle with Polaroid that no decision has been made on the proposal from Wertheim Schroeder, Shamrock's investment adviser. Gold said the investment bank recommended that Shamrock sell off Polaroid's manufacturing businesses, cut back on research and development, reduce the administrative staff and settle pending antitrust litigation with Eastman Kodak Co. Previously, Shamrock had said only that it would reverse Polaroid's decision to enter the 35mm film business, settle the Kodak suit and sell off certain Polaroid assets. Shamrock advisers identified those assets as real estate valued at roughly $200 million. Polaroid fell 75 cents a share to close at $38.50 in consolidated New York Stock Exchange trading Wednesday. Gold was the only witness in the first day of the Chancery Court trial, which is scheduled to take five days before Vice Chancellor Caroline Berger. Opening arguments were be given later in the trial. Shamrock, a Burbank, Calif.-based television and radio concern controlled by Roy E. Disney, filed suit in July against Polaroid. Shamrock is seeking unspecified damages and asking the court to permanently enjoin or rescind Polaroid's employee stock ownership plan that would all but prevent Shamrock from acquiring Polaroid. The plan places 14 percent of Polaroid stock in employees' hands. Under Delaware takeover law, a hostile bidder must acquire more than 85 percent of a target's outstanding shares for control. Polaroid is incorporated in Delaware. The 10-million-share, $300 million employee stock plan was announced July 12, the same day Polaroid canceled a July 13 meeting with Shamrock and a week before Shamrock made its first $40-a-share bid for Polaroid. Shamrock claims stock plan was designed to thwart a takeover. Shamrock was rebuffed in its unsolicited bid before making a hostile offer of $42 a share last month that put a value of $2.6 billion on the company that introduced instant snapshots in 1948. Polaroid said the offer was too low and advised stockholders to reject it. Gold said that if the July 13 meeting had been held, he would not have told Polaroid he discussed takeover financing with several banks. He also did not intend to discuss Wertheim Schroeder's proposals, Gold said. ``There was no decision made on those things, and, no, I wasn't going to tell (Polaroid) about them. We hadn't made any decisions on (Wertheim Schroeder's) ideas,'' Gold said. He said the meeting ``was to determine whether or not we could have continued dialogue.'' Gold said that under an agreement with Polaroid, Shamrock was not to ``make any proposals or offers which would require disclosure'' during the meeting. He acknowledged that selling Polaroid's assets or settling the Kodak case would not have required public disclosure. Gold also testified that he had furnished information about the proposals to several banks, including Wells Fargo and the Bank of Nova Scotia. ``But I did not ask them to finance'' the entire acquisition, Gold said. A January trial is scheduled to determine damages in Polaroid's successful patent infringement lawsuit against Kodak. Polaroid is seeking $5.7 billion. Gold said he told the banks that Shamrock was exploring a takeover of Polaroid. Shamrock wanted to know if the banks would be interested in financing the venture if Shamrock decided to proceed, Gold said.
AP900323-0096 	X	A convoy of trucks carried 110 tons of emergency food Friday to a war zone in the northern part of Ethiopia, but a damaged bridge prevented it from carrying all its planned load. The bridge was not strong enough to handle trucks with trailers attached, so each truck carried just 10 tons of food instead of the 22 tons that would have been possible with trailers, said Yohannes Abraham. Abraham is an official of the Catholic Relief Services in Ethiopia. Eleven trucks made the 74-mile journey from the provincial capital of Dessie over a mountainous road to Kobo. Another convoy of 11 trucks covered the same route Monday in what relief officials said was a trial run. Its drivers reported the damaged bridge. Both trips went without a hitch. A consortium of Ethiopian churches is ferrying the food into the area, which is caught in the conflict between government troops and the rebel Tigre People's Liberation Front. The Tigreans are fighting to oust President Mengistu Haile Mariam and establish a government patterned after that of Albania, the last hard-line Marxist state in Eastern Europe. The emergency food comes largely from private donors in the United States and Western Europe. It is intended to feed 1 million people deprived because of the war and drought. A formal cease-fire does not exist, but the rebels and government have promised safe passage for convoys. The church groups hope to extend their distribution network from the north to southern Eritrea province, where another war is under way between the government and the secessionist Eritrean People's Liberation Army.
AP881117-0307 	X	A new TV production company, Ventura Entertainment Group, entered the bidding Thursday for De Laurentiis Entertainment Group Inc., a movie-maker operating under the protection of federal bankruptcy court. Ventura Entertainment announced it had offered $35 million in cash and equity for De Laurentiis, which was founded by Italian filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis. Ventura Entertainment Chairman Harvey Bibicoff refused to disclose how much of the offer was in cash. At least three other entertainment companies have expressed interest in buying the assets of De Laurentiis, whose productions have included a remake of ``King Kong.'' A De Laurentiis spokesman referred questions about the bid to the company's investment banker, Oppenheimer & Co., whose Los Angeles office did not respond to requests for comment Thursday afternoon. Any transaction would require the approval of De Laurentiis creditors and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. De Laurentiis, which lost $478,000 in the second quarter, filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code in mid-August. Ventura, an Encino-based public company, was formed six months ago by producer Irwin Meyer, former Columbia Pictures executive Stephen Girard and Bibicoff. Its only finished project is ``International Celebration of the Piano,'' a concert film for television. De Laurentiis' assets include North Carolina Film Studios in Wilmington, N.C., which is rented out for various productions; Onyx Entertainment, which holds the rights to various scripts, and United States rights to show the studio's library of 350 movies, including ``The Graduate'' and ``Carnal Knowledge.'' Other bidders divulged by the company are troubled moviemaker Cannon Group Inc., videodisk producer Image Entertainment Inc. and Atlantic Entertainment Group.
AP880803-0086 	X	Nurses were flown in from elsewhere in California and from out of state as officials promised quality care at six area hospitals despite a strike by about 2,000 registered nurses. ``We feel we are able to operate with some (reductions) but still are able to offer our range of services,'' said Dr. Kenneth Hammerman, chief of staff at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. The nurses, demanding higher pay and regular raises for veteran employees, walked off the job Tuesday morning. Ten other hospitals in San Francisco remain unaffected. The six hospitals continued operating, caring for about 900 patients with management employees and temporary nurses, officials said. The hospitals, which negotiated as a group called Affiliated Hospitals of San Francisco, also transferred some patients, consolidated some critical-care units and referred some patients elsewhere. Hospital officials declined to say how many nurses were flown in. California Nurses Association spokeswoman Maureen Anderson estimated the number at 20 to 30. The walkout, which occurred after the nurses rejected a last-minute, revised offer, was the first widespread strike by registered nurses here since 1974. No new talks were scheduled. Hardest hit was the 61-bed Marshall Hale Hospital in San Francisco, where the emergency room was closed, operations canceled and no new patients were being admitted. Nurses on the picket lines questioned the qualifications of temporary workers and the quality of patient care. ``Common sense tells me I would not go to an Affiliated Hospital with nearly 4,000 workers on strike,'' Anderson said. Affected hospitals were St. Francis, Marshall Hale, Children's, Mount Zion and St. Mary's in San Francisco and Seton Medical Center in Daly City. The nurses want an 11 percent raise the first year and 10 percent the second year of a two-year contract. Affiliated Hospitals late Monday offered 18 percent over 31 months. Registered nurses at Affiliated Hospitals earn from about $31,000 to about $36,000 for day shifts and up to $43,000 a year for night shifts.
AP880413-0026 	X	The Federal Aviation Administration's ambitious modernization of its air traffic control system will cost billions of dollars more than the agency estimates because of unforeseen technical problems and delays, a congressional report says. Largely because of unexpected problems in developing and installing the new communications, radar, weather observation and computer systems, the upgrading will cost at least $24 billion, the General Accounting Office told Congress Tuesday. The FAA, which operates the air traffic control system and is obtaining the new equipment, acknowledges that the program has fallen behind schedule but has put the expected cost at $15.3 billion. ``Many of these technologies had to be invented, and the FAA underestimated how long it would take to invent some of these things,'' Kenneth M. Mead, an associate director of GAO, told the House transportation appropriations subcommittee. The report by GAO, Congress' investigative arm, also said hundreds of pieces of equipment that are being delivered to FAA facilities across the country are simply sitting in sheds because the agency lacks enough workers to install them. ``It's like ordering a piano and not having a living room to put it in,'' said Rep. William Lehman, D-Fla., chairman of the subcommittee. FAA Administrator Allan McArtor said in an interview after the hearing that the GAO figures were ``misleading,'' but acknowledged that the plan, introduced in 1981, is running behind its original timetable. The GAO report focused on the National Airspace System plan, the second largest civilian technology project ever undertaken in the United States, behind only the Apollo manned spacecraft program. Federal officials believe the new equipment is necessary to keep up with the continuing growth of aviation, the fastest growing segment of American transportation. The FAA originally hoped the new equipment would be in place by 1996. But officials now concede that because of delays, the project will not be completed until at least the year 2000. The study by GAO said that of the 12 major systems that comprise the modernization project, only one _ a computer _ is nearing completion. Major components have been delayed from between one year and five years, the report said. Reagan administration officials have blamed many of the delays on the slowness of federal purchasing procedures, and on a refusal by Congress to provide enough money to buy the equipment. Meanwhile, a broad coalition of aviation groups, aircraft manufacturers and airlines called on not only the industry but air travelers to put pressure on the government to expand airspace and airport capacity. The coalition, forming a group called Partnership for Improved Air Travel, announced a two-year campaign to enlist grassroots support for spending more money on airports and improvements in the air traffic control system. The air traffic modernization plan must be put ``on a fast track'' and new airports must be built or air travelers will face declining service, mounting delays and travel problems in the coming years, the coalition warned at a news conference. ``Unless we modernize the (air traffic system) quickly, we'll choke off growth to the detriment of all,'' declared Robert Crandall, chairman of American Airlines. Crandall was among five airline chief executives, and leaders of groups representing aircraft manufacturers, business flyers, private and commercial pilots and airport officials who attended a news conference announcing the campaign. The group envisions spending up to $15 million over the next two years to publicize the need for more airports and an improved air traffic control system. ``The nation has not yet made a commitment to create an (aviation) system that can efficiently meet today's demand and anticipate tomorrow's,'' said Herbert Kelleher, the chairman of Southwest Airlines, who also is chairman of the new coalition. Among the complaints voiced by the coalition were: too few air traffic controllers are being hired and trained, federal efforts to modernize the air traffic control technology is way behind schedule, there are too few airports and the Federal Aviation Administration needs to be restructured because it is hamstrung by bureaucratic restrictions.
AP880816-0181 	X	Celebrities from the world of law, sports and politics paid tribute today to Edward Bennett Williams, a famed trial lawyer and Washington insider whose clients included the James Hoffa, Joseph McCarthy and Frank Sinatra. He died Saturday at age 68. More than 1,000 people crowded into St. Matthew's Cathedral for the 2{-hour Mass before Williams was laid to rest in St. Gabriel's Cemetery in Potomac, Md., near his home. Pallbearers included Washington Post executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, columnist Art Buchwald, former Cabinet officer Joseph Califano and law partner Brendan Sullivan. Williams died at Georgetown University Hospital after an 11-year battle with cancer. At the time of his death, Williams presided over the Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly and was owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team. He had been president of the Washington Redsksins football team for 20 years.
AP901009-0023 	X	George Strait, who nearly quit singing 11 years ago, is the Country Music Association's top entertainer for the second straight year. Strait, frustrated over a lack of success, considered giving up his career in 1979 to work for a company that designs cattle pens, but he decided to keep going and soon became one of country music's top stars. His second win of the association's most prestigious honor came Monday during the CMA's 24th annual awards show. ``They were both surprises,'' the 38-year-old singer said after the nationally televised show. ``Everyone nominated certainly deserved to be there. But I'm glad they picked me.'' Over the summer, he had the biggest hit record of his career, ``Love Without End, Amen.'' His album ``Livin' It Up'' also has been a swift seller. ``It's hard not to be affected by this stuff,'' Strait said of his awards success. He shared laurels Monday night at the Grand Ole Opry House with the Kentucky HeadHunters, who won two awards, and with Clint Black and Kathy Mattea, who were chosen best vocalists. Tennessee Ernie Ford, 71, ``the Ol' Peapicker,'' capped off his career by being chosen for the Country Music Hall of Fame. ``Bless your little pea-pickin' hearts. Tonight I'm a happy man,'' said Ford, a TV pioneer known for his 1955 hit record ``Sixteen Tons.'' The Kentucky HeadHunters, a five-piece band whose shaggy hair and rock 'n' roll stylings make them unlikely country music stars, won vocal group of the year and best album for ``Pickin' on Nashville.'' ``Does this mean we get to keep our hair?'' jested HeadHunters' guitarist Greg Martin. Another double winner was newcomer Garth Brooks, who won top music video for ``The Dance'' and the Horizon Award for career development. His music video included clips of former President John Kennedy, the Challenger crew and John Wayne. Vince Gill, a singer who has done backup vocals for more than 100 of his peers, was rewarded by his friends when he won single of the year for ``When I Call Your Name.'' ``I've been around for a long time and I've waited for this for a long time so I'm going to stand up here for a long time,'' Gill, 33, said in accepting the award. The Judds, a mother-daughter duo, were chosen best vocal duo for the third straight year. ``I have just one more space on my mantel. I was really hoping for this,'' daughter Wynonna Judd said. Lorrie Morgan and her late husband, Keith Whitley, won vocal event of the year honoring performers who normally don't sing together. Their award was for ``'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose,'' which Whitley recorded alone. Morgan added her vocals after his death in May 1989. Song of the Year, a songwriter's award, went to Jon Vezner and Don Henry for the poignant ``Where've You Been,'' which was recorded by Mattea, Vezner's wife. Fiddler Johnny Gimble won musician of the year for the fourth time in the past five years. Randy Travis, who has sold more than 10 million records in just four years, failed for the fourth time to win the entertainer of the year award. Ricky Van Shelton, voted No. 1 male singer a year ago, won nothing this year despite being nominated in three categories. Travis and Reba McEntire was hosts of the show. Winners were chosen by the 6,000 voting members of the CMA, mostly singers, musicians, songwriters, song publishers, record company employees and disc jockeys. The Hall of Fame honoree was selected by an anonymous 300-member committee.
AP880922-0200 	X	Digital Equipment Corp., the No. 2 computer maker, is opening its doors to outside technology. Analysts say Digital's acquisition of a 5 percent stake in Mips Computer Systems Inc. marks a move to accept and implement technological advances occurring outside the company. Digital announced plans Wednesday to develop computer work stations based on the California company's technology. Work stations are expensive desktop computers that typically are used for work that requires extensive manipulation of numbers or sophisticated graphics, such as science, engineering, design and financial modeling. ``This is an acceptance on DEC's part that the computer user's dollar is being spent on work stations and small systems,'' said Bruce Watts, an analyst with Needham & Co. ``I think they feel that internally they've got enough on their hands in terms of keeping their own product line up to date and competitive, and if they want to tap other segments of the market they have to look outside,'' he said. Digital said it is lining up with Mips, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., to speed new work station products to the marketplace. The Maynard-based computer giant is second to Sun Microsystems Inc. in the fast-growing work station field. Under the agreement, Digital will used Mips-designed microprocessors that use reduced instruction set computing, or Risc, a way to speed up computing by simplifying the steps a processor has to carry out. The faster Risc microprocessors are used increasingly in work stations. ``With the addition of Risc technology, Digital will offer customers even more versatility in computer performance to match specific application demands,'' said William Strecker, a Digital vice president. Digital stock closed at $92.62{ in composite New York Stock Exhange trading Wednesday, up 12{ cents. Analysts said they expect Digital to unveil a work station using Mips chip technology by the end of the year. They said the decision by Digital marks the first time it has strayed from its reliance on its own Vax computer design. Analysts also said the Mips deal marks a concession to industry standards because Risc-based systems work well with Unix, the standard operating software made by American Telephone & Telegraph. Digital also acquired the right to use future Mips technology. In the past, Digital has designed all its computer components itself.
AP900209-0177 	X	A band of rain showers extended from Texas to Vermont on Friday, and rain also fell along the northern Pacific Coast. A cold snap in Alaska streched into its 15th day with no relief expected until at least Monday. The overnight low was minus 58 degrees at Fort Yukon. Rain showers and thunderstorms reached from west-central Texas across northern Texas, southeast Oklahoma, northern Arkansas and southwest Missouri. Thunderstorms in Texas brought hail to Waxahachee, Granview, Ferris and Peoria. Rain showers stretched from northeast Louisiana to eastern Mississippi, across northern Alabama, northern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, northern Virginia, Ohio, western Pennsylvania, parts of New York state, and Vermont. Rain reached over the northern Pacific Coast, changing to snow in the higher elevations and extending into the northern half of the Rockies. Heavier rainfall during the 6 hours ending at 1 p.m. EST included 1.22 inches at Quillayute, Wash., about three quarters of an inch at Louisville, Ky., Tuscaloosa, Ala., Meridian, Miss., and Astoria, Ore. There were no reports of measurable snowfall during the same 6 hours. High temperature records were set for the date in Baltimore, 65; Beckley, W. Va., 64; Boston, 60; Bridgeport, Conn., 54; Cape Hatteras, N.C., 72; Mansfield, Ohio, 54; New York, 63; Philadelphia, 64; Portland, Maine, 55 and Richmond, Va., 72. The nation's low in the Lower 48 states was 12 below zero at Gunnison, Colo. Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EST ranged from 13 degrees at Warroad, Minn., to 84 degrees at Fort Myers, Fla.
AP900831-0234 	X	A General Motors Corp. subsidiary will buy an insurance holding company subsidiary of Xerox Financial Services for an undisclosed sum, the companies said Friday. Motors Insurance Corp., a subsidiary of GM's General Motors Acceptance Corp. unit, will acquire NAVCO Corp., a subsidiary of Xerox's Crum and Forster Inc. organization, the companies said. The deal faces regulatory approval and a vote from each company's board. NAVCO provides automobile insurance mainly to members of associations. It had annual premiums of about $147 million last year. Motors Insurance had revenues of $1.1 billion in 1989 and insures personal and commercial coverages and plans. Crum and Forster, based in Basking Ridge, N.J., also said it wants to sell its Viking Insurance Co. of Wisconsin. That company provides personal automobile insurance.
AP900406-0001 	X	Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ann Richards on Thursday denounced an unattributed allegation that she was in a restroom where several women appeared to be smoking marijuana almost 11 years ago. ``Do you think this country has reached the point now ... that unsubstantiated people can say what they want to and suddenly it takes on the vein of truth by appearing on television and in the newspapers?'' Ms. Richards said at a campaign stop in Dallas. The state treasurer blamed her runoff opponent in Tuesday's primary election, Attorney General Jim Mattox, for spreading rumors about drug use. Mattox has said he possesses sworn statements from people who say they know Ms. Richards used illegal drugs in the past. But Mattox repeatedly has refused to reveal the names of those people or offer any other evidence to back up his accusations. The Houston Post on Thursday quoted a woman it didn't identify as saying she had seen Ms. Richards with a group of women in the restroom of an Austin hotel during the National Association of Women in Construction convention in 1979. The woman, who refused to tell her story unless guaranteed her name not be used, told the Post, ``When you walked in the door you could smell the definite aroma of marijuana. ``When I walked in (Ms. Richards) put her hand behind her and held it. The girl on the end, who I did not know, had a roach or a joint that had been smoked down in her hand,'' the woman told the newspaper. The Post report said the woman felt compelled to recount the incident after watching Ms. Richards refuse during televised debates to answer yes or no to the question of whether she had ever used illegal drugs. Ms. Richards, a recovering alcoholic, has said she has not had an alcoholic drink nor a mood-altering chemical in 10 years. Asked about the alleged 1979 incident, the state treasurer said, ``I have no idea what they're talking about.'' Ms. Richards said Thursday she was shocked the allegations had been reported. ``The surprising part is that now people are willing to put it in print, with no substantiation at all. That's not what this country is all about,'' she said. At a Thursday campaign stop in Lubbock, Mattox said he promised confidentiality to people who alleged Ms. Richards has used drugs. He also refused again to release his income tax records, as Ms. Richards has requested, unless she releases her medical records. When asked why, he said, ``Because I intend to win this campaign, and I choose the playing fields and I choose the methods by which we are going to play this game. That just happens to be the way politics work.'' Mattox has repeatedly said he expects to win the runoff and face Republican Clayton Williams in November. Releasing his income taxes when Williams hasn't done so would give Williams a signficant advantage, Mattox said.
AP880610-0305 	X	National Broadcasting Co. has decided against buying the cable channel Tempo Television for its proposed business news service but plans instead to lease time on the channel for the new programming. The General Electric Co. unit, which owns the NBC Television Network, cited tax considerations for its change in strategy. Buying the cable channel was seen as part of NBC President Robert Wright's oft-stated plans to broaden the broadcasting concern's business base. NBC announced last month it had signed a letter of intent to buy Tempo Television, and would use it for new business news and sports programming. Tempo Television, a unit of Tempo Enterprises Inc. of Tulsa, Okla., currently provides outdoors, travel and informational programming to about 12 million subscribers. NBC had planned to acquire the channel from Telecommunications Inc., a Denver-based cable operator which is in the process of buying Tempo Enterprises in a deal expected to close in the third quarter. On Thursday, NBC and Telecommunications said they were restructuring their plans to minimize ``tax and other complications that arose from trying to separate Tempo Television from its parent, Tempo Enterprises.'' Under the new plan, the companies said NBC would lease time on Tempo Television for a business news service that would run from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, starting in early 1989. ``Under the new arrangement, NBC will still own and manage the business news service, but will reach existing Tempo TV subscribers without actually purchasing Tempo TV,'' the announcement said. It said that Tempo Television would try to help the business news service succeed by paying the first year's affiliation fee on behalf of all current Tempo TV affiliates who continue to carry Tempo fulltime after the launch of the business news service. John Draper, a spokesman for Telecommunications, said the new arrangement ``gives NBC the same thing that they were after'' when it planned to buy the cable channel _ access to a large base of subscribers. He declined to specify how much NBC would pay for the lease. It had been reported that NBC had agreed to pay about $20 million to buy the channel. The statement did not indicate what the new plans were for introduction of the proposed sports programing that NBC previously said it would put on the cable channel. John Malone, president of Telecommunications, said in the statement that his company will ``continue to explore with NBC the best format for sports and other possible programming for a prime time and weekend service.'' Thomas S. Rogers, the NBC executive overseeing the Tempo deal, was unavailable for comment. But Joseph Rutledge, an NBC spokesman, said today that the change to a lease arrangement posed no obstacle to NBC accomplishing what it set out to do. ``Some people choose to lease a car. Some people choose to buy a car. Both people end up with transportation. We are ending up with the very outcome we sought,'' he said. The new arrangement will give NBC access to cable subscribers, a solid relationship with Telecommunications, which is the nation's biggest cable operator, and an opportunity to develop two new programming services for cable TV, Rutledge said. He said that NBC continues to talk with cable operators about what they would like to see in a sports service and that NBC hopes to begin developing sports programming for cable TV soon after the business news service goes on the air. Wright was quoted in the statement as saying, ``The cable industry has been very encouraging and we are enthusiastic about our plans going forward.''
AP901024-0124 	X	The Bush administration has put Syria on notice it has a ``special responsibility'' to curb violence in areas of Lebanon under Syrian control, the State Department said Wednesday. With the U.S. Embassy in Beirut closed, the United States is assessing blame for the mounting death toll since Gen. Michel Aoun, the last major Christian holdout, gave up his struggle against Syrian forces 11 days ago. The most recent prominent victim was Dany Chamoun, a Christian leader who also opposed Syrian influence. He, his wife and two small children were slain in their Beirut apartment last weekend. No one has claimed responsibility. ``We have seen the many press reports of atrocities carried out in East Beirut since the surrender of Gen. Aoun,'' Margaret D. Tutwiler, the State Department spokeswoman, said. ``We do not have firsthand knowledge which could confirm those reports. However, the reports themselves are enough to shock and horrify,'' The U.S. official added: ``if these reports are true, whoever is responsible the United States would condemn them in the strongest terms.'' The Bush administration had urged Aoun to end his resistance. Aoun has taken refuge in the French embassy. ``We have told the Syrians they have a special responsibility, given their control over parts of Lebanon, to ensure that such abuses do not take place in areas under their control,'' Ms. Tutwiler said, reading from a prepared statement. ``There is no ambiguity in the message we have sent to Syria on this point.'' Syria, which has influence over the Lebanese government headed by President Elias Hrawi, is a key Arab ally of the United States in its campaign against Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. Some 4,000 Syrian troops are in Saudi Arabia to help defend the kingdom against Iraqi attack. Ms. Tutwiler said Assistant Secretary of State John H. Kelly had met with Syrian Ambassador Walid al-Moualem here while Edward Djerejian, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, had met with Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara in Damascus. Also, the spokeswoman said, Kelly met Tuesday and several times before then with the Lebanese ambassador, Nassib Lahoud.
AP881012-0006 	X	Brown University and its food service, plant operations and library workers reached a contract agreement on Wednesday just hours before a midnight strike dedline. After two days of negotiations, the Ivy League school agreed to pay full health insurance premiums for members of Local 134 of the Service Employees International union. ``We feel that we have a great victory here,'' said Karen McAninch, the union's business agent.``The important thing is we got 100 percent Blue Cross coverage for the life of the agreement.'' A three-year contract for the 250 plant and food workers provided a 5.5 percent pay increase in the first year and a 5 percent increase in the remaining two years. The 90 library workers received a two-year contract that gave them a 5.5 percent increase in the first year and a 5 percent raise in the second. The contract was ratified by a show of hands by the plant and food workers and by a 50-21 vote from the library workers, McAninch said. The workers earlier this month authorized a strike for midnight Wednesday, when the contract covering plant and food workers expires. The contract for the library workers expired on Aug. 19. ``Both sides gave substantially in the interest of harmony to get the matter resolved,'' said Robert Reichley, a university spokesman. ``In the long run it may not be the best solution for both sides, but at least it averted a strike.'' On Tuesday, Brown officials offered a higher wage increase, but said they would pay only half the insurance premiums for the first year and 60 percent of following increases. McAninch said the principle of cost shifting was as important as the numbers. ``They knew that we were serious about striking and that we felt very strongly about the issues,'' she said. ``We had a lot of support from Brown University students.''
AP880222-0001 	X	The Socialist Party leadership on Monday strongly suggested President Kurt Waldheim should step down but stopped short of calling for his resignation. Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, party chief Fred Sinowatz and other party leaders also renewed an indirect offer to support a conservative candidate to be nominated for presidential elections if Waldheim quits. The resolution adopted by the Socialist leadership meeting said the report of a historians' commission on Waldheim's service in the German army during World War II had ``badly shaken the president's moral authority at home and abroad.'' It also said that a televised speech by Waldheim on Feb. 15 ``has raised doubts about his ability to integrate'' Austria's opposing political camps. In that speech, Waldheim said he would not step down and dismissed as wrong unspecified parts of the report earlier this month by the international panel of historians that probed his wartime past. Waldheim, 69, has consistently denied any wrongdoing as a first lieutenant serving in the German army in the Balkans during the war. The resolution said the Socialists are ready, together with the conservative People's Party, junior partner in the coalition government, to ``look for a way toward a new beginning in the office of federal president.'' Asked whether this meant that the Socialists would agree to a joint conservative presidential candidate, Sinowatz told reporters ``this certainly includes also the question whether a personnel change is possible.'' Economics Minister Robert Graf and other leading officials of the conservative People's Party last week expressed increasing uneasiness in the party about the damage being done to the country if Waldheim clings to his post. Waldheim, elected in 1986, ends his term in 1992. The historians' commission presented no evidence that would clearly back allegations Waldheim committed atrocities, but it left open the question of whether he was guilty of any crime. It said he was ``in close proximity'' to some Nazi atrocities in the Balkans, knew they were going on and made no attempt ot prevent them. It also said Waldheim concealed his wartime past and tried to make it seem harmless once he could no longer hide it.
AP880817-0277 	X	On many trains, speed thrills. Scenery flashes past, and passengers dart from side to side to view this mountain or that river. Not so with a pair of popular rail excursions that amble through wilderness in Northern California, barely faster than the stagecoaches that preceded them more than a century ago. What the Skunk and North Coast Daylight trains lack in miles per hour, they make up for in dense redwood groves, remote river canyons and all-aboard camaraderie. The revival of the North Coast Daylight for a second straight summer run has enabled railroad buffs to witness a rare sight in this town 130 miles north of San Francisco: two passenger trains arriving at the same time. ``It reminds me of the old days,'' said Jim Claveo of San Francisco, arriving on the Daylight after the 10-hour, 144-mile trip from Eureka. ``They're very friendly, more friendly than on most trains. ``You ride it for the scenery, and you also ride it for the nostalgia.'' The Skunk Train, running along a 103-year-old line through Mendocino County woods to Fort Bragg on the coast, has been full of like-minded tourists all summer despite last year's complaints about heavy logging spoiling part of the view. Bob Reid, who has crammed 151 tourist pins onto his crowded conductor's cap, keeps travelers amused in his role as ticket-checker, guide and glad-hander. ``I've been working for this railroad for 27 years, and it's still fun,'' said the Fort Bragg resident. ``Every day I meet new people from all over the world. There's only one Skunk Train.'' There was no North Coast Daylight train for almost two years following its ill-fated summer debut in 1985. On one of its early runs that year, the train was stranded by a landslide in the Eel River Canyon just 27 miles out of Willits. Financial problems and winter track damage caused suspension of the run, and service didn't resume until a year ago when Eureka Southern took over the line. The train is a reincarnation of the old Shasta Daylight that served the West Coast decades ago. It generally consists of eight cars: turquoise coaches, Shasta Daylight lounge cars with plush interiors and padded seats, a rare Southern Pacific club car with a standup bar decorated in ranch motif, and a classic Frisco Line parlor car where passengers may be served calzone or lasagna. Winding through the canyon on weather-beaten tracks that slow its speed to 10 mph, the North Coast Daylight can hit a rollicking 30 mph on straightaways. Twenty-nine tunnels enliven the trip, much of which is through wild terrain far from the nearest road. In addition to the usual sun-worshipers and skinny-dippers, passengers on one recent trip were treated to the sights of deer, bears, raccoons, river otters, wild pigs, an elk and an osprey clutching a trout in its beak along the peaceful banks of the Eel. ``The Eel River Canyon is one of the most beautiful river canyons I've ever seen,'' said Anne Tolleson of Santa Rosa. ``It's a great ride if you're not in a hurry.'' Further north, the train chugs through the redwood forests of Humboldt County and past one of the world's largest redwood mills in Scotia, the town of Fortuna and the dairy community of Loleta before ending the outbound half of the journey on the coast at Eureka. Eureka Southern has a half-dozen more weekend trips, with overnight layovers in Eureka, scheduled from August through mid-October. Business has been good enough, at 150 to 200 passengers per trip, that the railroad plans to expand the schedule next year, according to business manager Steve Branstetter. The Skunk, meanwhile, continues to lure enough train fans to operate year-round. Gerald Allen, general manager of the Fort Bragg-based California Western Railroad that took it over in 1987, says the train should match last year's near-record total of 70,000 passengers taking the daily trips out of either Fort Bragg or Willits. About half the riders hail from the San Francisco Bay area. The line was founded as a logging railroad in 1885. Steam passenger service began in 1904 and was extended to Willits seven years later. Gas engines replaced steam in 1925, and the train's famous moniker was born shortly thereafter by trainmen who remarked that the smelly fumes had the aroma of a skunk. Today's trains are almost all diesel-powered, but the name has proven longer-lasting than the polecat's pungency. The serpentine route could be a roller coaster, climbing from sea level to 1,740 feet, crossing 31 bridges and trestles and disappearing into two pitch-black mountain tunnels. But top speed of 20 mph _ the average is 13 mph _ keeps this a leisurely family experience. The Skunk even stops to pick up campers or deliver groceries, mail and medicine to areas inaccessible by car. Passengers are let out for half an hour in deep woods at Northspur, the line's midway point, where they can buy snacks and gaze up at coastal redwoods towering more than 300 feet. Repeat patrons may notice a few more bare patches than in past years on the Fort Bragg half of the line. ``We never considered clear-cutting to be a major problem, but there are certainly some areas out there that are not the Avenue of the Giants by any stretch of the imagination,'' said Allen. ``Everybody wants a redwood deck, and that's where they come from.''
AP880831-0108 	X	While the infamous White House taping system was being planned, President Nixon suggested that he have a button to turn it on and off manually, but was dissuaded by an aide who says he thought the president was too clumsy. Therefore, a voice-activated system was installed and Nixon quickly lost awareness that his every conversation was being recorded, says former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman in an article for the National Archives publication ``Prologue.'' The tapes led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974 when they provided damning evidence that he had consented to the White House cover-up of the Watergate break-in. Haldeman said Nixon had resisted the idea of taping conversations but reluctantly agreed it was the best way to get an accurate record of meetings. ``He suggested we might install the same kind of switch- or button-operated machine that (Lyndon) Johnson had used.'' Haldeman wrote. ``That would allow him to turn the system on or off as he thought best.'' The former aide continued: ``I responded, `Mr. President, you'll never remember to turn it on except when you don't want it, and when you do want it you're always going to be shouting _ afterwards, when it's too late _ that no one turned it on.' ``I added, silently, in my own thoughts, that this president was far too inept with machinery ever to make a success of a switch system.'' The taping system that finally was installed was activated by the Secret Service's locator system which keeps track of the president's whereabouts. Eventually, five microphones were put in the president's desk, two were in wall lamps at each side of the fireplace on the opposite side of the Oval Office, and there were others in the Cabinet Room, Nixon's office in the Old Executive Office Building and at Camp David, Md., the presidential retreat. ``The historiography of the Nixon administration will eventually be much the richer as a result of Richard Nixon's decision to tape-record his meetings and telephone conversations,'' Haldeman writes. ``Nixon was not thinking of historians when he made this decision, but they will be the ultimate beneficiaries.'' Haldeman's account is much softer in tone and less critical of Nixon than when he described the same events in a 1978 book, ``The Ends of Power,'' which he said ``was unfortunately sensational in many instances where I would have preferred it to be more reasoned and thorough.'' In the book, Haldeman said Nixon had ``fudged'' the tape story in various ways, ``climaxing with the assertion on television in 1977 that he had ordered me to destroy all of the tapes.'' There is no reference to that in the Prologue article. Haldeman says he is amazed how quickly he forgot about the system once it was in place. ``For a short time, I worried that it might not be working, and I dispatched someone to test the machinery,'' he writes. ``But the worry quickly passed, as did any awareness at all that Nixon's conversations _ my conversations, often _ were being taped. I think Nixon lost his awareness of the system even more quickly than I did.'' Nixon himself has written that ``initially I was conscious of the taping, but before long I accepted it as part of the surroundings.'' Nixon fired Haldeman in April 1973 at the height of the cover-up of the June 1972 break-in, when burglars placed bugs in telephones and searched files in Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Office Building. Haldeman served an 18-month prison term for his part in the affair. Haldeman said he chose to write about the taping system because the National Archives plans to release 60 hours of the recordings next year for public listening.
AP900411-0103 	X	President F.W. de Klerk met Wednesday with with Desmond Tutu and other church leaders to discuss how to end black feuds in Natal province that have killed about 400 people in the past two months. In the latest violence in South Africa's black townships, 12 more people were reported killed and 200 injured since Monday night. ``The situation in Natal has reached proportions which are beyond human understanding and endurance,'' the South African Council of Churches said in a separate statement. The church council, made up of most major Protestant denominations, called ``on all people to use Holy Week ... through Easter Sunday to focus on prayer and fasting for the people of Natal in particular and South Africa as a whole.'' There were no immediate details on de Klerk's meeting with Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and other leaders of the South African Council of Churches. Before the meeting, de Klerk said, ``I think the churches have a role to play in ending the violence in the country.'' The King Edward VIII Hospital in the port city of Durban said it was so overcrowded due to the Natal fighting that it temporarily stopped admitting patients in need of surgery, even emergency cases. ``We simply cannot carry out any more surgery,'' said the hospital superintendent, Dr. A.M. Seedat. ``We have reached a situation where we cannot take on a single extra patient.'' Other hospitals in the area also are near capacity. Eight blacks were killed, including six by police fire, in dozens of clashes in black townships across the country, police said Wednesday in a report covering 56 incidents since Monday night. Two hundred people were injured and dozens were arrested, police said. Government-run radio reported four more people died in feuding between black political factions in the Crossroads township outside Cape Town. About 4,000 people have died in the Natal fighting since 1986. The main combatants are supporters of the African National Congress, the country's leading anti-apartheid group, and Inkatha, a relatively conservative Zulu organization. Both organizations have large numbers of youthful supporters they cannot control. Criminal gangs and other bands have also taken advantage of the chaos to loot, burn and murder. Hernus Kriel, the planning and provincial affairs minister, toured the northern Natal battle zones Wednesday and announced a $100,000 aid package for the estimated 13,000 Zulu refugees. He said the government's plan for dealing with the crisis would be announced in the next week or two, but could take six or seven years to carry out. ``The first thing that strikes me is the poverty of these people,'' Kriel said. ``We will have to provide the infrastructure for such basic needs as water, sewerage and rubbish removal.'' The police commissioner, Gen. Johan van der Merwe, told Parliament the secret to ending unrest was to send more security forces into troubled areas. The minister of law and order, Adriaan Vlok, said policemen were resigning at the rate of 22 per day, double the rate of two months ago. He proposed urgent increases in pay and benefits.
AP900828-0191 	X	Donald Trump has pledged his 27.2 percent stake in Alexander's Inc. as collateral for his $65 million financial rescue from casino and bank debt, documents disclosed Tuesday. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump revealed that as part of the restructuring of some $2 billion in debt last week, he pledged more than 1.35 million shares in the New York department store chain as security. The three New York banks to which the Alexander's stock was pledged were not identified in the documents. The slumping New York real estate market and disappointing results from his Atlantic City, N.J., casinos put Trump in a cash squeeze earlier this year, endangering his ability to pay his debts on time. On June 15, Trump failed to make a $43 million payment on bonds issued to build the Trump's Castle hotel and casino in Atlantic City. He also was overdue on a $30 million loan payment to a group led by Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Co. But the New Jersey Casino Control Commission approved the bank bailout to help restructure about $2 billion of Trump's $3.2 billion casino and bank debt.
AP900522-0091 	X	Daily News Publisher and President James Hoge has been elected chairman of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize board, Columbia University President Michael I. Sovern announced today. Hoge succeeds Eugene L. Roberts Jr., executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and president of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., who remains a Pulitzer board member. Hoge will serve as chairman for one year. In addition, scholar and critic Helen Vendler and Marilyn Yarbrough, dean of the University of Tennessee College of Law, have been elected to the board. Their election fills a vacancy left by Charlotte Saikowski, former Washington bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, and another created when the board voted to expand from 17 to 18 members in April. The Pulitzer board is responsible for recommending to Columbia University's trustees whom they should honor with annual awards for excellence in journalism and the arts.
AP880725-0150 	X	More than a year after it began, the court-martial of the first member of the military to face prosecution on AIDS-related charges moves to its trial phase Tuesday. Pvt. Adrian G. Morris Jr., 28, of Caseyville, Ill., is accused of having threatened the health of three soldiers by failing to use condoms during sexual relations and by failing to warn them he had tested positive for exposure to the AIDS virus. Morris has pleaded innocent to three counts of aggravated assault, three counts of conduct bringing discredit upon the Army and one count of sodomy. He has chosen to stand trial at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona before a sole military judge, rather than in front of a jury panel. Morris could be sentenced to up to 17 years in prison, dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances if convicted. He allegedly had sexual relations with one male and two female soldiers. One of the women, his fiancee at the time, Spec. 4 Patricia C. Pruitt, gave birth last year to a child allegedly fathered by Morris. A hearing had been scheduled Monday on one remaining pretrial motion, but the judge, Col. Raymond D. Cole, decided instead to hold that hearing Tuesday before the trial starts. That motion involves a prosecution effort to have Cole reverse himself on a ruling in May that would require one of Morris' alleged victims, known only as Jane Doe, to identify herself publicly when she testifies. ``She's requested anonymity and we feel a certain obligation to do everything we can to protect her,'' Col. Harry Beans, staff judge advocate at Fort Huachuca, said Monday. ``She came forward and we feel uncomfortable about the prospects of having to reveal her identity publicly since we don't feel it will add anything to the case.'' Court-martial proceedings began more than a year ago but were adjourned indefinitely Aug. 5 to allow appeal of a ruling that prohibited the Army from using Morris' AIDS blood test results. According to the Army's charges, Morris was routinely tested for AIDS in April 1986 after he reported to duty as a clerk at Fort Huachuca, and was told that the results were positive for exposure to the HIV virus. A midlevel military appellate court reversed Cole last fall, and in March the United States Court of Military Appeals, the highest military court, let that ruling stand. This spring, Morris was demoted from private first class, reportedly for use of marijuana, although officials have refused to disclose the reason for the demotion. Also in the spring, sources said, Morris offered through his lawyers to accept an administrative severance from the Army with a general discharge under honorable conditions. The Army refused. Since court-martial proceedings began against Morris, several other military members have been charged, have entered pleas or have been convicted of AIDS-related charges. They include a soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, who pleaded guilty to charges including disobeying an officer; another at Fort Sill, Okla., who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault; an airman at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, who was convicted of aggravated assault; and a Navy officer acquitted of assault and adultery in a San Francisco case. The Army and Air Force have instituted regulations ordering commanding officers to inform any soldier or airman testing positive for exposure to the AIDS virus that failure to inform all sex partners of the test results and to practice safe sex will bring discharge or prosecution. The Navy instituted a similar legal advisory policy, but it apparently does not require commanding officers to issue a warning, according to a spokesman.
AP900217-0148 	X	Until last week, 23-year-old Jarl Ginsberg, was an options trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. But when the company's parent filed for bankruptcy court protection in the largest collapse of any Wall Street firm, Ginsberg was forced to consider his alternatives. Getting a master's of business administration would give him ``credentials and credibility,'' and it would buy him time while the industry limps back on its feet. The shine on the MBA degree, the yuppie ticket to bigger and better things that has been coveted for more than a decade, has yet to tarnish. Despite fresh and massive layoffs on Wall Street, businesspeople and students alike still say the degree makes a difference. Business schools anticipate no drop in applications, though students are shifting their studies away from risky investment banking in favor of consulting and more traditional areas like corporate finance. Many new MBAs have yet to chip away at the loans they took out to foot the degree. A few are considering drastic career changes. One 30-year-old investment banker who graduated from Columbia University's business school two years ago owes nearly $25,000 on college loans. But job prospects have dimmed so astonishingly that he is preparing to apply to law schools. ``Career paths within banking are fairly restricted now,'' he said, speaking anonymously so he wouldn't officially violate his company's ``don't-talk-to-the-press'' policy. ``It's time to look beyond banking.'' What drove hordes of people to the financial services industry via business school was the promise of financial rewards that practically knew no bounds. Recruiters visiting the Columbia campus a few years back were offering starting salaries of $75,000 and ``the unspoken promise of $250,000 five years out,'' one recent grad remembers. Today, financial companies are not even showing up to talk to students, let alone offer them jobs. At New York Univeristy's Stern School, ``all companies are cutting back and some are canceling their schedules'' to interview for summer internships, said Howard Leifman, assistant director of the school's office of career development. At Columbia, director of placement and career services Elizabeth Katsivelos said there haven't been any ``excessive cancellations.'' But she did note that more students are showing an interest in consulting and manufacturing. In 1986, the go-go days of Wall Street, 31 percent of Columbia's MBA grads went to brokerage houses and investment firms. Last year, the number dwindled to 16 percent, and Katsivelos called further declines possible. Some insiders predict only a mere 10 percent of the Drexel people will actually land jobs in financial services in New York. More than 5,000 Drexel employees were expected to lose their jobs. According to a study of recent MBA graduates from the prestigious Wharton School in Philadelphia, those accepting jobs in the Northeast have dropped more than 7 percent, while those moving to the South jumped 56 percent. For those willing to pack it all in and move, many will find themselves trapped by real estate they can't readily unload. Cooperative apartments in Brooklyn Heights, which offers a bird's-eye view of Wall Street, are either being deeply discounted or taking months to sell. At the peak of the city's real estate boom a few years ago, a modest, two-bedroom apartment sold for $225,000 in a less fashionable Brooklyn neighborhood. Local realtors now tell the owners they'll have to drop to about $190,000 if they want a quick sale. ``You're stuck with property you've paid a lot of money for,'' one homeowner complained. For those who do manage to land on their feet, the question becomes just how solid the foundation will be. Do they have any chance of earning their previous salaries? One 28-year-old trader, who earned $100,000-plus at a Wall Street firm, has been unemployed since September. His prospects are even bleaker now that he's competing with another few thousand Drexel jobless. Though he received a generous severance package, there's only money left to cover living expenses for his family and the mortgage on his designer duplex loft for another eight months. Then, of course, there's a certain amount of guilt to be dealt with after riding the wave of greed and materialism. Some of Wall Street's unfortunate said they were embarrassed they didn't see the end coming. ``I feel responsible for not anticipating things better,'' said one.
AP880510-0119 	X	Four of Wall Street's biggest firms said today they had indefinitely suspended a highly profitable computerized method of trading stocks because of widespread criticism that it is causing volatility and destroying investor confidence. The announcements by Salomon Brothers Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co., PaineWebber Inc. and Bear Stearns & Co. came amid an uproar about so-called index-arbitrage program trading and a protracted slump in the stock market since the October crash nearly seven months ago. The firms' actions came a week after the New York Stock Exchange intensified post-crash limits on program trading, blamed for causing enormous swings in stock prices for reasons unrelated to underlying values. Salomon and Morgan are among the most significant users of the technique, which uses high-volume computers to sell stocks in New York and buy equivalent stock-index futures in Chicago, or vice versa, to profit from fleeting price disparities. Bear Stearns and PaineWebber is considered a smaller user of program trading. Salomon, Morgan and Painewebber said they were suspending the technique as of today for their own accounts although they would continue to do it for customers if requested. Bear Stearns said it had suspended the technique for its own account as well as customer accounts as of last Thursday, but didn't publicize it until the other firms made announcements today. ``I think it's certainly a move in the right direction,'' said Jack Barbanel, head of commodities and financial futures at the New York brokerage Gruntal & Co. ``It's meaningul because at least there's beginning to be an acknowledgment to the public perception that program trading causes turbulence.'' Large numbers of investors have complained to the NYSE and their brokers that program trading has compelled them to get out of stocks because they believe it has made the market more like a gambling casino. Brokers also are growing resentful of the relatively small number of program traders. Moreover, there is a belief in the securities industry that lawmakers will take severe legislative action aimed at restoring investor confidence unless brokerage firms can find ways to reform themselves. ``We have decided to suspend any non-customer-related index arbitrage activity with the goal of furthering the serious analysis of the role of index arbitrage in market volatility,'' PaineWebber's chairman and chief executive, Donald B. Marron, said in a statement. ``It is our hope that all interest regulators and market participants work together in an objective manner to find an intelligent and mutually acceptable solution to this issue.'' John Gutfreund, chairman and chief executive of Salomon, said in a statement that his firm ``will abstain from all domestic stock index propriatary arbitrage for the present time.'' ``It is necessary for all to work toward the goal of restoring confidence in and guaranteeing the vibrancy of the marketplace,'' he said. Morgan said in a statement that ``the efforts of our industry, the exchanges, the regulators and Congress should be directed towards expanding liquidity, reducing volatility and restoring public confidence in the equity markets.'' ``We have no present intention of starting again. That doesn't mean we won't do it again,'' Alan C. Greenberg, Bear Stearns' chairman and chief executive, said in an answer to a telephone query. ``The profit is greatly overstated. If everybody thinks it's so important (to stop), we'll give in to it.''
AP880531-0028 	X	A small boat carrying eight people capsized Monday during a Memorial Day outing, killing six women aboard and a man who tried to rescue them, authorities said. The operator of the boat was able to swim ashore and one person on the craft was rescued, authorities said. The seven bodies were recovered from the 25-acre Lake Tillatoba on Monday night, said authorities, who were unsure how the accident occurred. Yalobusha County Coroner Stanley True identified the victims, all of Coffeville, as Eddie Rounds, 41; Janice Martin, 20; her cousins Anna Martin, 21, and Martin's sister, Marlee, 20; Sherry Taylor, 21; Sandra Baker, 24; and Sherry Jenkins, 19. True said the women were passengers in a 16-foot, flat-bottom aluminum boat piloted by Robert Armstrong, also of Coffeville. Armstrong was able to swim ashore after the boat capsized, said True. Rounds drowned when he attempted to help the women, True said. Melvin Pernell, who also was on the boat, was rescued by a fisherman, Armstrong said. The coroner said there were no life jackets on the craft. The boat was designed to hold up to five people, said Deputy Sheriff Homer Melton. The Sheriff's Department said rescue workers, including divers, were called to the lake shortly after 4 p.m. Officials said the victims' bodies were recovered by crews who dragged the lake. The lake is located off Mississippi Highway 330 between the towns of Tillatoba and Coffeeville in north-central Mississippi.
AP901220-0175 	X	Albanian border guards shot at Albanians trying to flee to Yugoslavia on makeshift rafts, killing at least four of them and wounding others, the Croatian news agency HINA reported. It quoted Yugoslav police as saying Albanians used rafts made of tractor tires and rubber inner tubes to flee to neighboring Yugoslavia across the Bojana river; that 23 men, women and children crossed safely, but that four bodies were found on one raft and a number of refugees were reported wounded. HINA, reporting from the Yugoslav border town of Ulcinj, said Albanian border guards began shooting at the rafts at about 1 a.m. Thursday. A group of 28 Albanians successfully crossed at the same place Tuesday.
AP880225-0046 	X	A. No, but I do know that we're doing a great many things and we also are keeping track of the extent to which the private sector is joining in and helping on this, and this budget is the result of long, long weeks of negotiation with the Democrats and ourselves, and I think that we're meeting the problems. Again, I also have to say this _ that sometimes, our budget in programs can reflect another program we've had going, which is a management program, and we have had a team for a considerable period of time now that has been actually investigating the management practices of government programs as compared to the way they're done in the private sector. And there are millions and millions of dollars that are being saved so that something that maybe looks smaller does not mean that the people in need are going to get less, it means that we're able to provide that with less administrative overhead. When I came here from a governorship, as a governor, I had seen federal programs administered in our state in which it was costing the federal government $2 for every dollar that reached a needy person. This is something we've been trying to change, and we've made some progress in it. Q. Mr. President, just to follow up on the budget, the chairman of your Council of Economic Advisers told us last week that the deficit might have a good side if it forces your successor and Congress to make choices in social programs _ do you _ is that _ do you see a good side to the deficit? A. I have said that I think that there is a great reform that is needed throughout many of those programs, and it is a reform to where we can get these programs to where their goal will be to remove people from dependency and make them independent of government help instead of doing what we've been doing for too many years now, and that is, actually involving them in dependency to the place where they never can get out _ we've made them permanently dependent on government _ and we're trying to change that, correct that. Q. Thank you. A. Thank you, Helen. I'm going to run for it now.
AP900420-0146 	X	President Bush's 1991 defense budget could be cut nearly $6 billion through reductions including Star Wars spending and delaying a plan to put MX nuclear missiles on rail cars, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., called for a military budget of $297 billion to $298 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Bush wants a $303 billion budget, including an additional $1 billion for the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars. ``Assuming SDI is redirected into a coherent and rational research program, I believe it should be funded at roughly the current appropriated level,'' Nunn said in a speech on the Senate floor. Congress approved about $3.8 billion for the anti-missile shield in 1990's $296 billion defense budget. The SDI total marked the first reduction in the program in six years. Nunn's overall budget proposal is about $1.5 billion more than the cut adopted Thursday by the House Budget Committee and some $6 billion higher than the figure suggested by Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn. ``I think the fight will be to try to keep defense even at the levels I'm talking about,'' Nunn said. He projected defense savings of about $3 billion to $3.5 billion this year from the changes in the strategic programs and between $20 billion and $30 billion over the next five years. Nunn's comments on the budget were the first by the powerful chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He is the leading defense expert among conservative Democrats. Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, White House budget director Richard Darman dismissed all Democratic defense proposals and argued that lawmakers' affection for pet defense project in their districts will prevail over the cuts. ``As it gets much more clear what it means for particular congressmen's districts, you'll see the political system, independent of defense strategy, start to put a bottom on that defense cut,'' Darman said. Nunn called his budget range a ``realistic and responsible target.'' He said there should be a delay in placing multiple-warhead MX missiles on railroad cars and criticized the purchase of trains while the Pentagan is still conducting tests. The Bush budget calls for $2.2 billion to put 50 MX missiles on rail cars. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and James Jeffords, R-Vt., introduced legislation Friday that would cut $1.6 billion of the administration proposal for the MX. That total represents all the procurement and military construction funds in Bush's budget for MX. ``The MX rail-garrison funding plan is a classic example of the flawed `buy before you fly' policy that has cost the country so much money in recent years,'' Levin said in a speech on the Senate floor. Nunn reiterated his support for the single-warhead Midgetman missile, but suggested deployment in existing silos with mobile launchers a later option. He repeated his opposition to development of a new short-range nuclear missile in Europe and questioned buying a new Trident submarine each year and Trident D-5 missiles with nuclear warheads in short supply. Nunn reserved comment on the B-2 stealth bomber until after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney briefs members of Congress on the Pentagon's review of major aircraft programs. However, Nunn said the B-2 program of 132 planes at a cost of $72 billion ``must be made more affordable.'' Nunn called for slashing Bush's defense budget authority to $289 billion to $291 billion, about $18 billion less than the president has proposed for fiscal 1991. Because budget authority represents the amount that can be spent over several years _ such as in a long-term contract to purchase warships _ the cut would force reductions in future Pentagon spending plans.
AP880422-0068 	X	A strike by air traffic controllers demanding better working conditions has shut down all airports in the country. The walkout began Thursday morning and affected international flights by the Salvadoran airline Taca, the Costa Rican national airline Lacsa, the Panamanian airline Copa, Pan American World Airways and the Honduran airline Sahsa. All domestic flights also were affected. The Air Traffic Controllers Union is demanding a salary review, improvements in training and an overhaul of equipment.
AP880329-0233 	X	The Internal Revenue Service said it is closing a loophole that allowed procrastinating taxpayers to slip out of the country briefly on April 15th and gain an automatic two-month extension on filing their income taxes. The new ruling, announced Monday, is effective for tax forms due next month, and requires taxpayers to be out of the country for at least two weeks, including April 15th, to qualify for the automatic extension. In the past, someone who left the country for just hours or minutes on the 15th was eligible.
AP900118-0096 	X	The Soviet Union has withdrawn MiG-23 and Tu-16 planes from its base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday. Cam Ranh Bay, a former American base during the Vietnam War, is the Soviets' largest foreign base, according to U.S. military sources. As of 1985, a reported 30 ships were based there. A squadron with six to 10 aircraft remains at the field, said spokesman Vadim Perfiliev. He gave no other details. MiG-23s are fighters. Tu-16 Badgers are variously fitted out as bombers and electronic reconnaissance aircraft.
AP900630-0040 	X	Workers at a third U.S. company were threatening to join a growing strike that has paralyzed Honduras' only petroleum refinery and the huge Chiquita banana exporter. President Rafael Leonard Callejas, who faces the worst crisis since taking office in January, said in a brief telephone interview Friday that he has appealed to other unions not to expand the walkout. Callejas said he hoped ``there will be a satisfactory resolution'' to the growing number of strikes ``for the good of the country.'' Leaders representing hundreds of thousands of workers have threatened to call a strike in solidarity with 10,000 employees at Cincinatti-based Chiquita, who walked off the job Thursday demanding their pay of about $15 a day be increased 60 percent. The 4,000 workers at Castle and Cooke, a subsidiary of Standard Fruit of New York, will strike beginning Monday if ``Chiquita Brands doesn't accede to its workers' demands,'' said Mauro Gonzalez, president of the Standard Fruit union. Friday, 2,000 workers shut down Texaco Caribbean Inc., Honduras' only oil refinery in solidarity with the Chiquita walkout, and a company official warned lack of fuel could paralyze the country. ``If there isn't a rapid resolution to the strike, Honduras will be out of fuel in three days,'' said Manuel Crespo, the head of Texaco. The workers at the three U.S. companies belong to the 70,000-strong National Federation of Workers' Unions, which has threatened further action. Other labor groups, including the 600,000-member Workers Confederation, have said they will strike if Chiquita refuses to negotiate. Chiquita Brands International Inc. and Standard Fruit control virtually the entire Honduras' banana industry and bananas are its principal crop export. Formerly called United Brands and, before that, United Fruit, Chiquita has enjoyed a near monopoly on Honduran bananas since 1912, controlling 60 percent of the fruit's exports. Although it has waned in recent years, the two banana exporting companies still wield a big influence in this impoverished nation of 4.8 million people whose annual per capita income of $740 is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti. Honduras was the first Central American nation to be dubbed a ``banana republic'' because of the vast influence of the U.S. fruit companies. Many fear prolonged labor unrest could destabilize the country, one of the United States' closest allies in Central America. Chiquita's employees average $15.32 a day and their last raise was in 1984, even though Honduras has suffered annual inflation of about 50 percent since then. Renee Ayestas, head of the Chiquita union, said the company notified a presidential commission, trying to find a solution to the dispute, that it is willing to start negotiations beginning this afternoon. But the report could not be immediately confirmed. No company spokesmen were available for comment when Ayestas made the announcement in a telephone interview Friday night. Texaco has a complete monopoly of Honduras' petroleum industry. It controls all 100 service stations, refines 8,000 of the 12,000 barrels a month the nation consumes, and imports the rest already refined.
AP880323-0211 	X	President Reagan marked the fifth anniversary of his plan for a Star Wars missile defense system on Wednesday by asserting that the high-tech program is an incentive to U.S.-Soviet arms control efforts. In a written statement issued the same day he announced a date for his fourth summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Reagan lauded the missile shield proposal, known formally as the Strategic Defense Initiative, as ``vital to our future security.'' ``We must recognize that we live in an imperfect, often violent world, one in which ballistic missile technology is proliferating despite our efforts to prevent this,'' Reagan said. ``We would be doing a grave and dangerous disservice to future generations if we assumed that national leaders everywhere, for all time, will be both peaceful and rational.'' The president warned, as he has many times, that the Soviets ``not only are ahead of us in ballistic missiles, but also are deeply engaged in their own SDI-like program. If they are allowed to keep their near-monopoly in defenses, we will be left without an effective means to protect our cherished freedoms in the future.'' The president announced his proposal for the missile shield defense program on March 23, 1983. ``I put forward the vision of ... a future free from the threat of the most dangerous weapon mankind has invented: fast-flying ballistic missiles,'' Reagan recalled in his statement. Reagan, who has staunchly defended the plan despite Soviet efforts to curb it and congressional efforts to cut its funding, said it had ``provided a valuable incentive for the Soviets to return to the bargaining table and to negotiate seriously over strategic arms reductions.'' ``And as we move toward lower levels of offense, it will be all the more important to have an effective defense,'' Reagan argued. The president has repeatedly insisted, however, that he will not use SDI as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Soviets. Reagan, following an Oval Office meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, announced he will go to Moscow from May 29 to June 2 for his fourth meeting with Gorbachev. The highlight of the summitt was intended to be the signing of a treaty to slash the superpowers' long-range strategic weapons, but Reagan has suggested that the agreement will not be ready due to time limitations. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the issue of SDI did not come up in Wednesday's meetings between U.S. and Soviet officials at the White House. In his statement, Reagan said the high-tech program now faces problems that ``are largely political.'' Congress has cut funds for the program every year, Reagan said, asserting this has put the program ``one to two years'' behind schedule. Capitol Hill slashed Reagan's 1988 request for the program from $5.6 billion to $3.9 billion. He is seeking $4.6 billion in 1989. In the year's first defense spending vote, a House subcommittee decided Wednesday to cut deeply into Reagan's budget request for Star Wars, approving $3.7 billion, which would be an increase of only 3 percent over the current Star Wars budget, according to congressional sources speaking on condition of anonymity. The request will later go to the full House Armed Services Committee, and later to the full House.
AP900821-0030 	X	A Taiwanese air force plane carrying 18 senior military officers crashed near a village today and all the passengers were feared dead. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry said the plane, a personnel transport craft, was taking the officers, including several major generals, to an important meeting when it crashed in Yunlin, a village 150 miles south of Taipei. The air force said the plane was in two parts after plowing into a sugar cane field in the central part of Taiwan. Taiwan's official Broadcasting Corp. of China said the aircraft was broken into two following an explosion. A part of the plane fell on the suger cane field and the rest was scattered in small pieces, it said. The Defense Ministry spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said everyone on board was feared dead. Rescue crews were at the site, the air force said, but so far no survivors have been found.
AP900717-0115 	X	An off-target 155mm artillery shell landed near reserve soldiers during a training exercise Tuesday and killed five of them and wounded 10, the army command said. It said three of the wounded were badly hurt. Less than three months ago, on April 23, seven Israeli airmen were killed in another training accident when their transport helicopters collided during a flight over the occupied West Bank. The army said in a statement that Tuesday's accident occurred when a reserve unit was conducting an exercise involving the capture of a position at a training base in southern Israel. Army officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the base was near Tzeelim in the southern Negev desert, 15 miles from the Egyptian border. Israel radio said the shell was fired by troops training at one section of the base and fell near other soldiers training in a different area. ``According to the information I have, the reason for the accident was human error,'' Maj. Gen. Uri Saguy told Israel army radio. Saguy, chief of army ground forces, was at the exercise and ordered an immediate investigation, the army said. One of those wounded, 29-year-old Yair Cohen, told Israel radio from his bed at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba: ``I stepped out of the armored personnel carrier and there was an explosion. ... I was hit in the leg by shrapnel. I felt pain in my leg and saw blood and started running.'' Israeli men up to the age of 55 serve up to a month each year on reserve duty after three years of compulsory service starting at age 18. One of those seriously wounded Tuesday was a female instructor.
AP880511-0260 	X	Sportscaster Howard Cosell drank ``before, during and after telecasts'' and once threw up on Don Meredith's cowboy boots during ``Monday Night Football,'' a former ABC Sports executive says in a forthcoming book. In ``Up Close & Personal: The Inside Story of Network Television Sports,'' Jim Spence also calls Cosell ``one of the unhappiest human beings on this planet.'' Spence, who worked at ABC for 26 years, was senior vice president of ABC Sports from 1978 until he left the network in 1986. He is now president of a sports production and marketing company. His book, co-written with Dave Diles, will be in bookstores next month. Spence describes Cosell as an insecure, overbearing man who became impossible to work with late in his career. ``He had made millions of dollars, traveled the world, been applauded and honored time and time again. Yet, today, I think he is one of the unhappiest human beings on this planet,'' he wrote. Cosell, 70, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A woman answering the phone at his home said he was visiting his wife at a New York hospital, where she is recovering from surgery. According to Spence, Cosell's drinking sometimes became a ``major problem.'' During a ``Monday Night Football'' telecast from Philadelphia in 1970, he said, Cosell ``got so drunk he couldn't pronounce the name of the city he was in without slurring.'' Cosell left the booth after throwing up on Meredith, one of his broadcasting partners. At the request of ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge, Spence said, an ABC spokesman told reporters that Cosell became ill after one drink because of a reaction to flu medication he was taking. Spence said Cosell ``again got out of control'' during ABC's telecast of the 1984 American League playoffs when he kept kept interrupting colleague Al Michaels. Spence said he got a call the next day from Michael's agent, who said ``Al had told him that Cosell was drinking heavily and was impossibly argumentative, and that Al could no longer tolerate it.'' Cosell's relationship with Michaels and other ABC sportscasters reached a low point after he criticized them in his 1985 book, ``I Never Played the Game.'' ``We were all sick and tired of his bad-mouthing of everybody and everything,'' Spence wrote. Cosell left the network in 1985. In January, he started a nationally-syndicated TV show that recently went off the air.
AP900606-0131 	X	Switzerland wants to join the 152 countries in the International Monetary Fund, which plays a key role in the world's financial system, fund officials said Wednesday. Switzerland, concerned for its traditional neutrality, has been reluctant to join international organizations. In 1982, a government plan to join the fund was postponed after a Swiss voters defeated a proposal to join the United Nations. However, the Swiss government has had close informal relations with the fund. The fund's Board of Directors will consider the application, and a fund spokesman said formalities could be completed by the end of the year. All members of the fund also join its sister organization, the World Bank, the biggest source of loans to the Third World. Applications also are pending from Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria; China, Poland, Hungary and Romania already are members. The Soviet Union has said it would like to join, but the Bush administration has objected.
AP900708-0096 	X	President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Sunday their nations would begin negotiations on an air pollution agreement this month. The announcement was foreseen a year ago when Bush decided to seek new controls on the sources of acid rain, an issue Canada has been complaining about for a decade. Both houses of Congress have passed different versions of legislation requiring utility smokestacks to reduce extensively emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, the principal raw materials causing acid rain. Environmentalists monitoring the economic summit welcomed the announcement and said it was inevitable. In a session before the summit officially begins Monday, Bush and Mulroney set an informal timetable for talks to begin on an air pollution agreement. William Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will meet with his counterpart, Robert de Cotret, in Ottawa, Canada, on July 16, the leaders said. Formal negotiations should begin shortly after that, they said. ``I think this day will be long remembered in the history of our relationship for the significant departure it constitutes from past positions,'' Mulroney said. He and other Canadian leaders have been rebuffed in the past in their attempt to prod the United States into curbing pollutants. A White House announcement said the talks with Canada would cover monitoring of emissions, exchange of information and settlement of disputes. Scientists on both sides of the border agree about half the acid rain falling in eastern Canada originates from emissions generated by utilities and smokestacks in the United States. Because of wind patterns, about a quarter of the acid rain falling in the Adirondack Mountains of New York States originates in Canada. Former President Reagan argued that not enough was known to conclude that acid rain was a serious problem; Canada said marine life in as many as 14,000 lakes is in jeopardy. Environmentalists, meanwhile, denounced what they said was the failure of the seven summit nations to live up to the rhetoric of last year's meeting in Paris in which they pledged to protect the world's environment. The leaders agreed in 1989 to end production of chemicals that destroy the earth's protective ozone layer, said George T. Frampton, president of The Wilderness Society. ``The reality is that our forests are being cut just as fast as they were a year ago, Frampton said. ``Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are being emitted into the atmosphere at just the same high volume, or even greater, than that of a year ago. Population growth and ocean pollution have continued unabated.'' An environmental coalition of 150 groups is keeping a scorecard designed to hold governments accountable by publicizing their records, Frampton said. The environmentalists have already ranked the countries attending the summit. West Germany was rated top, followed by France, Britain, Canada, the United States, Japan and Italy. The countries were ranked based on their policies on conserving energy and reducing the threat of global warming; protecting biological diversity such as that found in tropical forests, abating pollution of the oceans, controlling population growth, helping the cleanup of Eastern Europe and helping develoing nations. Germany's high score was ``the best of a bad lot,'' said Jay Hair, executive vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.
AP900826-0020 	X	East Germany is about to disappear, to be swallowed up by its rich western neighbor, and the universal enthusiasm of a few months ago has waned. Polls say the vast majority of East Germans favor unification, which is barely a month away. But appearances don't always reinforce that conclusion. The ``We are one people'' banners that hung from trees, factories and homes during the pro-unity frenzy of early 1990 are gone. There are no cheering crowds and no convoys of motorists blasting their horns in anticipation of full unification on Oct. 3. Reality has set in, especially since the economic merger officially began in July. The issue foremost in the minds of East Germans is how to tackle the huge challenges facing them as their crumbling economy is absorbed by West Germany. Some show a decided lack of eagerness for unity, especially in Leipzig, birthplace of the uprising that ended 40 years of Stalinist rule less than a year ago. ``Maybe the GDR (East Germany) could have survived as a newly democratized country,'' said Maria Chudoba, who tends bar at the Cappuccino cafe in Leipzig. ``But now it's too late to turn back.'' Heinz Weisse, 74, and his 70-year-old wife, Gertrud, loading bales of hay onto a cart outside Weimar, said they wouldn't have minded seeing East Germany continue as a democracy. ``We're happy about unity, but it was not a necessary development,'' said Weisse, a retired hairdresser. ``There's a good side and bad side to everything.'' He said he and his wife had a relatively good life even under communism and, as pensioners, had been allowed to travel outside the country. ``We had our little house here, and we were born here, so we always came back,'' Weisse said. Most East Germans seem to see unification as their only salvation, but have come to realize it will not be an overnight cure for such problems as the high unemployment brought on by the July 1 economic union. ``We had our celebrations last year when the Berlin Wall came down,'' said Gisela Oswald, a 63-year-old retired opera singer in Weimar, an East German cultural center. ``We're glad unity is coming, but we've got to get to work now on some important problems, like putting the economy in order.'' East German cities are decaying, the bottom has dropped out of industrial production and unemployment is soaring. Most of East Germany's problems require money in huge amounts. Leipzig has a desperate housing shortage, crumbling public and commercial buildings and an antiquated sewerage system that has become a health hazard. Unification and the resulting West German funds undoubtedly will help solve the economic problems over the next few years, but also will introduce problems new to East Germany. ``Prostitution will come with the joblessness because people need money,'' said Peter Fernau, chief of detectives in Bitterfeld, an industrial city. ``We're also worried about heroin and the possible appearance of criminal gangs. There will be totally new dimensions to crime.'' Several aspects of life will change after unity. West Germany's legal system will be extended to the East, bringing in an entirely new code of laws. ``My officers are going to have to learn, learn, learn,'' Fernau said. Many East Germans fear West Germans will make all the decisions about their future. A recent poll by the West German magazine Stern indicated 88 percent of East Germans support unification, but 70 percent were disappointed by how it has been managed. The process has been largely orchestrated by Helmut Kohl, West Germany's chancellor. With the two Germanys united, East Germans will find themselves in stiff competition with West Germans jobs and business opportunities. They worry about coping. ``We never learned to persist in the face of adversity because, in the old system, that was of no use,'' said Ms. Oswald, the opera singer. ``This is something we must learn. ``But we also have many good qualities. We tend to be very close-knit and helpful to each other, and that's something we don't want to lose,'' she said. Peter Heyroth, Lutheran pastor in Bitterfeld, said the way unity has been managed is demoralizing many people. ``They see the trucks rumbling into town at 6 a.m. with goods from West Germany, while goods made in this country go unsold,'' he said. ``They see prices climbing, and they feel like their job training was worthless.'' In the small city of Saalfeld, on the eastern edge of the Thuringian forest, a former member of the disbanded Communist secret police pondered his future. He has a new job, but things aren't going well. ``People hoot at me behind my back,'' he said. ``It's really very difficult.'' ``I was never involved in any heavy intelligence, just checking passports and that kind of thing, but I'm ashamed of the corrupt government we supported,'' said the former agent, who asked that his name not be used. Then, seeming to speak for many East Germans, he said: ``Sure, mistakes were made during the Communist period, but should four decades of our past really be flushed down the sewer?''
AP880226-0103 	X	Gov. Mario Cuomo today accused lawyers for a black teen-ager who says she was assaulted by six white men of ``making up conditions'' as part of their continuing refusal to have the young woman testify about the case. Meanwhile, the teen-ager's aunt was quoted today as saying the girl hadn't even talked about the case with the lawyers representing her. Tawana Brawley, 16, missing for four days in November, was found wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and covered with feces, with racial insults scrawled on her body. She said she was assaulted by six white men, one of whom flashed a police badge. Miss Brawley, of Wappinger's Falls north of New York City, and her family have refused to be questioned further on the advice of attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox Jr. of New York City, the lawyers who used a similar tactic to get a special prosecutor appointed in the Howard Beach manslaughter case. Cuomo had nothing good to say about those lawyers at an impromptu news conference today. ``They said they had reasons they could not cooperate. ... It's clear now they don't really,'' Cuomo said of the two lawyers. ``These conditions obviously don't mean anything. They keep making up new conditions.'' Maddox and Mason were on the road this morning and not immediately available for comment on Cuomo's statements or today's report in the Middletown Times Herald Record newspaper that Miss Brawley hadn't talked to the lawyers about the case. Cuomo said again today that he was willing to meet with Miss Brawley if it would help push the stalled investigation along. However, he said he would do so only if her lawyers approved and state Attorney General Robert Abrams, Cuomo's special prosecutor in the case, said it would be helpful. In her interview with the Middletown newspaper, Juanita Brawley, who helped raise Tawana for eight years and who has spent time with her since her attack, said she is the only one who knows enough about the incident to keep the lawyers and the girl's mother informed. ``I know a few things that no one else knows,'' she said in an interview at her home. She said of Maddox: ``He has not talked to Tawana. He does not need to talk to Tawana.'' She did not elaborate. On Thursday, the Rev. Al Sharpton said the Brawley family would go to jail before testifying before a grand jury empaneled by Abrams. Sharpton, a minister from New York City who has said he is advising the family, said Cuomo is using ``macho politics'' in trying to compel Tawana's testimony. On Wednesday, Cuomo had called on Abrams to ask a grand jury when it convenes Monday in Poughkeepsie to force Miss Brawley and her family to cooperate with investigators. ``Someone is going to give him a macho award for beating up on a young girl who has already been abused,'' Sharpton said of Cuomo. This morning, Cuomo said that whatever happened with the grand jury, he thought it was ``very unlikely'' that Tawana would be sent to jail even if she continued her refusal to cooperate with Abrams' investigation. On Thursday, Cuomo had told New York City radio station WLIB that he can't understand why the Brawley family will not cooperate with authorities. ``I see no reason, no common-sense reason, no difficult-to-understand reason, why there is not cooperation,'' Cuomo said. ``At one point you have to ask yourself, why aren't they cooperating with the prosecutors?''
AP900702-0062 	X	Mikhail S. Gorbachev moved to take firm control of a watershed Communist Party congress today, fending off a call for his resignation and aggressively defending his reform efforts. The president and party leader seemed to have succeeded in averting a possible challenge to his leadership by hard-liners and the threat of a walkout by radical reformers. ``Voices are being heard that all of our present problems should be blamed on perestroika,'' Gorbachev told the delegates to the 28th Soviet Communist Party Congress in a keynote speech. He acknowledged that the party's top leaders had made mistakes, especially in ethnic relations where ``we did not see the dangers.'' Hundreds of people have been killed in recent waves of ethnic violence in Armenia and Azerbaijan, central Asian cities, and other places. Also, the three Baltic republics are trying to secede. In today's speech, though, Gorbachev laid much blame for the nation's pressing problems _ including the economic crisis _ on the ``heavy legacy'' of previous leaders dating to Josef Stalin. Gorbachev also attacked the Soviet Union's vast bureaucracy, saying many functionaries only cared about protecting their own power and privileges. Radical reform is vital, he insisted, because ``the U.S.S.R. is rapidly becoming a second-rate power.'' He offered few specifics but said Communists must: _``Stop the brain and talent drain abroad.'' _Pass legislation ending the government monopoly on the manufacture of farm machinery ``to provide for an influx of foreign capital in this area.'' _Quickly make the Soviet currency convertible on the world market. _Negotiate a new treaty uniting the 15 Soviet republics on a looser basis while preserving the nation. In the days leading up the party congress, it appeared the Soviet leader might face a challenge from hard-liners for the top party leadership post, and that radical reformers might walk out and split the party. But today, Gorbachev seemed successful in his exhortations for unity among party reformers and moderates. Members of the radical Democratic Platform said they had dropped plans to walk out of the congress to form their own party. Also, hard-liners who last month demanded that Gorbachev give up his post as Communist Party general secretary said they planned to support him, although they might use the new policy of openness to criticize some policies. ``Gorbachev must be the party leader,'' Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov told reporters at the congress. Public opinion polls indicate the people's trust in the party _ until Gorbachev's tenure the country's sole political force _ has waned significantly as it fails to cope with mounting discontent. Coal miners have threatened a one-day strike for July 11, a day before the scheduled end of the congress, to protest the failure of the Communist leadership to improve living conditions. The nationally televised opening session was tempestuous, in contrast to previous congresses, which were carefully orchestrated by the party leadership. This time, speaker after speaker rose from the floor to offer resolutions and proposals clearly not on Gorbachev's agenda, including a call for the party leadership to resign. Gorbachev, who heads the party as general secretary, did not comment on the demand and the 4,683 delegates approved his proposal to return to the issue later. Conservatives had been threatening for two weeks to try to oust Gorbachev as party chief, but it appeared that threat had diminished. Hard-liner Ivan Polozkov said he would not run against Gorbachev for the top party post. However, Polozkov _ elected last month as leader of the largely conservative Communist Party of the Russian republic _ said he expected Politburo members to explain ``what they see as the way out of the situation that has been created, the loss of direction for which they must answer.'' For the first time, the 12 members of the Politburo are scheduled to report to the congress on their work since the last party congress, in 1986. The progressive Democratic Platform demands that the party give up its cells in the police, military, the KGB and in nearly every workplace. It had authorized its estimated 100 delegates to walk out and form a new party if they are not happy with the session. Such a split would have been the first in the party since 1921. But Sergei Stankevich, a leading reformer from Moscow, said the Democratic Platform leaders had decided against the walkout. Gorbachev, who heads the government as president, wants to use the congress to transform what have traditionally been the most powerful Soviet institutions, rewriting party rules that affect all 19 million party members. The proposed changes include replacing the general secretary with a party chairman and first secretary and renaming and expanding the Politburo, thus diluting the power of each member. Other proposals include nominating multiple candidates for party jobs and restricting elected party officials to two terms. Gorbachev wants to strip the party of involvement in day-to-day administration of the government and economy. He seeks to end the party's domination of government. His most important proposed rule changes would affect the Central Committee, the party's policy-making body and a bastion of conservative holdovers. Politburo member Lev Zaikov has said 90 percent of the 249 Central Committee members should be replaced by younger people. The congress will elect a new Central Committee. Gorbachev had one previous chance to win control of the committee _ at the 1986 congress _ but had been in office just 11 months and lacked the power.
AP900531-0175 	X	President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Thursday directed their top diplomatic aides to meet next week to seek a post-summit agreement on the military face of a united Germany. A meeting between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was set for Tuesday in Copenhagen, after Bush and Gorbachev reached an impasse on whether a new Germany would be a member of NATO. A second June session, in Berlin, was tentatively scheduled for the two aides. Bush and Gorbachev exchanged what the Soviet leader called new approaches, and Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, said optimistically: ``The ideas presented amount to a way to meld the concerns of the United States and the Soviet Union.'' Later, a Bush administration official sought to play down any perception that there had been a breakthrough. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush would call West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl within the next day or so ``to reassure him that we have not changed our position'' on a united Germany. Bush is determined to secure NATO membership for the new Germany once it is created, while Gorbachev is equally intent on keeping the country out of the Western alliance or at least restricting the size of the German army. ``Both the U.S. side and the Soviet side put forth certain ideas and suggestions'' on Thursday, Gorbachev said. He gave no details, but a Soviet official told The Associated Press the Soviets wanted Germany's future taken up by the 35-nation European Security Conference. ``I hope that we understand each other's concerns better,'' Gorbachev said as he left the White House. ``This exchange of views now requires that our foreign ministers have a more in-depth discussion,'' he told reporters. ``I think it is not here that the German question will be resolved.''' Bush said later that ``certainly'' was the case. But the U.S. president, who appeared outside the White House shortly after Gorbachev left, added, ``When he said that differences had been narrowed somewhat, I'm taking some heart from that and we'll continue these discussions tomorrow.'' ``Fundamental positions have not changed,'' he said. Bush offered his own public assurances to Gorbachev that ``we can work together'' to reduce East-West tensions on a broad front. The two leaders aired their differences on Germany publicly at a morning arrival ceremony and then privately in the Oval Office. In addition to the Baker-Shevardnadze session in Copenhagen, U.S. officials said Baker also will meet separately in the Danish capital with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who has been the point man for the West in trying to work out an accommodation with Moscow. Genscher, for instance, proposed keeping NATO troops out of what is now East Germany after the merger with West Germany. Baker, Shevardnadze and Genscher had all planned to be in Copenhagen to attend a 35-nation conference on human rights. A meeting also had previously been scheduled among the four World War II allies and the two Germanys in Berlin on the subject of Germany's future. Gorbachev told reporters in a White House driveway that Bush defended his viewpoint on Germany during their talks. ``I think dictation is unacceptable,'' the Soviet leader said, but he did not renew his accusation of the previous day that the United States was indeed trying to dictate to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Germany and unrest in the Baltics dominated the meeting Baker held with Shevardnadze at the White House while the two presidents were in the Oval office, U.S. officials said. Just a few blocks away, meanwhile, top-level U.S. and Soviet negotiators held a fifth day of talks on what will be the summit's crowning achievements _ a declaration of basic accord to cut long-range nuclear missiles and a pledge to quickly launch negotiations for even deeper reductions once the treaty is finished. But Deputy Soviet Prime Minister Viktor K. Karpov and Under Secretary of State Reginald Bartholomew and their aides evidently were unable to make significant progress in arrangements for the withdrawal of tens of thousands of U.S. and Soviet troops and tanks from Europe. This ``is an area where we will probably not be able to reach specific agreement at this point,'' Fitzwater said. Gorbachev has slowed work on this parallel treaty partly out of concern that a strengthened Germany would be enrolled in the Western alliance while his own allies in the Warsaw Pact drift away from the Soviet orbit. U.S. and Soviet negotiators held three rounds of talks Thursday at the State Department. Baker, appearing on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America,'' made plain there would be no retreat in the U.S. position. ``All of the Western allies, all of the countries of Western Europe, and, indeed, three countries of the Warsaw Pact, think that this would promote stability in Europe, that it's important that that happen,'' Baker said. ``So the Soviet Union is, to some extent, alone among the nations involved in this who have a problem with it. So our job is to see if we can better explain it,'' Baker said. Bush, in a White House arrival ceremony for the Soviet leader, hailed the impending unification of East Germany with West Germany as a milestone toward ``enduring cooperation in a Europe whole and free.'' But mindful of Gorbachev's reservations about a more powerful neighbor, the president assured him ``we can work together at this historic moment'' to reduce remaining East-West tensions. ``The trenches of the Cold War are disappearing,'' Gorbachev said in response. In a thinly veiled reference to his concerns about German unification and U.S. demands that the new country have NATO membership, the Soviet leader recalled the Allies' victory over Nazism in World War II and, earlier, the defeat of Germany in World War I. Gorbachev then pointedly expressed a hope that ``these horrible wars will forever remain a thing of the past.'' There were indications the two sides may be in a mood to compromise. U.S. officials are hinting at negotiations in the future to scale down both the German and Soviet armies in a tradeoff deal between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
AP900906-0064 	X	Fitzhugh Green, a retired government official and biographer of President Bush, died of heart problems Wednesday at age 72. He died at Newport Hospital in Rhode Island. After more than 25 years in the federal government, Green resigned in 1970 to run for Congress from Rhode Island as a Republican. After losing, he returned to Washington, working for the Environmental Protection Agency from 1971 to 1977, and again from 1983 to 1985. Green wrote several books, including ``George Bush: An Intimate Portrait'' published in 1989.
AP880728-0022 	X	People victimized by erroneous drug test results frequently face loss of their jobs and few are in a position to defend themselves adequately, Congress has been told. Mark L. Waple, a Fayetteville, N.C., attorney who has handled more than 500 drug test cases in the past six years, said Wednesday that such a person ``loses the presumption of innocence and is instead burdened with a presumption of guilt.'' Waple said that in at least 75 percent of his cases, ``there was a significant legal or scientific irregularity which substantially affected the reliability of the ultimate conclusion that the individual had in fact used a controlled substance.'' He said his clients have faced threats of incarceration, loss of security clearances and hospital credentials as well as loss of employment, rank and position. Waple told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations that the combination of the ``presumption of guilt'' and complex legal and scientific issues makes it very difficult for a person to defend against the positive test result. ``Very few individuals who test positive for controlled substances will have a proper background either through experience or education to know where to begin to defend themselves,'' he said. ``Drug testing laboratories guard their scientific data, their test results, their mathematical computations and their standard operating procedures very carefully.'' He called for ``complete and total disclosure of all of the data supporting a positive test result.''
AP900410-0077 	X	Gov. George Mickelson told an interviewer he learned of a Nov. 28 incident at the governor's mansion from his son. The governor had kept mum for months about the incident, listed on a Nov. 30 Pierre police log as a rape. In an interview broadcast Monday night on television station KELO, Mickelson was asked how he first learned that something had happened Nov. 28. ``My son told me,'' Mickelson said. ``Before it came through on the police report?'' interviewer Steve Hemmingsen asked. ``Yes,'' the governor replied. However, Mickelson said through his press aide today that he misunderstood Hemmingsen's question when the interview was tapedin principle announced last Friday by Chicago-based UAL. The formalization of the buyout pact sets into motion the process for United's three employee unions to approve wage cuts and other contract concessions designed to save $2 billion over five years as a contribution toward the buyout. Under the agreement reached Friday, UAL's 71,000 employees will buy 100 percent of the company by exchanging for each share of UAL stock $155 in cash, $35 in UAL notes and one share in Covia Corp. valued at $11. Covia is the UAL subsidiary that owns United's 50 percent interest in the Apollo computerized reservations system. The deal, valued at $201 a share, could take up to eight months to complete. The agreement gives the employees four months to secure financing and another four months to complete the deal. UAL's stock was down 25 cents at $160.75 in early trading today on the New York Stock Exchange.
AP880722-0011 	X	The head of an Arab-American group is condemning a federal prosecutor who said one of eight men accused of illegal pro-Libyan activities was involved in a plot to assassinate a high-level U.S. official. An administration source later identified the target as former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North. The comments by U.S. Attorney Henry Hudson about an assassination plot are ``outrageous ... unsubstantiated allegations which are not even part of the charges in this case,'' Abdeen Jabara, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Thursday. Hudson made the comments Wednesday in Alexandria, Va., in a court appearance by six men charged with violating the U.S. economic boycott of Libya. The men allegedly used money sent from Libya to support pro-Libya demonstrations in the United States and to finance travel to Libya by American minorities. The boycott allows such money to be used only for the educational expenses of Libyan students in the United States. Two other men were charged in the same case, in Denver and Ann Arbor, Mich. During the Alexandria court appearance, Hudson said one of those charged, Mousa Hawamda, ``was involved in a potential plot to assassinate a high government official of the United States.'' An administration source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, identified the target as North, who as a National Security Council aide masterminded counterterrorism activities against Libya, including the April 1986 bombing of Tripoli. One of Hawamda's attorneys, Russell Gaspar, said in an interview that ``we deny on behalf of Hawamda involvement in any sort of assassination plot.'' He said he and Hawamda's other attorney, Ray Hanna, would seek to have their client released. All six were detained without bond. Jabara also said his office has received a recent rash of calls from Arab-Americans across the nation who have been harassed by the FBI with unannounced visits to them and their neighbors that were intended to gather information about political views and activities as opposed to criminal activities. Sue Schnitzer, an FBI spokeswoman, had no comment on Jabara's remarks. She said information about political views and activities might be sought in investigations involving, for example, foreign counterintelligence or terrorism. But she denied that the bureau would conduct an investigation that was politically motivated.
AP880922-0040 	X	A Nigerian worker was crushed to death when he was pinned in the doorway of an elevator in the basement of the Transamerica pyramid building, police said. Washington B. Olaye, 32, was attempting to pull a mail cart into the elevator Wednesday morning when ``for no apparent reason'' the elevator began moving up, said police Officer Sherman Ackerson. A co-worker, identified as Isiah Sampson, was inside holding the doors open for Olaye, Ackerson said. Both workers were heading to the 18th floor to Montgomery Securities, where they worked. Olaye, standing on the elevator's threshhold, was pinned between the elevator and the roof of the basement floor, Ackerson said. Fire Department personnel arrived and pried the door open, but Olaye, who lived in nearby Oakland, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. An investigation was being conducted by federal and state worker safety officials and the Otis Elevator Co., the manufacturer. Elevators are not supposed to operate when the doors are open.
AP900426-0201 	X	The population is growing so fast it threatens to overwhelm the economy, but the Philippine government, demographers and Roman Catholic Church can't agree on what to do about it. An official survey conducted in 1988 found the Philippines to be the 14th most populous country in the world and the eighth in Asia. Its population grew from 7.64 million in 1903 to 19 million in 1948, then more than doubled in two decades to 48.1 million in 1980, when the last census was taken, the government report said. A new census is to be taken this month. Official projections put the number of Filipinos at 75 milllion to 80 million in the year 2000, or 10 times the number a century ago. President Corazon Aquino has called for a program to make sure the population increase, now about 2.4 percent a year, will not ``outstrip our other resources and annul what gains we make every year.'' Government population-control programs have stalled since the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled and Mrs. Aquino gained power in 1986, with strong support from the Catholic hierarchy. Critics say there is little evidence of an effective program or the political will to forge one. Local governments also have been lax because large populations mean more economic aid from Manila. Virtually all birth control programs, such as distribution of condoms, are financed by foreign governments or the United Nations. Population growth has declined from a peak of more than 3 percent annually in the 1950s, but Filipinos still multiply faster than the people of more prosperous nations of Southeast Asia. The rate is a full percentage point above Thailand and about 0.1 percent ahead of Malaysia. Nearly four of 10 Filipinos are under age 15, which strains educational, health and other public services. Officials and demographers say most Filipinos in the rural areas, where nearly 48 percent of the people live, prefer large families to provide cheap farm labor. High infant mortality also encourages having more children. Awareness of birth control methods is more widespread, but the number of couples using them dropped from 45 percent in 1986 to 36 in 1988, according to a survey by the Population Institute at the University of the Philippines. Lack of complete information and the strong male dominance in Philippine society are major reasons women avoid contraceptives, officials say. Despite growing awareness of the risks of overpopulation, critics say there is no consensus of the government, church and demographers on how to avoid it. Mamita Pardo de Tavera, secretary of social welfare and head of the Population Commission, disputes the idea that a large population must be a national burden. She takes a dual approach: educating the public about contraception and encouraging ``population development,'' or integration of government aid projects for the poor. Those who disagree say the central task is to reduce the number of births. ``You cannot have development unless you have a more manageable population, in terms of size, growth and composition,'' said Corazon Raymundo, director of the university Population Institute. A major factor in the population debate has been the Roman Catholic hierarchy, including Cardinal Jaime Sin, archbishop of Manila, who has great influence in the Aquino administration. ``We believe government should create job opportunities, develop natural resources, harness all these things for the sake of the people who are living now, not take measures to cut down population,'' said Monsignor Cesar Pagulayan, spokesman of the Family Life Apostolate of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Mercedes Concepcion, former dean of the Population Institute, said the clergy had become aggressive in discouraging use of contraceptives. She said some members of Congress recognize the population problem, but ``have been silenced by the fact that the cardinal has been very active in threatening them with hell fire and brimstone . .. if they do something, particularly in terms of legislation.'' ``Since there is no signal from the top,'' meaning Mrs. Aquino, ``they know they will be by themselves only, unprotected,'' Mrs. Concepcion told an interviewer. The change in government in February 1986 created a new set of policy makers ``who have to be conditioned to the situation,'' she said. ``It's a massive training again.'' Mrs. Pardo de Tavera said the government program had been misunderstood. ``We are a pluralistic society and we have to give people choices, not only in the method but in the approaches,'' she said. ``We have to go beyond methods. We have to go to the values, education, other factors besides fertility.''
AP881228-0065 	X	Hours after three homeless people were evicted from one boarded-up house owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, they moved into another unoccupied HUD house, officials said. The three are members of the Union for the Homeless, and HUD spokesman Ken Barnard accused them of seeking publicity. Police evicted Clotilde Lewis, 36, Duwayne Jackson, 39, and Floretta Logan, 27, from the first house Tuesday afternoon. Homeless Union members had helped them break into the home on Saturday. Lewis was handcuffed and taken to a police station when she refused to leave the first house but was released without being charged. Barnard said the three were trespassing in a house bought by a family that planned to move in later in the week. Hours after their eviction, the three settled into a boarded-up four-bedroom house with three kerosene heaters, clothes and hamburgers from a fast-food restaurant. They remained there early today while officials considered whether to arrest them and file trespassing charges, said William Harris, deputy director of the Detroit HUD office. Wayne Pippin, president of the Union for the Homeless, said after the eviction Tuesday that HUD owns many vacant homes and ``should be ashamed to kick someone out of this home, which is needed so badly.'' Jackson, unemployed after working at odd jobs, said housing is difficult to find on $150 a month from public assistance. ``This is a major emergency situation,'' said Sally Pattee, a group spokeswoman. ``The temporary shelters have been full since July. When people need temporary shelter, they need it now.'' Barnard said HUD makes its properties available to the homeless through organizations such as the Detroit Non-profit Housing Coalition. HUD obtains houses when buyers default on government-backed mortgages.
AP901115-0063 	X	A minor earthquake shook pictures off walls in two central Oklahoma communities early today but experts said there was no connection with a potential major quake on the New Madrid Fault. The Oklahoma Geological Survey said the quake registered 3.6 on the Richter scale of ground movement. A quake of magnitude 3.5 can cause slight damage. A quake of magnitude 2 is the smallest normally felt by humans. The National Weather Service said it had received reports of a tremor about 5:45 a.m. that was felt in Rush Springs, about 40 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, and Lindsay, about 28 miles south of Oklahoma City. The geological survey said the quake was centered 5 miles north of Lindsay. ``Police departments in those areas indicate that pictures fell from walls, objects were knocked off tables and out of cabinets and many residents were awakened,'' the weather service said in a statement. Geological survey director Charles Mankin said earthquakes are common in Oklahoma, with a couple a week detected by sensitive seismographs. ``We rarely record them as high as 3.6,'' he said. ``But a small earthquake in that area is not unusual.'' Larry Thompson of KBLP radio in Lindsay said the station was flooded with calls after the tremor was felt. At the police department, dispatcher Lois Knapp said the shaking lasted about two seconds. ``This police department is cement and brick and rock, and it moved,'' she said. There has been increased concern about a Midwestern earthquake since a New Mexico climatologist projected that there could be a major one in early December along the New Madrid Fault, which runs from Cairo, Ill., to Marked Tree, Ark. The projection, based on the fact that tidal forces will be particularly strong early next month, is disputed by most scientists. Mankin said there was no link between today's quake and the New Madrid Fault. ``Most of the earthquakes in Oklahoma we have not been able to relate to faults,`` Mankin said. ``They're very shallow earthquakes and we know they're from some ground adjustment, obviously, but we can't relate them to some fault.'' In 1811-1812, a series of quakes estimated at up to 8 on the Richter scale struck the New Madrid Fault, ringing church bells in Washington, D.C., more than 850 miles away. Jim Lawson, chief geophysicist at the geological survey, said earlier this week that even if a major quake occurred along the New Madrid Fault, its effect in Oklahoma would be negligible.
AP900624-0060 	X	For years on TV's ``Newhart,'' John Voldstad only grinned when introduced by brother Larry as one of the silent Darryls. But he managed recently to get out the words ``I do'' and wed 20-year-old Kellye Fowler in Gadsden, Ala. Voldstad, 39, who played the chubby, blond Darryl, met Kellye in August when he was playing tennis in a celebrity tournament in Macon, Ga., and she asked him for an autograph. ``She was spelling Kellye with a ye, and I thought, 'Umm, that's very pretty,''' Voldstad says in the July 2 issue of People magazine. Kellye's mom wasn't too keen about the romance and _ not trusting those Hollywood types _ went along on most of the couple's dates. Kellye, who wants to act, appeared on ``Newhart'' as an extra before the show went off the air. But it's love, not a career, she wanted from Voldstad, she says: ``I love John and he loves me, and if you can't see that you must be blind.'' As for their 19-year age difference: ``John's 25 mentally anyway,'' she shrugs.
AP880419-0088 	X	There's something missing from the carved marble figure of Jim Bowie on the 60-foot shrine to Texas heroes that stands in front of the Alamo. It's the tip of his nose. The disfigured face of Bowie, among the best known of the 189 defenders of the Alamo, was discovered Monday when members of a wreath-bearing procession took part in an event known as the Pilgrimage to the Alamo. Repairs are expected to begin in two weeks, after a grandstand is removed from Alamo Plaza, officials say. The solution? Glue. Although vandalism is considered a possibility, officials also say the marble might have flaked off. ``After 50 years, if that's the only damage, that's not too bad,'' said Alamo Curator Emeritus Charles J. Long said. Long, a sculptor and curator of the Pompeo Coppini-Waldine Tauch Studios, where the Cenotaph was made, discovered the damage Feb. 12, while walking by the Alamo on his way to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant. ``I saw his nose was missing as I walked by, and I looked around and found pieces of it on the ground,'' Long said. Long informed officials of the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department and current Alamo Curator Steve Beck, but the damage did not become public knowledge until Monday. ``The tip of the nose is in good shape. It just needs to be glued back on,'' Long said. Long said the tip can be glued with ordinary epoxy cement. Marble dust will be mixed with the cement to fill in gaps.
AP900124-0002 	X	Two men accused of conspiring to break into an Army computer network and the phone system surrendered Tuesday in federal court, but the man the government says was the ringleader remained at large. Silicon Valley computer experts Mark K. Lottor, 25, and Robert E. Gilligan, 31, turned themselves over to authorities before U.S. District Court Magistrate Patricia Trumbull. Lottor and Gilligan entered innocent pleas and were released on $100,000 bond each. They are to return to court next week. Lottor faces five courts and Gilligan six in the government's 19-count indictment alleging a scheme to steal military secrets and phone numbers from the FBI investigation of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Authorities were still searching Tuesday for 24-year-old Kevin L. Poulsen, who is charged in 16 counts. Poulsen faces up to 37 years in prison if convicted. The other two suspects face 20 years each if found guilty of all charges. Lottor works for SRI International and Gilligan works for Sun Microsystems of Mountain View. Poulsen, a former SRI worker who is believed to have fled to Los Angeles after leaving a job with Sun, was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1984 computer break-in case at the University of California at Los Angeles. Poulsen's friend, hacker Ron Austin, was convicted on charges related to the break-in. Authorities said Poulsen used the computer handle ``Dark Dante'' at the time. Federal officials contend the latest computer tampering began in 1985 and started to fall apart in February 1988 when police found telephone equipment belonging to Pacific Bell in a storage locker rented by Poulsen. ``As far as techniques, you can see this started out as a burglary,'' said FBI Agent William Smith. ``That's what we have: burglars who came upon equipment that allowed them to go beyond the common crime of burglary.''
AP881025-0024 	X	Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger challenged Democratic opponent Hubert H. Humphrey III during a debate Monday night to stop all negative campaign advertising, and Humphrey refused. Durenberger, in his opening statement during the hour-long televised debate at Carleton College here, told Humphrey that Minnesotans don't like nasty ads and are turning off to the candidates because of them. ``Tonight I am taking all my commercials off the air that have any reference to you, and I'm asking you to do the same thing,'' Durenberger said. Humphrey, who has trailed Durenberger by more than 10 percentage points in all recent independent polls, said he won't stop running advertisements that focus on the 10-year veteran senator's record. ``It's important for the people of Minnesota to know the record,'' Humphrey, the state attorney general, responded during the forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Minnesota. ``The people of Minnesota, you're going to rehire someone, or you're going to hire someone new,'' Humphrey said. Durenberger said after the debate that he would respond to Humphrey's commercials with paid air time if he has to, but will no longer run ads such as two recent ones that portrayed Humphrey as being soft on crime. Humphrey told reporters, ``Campaigns are on the record ... and I wish this would be a nicer campaign, but frankly his record's not very good for Minnesota.'' Humphrey focused his attacks on a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into comments Durenberger made to supporters in 1987 that the committee determined had the appearance of leaking sensitive national security information. The committee took no action, but Humphrey said it rebuked Durenberger.
AP880322-0224 	X	Foreign Minister R.F. Botha apologized on behalf of the government Tuesday for a police search of the West German consul's home, but also criticized West Germany's policies. Police searched the home of Erhard Loeser, West Germany's acting consul-general, on Monday. They were looking for Heinrich Grosskopf, a 24-year-old white South African accused of a car-bombing last week that killed three people. Officials claim Grosskopf carried out that bombing and at least one other on orders from the outlawed African National Congress, the predominantly black guerrilla group fighting to end domination by South Africa's white minority. Botha gave no reason why police decided to search Loeser's home and coupled his apology with an attack on Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany for suggesting a boycott of South African products as a means of protesting the apartheid racial policy. He said the suggestion was ``callously irresponsible'' and a boycott would ``deprive people of their livelihood.'' The foreign minister also criticized Genscher for questioning the fairness of legal proceedings for the ``Sharpeville Six,'' a group of blacks granted a one-month stay of execution last week. They were convicted of complicity in the mob killing of a black official. By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which South Africa's 26 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.
AP881022-0163 	X	Thousands of Nicaraguans, unfamiliar with hurricanes and jaded by repeated warnings of possible U.S. invasions, refused to flee Hurricane Joan's deadly path Saturday. The hurricane, with 125 mph winds, destroyed about 90 percent of the buildings in the Caribbean city of Bluefields and slashed through the Corn Islands off the Nicaraguan coast. The two areas have a population of about 68,000. Although thousands were evacuated, thousands of others remained in their homes despite warnings, President Daniel Ortega said in a speech broadcast on radio and television. Initial reports said 15 Nicaraguans were killed Saturday and the overall death toll from the storm that began ravaging the South and Central American coasts last Monday was at least 65 in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. The hurricane weakened to a tropical storm, but torrential rains continued and Nicaraguan officials said they would order forced evacuations if need be as the storm struck Managua, 180 miles west of Bluefields. David Zuniga, director of civil defense, angrily called for people to go to shelters. ``Sandinista police and the EPS (the army) have orders to evacuate by force if necessary,'' Zuniga said on television. Some who refused to evacuate low-lying ground said they didn't believe the government, which has on numerous occasions called on the people to mobilize against a U.S. invasion. ``The people were tired of these calls. They don't believe them,'' said Ruben Hernandez, who refused to evacuate his home in the Las Torres neighborhood on the edge of Lake Managua. ``The government has told us so many lies that we just don't believe them any more,'' said a Managua woman who spoke with the condition she not be identified. Others said people didn't realize what damage a hurricane could inflict _ the last hurricane to strike Nicaragua was in 1911. Government radio repeatedly issued storm warnings. Ortega said during his address that he had visited Bluefields on Friday and urged people to leave. ``I told the people to leave their homes because it is easier to rebuild your home than to reconstruct your life,'' he said. Only a few thousand people left Bluefields in a government evacuation program Friday, although others fled coastal zones. Authorities feared Joan's heavy rains could cause more flooding, especially in Managua, which is relatively flat and poorly drained. Thousands of refugees from the seven-year civil war with the U.S.-supported rebels known as Contras have moved into Managuya, swelling its population to 1 million. Many live in wooden shacks beside dirt fields. Civil defense committees piled sand bags in front of many buildings, cut tree limbs that might be blown down and cleared drainage ditches. Windows of the eight-story Hotel Intercontinental were taped over.
AP880323-0255 	X	The Justice Department says it will sue real estate developer Donald Trump for allegedly violating federal notification provisions in his purchases of stock in Holiday Corp. and Bally Manufacturing Corp. At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, the department said it will file a lawsuit accusing Trump of violating the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act fro Aug. 22 through Nov. 9, 1986 when he bought stock in Memphis, Tenn.-based Holiday without complying with reporting and waiting-period requirements. The suit also will accuse Trump, an operator of hotels and casinos, of violating the act from Nov. 13, 1986 through Jan. 22, 1987 when he bought stock in Bally without complying with the law's requirements. Discussions are under way to determine if a settlement can be reached, the department said in a statement issued Tuesday. The act imposes notification and waiting requirements on companies and people over a certain size that are contemplating mergers or purchases of stocks or assets. The law is intended to improve antitrust enforcement by ensuring advance notice to the government of significant mergers and similar transactions. Trump sought control of Bally, a Chicago-based hotel and amusements company, in 1987 but ended the attempt after Bally agreed to buy 2.6 million shares back from him. Holiday disclosed in September 1986, amid unconfirmed takeover rumors, that Trump had purchased between 2 percent and 5 percent of its stock. Holiday later underwent a recapitalization and adopted a ``poison pill'' takeover defense to thwart potential suitors. Separately, the Justice Department said it will sue Wickes Companies Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif., accusing the company of violating the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in its purchase of stock in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp. of Toledo, Ohio in late 1986. But the department will file a proposed consent decree under which Wickes, which sells lumber and other building materials, would pay $300,000 to settle the matter. Sanford C. Sigoloff, Wickes chairman and chief executive officer, issued a statement saying his company did not believe it violated the disclosure requirements but settled the matter to avoid litigation costs. Sigoloff also contended Wickes had filed under the law in connection with the stock purchase and the FTC initially had cleared the filing. ``This settlement involves a long-standing technical dispute between the FTC and the investment community over the use of option agreements under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Rules,'' Sigoloff stated. In a third case, the department said it will accuse Roxboro Investments Ltd. and a subsidiary, First City Financial Corp. Ltd., both of Vancouver, British Columbia, and three officers of the companies, with violating the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. They will be accused based on their purchase in early 1986 of stock in Ashland Oil Inc. of Russell, Ky. The three officers are Samuel Belzberg, president of Roxboro and First City, and Hyman Belzberg and William Belzberg, vice presidents of the two companies. The complaint will accuse the two companies and the three officers of violating the act from Feb. 19 through April 2, 1986 when they bought Ashland stock without complying with some of the law's requirements. First City attorneys issued a statement late Tuesday saying they had been discussing a settlement with the department and believed a final agreement would be reached soon.
AP881114-0111 	X	Mike Mansfield announced his retirement Monday after 11 years as U.S. ambassador to Japan and a public service career that began at age 14, when he lied about his age to enter the Navy during World War I. The 85-year-old former Senate majority leader has worked tirelessly for strong U.S.-Japanese relations, which he described as excellent, with most problems resolved. He said he would leave his post before Jan. 1. Mansfield said he and his wife, Maureen, made the decision together. ``We decided it was time for me to resign, subject to the will of the president, and that has been done,'' the Democrat from Montana told reporters at the U.S. Embassy. He said they would divide their time between Washington and his home state, spending winters in Florida. Senior Japanese officials expressed appreciation for Mansfield's years of effort for improved relations. ``It is very regrettable that Ambassador Mansfield is resigning,'' aides quoted Foreign Minister Sosuke Uno as saying. ``He was a good friend who understands Japan quite well. ``It was truly fortunate that we had a person like Ambassador Mansfield in Tokyo for a long time. ... His warm personality has earned everyone's respect and love.'' Mansfield set records for length of service with 16 years as Senate majority leader and 11 as ambassador to Japan. The Japanese welcomed his appointment to the Tokyo mission by President Jimmy Carter because of Mansfield's prestige in Congress and his belief in the importance of East Asia to the United States. He has called the next century the ``century of the Pacific basin'' and often said the relationship with Japan is the most important to Washington, ``bar none.'' Speculation arose that Mansfield would retire after coronary bypass surgery in January, but he returned to work in the spring. The ambassador said Monday he and his wife agreed at the time to delay retirement until after major trade issues were resolved and the U.S. presidential election was over. The recent U.S. decision, with Mansfield's support, against trying to force the opening of the Japanese rice market at this time helped clear the way for his retirement, he said. Trade problems are the major cause of friction between the United States and Japan but relations generally are in ``excellent shape,'' Mansfield said. `In the field of politics and diplomacy we work very well together,'' he told the news conference. ``In the field of security, the relationship couldn't be better, and in the area of investment things are going very nicely.'' Some people both in and outside the U.S. government have criticized Mansfield as being too accommodating toward the Japanese. He says in response that Japanese markets have opened in many ways and Japan has assumed a significant part of the security burden in Asia. He advocates a broad trade agreement to ease friction and the idea is being studied, but is unlikely to materialize soon. Mansfield said Monday he treated the Japanese as he would wish to be treated and they responded in kind. he called the Tokyo years ``the most enjoyable in our lives.'' After beginning seven decades of service to the United States with the Navy enlistment at 14, Mansfield served in the Army and the Marine Corps. He was in Asia with the Marines. Before his election to Congress in 1942, he taught Far Eastern and Latin American history at Montana State University in Missoula. The school since has been renamed the University of Montana. In 1944, Mansfield was sent on a foreign policy mission to China at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Before his appointment to Tokyo, he had returned to China several times at the Chinese government's invitation.
AP880817-0316 	X	More than a year after the United States slapped penalty tariffs on Japan for allegedly violating an agreement on semiconductor trade, Japanese officials are stepping up pressure on Washington to remove the penalties before President Reagan leaves office. U.S. officials counter that the Japanese government continues to renege on a pledge to boost the market share of imported U.S. chips. The $300ffs, since reduced to $165 million, were the strongest trade retaliation the United States has taken against Japan since World million in tari War II. ``The problem remains of a lack of market access,'' said a senior U.S. trade official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``There is a certain goal, and the Japanese side is not living up to it.'' The Japanese claim sales of American semiconductors here soared 75 percent in the first quarter of this year over the same period last year. ``I don't know any people who are so greedy that they're not satisfied with a 75 percent increase in one year,'' Makoto Kuroda, ex-vice minister of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, told journalists this month. MITI chief Hajime Tamura has urged U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter to lift the sanctions before the end of the Reagan admiStates isn't in danger of being dethroned as the world's soybean king, but the royal attire is a bit ragged. And some other countries that produce oilseed crops stand to make a little profit. Based on Aug. 1 indications, the Agriculture Department estimates the 1988 soybean harvest at 1.47 billion bushels, or 23 percent less than last year's production. The yield was put at 26 bushels per acre, compared with 33.7 in 1987. Two years ago, according to USDA economists, soybeans brought farmers an average of $4.78 per bushel. In the 1987-88 marketing year that runs through the end of August, prices are expected to average $6.20 per bushel. Even before the drought was fully developed this summer, it was apparent that the U.S. soybean supply was running low and that demand would boost prices. In June, USDA forecast bean prices in 1988-89 _ the year that will begin on Sept. 1 _ would be in the range of $5.75 to $7.75 per bushel. In July, after the fierce heat and drought spread deep into corn and soybean areas, the USDA upped the price forecast to $6.75 to $9.25 per bushel. The August analysis put the 1988-89 soybean price range at $7.25 to $9.75 per bushel. When the new marketing year begins Sept. 1, the U.S. soybean stockpile is expected to be about 280 million bushels, down from 436 million a year ago. By this time next year, the bean reserve may be 100 million bushels or less, according to the USDA projections. An updated crop report and analysis of the supply-demand situation, along with new price forecasts, will be issued by the department on Sept. 12. Hot, dry weather during the soybean plants' critical flowering stage since Aug. 1 has caused concern that harvest prospects have continued to decline. Meanwhile, the soybean's international importance as an oilseed continues to come under scrutiny by USDA experts. Other sources of vegetable oil and protein meal, such as rapeseed, cottonseed and other crops also are drawing close attention. Overall, based on August indications, the department's Foreign Agricultural Service estimated world oilseed production in 1988-89 at 201.4 million metric tons, down 2 percent from the July forecast and also 2 percent below the 1987-88 output. ``Lower production of soybeans in the United States and China because of drought-reduced yields account for most of the decline,'' the agency reported. ``Partially offsetting the reductions from last month are a projected 500,000-ton increase in Brazilian soybean production, substantial improvement for India's peanut crop and a 403,000-ton rise in U.S. cottonseed output.'' The report added: ``High relative prices for soybeans are expected to stimulate area gains (plantings) in Brazil.'' Brazil is the second-largest soybean producer and is the biggest competitor of U.S. farmers in world markets. The 1988 U.S. harvest of 1.47 billion bushels translates into about 40.1 million metric tons. There are about 36.7 bushels of beans in a ton. Comparatively, Brazil's 1988-89 crop is forecast at 20 million tons, followed by China, 12 million; and Argentina, 11 million. The 12-nation European Economic Community is expected to produce 1.55 million tons of soybeans this season, and Paraguay, 1.2 million. Other countries are expected to produce the remainder. While soybeans are the largest component of the global oilseed production forecast of 201.4 million tons, they still comprise less than half of the total. Other sources include: cottonseed, 33.07 million tons; peanuts, 22 million; sunflowerseed, 21.23 million; rapeseed, 21.49 million; flaxseed, 2 million; copra, 4.73 million; and palm kernel 2.85 million. Because they are in the Southern Hemisphere and thus on a different calendar cycle for growing seasons, Latin American producers are finding the U.S. drought is affecting their plans. ``In an effort to capitalize on higher prices before the U.S. harvest in 1989, Brazil and Argentina are forecast to increase their exports of soybeans,'' the report said. Brazil is expected to export 3.9 million tons of soybeans in 1988-89, up from 2.7 million last season, and Argentina's shipments are forecast at 3.2 million tons, up from 2.4 million in 1987-88. But the higher prices are dampening the demand for soybean imports in some major markets, the report said. The Soviet Union, for example, is expected to reduce bean imports in 1988-89 to 1.5 million tons, down 17 percent from this season. The Soviets are also expected to reduce imports of soybean meal to 2.7 million tons, down 100,000 tons from this year. The major U.S. foreign market for soybeans is the European Economic Community, and the higher prices are expected to reduce shipments to 11.2 million tons in 1988-89, down 1.9 million tons from this year, the report said. However, U.S. sales of soybean meal are forecast to rise slightly from 13 million tons in 1987-88.
AP900806-0183 	X	Eating Well, a national consumer magazine on food and health, offered its first issue in July. ``Our intention,'' says publisher James M. Lawrence, ``is for this to be a magazine that one reads out of fascination and pleasure, not guilt. We think it should appeal to men and women with an uncommon curiosity about and love of good food, inspiring them to try new foods and new recipes, to strive for nutritional wellness without sacrificing the sensual pleasures of cooking and eating well.'' The first issue featured ``Something Fishy at the Seafood Counter,'' a look at the seafood industry. _ Reader's Digest launched the ``American Medical Association Home Medical Library'' this summer as part of a planned 18-volume series concerning health and medicine. Each volume will treat a different topic _ diagnosing disease, the heart, nutrition, drugs and the battle against infection _ and will be sold by direct mail. The first in the series is ``Practical Family Health.'' _ The complexities of filing claims for health care coverage can be bewildering for many, and they may not collect what they're entitled to, says the owner of a service to help patients or their relatives sort out claims paperwork. ``When a claimant is ill, paperwork is the last thing on his mind.'' says Serena Kalker, who started Medical Claims Assistance Co. in Brooklyn, N.Y., when she discovered that many clients of her husband's accounting firm were overwhelmed by the claims process. ``Many claimants just give up. So they pay huge medical bills. Meanwhile, the funds which are intended to reimburse them _ coverage they have paid for and to which they are entitled _ go uncollected.'' She says her service, with fees based on a percentage of recoveries, helps consumers avoid ``unexpected traps'' that can cost them money through lost or unqualified claims. ``We try to make sure that the individual doesn't cheat himself by filing overlapping claims that allow insurors to sidestep their responsibilities,'' she says. _ You're not goofing off. You're resting your eyes when you stare off into space, says the American Optometric Association. And it's a good idea to take a staring break for 10 minutes every hour or two you're occupied with eye-intensive activities such as using a computer, reading, watching television or playing video games. The association also advises using eye safety equipment for sports such as tennis, softball, or baseball or for home projects like cleaning and gardening. Also recommended are maximum protection sunglasses that block 75 to 90 percent of the light, which can help prevent cataracts and damage to the inside lining of the eye. Other eye protection tips include keeping room lighting soft but using lamps for reading, sewing, preparing food and other projects. Task lighting should be no more than three times brighter than the general room light. And cut room lighting in half for computer areas. _ Protect your ears, too. Noise is one of the biggest culprits in premature hearing loss, but you can take some simple measures to minimize it, according to the E-A-R Group of Cabot Corp., which makes soft foam earplugs and other protective devices. Close windows when noisy construction work is going on in your neighborhood. Don't sit too closely to the speakers at amplified concerts. Keep stereos and television volume at a reasonable level. These tips and other information, including warning signs of hearing loss, are in their booklet, ``A Helpful Guide to Ear Protection.'' For a copy, write the company at 5457 West 79th Street, Indianapolis Ind. 46268. _ Many Americans are totally edentulous and a growing number are trying osseointegration. In plain language, that means 42 percent of Americans over 65 are without teeth, and many are opting for oral implant surgery rather than conventional dentures. According to a national survey conducted by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, the use of oral implants has almost tripled in the past five years and is expected to climb. Difficulties in denture retention and chewing were the most important reasons patients chose implant surgery, the study found. Other reasons included mouth irritation from dentures, inadequate support from existing teeth for bridgework, and difficulty in speaking. Most of the maxillofacial surgeons surveyed said they have performed implant surgery on patients as young as the mid-20s. ``These findings show that missing teeth are not unique to the older population,'' says Dr. Gerald Laboda, the association president. ``In appearance, form and stability, oral implants are the closest thing modern science has to natural teeth. Oral implants bond to the existing bone structure of the mouth, thus eliminating the instability, chewing difficulty and irritation many denture wearers endure.'' _ Barnyard chores, such as feeding chickens and playing with pygmy goats, are being used in therapy programs for head-injured patients. ``Animal therapy offers a unique method ot treatment because it uses a living, responsive stimulus in treating the physically and mentally impaired,'' says Dr. James Wasco, medical director of the New Medico Head Injury System, a nationwide network of rehabilitation facilities. ``Techniques used for the elderly and neglected children are now being expanded for head-injured individuals.'' The barnyard program is used at the organization's Lindale, Texas, facility, while equestrian therapy programs help head-injured patients at facilities in Center Ossipee, N.H., and Canonsburg, Pa. Riding horses and petting and caring for them are both offered in the therapy. ``For both children and adults, caring for an animal increases self-confidence because the individual is responsible for the animal's well-being,'' Wasco notes.
AP900908-0011 	X	The phrasing of a question and answer in a sex knowledge survey released Wednesday by the Kinsey Institute, and reported by The Associated Press, may have been misleading. The true-false question stated, ``There are over-the-counter spermicides people can buy at the drugstore that will kill the AIDS virus.'' The correct answer given was ``True.'' That does not mean the spermicides will cure AIDS, the Kinsey report says. Instead, many health care professionals say using the spermicides along with a condom may help protect against transmission of the AIDS virus during sexual intercourse, the report says. The spermicides include an ingredient called nonoxynol-9 that can kill the AIDS virus in the test tube, the report says. June Reinisch, director of the Kinsey Institute, said, ``It is very likely to work in people.''
AP880921-0039 	X	It's too early to tell how NBC's 179 hours of prime-time Summer Olympics coverage will score in the ratings, but the first three nights started far off the ratings record set by the 1984 games on ABC. Nevertheless, the first three nights of coverage did land in the top 10 in the Nielsens last week, the final week of the broadcast year. Sunday night's Olympics coverage was No. 2 among all prime-time shows, according to the A.C. Nielsen Co., with a rating of 17.7 and a 30 share. Saturday's coverage came in ninth, with a rating of 16.1 and a 31 share. The opening ceremonies Friday ranked 10th, with a 15.2 and 29. The rating is a percentage of the nation's estimated 88.6 million households with televisions. The share is a percentage of sets in use. The 1984 games averaged a 23.5 rating. People meters, the new viewer-measuring devices that have shown overall lower numbers for network shows, combined with a decline in network viewing may contribute to a depression in Olympics ratings this year. The first three nights of the Olympics averaged about a 30 share, somewhat lower than the third of the viewing audience NBC had predicted. NBC analyst Jeff Boehme said it was too early to tell if there's a trend in the Olympics ratings. Monday night's Olympics broadcast continued to score disappointingly in the ratings, though it won the night for NBC. The coverage during prime time rated 18.0 with a 28 share. CBS had a 14.5 for the night, and ABC a 12.9. CBS effectively programmed against the Olympics on Sunday night with a repeat of the Valerie Bertinelli movie ``Rockabye'' that ranked fourth in the Nielsens. CBS also scored with its timely ``48 Hours'' on the approach of Hurricane Gilbert, getting the highest rating yet for the weekly news program. It ranked 12th with a 14.1 rating and 24 share. NBC won the week ending Sept. 18 with an average rating of 14.0. CBS and ABC tied with 11.5 each. The week marked the 52nd since the 1987-88 fall season began, so NBC claimed its fourth broadcast-year win in a row with an average rating of 14.5. Although CBS finished third for the regular season that ended in April, based on yearlong figures, CBS edged ABC for the broadcast year with an average rating of 12.2 to ABC's 12.1. The top 10 shows last week were: ``A Different World'' NBC, ``Summer Olympics _ Sunday'' NBC, ``The Cosby Show'' NBC, ``Rockabye'' CBS, ``Monday Night Football'' ABC, ``60 Minutes'' CBS, ``Barbara Walters'' ABC, ``Murder, She Wrote'' CBS, ``Summer Olympics _ Saturday'' and ``Summer Olympics _ Opening'' NBC. The lowest-rated prime-time shows of the week were: ``Live! Dick Clark Presents,'' ``The Flintstones _ Just Say No,'' ``The `Slap' Maxwell Story,'' ``Cowboy Joe,'' ``California Girls Special,'' ``Lily Tomlin _ Sold Out,'' ``West 57th,'' ``Live from the Hard Rock Cafe,'' ``Space _ Beyond the Shuttle'' and ``Decision '88 Countdown.'' Despite a move to a half-hour earlier in New York, where its ratings dropped, the ``CBS Evening News'' rebounded into first place in the national news ratings after tying with ABC's ``World News Tonight'' the previous week. The news race last week continued to be a virtual dead heat, with less than a point separating the three network newscasts. CBS had a 10.8 rating and 22 share, ABC had 10.3 and 21, and ``NBC Nightly News'' had a rating of 10.1 and a 20 share.
AP900228-0224 	X	When Bertrand Blier develops a screenplay, he writes with specific people in mind. Since the French filmmaker's stories are usually a little crazy, he wants his actors the same way. ``I need an interesting starting point,'' said the director of the certifiably insane ``Too Beautiful for You'' (``Trop Belle Pour Toi''), which won the Jury's Special Prize last summer at Cannes, and ``Get Out Your Handkerchiefs'' (``Preparez Vos Mouchoirs''), winner in 1978 of the Academy Award for best foreign film. ``To have the movie start with something crazy, you need the sort of actors that are crazy enough themselves to make it credible,'' he said. Good actors, the director insists, are a little deranged, like his friend Gerard Depardieu, the star of ``Too Beautiful for You'' and ``Get Out Your Handkerchiefs'' as well as Blier's ``Menage'' and ``Cold Cuts'' (``Buffet Froid''). They met in 1973, when Blier was casting for ``Going Places'' (``Les Valseuses'') and Depardieu was an unknown actor. ``I was a little hesitant to hire him because that was a very important charatcer in the film,'' Blier recalled. ``For six months, every day, Depardieu would come to the office with a different costume on to convince me he could play different characters. One day, he was very funny. The next day he was sad and distraught. It's extraordinary.'' Depardieu got the part and Blier gave him the chance to make good on the promise of his extended audition _ to do anything. In ``Get Out Your Handkerchiefs,'' Depardieu decides his unhappy wife needs a lover and recruits a total stranger for the job _ in the middle of a restaurant. In ``Cold Cuts,'' he plays an unemployed man who accosts a stranger in a subway station and rants about his dreams of murder. In ``Menage,'' he is a thief who again inflicts himself on total strangers and takes over their lives. The films are in the spirit of those screwball comedies of the 1930s, such as ``My Man Godfrey'' and ``The Thin Man.'' Timing is essential, quick enough to make audiences laugh, but not so fast that the story loses believability. And no matter how warped the humor gets, the actors have to play it straight. ``Each film is like a game,'' Blier explained. ``With each new movie you have to set your rules and you have to explain your rules to the public if you want them to be able to play with you.'' He admires American director Billy Wilder, who depended on actors such as Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to hustle along the story. Blier says Depardieu is ideal for that kind of comedy because he's quicker than other actors. ``The entire movie just goes a lot faster,'' Blier said. ``Even in a love scene, everything goes very fast. The other actors, even the very good ones, they tend to listen to what they're saying, contemplate themselves. He doesn't do that.'' With ``Too Beautiful for You,'' imagine ``She-Devil'' with the husband abandoning Meryl Streep and running off with Roseanne Barr. Depardieu is a respectable upper-class family man who falls in love with his homely secretary (Josiane Balasko) while spurning his beautiful wife (Carole Bouquet). Blier noted that ``Too Beautiful for You'' was harder to shoot than his earlier films because there was less action and more emphasis on affairs of the heart. Deparidieu, reluctantly, had to slow down. ``Depardieu was feeling rather uneasy when they were shooting the movie because he was under the impression that he had nothing to do. He likes to act, he prefers to act. He's always looking at the women and doing nothing. When he wanted to do something, I said, `No, don't move, only look.''' Blier, the son of actor Bernard Blier, was born in 1939 in Paris. Through his father, Blier met French directors Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jacques Becker and soon decided he wanted to make films, too. ``I was 15, 16, and it came to my mind that that was the only profession for me,'' Blier said. ``It's the only profession where you take yourself for God, pretend you're God for a while.'' His first commandment remains ``Thou Shalt Be Insane,'' and no exceptions are allowed. One poor actor was even banished for signs of excessive normal behavior. ``The first scene of `Buffet Froid' was very difficult for me because I shot the scene with another actor, who was not Michel Serrault, and it was a disaster,'' Blier said. ``I called Michel Serrault and he came for two nights to shoot his scene. Only Michel Serrault was crazy enough for the beginning of this film. I can't work with actors who are not like that.''
AP881028-0112 	X	Lawmakers who say they were double-crossed by a presidential veto are promising to revive legislation that would protect federal workers exposing government fraud and waste. Howls of bipartisan outrage were generated Thursday after congressional sponsors learned that President Reagan won't sign the legislation that his Office of Management and Budget agreed in writing to support. This is hardly the first time that a presidential veto has stirred controversy in Congress, but the reaction was harsher this time because Democrats and Republicans accused the administration of breaking its word. Lawmakers said they relied on letters to sponsors by the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Joseph R. Wright Jr., expressing the administration's backing of the legislation. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chief Senate sponsor, said the measure will be introduced again when Congress reconvenes early next year. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, echoed the statement. Reagan, who said the version passed by Congress went too far in protecting workers, said he will submit his own bill in January before leaving office. But the 418-0 House vote and unanimous voice vote in the Senate for the congressional version make it unlikely that a Reagan alternative would prevail. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh raised constitutional objections to the bill, which was designed to protect federal ``whistleblowers'' from retaliation by their superiors. The attorney general persuaded Reagan on Wednesday to ``pocket veto'' the legislation _ let it die while Congress is out of session. Thornburgh told reporters Thursday that ``no one is entitled to the protection of unconstitutional legislation.'' He contended that the Justice Department consistently expressed constitutional worries to lawmakers and never signed off on the compromise that passed Congress. Asked if Wright had approval to deal with Congress on the legislation, Thornburgh replied, ``I don't know.'' It was unclear whether OMB and Justice Department officials knew they were pulling in opposite directions, but congressional staffers said they assumed Wright checked with other agencies before writing of the administration's support. OMB spokeswoman Barbara Clay declined to discuss an apparent internal rift, saying only, ``The decision has been made by the president and we support the decision.'' Lawmakers didn't buy Thornburgh's explanation that his department expressed its unhappiness with the bill to Congress during ``any number of exchanges.'' ``It's outrageous conduct and has created a bipartisan explosion, because it violates the basic understanding we need but now no longer have ... that an administration's word is good,'' said Levin. ``There's going to be bipartisan hell to pay.'' Rep. Frank Horton of New York, the chief Republican House sponsor, said he backed the measure ``only when I was assured of the administration's support.'' Horton called Reagan's decision ``a reprehensible act ... orchestrated after adjournment of the Congress to prevent an override.'' Grassley said the administration had ``signed off'' on the bill before Thornburgh stepped in. ``We worked with the administration far too closely for Thornburgh and company to now suggest there are unresolved constitutional questions. ... But then this administration hasn't exactly a sterling record where whistleblowers are concerned.'' Chief House sponsor Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., said, ``In 1981 President Reagan promised to protect employees who blow the whistle on wrongdoing; now we know how cheap the president's words are.'' Reagan said Wednesday the bill would have allowed employees ``who are not genuine whistleblowers'' to manipulate the process to delay or avoid proper discipline. ``I regret that the Congress did not present me with constitutional and effective legislation to expand the protections and procedural rights afforded to federal employees who report fraud, waste and abuse they discover in federal programs,'' the president said in a statement. ``The interests of both employees and managers should be fully protected,'' the president said. Sponsors said the whistleblower bill was needed because the Office of Special Counsel, established to represent the interests of whistleblowers, was not doing its job. The bill was designed to reverse decisions of courts and the Merit Systems Protection Board, a federal judicial agency, that made it difficult for whistleblowers to win their cases. The bill would have made the Office of Special Counsel an independent agency and would have defined its role clearly as one of protecting whistleblowers. The office now is part of the Merit Systems Protection Board and at times it has acted against whistleblowers who came to the office for help.
AP901115-0110 	X	The Senate Ethics Committee today opened politically-charged hearings into links between five senators and the owner of a failed savings and loan and the panel's chairman bluntly told the lawmakers that many people believe ``you sold your office.'' Four of the so-called Keating Five looked on as Sen. Howell Heflin said, ``many of our fellow citizens apparently believe that your services were bought by Charles Keating, that you were bribed, that you sold your office, that you traded your honor and your good names for contributions and other benefits.'' Sens. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, and Democrats John Glenn of Ohio, Donald W. Riegle Jr. of Michigan and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona each listened intently as Heflin spoke in his gravely Southern accent. Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., who is undergoing prostate cancer treatment, did not attend. All five deny any wrongdoing. Committee counsel Robert Bennett jostled a boxed puzzle before the committee members as he began his opening statement, saying he would provide them with a picture that later pieces of evidence would fill in. Bennett said Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle ``were important players'' in helping Keating in his ``all-out war'' with federal regulators. He said McCain and Glenn played lesser roles. Bennett said he did not contend it was improper for the senators to hold meetings with federal regulators, but that it was up to the panel to decide whether their actions were improper. He said ``there can be no doubt'' that the intent of each of the five senators was to help Keating when they met with federal regulators in 1987. The five senators received a total of $1.3 million in campaign contributions or donations to their favored causes from Keating and his associates. All contacted federal regulators on behalf of Keating at a time when the government was considering whether to seize the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, an Irvine, Calif.-based thrift institution. The thrift later collapsed at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of $2 billion. Heflin told the five they would have the chance to say whether the donations ``influenced your actions in any way.'' He said lawmakers' activities legitimately include helping their constituents and overseeing government institutions and added that there is room for disagreement about conclusions in the case. Bennett said the evidence will be clear despite the refusal of Keating to answer questions during the Senate inquiry. Keating has been indicted in California on state securities fraud charges and is awaiting trial. ``One could ask the question, `If Mr. Keating were here, would you believe what he had to say anyway?''' Bennett said. The five senators have become a symbol of the massive savings industry collapse, and the outcome of the ethics hearings could intensify the political ramifications of what so far has been a bipartisan scandal. In addition, the case has highlighted a political system that gives lawmakers great latitude in contacting federal regulators on behalf of constituents, at the same time they are dependent on campaign contributions to mount their political campaigns. The hearings stemmed from a complaint last year by the citizens group Common Cause. ``It's not just the five senators but the whole Senate whose integrity and credibility is on the line,'' said Fred Werthheimer, the organization's leader. Heflin and others on the panel said the case should not create a standard that bars members of Congress from intervening with federal agencies on behalf of constituents or campaign contributors. ``A standard of conduct which would preclude members of Congress from intervening on behalf of individuals who happened to have contributed to or raised funds for their campaign is nonsensical and unworkable under existing law,'' said Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., another member of the committee, complained that panel has taken too long with the case. ``We should have already taken certain ... actions,'' he said. Heflin, D-Ala., defended the panel's decision to hold the hearings against charges of partisanship. ``On all the votes taken by the committee ... not one was divided along partisan lines,'' he said. With documents stacked several inches high on a table covered with green felt, Heflin framed the issue that the ethics panel will have to grapple with: ``The allegation in this case, that an individual used his wealth to get preferential treatment from government officials in the performance of their official duties, raises questions which are as old as history, and issues that bear on the balance of power among the branches of the federal government. The committee could vote to rebuke any of the five or recommend a more serious punishment to the full Senate. Each senator has denied any connection between Keating's money and their meetings with regulators. The basic issue is whether any violated Senate rules against exerting improper influence in return for compensation. All except Riegle attended an April 2, 1987, meeting with Ed Gray, then the top thrift regulator. All five attended another meeting a week later with San Francisco-based bank examiners who revealed that potential criminal actions by Lincoln were involved. McCain's top aide, Chris Koch, said McCain would make the case that he ended his friendship with Keating on March 24, 1987, when Keating asked the senator to negotiate with regulators on his behalf. ``There's no smoking gun on Don Riegle,'' the Michigan senator's lawyer, Thomas Green, said before the hearing. He contended that Riegle's meeting with regulators was unrelated to a fund-raising effort Keating directed for Riegle. DeConcini wrote a letter to about 5,000 supporters this week denying wrongdoing. ``You may hear derogatory statements about me and my office, but I can assure you that I have not betrayed my public trust, nor do I intend to be intimidated from assisting constituents in their dealings with our government,'' DeConcini said. Glenn has said in the past that he had no discussions on behalf of Lincoln after the 1987 meeting when regulators said criminal charges were possible. Cranston's spokesman, Murray Flander, said Cranston contends, ``I pocketed no money, I broke no law, I violated no Senate rule. Those are undisputed facts.''
AP881011-0008 	X	Police said they believe arsonists were responsible for a fire that damaged a door at the consular and cultural section of the Algerian Embassy in London. Scotland Yard said in a statement that the fire extensively damaged the door at the building at Hyde Park Gate in the center of London. The consular and cultural section is about a mile from the main embassy building at Holland Park. The brief Scotland Yard statement gave no indication whether the blaze Monday night was linked with the current wave of violence in Algeria over austerity measures. Embassy staff could not be contacted as the building was closed for the night. The Scotland Yard statement gave no indication how the fire was started. In Algeria on Monday, soldiers with machine guns fired into a crowd of more than 10,000 in the Bab-el-Oued district of the capital Algiers and eyewitnesses said they killed at least 25 people and injured dozens more. Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid in a nationwide address Monday night promised reforms to end the week-long revolt over economic policies. He defended his declared state of emergency and said he would ``not allow the country to fall into anarchy.'' Bendjedid has been the main advocate of an economic austerity program aimed at forcing Algeria to live within its means in the face of falling oil and gas prices.
AP880303-0027 	X	People in other countries have invested $1.5 trillion in the United States and withdrawals could bring a recession, a former top Treasury official says. C. Fred Bergsten, who now heads the Institute for International Economics, a study group financed largely by the West German Marshall Fund, issued the warning on Wednesday. Bergsten said the investment by other countries in the United States is in private hands. ``Some of it's in the form of plant and equipment _ that's not going to come out rapidly,'' he told the House Budget Committee. ``But close to a trillion dollars of it is liquid, and about half a trillion has come in just the last five years to finance our massive trade deficits. ``On future occasions, if foreigners withdrew money, the effect on interest rates, our economy, the exchange rate, could be much more dramatic.'' It has happened before, he said. ``The last time the dollar fell sharply _ I happen to remember painfully because I was in the Treasury at the time _ was in the late 1970s,'' he added. He was then assistant secretary of the Treasury for international affairs. He recalled that the United States had to borrow about twice the amount of its trade deficit because foreigners were withdrawing money at the same time. ``If we got anything like that magnitude now, we'd have to find a way to borrow $300 billion from foreign officials or somewhere to keep our books in balance,'' he said. ``That could only be done at prices that would bring the whole economy to a shuddering halt.'' He said the most enduring legacy of the Reagan administration would be the conversion of the United States from the world's biggest creditor country to the biggest debtor. Current foreign borrowing by the U.S. government is about $150 billion a year. ``At the end of 1987, our net international debt stood at about $400 billion, more than the external red ink of the next three largest debtors _ Canada, Brazil and Mexico _ combined,'' he said. ``Under the most optimistic adjustment scenario, that number will rise to $750 billion before it could possibly level off, and a more likely outcome is much closer to $1 trillion.'' Bergsten said the United States needs to shift its annual international trade balance by about $200 billion, more than the current deficit, because the additional cost of interest on the foreign debt will be close to $50 billion by the early 1990s. It would be reasonable to try to reach this target in four or five years, he said. He said it can be done only by cutting the federal budget deficit by $150 to $200 billion in the same period. He added that unless these cuts can be made, the value of the dollar against other currencies could easily fall by another 20 percent or 30 percent.
AP900622-0105 	X	The army is sending an anti-terrorism unit to Medellin, center of Colombia's drug trade, to halt assassinations of police by drug lords, the defense minister said in statements published Friday. Police said four more policemen were murdered Thursday on the streets of Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city. Their deaths bring to 123 the number of Medellin law officers murdered this year. Also Thursday, police said they arrested a drug trafficking suspect in Bogota wanted for trial in the United States. Julion Enrique Rojas, 49, has been accused by a Florida court of cocaine distribution and illegal possession of arms, judicial police spokeswoman Omayra Patino said by telephone. Defense Minister Oscar Botero said in a statement the army is sending its Mobile Brigade to Medellin to reinforce the city's 4,000-member police force. In less than six months, authorities have been forced to send an additional 1,300 troops to the city in the face of an unprecedented campaign of bombings and assassinations by the powerful Medellin cocaine cartel. Last week the army dispatched 350 more soldiers to Medellin from the elite Rifle Battalion. In a statement sent to the Medellin daily newspaper El Colombiano, Botero admitted that so far efforts to halt the violence have been insufficient. ``Social solidarity and national unity are what is needed to regain peace and harmony among Colombians,'' Botero wrote to the publisher of El Colombiano, which has harshly criticized the government's attempts to bring law and order to Medellin. Police Thursday began a new anti-drug crackdown in the city, stepping up detentions, searches and street patrols. In a 24-hour period, security forces arrested at least 86 people suspected of involvement in assassinations of policemen, the radio networks RCN and Caracol reported Friday, citing police sources. A judicial police report said the Medellin cartel is offering $4,300 to anyone who kills a policeman. Botero said that aside from troop reinforcements, authorities are installing a new helicopter base in Medellin to be used in the fight against the drug-related violence. The drug war began in August 1989 after drug lords assassinated a presidential candidate. Since then, the government has extradited 14 drug suspects to the United States, killed Medellin cartel leader Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, and confiscated hundreds of properties belonging to the cocaine magnates. They have responded with a bombing and terror campaign.
AP881121-0135 	X	The emerging Bush administration includes prominent holdovers from the Reagan years, but with one clear and important difference: The new team is tilted far more toward pragmatists than ideologues. Bush filled three more key positions Monday and his choices were sure to set off cries of anguish from the right. Dick Thornburgh will remain attorney general and Lauro Cavazos will stay on as education secretary. Both men were late-comers to the Reagan administration and both replaced leading ideologues, Edwin Meese III and William Bennett. The third Bush choice was Richard Darman to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget. ``He's put together an Eastern establishment Republican administration,'' said conservative activist Richard Viguerie. ``That's discouraging.'' High-profile jobs in the next administration are rapidly being filled, and only one Bush choice has drawn applause from conservatives _ Gov. John Sununu of New Hampshire who will serve as White House chief of staff. The voting machines had hardly stopped humming with Bush's 40-state Election Day victory when the president-elect made the most obvious choice for his new administration _ friend, adviser and campaign chairman James A. Baker III to succeed George Shultz as secretary of state. During his tenure as White House chief of staff Baker earned a reputation as a quintessential pragmatist, a savvy insider who repeatedly gave low priority to the initiatives of the more ideological elements in the Reagan administration. Calls on Reagan to fire Baker were always sure applause lines at conservative gatherings. Baker's deputy was Darman. Quick to follow the Baker selection was that of another old Bush friend and adviser, Nicholas Brady. He will remain treasury secretary. In fact, another characteristic of the Bush appointees is how many have long-standing ties to the president-elect. When Ronald Reagan was filling out his administration eight years ago, he was meeting many of the top officials for the first time. The same was true of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. Not so with Bush. His relationships with the people he has appointed goes back many years. That should not be surprising, considering the years Bush has served in governmental and party posts. The long resume he touted during the presidential campaign put him in close contact with other up-and-coming Republicans. No one ever described Bush as an ideologue and, clearly, the people he feels most comfortable with are as pragmatic as he. It's always tough to get the jump on a new president and name his Cabinet for him. But so far there have been no big surprises, no choices from other than the names subject to the most speculation. The names being mentioned for the remaining national security jobs are former Texas Sen. John Tower for Defense and Brent Scowcroft for national security adviser or CIA director. Scowcroft was national security adviser to President Ford and is an establishment figure. One conservative favorite whose name is frequently mentioned for a Cabinet post is former New York Rep. Jack Kemp. But Kemp is most often mentioned as either Labor or Housing secretary, the two areas where he is least-stringently ideological. The former Buffalo congressman has always enjoyed good relations with traditionally Democratic unions and his major urban initiative is a proposal for enterprise zones to encourage businesses to locate in neighborhoods with high unemployment. Neither post would make Kemp a major player in areas where his more ideological views on monetary and tax policy would have influence. Bush may yet come up with some appointees who will please hard-line conservatives, but there is no sign of a Bennett, a James Watt or a Donald Hodel waiting in the wings.
AP901117-0048 	X	NATO's top military commander in Europe says he welcomes the new conventional arms accord, but that he's concerned some Soviet weaponry already removed from Eastern Europe won't be destroyed under the treaty. The treaty does not take effect until its signing, scheduled for Monday in Paris. Moscow has said it has already moved 20,000 tanks, 24,000 artillery pieces and 800 aircraft to east of the Ural Mountains, out of the treaty area between those mountains and the Atlantic. ``They are a concern to me,'' U.S. General John Galvin said Friday. ``They are not in an offensive deployment (but that does) not take away my worries,'' Galvin, NATO's top commander in Europe, told reporters. But he and other NATO officials welcomed the Conventional Forces in Europe accord, finalized by negotiators from the 16 NATO and six Warsaw Pact nations on Thursday, as a political and military milestone. One official said Moscow ``is aware of our concerns'' that arms, subject to be removed under the CFE treaty, do not remain operational east of the Urals. ``We have been given assurances'' this will not happen, said the official, who asked not to be named. He said North Atlantic Treaty Organization will remain ``vigilant'' and monitor the situation. NATO officials say the Soviet arms already transferred to east of the Ural Mountains are in unprotected storage and bound to deteriorate. The CFE treaty is to be signed Monday by the leaders of the NATO and Warsaw Pact nations in Paris in the margin of a 34-nation East-West summit. Only days later, the NATO and Warsaw Pact states will open talks on a follow-up accord on troop levels across Europe. The CFE treaty will bring about, over three years, a 40 percent cut in battle tanks, armored cars, artillery, combat planes and assault helicopters. In all, 100,000 such items are to go - 90,000 on the Warsaw Pact side, mostly the Soviet Union, and 10,000 on NATO's - leaving 250,000 such arms systems in place overall. The CFE treaty provides for verification of efforts to destroy weapons to ensure each alliance will end up with no more than 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armored cars, 20,000 artillery pieces, 6,800 combat aircraft and 2,000 attack helicopters within the treaty area.
AP900806-0206 	X	The stock market remained broadly lower this afternoon in heavy selling sparked by the Middle East turmoil and resulting oil price surge. Severe setbacks in foreign financial centers had set the stage for a panicky day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones average of 30 blue chips was off 79.20 points at 2,730.45 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street, an improvement from the morning's 100-plus-point loss. Declining issues held a huge lead over advances on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,514 down, 239 up and 247 unchanged. Trading activity slowed slightly from Friday's unusually brisk pace. But volume on the floor of the Big Board still came to a heavy 207.13 million shares with two hours left to go. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 5.13 to 183.69. Meanwhile, at the American Stock Exchange the market value index lost 6.06 to 340.57. NYSE spokesman Richard Torrenzano told reporters the nation's biggest stock market was weathering the session with no problems. ``Circuit breakers'' designed to cushion market declines were tripped by early activity in stocks and stock index futures. He said the mechanisms were working without a hitch and appeared to have steadied the volatile market. In Washington, a Securities and Exchange Commission spokesman had no comment while a spokeman at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the agency was monitoring the situation. U.S. stocks, already battered by concerns about U.S. economic health, have been hurt by speculation that sharply higher oil prices could trigger a recession accompanied by rising inflation. A few stocks, particularly oil and related issues, benefited from the situation. But a plea from the White House for oil companies to resist hiking prices tempered the rally. Exxon added ] to 53{, Texaco rose } to 65], Chevron gained | to 79], Mobil moved up 1 to 67~ and Amoco added { to 58. The most Big Board issue was Philip Morris, which lost 1~ to 44| as more than 3.2 million shares changed hands. Among other heavily traded blue chips, International Business Machines slid 2~ to 104, American Telephone & Telegraph skidded 1{ to 34{, American Express pulled back 1| to 26[ and General Electric lost 3{ to 66\. UAL plunged 10 to 112{ after a published report indicated a proposed employee-led buyout has run into possible new difficulty. Market watchers had expected stocks to encounter rough going. Worries about the economic impact of the Persian Gulf crisis and resulting oil price spiral had caused investors to bail out of stocks in a big way earlier in Tokyo, London and elsewhere. But market analysts expected stocks to stabilize at the current lower levels.
AP900718-0108 	X	An era in which even the size of a kitchen knife was once decided by foreign military powers is coming to an end in Berlin, the last occupied city of World War II. The Soviet Union's agreement to gradually remove its troops from East Germany and allow a united Germany to join NATO effectively eliminates the last major barriers to unification. It also marks the virtual end of the control the four World War II Allies _ the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union _ have exerted over Germany since they conquered and divided it four decades ago. Nowhere is the influence of the war more evident than in Berlin, which could become the capital of a unified Germany but still is technically under military occupation. The Four Powers have said they will relinquish their rights to Berlin immediately upon unification, which is expected in early December. While West Germany was shaped into a democracy and East Germany became a model of Soviet-style communism, the capital of the old German empire was given special status under the Four Powers Agreement after the war. Britain, France and the United States remain the supreme authority in West Berlin and can, if necessary, control the telephone and mail services and police department. West Berlin is governed by a senate that must clear matters concerning security, foreign affairs and police questions with the Allies. In practice, the Allies have permitted city authorities to govern virtually on their own for many years. Hundreds of West Berlin ordinances enacted by the Allies after World War II are still on the books, but most of these laws are not enforced. An Allied committee, advised by the city, has been meeting for the past six years to throw out many of the outmoded laws. Last year, it repealed the Allied-ordered death penalty that had been on the books in West Berlin. West Germany has never had capital punishment. In the mid-1980s, the committee repealed a law that forbid West Berliners from owning kitchen knives longer than 12 inches _ another relic from the postwar years when household knives were regarded as potential weapons. As an enclave city 110 miles inside East German territory, West Berlin is linked to the West by air corridors and autobahns. The Four Powers still control the airways to Berlin, and only their airlines can fly to the city. Even the West German airline, Lufthansa, cannot land in Berlin. But this will change once the city becomes part of a unified Germany. West Berliners are exempt from serving in the West German armed forces, and young men will likely become eligible for the draft once the city passes into the German government sphere. This would effectively end West Berlin's popularity as a haven for draft dodgers from West Germany. The Allies' postwar rights can still occasionally rankle. The Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported Tuesday that the Allies had rejected a local government proposal to require visas for East Europeans who now can travel freely to West Berlin. But Biddy Brett Rooks, spokeswoman for the British military government, called the report ``absolutely false'' and said the Allies had made no decision on the visa requirement. Ansgar Voessing, a spokesman for the Christian Democrat delegation in the city senate, said East bloc residents need a visa to go to West Germany, but none to travel to West Berlin. He cited that as an example of how the Four Powers Agreement has led to a ``clear inequality'' in laws. East Berlin was named the capital of Communist East Germany, an action never recognized by the Western allies. In East Berlin, the Soviet Union exercised little direct administrative control over the city because of the iron-fisted rule of its surrogate, East Germany's Communist government, and the presence of 380,000 Soviet troops in East Germany. ``The mayor had no power whatsoever. His sole function was to follow party directives,'' said Klaus Haetzel, spokesman for the East Berlin city council. The West German democratic constitution is as much a product of the Allies as the status of Berlin. Its system of 11 states, the nation's laws against extremism, were all drafted by the victors. In the long term, the only vestige of the war after German unification would be the Allied troops and their nuclear arsenals stationed in the country under the NATO alliance. Now that the Soviets have agreed to end their military presence on German territory in three or four years, the Western allies may be asked to withdraw some of their troops and weapons from West Germany. Demands for the removal of NATO nuclear weapons in West Germany could be the next step, according to Klaus Becher, a foreign policy analyst in Bonn. ``The West German populace favors the removal of nuclear weapons, at least offensive weapons,'' Becher said. ``Almost all political forces in Germany are especially sensitive to this.''
AP880530-0094 	X	A protest within sight of the Kremlin on Monday produced passionate debate on Mikhail S. Gorbachev's reforms by bystanders and several dozen Jews seeking to emigrate. In a gathering that police had difficulty controlling, at least 100 people stopped along Kalinin Prospekt, a major avenue leading to the Kremlin, to watch the refusenik protest and to argue their views about Gorbachev's effort to rebuild Soviet society. Despite constant appeals by police using bullhorns to stop blocking the walkway next to the Lenin Library, the refuseniks and onlookers argued in small groups under a hot late afternoon sun. Dozens of others pressed around to hear, oblivious to the police. There was no violence, and the demonstrators, who were among those not invited to a meeting with President Reagan at the U.S. ambassador's residence, left after about an hour. ``This is a country that it's impossible to leave, like a prison,'' said 50-year-old Moscow resident Aaron Greenberg, responding to an elderly man who said the United States observed human rights no better than the Soviet Union. Greenberg said he has been waiting five years for permission to emigrate, but that officials claim he had access to state secrets in a postal job he held 25 years ago. Another bystander who identified himself as Georgy Gusev held up a piece of white paper on which he had drawn a Star of David and a swastika. ``Zionism is fascism,'' he said, citing Israeli occupation of Arab territory. But pressed by angry refuseniks, he said he thought that anyone who wanted to leave the Soviet Union should be free to do so. Other bystanders shouted that the protest was hurting Gorbachev during his meetings with Reagan. One woman who stopped by blamed the refuseniks' problems on bureaucrats whom Gorbachev has been unable to clean out of the Soviet system. ``The bureaucrats all stay in place, and while they are in place on top there won't be perestroika below,'' said Zoya Urisheva. ``If everything was in order, we wouldn't have a refusal problem.'' Vladimir Meshkov, a Moscow Jew who said he has been refused permission to leave for seven years, shouted ``Let us go to Israel'' a half-dozen times as the demonstration ended and police began escorting the last of the protesters to a nearby train entrance. Meshkov, his wife Lida and three and his family held signs during the protest claiming, ``Refusal is a form of murder.'' He said he had been beaten severely twice this year during demonstrations. ``They are really trying to kill us,'' he said. Yuri Semyonovsky, who said he has been refused permission to emigrate for two years, said said of the meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev, ``we expect there will be progress but we don't know how deep it will be.'' One of the protesters added, ``I expect maybe Mr. Reagan will challenge Mr. Gorbachev's idea of democracy, as a leader of a really democratic country.'' Others held banners calling for a ``World without missiles or refusals,'' asking the United States for asylum, and proclaiming themselves prisoners of the KGB secret police and the Soviet visa office. Avi Weiss, head of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and the National Center for Russian Jewry of New York, stopped to talk to the protesters after he and five others conducted a protest for 18 minutes on Red Square earlier in the afternoon. He said the group ``insisted Gorbachev free all our people,'' and demanded that the United States make trade with the Soviet Union depended on the Soviet human rights policy. The demonstration broke up without incident, he said.
AP901120-0041 	X	Scientists say they see exciting potential for the world's first high-temperature superconducting transistor in the development more advanced supercomputers, microwave components and other electronics. The new transistor was developed at the University of Wisconsin and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., and operates at a relatively high temperature of minus 340 degrees Fahrenheit, the scientists said Monday. While superconductive compounds that function at similarly high temperatures have been known for years, the transistor marks the first successful attempt to use such materials to create a transistor. The Department of Energy also backed the project, which now has advanced to the installation of the transistor into a functioning electronic circuit. Transistors, often the size of pinheads, function in supercomputers and other electronic devices as the switches that control current. They also are used to amplify signals from devices ranging from stereos to satellites. Superconductivity, the loss of all resistance to electrical current, occurs in dozens of materials when they are chilled to minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit, or close to absolute zero. Devices that become superconductive at higher, more easily achievable temperatures would allow more practical applications and could open the way to faster supercomputers, microwave components and other electronics products. The new transistor is etched in a thin film of thalium and superconducting copper oxide and is chilled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen. While you still ``can't keep it in your shirt pocket,'' it gives scientists more flexibility because it operates at a higher temperature, said electrical engineering Professor James B. Beyer, who directed the project along with Professor James E. Nordman and university graduate Jon Martens. The new transistor intrigues scientists partly because it functions far differently from conventional transistors. Conventional transistors use alteration in the voltage to control current. The new transistor uses changes in the current to control voltage. Ken Frazier, a Sandia spokeesman, said the new transistor may serve as a bridge between circuitry that functions at room temperature and circuitry being developed using superconductivity close to absolute zero. But Nordman cautioned that scientists are still studying the new transistor and are far fro determining its applications. ``The transistor was invented in 1948, and we've been learning about it ever since,'' he said.
AP881022-0144 	X	President Corazon Aquino praised U.S. officials Saturday for indicting Ferdinand Marcos on racketeering charges and said that could deter dictators from robbing the people and seeking asylum abroad. Mrs. Aquino also said that former President Marcos' trial in the United States would hasten recovery of his `hidden wealth'' _ billions of dollars her administration claims Marcos obtained during his 20-year rule. Marcos and his wife Imelda, who have lived in Hawaii since he was ousted in February 1986, were indicted in New York Friday on charges that could send them to jail for 20 years if found guilty. They were charged along with eight associates. The United States alleges that Marcos and his wife embezzled at least $103 million in government funds including U.S. aid and funneled the money to secret bank accounts in Switzerland, the United States and other countries. The couple then allegedly used the money to buy valuable New York properties, the indictment says. ``This (indictment) is certainly welcome news in the Philippines and I commend this evident commitment to the rule of law abroad,'' Mrs. Aquino said in a statement read by her press secretary, Teodoro Benigno. ``I hope that this and other similar efforts undertaken in other countries to investigate the crimes of the Marcoses will lead to the early recovery of the stolen assets that rightfully belong to the Filipino people,'' the statement added. ``Significantly, also, the fact that the Marcoses are being brought to justice will serve as a powerful deterrent to all those who believe themselves above the law and those who would abuse the public trust for private gain.'' Mrs. Aquino's government has accused the Marcoses of stealing up to $10 billion in public and private assets during his rule and hiding the wealth in real estate, shares of stock, works of art, jewelry and bank accounts around the world. News reports on the indictment came too late for Manila's newspapers Saturday but most bannered reports from the previous day that the Marcoses were about to be criminally charged. Political commentator Belinda Aquino _ no relation to the president _ said in a front-page article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer it was ironic that Marcos was being prosecuted for violating U.S. laws and not for crimes committed in the Philippines. ``But what does it matter?'' she said. ``The important thing is that the law has caught up with this rascal at last.'' Officials said Marcos' trial in the United States would delay his prosecution here even further, but noted the U.S. trial could result in the recovery of some of the ``ill-gotten wealth.'' Although it has repeatedly said it will file criminal charges against Marcos, the Aquino government has not done so for fear Marcos would insist on returning to defend himself. The constitution forbids trial in absentia.
AP880927-0210 	X	Four advocates for homeless rights were arrested Tuesday night when they refused to leave the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Joseph Kennedy. The two men and two women, charged with unlawful entry, were among eight Boston homeless-rights advocates who staged an all-day sit-in at the Massachusetts Democrat's office in an attempt to force the congressman to endorse a $20 billion housing bill. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would provide 7.5 million units of affordable housing. It rivals Kennedy's proposed Community Housing Partnership Act, which would allocate $500 million in federal matching funds to non-profit affordable housing projects. After meeting with Kennedy in his office, eight demonstrators said they would stay put until the congressman pledged to support Frank's bill. The group had been protesting inside Kennedy's office since 11 a.m. and four refused to leave when asked by the congressman's staff, said Capitol police officer Dan Nichols. Nichols said they are scheduled to be arraigned in D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday. They face a possible $500 fine and@or up to six months in prison. Jim Stewart, an organizer for the protesters, had said earlier the group of constituents, four of whom are homeless, traveled to the Capitol in hopes of ``putting momentum behind the Frank bill'' by lobbying members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. ``The least we can do is risk arrest here until we convince Joe it's the right thing to do,'' he said, adding that Kennedy's housing bill is ``inadequate to the need'' of the homeless. Aides to Kennedy, who is a member of the housing and community development subcommittee, said the congressman has reservations about the Frank bill because it is too expensive and does not clearly spell out how the money is to be used. ``Joe just feels there's a better bill out there,'' said Chuck McDermott, a Kennedy aide, adding that Kennedy also supports other measures that would provide for construction and rehabilitation of public housing.
AP881107-0033 	X	The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 27,866.36 points, down 180.39 points, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday.
AP900211-0088 	X	Arab Banking Corp., Bahrain's largest offshore bank, said it was setting aside its entire 1989 profit of $132 million to cover potential loan losses. ABC, which is owned by the governments of Kuwait, Libya and Abu Dhabi, said Sunday the addition to its loan-loss reserve was needed to reassure investors because the bank is planning a $250-million share offering to boost its capital by 25 percent. Troubles with the bank's Latin American loan portfolio helped cause interest income to fall 14 percent to $327 million in 1989 from $380 million in 1988. The drop largely reflected non-payment of interest by Brazil and Argentina, said Abdullah Saudi, the bank's president and chief executive. The drop in interest income was offset in part by an increase in fees and commissions, which rose 30 percent to $179 million last year from $138 million in 1988. Operating profit before taxes, minority items and loan loss provisions fell to $184 million in 1989 from $239 million. Saudi said the addition to reserves would boost the bank's provisions for doubtful loans to about 40 percent of its loan portfolio. Saudi said the $250-million share issue planned for the first half of this year will be listed in the Bahrain, Kuwait and Luxembourg stock exchanges. Funds raised through the share issue will go in part toward the setting up of a new ABC European subsidiary, Saudi said. The new company, provisionally named ABC Europe, will take care of ABC branches in Paris, Milan and London. It is likely to be based in London. Saudi said he hoped the bank also would expand in the Arab world.
AP881103-0262 	X	Thanksgiving is still a couple of weeks off, but now is the time to start planning the meal, especially if turkey will be on the menu. The giant bird finds its way onto American tables most often during the holiday season and many cooks deal with these fowls only rarely. That prompts the U.S. Department of Agriculture to issue annual reminders about safe preparation and handling of turkey. Frozen turkeys can be bought now and stored in the freezer until a few days before needed, then placed in the refrigerator to thaw. If you don't want them taking up all that space, order a fresh turkey ahead of time and pick it up the day before Thanksgiving. Many stores are offering fresh, pre-stuffed turkeys. These may be time savers, but the Agriculture Department doesn't recommend them. The stuffing can create incubator-like conditions for the growth of bacteria, and it is nearly impossible for most refrigerators to keep the stuffing deep inside at 40 degrees Fahreiheit or below. The ultimate shortcut is a pre-cooked turkey, but these must also be handled carefully. They are best is served immediately, both from a safety and flavor standpoint. If a pre-cooked turkey must be stored, remove the stuffing, separate the meat from the carcass, and store these items in small packages in the refrigerator. One safe way to save cooking time is to use roasting bags, the department says, since they speed up the process. Cooking the turkey unstuffed also saves time. Microwaves can cook turkeys quickly, but the department warns cooks not to try to microwave a stuffed turkey; a stuffed bird is too dense for microwaving to assure thorough cooking. Often folks wind up with a frozen turkey bought too late to let it sit and defrost in the refrigerator for several days. The department suggests, as an alternative method, immersing the bird in cold water which is changed every half-hour or so. Make sure the bird's wrapping is secure or put it in a plastic bag before placing it in the water. A microwave oven can also be used to thaw an unstuffed turkey, if the oven is large enough. Follow the manufacturer's instructions. Never defrost a turkey on the counter or table top. In the hours it takes for it to thaw bacteria could muiltiply to dangerous levels. And remember when preparing food, use pleney of soap and hot water to wash hands, utensils and cutting boards to prevent the spread of bacteria. Wash the sink, counter, faucet handles, anything that comes in direct or indirect contact with raw turkey. Some recipes in recent years have suggested long, slow cooking for turkeys, but food safety experts frown on this because the bird may not get hot enough to kill bacteria. Cook it at 325 degrees Fahreiheit, they say. The food experts also discourage the idea of partly cooking a bird one day and finishing it the next, for the same reason. Once you've gotten over all these hurdles, cooked the bird, fed the family and cleaned up, the department has suggestions for safe storage of leftovers too. Here's the drill: Remove the stuffing from the bird and the meat from the carcass. Store them in meal-size portions in shallow containers. Leftover turkey will keep in the refrigerator for three or four days. Stuffing and gravey should be used in a day or two. Bring leftover gravey to a rolling boil before serving.
AP880812-0170 	X	Interest rates on new one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages surged to the highest level in nine months this week while fixed-rate mortgages jumped almost to the high point for the year, according to a nationwide survey released Friday. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., a government-chartered company owned by savings institutions and known as Freddie Mac, said the one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages this week averaged 8.00 percent, up from 7.90 percent the week before. It was the highest since rates averaged 8.11 percent the week ending Nov. 6. Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages jumped to 10.57 percent from 10.44 percent the previous week. That was just slightly below the high for the year so far _ 10.58 percent _ the average for the weeks ending May 27 and June 3. The jump in rates this week followed a move Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Board to push up interest rates to slow the economy and fight inflation. Economists predict a wide range of interest rates, including mortgage rates, will increase further this year. Fixed-rate mortgages hit a peak just before the October stock market crash of 11.58 percent. As the Fed pumped money into the economy to avoid a recession, the average dropped to 9.84 percent in early February. The increase since then means homebuyers taking out $100,000 mortgages now face about $670 more in annual costs than they would have on a fixed-rate mortgage taken out six months ago. Thomas M. Holloway, senior economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, said fixed-rate mortgages likely will rise another three-quarters of a percentage point by the end of the year. ``I think it's going to slow down the housing sector, but I don't think this is the death of the industry,'' he said. Fixed-rate mortgages have fluctuated widely over the past several years, depending on financial market assessment of inflation dangers. But the one-year rate has stayed relatively low, serving as an alternative for home buyers when fixed rates jump. However, adjustable rates now are also moving higher, reflecting Federal Reserve tightening, which has a more immediate effect on short-term rates than on long-term rates. In a separate report, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which regulates federally insured savings institutions, said fixed-rate mortgages declined slightly from 10.78 percent in early June to 10.73 percent in early July. The dip followed three consecutive monthly increases. Unlike Freddie Mac averages, the bank board numbers include add-on fees known as ``points.'' Also, the bank board averages do no reflect changes over the past month. The bank board said rates, including points, for the most popular type of one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages _ those with caps on how high the rates can increase _ rose for the third month in a row from 8.80 percent in early June to 8.86 percent in early July.
AP901211-0138 	X	A U.S.-chartered Iraqi Airways jetliner ferrying seven Americans and other former hostages to freedom arrived in Frankfurt late Tuesday from Baghdad. On board the Boeing 707, along with the Americans, were two Canadians, two Britons, an Irishman, an Italian, and an Australian, said Craig Springer, U.S. Consulate spokesman in Frankfurt. Before departure, diplomats said six Britons were on board and did not mention an Australian or Italian. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy. U.S. officials had originally planned to charter a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to Frankfurt and it was to have two State Department doctors aboard to deal with people coming out of hiding in Kuwait who have experienced a lot of stress. Just one of the doctors was on the flight, said Springer. Springer said the former hostages would stay in a hotel outside Frankfurt overnight and fly to their final destinations the following day on regular commercial flights. The Boeing 707 was one of three chartered jetliners delivering former hostages out of Iraq on Tuesday. Two others left for Bangkok and London. Diplomats said 14 Americans were on the charter flights from Baghdad. Seven were among the 310 people, most of them Britons, on the flight that left for London. Seven more were on the flight to Frankfurt. A Japanese-chartered Iraqi Airways 707 left Baghdad for Bangkok with 159 people aboard, including 14 Japanese diplomats from Kuwait and the rest mostly former Japanese hostages. The White House said Tuesday that a scheduled Thursday evacuation flight of Americans is ``likely to be the last'' and will probably also carry home the remaining staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last week announced the blanket release of all Westerners, and the first specially chartered freedom flights began Sunday. Earlier Tuesday, diplomats said about 600 U.S. citizens remain in Iraq and Kuwait. They also said about 400 were expected to remain in Iraq, mostly people with dual U.S.-Iraqi citizenship or American spouses of Iraqi citizens.
AP900402-0139 	X	A man who donated one of his kidneys to save his mother's life seven years ago died hours before she could repay him with a bone marrow transplant to help him overcome leukemia, authorities said Monday. ``I'm really heartbroken,'' Ernestine Mitchell said. ``If only he could have lasted eight more hours.'' Her 37-year-old son, Hilliary, had been unable to work as a truck driver since contracting leukemia, and was to receive the bone marrow transplant during a day-long operation beginning at 7:30 a.m. He died of an infection shortly before midnight Sunday, said John Easton, spokesman for the University of Chicago Hospitals. Mitchell died from ``an overwhelming infection related to the leukemia and the loss of his immune system,'' Easton said. ``High doses of chemotherapy needed to combat the disease and prepare the patient for the transplant can leave the patient without a functioning immune system.'' Mrs. Mitchell said she and other family members were at her son's bedside Sunday and had expected him to hang on for the potentially life-saving procedure. ``It's a hurting thing, but I have to remain strong because he was strong at the end,'' Mrs. Mitchell said. ``He talked to us and was kissing us all and we thought he was getting better. We were waiting for 7:30 to come.'' Mrs. Mitchell said she was convinced her bone marrow would have helped. ``I carried him for nine months, his body was a part of my body. Then he gave me his kidney,'' she said. ``I know that if he had gotten the marrow everything would have been OK. Being a mother, I think it would have.'' Mitchell himself knew that his odds were not good because his disease was already at an advanced stage and he had been hospitalized before because of other infections, Easton said. Leukemia is a form of cancer in which abnormal cells can spread in the bone marrow, preventing it from making normal blood cells. This leaves the patient highly susceptible to serious infections, anemia and bleeding. A transplant replaces the patient's defective marrow with healthy marrow. Easton said the mother's bone marrow removal operation had been scheduled for this morning, with the transplant to be done in the afternoon. The operation was filled with risks, and the odds of Mitchell's recovery were 25 percent to 40 percent, he said. Mitchell had been mentally prepared, said Dr. Robert Geller, who was to have performed the transplant. ``When you've got no options, you go with what you've got,'' Geller said. Mitchell already had won one battle in getting the money for the $150,000 transplant from the state Medicaid program after Gov. James R. Thompson stepped in and reversed a decision denying funds for the operation. ``Getting the money was the hard part,'' Mitchell said as he entered the hospital March 23. ``I'm a survivor. I've walked in here and I'm going to walk out again, well.'' Geller, a bone cancer specialist, said Mitchell had been under intensive chemotherapy for the past 10 days. Those drugs and the anti-rejection drugs Mitchell would have received are highly toxic, ``and the kidney is the most important organ in handling that toxicity.'' He said Mitchell's leukemia was in an aggressive phase and that his mother was not an ideal donor. Perfect bone marrow tissue comes from a brother or sister with an identical tissue match, Geller said. But Geller said tissue match between mother and son had been good enough in the kidney operation. Mrs. Mitchell had been dying of polycystic kidney disease. Her son's act in donating his kidney ``is more dear to me now than ever,'' Mrs. Mitchell said. ``I have an everlasting part of him, my perpetual Mother's Day gift.''
AP880606-0144 	X	A prosecutor on Monday promised a full probe of the Borken mine explosion, and a national television network said he was looking into whether a flame from a cigarette lighter sparked the disaster. Rescue workers early Monday found the body of another miner, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 46. Mine owners again defended the rescue operation following the disclosure that radio contact was made with six miners hours after the blast but then cut off when a radio operator told them to stop sending signals. The owners of the mine acknowledged Sunday that a radio operator told the six miners to stop sending messages, believing they were another search team. Heinz Cramer, a technical director for Preussen Elekta, the company that owns the mine, said Monday that failure to recognize the sound _ two hammers banged together by the survivors _ as a sign of life had not diminished the rescue effort. ``We knew that the area (where the men were found) presented the best possibility of finding survivors, and that's where we began drilling,'' Cramer said. The six were discovered alive on Saturday, after officials insisted there was no sign of life in the coal mine where 57 men had been trapped since Wednesday. Prosecutors are investigating whether an open flame may have ignited the gas explosion in the Stolzenbach mine in this town 72 miles northeast of Frankfurt, the ZDF television network reported Monday. The television said cigarette lighters were found inside the mine, but mine officials say there are strict regulations against smoking underground. The six surviving miners had used lighters to test for the presence of the deadly carbon monoxide _ an odorless and invisible gas that burns with a pale-blue flame when ignited. They survived by finding an air pocket in a part of the mine free of the gas. High concentrations of carbon monoxide slowed the agonizing search for the last five men still missing in the depths of the shaft. Officials said rescuers were forced to repeatedly renew their oxygen supplies. Authorities said that because of the gas fumes, there was little chance that the missing miners would be found alive. More details emerged about the harrowing ordeal of the survivors. Ahmet Batkan, the Turkish immigrant among them, was quoted as saying the men had tried to pull a seriously injured comrade to the air pocket, but the man reportedly along the way. ``He died in my arms,'' Batkan was quoted as saying in the Bild newspaper. Prosecutor Stephan Walcher in the nearby city of Kassel said a full investigation had been launched into the cause of the disaster. ``We will review all of the information being collected to determine what caused the accident and whether there are grounds for any criminal prosecution,'' Walcher told reporters at a news conference at the mine. Officials have said the mine was regularly inspected and that all government safety regulations were followed. Erwin Braun, head of the coal administration board in Kassel, said an explosion of such ferocity had never been recorded in the region. He praised the rescue efforts. News about last Wednesday's radio contact with the six survivors has sparked intense media criticism of the rescue operation. The survivors were found after their signals were picked up by a television crew's microphone, which had been lowered into a shaft 500 feet beneath the earth. A police spokesman in the nearby town of Dillich, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a communications center set up after the accident received a flood of calls from people offering to help in the rescue efforts. He said some of the callers claimed they had seen where the miners were trapped in their dreams. ``We tell the people we'll call them back if they are needed,'' the police spokesman said. ``So far, the rescue center has not asked us to.''
AP880916-0123 	X	Pope John Paul II today bluntly told the 20-year-old polygamist king of this tiny mountain country that God intended a husband to have only one wife. The pontiff, who arrived from Lesotho this morning, was escorted by spear-carrying warriors and soldiers with machine guns into a soccer stadium to celebrate Mass. He first was driven in the wrong direction, then slipped off a platform, without injury. Then the Mass was interrupted by the arrival of King Mswati III of Swaziland, who rolled into the stadium in a Lincoln limousine to the whistles of the crowd. A turret manned by a soldier with rifle and binoculars topped the altar, where a cross was stamped with a spear, shield and war ax. Mswati acceeded to the throne two years ago. He has four wives and is engaged to a fifth. ``Christians find that a monogamous marital union provides the foundation upon which to build a stable family in accordance with the original plan of God for marriage,'' the pope told a crowd of about 10,000 people. ``Hence, any forms of disregard for the equal dignity of men and women must be seen as serious contradiction of the truth that Chirst, the king of peace, brought into the world.'' Vatican sources said John Paul had been warned by local prelates to tread carefully before addressing the issue. King Mswati, wearing red-and-white robes and with five bird feathers decorating his head, listened expressionless to the pope's admonission. At the end of the Mass, in an unscheduled breach of protocol, the king formally thanked the pope for his visit. The two met later at the royal palace. Earlier today, red-coated soldiers greeted John Paul at the international airport of Manzini. When he arrived at the stadium, the pope's open car mistakenly drove out the gate, to the dismay of the spear-carrying warriors and Vatican security men. After returning to the stadium, the pope slipped off a platform on the soggy field before climbing onto the altar. He was not injured. On Thursday, in Maseru, Lesotho, John Paul told about 15,000 young people at a rally to ``renounce every form of violence and hatred'' in southern Africa. Organizers expected 1 million people at the rally and blamed a bloody bus hijacking, rainy winter weather and expensive accommodations _ such as $25-dollar-a-night tents _ for the small turnout. The pope visited the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Lesotho Thursday to comfort 20 survivors of the hijacking, many still shaken from the shootout that ended their 27-hour ordeal. ``I am saddened to learn that others on their way to join me on this pilgrimage have been victims of a hijack that has caused such anguish and ended in bloodshed,'' John Paul said Thursday, the day after police stormed the bus in Lesotho with four hijackers and 71 hostages aboard, including nuns and schoolchildren. All four hijackers and two passengers, including a 14-year-old girl, died in the exchange of gunfire Wednesday between authorities and the hijackers, officials said. Twenty others were injured. The government said police stormed the bus after the hijackers ordered the driver to crash the vehicle through the closed gate of the British High Commission. The gunman called for a return to civilian rule in Lesotho. They also demanded to meet the pope, King Moshoeshoe II and the high commissioner. After his eight-hour visit to Swaziland today, John Paul was scheduled to continue to war-torn Mozambique, the last stop on his 10-day tour of five southern African countries. The pope also went to Zimbabwe, Botswana and made a brief unscheduled stop in South Africa, where his plane was forced to land because of bad weather. Swaziland, a country of 700,000 people wedged between South Africa and Mozambique, is a dual monarchy under the king, offically known as ``the Lion,'' and a queen mother, named the ``the Great She Elephant.'' Polygamy is permissable, although most men have only one wife. King Sobhuza II, the current king's father, had more than 50 wives during his 60-year reign, which ended with his death in 1982.
AP881003-0087 	X	Israeli-backed Christian militiamen shelled a U.N.-policed vilage in south Lebanon today, wounding an Irish peacekeeper, three Lebanese women and an 8-year-old boy. Timur Goksel, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, said the Irishman was injured in the head when a 60mm mortar round crashed into one of the Irish battalion posts in Qabrikha, 18 miles east of Tyre. He declined to give the Irishman's name. Lebanese police later said four villagers, including three women and a boy, also were wounded in the bombardment. Police said the South Lebanon Army militia opened up on the Shiite Moslem village after a roadside bomb exploded in the village of Qantara, in Israel's self-designated securitu zone in south Lebanon. It as not clear whether anyone was hurt in the explosion. The 2,000-man militia patrols the 6-to-10-mile deep security zone jointly with Israeli troops. The buffer was established after Israel withdrew the bulk of its occupation force from south Lebanon in 1985, ending a three-year invasion.
AP900524-0053 	X	They cheered when the fat barkeep Jock was shot. They booed when drug-dealing Leo threatened to torch his wife. And they said, ``Goodbye!'' when eye-patched Nadine threatened suicide. More than 100 fans of the broodingly comic ABC series ``Twin Peaks'' gathered Wednesday night in the Salish Lodge _ the real-life counterpart of the show's Great Northern lodge _ to watch the season-ending episode. Much of the series was shot in this small Pacific Northwest logging town about 30 miles east of Seattle. The audience sat glued to the three glowing screens in the basement ballroom of the Salish, gorging as lustily on cherry pie, doughnuts and coffee as any of the ``Twin Peaks'' townies. ``It's great. It's twisted like me and all my friends,'' said Annie Raye, who came dressed as the character Nadine, down to the makeshift patch over her left eye. ``Nadine knows a lot she's not telling,'' Ms. Raye said, referring to the unsolved murder of the character Laura Palmer in the show. ``Nadine has spent time alone with the log.'' The log, for those uninitiated in the hour-long series that will return in the fall, is usually carried by the ``log lady,'' a psychic who talks with it for insight. Locals say ``Twin Peaks,'' with its dueling-chainsaw loggers, satanic cults and macabre death plots, has little to do with the real Snoqualmie. But they're addicted anyway. Garnet Cross, who bakes pies for the cafe immortalized by the show _ the Mar-T in nearby North Bend _ was given a front row seat at Wednesday's gathering. Ms. Cross, who has baked pies for 50 years, said the demand for her authentic cherry pies has exploded since FBI agent Dale Cooper first smacked his lips over the Double R Diner's cherry pie in the ``Twin Peaks'' pilot. She said people include the Mar-T on trips to Washington now, and she's had requests to mail pies out of state. ``This is the best thing that's happened to me,'' she said. Mar-T owner Pat Cokewell said: ``We used to sell about one a week. Now we sell as many as she makes.'' The ballroom gathering was organized by radio station KLSY, which has started calling itself the official ``Twin Peaks'' station. Announcer Tim Hunter said he got hooked after watching the first episode. He said he received more than 200 calls when he asked if listeners wanted the station to recap the show each week. That led to a radio contest, and winners got to come to the season-finale party in real ``Twin Peaks'' territory. At least one local wasn't happy with the show. Louis Delicino looked harried in his Salish Lodge tuxedo shirt and bow tie as he rushed from table to table delivering plates of cherry pie. Pausing with three plates balanced on his left arm and two more in his right, the Snoqualmie native said, ``This is surely madness over a TV show that has no connection to real life.''
AP880711-0107 	X	Iran is still searching for the ``black box'' recorder that may hold important information about the flight of a jetliner shot down by a U.S. warship, the Iranian navy commander said Monday. Commodore Mohammed Hussein Malekzadegan spoke after the English-language Dubai newspaper Khaleej Times, quoting salvage experts it did not identify, said Iranian frogmen recovered the flight recorder in the Persian Gulf ``a couple of days ago.'' Malekzadegan said in an interview on Tehran radio the black box ``may have been destroyed'' when missiles fired by the cruiser USS Vincennes hit the Iran Air Airbus on July 3, killing all 290 people aboard. ``It's also possible that we may find it,'' he said. ``In any case, the search is continuing.'' Data in the recorder could help determine whether the Airbus A300 received radio warnings from the Vincennes. The Pentagon says the jetliner did not respond to warnings and the cruiser's radar operators mistook the plane for an F-14 fighter because it seemed to be emitting military-type responses. American officials have backed away from earlier claims that the plane was descending or was outside civilian flight lanes. The Khaleej Times said the salvage experts it quoted had worked with Iran in the past and expressed surprise that recovery of the black box had not been announced. It also quoted Itay's commander in the gulf, Rear Adm. Angelo Mariani, as saying the heavy air and sea traffic could complicate investigations of the tragedy. ``There are so many boats, small and big ships, airliners, military jets of various kinds,'' he said. Mariani said the Italian frigate Espero heard a U.S. warship, not identified, radio at least one warning to an aircraft shortly before the Airbus was shot down, the Khaleej Times said. ``Since we only listen to military frequencies, I cannot confirm whether the same message was repeated on the civilian international frequency or not, but I assume it must have been,'' he was quoted as saying. Pentagon spokesmen said repeated warnings were sent on military and civilian channels. In London, the Sunday Times said a British intelligence report based on monitored radio communications is ``severely critical'' of the U.S. Navy for shooting the airliner down. According to the Times, the report says Iran Air Flight 655 left Bandar Abbas for Dubai only three minutes late, was on the correct flight path and was climbing when the missiles struck. It said the report suggested a skirmish with armed Iranian speedboats in which the shooting started July 3 may have been provoked by U.S. helicopters entering Iranian air space. The Vincennes and the USS Elmer Montgomery destroyed two boats and damaged one before the cruiser shot the plane down. The U.S. Navy was escorting the year's 46th convoy of U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti tankers Monday, moving up the gulf to the sheikdom. The 294,739-ton products carrier Townsend was accompanied by the frigate Robert G. Bradley, said a spokesman at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. Eleven Kuwait-owned tankers have been given U.S. registraton so the Navy can protect them. Convoys began in July 1987. A Navy investigation of the Airbus disaster was in its sixth day Monday and the Vincennes was anchored off Bahrain with two barges alongside. Its crew has been restricted to the ship for security reasons, with sailors allowed ashore only in small groups to make telephone calls home.
AP900503-0051 	X	Secretary of State James A. Baker III today proposed that 35 foreign ministers from East and West meet in New York in late September to plan a summit meeting by the end of the year. Baker put the proposal to a NATO session meeting in Brussels to discuss security in a changing Europe. The objective of the summit would be the signing of a treaty to sharply reduce troops, tanks, artillery and other non-nuclear arms in Europe. The NATO foreign ministers took no direct action on Baker's proposal for preparations in New York, according to Italian and other European sources. His initiative confirms President Bush's determination to conclude the treaty being negotiated by NATO and the Warsaw Pact by year's end. The accord would set a limit of 195,000 Soviet troops outside Soviet borders and 225,000 U.S. troops in Western and Central Europe. The 35 nations include all the European states except Albania, along with the United States and Canada. In 1975 they signed the Helsinki agreement to lessen tensions in Europe. ``We are all of the opinion that (the summit) must be thoroughly prepared,'' West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told reporters. He reiterated Bonn's position that the 35-mation grouping, known as Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, must be given more weight in Europe's future. Baker, flying to Brussels on Wednesday from Washington, enthusiastically endorsed the proposition. He said a larger role by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was part of the ``new security architecture'' for Europe that he first proposed in a Berlin speech in December. NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner said the alliance had agreed to accept France's invitation to host the conference summit in Paris. At the summit, the 16 NATO and seven Warsaw Pact nations would sign a conventional arms agreement. Negotiations on that agreement are now tangled over limits on aircraft and helicopters, and methods of verifying reductions within the two alliances.
AP880222-0083 	X	Sara and Amy Kienast glare at each other over feet propped on the dining room table and argue the finer points of rock 'n' roll music. They both like it, but Amy wouldn't be caught listening to REM. And so it goes with the Kienast quintuplets: They are so much alike yet so different. Sara, Amy, Abby, Ted and Gordon turn 18 on Wednesday and hope the day marks the end of media-mobbed birthdays and the beginning of separate lives. ``We've been five all our lives. Now is our chance to be one,'' said Sara as her brothers and sisters nod in agreement. ``We want to make a name for ourselves, by ourselves.'' After years of press scrutiny, well-publicized financial problems and the suicide of their father, the quints are a steely bunch and proud of it. They also are distinctly individual. Each plans to attend a different college and four have picked schools far from the spacious farmhouse in this New York City suburb where they grew up. ``It's about time,'' Abby said with a grin. ``I've been with them for 18 years. I could make do without seeing their faces every day.'' None plans to tell new friends he or she is a quintuplet. ``Why should we have someone look at us and think of four different people,'' said Sara. The quints say their separation in the fall will be painless because they all live separate lives now. ``We basically have the same friends, but we don't hang out with the same people,'' said Amy. ``On the weekends, we don't do things together.'' The siblings say that all that sets them apart from other teen-agers is that there are five of them. ``We have the same fights, you know, that other brothers and sisters have. The girls are always taking my sweaters and stuff,'' Ted said to the protests of his sisters. The quints gained worldwide attention when they were born Feb. 24, 1970, after their mother, Peggy Jo Kienast, took fertility drugs. At first, many offers of help and endorsement opportunities clothed and fed the children. But financial pressures began a few years later and an anonymous source saved them from eviction by providing more than $115,000 to pay off mortgages and property taxes the Kienasts owed. In 1984, the quints' father, William, committed suicide after his plastics business began to falter. At that most difficult time, reporters and photographers camped outside the family's home, making the family angry. ``I really started to resent the media when dad died,'' said Sara. ``There's a limit you can take. ``I understand now,'' said Ted. ``They have a job to do and someone sends them out to get a picture and they have paychecks and families, too. But at the time it was too much.'' Despite the unwanted attention, the quintuplets say they appreciated the cards and letters they received from around the world when their father died. They also say they have put his death behind them. ``We couldn't dwell on it,'' Amy said. ``Mom wanted us to get on with our lives.'' Mrs. Kienast says she's looking forward to her children leaving home. ``I'm all for parenting and children, but I don't live through my children. I'm looking forward to this next step,'' she said. ``You're worn out by their senior year.'' The quints' birthdays _ what Ted calls ``press day'' _ have always been met by clicking cameras and a string of interviews. But this year will be different: The quints plan to go their separate ways and celebrate with friends on Wednesday, then hold a private family party on Sunday.
AP900504-0172 	X	Seventeen Marines suffered injuries in the rough landing of a helicopter troopship at a desert training area Friday afternoon, a Marine Corps spokesman said. Medical personnel late Friday were examining the extent of injuries to the Marines hurt in the 2:15 p.m. accident at the Marine Air-Ground Combat Center, Capt. Timothy Hoyle said. The injured, most of them based at Camp Pendleton, flew in another aircraft for treatment at the Navy hospital at Twentynine Palms, about 140 miles northeast of Los Angeles, Hoyle said. The helicopter, a CH-46E Sea Knight, and its crew of three belong to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, headquartered at the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, Calif. Investigators searched for the cause of the accident, Hoyle said. The severity of damage to the aircraft was not immediately known. The 25-passenger Sea Knight, an assault helicopter in service since the Vietnam War, was participating in helicopter-borne assault training.
AP901109-0226 	X	Stock prices rose sharply today, propelled by hopes for lower interest rates. Shortly before the close, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was up 44.06 at 2,487.87.
AP900108-0241 	X	Jeff H. Reynolds, who is seeking control of financially struggling Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd. in return for a $197 million investment, has a business address that is a mail-drop. His U.S. company, Weatherby Investments Inc., does not appear to be traded publicly as he contends, officials said Monday. The 28-year-old Texan, little known on the investment scene, said in a news release last week that he was negotiating with Bond Holdings, the Australian holding company. The release listed an answering service as a contact number. The answering service forwarded calls about the offer to Reynolds mother's house in Houston, where he discussed his business and personal history in a telephone call Monday morning. Messages left in later follow-up calls to a brother and an answering machine at the house were not returned. Among the unanswered questions are: _Why his news release said his Weatherby Investments Inc. is an over-the-counter stock and why he said it was traded over-the-counter on the ``pink sheet'' distributed by the National Quotation Bureau. The National Quotation Bureau and the National Association of Securities Dealers have no record of Weatherby, and it is not listed in guides to over-the-counter stocks. Reynolds said Monday Weatherby had earlier been known as California Pacific Industries, and he intended to change the name back. But there was no listing under that name either. _Why the address and suite to which investors are invited to send questions is a private mail-drop box in Beverly Hills, a year-and-a-half after Reynolds says he moved his operations from Texas to California. In the conversation early Monday, Reynolds said his work was done from several offices, including an unspecified location in Century City, but he gave no address and said he is still looking for a central location. Reynolds describes himself as an intensely private businessman, who used to walk in his bankers' side doors because he favored jeans and cutoffs. He says he still feels more comfortable in a sweatsuit, crunching numbers at a computer terminal, than in a suit and tie. ``I've always had a real hardcore attitude about other businesses and banks _ if they're going to deal with me they're going to have to know me and put up with me,'' he said. ``I'm not going to fit into their world.'' Bond, the holding company whose Australian brewing interests are in the hand of receivers, says it will listen to offers from Reynolds, who says Weatherby is a division of Singapore-based California Pacific International Pte Ltd. Reynolds says he is descended from a long line of oilmen in Throckmorton, Texas, and locals there say books have been written about the Reynolds clan and its intermarriages with the even more famous Matthews cattle and oil family. Reynolds said he took freshman English and biology classes at the University of Texas and a few business classes at various colleges before succumbing to entrepreneurial urges. He got started in business by importing ``gray market'' cars, upgrading them to meet American standards and selling them at a profit, he said. ``Actually I was living in Austin and a few of my frat brothers got in with me,'' Reynolds said. ``We had some cash flow and it looked pretty good and I said, `The hell with this' (college career).'' As it stands now, he says he's confident he can find refinancing for Bond's $6 billion debt. Bond says it wants to see more details, and skeptics in the international investment community say they have never heard of Reynolds or his operations. Reynolds says he got a real-estate broker's license in Texas in 1983 and got involved in development companies. He also says he has dabbled in a clay-tile factory in France.
AP880627-0258 	X	Making the jump from high school senior to college freshman may be traumatic for a youngster, but what about the parent? Pete Goldsmith, dean of student life at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., has some advice for being a ``successful'' college parent: _ Stay informed. Read the school's newsletters and other information that is generally sent to you by the college. Get your own copy of the college catalog and student handbook. _ Get involved. Check into any parents' associations at the school. In addition to feeling more a part of the college, you'll make new friends. _ Communicate. Don't hesitate to call if you are concerned about something innvolving the college or your child. _ Expect change. There will be times you may not like what your child is doing or uncomfortable with thoughts expressed, but be patient and understanding. And be flexible. _ Provide challenge and support. It's like teaching a child to swim: the parent decides when to let him flounder and when to rescue him. The college experience is no different. Parents need to decide when to provide encouragement and when to intervene. When it comes to financial support beyond tuition, room, board and books, take a walk through the campus, the bookstore and the town. You'll gain a sense of what's appropriate. _ Show your interest. Ask about academic work. Visit the campus on Parents' Weekend or other special occasions. _ Trust your student. You'd be surprised at the common sense most students display.
AP900503-0235 	X	Some states are considering whether to ban use of a synthetic hormone to increase cows' milk production, but the federal government has allowed the milk to be sold to the public even though it hasn't approved the hormone for commercial use. No one has been able to refute the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's conclusion that dairy products and meat from animals treated with the hormone are safe for people. But many are uncertain about what they see as an invasion of essential foods and say not enough is known about long-term effects of bovine somatotropin (pronounced soh-mat-uh-TROPE-in), or BST. ``I've got four girls here, ages 1 to 9, and I don't want that stuff in my milk,'' said Chuck Brown, a Minnesota legislator. He led a successful drive for a temporary ban on the genetically engineered hormone, known also as BGH. ``It seems to me that No. 1, the cows don't want it, the vast majority of dairy farmers in this state don't want it, the consumers don't want it. So who wants it? The four companies making it. Who are we working for?'' Brown said last week from his Appleton, Minn., home. The companies _ Monsanto Agriculture Co., Eli Lilly Co., Upjohn Co. and American Cyanamid _ have applied to FDA for marketing approval. The homone injections increase a cow's milk production from 10 percent to 25 percent, and the worldwide market for BST has been estimated at more than $500 million a year. Critics have not suggested a specific health risk but say not enough research has been done to be sure the hormone would be safe for people. It would be the first major biotechnology product to reach the agriculture market. Although FDA approval is not expected for about a year, the agency has allowed milk from test herds being treated with BST to be sold to the public. ``Way below'' 1 percent of the milk would come from these cows, and it generally is mixed, usually at dairy cooperatives, with milk from other herds, Bonnie Aikman, an FDA spokeswoman, said. There is no way for a consumer to know, but several companies, including Borden's, and some supermarket chains said they would not use or sell products from cows in the BST test herds. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and a frequent biotechnology critic, is campaigning for a boycott against BST. Dairy farmers are worried about how consumers might react to products from treated cows. And some say increased milk production will lower prices, hurting small farmers. A temporary ban was approved last month in Wisconsin, and legislation is pending in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont. And, at the request of Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the General Accounting Office is reviewing FDA's assessment of the risks of BST. Leahy's concern was prompted in part by an FDA veterinarian who said he was fired after alleging that testing of BST was flawed. Aikman acknowledged the controversy over milk safety but added that the FDA's ``veterinary people said it is one of the safest drugs that they have reviewed.'' In addition to human safety, the FDA must determine if BST is safe for animals and the environment and whether it does what it claims to, that is, increase milk production. Monsanto spokesman Gerry Ingenthron said research has been conducted for a decade and the studies have ``raised no concern about the safety of the product.'' The treated cows, he said, are injected with synthetic BST, a protein made from the animals' genes that is ``virtually the same as a protein they already produce.'' BST is also a natural product of cows' pituitary glands. Proponents claim the injections of synthetic hormone produce no changes that affect the safety of food. Opponents say too little work has been done on too few cows to reach conclusions about effects on cows and people. Consumer groups also complain that FDA and the companies involved should make test information public.
AP880817-0193 	X	A research project to find ways of killing the Asian cockroach, a pest that invaded Florida two years ago, has not been ended and will continue at least through the next fiscal year, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday. Ralph A. Bram, head of research on insects affecting humans and animals for the department's Agricultural Research Service, said the agency has ``not closed out any research program aimed at controlling these pests.'' Bram said the agency's research budget next year is for $243,700 to be spent on cockroaches, the same as this year. The work is done at the agency's laboratory in Gainesville, Fla., in cooperation with the University of Florida. The agency said recent published reports, including one in the St. Petersburg Times, ``implied'' that another USDA scientist, Richard J. Brenner, said the cockroach will spread to all of the contiguous 48 states. Bram said Brenner actually said there is no way of knowing exactly how far north the cockroach will migrate. Because of winter temperatures, he said, it is doubtful the insect would survive father north than Maryland on the East Coast, Tennessee in the central area, and lower Washington state in the West.
AP880330-0148 	X	Police clashed with about 250 stone-throwing Moslem fundamentalists who attacked a theater troupe, a security source said Wednesday. One student was killed and four were injured as officers dispersed the crowd. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the incident took place Tuesday night at the village of Kodeya, 25 miles from the southern provincial capital of Assiut. He said it wasn't known what killed 23-year-old Mohammed Kotb. One of the four wounded students was in critical condition, he added. In a statement read to The Associated Press by telephone, a fundamentalist spokesman claimed the student was killed by police gunfire. ``The Moslem group went out through the village in a peaceful march of protest ... when police attacked them with tear gas and opened fire on the demonstrators, killing the student Mohammed Kotb,'' the statement said. The spokesman, who refused to give his name, said forces then surrounded the village, raided homes and detained fundamentalists. The spokesman said the students were protesting a ``dancing party'' organized by security forces. The security source, however, said the fundamentalists attacked a theater troupe performing a play about Islam and peasants. The troup had been invited to perform by the government's culture club at the village. ``Around 250 Moslem fundamentalists from the village and nearby villages gathered in a mosque after evening prayers and then moved to the hall where the play was being performed, carrying stones and rocks,'' the source said. He said the students, from a teacher training college, ``attacked the hall and tried to destroy the building,'' but security forces surrounded them and used tear gas and sticks to disperse them. He did not say whether police made any arrests. Police forces guarded the building until the play was finished, the source said. The southern Assiut province has been a hotbed of fundamentalist agitation for almost a decade. Fundamentalist students armed with knives, bicycle chains and stones, attacked an Assiut University campus parade on March 7, denouncing it as an anti-Islamic ``dancing and singing party.'' In the ensuing clash with security forces, two students and two policemen were wounded.
AP880829-0077 	X	A Finnish military training plane failed to come out of a spin during an air show stunt and crashed, killing the pilot hours after an air show disaster claimed more than 40 lives in West Germany. The crash Sunday at Kleine Brogel Air Base, 68 miles northeast of Brussels, was the second such air accident this month in Belgium. Witnesses said one of the two Redigo aircraft taking part in the show organized by the Belgian air force was unable to come out of a spin during stunt manuevers and plunged to the ground. Officials said the pilot, Ari Piippo, was flying too low to enable him to safely eject from the plane, which belonged to the state-owned Finnish aircraft maker Valmet. Valmet recently sold 10 Redigo airplanes to Finland's air force for training purposes. On Aug. 7, a Belgian pilot died when his Mirage-5 jetfighter crashed at an air show, also organized by the Belgian air force, at Leopoldsburg, seven miles west of Kleine Brogel Air Base.
AP900401-0056 	X	Brent Musburger, the primary voice of CBS Sports in the 1980s, was fired by the network Sunday after negotiations on a new contract broke down. The network announced that the broadcast of Monday's college basketball championship will be the last CBS assignment for Musburger, who had been scheduled to cover major-league baseball this summer. ``I was surprised, but it was a great run and I have a million memories, and I leave behind a lot of good friends,'' Musburger said in a statement read by Jimmy Tubbs, his personal assistant. ``At this time, I'm going to take an extended vacation, and I'll be working again someday, somewhere.'' Ted Shaker, executive producer of CBS Sports, said network officials believed Musburger's workload was too heavy, but that the broadcaster resisted attempts by CBS in contract talks to have him cut down. ``It's a difficult decision,'' said CBS Sports President Neal H. Pilson. ``It's never easy to deal with individuals with whom you have personal or business relationships.'' Musburger has been reported to earn between $1.6 million and $2 million per year from CBS. Pilson said he wouldn't describe the negotiations as ``a squabble over money,'' but refused to say what was in dispute. Pilson said negotiations for a new contract had been going on for several months between the network and Todd Musburger, who represents his brother. He said the Musburgers had asked for a decision by Sunday. Both Musburgers were unavailable Sunday but Tubbs, Musburger's assistant for 5{ years, said it had been apparent for several days that talks weren't going well. ``It wasn't right out of the blue,'' Tubbs said. ``Negotiations had been going on and they just broke off.'' Broadcasting the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball game between Duke and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will be the final CBS assignment for Musburger, the network said in announcing the decision. Musburger's 5{-year contract was to expire in July. Musburger is in his sixth season as lead play-by-play man for the NCAA basketball tournament and has been host of ``The NFL Today'' since 1975. He has anchored the Masters golf tournament, the NBA finals, the Pan American Games and late-night coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Musburger, who has been with CBS Sports since 1975, was scheduled to become the main voice for CBS' baseball coverage, which begins April 14. He also was in line to host the network's coverage of the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics. Industry speculation on a possible baseball replacement for Musburger centered on Al Michaels, said to be unhappy with his status at ABC. Michaels was unavailable to comment Sunday.
AP901224-0095 	X	One of five soldiers injured in a training accident last week has died, bringing the death toll in Operation Desert Shield to 81, the U.S. military's Central Command announced Monday. The soldiers from the 3/320th Field Artillery of the 101st Airborne Division were participating in a training exercise Thursday when a 105mm howitzer exploded, the military said. One of the soldiers, who had been in a coma, died Sunday, the military said. His name was withheld pending notification of next of kin. The cause of the accident is under investigation. Two sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Midway also died Sunday when their tour bus overturned on a liberty excursion, the military's Joint Information Bureau announced Monday. Five other sailors were injured, two seriously, in the accident 50 miles south of al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi. On Saturday in the Mediterranean, a chartered Israeli ferry carrying U.S. sailors capsized while returning to the USS Saratoga from the Israeli port of Haifa, killing 21 sailors.
AP881226-0108 	X	Two men trapped in an avalanche while sliding down a hill were rescued after nearly seven hours under 6 feet of snow, authorities said. ``These guys are very lucky. It was a stupid move on their part,'' said police Officer John Chilton. Passers-by dug out Brett Woods, 24, and Keith Kathcart, 19, late Sunday after hearing screams and seeing a glove resting atop the snow near the Chapman Hill ski area. The two were hospitalized in good condition Monday. Close to 3 feet of snow had fallen in southwest Colorado by Sunday, prompting the Avalanche Warning Center in Denver to warnings throughout the weekend. Woods and Kathcart were sliding down a steep embankment when the snow slide occurred. They were admitted to Mercy Medical Center with hypothermia and muscle injuries, authorities said. Woods' body temperature had dropped to 91 degrees after the accident, while Kathkart's was 87, said Dr. Mack Johnson. ``I guess under the circumstances, they were in pretty good condition,'' said Frank Mackey of the Fire Department. ``They could talk and one of them walked to the ambulance.'' Andy Loving of the Avalanche Warning Center said the U.S record for surviving snow burial is nine hours. ``After 30 minutes of burial, the chances of survival are reduced by half,'' he said. ``They must have had some kind of air space around them.''
AP900302-0188 	X	Former Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., the maverick lawmaker who made a career of bucking his party and championing liberal causes, said Friday he would run for governor of Connecticut as an independent. ``You're going to get one hell of a race,'' declared the former three-term senator. ``I think I'm going to win it. I don't think it's any gamble at all.'' Weicker, 58, told reporters, supporters and onlookers in a packed Capitol conference room that his unsuccessful bid for a fourth Senate term in 1988 ``took me down a peg or two and probably deservedly so. I've taken my licks.'' ``It's now 1990 and I believe that, as never before, we need each other,'' he said. The announcement capped weeks of intense speculation about Weicker, who in 28 years of political activity cultivated a reputation for aggressive, independent Republicanism. He became a national figure in the mid-70s as one of the first Republicans to take on President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Weicker would say nothing negative about Democratic Gov. William A. O'Neill or Rep. Bruce A. Anderson, a four-term congressman challenging O'Neill for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Nor would he criticize any of the four Republicans now in the running. Weicker was elected to the Senate in 1970 in a three-way race in which the Democrats were badly split. Of his bid to make it a three-way race in the November election, he said: ``The ironies are not lost on me, I can assure you.'' Weicker said he expects he'll need campaign funds of $1 million or $2 million, less than half of what the other major party candidates are talking about spending. The Greenwich millionaire said he wouldn't spend any of his own money on the race. Democrats hailed his decision to run, saying it would divide the GOP and throw the party into chaos. State GOP Chairman Richard Foley said that with Weicker's announcement, ``the race is over. We just won,'' but his voice didn't carry conviction.
AP901219-0001 	X	``We as an American public don't reach out to help one another like we used to. We don't share like we used to. We've become a very selfish nation.'' - Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Sue Myrick, co-chair of the United States Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness. --- ``Considering the sorry state of education in California, it would be more appropriate to name a high school after Ronald Reagan than to name it after me.'' - Rock musician Frank Zappa, declining to have a high school named after him. --- ``Aristide is the medium through which the people have discovered the possibility of being protected by being together. That's what the other Haitian politicians didn't understand. The people wanted justice.'' - Human rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeaux on the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, probable winner in Haiti's first fully democratic election.
AP901111-0055 	X	A group of prominent Algerians announced plans Sunday to hold a tribunal next month against President Bush on charges including crimes against humanity. The group said it plans to hold the proceedings in the Algerian capital, Algiers, on Dec. 10. Foremost among the charges will be ``threatening peace and world security by his preparation for an aggressive war against Iraq,'' the group said in a communique. The Algerian tribunal will be headed by Ali Ammar Louar, former president of Algeria's bar association. It will be made up of academics, lawyers and intellectuals active in human rights, the group said. The tribunal is apparently not sponsored by the Algerian government. It would have no way of enforcing its sentence. In its statement, the group said the U.S.-led economic blockade of Iraq is a crime under ``terms of the international convention for prevention of and punishment for genocide.'' The sanctions, approved by the United Nations, were imposed after Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.
AP900622-0164 	X	Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy offered Friday to send humanitarian relief to Iran to help search for trapped survivors of that country's killer earthquake. ``Israel is very sorry for the grave natural disaster in Iran and is prepared to give the Iranians immediate aid as it has done for various other nations,'' said Eliza Goren, Levy's spokeswoman. Iran reportedly said humanitarian aid would be welcomed from all nations except South Africa and Israel. Goren said Levy made the offer through the League of International Red Cross. Israel has had no diplomatic ties with Iran since the Islamic revolution ousted the Shah in 1979. Dr. Mark Heller, a top researcher at the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, said no one really expected the offer to be accepted. ``I suspect that this is an attempt to demonstrate to the Iranians that Israel has no intrinsic hostility to Iran,'' Heller said. ``But I don't think that anyone seriously expects the Iranian government will accept.'' Levy's offer to Iran comes as the new right-wing government has made various moves toward neighboring Arab states. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has invited Syrian President Hafez Assad to unconditioned talks and published his phone number, requesting any Arab states seeking peace to call. But Goren said Levy's offer to send a relief team to Iran was made on humanitarian grounds only. Before Khomeini rose to power, Iran was an island of support for the Jewish state in the Middle East, and home to a wealthy Jewish community of about 60,000. It also provided 40 percent of Israel's oil needs. Israel sent relief teams after Iran's September 1978 earthquake. Israel has hoped that President Ali Khamenei would be more moderate than his predecessor. ``Israel has tried to cultivate better relations with Iran for a long time but since the revolt the Iranian regime has been extremely hostile to Israel,'' Heller said. ``The offer is consistent with Israeli policy in the past the only change will be if Iran actually accepts.'' Clandestine contacts between Israel and Iran, however, have continued. They largely involved the sale of weapons and spare parts during Iran's eight-year war with Iraq. In December 1987, Israel sent a 42-member rescue team to search for survivors in Soviet Armenia.
AP900831-0230 	X	Wholesale gasoline and crude oil prices moved higher in the futures market Friday, but failed to recover all the ground lost earlier in the week. Traders said buying picked up as the stalemate in the Middle East dragged on. Early waves of selling this week had been inspired by hopes for a quick negotiated settlement to the crisis, which has threatened the world's oil supplies. Light sweet crude oil rose 55 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange to end the week at $27.32 per barrel on contracts for October delivery. ``The general perception in the market is continued concern or anxiety that the diplomatic solutions don't look like they're coming through,'' said Ann-Louise Hittle, senior oil analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. Friday's strongest move was in unleaded regular gasoline, which rose 7.25 cents to 96.32 cents per gallon for September contracts in their last day of trading on the New York Merc. Home heating oil was up .35 cent to 75.89 cents per gallon, also on the last day of trading for September delivery. ``There is a shortage of refining capacity in the world, and the situation in the Middle East has really affected those refineries,'' said Bernard Picchi, an analyst with Salomon Brothers Inc. A daily refining capacity of 1.3 million barrels has been taken off the world market because of the embargo of Iraq and Kuwait, he said. ``The Middle East is not just a big crude oil exporting region. It's also a big products exporting region,'' Picchi said. The stock market has tended to move in opposite directions from petroleum prices since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, but it gained ground Friday in slow, indecisive trading. Analysts said it was difficult to read much significance into the market's meanderings, noting that many investors were getting an early start on Labor Day. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials rose 21.04 to 2,614.36, finishing the week with a net gain of 81.44 points. Oil was down for the week. Crude futures took a hit of $4 per barrel on Monday and nearly $2 per barrel on Wednesday. Gains on other trading days were more modest, leaving the per-barrel price down $3.59 from the previous Friday, which had capped a string of three trading days above the $30 mark. Gasoline was down 8.4 cents per gallon for the week. Heating oil was down 15.05 cents per gallon for the week. Natural gas futures closed at $1.500 per 1,000 cubic feet for October contracts on Friday, down from $1.537 a day earlier and $1.525 a week earlier. Analysts said some traders were keeping prices up as they bought futures Friday to avoid getting caught short over the long Labor Day weekend. New York financial markets are closed Monday.
AP880512-0265 	X	The memorandum added: ``Since some recent health problems among embassy staff appear similar to EMP (electromagnetic pulse) researchers at Boeing, at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and possibly at the Naval Special Weapons Center, comparison of details of exposure and later-occurring pathologies appears warranted.'' Health problems which have been reported among personnel working with electromagnetic pulse equipment include an unusually high incidence of brain tumors and liver diseases. A memorandum prepared by Myers following his 1975 visit to Moscow said, ``Dr. Herbert Pollack, a State Department consulting physician, has found that several members of the embassy display symptoms that are non-specific but have been reported frequently in patients chronically exposed to non-ionizing radiation.'' Such symptoms include headaches, inability to concentrate and fatigue, as well as physiological effects including shifts in the ratios of various blood cells. Soviet intentions remain the foremost unanswered question surrounding irradiation of the embassy. Attempts to figure out the purposes behind the microwave beams have involved specialists at the State Department, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and National Security Agency. The difficulties posed by this task were reflected in a June 6, 1975 letter in which the CIA's Colby told Eagleburger at State: ``We hope that by working together State and CIA technical officers can come up with satisfactory answers to this perennial enigma.'' Three theories have been put forward as possible explanations: _The Soviets were trying to interfere with U.S. electronic intelligence-gathering operations; _The microwaves were used to interact with Soviet eavesdropping devices planted within the embassy; _Or the Soviets were trying to induce psychological, behavioral or physiological effects among American personnel. Mark Garrison, who served as head of the State Department's Soviet desk and then as the Moscow embassy's No. 2 official before retiring in 1980, said in an interview, ``We never did really figure out to my satisfaction what the purpose of the microwaves was. I've got hunches about it, but there was no final, formal finding that was passed down from the technicians.'' ``It's extremely difficult for people running the political side of the (U.S.-Soviet) relationship and the management side to get a good handle on high-tech electronic stuff,'' said Garrison, now director of Brown University's Center for Foreign Policy. Garrison leans toward the electronic jamming theory. However, that explanation has been challenged by Moscow veterans familiar with the military-run electronic intelligence-gathering operations. Retired Army Brig. Gen. R.E. Barber said he ``absolutely cannot accept'' the jamming hypothesis because when he was in Moscow during the mid-1960s the microwaves ``had no effect whatsoever on our activities.'' Samuel Koslov, a non-ionizing radiation specialist who has helped investigate the radiation, believes the beams probably were been intended to interact with Soviet listening devices. ``They (U.S. debugging specialists) still haven't satisfied themselves that they've found all the devices that may have been interacting with that signal. They may have found some of them, but they certainly haven't found all of them,'' said Koslov, a biophysicist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. He added, however, that ``there could have been different purposes at different times'' over the 35-year history of the microwaves problem. Regarding possible anti-personnel uses of microwave radiation, Koslov said, ``I wouldn't say that it is impossible to produce psychological effects, but you would have to do it with very different kinds of signals, much higher power than what you have there.'' Other American specialists involved in the investigations have raised the ``mind control'' and weaponry possibilities. Among them was Richard S. Cesaro, who in the mid-1960s was serving as deputy director for advanced sensors at the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency. Cesaro helped run the classified Pandora Project, in which monkeys were exposed to a ``synthetic Moscow signal'' in a laboratory at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Initially, Pandora researchers believed that the irradiation had caused subtle behavioral effects in the test animals. By mid-1969 consideration was being given to expanding the project to include human subjects. Later, however, re-analysis of the experimental data raised doubts about its validity. A scientific review panel decided in 1970 that the project should be disbanded. Nevertheless, Cesaro, in an interview prior to his death two years ago, contended that ``in our experiments we did some remarkable things. And there was no question in my mind that you can get into the brain with microwaves.'' Arguing that the Soviet bloc's investment of funds, personnel and laboratory facilities in research on non-ionizing radiation bioeffects has far outstripped the West's, he said, ``I look at it as still a major, serious, unsettled threat to the security of the United States.'' ``If you really make the breakthrough, you've got something better than any bomb ever built, because when you finally come down the line you're talking about controlling people's minds,'' Cesaro said. Another research effort whose results proved highly controversial was the State Department's secret genetic testing program, carried out from 1966 to 1969 under the cover name of the ``Moscow Viral Study.'' This project involved taking blood samples from embassy personnel exposed to the Soviet microwaves and from a control group and analyzing the white blood cells for possible chromosomal damage. Those who were tested were not told the actual purpose, but instead were given the cover story about checking for a viral condition. By late 1968 concern about results of the cytogenetic testing had mounted among senior officials privy to the findings, and the university contractor, Dr. Cecil Jacobson, urged that the study be continued and expanded. In mid-1969, however, the State Department abruptly decided to terminate the study, after having test slides re-examined by four outside consultants. Nicholas H. Steneck, a University of Michigan history professor and author of a book, ``The Microwave Debate,'' said the cytogenetic testing program ``was set aside on the shoddiest and shakiest of grounds.'' ``At the very least there was scientific ambiguity, because there were some researchers who said the techniques were very good and that they did see effects,'' Steneck said. ``If nothing else, on the basis of that you do a follow-up study _ you don't just crank it down.'' Asked about Steneck's remarks, Dr. Charles E. Brodine, State Department assistant medical director for environmental health and preventive medicine, said he had not been with the department at the time of the genetic testing program and would prefer not to comment. Government officials and outside experts say one of the biggest lessons learned from the microwave problem was that it was a mistake to keep the radiation secret from most employees until February 1976, when the State Department began briefing current, former and prospective Moscow personnel. ``The main lesson is to be upfront with employees about things that they might consider to affect their health and well-being,'' said Garrison, the former State Department official.
AP901220-0047 	X	The White House took a cautious, wait-and-see attitude today to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze's surprise announcement he was resigning his post. ``It's not entirely clear what the situation is. We need to clarify that first'' before saying anything further, said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. Asked if he thought Shevardnadze's decision was final, Fitzwater said, ``We don't know.'' ``I just talked to the State Department and we want to at least make sure we know exactly what's happened there'' before commenting further, the press secretary added. Secretary of State James A. Baker III has forged a close working relationship with Shevardnadze on arms control and on the Persian Gulf crisis.
AP880222-0104 	X	Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis said today at the White House that the Reagan administration's anti-terrorist policy is worthless because of arms dealing with Iran. In the Midwest Republican Bob Dole taunted George Bush for refusing to compete in Minnesota and South Dakota. Dukakis, speaking to reporters after a National Governors' Association meeting with the president, said, ``I'd have a much tougher, and much more consistent anti-terrorist policy.'' The Massachusetts governor, referring to the sale of arms to Iran during secret negotiations to free American hostages, said, ``We'll be living with the consequences of what happened in 1985 for a long time.'' ``You never, ever make concessions to terrorism. If you ever do it, then your policy is worthless. And that's what we did,'' said Dukakis. Asked about Dukakis' statement, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, ``I think it's very dangerous to make terrorism a political issue, especially when you're talking about specific episodes. Vice President Bush, who has said repeatedly he supported Reagan's Iran initiative but was involved with few details, was campaigning in South Carolina today. But Dole, in Duluth, Minn., was suggesting Bush wasn't where he should have been. Minnesota and South Dakota, the next two events on the long road to the 1988 presidential nominations, vote on Tuesday. ``We're ready to do well here tomorrow. We're here to play,'' Dole told supporters in Duluth today. ``I don't know where George Bush is,'' Dole said. ``I didn't find him yesterday in Wyoming. Couldn't find him in South Dakota. Couldn't find him in Minnesota. Must be somewhere. And these are very important states. Later today we're going to send him a map of Minnesota so at least he gets a little idea where it is.'' Among the Democrats, Richard Gephardt, who also finished first in Iowa, is bidding for a strong showing in South Dakota's Democratic straw poll to give him a boost as the campaign moves toward the Super Tuesday showdown on March 8. The 4,067 Minnesota caucuses are the first step toward choosing 78 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, while on the Republican side caucus attendees will mark a non-binding straw ballot to express their presidential preference. In South Dakota's primary, Republican voters will determine allocation of 18 convention delegates, while the Democrats will hold a beauty contest ballot that will not have a binding effect on who gets the state's national convention delegates. Bush, faced with the potential of a repeat of the Iowa results in which Midwesterner Dole was a big winner, is concentrating on the South where he hopes to cripple the Kansas senator's effort. Dole is a strong favorite in South Dakota, while Minnesota is shaping up as a three-way fight between Dole, Rep. Jack Kemp of New York and former television evangelist Pat Robertson. Dukakis, winner of the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, is campaigning hard in both these upper Midwest states in an effort to prove he can win support outside his native New England. After an appearance at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, including a session with President Reagan, Dukakis was flying to Minnesota to campaign. On his way into the White House for a black-tie dinner Sunday night, Dukakis quipped, ``I'm just looking the place over, that's all.'' Asked where he hoped to be next year, Dukakis replied, ``I hope right here.' Gephardt, who has made tough action to correct trade imbalances a cornerstone of his campaign, got a blow from his House colleagues when words came out they planned to scuttle his legislation that would impose sanctions on countries that maintain large trade surpluses with the United States through unfair practices. ``We're going to dump it because it's bad policy,'' said Rep. Sam Gibbons, D-Fla., chairman of the Trade subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. ``I'm going to fight for my amendment,'' said Gephardt, when told of the plan. Much of the sniping between presidential rivals was being done by long distance. Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, who made little effort in Iowa and not much more in New Hampshire while pursuing a Southern strategy for the Democratic nomination, was interviewed on the NBC show ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday and got in jabs at both Dukakis and Gephardt. The senator attacked Gephardt for shifting positions. ``It's not a case of just having one or two or three issues where he has changed 180 degrees,'' said Gore. ``There is a long, long list of issues.'' Turning to Dukakis, Gore said the governor has not had ``a single day's experience in foreign policy.'' Dukakis' spokesman Leslie Dach quickly retorted that ``Al Gore's never had a day of experience balancing a budget or building an economy.'' Gephardt was attacking Dukakis in ads running in South Dakota that criticize the Massachusetts governor for not supporting farm legislation sponsored by Gephardt and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. The ads also take a shot at Dukakis for once suggesting in Iowa that farmers ought to consider diversifying into such crops as Belgian endive. The ads drew retorts from Dukakis supporters in both Minnesota and South Dakota. ``A new low in South Dakota presidential politics,'' said State Sen. Roger McKellips, a co-chairman of Dukakis' South Dakota campaign. After his surprising second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Robertson was considered a strong contender in Minnesota where caucus organization is once again important. The former evangelist was in Spartanburg, S.C., on Sunday and told a crowd of about 4,000 at a church dedication that ``the problem facing America is not a government problem but a moral problem.''
AP901026-0115 	X	The Town Council has resigned to protest reports its members are suspected of ties with the Mafia. The councilmen followed the lead of the mayor, Paolo Scarna. He quit after a nephew was suspected of killing a judge last month who was ruling on whether purported Mafia members should be kept under house arrest, news reports said Friday. The resignations of the 32 council members came amid reports that police were investigating local politicians for possible links with organized crime. The town of 25,000 people, one of the poorest in Sicily, is in the province of Agrigento, an area that over the last few years has seen many slayings linked to the mob, including the murder of two anti-Mafia magistrates. Italy's top anti-Mafia fighter, Magistrate Domenico Sica, has looked into possible Mafia activity in the town. In Palermo, meanwhile, officials announced on Friday that police have arrested 12 people suspected of drug-trafficking and money-laundering. The arrests came in a nationwide sweep that began Thursday night and involved searches of houses and business offices in Palermo, Rome, Milan and the northern cities of Como and Asti, police officials said. Those arrested were held for investigation of suspected organized crime ties that involved drug dealing and money laundering. Investigators said they were aided by the testimony of a former mobster-turned-informer and by the discovery in January of a ledger that police say contained entries on Mafia financial transactions. The ledger was found in the house of a fugitive suspected Mafia boss. The drugs appeared to have moved directly from Turkey to Sicily and the drug profits appeared to have been laundered through Swiss banks, the Italian news agency AGI reported.
AP880325-0205 	X	The active-duty strength of the nation's military services declined in February from both the previous month and the year-earlier period, the Pentagon said Thursday. As of Feb. 29, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force had 2,163,193 men and women on active duty, down 2,625 from Jan. 31 and a decrease of 8,914 from the Feb. 28, 1987, tally. It is not unusual for military strength to swing up and down on a monthly basis during the year, primarily because of differences in the flow of new recruits. The strength totals are expected to vary even more widely than normal this year, though, because the Pentagon is reducing its active-duty strength in a budget-cutting move. According to the latest ``Military Strength'' assessment, three of the four armed services reported personnel reductions in February. The Marine Corps reported 198,231 men and women on active duty, down just 12 from January. The Air Force had 603,599 on active duty, down 975; and the Army listed 776,415, down 2,308. The Navy, meantime, reported an increase of 670 personnel in February, with 584,948 on active duty at the end of the month. The Marine Corps and Air Force reported declines in strength compared with Feb. 28, 1987, while the Navy and Army reported slightly increases.
AP901017-0132 	X	President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's plan for switching to a free-market economy backs away from a 500-day timetable, and Boris N. Yeltsin, leader of the Russian republic, said it was doomed to fail within six months. Gorbachev's 66-page blueprint, delivered to members of the national legislature Tuesday, is at least the fourth in a confusing and complicated series of plans for salvaging the failing economy. ``Another endeavor is thus being made to perpetuate the system hated by the people,'' Yeltsin said Tuesday. ``The new program is a catastrophe which will break out within the first few months.'' ``If the ... Parliament approves today's uncompromising program, it will take less than six months to realize that the chosen road is another blunder.'' A text of Yeltsin's remarks to the Russian Federation's legislature was published today in Sovietskaya Rossiya, the Russian Communist newspaper. Gorbachev's plan would give the 15 Soviet republics sweeping new powers to run the nation's economy, free many prices from government regulation and allow private ownership of businesses. It sets no timetable for the transition, but notes other nations have accomplished similar goals in 1{ to two years. Gorbachev is to present his plan to the Supreme Soviet national legislature on Friday, and the 542 members could vote on it as early as Saturday. Parliamentary committees began studying the proposals today. Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, and the federation's other leaders have endorsed a radical plan for scrapping Communist central planning for a market-based economy in 500 days. Yeltsin said the Russian republic could go ahead with that program on Nov. 1, setting up its own currency, customs service and army. He acknowledged this would be difficult and costly, even for the biggest and wealthiest of the 15 Soviet republics, but said: ``If we show indecision in such a situation, we will lose the voters' trust and respect.'' ``If we procrastinate and put off (the reform) further, there will be nothing to reform because the economy will simply fall to pieces,'' he said. Yeltsin said Gorbachev's program, if adopted, would increase the national budget deficit to about $528 billion. ``The consumer market inevitably will be swamped by a shower of paper (money) and prices may grow dozens of times,'' he said. The plan Yeltsin has endorsed is named after its chief architect, economist Stanislav Shatalin. It differs from Gorbachev's plan in several key respects. The Shatalin plan suggests selling factories to private owners, breaking up collective farms and returning land to peasants, but the Gorbachev plan drops a clear commitment to private ownership of land. It says only that republic authorities will decide conditions for giving land to people for agriculture. The Shatalin plan would also gradually end all state control on prices. Under the Gorbachev plan, the government would still set prices in 1992 on bread, meat, dairy products and a few other staples. Yeltsin said the Gorbachev plan was an attempt ``to preserve the administrative-bureaucratic system.'' The proposal caps an intensive three-week effort by Gorbachev and top economists to resolve fundamental differences over how to change a system that fails to provide adequate food, shelter and services for the country's 285 million people. Differences among competing economic plans have touched on the very underpinnings of Soviet communism: socialist property, collective labor and state ownership of all land. ``People's lives are becoming more difficult, their interest in labor is falling, their faith in the future is crumbling,'' the Gorbachev plan says. It says the long lines in which Soviet shoppers must stand daily are a ``shame,'' and acknowledges rising food prices, overcrowded apartments and empty store shelves. But it hesitates to move ahead too quickly with reform, stating: ``The experience of applying stabilization programs in other countries ... shows that such a period can take about 1{ to two years.'' Gorbachev's compromise package, however, borrows heavily from the Shatalin plan in giving republics more economic power. Under Gorbachev's plan, republics would gain control of most of the resources on their territory. After delegating much economic power to republics, businesses and individuals, the central government would concentrate on defense, energy, highways, railroads, space exploration and communications. Gorbachev originally supported the Shatalin plan which was to have gone into effect Oct. 1, ``but the sinking union (national) government put pressure on the president, and he again changed his mind,'' Yeltsin said.
AP900304-0071 	X	Angel Wallenda said goodbye to the tightwire Sunday night, joining her husband and 3-year-old son for one last performance before an operation she hopes will arrest the cancer that claimed her leg. Steven Wallenda joined his wife and their precocious toddler Steven II to the tune of ``Angel of the Morning'' on the tightwire that has brought the family fame for decades. ``You have to overcome a certain fear,'' Mrs. Wallenda, 21, said after the performance in Mansfield, where the family lives. ``And I've done that with both the wire and the cancer.'' In 1987, Mrs. Wallenda was diagnosed with bone cancer, and doctors were forced to amputate her right leg and fit her with a prosthesis. The cancer spread to her lungs, and she is scheduled to undergo further surgery March 20 at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif. ``I'm glad I got to do it,'' she said of Sunday's performance. This month's surgery will end her career as an aerialist. Her husband said he and their son will continue the performing tradition. Ticket sales for the performance, which draw about 1,000 people to Mansfield University, raised more than $3,500 for her medical bills, supplemented by some $4,500 from a local Vietnam veterans' group. Steven Wallenda is a veteran of that war. Shaky at first Sunday night, Mrs. Wallenda steadied during the latter part of her walk across the 30-foot steel rope, followed closely by her husband. A later act featured Steven II in a harness riding on his father's shoulders. Wallenda traces his family's tightwire heritage to the 1600s. The most famous of the Wallenda acrobats, ``Karl the Great,'' died after a 1978 fall during a performance in Puerto Rico. Steven Wallenda II is the last male performer born with the Wallenda name and one of the few direct descendants of the original acrobats. The elder Wallenda said he hoped Steven II would follow in his careful footsteps, but, ``It's up to him.''
AP880813-0186 	X	Diana Lewis works for the Police Department, but her truck has been forced into a life of crime. Her silver 1979 truck was stolen in early July and again this week from the same bus parking lot. Both times, police say, the truck was apparently used as a getaway vehicle by the same man to rob two banks. Enough's enough, says Ms. Lewis, who has transferred to a new police job and won't park her truck in the lot any more. ``The odds of becoming a victim around here seem to be getting smaller,'' said Ms. Lewis, a civilian employee for the detective bureau and a part-time reserve officer. Ms. Lewis found the abandoned truck herself after it was used in a July 6 robbery. Officers found it a few hours after it was used in a bank robbery Wednesday. If the last robbery wasn't enough, it also got a paint job. A dye package planted in the stolen cash exploded inside the truck's cab, painting it red.
AP880328-0263 	X	The federal fund that insures deposits in commercial banks could suffer a loss in 1988 for the first time in its 54-year history, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman L. William Seidman said Monday. Seidman said a loss to the insurance fund, if any, would depend on how much the FDIC spends to resolve the problems of First RepublicBank of Dallas, which earlier this month received a $1 billion infusion of government aid. The deterioration of Texas banks, hard hit by losses on real estate and energy loans, has raised concern about the health of the insurance fund, which backs deposits of up to $100,000 in 13,700 commercial banks. Speaking at a luncheon meeting with reporters, Seidman said it is too soon to say with certainty what the cost of restoring First RepublicBank to health will be. But, he said the $5 billion to $6 billion estimates of some are ``far higher than anything that is likely to be required.'' He said the $1.7 billion cost of the 1984 bailout of Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Co., which was about the same size as First RepublicBank, ``is the best guide we have.'' The FDIC's initial outlay on First RepublicBank could be higher than the ultimate cost, just as it was in the case of Continental when the agency spent $4.5 billion, Seidman said. However, he said the FDIC now usually tries to structure bank rescues so that the initial cash cost is close to the ultimate cost. If the First RepublicBank cost is in the $1.7 billion range and if banks fail this year at about the same rate as last year, then ``it is possible we will have a loss in 1988,'' he said. Last year, a post-Depression record of 184 banks failed. Forty-four have failed so far this year and Seidman said he expected the 1988 total to be roughly the same as 1987. As failures have increased, the steady growth of the FDIC fund _ from $4.6 billion in 1970, $11.6 billion in 1980 to $17.9 billion in 1985 _ has slowed. The fund finished 1986 with $18.2 billion and 1987 with $18.3 billion. Seidman said the 1988 loss, if it occurs, would be ``something under 5 percent ... certainly under ... $1 billion.'' He said he did not see any prospect for what he termed a substantial loss, one approaching 20 percent, or about $3.5 billion. He contrasted the relatively healthy condition of the FDIC fund with that of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., which insures deposits in 3,170 savings institutions. FSLIC was insolvent until last fall when money began flowing from congressionally-authorized bond sales. It has had to keep bankrupt S&Ls open because it lacked the money to pay off depositors.
AP881020-0199 	X	The University of North Dakota is under pressure from Jewish leaders to educate students about the Holocaust with some of the $5 million it was promised by a casino owner who collects Nazi memorabilia. Ralph Engelstad, owner of the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and a 1954 graduate of UND, pledged the money to support the school's hockey program. Engelstad has been under fire since it was revealed earlier this month that he had amassed a large collection of Nazi war equipment and twice held theme parties celebrating Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's birthday. Engelstad has apologized for the parties and offered to give his collection to the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Morton Ryweck, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, said Wednesday that Engelstad's collection and parties had ``trivialized the Holocaust.'' Engelstad's apology would mean more if he would rededicate part of his $5 million endowment to education on the evils of Nazism and the Holocaust, Ryweck said in a letter to UND President Thomas Clifford. ``In the future, there would be fewer people ignorant about it, and fewer people who are apt to trivialize it, as was done in Las Vegas with these parties,'' Ryweck said. Mara Sapon-Shevin, a member of the Grand Forks Jewily's hands. Kraft died in 1953.
AP900811-0148 	X	Two very American responses to a potential oil shortage have emerged from the Iraqi threat. One is to have ``somebody do something'' about it, and the other is to do something about it oneself. In the first instance, elected officials are urged to take action against alleged price exploiters through the courts or legislative bodies, the notion being that sellers should be forced to serve consumers. The process hasn't worked well in the past. If there are no profits to be made, oil shippers, wholesalers, refiners, distributors and sellers won't remain in business. The flow will slow and the pump lines will grow. In the other instance, people examine their own situation and decide what action they can take. They recognize that while high prices or a shortage will hurt them, they can lessen the damage by conserving. Conservation worked in the past, in the 1970s, and the American economy and all those who contribute to it are better off. It raised the quality of homes and automobiles, not to mention the effect on the quality of the air we breathe. It worked well for a decade. More efficient and cleaner combustion engines were developed, doubling the miles per gallon of automobiles. More effective insulation materials were developed, making homes snug with less fuel used. The development of solar power, cleanest of all, was accelerated. Idle water power was put to use. Heat from machinery and electricity was reused rather than vented. Progress was made in the safe use of nuclear power, and while environmental fears thwarted full usage and eventually stalled the program, the advances that were made might be relied on again some day. Lives as well as gasoline were saved when the national speed limit was reduced to 55 miles an hour. In spite of higher prices, some people even reduced their bills by agreeing to car pool their way to work each day. Americans all but abandoned much of the conservation effort during the 1980s. Young, innovative solar power companies went out of business. Utilities abandoned nuclear power plans. The speed limit and thermostats went up. But the effort has shown that individuals could find value in what appeared to be a total negative, and some of those options are still available. Many people can drive less, and more slowly and efficiently. Some can join car pools. Most can turn down thermostats and be healthier for it. They can avoid paying prices that are out of line with those of other sellers. In a business sense, alternative energy sources still represent a private-sector investment opportunity. For the government, the latest crisis could provide an opportunity for measures reducing U.S. dependency on imports. Experience shows that any economic crisis an have important and lasting benefits for individuals, companies and governments. Recessions create conditions for expansions, for example, and fuel shortages lead to fuel-saving. It suggests that initiative in the face of crisis might be more effective than complaining to elected officials, some of whom might be more interested than the oil refiners and retailers in exploiting the situation.
AP900102-0030 	X	Britain last year basked in its warmest`weather since records were first kept 330 years`ago, the Meteorological Office said today. The mean temperature in central England rose to 51.2 degrees in 1989, breaking the previous record of 50.9 degrees set in 1949. Meteorological Office spokesman Barry Parker said last year was the sunniest since 1909 and the driest`since 1976. ``While the maximum temperatures were not as high as 1976, the summer many of us remember with glee, the weather was consistent all the way through the year,'' Parker said, adding that April was the only month considered very cold. The government's records, compiled since 1659, show the winter of 1989 was the 20th century's warmest, the spring ranked 10th warmest`and the summer and fall were the seventh warmest this centuryn The mean temperature indexl which takes a sampling of weather stations`in central England, is considered the most reliable national weather guide. Earlier this year, the London Weather`Center announced that 1989 was the sunniest this century. The center said the capitol sizzled in 839.5 hours`of sunshine in May, June and July.
AP901210-0122 	X	A former high-ranking state senator was sentenced Monday to 12 years in federal prison for corruption uncovered in an FBI sting in which he sold influence for campaign contributions. Paul Carpenter stood silently when U.S. District Judge Edward Garcia sentenced him, declining an offer to speak. Carpenter, a silver-haired 62-year-old Democrat from suburban Los Angeles, was convicted in September of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy. The charges followed an undercover operation at the state capital. In the sting, an FBI agent posing as a businessman paid Carpenter $20,000 in campaign contributions to get a bill through the Legislature. At Carpenter's trial, other instances were cited of his shaking down lobbyists for campaign money. Carpenter, who must surrender to authorities by Jan. 7, was also ordered to repay $20,000 he received from an FBI undercover agent in the sting operation. ``It's a case of proven acceptance of bribery money and extortion of money in the form of political contributions,'' said the judge, who called the evidence against Carpenter ``overwhelming.'' The judge also observed that the former lawmaker felt no remorse. He said Carpenter's punishment was intended to deter others. Carpenter will be eligible for parole in four years. Carpenter's attorney, Gerard Hinckley, said he would appeal the sentence. A former Senate Democratic Caucus chairman, Carpenter was for several years one of that body's top fundraisers. After 12 years in the Senate, he was elected in 1986 to the Board of Equalization. His sentencing removes Carpenter from the powerful state tax board. Carpenter was the second elected state official snagged in the five-year FBI probe. Joseph Montoya was still a state senator when he was convicted in February of racketeering, extortion and money laundering. He is serving a 6{-year prison sentence. The investigation is continuing. So far four other people have pleaded guilty to charges that flowed from it - two former legislative aides and two former county law enforcers. Another two former legislative aides are awaiting trial. Most of the charges against Carpenter related to his dealings with John Brennan, an FBI agent who posed as Alabama businessman Jack Gordon. The agent paid Carpenter $20,000 in campaign contributions as a payoff for Carpenter's help in getting a bill through the Senate to finance a fictitious shrimp business. Carpenter said he told an aide he wouldn't take the money unless he was assured that he wouldn't have to do anything in return. However, the next day, in a tape-recorded conversation with Brennan, Carpenter promised to serve as the bill's problem-solver and to ``stroke'' the state treasurer to remove opposition to the measure. The bill was approved by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian, who was tipped off to the FBI investigation.
AP880818-0299 	X	Stock prices ended slightly higher Thursday after a dull day of trading on the London Stock Exchange, as the market failed to take direction from an eagerly awaited string of British economic reports. Instead, trading activity focused on selected issues, especially those involved in takeover situations, dealers said. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was up 3.0 points, or 0.2 percent, at 1,833.9, its best level for the day. The index moved in a narrow range throughout the day, losing at most 4.2 points shortly after the start of dealings. But shares rose late in the day on the back of early gains on Wall Street..
AP880915-0128 	X	The Reagan administration's top health official said Thursday he will not take a position on a proposed White House ban on using intentionally aborted fetal tissue for medical treatment until a National Institutes of Health advisory committee has completed its review of the issue. Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen told reporters that _ while he remains personally opposed to abortion _ ``there are some good pros and some good cons'' about using aborted fetal tissue for experimental treatment for Parkinson's and other diseases. He said ``a task force of the best minds going'' was studing the issue at a three-day NIH meeting and that he had no intention of taking a position until the review is completed, probably not for several weeks. Bowen said he could not predict whether the issue will be resolved during the last few months of the Reagan administration even though a White House official, Gary Bauer, is pushing for quick implementation of an outright ban. ``Inasmuch as abortions are legal, being unable to utilize the tissue ... would result in the waste of a resource that is livesaving and curing for several diseases,'' Bowen told reporters at a breakfast meeting. He spoke at about the same time the NIH panel he referred to was opening a second day of hearings to focus on moral and ethical issues. Bowen said it was his judgment that ``we can't in a good common sense way come up with an answer until we hear'' from the advisory panel. ``If I had Parkinson's I think I would want some of those (transplanted) cells,'' said Bowen, emphasizing that such a personal observation does not eliminate the broader ethical questions. He made clear he did not feel rushed to recommend an administration position even though a Bauer memo disclosed in news accounts last week instructed Bowen to make his comments by last Friday. ``We have not responded,'' Bowen said. ``I do not know whether it was a direct order from the president and I don't know that I will know unless someone tells me.'' Procedurally, the special NIH committee will make its recommendations to a standing NIH advisory committee Dec. 1 and that panel in turn will make a recommendation to NIH Director James B. Wyngaarden. The NIH director reports to Bowen through Dr. Robert E. Windom who ordered a temporary ban on federally financed fetal tissue research pending consideration of moral and ethical issues. Father Don McCarthy, a Roman Catholic church leader from Cincinnati, told the NIH committee the issue draws a clear distinction between induced abortions and natural abortions. ``One might say that the American public becomes accomplices after the fact for these induced abortions'' if its institutions embrace policies that could tend to assign a medical value to having an abortion, he said. Several witnesses and committee members used the term ``custom pregnancy'' as short hand for the concern that a woman might become pregnant just to produce a fetus for abortion and subsequent research use _ either for financial reward or in hopes of helping a sick relative. ``I don't think people are as callous about abortion as that premise suggests,'' said Thomas H. Murray, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. ``If we get to that point, I'm deeply worried.'' Murray said he was convinced that guidelines could be drawn to insure that a woman's decision to have an abortion would be kept totally separate from the decision to allow the remains to be used for research. Robert J. Levine of the Yale University School of Medicine told the committee his institution has drawn its own guidelines that would exclude transplanting the tissue of an fetus into a relative of the mother. He said that was done out of safety considerations _ that whatever caused the disease in the relative might somehow be present in the offspring's genes _ but coincidentally also serves to negate concern about ``custom pregnancies.'' Ezra C. Davidson Jr., head of the obstetrics and gynecology department at King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he was distressed that some committee members seemed to underestimate ``the intensity of the drive for (many) women to have abortions to resolve a very complex set of problems'' without any encouragement from researchers or others. ``I just wish I had the capacity to translate the reality of that to the people in this room,'' he said.
AP880229-0243 	X	Wherever it exists, rent control is an issue that splits public opinion, penetrating deep beneath individuals' mere political instincts into their philosophical marrow. It is viewed as the most effective protection the poor have against greedy landlords. It is seen by others as a violation of private property rights by governments that should, constitutionally, be protecting them. The issue attracts as much emotion as reason. In every city where it exists, it is defended as needed to protect the poor _ and simultaenously damned as the cause of inferior housing, and too little housing, for the poor. Never dormant, the issue has been heated to a boil again by a Feb. 24 Supreme Court ruling that seems to reaffirm a municipality's right to consider a tenant's finances before allowing or disallowing a rent increase. In the specific case, Pennel v. City of San Jose, Calif., the court upheld the constitutionality of an ordinance in which a city official would deem whether or not a tenant could afford an increase of more than 8 percent. Under the ordinance, if the city hearing officer so ruled, the allowable rent increase could be rolled back to 5 percent, plus an amount needed for improvements, maintenance and rehabilitation. Landlords boiled over, since most have for years contended that their industry has been singled out for exceptional treatment, that treatment being an unconstitutional taking of private property _ that is, theirs. But, as usual, even the institution of the Surpeme Court couldn't deal with the issue without splitting sharply. Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion, but Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing critique. Said Rehnquist: ``We have long recognized that a legitimate and rational goal of price or rate regulation is the protection of consumer welfare.'' But in Scalia's view, such regulation permits unfair transfers of wealth. Moreover, said Scalia, these wealth transfers have added dimensions that make them cause for additional concern. They are, for instance, relatively invisible, he said. They have ``relative immunity from normal democratic processes.'' And as a consequence, they allow government to subsidize a social group ``off budget.'' The National Association of Realtors filed a brief that added a practical dimension. Rent control, it said, it inherently irrational, since it exacerbates rather than relieves a shortage of affordable housing. The NAR can support its contentions with independent studies; it is no secret to anyone familiar with rent control that it scares apartment builders away and can cause landlords to abandon properties. Those who defend rent control contend that theirs is the best way since, as they see it, those members of society who need protection are granted it, while landlord interests are secured by regular and fair, albeit limited, increases. But William North, NAR executive vice president, states that the court has ``created the ultimate oxymoron: compulsory charity.'' Rental hardship cases, he argues, are a responsibility of the community, not just of landlords.
AP901212-0023 	X	Meals are being shipped by the millions, but rivets are scarce. New uniforms and desert boots are in production - and in demand. Four months after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf, sustaining the still-growing deployment is proving to be an extremely complex, and costly, endeavor. More than $1.2 billion has been spent on food, clothing and medical supplies alone, never mind the millions more on weapons, parts and other materiel needed for the desert deployment. The operation is providing at least a temporary boom to many suppliers who were expecting less military business this year. Instead of closing plants or cutting shifts, several food and clothing suppliers are adding workers or offering overtime to meet Pentagon pleas for quick delivery. A sampling of the orders: -113 million meals, including 74.4 million Meals Ready-to-Eat, the basic field ration, 10.8 new entrees, including pot roast and beef sukiyaki, and 14 million new ``lunch bucket'' entrees to add chili and macaroni and cheese to the menu. -4.8 million pounds of sugar, 3.2 million pounds of flour and 1.4 million pounds of coffee, contracts worth a combined $5.6 million. -547,000 sundry packs, at a cost of $194 million, to supply the troops with razors, shaving cream, toothpaste and the like. -1.5 million tubes of lip balm, costing $278,000. -796,008 pairs of desert and hot weather boots, a $31.6 million deal. -379,375 cans of foot powder; 165,000 pairs of sunglasses; 371,000 wool sweaters; and 3.3 million desert camouflage uniforms, just one of several big-ticket clothing buys. -More than 600,000 armor-piercing rounds for the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicles, a contract worth $14.3 million to GenCorp's Aerojet Ordnance Division. And buying is just half the task - the Pentagon has to get the goods 7,000 miles to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast points as it masses a 60-day or better supply cushion. The scope of the supply effort is giving pause to some military planners, who worry the inevitability of sustainment problems will be used to advance arguments for early use of force if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ignores a Jan. 15 deadline to end his occupation of Kuwait. The operation is also expensive, and getting more costly by the week as stocks now filling Desert Shield requisitions run low, forcing the Pentagon to issue new contracts. So far, there have been only isolated shortages, officials say. Roughly 90 percent of parts orders are being filled from existing stocks, according to Defense Department figures. Scarce items rush-ordered from suppliers include rivets, electrical cable and strapping used to hold down pallets on military transport planes. Most orders are shipped by sea, but if a unit in the Mideast needs something in a hurry, it can turn to ``Desert Express'' - an emergency next-day delivery service the Air Force is running to Saudi Arabia from two U.S. bases. To date, ``Desert Express'' cargo has mostly been parts in short supply for tanks and planes, particularly Vietnam-era F4-G ``Wild Weasel'' anti-radar jets. The overall air leg of the supply line, operated by the Military Airlift Command, has made nearly 7,000 missions to the Mideast since August, carrying more than 200,000 passengers and 480 million pounds of cargo. The Navy's Sealift Command has delivered 28 billion pounds of dry cargo and nearly 6 billion pounds of fuel. As it orders more food, the Pentagon is trying to spice up the menu as a morale booster. That initiative meant a $44.6 million contract to George A. Hormel and Co. for sukiyaki, pot roast, spaghetti, lasagna and other dinners, and a $20.8 million deal for Dial Corp. for beef stew, chili, macaroni and cheese and other lunches. Other big beneficiaries are the Pentagon's clothing suppliers, who are rushing production of uniforms, the new line of desert boots and chemical protective clothing. Overall, more than 83,000 requisitions for $411 million in clothing have been processed for Operation Desert Shield.
AP881013-0213 	X	Researchers who studied ancient Chinese chronicles of solar eclipses found that a day is now seven hundredths of a second longer than it was nearly 4,000 years ago because the Earth is spinning more slowly. The length of a day ``just keeps getting longer and longer,'' said Kevin Pang, who conducted the study as an astronomer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Just as a spinning ice skater slows down by extending her arms, Earth's rotation on its axis slows as tidal interactions make the moon orbit Earth more quickly and become more distant from it, he said Wednesday. ``Four billion years ago, the moon was only one-third as far away as it is now, and the day was only eight hours long at the time,'' said Pang, whose study will be published soon in the British journal Vistas in Astronomy. Pang and his co-authors determined that, compared to today, the length of a day was 2.2 hundredths of a second shorter in A.D. 532, 4.2 hundredths of a second shorter in 899 B.C., and seven hundredths of a second shorter in 1876 B.C. Other studies have shown Earth's rotation varies slightly over time because the oceans and atmosphere produce drag on the planet's topography, and because molten rock within the Earth sloshes against solid rock to produce a similar drag. Knowing how Earth's rotation rate changes ``helps you understand things like the interaction between the ocean, solid Earth and atmosphere, and tells you something about the interior of the Earth,'' Pang said. While ancient Chinese annals report thousands of eclipses, the researchers limited themselves to those that occurred at sunrise or sunset, allowing them to compute the time of the eclipses. Knowing the times, along with the fact the eclipses were visible from China, the scientists were able to calculate how much Earth's rotation has slowed since the dates the eclipses occurred. For example, had the day always been 24 hours long, the 899 B.C. eclipse would have been seen in the Middle East instead of China, Pang explained. Pang's calculations of the rate at which Earth's rotation is slowing are consistent with previous studies, but extend further back in time. The oldest Arabian and Babylonian records of solar eclipses date to about 700 B.C. Pang's findings on the 899 B.C. eclipse first were reported in early 1987. In that study, he and his colleagues studied ancient Chinese chronicles, called the Bamboo Annals, which mentioned a time when ``the day dawned twice.'' By performing a computer simulation of the history of the Earth's rotation around the sun, they determined the phrase meant that the moon eclipsed the sun just after dawn on April 21, 899 B.C. That let them figure out the Earth's rotation rate at the time. In the new NASA-funded study, they were able to compute the time of the 532 and the 1876 B.C. eclipses. Some people incorrectly assume Earth's gravity pulls the moon closer to Earth, but that is not the case, Pang said.
AP900330-0013 	X	Heavyweight champion James ``Buster'' Douglas recalled his family's struggle with poverty as he urged congressional support for a program to help the poor pay heating bills. The 232-pound boxer was the first witness Thursday before a Labor and Human Resources subcommittee. Wearing a starched white shirt and a black suit with a white hankerchief in the lapel, he read a two-page statement and answered questions from panelists. Douglas did not mention the Bush administration's proposed 25 percent cut for the 1991 fiscal year in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which served 5.9 million households last year. Instead, he gave the Subcommittee on Children, Families, Drugs and Alcoholism a personal account of poverty in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and ended with a plea to ``do everything you can.'' ``I was 15 and we had a pretty terrible winter that year and we were behind on our gas bill,'' he said. A local aid program helped get the family through. ``I think that that had a great deal to do with me becoming heavyweight champion of the world,'' he said. ``In hard times, we had support.''
AP880703-0008 	X	A policeman who was supposed to be dead turned up alive and was arrested along with his wife and son after they tried to collect $5,400 in benefits, the United News of India said Sunday. The news agency reported that Constable Ganesh Singh, from the town of Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh state, went on leave two weeks before his retirement June 1. A few days later, his son told authorities Singh had died of a heart attack. A sum of 70,000 rupees, about $5,400, was granted to the constable's family because the man died in service. But before his family was able to cash in, a police officer spotted Singh strolling around the Balaghat railway station. The constable confessed he, his wife and son had plotted his ``death'' because benefits for a policeman dying in service were higher than normal retirement pensions.
AP880520-0028 	X	George Bush is looking to a powerful ally on Pennsylvania Avenue for help in seeing that his most valuable campaign asset, the current 65-month economic recovery, will last at least until Election Day. The ally is not President Reagan but a political supporter who occupies the building next door, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III. And some economists contend Baker may be giving the vice president more than just advice. Treasury officials won't comment on the speculation, but some economists point to recent activity in international markets as evidence that Baker has been leaning hard on major U.S. trading partners to help elect Bush and other Republicans. These actions include recent intervention in currency markets by other central banks and heavy foreign purchases of U.S. Treasury securities, particularly by Japanese investors _ measures that can help stabilize the shaky dollar, minimize inflation and help keep the economy on an even keel. A leading proponent of such a view is David Hale, chief economist of Kemper Financial Services in Chicago. He cites the spending of huge sums by Japan and other countries to stabilize the dollar, at prices higher than investors are willing to pay, as a form of ``political insurance'' for Bush. Foreign allies ``don't want to see a big discontinuity in U.S. economic policies. It's not so much that they're against Dukakis and for Bush. They just want stability in the United States in an election year,'' Hale said in an interview. ``Two years ago, Washington wanted a lower dollar. Now Washington wants a strong dollar, at least until the election. Because Baker is fearful that a dollar decline could lead to another stock market crash,'' Hale said. Although a weak dollar can help ease the trade deficit by making U.S. goods more competitive, it can also reignite inflation and drive foreign investors away from Treasury securities and other dollar-based investments, threatening the financing of the government's huge budget deficit. Foreign-exchange reserves held by the world's central banks last year grew to $790 billion from $559 billion, and Hale estimates that two-thirds of this increase comes from efforts by central banks to support the dollar. The Bank of Japan reportedly has earmarked another $60 billion to spend this year to help prop up the dollar against the yen, after expanding its foreign-exchange holdings by $40 billion in 1987. At the same time, foreign investors have become the single largest buyer of Treasury securities. This helps underwrite the U.S. budget deficit, since selling Treasury bonds and bills is the government's primary way of financing its red ink spending. Analysts estimate that Japanese investors alone bought as much as half of last week's sale of $8.5 billion in new 30-year Treasury bonds. Analysts have speculated that the government of Japan persuaded them to do so, perhaps as a favor to Baker. If Japanese and other foreign investors were to withdraw their stake in Treasury securities, interest rates would be forced up sharply, possibly triggering a recession. An economic downturn at this point could spell disaster for Bush's presidential efforts. And while most economists don't see a recession likely in the months ahead, many forecasters are expressing new fears about an escalation in both inflation and interest rates. Bush has been wielding the recovery _ a peacetime record _ as a major campaign weapon. While he scoffed at Reagan's policies as ``voodoo economics'' in 1980, he now regularly extols them on campaign stops as the ``American miracle.'' The similarity in phrasing to the ``Massachusetts miracle'' trumpeted by Democratic front-runner Michael Dukakis is no coincidence. Bush strategists claim the vice president will launch a major assault on Dukakis' claim after the party conventions this summer, seeking to demonstrate that the job-creation claimed by Dukakis as governor is merely an outgrowth of Reagan-Bush economic policies. However, for the strategy to work, the economy must continue to perform vigorously in the months to come. Last week's report that the U.S. trade deficit shrank by $4 billion between February and March provided some needed market-driven stimulus to the ailing dollar. However stock and bond markets slumped as investors worried that rising U.S. exports without an accompanying reduction in imports could fan inflation. Baker is an early Bush supporter and is expected at some point to assume a key role in managing Bush's general election campaign. Baker said Thursday, ``For now I'm staying at the Treasury Department.'' Bush lieutenants have suggested that, at least for the time being, Baker may be more useful to Bush there. ``It may be more prudent to seek his advice as a Cabinet member'' rather than bringing him into the campaign, said Bush's staff chief Craig Fuller. Treasury officials refused to comment on allegations that Baker was using his influence to try to persuade Japanese, West German and other governments to take steps that would promote an economic environment conducive to a Bush victory. But one official, who demanded anonymity, said that trying to keep the United States out of a recession does not exactly run contrary to Baker's role as Treasury secretary _ regardless of which candidate it might help.
AP900926-0123 	X	Kevin Locke said Wednesday that he's trying to preserve an ancient Sioux tradition - the courting flute. The 36-year-old musician, storyteller and Plains hoop dancer, is one of 13 folk artists receiving $5,000 awards this year from the National Endowment for the Arts for their success in preserving the nation's heritage. The artists - including a mariachi band, a Michigan accordionist, a cowboy poet from Montana and a Hawaiian lei maker - gathered for a congressional reception at a Senate office building. They were selected from 197 people nominated for the national grant by their peers. The NEA has been making the awards since 1982. ``America's deep and varied traditional heritage is one of this nation's greatest treasures,'' said NEA Chairman John Frohnmayer. Locke carried the flute, a long wooden recorder fashioned from cedar with the mouthpiece made into the head of a bird, wrapped in cloth in a long leather tube slung across his shoulder. Locke was raised on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota by an elderly uncle who spoke only Lakota and learned the traditional courting songs from elders. By the 1960s, the tradition of the Plains and Woodlands Indian courting flute had been all but lost as the last musicians with the skill died off without passing it to a new generation. ``It is an important role,'' said Locke, who's working on a doctoral degree in education at the University of South Dakota. ``I see that they are a bridge between our ancestors and the people of today.'' The other artists honored were: Howard Armstrong, an Afro-American string band musician in Detroit; Natividad Cano, a mariachi musician from Monterey Park, Calif.; Giuseppe and Raffaela DeFranco, southern Italian musicians and dancers from Belleville, N.J.; Bun Em, a Cambodian silk weaver from Harrisburg, Pa.; Maude Kegg, an Indian beadworker from Onamia, Minn.; Marie McDonald, the lei maker from Waimea, Hawaii; cowboy poet Wallace McRae from Forsyth, Mont.; Art Moilanen, a Finnish accordionist from Mass City, Mich.; woodcarver Emilio Rosado from Utuado, Puerto Rico; Robert Spicer, a Dickson, Tenn., square dancer; and Doug Wallin, a Marshall, N.C., ballad singer.
AP900914-0077 	X	Relatives or guardians of brain-damaged people can order the removal of feeding tubes that keep them alive, the Florida Supreme Court said in a ruling hailed by ``right-to-die'' advocates. ``It reaffirms the rights of Floridians under our (state) constitution to make their own decisions about what will be done with their bodies,'' said Charlene Carres, a Tallahassee attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Roman Catholics, anti-abortion groups and other opponents did not immediately respond, saying they needed more time to review the ruling. The decision focused on an elderly woman who died last summer. Estelle Browning spent the last 2{ years of her life hooked up to feeding tubes that she had specified in a ``living will'' she didn't want. Mrs. Browning suffered permanent brain damage in a stroke and was left in a persistent vegetative state, unable to swallow or communicate. She was not comatose. Doris Herbert, Mrs. Browning's second cousin and only living relative, was named her guardian. Herbert sought permission to remove the tubes in 1988. The state fought the request and a trial court denied it, but a state appeals court said the Florida Constitution allowed for removal of the tubes and the issue was reviewed by the Supreme Court. ``We hold that, because Mrs. Browning was unable to exercise her constitutional right of privacy by reason of her medical condition, her guardian was authorized to exercise it for her,'' Justice Rosemary Barkett wrote. When people take ``the time and trouble'' to write ``living wills,'' express their wishes orally or appoint health-care surrogates, there's no need to go before a judge to get permission to carry out their wishes, the court ruled. Patricia Dore, a law professor at Florida State University who drafted the privacy clause added to the state constitution in 1980, said it was significant that the justices ruled there was no legal distinction between food and water supplied through tubes and other medical treatments, like respirators. Although it has no direct impact outside Florida, attorneys and advocates said other state courts could be influenced by the case. ``I think many, many state courts look to Florida for guidance on issues that affect the elderly,'' said George Felos, an attorney who represented Herbert. Florida's high court heard oral arguments in the case in January. Six months later, the U.S. Supreme Court said a Missouri couple could not order the removal of food and water keeping their 32-year-old comatose daughter alive. The daughter, Nancy Cruzan, had not left a living will. Her parents said they were certain she would prefer to die rather than live in a coma. In its split decision, the nation's high court said competent people have a right to refuse medical treatment.
AP880418-0265 	X	Five OPEC oil ministers will meet their counterparts from independent oil-producing countries April 26 in efforts to stabilize sagging oil prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reported. An employee of OPEC's information secretariat said Monday both the meeting with non-OPEC countries and a subsequent extraordinary meeting of oil ministers from all 13 OPEC countries will take place at the group's headquarters. The second meeting will take place on April 28. Each session was originally planned for three days earlier. No reason was given Monday for the change. After five OPEC oil ministers met here on April 9, OPEC President Rilwanu Lukman, who is also Nigeria's oil minister, announced the upcoming talks to consider halting an oil price slide. Lukman and the oil ministers of Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Venezuela and Indonesia have invited at least seven non-OPEC oil producing nations to meet them on April 26. Big producers such as the Soviet Union, Britain and Norway are unlikely to be represented. According to the Nicosia, Cyprus,-based Middle East Economic Survey, an influential weekly specializing in oil, the seven nations were Mexico, Oman, Egypt, China, Colombia, Malaysia and Angola.
AP900205-0205 	X	``I'm a documentary producer,'' says Jeff Harmon. ``What I do is document history.'' During the war in Afghanistan, he did it the hard way _ with one program about the rebels, then another about the Soviet troops. On Sunday, Ted Turner's TBS Superstation, which aired Harmon's first show in 1986 and the other in December, is repeating the second, ``Afghanistan: The Soviet Experience.'' Vietnam vets in particular might find some of its scenes eerily familiar. There's no triple canopy jungle, to be sure. But there are the contour-flying helicopters, the door gunners watching the ground, the dusty hill outposts resupplied by chopper and the convoy-guarding armored personnel carrier rolling along, its young driver listening to Western rock on his boombox. Another deja vu moment, in a Kabul hospital: The wounded Soviet grunt who, according to the show's English translation, complains that in this war, ``you can't understand who are the civilians and who are the enemies.'' The two programs _ the first is ``Afghanistan's Holy War'' _ were filmed three years apart and shown on TBS' National Geographic Explorer series. Harmon, 36, was born in Los Angeles. Based in London, but ``living out of my suitcase now,'' he says he's ``basically self-educated,'' with a year logged at New York University's film school. He did his first Afghanistan war documentary out of plain curiosity: ``The image of these 19th century tribesmen battling a superpower intrigued the hell out of me. And I got sucked into the image and went.'' Bankrolled by the BBC, Harmon and cameraman Alexander Lindsay emulated other correspondents trying to cover the rebels after Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan in 1979. The two slipped across the border from Pakistan in 1985. His aim, he says, was to show the war from the grunt-level perspective of the Soviet-fighting rebels, the mujahideen, ``the muj'' (pronounced ``mooj''), as some Westerners call them. ``I don't go in with a correspondent or make myself a correspondent,'' he says. ``I tell the story of the people I'm covering. I do it through their eyes. ... I don't whitewash anything. I don't take a partisan view.'' Indeed, he says, some rebel political leaders got upset at his documentary about the rebel troops, including what the troops thought of their leaders and ``their real way of life,'' including that some smoked hashish. The leaders considered all that bad for the rebel image, says Harmon. His opinion of them isn't kind: ``They were like World War I generals. To them, their men ... out on the front lines, were cannon fodder.'' Harmon wanted to film the Soviet GIs' side of the war, but didn't have high hopes. Having been with the rebels trying to kill them, he thought, would not exactly make him welcome, not even in the new era of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost easing access for Western journalists. To his surprise, he says, the Soviets granted him a visa when he sought to cover, for Britain's Independent Television News, the start of the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. His theory is that Soviet officials had seen his earlier documentary and at least thought it honest. Visa in hand, he hurriedly called National Geographic officials in the United States, got the green light for a full-length documentary and, with cameraman Lindsay, went to work. He says he told Soviet officials in Kabul this: ``I'm not going to make a propaganda film for you. But I'm not going to do a hatchet job on you, either. All I want to do is show the war through the eyes of the ordinary Ivan.'' Word of the unusual travels fast in any army. Most Soviet grunts and helicopter pilots he met already knew he'd covered the rebel side of the war, Harmon says. But he found little, if any, animosity toward him, he says: ``They were fascinated by the fact we'd covered the war on the other side. The soldiers, they were so curious, so `What was the enemy like?' I think they looked at me as a chance to see what it was like on the other side.'' __ Elsewhere in television ... SAJAK'S NEW LOOK _ THE SEQUEL: If you've been watching CBS' ``The Pat Sajak Show'' this week, you might have noticed yet more changes in the struggling late-night series, cut last month from 90 minutes to an hour. The show's couch is gone, replaced by two black leather chairs: one for Sajak, one for the guest. Other changes include new graphics and a roundtable discussion by guests near the close of the show. No word yet, though, on whether an ejection seat is planned for dull guests.
AP901128-0072 	X	A federal judge today lifted his ban against Cable News Network's broadcast of Manuel Noriega's prison phone calls to his legal team. The ban on CNN's use of the tape had sparked a fierce constitutional debate, pitting the right of free speech against the right to a fair trial. ``The tapes may be published as CNN wishes to publish them,'' said U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler during a morning hearing. Noriega's attorney Frank Rubino said he no longer had any objection to CNN's use of the tapes. The only tape he challenged was a conversation between Noriega and his defense team which had already been broadcast by CNN. ``It does no good to close the barn door after the horse is out,'' Rubino said today. The judge also ordered the federal Bureau of Prisons to stop its practice of sharing tape-recorded conversations in the Noriega case with other government agencies. Hoeveler last month temporarily barred CNN from using parts of taped conversations between Noriega and his attorneys, who said airing the tapes would destroy the ousted Panamanian dictator's defense against drug charges. CNN broadcast some tapes, including a conversation between Noriega and Rubino's secretary, who acted as a translator for Rubino's investigator. An appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to lift the order, and CNN last week turned over the tapes it had obtained to Hoeveler for review. In Atlanta, CNN spokesman Steve Haworth said it was doubtful that CNN would broadcast any of the tapes today. Rubino, after the hearing, said he still intended to ask for contempt penalties against CNN for airing the tapes despite Hoeveler's order. Steven Korn, attorney for CNN parent Turner Broadcasting System Inc., said the network contended from the beginning that prior restraint was wrong. ``It's fizzled. No prior restraint is ever appropriate,'' Korn said outside the courtroom. He also said he considered the contempt issue moot. Korn emphasized the judge's order to the Bureau of Prisons, saying that was the correct approach to dealing with the taping of Noriega's phone calls. Noreiga, who is awaiting trial on charges of taking $4.6 million in payoffs to protect cocaine trade through Panama, is being held in a federal prison near Miami. Federal prison authorities monitor and tape record all inmates' telephone conversations except those between inmates and their lawyers. The government has maintained that Noriega knew the calls were being taped and that the calls were not protected by the attorney-client privelege. Information from the Noriega tapes already is in the hands of at least one additional party, the government of Panama, according to an affidavit filed Tuesday by that nation's attorney in the United States, Gregory Craig. The affidavit sought to persuade another judge hearing Panama's $6.5 billion racketeering lawsuit against the deposed dictator to freeze all Noriega's assets. Craig refused to disclose how he obtained information about the taped conversations, but the affidavit appeared to include information not broadcast by CNN. Noriega's attorneys have alleged that the U.S. government made the tapes and supplied them to Panama, which in turn leaked them to CNN, but Craig refused to comment. The affidavit said tapes of Noriega's calls show that ``while in custody, he has been using the telephone for the purpose of moving assets wrongfully obtained by him that are the property of the republic of Panama.'' Noriega spoke on the tapes to his daughter Sandra Noriega, his mistress Vicki Amado, his mistress's mother and seven others, including former pro-Noriega presidential candidate Carlos Duque, the documents said. Noriega ``directed and continues to direct the movement of assets'' from Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, Australia and Brazil; the funds were moved to banks in Europe as well as through Costa Rica to Panama, Craig said. Craig would not say how much money was involved in the taped conversations, but added, ``We've said from the beginning that we think there is $300 million to $500 million of assets out there.'' Noriega's attorney in the civil case, Stephen Zukoff, disputed the legality of Craig's affidavit during hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Edward Davis, who is presiding over the civil case. ``I don't know where he's getting his information from - he certainly should have identified it,'' Zukoff said. He said he could not discuss whether the information was accurate without examining it further. During the hearing, John Kester, another attorney for Panama, noted the tapes appeared to show Noriega was moving money from one account to another while telling Hoeveler he had no assets and could not pay his attorneys. ``He can't have it both ways,'' Kester said. Hoeveler has said he will appoint government-paid defense attorneys if the fee dispute is not settled soon.
AP880229-0108 	X	James G. Radakovich liked to dance with his wife at the local Serbian club and take care of his Cadillac and his yard, said those who knew him. No one knows what led to the shootings Saturday that claimed the life of Radakovich, his wife and their sons, both college students. Police say Radakovich shot them dead and then himself. ``You never know what goes on inside a family,'' said Richard Grilli, a neighbor. ``Something happened. He just cracked up,'' said Joseph Bergamasco, a police officer in this working-class Pittsburgh suburb. Mary Radakovich, 57, was found on the livingroom floor. One son, James L., 21, was in his bed, and Paul, 19, was on the floor of their bedroom. Radakovich, 54, a retired steelworker, died of a single gunshot wound in the head and was found beside his younger son, authorities said. He had two notes in a pocket of his pajamas, one a will, the other burial instructions. ``The note said he was sorry for what he is doing, but possibly they would all be better off wherever they were going. But it gave no reason,'' said Bergamasco. Investigators found no signs of struggle. ``Whether he was depressed, I don't know, but he didn't show it,'' said Samuel Budich, Mrs. Radakovich's brother. ``He was always a good husband to my sister,'' Budich said. ``Two weeks ago he was dancing the `colo' down at the Narodi Dom.'' The deaths were discovered after James' girlfriend alerted her father that all three family cars were parked at the home but no one was answering the door. Police found two .22-caliber pistols, a revolver and an automatic. Radakovich was laid off from the Homestead Works of USX Corp. two years ago, and had a good pension, relatives said. He caddied at the Oakmont Country Club for extra money. ``He took up golf when he was laid off,'' said Grilli. ``He'd have a beer now and then, but I never saw him drunk. He took care of his house and his lawn. He was nice, quiet.''
AP900912-0144 	X	A Roman Catholic bishops' organization said Wednesday it had asked the Bush administration to make sure the trade embargo against Iraq does not cover essential food and medicine for civilians. ``The moral justification for our intervention requires that we maintain the distinction between the Iraqi regime and ordinary and vulnerable Iraqi citizens,'' said a letter to Secretary of State James A. Baker III from the chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishops's Committe on International policy. ``We urge that in the implementation of the embargo and other sanctions against Iraq the utmost care and sensitivity be exercised so that innocent civilians are not deprived of those essentials for the maintenance of life, i.e., food and medicines,'' wrote the committee chairman, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles. A United Nations sanctions committee could not agree on what kind of food aid to allow into Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Most of the delegates want to allow shipments only to foreigners and children, while Cuba and Yemen called for a broader resolution allowing in food to all civilians. Bush has said the United States favors ``humanitarian'' food and medical shipments but has not spelled out what that should mean.
AP900621-0001 	X	The U.S. Navy sought Thursday to assure the public that the aircraft carrier Midway was safe after two explosions on board killed two crew members and seriously injured nine. ``The safety of the ship was never in jeopardy,'' Rear Adm. Lyle Bull, commander of the Battle Force 7th Fleet, told reporters escorted aboard the ship a day after the fire. Japan, the only country to experience nuclear attack, asked the U.S. military to improve its safety practices. Yokosuka officials had demanded assurances of the 45-year-old carrier's safety before its return. Demonstrators charged the ship was carrying nuclear weapons into its home port at Yokosuka despite a Japanese ban. The United States refuses to comment on the location of its nuclear weapons. About 50 protesters chanting ``Don't let the Midway land here'' and ``Nuclear Ship Get Out'' assembled outside the Navy base gate about an hour before the 67,000-ton ship moored at Yokosuka, 28 miles southwest of Tokyo. Eight of the demonstrators wore sashes identifying them as victims of the U.S. atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Navy officials allowed relatives of the crew onto the ship before reporters were taken aboard. ``Midway is safe and seaworthy in all respects,'' Bull said, stressing that there was no danger to the ship's weapons systems from the explosions. Bull said the first explosion occurred shortly after noon Wednesday when a fire-fighting crew investigating smoke opened the hatch to a 12-by-12-foot emergency equipment storeroom six decks below the flight deck. ``Death most probably was instantaneous'' for the two sailors killed in the blast, he said. In addition to the nine seriously injured, who were flown to hospitals ashore, seven other injured crewmen were treated on the ship. The second explosion came 45 minutes later, Bull said. Earlier, Navy officials said there was a fire in the room. Bull said there were explosions, burn injuries, smoke and intense heat, but not necessarily a fire. The room was near a pipe for the ship's catapult system containing pressurized steam at 850 degrees and ``water sprayed on the bulkhead turned to steam, that's how hot it was,'' he said. One unidentified crew member interviewed on Japanese television said a fuel pipe near the steam line cracked and leaked fuel, which then ignited. Navy officials said they could not comment until an investigation is complete. Capt. Arthur K. Cebrowski said about 1,000 sailors worked through the night to secure the area and flood it with water and foam and provide support. The bodies were found early Thursday, he said. In Washington, the Pentagon identified the two dead sailors as Ulric Patrick Johnson of Martinez, Calif., and Jeffrey Allan Vierra of Nevada City, Calif. The Midway carries a crew of 4,500 and 62 aircraft. The 1,000-foot carrier was commissioned in 1945 and is the Navy's oldest in active service, although it has been extensively modernized. The explosions occurred as the ship participated in a joint exercise 125 miles northeast of Yokosuka with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. Navy officials said the exercise would continue without the Midway. In Japan many people have misgivings about the presence of 50,000 U.S. troops and U.S. armaments here. The Midway fire was the second serious Navy accident since a series of incidents last fall killed 14 people.
AP900324-0083 	X	The chairman of a House panel studying the health of the nation's $1.7 trillion pension system praised a Labor Department proposal designed to crack down on fraud and abuse in the system. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who is chairman of the House Government Operations employment and housing subcommittee, called Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole's plan ``prompt and inclusive.'' In the past, members of Congress have criticized the way the Labor Department policed the nation's pension system and suggested that fraud and abuse could rival the savings and loan crisis. The Labor Department's proposal, outlined last week in a letter to Lantos' panel, increases fines for fraudulent transactions and makes it easier for employees to bring lawsuits against pension fund trustees who mismanage assets. It also provides rewards for people who inform the government of fund violations. Some of the changes stemmed from recommendations from acting Labor Department Inspector General Raymond Maria, who has been feuding with the agency over the way it investigates pension fraud. ``They went twice as far as we thought they would,'' Lisa Phillips, an aide to Lantos' subcommittee, said Friday. Phillips predicted some lawmakers would try to go farther by adding provisions to provide greater protection of pension payments when companies terminate plans to capture their surplus assets. Labor Department spokeswoman Johanna Schneider said the agency would have to review further changes before taking a position. Under the department's plan, employees who win suits against trustees who mismanaged pension plans would have their legal fees paid by the trustees personally rather than through pension assets. In addition, the plan lets Mrs. Dole pay a ``bounty'' to informers of as much as 10 percent of any fines collected by the government for pension violations. Penalties for illegal transactions would increase to 10 percent of the amount of the transaction. Fines are now 5 percent of the transaction. The agency's plan also implements new audit procedures that require accountants to do a full audit of pension plans on their own rather than relying on the statements of state examiners. Mrs. Dole already has asked Congress to add 100 enforcement officers to the department's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration. The Labor proposal does not include Maria's recommendation that the inspector general's office be allowed to pursue criminal investigations of pension and welfare fund violations. Maria wanted Congress to in effect overturn a Justice Department ruling that prohibited inspectors general from conducting criminal investigations. Phillips said the House subcommittee was not likely to go against the Labor Department on the issue because lawmakers considered it a ``turf war'' between the Justice Department and inspectors general. Maria had known he was not going to be named to the post permanently; President Bush last week nominated Julian De La Rosa, executive secretary of the St. Louis police board, as his replacement.
AP880528-0080 	X	Fire raced through a refugee camp on the outskirts of Dhaka on Saturday and injured at least 80 people and left 17,000 homeless, police and fire officials said. A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the blaze wiped out most of the shanties in the camp at Mirpour, north of the city. The fire was believed caused by an electrical short-circuit. The camp housed Biharis awaiting resettlement in Pakistan. The Biharis, who are Moslems, originated in India but settled in the territory once known as East Pakistan. The territory became Bangladesh in 1971, after a war with Pakistan. Thousands of Biharis have been resettled in Pakistan, but nearly 250,000 remain in Bangladesh awaiting transfer. The resettlement program has been suspended for lack of funds. Nasim Khan, a leader of the Biharis, complained that there are often fires at the refugee camps because of poor construction. ``Our repeated requests to the concerned authorities to do something about it have produced no results,'' Khan said. He estimated it would cost $3 million to rebuild the camp and replace the families' lost goods. There was no word on the conditions of those injured.
AP880526-0030 	X	Here are some highlights of the catastrophic health insurance legislation approved Wednesday by a House-Senate conference committee: HOSPITAL _ Expands full coverage from maximum of 59 days a year to 364 days. A ``first-day'' deductible will continue to be required. DOCTOR BILLS _ Full payment of ``reasonable and proper'' doctor bills after an annual deductible is met. The deductible, yet to be precisely determined, will be from $1,320 and $1,400. Medicare continues to pay 80 percent of charges, with the 20 percent not now covered counting toward the annual deductible for the catastrophic benefit. DRUGS _ Medicare pays 50 percent of outpatient drug costs, after a $600 annual deductible, starting in 1991. Medicare pays 60 percent the following year and 80 percent in 1993 and thereafter, with the deductible to be indexed to rising drug costs. Medicare now has no across-the-board prescription drug coverage. COSTS _ To be paid solely by Medicare beneficaries. Current Part B premium of $24.80 to increase by about $4 a month in 1989. By 1993, the ``catastrophic'' monthly premium is projected at $10.20, in addition to whatever the regular Part B premium is at that time. More than 60 percent of total program costs are to be financed by an additional ``supplemental'' premium that is linked to federal income tax liability. The supplemental is estimated at $22 a year per $150 of tax liability in 1989, rising to $42 a year per $150 of tax liability in 1993.
AP900403-0158 	X	The state Legislature passed a largely symbolic measure Tuesday aimed at ensuring women will be able to continue getting legal abortions until the fetus is able to live outside the womb. Gov. Judd Gregg said he would veto the bill. After a brief debate, the House voted 200-135 for the bill, passed by the House earlier and amended by the Senate. The margin was shy of the two-thirds that would be needed to override Gregg's promised veto. The key vote in the Senate last week, 14-10, also was short of a two-thirds margin. The bill may not reach Gregg until next week, but he repeated Tuesday that he'll veto it. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, abortion is legal and widely available in New Hampshire despite three 19th-century anti-abortion statutes that have not been enforced. The National Abortion Rights Action League considers the bill pro-choice advocates' best chance for abortion rights legislation in the country this year. But Peg Dobbie, the group's New Hampshire spokeswoman, said it would be a ``long shot'' for the Legislature to override a veto. Though not giving up hope, she said pro-choice advocates are now focusing on the November election. ``We plan to go out and elect more pro-choice legislators so we can be veto-proof,'' she said. The original House bill called for no restrictions on abortion until the 25th week of pregnancy. The Senate changed that to allow unrestricted abortion until the woman's doctor determined that the fetus could live outside the womb on its own. Both versions would allow abortions after fetal viability to protect the life or health of the mother or if the fetus has a life-threatening physical or congenital abnormality. Gregg believes the bill would foster ``doctor-shopping'' because doctors will differ on what constitutes viability, spokesman Brian Grip said. Gregg reiterated his stand that abortion should be limited to instances where the mother's life is in danger, there is a serious problem with the fetus or the pregnancy stemmed from rape or incest. State Rep. Thomas Gage, head of the Judiciary Committee, supported the amended bill, saying it set a ``medical standard in place of a political one ... rather than a hard line drawn in statute by black letter.'' But state Rep. Shawn Jasper said the medical community disagrees about when a fetus can survive outside a mother's womb and urged defeat of the bill. Elsewhere Tuesday: _In the Nebraska Legislature, anti-abortion lawmakers succeeded in keeping alive a proposal that would require a 24-hour waiting period before a woman has an abortion. They moved it to the second stage of floor consideration without allowing opportunity for amendment. _A Louisiana state senator introduced an anti-abortion bill that provides exceptions for saving the mother's life during birth, but allows no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. ``Just as being raped and becoming pregnant is a traumatic experience, so is aborting a child,'' said state Sen. Mike Cross. _In Minnesota, a second Senate committee rejected a measure that would prohibit most abortions in the state. The 1990 legislative session tentatively is scheduled to adjourn next week. _Voters in Ann Arbor, Mich., declared their university town a ``zone of reproductive freedom.'' Voters also approved on Monday a token $5 fine on abortion, should state or federal laws ever ban the procedure.
AP881103-0273 	X	The Treasury Department plans to borrow $30 billion next week to replenish the government's coffers, although the auctions will not include any 30-year bonds. Every three months, the government holds three debt sales to finance the $2.6 trillion national debt. It normally sells three-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds. However, Treasury officials said Wednesday that the 30-year bond will not be part of next week's auction because President Reagan has not yet signed a tax bill with a provision needed to give the government authority to issue any more such bonds. William Bremner, deputy assistant treasury secretary for finance, said the tax bill, which cleared Congress right before adjournment, has not yet reached Reagan's desk. He said if the president does get the measure in the next few weeks, the Treasury will auction a new batch of 30-year bonds totaling $9 billion later this month or in early December. If the Treasury does not get the authority, Bremner said the government will offer a second short-term debt instrument known as a cash-management bill. The auctions for next week call for: _$9.5 billion in three-year notes in minimum denominations of $5,000 to be auctioned Wednesday. _$9.5 billion in 10-year notes in minimum denominations of $5,000 to be auctioned Thursday. _$11 billion in a 37-day cash management bill to be auctioned Thursday in minimum amounts of $1 million. These bills are purchased by security houses.
AP881201-0129 	X	Pope John Paul II on Thursday met with a U.S. archbishop who had been punished by the Vatican for permitting homosexual gatherings and for other liberal practices objectionable to the Holy See. Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen came to Rome to fulfill the requirement that bishops consult with the pope every five years and report on their dioceses. The Vatican's official bulletin listed the meeting without comment. Hunthausen could be not be reached for comment about his meeting with the pope. In 1985, the Vatican removed Hunthausen's authority in several major areas, after accusing him of being loose in granting marriage annulments and general absolution for sins as well as of allowing homosexuals to gather in church facilities. His authority was restored in 1987 and a coadjutor archbishop, Thomas Murphy, was named. While the disciplinary action was in force, an auxiliary bishop, Donald Wuerl, was assigned to wield the authority in those areas. While under discipline, Hunthausen denounced the split-authority arrangement as unworkable and humiliating. U.S. bishops, often at odds with the Vatican on such issues as sexuality, expressed dismay over the case. After Hunthausen's authority was restored, a three-member commission was appointed to work out remaining problems in the archdiocese.
AP901102-0065 	X	Here are the unemployment rates for 11 major states released Friday by the Labor Department: -California, 6.0 percent, up from 5.9 percent in September. -Florida, 6.2 percent, up from 6.0 percent. -Illinois, 5.9 percent, down from 7.2 percent. -Massachusetts, 6.3 percent, up from 6.2 percent. -Michigan, 7.4 percent, up from 7.2 percent. -New Jersey, 5.5 percent, up from 5.2 percent. -New York, 5.6 percent, up from 5.5 percent. -North Carolina, 4.6 percent, up from 3.7 percent. -Ohio, 5.9 percent, up from 5.2 percent. -Pennsylvania, 6.1 percent, up from 5.5 percent. -Texas, 5.7 percent, down from 6.3 percent.
AP880721-0232 	X	Secretary of State George Shultz said Thursday he was confident after talks with Philippines President Corazon Aquino that American military bases will remain in that country. ``The bases are very important to the Philippines and to the United States,'' Shultz said after a speech here on his way home from a 2{-week trip through Asia and the Pacific. The United States and the Philippines are reviewing the treaty for U.S. naval and air bases in the Philippines, which expires in 1991. The Aquino government has asked the United States to pay more than $180 million a year to renew the treaty. ``I believe it will come to a successful outcome, but we're still in the process so I can't say for sure,'' Shultz said of the negotiations. ``We're getting somewhere,'' he said. ``I'm still bullish on the Philippines.'' Mrs. Aquino said last week she expects American and Filipino negotiators to complete their talks by the end of this month. The 41-year-old lease applies to Clark Air Base, Subic Naval Base and four smaller U.S. outposts. Both sides refused to reveal details of the negotiations. Shultz said the Philippines economy has improved in the two years since Mrs. Aquino took office, and that the U.S. bases and economic aid helped spur the growth. The country's growth rate after adjustment for inflation is about 7 percent this year, up from 5.5 percent last year, he said. Shultz made his comments after a speech at the East-West Center here, a research institute created by Congress and devoted to issues facing Asia and the Pacific. It was his first public appearance since returning to the United States early Wednesday from a trip to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Japan and the Marshall Islands. He is to return to Washington Friday. While Shultz hailed improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, saying they could have a ``ripple effect'' on other adversarial nations, he said Moscow was sending confusing signals in Asia and the Pacific. ``We have to wait and see,'' he said. ``I don't see why right now is the time for the Soviet Union to supply North Korea with new surface-to-air missiles. ... What's the message?'' Both the United States and the Soviet Union have pledged to help minimize conflicts between North and South Korea during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea in September. About 75 people waving banners that said ``Stop U.S. Intervention in Central America'' protested Shultz's appearance, yelling ``U.S.-C.I.A. out of Central America,'' as police escorted his entourage after the talk. Shultz did not mention Central America in his speech or his answers to screened questions from the invited audience of 630 people.
AP881105-0029 	X	Here is a list of recommendations for computer users for virus prevention and control. It was drafted by the National LAN Laboratory in Reston, Va., and approved this week by more than 60 companies: 1. All software should be purchased from known, reputable sources. 2. All purchased software should be in its original shrink wrap or sealed diskette containers when received. 3. Back-up copies of all original software should be made as soon as the software package is opened. Back-up copies should be stored off-site. 4. All software should be reviewed carefully, by a system manager, before it is installed on a computer network. 6. New software should be quarantined on an isolated computer. This testing will greatly reduce the risk of system virus contamination. 7. A back-up copy of all system software and data should be made at least once a month, with the back-up copy stored for at least one year before re-use. This will allow restoration of a system that has been contaminated by a ``time-released'' virus. A plan that includes ``grandfathered'' rotation of back-up copies will reduce risk even further. 8. System administrators should restrict access to system programs and data on a ``need-to-use'' basis. This isolates problems, protects critical applications, and aids problem diagnosis. 9. All programs on a system should be checked regularly for program length changes. Any program-length deviations could be evidence of tampering, or virus infiltration. 10. Many shared or free programs are invaluable. However, these are the prime entry point for viruses. Skeptical review of such programs is prudent. Also, extended quarantine is essential before these programs are introduced to a computer system. 11. Any software that exhibits symptoms of possible virus contamination should be removed immediately. System managers should develop plans for quick removal of all copies of a suspect program, and immediate backup of all related data. These plans should be made known to all users, and tested and reviewed periodically.
AP900629-0206 	X	Pilot error in hazy conditions was ruled the probable cause of the plane crash last summer that killed U.S. Rep. Larkin Smith and his pilot, according to a federal report released Thursday. The National Transportation Safety Board report indicated that pilot Chuck Vierling, who was not rated to fly on instruments, probably lost control after encountering conditions that required them. Vierling, 58, of Gulfport had expressed concern about the haziness before leaving, the report said. Vierling had flown Smith, R-Miss., to Hattiesburg on Aug. 13. On the return flight to Gulfport, the Cessna 152 crashed into woods near New Augusta in southeastern Mississippi. The airplane was about 10 miles off course when it sheared off the top of a pine tree and crashed. Smith, 45, had represented the 5th Congressional District since January 1989.
AP880715-0242 	X	Oil prices rebounded from steep losses earlier in the week, but traders attributed the change to short-term influences and to Saudi Arabia's denial that it was boosting production. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the near-month contract for West Texas Intermediate crude rose 32 cents per barrel from its 21-month low to close Thursday at $14.76. Among refined products traded on the exchange, wholesale unleaded gasoline rose .06 cent a gallon to 50.54 cents, and No. 2 heating oil rose .77 cent a gallon to 40.91 cents. Douglas R. Peterson, a broker at E.D.&F. Man International Futures Inc. in New York, called it a short-covering rally, meaning the rise was caused by speculators who purchased oil to cover borrowed contracts that they had sold earlier. Short-covering is an internal market influence that causes brief price rises. Others attributed the advance to official Saudi denials of expanded production by the world's largest oil exporter. There have been repeated reports that Saudi Arabia and its key Arab allies in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are sharply raising output in reaction to widespread quota cheating by other OPEC members. These reports have played a major role in the oil market's recent decline. Other rumors circulating in the market suggested the Saudis were selling more oil to pay for their multibillion-dollar weapons deal with Britain. The Saudi Press Agency said the country was the victim of an ``artificial information campaign ... by oil brokers and their agents in the market.'' ``The kingdom strongly denies the truth of such charges and wishes to reaffirm its full commitment to its assigned level of production by OPEC,'' the statement read.
AP900827-0124 	X	A nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of a disastrous 1986 explosion, was shut down Monday because of a malfunction, Izvestia reported. The government newspaper, in a report attributed to Nikolai Shteinberg, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Nuclear Power Station Safety, said the staff of Reactor No. 3 shut down the unit ``in keeping with operational rules.'' ``Established safety standards were not violated,'' the newspaper said. It gave no further details on the malfunction. It was Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 that caught fire and exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive cesium, strontium and plutonium over a wide area of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia. Official reports say 31 people were killed in the partial meltdown, but unofficial reports say 250 died. Four years after the accident, more than 2 million people are still living on contaminated lands in the region.
AP900309-0016 	X	The investigation into the theft of a coat and hat was only a day old when the prime suspect, wearing his booty, waltzed into police headquarters and the arms of the law. Randolph Ferland, 53, stopped Wednesday at the police station in this west-central Connecticut town to use the bathroom, but was arrested after an alert police captain realized Ferland and his outfit matched witnesses' descriptions. The crime drama began Tuesday night when someone sneaked into the Lutheran Church of Cheshire, and stole a winter coat and knit hat from a closet. A few church members got a glimpse of the man, and described him to police. Police Capt. Gary Walberg said he was reading a report on the theft Wednesday when he happened to peer out of his office and saw the man described in the report _ jacket, hat and all. ``He matched the description to a T,'' Walberg said. The only thing missing was the victim to identify the coat Ferland was wearing as the one that had been taken. As that thought crossed Walberg's mind, the victim walked into the police station to see if the coat had been found. It had. After spending most of the day in jail, Ferland pleaded guilty in Meriden Superior Court to sixth-degree larceny by possession. A judge released him for time already served.
AP880326-0104 	X	An American photographer stood trial Saturday on drug smuggling charges and testified that his only crime was being stupid enough to let a cocaine ring dupe him into doing its dirty work. The trial of 23-year-old Conan Owen, whose case has drawn the attention of Attorney General Edwin Meese III, began and ended Saturday. The three-judge panel that took testimony for 2{ hours wasn't expected to issue a verdict for about a week. The free-lance photographer from Annandale, Va., is charged with smuggling 4.13 pounds of cocaine into Spain in a suitcase on March 13, 1987. James Kibble, a special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, testified that Owen was tricked by a drug trafficking ring into carrying the cocaine. Owen, he said, is ``innocent _ or stupid _ but innocent.'' The prosecution is asking for 10 years in prison on contraband charges and on charges Owen violated public health laws that prohibit the transport or sale of dangerous drugs. The defense contends Owen thought the suitcase only contained travel brochures, photographs and film. Owen, a 1986 graduate of Syracuse University and a former summer intern in Vice President George Bush's office, has spent the past year in Barcelona's 85-year-old Model Prison without possibility of bail. He told the court Saturday that he carried a suitcase to Barcelona from Santiago, Chile, for George Barahona, an Equadorean-born naturalized American who was living near Washington, D.C. Owen said Barahona represented himself as one of the owners of the Sorosa Travel Agency near Washington, D.C. and offered him $1,000 to take travel brochure pictures in Spain. Owen said Barahona gave him a suitcase to take with him, which he believed to contain the brochures and film. The suitcase contained $200,000 in cocaine. Owen told the court he had always obeyed the law and acknowledged he had been ``stupid _ but that is not a crime.'' Judge Jose Presencia Rubio, who heads a three-member panel hearing the case, refused to admit as evidence testimony about a polygraph test Owen took. Owen's lawyer, Ana Campa, said the test, administered by a DEA agent, indicates Owen was telling the truth when he said he knew nothing about the drug. Federal agents allege Barahona is part of a drug ring that moves cocaine from South America to Spain. On Feb. 5, Barahona pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to smuggle drugs in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. He received a two-year suspended sentence after providing information that led to the indictment of three Spaniards and three Bolivians in a conspiracy to smuggle illegal drugs. They remain at large. When Meese came to Spain to sign an annex to a 1970 extradition treaty Feb. 9, he handed over copies of Barahona's testimony to Spanish judicial authorities. Prosecutor Teresa Calvo called only two witnesses _ the paramilitary Civil Guard on duty at El Prat Airport who discovered the cocaine and the chemist who analyzed the drug as being 84 percent pure cocaine. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Williams of Alexandria, Va., testified for the defense that statements obtained from Barahona following the plea-bargain arrangement indicated Owen had unwittingly taken the cocaine-laden suitcase to Spain. ``He (Barahona) specifically told us that Conan Owen had no knowledge that there was cocaine in the suitcase he carried into Barcelona airport March 13,'' Williams said. Kibble, also testifying for the defense, said he became interested in the Owen case because Owen was from the Washington, D.C. area and the DEA was investigating a cocaine-smuggling ring that operated out of northern Virginia. ``I have found that there is a group of people involved in sending drugs from South America to Spain using unsuspecting people as carriers,'' Kibble testified. ``The DEA was interested in the details Conan Owen had to tell for the conspiracy case we were working on,'' he said. Owen wore a gray suit and stood with his hands clasped behind his back when addressing the court. He spoke in Spanish with occasional assistance from a court-appointed interpreter. His parents Ernest and Raquel Owen of Annandale, Va., sat directly behind him. His 25-year-old brother Evan was also present. According to the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, as of last month there were 25 U.S. citizens in jail in Spain. Six are serving prison terms following conviction on drug-related charges, and another eight, not including Owen, are awaiting trial. There are no jury trials in Spain, and courts generally take about a week to issue verdicts.
AP900322-0142 	X	A federal judge approved a settlement Thursday that keeps the state from restricting abortions to women less than 18 weeks pregnant. U.S. District Judge John Nordberg agreed to the settlement between Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan and the American Civil Liberties Union. ``The court finds the proposed consent decree lawful, fair, reasonable and adequate,'' the judge wrote in the 13-page opinion. Anti-abortion groups opposed the settlement, calling it ``unconscionable and unconstitutional.'' Ragsdale vs. Turnock was settled Nov. 24, just days before the U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the case. It was one of several that anti-abortion groups had hoped would be used as a test case for the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion. The settlement permits the state to regulate abortion clinics without removing the availability of abortions to women who are less than 18 weeks pregnant. Under the agreement, access to abortions cannot be restricted by substantially increasing the cost of the procedure or reducing the number of clinics. The lawsuit was brought by Rockford physician Richard Ragsdale, who objected to regulations requiring abortion clinics to be equipped and staffed like small hospitals. He said the regulation was a veiled attempt to restrict access to abortions. One of the requirements deleted from the settlement mandated that patients receive counseling about birth control and adoption and that counselors be people who wouldn't profit from abortions. The settlement also eliminated a requirement that all abortion clinics go through a public hearing process and obtain a ``certificate of need'' from the state verifying that they do not duplicate similar services in their areas.
AP901217-0203 	X	Both practicality and sentiment had a part in Annie Chervin's wedding dress choice. The Westchester County, N.Y., bride had her French vanilla silk gown made to order. It was a copy of a $3,000 dress that she tried on in an upscale department store but cost her less than half - $1,220. It had the same peau de soie bodice, off-the-shoulder neckline appliqued with satin rosettes and graceful skirt of four layers of tulle. ``Part of me wanted to buy the expensive dress,'' recalls Annie. Her future mother-in-law, Shiela Edwards, burst into tears when she saw Annie model it in the store. But the dress cost far more than Annie had planned on spending. So she sketched it from memory and had a dressmaker re-create it. In choosing this design, she followed a style that has long been popular among brides. The bridal dress with layered skirt of tulle or organza attached to a fitted plain or beaded bodice is an enduring style, says Rachel Leonard, fashion editor of Bride's Magazine. The bodice may have less ornamentation than it did in versions of earlier years. Another perennial is the sculptured cut, in which the shape and outline of the dress is its most important characteristic. There may be a peplum, or the dress may have an enormous ballgown skirt and a portrait neckline. Over the past few years, brides have been exercising more individuality in dressing as the number of available styles has increased. Leonard discerns two strong directions: Some brides dress daringly, while others choose the demure, covered-up styles of tradition. Well-known couture designers like Arnold Scaasi and Carolina Herrera have injected a sophisticated stylishness to many wedding dress designs. In the vanguard are very short dresses. These may have a detachable overskirt or train in longer lengths. Bare shoulders and low necklines, which once would have been unthinkable, now are often found in wedding dresses. Traditional lace has been re-emerging as a favored bridal dress material. And if the bride doesn't have an ancestor who obligingly left her an heirloom gown, she can shop for one in an antiques store. At least three stores in New York City carry old bridal dresses, and there are similar stores in other parts of the country, according to Leonard. The dresses usually have been cleaned and reconditioned and can be altered to fit. Ann Lawrence Antiques in New York, for example, stocks more than 500 antique dresses and new dresses constructed of antique materials. Lawrence says she sells dresses priced from $500 to $15,000 to brides all over the country. To find antique bridal dresses, she advises contacting the curator of a museum costume collection or a local antiques dealers' association, who would be likely to know costume specialists who handle these dresses. It's often hard to tell how much a dress might have cost. Bride's Magazine says the average price paid for a bridal dress is $794. Prices can range from about $250 to $20,000. ``The best buys in terms of sophisticated styles, fine fabrics and hand detailing are found in dresses that cost between $1,200 to $1,600,'' says Leonard. Dresses under $700 are more likely to be informal in style and of synthetic rather than real silk. However, the bride won't have to sacrifice beading, which is being done inexpensively in the Far East. The choice and stylishness of bridesmaid's dresses has come a long way, too, says Leonard. Sheer fabrics in prints look appropriate with the light and airy wedding dresses which are popular now. ``Short is a big trend in bridesmaid's dresses, both because of the influence of shorter skirts in fashion generally and because it is a young and fresh look which most bridal attendants look good in,'' says Leonard. And these dresses usually can be worn again. Popular color choices are pink, which is flattering to most people, and blue. The black and white and all-white wedding color schemes continue to be popular. Matched outfits are still the rule if there are several bridesmaids, but anything goes in terms of style and color, says Gerard Monaghan, director of the Association of Bridal Consultants in New Milford, Conn. But considerations of the bridesmaid's figure type and complexion are more important than ditating an unbecoming style simply to match a theme, he says. And more bridesmaid's dresses are being bought off the rack in retail shops rather than from bridal specialists. Dresses worn by mothers of the bridal pair usually are coordinated to the wedding style and complement but do not match each other. Men's attire is geared toward the degree of formality and time of day. Elegance and appropriateness are the two most important considerations, according to Leonard. Novelty bow ties and vests are a way to give the groom and his attendants a personal signature. There's a trend to coordinate the men's cummerbunds and ties with the bridesmaids' dresses. Often, the groom's attire is differentiated from his attendants' by an unusual tie and cummerbund. Novelty fabrics such as shadow stripe or textured suiting are being used. And the cropped jacket known as a Spencer continues to be popular among younger men.
AP880329-0257 	X	Sundstrand Corp., a major aerospace contractor, has agreed in principle to plead guilty to filing false statements with the government and pay $12.5 million for overcharging on military work, a newspaper reported. The proposed plea agreement covers allegations that the company's Seattle-based Sundstrand Data Control unit improperly included patent-litigation expenses in overhead costs on government military contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, quoting unidentified sources. Sundstrand said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expected to face unspecified criminal charges in both Washington state and Illinois in connection with federal grand jury investigations of its accounting methods for handling government contracts and tax matters. ``The government has advised that it intends to charge the company with criminal violations in both districts,'' Sundstrand's filing stated. The document also reported that the company, Rockford's largest employer, was working on a settlement in one, and possibly both, of the actions. Federal charges could lead to the suspension of new government contracts for Sundstrand, which had $579 million in military sales in 1987. But if the company settled the dispute by paying ``materially adverse fines and penalties,'' it might be suspended only temporarily from new government business, according to Sundstrand's filing.
AP900725-0012 	X	A move to impose energy taxes as a way of trimming the federal budget deficit would severely hurt farmers and small-town people, says the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Rural electric systems operate at cost and are owned by their customers, said Bob Bergland, executive vice president of the association. Any price increase caused by energy taxes would be paid by consumers. ``Rural consumers can't escape,'' Bergland said Tuesday. ``They are the equity owners of the electric systems which provide electricity to them.'' Bergland, who was secretary of agriculture in the Carter administration, joined natural gas and electric utility leaders to protest any move by the Bush administration to raise money by imposing new energy taxes. One type of tax that has been suggested would base the tax on the amount of carbon in the fuel. Coal, petroleum and natural gas would be taxed, but nuclear, hydroelectric and solar energy would not because they contain no carbon, an air pollutant. Still another plan would base the tax on the amount of energy, measured in British thermal units, or BTUs, that a fuel contains. The BTU tax would apply to all fuels. Bergland, whose member co-ops serve more than 25 million people, said the rural economy has ``taken severe shocks'' the last decade through droughts, floods, falling commodity prices, plummeting land price and a sharp decline in federal funding for rural areas. ``Energy taxes will unfairly penalize rural areas which already have higher electricity rates, either by driving up the price of fuel used to generate electricity or by taxing the selling price of electricity,'' he said. A joint statement protesting the use of energy taxes was signed by Bergland; George Lawrence, president of the American Gas Association; Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute; and Larry Hobart, executive director of the American Public Power Association. ``The burden of broad-based energy taxes will fall unevenly across consumers and income classes, among industries and across regions of the country,'' the statement said. ``This is unfair and inequitable taxation.'' BTU and carbon-content taxes were described as ``inherently regressive.'' Such taxes were said capable of raising at least $14 billion a year. ``Heating, lighting, cooking and water heating are not luxuries but essentials,'' the statement said. ``Lower-income families already pay three to four times more of their income for energy than the average American family.''
AP900227-0029 	X	A fine cast, which included a performer making his Metropolitan Opera debut, made ``Abduction from the Seraglio'' a musical and visual treat. James Levine conducted the Mozart comedy with dash on Monday night. Lars Magnusson, a principal lyric tenor with the Royal Opera in Stockholm, was making his U.S. opera debut as Pedrillo, servant of Belmonte, a Spanish nobleman. It's the role he sang for his 1987 debut at Covent Garden and will sing for his San Francisco Opera debut next season. He has an unusual light tenor voice. It doesn't get heavy but it does have character. It's as though it has been given a light layer of wood-grained baritone tonal quality, the way colored varnish might be brushed onto a light wood. It sounds right for David in ``Die Meistersinger,'' which was Magnusson's Paris Opera debut role. Stanford Olsen of Salt Lake City provided a good tenor contrast as Belmonte. Olsen sounded serious, his voice focused and seemingly ready to sing oratorio. Mariella Devia of Imperia, Italy, sang Konstanze, the young woman who has been captured by pirates and sold to the Pasha for his harem. Her maid, Blondchen, and Pedrillo are captives in the Pasha's residence _ seraglio _ with her. Miss Devia's singing was like a string of pearls, her tone sweet, each note carefully rounded and clear. Both she and Barbara Kilduff as Blonchen had coloratura passages and both sang them beautifully. Miss Kilduff's acting was more understated and less relentlessly pert than some who sing Blonchen. But Magnusson was more nimble than most who sing Pedrillo, so the balance of that pair of sweethearts was maintained. Bass Kurt Moll of Buir, Germany, was Osmin, the Pasha's overseer. He was the only one in the cast who sang his part when this production was introduced in 1979. Moll has a voice of depth and richness and he has added some effective bits of comedy to a portrayal that already was very funny. Nico Castel took the speaking part of the Pasha. He creates the happy ending after Osmin discovers the abduction attempt by wandering around and sticking his arm through the plotters' ladder.
AP900531-0263 	X	Five days after taking Alpo Petfoods Inc. off the market, an official of the parent company visited Alpo headquarters and ordered top management to move out. Ian A. Martin, who heads American operations for Grand Metropolitan PLC of Great Britain, Alpo's parent, broke the news Tuesday to Frank Krum, Alpo president and chief executive officer, and Willard H. Cressman, senior vice president of finance. Alpo's 1,500 employees were informed later that day that Krum, 56, was being replaced by Rob Hawthorne, 45, previously president and chief executive officer of Pillsbury Canada, also part of Grand Metropolitan. Industry analysts Wednesday attributed the move to the expensive promotional campaign to introduce Alpo's new cat food. Krum will serve as a special adviser to Martin on trade and industry relations. Cressman has elected not to stay with the company, a Grand Met spokeswoman said. Krum, Cressman and Hawthorne were unavailable for comment. The 54-year-old pet food company was put up for sale Feb. 8, when Grand Met Chairman Allen Sheppard decided it didn't fit into the conglomerate's plans to focus on its human foods business. Alpo spent $70 million in promotions and advertising for the introduction of its cat food this year, including the use of the cartoon character Garfield. Alpo, the sixth-largest pet-food maker in the United States, now holds 9 percent of the $1.3 billion canned cat food market and 5 percent of the $1.1 billion dry cat food market, analysts said. Alpo, which earned $45 million in 1989 on sales of about $400 million, expects cat food sales to top $100 million in 1990. Because of the rapid growth of its cat food sales, Alpo was pulled off the market May 24. Martin said Grand Met and potential buyers were ``not able to reach agreement as to the value of Alpo's recently launched cat food business.''
AP900731-0019 	X	A coroner who dropped a dead infant head-first onto the floor as part of his research into skull fractures is being sued by the child's parents for $2 million in a case that has divided doctors over such practices. Some coroners say such research has been carried out in morgues for years. Others say the permission of the next of kin should be required. In the trial, which began last month, District Judge Hugh Brunson must decide whether state law allows coroners to conduct experiments not needed to determine the cause of death and whether approval from relatives is needed. No state court has previously ruled on the issue. But state Assistant Attorney General Chuck Yeager said in an opinion last year that the law does not authorize such experiments without the permission of the next of kin. Dr. Charles Odom, a deputy coroner for Lafayette Parish in southern Louisiana, was fired by his boss, Coroner Robert P. Thompson, who found out about the experiment on 4-month-old Christina Arnaud and informed the parents. Dwayne and Ellen Arnaud are seeking damages for emotional suffering. The trial, which is being held in Lafayette, 95 miles west of New Orleans, is in recess but resumes in August. The baby died of sudden infant death syndrome in 1986, and an autopsy was performed by Odom the same day. Odom held the baby by the heels and dropped it onto a concrete floor. Findings from the experiment were later used in a manslaughter trial in Hawaii in which charges against a father accused of killing his child were dismissed. Odom, now an assistant medical examiner in Dallas, testified in the Hawaii trial that he believed the experiments on the infant and on another baby's corpse proved that children could die from skull fractures suffered during accidental falls from the arms of an adult. Testifying at the Lafayette trial, Odom said he regarded the experiment as proper and said such research is not uncommon. While the primary purpose of an autopsy is to determine the cause and manner of death, there is a secondary purpose _ ``to gain medical knowledge and use that medical knowledge in the service of the living,'' Odom said. Some doctors defended the practice. ``I think it's a good thing and a needed thing,'' said Dr. Terry Welke, Calcasieu Parish coroner. ``There's a lot of knowledge brought about by experimentation that is not allowed on the living. It's a good practice to allow it here.'' Odom and other medical examiners say that skin, bone, eyes, heart valves and kidneys are often removed from bodies and used elsewhere, with and without the knowledge of the family. Dr. Monroe Samuels, a medical examiner in Orleans Parish, said requests to experiment on corpses during autopsies are submitted regularly by medical schools and research centers in New Orleans. ``We would only do it if it did not deface or deform the body,'' he said. ``We do have requests for some surgical techniques, but those are only done with permission of the next of kin. We're not talking about ghoulish things like leaning on an arm to see how far it will go before it breaks or shooting a gun at it.'' Welke said that in his office, doctors have come in to practice techniques on cadavers before moving on to live patients. ``It's done basically because physicians are trying to enhance their knowledge,'' he said. ``If the practice is cut off, it would be a big problem.'' But Dr. Sylvan J. Manuel, St. Landry Parish coroner and president of the Louisiana Coroners Association, was one of a number of coroners who said they knew of no experimentation unrelated to the autopsy being done in Louisiana. ``I don't think any of us are doing it, or should do it,'' Manuel said. ``I don't think anything should be done without the permission of the family. If you're going to take something off the body _ a fingernail even _ you should have permission of the family.'' Jefferson Parish Coroner Robert Treuting testified that experiments such as the one conducted by Odom help doctors and researchers perfect operating techniques and find cures for illness. Treuting said orthopedists have practiced dissecting joints on cadavers awaiting autopsies, and researchers took some parts from a body to study hardening of the arteries. Pathologists have the right to do anything they want with the body, including keeping it, if there is a legitimate research reason, Treuting testified. But he said it would be callous for the survivors to be told of experiments because it would compound their anguish.
AP880323-0019 	X	The Agriculture Department wants to hire a new editor for its single-sheet publication, Ag AM, which provides up to two dozen or so news blurbs daily for agency brass. Pay: $33,218 a year to start, with a top of $60,683. So far there have been 41 applicants, including some USDA information specialists who see an opportunity to boost their career prospects. The Ag AM report is issued five days a week, Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays, of course. Mostly it consists of single paragraphs summarizing stories from newspapers, wire services and news magazines. Ed Curran, who retired in 1984 after 20 years working for the department's Office of Information, was privy to the inside workings of Ag AM since it began during the Carter Administration. Now publisher of his own private newsletter, Curran offers a look at the history of the publication and how it grew. Someone in USDA thought the White House practice of providing President Carter with daily news summaries would be good for then-Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland, Curran said in his latest issue. At first the daily summaries were sent only to the secretary and his office staff. But Bergland, who had read the news blurbs, ``began talking about things'' in the news that were not known to senior aides, including the deputy secretary and assistant secretaries. So the press run of Ag AM was increased, and the information office staffer who was responsible for its publication had to begin work earlier, by 6 a.m., for example, instead of the later regular starting time. ``By the time the Reagan administration came upon the scene, Ag AM was a staple at USDA,'' Curran said. Being on the offical list to get one was ``sort of like the government equivalent of a key to the executive washroom.'' The daily press run was increased to 100 copies, to take care of the demand from all the deputy assistant secretaries, administrators of agencies and staff economists. Meanwhile, the bureaucrats in the USDA's information office heard on the grapevine that Agriculture Secretary John R. Block ``was so smitten with Ag AM that he demanded copies to be telexed to him when he was on trips,'' Curran said. However, Block's successor, Richard E. Lyng, ``could care less'' about the news sheet, he added. ``One thing bureaucrats learn early in the game is that when something has the sweet smell of success about it, get behind it with all you've got,'' Curran said. ``So, why not devote more time to Ag AM? Make it a full-time job.'' Curran wryly observed that the information office, meanwhile, scuttled its long-standing weekly Farm Paper Letter, which was ``the department's main contact with the nation's farm magazine editors and farm editors of its daily newspapers.'' Curran named his twice-monthly newsletter the Farm Paper Letter, after the publication he wrote during his 20-year USDA career. Today, 100 copies of Ag AM are delivered to Lyng's office area, alone, Curran said. In all, the press run is 350 copies a day. ``This from an outfit that's vowed to save us money,'' he said. Dave Lane, director of the Office of Information, told The Associated Press it may take some time to select a new full-time Ag AM editor (the previous editor died earlier this year). Was there any consideration given to canceling Ag AM? No, Lane said. Why not? ``I guess because of the ... importance of that publication to inform our top officials,'' he said. ``It's one of the most widely distributed of all the things that we put out.'' Besides the copies distributed within USDA here, the daily news blurbs are now sent electronically to universities, state agriculture departments and other government offices. The report is also available to private users of USDA's electronic information system.
AP880614-0040 	X	Here is a list of convicted killers executed since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to restore the death penalty in 1976:
AP900305-0241 	X	The stock market retreated today, giving up some of last week's gains. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, up more than six points at midmorning, was off 14.19 at 2,646.17 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. The average climbed 96.17 points last week. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 4 to 3 in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 630 up, 845 down and 478 unchanged. Analysts said recent hopes persisted that the economy might avert a recession and start growing at a revived rate as the year passed. But traders also appeared edgy over the interest-rate outlook, especially if business activity should pick up. Rates rose in early trading in the credit markets today. American Express fell 1~ to 27{ in active trading and Shearson Lehman Hutton was down | at 11~. Over the weekend American Express announced plans to reacquire the publicly held shares of Shearson through an exchange of stock. Other losers among the blue chips included American Telephone & Telegraph, down { at 39~; General Motors, down \ at 45}; General Electric, down ] at 62, and Exxon, down \ at 46{. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped .93 to 184.04. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was up .19 at 356.31. Volume on the Big Board came to 115.97 million shares with an hour to go.
AP880428-0012 	X	Four Hollywood unions spent $6.8 million on treatment for 138 AIDS patients by early this year, but a representative of producers and studios says the problem is no worse than in other industries. Nicholas Counter III, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said Wednesday he was sure that the figures from union health insurance funds were ``understated'' because some AIDS insurance claims may be reported as related diseases rather than AIDS. Counter's remarks represent the first time anyone has attempted to compile statistics on the number of AIDS patients whose care is being paid by health insurance funds serving the entertainment industry's five major unions. But he dismissed fears that AIDS can be spread by casual contact, including on movie and television filming sets, and said he was convinced the deadly disease, which cripples the body's immune system, cannot be spread by so-called ``deep kissing'' by actors and actresses. ``I don't see that this problem is any worse or any less in our industry than in all industries,'' Counter said at a conference titled ``Managing AIDS at Work.'' He urged entertainment unions and companies to ``wage war on this disease on four fronts'' _ education, prevention, research and care. The insurer providing coverage for one of the industry's five funds _ the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) Health and Retirement Funds _ refused to provide statistics on the number of its 22,000 members who have AIDS or the cost of their care, said alliance government affairs specialist Dan Goldberg, who compiled the statistics for Counter. The 138 patients reported by mid-February and the $6,821,000 cost of caring for them represent statistics reported by insurance funds for the other four major Hollywood union health funds, Counter said. Scientists say acquired immune deficiency syndrome is spread by intimate sexual contact, the sharing of needles by intravenous drug abusers and when passed from mothers to their unborn children.
AP880625-0017 	X	They could have been cremation pits, cock-fighting rings, animal pens, Civil War foxholes or secret hiding places for moonshine equipment. Maybe they were prehistoric Indian burial sites, charcoal pits or foundations for native American abodes. Or maybe, some say, the stone circles dotting the western slope of Polish Mountain encircled apple trees in the early 1900s. For more than a decade, 150 to 200 circles of sandstone rock have puzzled area residents and archaelogists. Virtually hidden by brush and poison ivy, the gray-colored rocks of various shapes and sizes are neatly arranged in circles. No one knows their purpose, or who put them there. ``Everybody that goes up there has some kind of weird theory,'' said John Mash, manager of Green Ridge State Forest, where the circles are found. ``One guy even mentioned that they could have been sweat lodges _ like a Turkish bath. ``The Indians would have these rituals when they would go into manhood,'' he said. ``They would go in these buildings with hot rocks and put water on them _ something like a sauna.'' But 150 to 200 saunas on one hillside in western Maryland? Mash said rangers noticed the stone rings in the early 1970s. In 1975, Mash contacted State Archaeologist Tyler J. Bastian, who visited the site and put the circles on a list of archaeological areas in Maryland. But it was not until last year that some archaelogists and volunteers excavated one of the circles. ``They did the dig and found zip, except for the rattlesnakes,'' Mash said. Hoping to uncover clues, another group conducted a dig this spring. ``In a nutshell, we didn't discover anything. They still remain a mystery,'' said Charles McVeigh Jr., a member of the Western Maryland Archaeological Society. ``We dug out in the center of them. We didn't go down very far before we got to bedrock. We found no artifacts. We found nothing to indicate prehistoric use.'' No future digs are planned, and two local archaeologists who took an interest in the circles, Robert D. Wall and Connie Huddleston, both have moved from Maryland. Neither could be reached for comment recently. Meanwhile, the state forest has put the circles on its historic preservation list to ensure the five-acre tract remains untouched, Mash said. The site could be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places if additional information could be found to document the age of the rings, their use and significance. Mash has dismissed the moonshine theory because there is no nearby water source needed to make moonshine. He said he did not think they were cock-fighting rings because only one pit is needed to hold a fight. And the rings are too close together to have been foxholes during the Civil War, he said. ``The site has no strategic value,'' Mash said. ``(And) the guy in the middle foxhole is going to be shooting his own pals before he can get his bullet out to hit the bad guys.'' Until someone conjures up a more believable theory, Mash said he puts the most stock in the orchard theory _ that someone placed the stones around apple trees that once grew in the area. There were 1 million apple trees in Green Ridge by 1914, he said. ``It is possible that they hired immigrants who could not understand directions given in English and some of them were told to clear the rocks away to plant the apple trees,'' he suggested. ``They were new in America and wanted to do a nice, neat job, so they put these rocks in nice neat little circles and left a space in the middle for the tree. And they might have worked on these for a couple of days, or a week until somebody stopped them. That could be a theory ...''
AP901210-0245 	X	Lawrence Iason, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's New York Regional Office - the Wall Street watchdog agency's largest and busiest - is resigning to return to private law practice effective March 15. Iason, who took over the New York office Jan. 25, 1988, said today he told SEC Chairman Richard Breeden last week he planned to leave government service to return to his old law firm. ``The time has come. I'm ready to go back to private practice,'' Iason said in a telephone interview from his office in Manhattan. He will be a partner at the New York firm of Morvillo, Abramowitz and Grant. Otto Obermaier, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, is a former partner in the firm. As regional administrator of the New York office, Iason presided over several key investigations including the Business Week insider trading cases stemming from leaks of upcoming market sensitive stories and an administrative action against the brokerage firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. that led to a $5.6 million settlement for alleged misuse of customer accounts. Perhaps more significantly, Iason took over an office in disarray after one regional administrator left suddenly in 1987 and officials from SEC headquarters in Washington ran the office on an acting basis. One of them, William McLucas, now heads the SEC's Enforcement Division. ``I'm sorry to see him go. I think what he did with that office is remarkable,'' McLucas said of Iason. Iason, 45, is a 1967 Yale graduate who got his law degree in 1971 at New York University. He clerked for a federal judge, served in the Watergate special prosecutor's office and the U.S. attorney's office in New York before joining his former law firm for the first time in 1979. As head of the regional office he oversaw a staff of 250 that includes, secretaries, investigators and lawyers. A native of Hewlett, N.Y., Iason now lives with his wife and three children in Mamaroneck, N.Y.
AP900227-0126 	X	Police interviewed witnesses Tuesday to track down the man who shot to death Cornelius Gunter, lead vocalist for The Coasters. The '50s group's hits included ``Charlie Brown'' and ``Love Potion No.9.'' Gunter, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, was the second member of the '50s group to die in a shooting in the Las Vegas area. Witnesses told police that Gunter's car was parked at an intersection in a residential area of the adjoining city of North Las Vegas on Monday and a thin black man was standing on the driver's side, talking to Gunter. ``They apparently got into a loud argument,'' said North Las Vegas Police Lt. Gary Rainey. ``People heard a couple of shots. Then the car took off, went about a block, then hit a block wall.'' Gunter, who was scheduled to perform this weekend, was found slumped over the steering wheel, with two gunshot wounds in his chest. ``It appears he was shot through the windshield and he was dead on the scene. We don't have a motive at this time,'' said Rainey. The suspect was seen running from the intersection with a gun in his hand, Rainey said. Rainey said Gunter, a Las Vegas resident, had no police record other than some traffic citations in North Las Vegas. Gunter, a tenor, joined The Coasters in 1957, two years after the group was formed in Los Angeles. Their comic vocals resulted in a string of wise-cracking do-wop hits in the late 1950s. With a flurry of hits that included ``Yakety Yak'' in 1957 and ``Charlie Brown,'' ``Along Came Jones'' and ``Poison Ivy'' in 1959, The Coasters were the country's most popular black rock 'n' roll group at the end of the decade. Among their other hits were ``Framed,'' ``Idol with the Golden Head,'' and ``Shoppin' for Clothes.'' Their last chart appearance was in 1971 with ``Love Potion No. 9.'' With varying personnel, Gunter kept the group on the concert circuit in the 1980s, including the current ensemble known as Cornell Gunter and His Coasters. Various band members headed separate groups billed as The Coasters in recent years. Gunter and The Coasters were scheduled to perform at the Lady Luck Hotel this weekend, said Janice Mazuroski, a hotel spokeswoman. ``It's a sad situation. He was so well liked in the industry,'' she said. The other Coaster slain, Nathaniel ``Buster'' Wilson was shot in the head in April 1980. His dismembered body was dumped near Hoover Dam and in a canyon near Modesto, Calif. Patrick Cavanaugh was convicted in the slaying and is now on Nevada's death row. Prosecutors speculated that Wilson was shot because he was going to tell police about a fraud scheme in which Cavanaugh was allegedly involved.
AP900102-0089 	X	Keep an eye on the speedometer when driving through this village _ or be prepared to reach for your wallet and join thousands of people ticketed in 1989. National City, with just 70 residents, has 12 officers to patrol the one-mile stretch of Illinois Route 3 that bisects the village. Last year, National City police wrote more than 5,000 traffic tickets and earned more than $122,000 for the village coffers _ one-quarter of the overall budget. The 35 mph limit is posted on at least eight signs on each side of the road, Assistant Police Chief Jim Farrell said Tuesday. ``You can hardly call it a speed trap, because the speed limit is well posted,'' he said. The Illinois Department of Transportation estimates 8,700 cars daily pass through National City, which is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis and home to the National Stockyards Co. livestock complex and related businesses. ``It's sort of like a racetrack out there at times,'' Farrell said. ``We try to keep the traffic speed down and keep somebody from getting killed.'' Police began closely monitoring the highway five or six years ago after residents complained about the number of accidents, Farrell said. County records show National City police wrote 5,091 traffic tickets from Jan. 1 through Dec. 28, 1989. Most drivers were ticketed for speeding, although some were cited for multiple violations. Those citations accounted for nearly 8.5 percent of the 60,000 moving-violation traffic tickets issued last year in St. Clair County, which has a population of 265,000, said Barney Metz, county court clerk. State Police Capt. Bobby Henry, area commander, said he was surprised by the high number of tickets issued in National City. ``That's not a negative comment,'' he said. ``For a small department, they're obviously out there working to get that many citations.'' Route 3 has a 30 mph limit as it enters National City from East St. Louis. The speed limit then goes up to 35 mph, and stays there as the road leaves National City. Police Chief Edward Daubach said tickets aren't issued unless drivers exceed the limit by at least 10 mph. Village Clerk Kathryn Kuecker said National City's annual budget is about $400,000 to $450,000, with most of the revenue coming from property and sales taxes. St. Clair County is one of the state's most impoverished. ``We really don't know how much would come in in a given year'' from traffic tickets, Kuecker said Tuesday. However, the minimum penalty for a moving violation in Illinois is $50, of which local authorities keep $24; that would mean National City received more than $122,000 from the tickets issued last year. The village, with five full-time and seven part-time officers, is patrolled at all times by two officers in one car who use a radar detector. Officers have heard their share of excuses from speeders, Farrell said. ``We had one guy tell us he was in a hurry to go home and take his medicine,'' he said.
AP881103-0210 	X	PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ Radio stations on Thursday announced the contents of a draft decree proposed by Haiti's military rulers, which says a government-appointed Electoral College will run elections and write an electoral law. The draft decree said the Electoral Board, made up of nine government-appointed representatives, one from each of Haiti's provinces, will also control voter registration and arbitrate disputes between candidates, Radio Haiti Inter said. The decree bears the names of Haitian ruler Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril and all 12 Cabinet ministers, the station said. ``The draft project is quite simply anti-constitutional; a scheme to get around the constitution,'' said Dr. Louis Roy, co-author of the constitution massively approved by Haitians in a 1987 referendum. The 1987 constitution, considered the most liberal in Haiti's 184-year history, provides for an independent electoral council, appointed by institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church, human rights groups and journalists associations. ``It is not possible to restore the constitution by anti-constitutional means. In Avril's version of the electoral institution, the executive names the members, and deprives it thereby of its independence,'' Roy said. After he was appointed president by soldiers who ousted Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy on Sept. 17, Avril promised to respect the constitution, human rights, and return Haiti to democracy. Avril told opposition politicians that elections could not be held for at least another two years. The government delivered copies of the draft decree to several radio stations, political parties and professional groups in Port-au-Prince, asking for comments and suggestions, which may be incorporated into the decree before it is made into law by the military government, Radio Haiti Inter said. Namphy had suspended the constitution, saying it was inspired by foreign ideas. Soldiers said they ousted Namphy because they were sickened by unpunished acts of terrorism and state-sponsored violence. Namphy abolished the independent Electoral Council on Nov. 29 hours after thugs protected by soldiers shot and hacked to death at least 36 voters, in what would have been Haiti's first truly free election. An attempt by Namphy to override the independent council and rewrite the electoral law in June 1987 touched off a wave of anti-government protests and strikes, which left over 30 dead and dozens wounded. Namphy replaced dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who fled to France in February 1986.
AP900209-0204 	X	An official said on Friday that a Chinese smuggler paid a U.S. immigration agent up to $1 million to allow more than 200 Chinese emigrants into the United States by way of the Virgin Islands. At a detention hearing, Magistrate Jeffrey Resnick ordered jailed without bail inspector Juanito Creque of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; Leonard Y. Hu, the alleged smuggler, and five illegal immigrants. Creque and Hu are charged with conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens across a U.S. border. Hu is charged with bribery and Creque with accepting a payoff. U.S. Attorney Terry Halpern said in asking for their detention, ``They are international travelers with connections in many foreign points along the route used to bring Red Chinese from mainland China to St. Croix and St. Thomas.'' Customs agent Ramon Davila, who posed undercover as a co-conspirator during the investigation, said in an affidavit that the aliens traveled to the Virgin Islands by way of Hong Kong, London and the West Indies island of Antigua. Davila said Hu paid Creque $5,000 each _ or up to $1 million _ for more than 200 illegal Chinese immigrants Creque allowed to enter the Caribbean territory and continue on to the the mainland United States last year. Davila said Hu paid him $15,000 in bribes to allow five Chinese safe passage to the United States in November. He said in the affidavit that Hu and the five aliens were kept under surveillance and traced to a restaurant on Mott Street, in New York City's Chinatown district. Hu, Creque and six others were arrested this week at St. Thomas airport as the aliens were trying to travel to New York. The six others _ Antiguans Everton Coates and his wife Millentine, and Chinese Tong Xiang Yang, Zhou Tu Ni, Jufoi Wu and Dian Min Zheng _ were charged with conspiracy and entry without inspection. According to Davila's affidavit, Coates was the Antiguan contact and his wife coordinated the alien shipment and was in communication with Creque. Mrs. Coates was released on $35,000 property bond. All the other remained in jail. A trial date has not been set.
AP901205-0108 	X	A group of legislators today demanded imposition of a state of emergency and a freeze on all political parties and parliaments to help pull the Soviet Union out of its political and economic crisis. The group, which included the right-wing Soyuz group of parliamentarians as well as the reformist Liberal-Democratic Party, all but called for a military coup as a means of solving the nation's problems. The group's leaders announced the legislators were forming a National Salvation Committee and demanded transfer of power to it, the state news agency Tass and the independent news agency Interfax reported. The committee asked the army to help implement the plan, calling the military, ``the sole force still resisting the disintegration of the state,'' Interfax reported. Vladimir Zhirinovski, a leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party and spokesman for the committee, said in a telephone interview that the coalition represented 400 lawmakers in the 2,250-member Congress of Peoples' Deputies. Sentiment for a crackdown also is widespread in the Communist Party, which holds a majority in most of legislative bodies on the national and local level. Many Communists want President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to call a state of emergency and enforce it through the armed forces and the KGB security police. The National Salvation Committee seemed to have the same goals, although its goals were not spelled out clearly during the news conference its leaders called today to announce the group's existence. With all but one of the 15 Soviet republics seeking some form of independence or autonomy from central government, many officials fear for the very structure of the Soviet Union. The Soviet economy also is crumbling as the old command system is failing and grocery shelves in major cities are bare. Across the capital, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin harshly warned military officers at the Dzerzhinsky Military Academy that ``if the army enters our boiling society as an active factor, confrontation will increase many times, and carry the society to catastrophe.''
AP900920-0037 	X	The sweet smell of success is wafting from the city's trash, with more than 100,000 New Yorkers applying for jobs as sanitation workers. It's a record turnout of applicants for any city job, officials said Wednesday, and at least one of them thinks he knows why. ``For somebody who likes the outdoors, it's a good, clean living,'' said Sanitation Department spokesman Vito Turso. ``You can build up your muscles, and then get them tanned.'' Sure. But what makes people look at garbage and see gold? Try $23,104 per year to start, with the salary climbing to $35,000 after five years. Add in overtime, and a likely raise with the next city contract, and it's obvious all that smells doesn't necessarily stink. The job requirements are minimal: a driver's license and a strong back. The work week is 35 hours, with the shift running from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; summer hours let workers out at 2 p.m. As with most city jobs, there are comprehensive benefits. Negatives? The average city sanitation worker lifts five tons of garbage per day, the rough equivalent of two Toyotas. And the odds of bagging a position are 50-to-1. As of Wednesday, 102,000 people had registered to take the written test this Saturday. Of those who pass, 15,000 will be selected randomly by computer and given the physical test. Eventually, 2,000 will be hired over the next four years, city budgets permitting. Virtually all are expected to pass the written test, which is basically trash-specific. ``It's mostly reading comprehension. They receive manuals on operating the trucks and safety, and the questions deal with that,'' Turso explained. ``For example, which button do you push to start the truck? Button A. Like that.'' When the test was last given in 1983, nearly 95 percent of the 88,000 applicants passed the written part. The physical test is a bit heavier. Potential trash-carriers last time had 27 minutes to load 147 sacks of simulated garbage - 2,975 pounds worth - into a hopper set at the height of a garbage truck. Each applicant has paid a $15 fee to take the written test despite the long odds. Other than that, they might have little in common: the applicants cross all lines of sex and age, with potential employees coming from all walks of life, Turso said. ``We've had individuals come out in their 50s, gray haired, grandchildren in tow,'' said Turso. ``And some of them have actually been called up.''
AP880728-0130 	X	The city commission has approved a measure that urges a ban on ``The Last Temptation of Christ,'' a movie one commissioner called ``garbage'' because of its fictional portrayal of Jesus. The 3-2 vote by the commission in this well-to-do Orlando suburb asks Universal Pictures not to distribute the film unless it is changed ``to eliminate the fictional material which defames the character of Jesus Christ.'' It also urges theaters to reject the film, and asks residents to contact the filmmakers and express their opposition. ``This is the type of garbage they want to put in our movie theaters,'' said Commissioner Tom Ivey, who proposed the resolution Tuesday. Ivey, who is running for a Florida House seat, said the script portrays Jesus as a weak, unstable man and a sinner. The film, tentatively set for release in September, has drawn criticism elsewhere. Last week, fundamentalist Christians picketed the home of MCA-Universal Chairman Lew Wasserman in Los Angeles. Publicist Catherine Leach of MCA Inc., parent company of Universal, said Wednesday that filmmaker Martin Scorcese ``firmly believes that this film is a religious affirmation of faith.'' She called efforts to prevent the film's release censorship.
AP880705-0208 	X	Today is Monday, July 11, the 193rd day of 1988. There are 173 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. On this date: In 1533, Pope Clement VII excommunicated England's King Henry VIII. In 1767, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass. In 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was created by an act of Congress. In 1864, Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began their invasion of Washington D.C. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal, aboard the cruiser Houston. In 1955, the new U.S. Air Force Academy was dedicated at Lowry Air Base in Colorado. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee released volumes of evidence it had gathered in its Watergate inquiry. In 1977, the Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony. In 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia. In 1980, American hostage Richard I. Queen, freed by Iran after eight months of captivity because of poor health, left Tehran for Switzerland. In 1985, Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the first pitcher in major league baseball to strike out 4,000 batters as he fanned Danny Heep of the New York Mets. Ten years ago: A tanker truck overfilled with propylene gas exploded on a coastal highway south of Tarragona, Spain, setting off a fireball that devastated a nearby campsite, killing 215 tourists as well as the driver. The National League downed the American League, 7-3, in baseball's 49th annual All-Star Game. Five years ago: The Reagan administration filed its first school desegregation suit, charging that Alabama's public colleges and universities were practicing racial segregation. One year ago: Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke won a third consecutive term, becoming the first Labor Party leader in the country's history to be elected to three straight terms in office. Today's Birthdays: Actor Tab Hunter is 57. Singer Bonnie Pointer is 37. Boxer Leon Spinks is 35. Thought for Today: ``History is written by the winners.'' _ Alex Haley, American author.
AP900517-0234 	X	The red-cockaded woodpecker, once common in the Southeast, still ranges from Texas to the Carolinas, but is found mainly in isolated populations on federal lands. The birds live in small flocks, called clans, boring nesting holes in living pine trees about 60 or more years old. The cluster of trees where the woodpeckers roost is called a colony. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the greatest numbers of known active colonies are found in the Appalachicola National Forest in Florida, with 693, the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana, with 314, and the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina, where the number dropped after Hurricane Hugo from 487 in 1988 to an estimated 320 to 340 today. Other national forests: Talladega (Ala.), 162 active colonies; Sam Houston (Texas), 133; Bienville (Miss.), 88; Oseola (Fla.), 50; Croatan (N.C.), 45; Angelina-Sabine (Texas), 34; Davy Crockett (Texas), 27; Homochitto (Miss.), 26; DeSoto (Miss.), 18; Ouachita (Ark.), 16; Conecuh (Ala.), 16; Ocala (Fla.), 14; Daniel Boone (Ky.), 6; Cherokee (Tenn.), 1; Oconee (Ga.), 1; Tuskegee (Ala.), 1.
AP900927-0163 	X	The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of New Hampshire jurist David H. Souter to the Supreme Court on Thursday with but one dissenting vote. The full Senate is expected to confirm him easily when it votes next Tuesday, the day after the court begins its session. Democrats as well as Republicans on the committee said they saw in President Bush's nominee a brilliant legal scholar and a man of good temperament and integrity. In the 13-1 vote, only Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., opposed him, saying he feared Souter would ``solidify a 5-4 anti-civil-rights, anti-privacy majority.'' Howell Heflin, a conservative Alabama Democrat whose opposition helped kill the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, said he liked Souter's ``clearheaded approach'' and lack of an ideological agenda. Added Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio: ``My sense is that David Souter is a fair and open-minded jurist who knows well the weight of the responsibilities which will be placed upon him,'' Bush hailed the committee action and repeated his request that the Senate ``act as quickly as possible to confirm this man'' so he could be seated when the court begins its new session. But Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell announced Thursday night that he and Republican leaders agreed to hold the confirmation vote on Souter on Tuesday. The Jewish holiday Yom Kippur which was interrupting Congress' schedule Friday. And Biden and other Democrats were loathe to waive rules that give senators time before voting to review a committee's findings. Souter, 51, in a statement released in New Hampshire, thanked committee leaders and members ``for their courtesy and consideration. I am gratified by their action. I await the decision of the full Senate.'' Earlier, Tom Rath, like Souter a former New Hampshire attorney general, said Souter heard of the panel's action on a radio in Rath's law office. ``To get this kind of overwhelming support makes us feel very good,'' Rath said, adding that Souter would issue his separate statement as soon as the White House approved it. The lopsided vote did not show the widespread unease on the committee caused by Souter's refusal to state his positions on abortion and other critical issues before the court. ``Judge Souter is not the sort of judge I would nominate if I were president,'' said committee chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., a supporter of abortion rights. Souter ``just barely'' met his criteria, Biden said. ``But I think that he is about the best we can expect'' from Bush, who opposes abortion rights, he said. ``Aspects of Judge Souter's testimony were of little comfort to legal conservatives including this senator,'' said Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., in a statement released at the committee session. ``But we recognize that the president is entitled to considerable deference in his choice for the Supreme Court.'' Humphrey's New Hampshire colleague, Warren Rudman, a Republican not on the Budget Committee who has been Souter's mentor and Senate champion, said he was pleased with the vote and not disturbed by the reservations expressed by some members. ``That's normal,'' Rudman said. ``Those are people whoare obviously concerned about staking out political grounds for the future and I can understand that.'' Democrats who supported Souter expressed faith that he was as open-minded on women's rights and other issues as he professed to be. But Kennedy refused to go along. ``I am troubled that... he will solidify a 5-4 anti-civil-rights, anti-privacy majority inclined to turn back the clock on the historic progress of recent decades,'' Kennedy said. ``I hope I am wrong. But I fear I am right,'' Kennedy said. ``The lesson of the past decade ... is that we must vote our fears, not our hopes.'' ``I hope I'm not wrong,'' said Metzenbaum, usually a Kennedy ally, in revealing his affirmative vote. Kennedy won't be quite so alone when the nomination comes before the full Senate. Five other Democrats had announced their opposition to the nomination by Thursday, mostly based on the abortion issue. Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, attended Thursday's committee meeting and said afterward: ``I tremble for the women of the United States.'' Senate Republicans urged the majority Democrats to schedule a full Senate vote before Monday. ``If we delay for only three days there will be a dozen cases in which he cannot participate,'' said Sen. Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo., the deputy GOP leader. The court planned to hear arguments on four cases on each of the first three days next week.
AP880330-0184 	X	The Treasury Department announced Wednesday it was selling $2.56 billion in 20-year bonds to the government of Mexico as part of an innovative effort to help solve that country's debt problems. Mexico will pay $492 million in cash for the zero-coupon bonds, so-called because they are sold at a deep discount from the face amount and pay no interest until they mature. The sale of the U.S. securities was the final step in an innovative procedure unveiled last December. Mexico sought to induce foreign banks to forgive a portion of their loans by offering, in exchange, smaller quantities of Mexican government bonds that would be backed by collateral consisting of U.S. Treasury securities. Banks were asked to bid for the bonds, offering to cancel their loans at a discount. Backers of the plan had hoped to reduce Mexico's debt burden by up to $10 billion, but when the bids were opened on March 2, the amount of debt reduction amounted to a disappointing $1.1 billion. The Mexican Finance Ministry rejected nearly half of the bids it received as insufficient. The bids accepted would retire $3.66 billion in debt at an average discount of 67.66 cents on the dollar, offering $2.56 billion worth of Mexican bonds in exchange. The $2.56 billion in zero-coupon bonds sold by U.S. Treasury on Wednesday will be used as collateral to back up the Mexican bonds.
AP880515-0013 	X	A great white shark, one of the few known man-eaters, swam into a commercial fishing net in Southern California's coastal waters, a television station reported Saturday. The 13-foot, 1,500-pound shark was displayed when the vessel docked Saturday at Terminal Island in the Los Angeles harbor. Anthony Tibich, skipper of the Aggressor, had ventured out Friday on an overnight trip to San Clemente Island in search of commercially marketable shark, according to a report by KNBC-TV in Burbank. But the skipper was surprised to find tangled in the fishing net Friday morning the huge type of shark featured in the ``Jaws'' movies attacking surfers and swimmers, the report said. Sightings of the great white shark are unusual in Southern California's warmer coastal waters. San Clemente Island is about 75 miles southwest of Los Angeles. Reports of a great white shark sighting on Thursday led Orange County authorities to evacuate about 2,000 swimmers along a 5{-mile shore at Newport Beach. The beaches were reopened Friday.
AP900718-0068 	X	Richard Sagness has a double-dipped career _ during the school year he's a college professor but during the summer he's a scooper. That's why they call him Dr. Ice Cream. ``It's a real tough way to spend the summer,'' Sagness chuckled as he leaned over his ice cream cart at downtown Pocatello's Simplot Square. ``I suppose some people think it's beneath my dignity to be doing this, but I think that's nonsense.'' Sagness, who trains the teachers of tomorrow as a professor in Idaho State University's College of Education, says he's not in it for the money. He does it, he says, to help his wife keep her cool. ``He's doing this very willingly,'' maintained Donna Sagness, who owns the local ice cream shop. But she conceded the cart has been a good way to keep her husband out of trouble. ``He's worth what I pay him, which is nothing,'' she said. ``He's good with the cart, but we have to watch him when he's in the store. He'll eat everything, including the flavors that nobody else will eat, like brandied fruitcake.'' Sagness admits his love of ice cream, especially when it's free, keeps him on the job. ``When I was a kid, I worked at a soda fountain. The owner said, `Eat all you want, because eventually you'll get tired of it,''' he recalled. ``I was his only employee that never got tired of it.''
AP880531-0297 	X	The Supreme Court ruled today that the bulk of so-called ``gray market'' goods are legal, giving a green light to a big part of a multi-billion-dollar business that allows consumers to buy costly, brand-name imports at steep discounts. In another case, the court ruled that states sometimes may execute convicted murderers even if theirright to a lawyer's help was violated. In constitutional splintered voting, the justices upheld parts of U.S. Customs Service regulations that permit gray market products into the country without approval from trademark owners. The court also struck down part of the Customs Service rules, thereby limiting somewhat the availability of the discount goods. But some justices said those rules only apply to a small part of the dispute decided today. The exact size of the gray market is unclear. Estimates have ranged from $5 billion to $10 billion a year. The declining value of the dollar, reducing its purchasing power abroad, may have dampened the market. But the business still appears to be thriving. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court, said a keyersity of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine. Nettles helped write the USDA report and is formulating regulations to use as a model for state governments. ``There are disease implications. There are human safety implications, which make the headlines read big _ a kid gets eaten by a polar bear in New York. And there's the escape factor, which from a naturalist point of view is very important.'' But the debate between exotic animal dealers and animal rights activists rages most fiercely over the moral issue. Is is right or wrong to put wild animals in a cage? And does captivity ensure a species' survival or hasten its death? ``I believe animals are here for our use, but not our abuse,'' says Hoctor. ``There's nothing wrong with owning a pair of ostrich boots if we're culling ostrich males. However, if in our smug admiration of ourselves we rape nature and make those animals endangered so we can have a pair of ostrich boots, that's wrong.'' Others believe there is no reason to exploit a wild animal when there are plenty of domestic animals that already provide companionship, food and warmth. ``That type of thinking _ justifying the exploitation of animals by juding them as an economic resource _ is going to lead to more and more species becoming endangered,'' says Herbet. ``Animals have an intrinsic value and ecological value. You shouldn't have to put a dollar value on it to ensure its survival.''
AP900210-0021 	X	The Galileo spaceship swooped past Venus early Saturday, and the cloud-shrouded planet acted as a gravity slingshot to help hurl the craft toward its 1995 rendezvous with Jupiter. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received a radio signal confirming that the 2.8-ton spacecraft made its closest approach to Venus at 12:59 a.m. EST, cruising 10,028 miles above the planet's hellishly hot surface. ``We have just flown through our closest approach point to Venus,'' said Bill O'Neil, science and mission design manager. ``The greatest challenge of getting Galileo to Jupiter has been met.'' Four hours before the close encounter, radio signals received on Earth confirmed the spacecraft computer ordered Galileo's infrared light sensor to start observing Venus. The instrument was looking for the glow of the hot lower atmosphere backlighting cooler clouds overhead, O'Neil said. That started an eight-hour period of intensive photography and measurements, including a photographic search for lightning. Earlier Friday, Galileo studied dust particles and magnetic fields in space, and measured Venusian atmospheric temperatures. ``The Venus encounter is our first major milestone in the mission,'' said Galileo project scientist Torrence Johnson. ``After the encounter, we have gained enough energy out of this celestial billiard shot to get the energy we need to make it all the way to Jupiter.'' The power the spacecraft gains in the flyby is triple the energy of its propellant supply, said mission director Neal Ausman. The $1.35 billion mission will let Galileo examine Earth, its moon and one or two asteroids before the spacecraft separates into an orbiter and a small probe in July 1995. In December 1995, they arrive at Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, after a 2.4-billion-mile trip, including 182 million miles to reach Venus. Galileo was deployed from the space shuttle Atlantis last Oct. 18. Venus circles the sun between the orbits of Earth and Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. Acid-laden clouds extend 40 miles above the surface, trapping heat in a runaway ``greenhouse effect'' that raised surface temperatures to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Atmospheric pressure is 90 times that on Earth. Venus is about 95 percent as wide as Earth. Scientists suspect it may have active volcanoes and shifting plates on its crust. The Venus flyby was designed purely to give Galileo a boost for its trip to Jupiter by increasing its speed from 83,750 mph to 88,740 mph. In two other ``gravity assist'' maneuvers, the spacecraft will use the Earth as a slingshot next Dec. 8 and again on Dec. 8, 1992, so it will be properly aimed toward Jupiter, Ausman said. Scientists decided to take advantage of the Venus encounter by having Galileo's camera and instruments make photographs and measurements of Venus starting Thursday night and continuing for a week. But almost all the pictures and data _ stored on three tracks of Galileo's four-track tape recorder _ won't be sent back to Earth until October, when the spacecraft is close enough to transmit the material with its low-gain antenna. That antenna now can be used only for communications to keep Galileo operating. Galileo's main umbrella-shaped antenna must remain furled to protect it from sunlight until after the craft makes its first flight past Earth. Galileo was programmed to photograph Venus and study the planet with its ultraviolet, infrared and visible light sensors to look for lightning, study the makeup of the carbon dioxide atmosphere, examine cloud and wind patterns, map cloudtop temperatures and peer at the lower atmosphere. Sensors that detect particles and magnetic fields were programmed to study how solar wind interacts with Venus' atmosphere. At the same time, NASA arranged for the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, circling Venus since 1978, to make similar measurements closer to the planet, Johnson said. While nearly 20 other U.S. and Soviet spacecraft have visited Venus, ``we think we're going to get some real good stuff,'' he said. But scientists won't know for months unless engineers meet success next week when they try to have Galileo send back a small amount of data, Johnson added. Studies from Earth and previous spacecraft indicate Venus has continent-sized highlands with peaks dwarfing Mount Everest and hundreds of thousands of volcanoes stretching across lowland plains. NASA's Magellan spacecraft, launched from Atlantis last May 4, will go into orbit around Venus in August. It will use radar to peer through the clouds and map at least 70 percent of Venus' surface during a $550 million mission. When the Galileo probe and orbiter reach Jupiter, the probe will parachute into the atmosphere and make measurements until intense heat and pressure vaporize it. The orbiter will photograph and study Jupiter and its major moons until late 1997, circling the planet instead of flying past it like the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration originally planned to send Galileo on a two-year trip to Jupiter by launching it with a Centaur rocket after it was released from a shuttle. But the 1986 explosion that destroyed Challenger and killed seven crew members raised safety concerns. NASA decided against using the volatile, liquid-fueled Centaur. So Galileo was launched with a much weaker Inertial Upper Stage booster after it was deployed by Atlantis' crew. The weaker rocket required NASA to redesign Galileo's route so the craft could utilize gravity from Venus and Earth for a much longer, looping trip to Jupiter. Environmentalists failed in court to stop NASA from having a shuttle carry Galileo into space. They feared a Challenger-like explosion could contaminate Florida with plutonium in Galileo's nuclear batteries, which are not reactors but generate electricity using heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium. NASA said the risk was minimal. Galileo is named for the Italian Renaissance astronomer who discovered Jupiter's major moons.
AP880517-0132 	X	Former President Carter described Democratic front-runner Michael Dukakis as ``highly competent'' on Tuesday and said Dukakis would fare well against Republican George Bush in the Nov. 8 general election. ``I know him well. He and I were governors together,'' said Carter, who was governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and won the presidency in 1976. Carter said the Massachusetts governor ``is highly competent. I think among all the governors, he would be voted one of the top ones in administrative ability, in vision and competence and sound judgment.'' Carter said Dukakis' nomination was ``the obvious likelihood now'' and predicted ``he will do well'' against Bush. As a former Democratic president, Carter is a delegate to the convention in Atlanta this summer. He said it is still his intention to go to the convention as an uncommitted delegate because he told the candidates earlier that he would not choose among them until the convention.
AP881219-0037 	X	Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres indicated Israel would not exclude Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat from future peace talks provided PLO declarations renouncing terrorism prove true. Peres did not name Arafat in a television interview Sunday, but said Israel was prepared to talk with ``every Palestinian, no matter what his biography was, if he is not shooting and killing.'' He said Israel will wait ``a month, a couple of months,'' to see if terrorism, including uprisings in the occupied territories, ends. Israeli officials have denounced the United States decision last week to hold a ``substantive dialogue'' with the PLO, strongly condemning a move that grants diplomatic credibility to a man Israelis accuse of masterminding a campaign of terror against the Jewish state. Terrorism played a large role in the first talks U.S. and PLO officials held in Tunis last week. The session took place after Arafat last week met American conditions that included recognition of Israel's right to exist and renunciation of terrorism. Peres, in the interview on CBS-TV's ``Face the Nation,'' appeared to step back from Israel's refusal to take part in talks that include Arafat. He linked such negotiations, however, to an end to violence in the occupied territories. Arafat, in speaking against terrorism, has not included the stone-throwing and other acts carried out by Palestinians under Israeli rule. So far, 332 Palestinians have died in the year-old clashes with Israeli soldiers, including three who were killed today. And despite the movement towards peace talks, statements from other PLO officials indicated violence was far from a thing of the past. Salah Khalaf, second in command Arafat in Fatah, the largest PLO group, meanwhile, told an Abu Dhabi news conference that Arafat's denunciation of terrorism last week ``did not include military attacks against Israel.'' ``Our struggle will continue until we raise the Palestinian flag over Jerusalem,'' he said. Peres said in the television interview, ``I shall say, very clearly, I am ready to sit with every Palestinian who is not engaged in terror, who is seeking peace and who wants to negotiate the peaceful solution with Israel.'' Asked whether that included sitting down with Arafat, he said, ``I am not ready to refer to a single person because I don't think that's the issue. But I am saying, in a very clear way, with every Palestinian, no matter what his biography used to be.'' Peres added he has ``doubts about Mr. Arafat.'' But he said, ``I am ready to sit with every Palestinian, no matter what his biography was ...'' ``If Mr. Arafat says, `I'm going to stop violence and terror,' okay, let's wait a month, a couple of months and see if this is really going to happen,'' Peres said. It was unclear from the comments whether that view would carry over into a new Israeli government. Talks between Peres' Labor Alignment and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud Bloc over a new government have broken down, leaving Shamir aides talking about forming a new governing coalition with ultra-orthodox Jewish parties.
AP900125-0254 	X	Contracts settled through collective bargaining last year provided workers average annual wage increases of 3.3 percent over the life of the pacts, the government said today. The Labor Department said 1989 was the first time since 1981 that negotiated settlements provided larger wage adjustments than the contracts they replaced. The last time parties to 1989 settlements negotiated, usually in 1986 or 1987, average wage rate adjustments were 2.4 percent over the contract term. Wage restorations in steel and other industries, as well as wage gains for nurses, accounted for the difference, the agency said. Last year's 3.3 percent wage gains also were up from the 2.4 percent average wage gains contained in collective bargaining agreements settled in 1988. The collective bargaining report, like the Labor Department's broader Employment Cost Index report, showed workers in the fast-growing service sector winning larger wage gains than manufacturing workers. Service workers received an average of 3.5 percent hikes over the life of the contracts while manufacturing workers received 3.2 percent raises. The Labor Department said the 459 collective bargaining agreements it analyzed covered about 1.85 million workers. The government tracks agreements covering bargaining units with at least 1,000 workers. The government said 114 such contracts covering 743,000 workers had been expired or reopened in the last quarter but had not been settled or ratified by Dec. 31. About half of those workers are employed in railroads.
AP880330-0136 	X	The Reagan administration said today it is considering new sanctions against Panama to force the ouster of strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, but it appeared no action was imminent. ``Other sanctions are being actively considered,'' said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. However, an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said ``nothing's imminent.'' On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, two Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that calls on President Reagan to renegotiate the Panama Canal treaties to allow U.S. troops to remain in Panama past the year 2000. The canal treaties negotiated with Panama in 1979 provide for the transfer of the canal to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999. The legislation introduced by Rep. Robert Walker of Pennsylvania and New York Rep. Jerry Solomon would allow independent U.S. action to defend the canal as well as permit U.S. troops to remain in Panama past the year 2000. Separately, Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato, R-N.Y., said today that Noriega's troops have harassed and beaten canal employees. ``There is a continuing pattern of escalation'' in Panamanian actions against the canal, he said in an interview on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' He did not elaborate. Beyond applying new sanctions, the administration is raising the prospect that the U.S. military may be used to protect the estimated 50,000 American citizens in Panama against possible harassment by that country's security forces. Fitzwater appeared to open the door to that possibility Tuesday after an incident the previous evening in which Panamanian troops confiscated the tapes of four U.S. television networks and briefly detained several American journalists. Discussing the harassment against Americans, Fitzwater said, ``It has always been a principle that we will protect American citizens as best we can and, while we have said that we don't plan to go in militarily, it's also important to note that there are limits.'' But when President Reagan met with senior advisers Tuesday afternoon to discuss the Panama situation, use of military force was not discussed, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified. The official said other options were discussed for bringing pressure to bear on Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, the de facto head of what the United States considers to be an illegal government. It was not clear whether Fitzwater's comments represented a genuine re-evaluation of U.S. policy or were part of the continuing war of nerves between the administration and Panama's military-dominated government. One major deterrent to military intervention is that any such move would generate a hostile reaction throughout Latin America. Most delegates attending a conference of Latin American representatives in Venezuela on Monday and Tuesday called for the U.S. to exercise restraint. In recent days, the administration has been weighing the possibility of imposing additional sanctions against Panama. U.S. officials, who asked not to be identified, said Reagan could invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which would give him broad discretionary authority to limit private U.S. transactions with Panama. One example would be the suspension of all air service between the two countries. Over the past month, administration actions have effectively cut off the flow of dollars into Panama, leaving the country near insolvency. Reagan has called on Noriega to step down. There was a new sense of urgency here Tuesday over signs of an accelerating deterioration of the situation in Panama. On Monday, thousands of anti-government demonstrators were routed by government forces with the help of shotguns, tear gas and water cannon. Witnesses said several people were injured and dozens arrested. Later, security agents forced their way at gunpoint into the offices of four American networks at a local hotel and confiscated tapes of the demonstration. Eight foreign journalists, including Americans, were detained for several hours before being released. Shortly before Fitzwater spoke, ousted Panamanian President Eric Arturo Delvalle, whose authority the United States continues to recognize, appealed for the creation of a U.S.-led international force to oust Noriega. Delvalle, who has spent the past month in hiding, made his appeal through Panama's ambassador, Juan B. Sosa, who has been acting as Delvalle's representative in Washington and has refused to relinquish the embassy to a replacement appointed by Panama's new government. While criticizing the violence used against Panamanian demonstrators, the focus of the remarks by both Fitzwater and State Department spokesman Charles Redman was on the harassment of the American journalists. Their comments evoked memories of Grenada when the United States and several friendly Caribbean nations sent forces into that country five years ago and ousted the leftist government there. The U.S. rationale was that hundreds of American medical students on the island faced potential danger. Fitzwater said, ``We are certainly concerned by this threat to Americans and find it a very difficult turn of events and one that is contrary to assurances that we have received in the past.''
AP900615-0164 	X	Torrential thunderstorms sent a flash flood surging through a valley into this Ohio River town, killing at least 11 people, leaving 51 missing and scores of others homeless Friday, authorities said. Raging floodwaters late Thursday swept homes off foundations and washed away cars. About 200 people were reported evacuated in central Ohio. ``The valleys are choked with debris,'' Gov. Richard Celeste told reporters after flying over the hilly Appalachian region in eastern Ohio. ``A wall of water wiped a path through the area.'' The governor declared a state of emergency, and dispatched about 50 National Guardsmen to the area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency declared Belmont County, which includes Shadyside, and Jefferson and Franklin counties disaster areas, making federal aid available to residents. Seventeen counties now have been declared disaster areas because of flooding or tornadoes since May 29. Ten bodies were taken to the Bauknecht Funeral Home in Shadyside, said Bob Bell, funeral director. One body was taken to Bellaire City Hospital, he said. Chuck Vogt, Belmont County coroner's investigator, also said there were 11 confirmed dead. Earlier, Fire Chief Mark Badia had said 14 adults and two children were dead. The names of the victims have not been released. County Sheriff Tom McCort, who said he was running the recovery effort, said 51 people in Shadysville and Meade Township, where the two creeks run south of the village, were missing as of 8:45 p.m. The list was compiled through telephone inquiries with townspeople and relatives and interviews with people evacuated from the area. About 200 people came and went from a Shadyside disaster center during the day, seeking news of missing friends and relatives. Vogt said two bodies were found in the Ohio River and one was found in a field next to the river after water receded. He said the rest were found in the creeks, which flow into the river. Some of the bodies were taken to a funeral home that set up a temporary morgue in Shadyside, about 10 miles south of Wheeling, W.Va. Officials from Ohio, West Virginia and the U.S. Coast Guard were searching the Ohio River for survivors and bodies, and Badia said National Guardsmen were to continue searching the creeks throughout the night. At least five houses along Wegee Creek were washed away, and two cars were floating in water in one of the basements. Anything that was still standing was covered with at least 6 feet of debris such as trees, appliances and furniture. The National Weather Service issued no flood warning before the disaster, although it did issue a flood watch, said Al Wheeler, deputy meteorologist in the bureau's Cleveland office. Weather service offices in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus and Pittsburgh showed the storm had diminished over eastern Ohio when it had actually intensified, Wheeler said. Thursday night's thunderstorms caused flash flooding across a wide area of central and eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The floods closed roads, damaged homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate. But no place was hit with anything approaching the ferocity of the flooding in Shadyside. About 5.5 inches of rain fell between 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., turning two Ohio River tributaries outside the village of 4,300 people into dangerous torrents. About 35 buildings, including a tavern, were damaged along Wegee Creek, and 50 buildings were hit by a flood along Pipe Creek, four miles south of Wegee Creek, said Dick Quinlin, Belmont County emergency services coordinator. Part of the tavern was washed away when water caved in the back wall, said Judy Phillips, a sheriff's department spokeswoman. She said two patrons were accounted for, but she could offer no estimate of how many were inside at the time. One man was found clinging to a bar stool, said state Sen. Robert Ney, whose district includes Shadyside. ``I've never seen anything of this magnitude. There was no warning,'' Ney said. Rescuers pulled people from three cars in Wegee Creek, which flows through Shadyside and into the Ohio River, said Badia. ``I don't know how to describe it. ... You've got to see it to believe it,'' Badia said. One resident, Robert Ramsey, said his wife, Rose, was crushed to death in their house by the water. There was no complete accounting of deaths, said Karen Bovek, a spokeswoman at a Shadyside Fire Department command center set up an a school. ``You're talking miles and miles of country roads that haven't been gotten to yet,'' she said. ``It's a disaster here.'' There also was flooding in Jefferson County, north of Belmont, in Licking County in central Ohio, and in northwestern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. ``It's a pretty good mess, especially in the northern end of the county,'' said Clarence Weston, a dispatcher with the Marshall County Sheriff's Department in Moundsville, W.Va. ``We had 3.5 inches of rain in a two-hour period last night.'' Most of the problems in West Virginia were confined to road closures and basement flooding. At least 25 people were evacuated during the night in the Pittsburgh suburb of Etna, where some homes had up to 5 feet of water in their basements, said borough manager Bill Skertich. They returned to their homes Friday. Landslides were reported in the Pittsburgh area, and many city streets were closed during the storm. The flooding was more serious in Licking County, Ohio. Wayne Tresemer, the county's Disaster Services director, said water was standing up to 5 feet deep in some streets in the town of Newark, and the fire department and other agencies used boats to evacuate some residents. Two inches of rain caused flooding in Franklin County in central Ohio and 3.75 inches of rain was dumped on Holmes County in north-central Ohio, the National Weather Service said. In Jefferson County, just north of Belmont County in the eastern part of the state, 50 to 60 residents were evacuated in Adena, where water was 6 to 8 feet deep in streets because of creek flooding. Flood waters in most areas had subsided by Thursday night, according to authorities.
AP901013-0123 	X	Public approval of President Bush's handling of the economy and his handling of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait dropped in recent weeks, according to a CBS News-New York Times poll released Saturday. Bush's 60 percent overall approval rating in the poll is the worst of his presidency, but still higher than that recorded for Presidents Reagan and Carter at the same point in their administrations. The poll found a majority of Americans still approves of Bush's actions in the Persian Gulf, but the 57 percent approval rating is down from 75 percent soon after the invasion. The poll found 34 percent disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq. Asked to rate Bush's handling of the economy, 52 percent said they disapproved and 36 percent said they approved. In August, 45 percent approved of Bush's handling of the economy, and 44 percent disapproved. Amid heightened concern over Bush's handling of the economy and the budget deficit, 30 percent said they disapproved of his overall performance - the highest level of his presidency in the CBS-New York Times poll. The poll was conducted among a random sample of 960 adults around the United States interviewed by telephone Monday through Wednesday. Results of such a poll should generally be accurate to within 3 percentage points in either direction.
AP900928-0079 	X	Four avant-garde theater performers are suing the National Endowment for the Arts, contending they were denied funds for political reasons. Karen Finley and Holly Hughes of New York, John Fleck of Los Angeles and Tim Miller of Santa Monica filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday asking for the $23,000 grants for which they applied - or at least review of their applications. The suit, filed on the artists' behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, claims the NEA ``violated their First Amendment rights by denying their applications for impermissible political reasons.'' Josh Dare, a spokesman for the NEA, said today that the agency had no immediate comment on the suit. Grants for the performance artists, known as the ``NEA Four'' in arts circles, received unanimous approval in February from a peer review board. But NEA chairman John E. Frohnmayer vetoed the grants on June 29, and last month rejected appeals of his decision by the artists. He was named as a defendant. When Frohnmayer vetoed the four grants, he refused to give any reasons, citing a longstanding policy against discussing grant rejections. In an unusual departure from that policy late in August, the NEA issued a statement saying that Frohnmayer decided against giving the four grants because the artists' work would not ``enhance public understanding and appreciation of the arts.'' Congress, at the urging of Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., last year amended the NEA appropriations bill for the current fiscal year to prohibit federal support for works that ``may be deemed obscene.'' The action came after controversy arose over exhibits by artists such as the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose work included sexual themes. The four who sued Thursday, each of whom had received NEA grants in the past, do monologues and other stage routines that generally deal with politics, racism and sexual oppression and frequently include strong sexual content. The performers had been singled out by conservative members of Congress as examples of the NEA's willingness to subsidize works that might be offensive.
AP900918-0251 	X	Corroon & Black Corp. on Tuesday rejected an unsolicited $840 million takeover bid from Aon Corp., saying it would proceed with its proposed merger with fellow insurer Willis Faber PLC of Britain. Corroon & Black said the planned stock-swap merger ``will serve the best interests of our shareholders, customers and employees.'' Aon, the holding company for the brokerage Rollins Burdick Hunter Group Inc., offered last week to buy Corroon & Black for $40 a share in cash, or about $840 million. Under the approved agreement, Corroon & Black stockholders would receive 7.8 Willis Faber shares for each Corroon & Black share, or $33.49 at current market prices, in a deal valued at $754 million. Corroon & Black shareholders are scheduled to vote on the merger with Willis Faber on Sept. 28. Aon officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening shortly after Corroon & Black issued its response. Corroon & Black stock closed at $35.50, down 37{ cents a share, in New York Stock Exchange composite trading Tuesday before the company's announcement. Aon said last week it would not pursue a bid opposed by the Corroon & Black board. Noting that statement, Corroon & Black said it ``has replied to Aon Corp. that it wishes to consider the matter closed and proceed with the merger with Willis Faber.'' Insurance industry analysts expected Corroon & Black to reject Aon's offer, but they said Aon might come back with a higher bid. Corroon & Black and Willis Faber are the world's fifth- and sixth-largest insurance brokerages, respectively. Their tentative merger, announced in early June, would allow both firms to expand in the other's home market and eventually move into continental Europe and the Pacific Rim. The new firm, Britain-based Willis Corroon PLC, was expected to have 1990 revenue of about $1 billion. It would create the world's fourth-largest insurance brokerage in terms of revenue. Corroon & Black has nearly all its business in the United States, while Willis Faber gets about 80 percent of its revenue from Britain. Corroon & Black sold its 29.9 percent interest in the British broker Minet Holdings PLC in February 1988. Aon has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Pacific. Besides Rollins Burdick, its subsidiaries include Combined Insurance Co. of America and Union Fidelity Life Insurance Co.
AP880628-0162 	X	A car bomb believed planted by a left-wing terrorist group exploded Tuesday and killed the U.S. military attache in Greece, hurling his armor-plated car off the road, authorities said. U.S. Navy Capt. William Nordeen was driving to work when the blast threw his sedan across the small tree-lined street and lodged it in a steel fence, police said. The victim's body was found several yards away in the front yard of an abandoned house. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but senior police officials said they believed it to be the work of November 17, a left-wing urban terrorist group blamed for 11 political assassinations in the past 13 years. The United States and Greece both condemned the bombing, which came a a crucial time in relations between the two countries. ``The United States condemns this terrorist outrage in the strongest possible terms,'' said chief Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard. ``It was a senseless and cowardly murder of a highly regarded U.S. military officer.'' Sotiris Kostopoulos, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Carolos Papoulias, said the Greek government voiced ``disgust at the murder.'' ``All Greeks, irrespective of their political leanings, unreservedly condemn the would-be underminers of the country's institutions and democratic normality,'' Kostopoulos told reporters at a news briefing. Police said the Toyota packed with explosives was parked 100 yards from Nordeen's two-story home in the northern suburb of Kifissia, where many American and foreign diplomats live. The blast shattered windows and blew out doors in surrounding houses. Trees, fences and walls were blacked by smoke after fire engulfed both cars. ``We heard a tremendous bang and the house rocked back and forth. Pieces of the car were thrown into our house,'' Panagia Kapodistria said. The car's twisted rear axle lay in her front yard. Nordeen, 51, of Centuria, Wis., was due to retire in August after 30 years in the Navy, said his sister, Carla Anderson. He had been stationed in Greece for three years. He previously served as assistant naval inspector in Washington, with the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific and at the Jacksonville, Fla., naval air base. He is survived by his wife and 12-year-old daughter. At the White House, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the U.S. government would work with Greek authorities to ``bring the murderers to justice.'' A senior police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed it was staged by November 17, named for the day in 1973 when troops crushed a student rebellion at Athens Polytechnic University against the right-wing dictatorship. ``I don't think anybody except November 17 had the expertise to pull off something like this,'' the officer said. A police explosives expert who refused to be identified said Tuesday's killing was ``perfectly planned and very well executed. ... They thought of every detail.'' The expert said bags of cement were piled against one side of the booby-trapped vehicle so the explosion's full force would be directed toward Nordeen's car. He said the blast probably was detonated by remote-controlled device. November 17 carried out a similar attack against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's local chief in January, but George Carros survived after the radio-controlled bomb in a trash can outside his home failed to go off. The group has claimed responsibility for 11 assassinations since 1975, including the 1983 shooting of U.S. Navy Capt. George Tsantes and the 1975 assassination of Richard Welch, CIA station chief in Athens. November 17 is named for the day in 1973 when troops crushed a student uprising against the 1967-74 Greek military dictatorship. Nordeen's killing came four days after Greek and American negotiators ended a seventh round of talks on a new U.S. bases agreement to replace an accord that expires Dec. 31, 1988. The talks ended without reports of significant progress. The United States has operated four military bases in Greece since the 1950s _ two near Athens and two on the island of Crete. The five-year accord expires in December 1988.
AP900221-0190 	X	President Bush hailed exiled Soviet conductor Mstislav Rostropovich as ``a national treasure'' on Wednesday as he welcomed the National Symphony home from its tour of the Soviet Union. ``Your orchestra's long-awaited trip to the Soviet Union reflects the drama of our changing world,'' Bush told Rostropovich at a White House reception. The president noted that Rostropovich had received ``ovation after ovation'' on his just-completed tour of the homeland he had been forced to leave in disgrace in 1974. Bush said the conductor and cello virtuoso had returned ``to a place he never really left'' in the Soviet tour. Rostropovich was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in 1978. He got in trouble with the communist authorities at the time for his vigorous defense of out-of-favor author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His Soviet citizenship was restored last month and he was given an official apology under political reforms undertaken by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Bush said the conductor of the Washington-based National Symphony was ``inded a national treasure and America is very proud of you.'' Before an audience that included members of the orchestra, Soviet Ambassador Yuri V. Dubinin and industrialist Armand Hammer, Bush said: ``Maestro, you are a true virtuoso, not only of music but of the heart and mind as well.'' Rostropovich then led a string section of 12 cellos in a performance of a work named ``Dodecacelli'' by American composer David Ott.
AP901210-0087 	X	Police killed a man once considered France's public enemy No. 1 during a robbery attempt at the home of an elderly widow, officials said Monday. A policeman was wounded in the abdomen in the exchange of gunfire Sunday night, and Jean-Charles Willoquet, 46, was killed by a bullet to the head, officials said. Willoquet was granted early release last year from a prison term imposed after he was convicted of attempted murder and hostage taking during a 1975 escape. On Sunday, he and an accomplice entered the Normandy home of Rosa Kahn, 81, representing themselves as policemen investigating a band of thieves, police said. A young girl called police after hearing cries from Mrs. Kahn, who was beaten. In the ensuing gunfire, Willoquet died, the policeman was wounded and Willoquet's accomplice escaped in a car. Willoquet was first arrested in 1968, when police said he was working by day as a hair stylist and burglarizing chateaux in the Loire Valley in his free time. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with three years suspended. He was arrested again in 1974 in Paris in connection with 11 armed attacks and a dozen racketeering charges. During his trial in 1975, he earned a reputation as public enemy No. 1 by escaping from the Palais de Justice with the aid of his wife, who entered the hearing room disguised in the black robe of a French lawyer. She took out a grenade and passed her husband a pistol. Willoquet took the judge and his assistant hostage and fled, wounding two gendarmes. He was captured a year later, months after his wife was apprehended. He was sentenced to serve two concurrent 20-year terms and was freed after 14 years. He wrote a book, ``Anything To Be Free,'' while serving time.
AP880608-0068 	X	Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci today accused North Korea of trying to disrupt the Olympic Games and said the United States would beef up its military forces to stop any threat. ``Let me assure you that we will do all we can to help ensure the security of the 1988 Summer Olympics Games,'' he said. Communist North Korea continues to threaten peace on the divided Korean peninsula by refusing to work with South Korea to defuse the tension, Carlucci said. ``It is most unfortunate that the north continues its trouble-making role and remains unwilling to make the simple concessions necessary to bring about a reduction in tensions on the peninsula,'' he said. Carlucci gave the assurance to South Korean defense officials at the start of the 20th annual U.S.-South Korea security conference to discuss mutual defense. South Korea Defense Minister Oh Ja-bok also stressed the North Korean threat to the south and said the Olympics was adding to the tension. ``With the danger of their scheme to disrupt the coming Olympics remaining undiminished, military tension between south and north on the peninsla continues, thus posing a grave threat to the stability of Northeast Asia,'' he said. U.S. and South Korean delegates agreed during the talks to build up their early warning systems to detect any possible North Korean military threat. Up to three U.S. Navy aircraft carriers will help provide security for the Games, officials said. North Korea is demanding to co-host the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee and South Korea have rejected the demand, saying the Games are awarded to a single city. The two Koreas, divided since 1945, are bitter opponents that have clashed repeatedly. The United States has about 42,000 U.S. troops based in the south under a mutual defense pact. After meeting with Oh, Carlucci had lunch with President Roh Tae-woo and was awarded the Order of National Security. His scheduled visits later in the day with frontline American and South Korean troops were canceled due to bad weather, officials said.
AP901205-0033 	X	Development of the Navy's $48.7 billion Seawolf attack submarine should be slowed until technical and financial problems are solved, says a House committee report released today. The vessel is ``perhaps the most conspicuous and potentially most costly example of a program struggling with the problems of adapting state-of-the-art computer technology into a multi-billion-dollar weapons platform,'' says the Government Operations Committee report. It recommends that Congress limit funding for construction of additional Seawolf submarines until the Pentagon clarifies the program's mission and provides assurances that the computer problems will be fixed. Spokesman Lt. Greg Smith said the Navy would have no immediate comment. Pentagon plans call for building 29 of the ships for $48.7 billion, with the first scheduled for completion in 1995 at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. It is billed as the largest, quietest and most heavily armed nuclear attack submarines. ---
AP880226-0097 	X	Vice President George Bush, during a campaign stop here, said the United States should do ``whatever is necessary, including military force'' to protect American interests in Panama. Bush stopped short of calling for military intervention in Panama in the wake of the ouster of President Eric Arturo Delvalle, saying that the United States' past history of intervention in Latin American affairs is ``what's hurting us in some areas now.'' He told the South Carolina Press Association: ``We will do whatever is necessary to protect American interests in Panama. We've got treaty interests on the (Panama) canal. I don't want to rattle any sabers. ... ``But we would obviously as the United States, and I would, reserve the right to do whatever is necessary, including military force, to protect America's sacred interest in that region of the world.'' The vice president, given a strong South Carolina lead in a poll published today, was heading for Atlanta after a day of campaigning Thursday in South Carolina, whose Republican presidential primary is Saturday, March 5. A poll by The Charlotte Observer indicated Bush was the favorite in the state's GOP contest, with the support of 41 percent of those likely to vote in the primary. Sen. Bob Dole trailed with 29 percent; former television evangelist Pat Robertson had 13 percent; and Rep. Jack Kemp had 4 percent. Twelve percent were undecided. On Thursday, Bush seemed to be confidently raising the stakes as he declared, ``South Carolina is going to stand alone as the forerunner of who is going to be president, in my view.'' Bush traveled by motorcade through the state's northwestern corner, stopping at colleges, technical schools, a high school, popular restaurants and a sidewalk crowd in nearby Greenwood. At one of his first stops, Bush addressed head-on the issue of the region's major textile industry and the calls by its leaders for limits on foreign imports. Textile leaders contend the industry has been damaged by cheap imports and they want legislation imposing limits on foreign products brought into the United States. Bush referred to that as a ``pure, all-out'' protectionist policy that may cost three other jobs while saving one. He said existing trade laws are adequate if enforced. ``That's not the answer,'' Bush said. ``The answer is, we can compete if the playing field is level. I will enforce the laws. I will guarantee you that there is every effort made towards fair trade.'' A day earlier rival Bob Dole campaigned in the state and pledged to support the legislation in the Senate _ similar to legislation that President Reagan vetoed over textile-state objections two years ago. Bush argued that South Carolina's economy has been growing and pointed to figures he said show 62,000 new jobs were created in the state last year, including 2,700 in textiles. He contended currency differences with Japan are improving and that manufacturing and agricultural imports have climbed recently. ``We're seeing improvement out there,'' he said. Bush cited evidence of economic improvement at most every stop but didn't repeat his opposition to the textile import limits until asked. ``There have got to be some changes before I'd be for it,'' he said. Bush rode in his armored limo for most of the day but spent one leg of the trip on a bus with about 40 active supporters from the area. He said that Dole's endorsement by Sen. Strom Thurmond ``makes the stakes higher for Dole'' in South Carolina. Thurmond, however, didn't provide enough help to make a difference for his GOP primary favorite eight years ago _ Texan John Connally. Bush was accompanied by South Carolina Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr., his state chairman, and national campaign manager Lee Atwater, a native South Carolinian. Atwater attached much significance to the state's primary even while arguing Bush could withstand a loss here. He said that if Robertson fails to beat Bush in South Carolina he won't win a single state. And Atwater said if Dole finishes third in South Carolina, ``I think he's going to lose every single state on Super Tuesday'' when 20 states including all the rest of the South hold primaries. The Observer's poll, conducted by the newspaper's market research division, surveyed 687 registered voters who indicated they were likely to participate in the primary. The margin of error is 4 percentage points, the newspaper said.
AP881128-0262 	X	Stocks opened mixed today in slow trading, influenced by new uncertainty about the outlook for inflation, interest rates and the dollar. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials was up 4.62 points to 2,079.30 by 10 a.m. EST. Among broader indicators, the New York Stock Exchange composite index of all listed issues rose 0.34 to 150.97. The American Stock Exchange market-value index rose 0.66 to 291.85. Gaining and declining issues were nearly even on the NYSE, with 415 up, 414 down and 495 unchanged. Volume totaled 14.96 million shares after the first 30 minutes of trading. Wall Street strategists were divided about the market's direction. Many said prices were due to strengthen given the pessimism that has pervaded for awhile, making some stocks attractive. Others said too many economic uncertainties were making stocks risky. An Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries price-boosting accord could raise the inflation rate, the dollar has been facing heavy selling pressure and talk has increased about a possible Federal Reserve move to tighten interest rates. On Friday the Dow Jones industrial average fell 17.60 points to 2,074.68, finishing the week with a net gain of 12.27. Declining issues outnumbered advances by about 3 to 2 on the NYSE, with 513 up, 778 down and 521 unchanged. Big Board volume came to 72.09 million shares, down from 112.01 million Wednesday and the lightest total since a 48.86 million-share day on Dec. 26, 1986.
AP900927-0200 	X	If the chief executive officer of a major company ran his business affairs in the same manner as the federal government does, he would lose his job. There is almost no question this would be his fate because the board of directors, answerable to the shareholders, would be compelled to ask why, for example, he was unaware of the company's poor financial condition. And he wouldn't have a good answer. They would ask why he made decisions based on inaccurate information, why his flow of information was inadequate, why it took so long to assemble, why he failed to take action until months after the problems had become crises. The federal government has fought the problem but it hasn't succeeded, and elected and appointed officials still must make decisions on the basis of insufficient or unreliable information. In the second quarter, based on the best evidence available to the Commerce Department in late July, the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1.2 percent -weak, but still strong enough to convince officials to refrain from taking action. This week, three months after the second quarter ended, it became known to the President that the economy had been failing in that period, just skirting recession, growing at a bare four-tenths of a percent. The White House expressed surprise and concern, and Michael Boskin, the White House chief economic adviser, conceded the economy was now on a weaker path than had been known. The administration halved its earlier projections. While the Federal Reserve has its own data retrieval methods, by means of which it seeks to anticipate and fine-tune the economic direction, it too must have been surprised by the tardy news. You can't foresee with ancient data. The situation points up the problem of running an economy so huge that data cannot be assembled in time to act. Not only does its collection take time, but when assembled it is incredibly complex, making it subject to revision. It is such a revision that now reveals the April-June economy was tripping on a tightrope rather than steady on its feet as officials had believed, in spite of fears expressed by private economists and business people. The problem has existed since economic statistics were first gathered, but it becomes more serious when the economy is walking the line between recession and expansion, as it is now, or when efforts are made to fine tune. Fine tuning, defined more by the attempt than the accomplishment, seeks to deal with the economy over shorter periods of time than is usually the case - by the month or even week, for example, rather than the quarter or the year. In the Federal Reserve's area of authority it would mean keeping an especially close watch, among other things, on the money supply and interest rates, which of course rely on accurate measurements of economic activity. Generally speaking, economists both in and out of government have no choice but to use official statistics in analyzing business and economic conditions, but some private-sector economists have recently complained about inaccuracies. Some, in fact, have devised their own computer-aided techniques for gathering and analyzing information, hoping to make themselves less reliant on the official statistics. The latest revision, however, is an extremely critical one that presents a brand new perspective and forces changes in forecasts throughout government and industry, and it will add to the complaints.
AP880225-0092 	X	A former Argentine general accused of kidnapping and killing civilians in his country was told his refusal to answer lawyers' questions would harm him in a U.S. civil suit by a former prisoner. U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti told Carlos Suarez Mason on Wednesday that if he continued his silence, any fact he was asked about would be considered true for the purposes of the $20 million lawsuit. Suarez Mason, who is fighting extradition to Argentina, defied an order by a federal magistrate earlier this week and refused to answer questions about his alleged responsibility for atrocities in military prisons during the late 1970s. The proposed questions include whether Suarez Mason had authority to order torture and executions at prisons run by the First Army Corps, which he commanded from 1976 to 1979. The former general said Monday he would not answer questions without having a lawyer. The issue of whether the lawyer Suarez Mason has hired for the extradition case must also represent him in three civil suits without additional pay is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Conti told the lawyers to submit written questions and ordered Suarez Mason to be ready to answer on March 28, a day before the scheduled trial of the civil suit and a week after his scheduled extradition hearing before another judge. Suarez Mason, 63, is charged in Argentina with 43 murders and 24 kidnappings of civilians, allegedly committed by soldiers under his command during the so-called ``dirty war'' against suspected leftists. He fled Argentina after a civilian government came to power in 1983 and was arrested in January 1987 at his home in Foster City, south of San Francisco. He is being held without bail. Three civil suits have been filed against him by former Argentinians now living in the United States, who say they were tortured or their relatives were killed by soldiers under the general's command. U.S. courts have allowed damage suits for acts committed abroad in violation of international law by a foreigner who is physicially in the court's district.
AP880811-0137 	X	Iraq today accused Iran of shelling Iraqi military positions near the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the Persian Gulf war broke out nearly eight years ago. The attacks, if confirmed, would be the first serious fighting reported since both nations agreed Monday at the United Nations to begin a cease-fire Aug. 20 and to open direct talks in Geneva five days later. The accusation came in a brief statement from the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations. It said the attacks occurred Wednesday and today. The statement said ``the Iranian armed forces bombarded Iraqi military positions'' around Basra and the Faw peninsula with howitzers, mortars and small missiles. The brief report to the United Nations did not denounce Iran. The statement also did not say whether Iraq suffered casualties. U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who had no immediate comment on the statement, scheduled a meeting with Iraqi Ambassador Ismat Kittani at the ambassador's request, presumably to discuss the situation. When Perez de Cuellar announced the cease-fire date, Iran gave him a letter pledging it would not launch any attacks prior Aug. 20. Iraq did not submit a similar letter, but the U.N. chief said Tuesday he had received oral assurances from both nations they would exercise restraint. The main attack on Basra involved 214 howitzer shells, 205 mortar rounds and 32 small missiles, the Iraqi statement said. The Faw bombardment involved 26 howitzer shells, 32 mortar rounds and 16 small missiles, it added. Both targets are near Shatt al-Arab, the disputed waterway that forms the southern border between Iran and Iraq. It is the only sea outlet Iraq has and it has been blocked by Iran since early in the war. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 after border skirmishes in a bid to gain complete control of the waterway. Today's Iraqi statement also said without elaborating that an Iranian tank fired two missiles at Iraqi positions in the ``northern sector'' of the border. On Wednesday, Iran's U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Ja'afar Mahallati, complained to Parez de Cuellar that Iraqi warplanes had buzzed Iranian cities and warned that more such flights could jeopardize the proposed truce. In Tehran on Wednesday, Iran's acting commander-in-chief, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said a U.N. inquiry must condemn Iraq as the aggressor in the war or the region will face grave consequences. After meeting with the U.N. chief, Mahallati told reporters that Iraqi overflights ``can be a dangerous opening. If it (the overflights) would be continued, I am afraid that it is an obstacle in the way of the secretary-general carrying out his task.'' Perez de Cuellar said of the alleged overflights: ``I am persuaded that if something happened, it was kind of a mistake, a technical mistake, a misunderstanding.''
AP880511-0215 	X	Thousands of people who worked at the fire-ravaged First Interstate Bank tower have moved to temporary quarters in a generally trouble-free transition. Some of the new space even was provided by competing financial institutions. ``Our fiercest competitors have been very nice in this crisis,'' said Bob Campbell, a spokesman for First Interstate. The three-hour, 43-minute blaze a week ago gutted 4{ floors in the 62-story tower, the tallest building in California, and caused one death and 40 injuries. An 12th-floor electrical problem was the suspected cause. It will take six to 10 weeks to reopen floors of the vacated 1 million square-foot building that were damaged by smoke and water, officials said. Mal Lumby, a spokesman for First Interstate, said there are no firm estimates yet on how long it will take to repair the burned floors. ``It could be as long as a year. It's all speculation at this point. The analysis of the metal (structural beams) has not yet been done,'' Lumby said. Most of First Interstate's 2,000 bank and holding company employees have been working in their new locations since Friday. About 900 report daily to the bank's emergency operations center several blocks from the burned building. The center, described by Campbell as ``the operations hub of the bank'' is where employees handle check clearings, statements and securities operations. ``Customer service didn't miss a beat,'' said another bank spokesman, John Popovich. Several hundred other people moved to vacant space in nearby buildings; about 800 are on call at home enjoying a paid vacation. ``No one is being laid off,'' Campbell said, adding that First Interstate hoped to have space next week for all employees. Bank of America and Security Pacific National Bank helped out the competition in the emergency. Bank of America provided sub-leased office space at downtown for three of the 10 banks operating out of the First Interstate tower. Corporate officers of First Interstate and their clerical staffs moved into a 23,700 square-foot area of the 10th floor of the Bank of America headquarters, said Bank of America spokesman Tom Chapman. Hanil Bank of Korea moved its employes into 4,800 square feet of space, he said, and Commerzbank of Germany workers moved into a 3,800-square-foot area on the 47th floor of the Bank of America headquarters. Popovich credited the bank's emergency plan and satellite headquarters, a $1.5 million contingency facility, for keeping the bank in operation. ``Of course, we expected an earthquake, but it was nice to have it (the plan) handy,'' he said. First Interstate owns the bank tower in partnership with Equitable Life Assurance Society. Equitable's real estate subsidiary, Equitable Real Estate in New York, manages the building. There also were 30 other tenants, mostly legal firms employing about 1,400 people, with operations in the now-closed tower. Many attorneys have taken refuge in nearby legal offices. ``There has been great community generosity here and reaching out,'' Equitable's Jonathan Miller said Wednesday from New York. Suitcase- and box-toting employees, accompanied by security officers, have been making a daily pilgrimage to the fire-scarred tower to pick up crucial files, computer disks and other items such as telephone lists.
AP900301-0170 	X	Senate leaders and President Bush compromised Thursday on future air pollution controls for automobiles, factories and electric power plants, enhancing chances that a clean air bill will pass this year. The agreement, after more than three weeks of closed-door negotiations, was viewed as a middle ground likely to attract enough support to thwart continuing regional opposition in the looming Senate debate. Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, called the compromise a ``sound and comprehensive'' agreement that will substantially improve air quality over the next decade. He planned to bring the legislation to the Senate floor on Monday. ``President Bush is extraordinarily pleased with the agreement. It is a milestone, an enormous step forward,'' said Roger Porter, the president's chief domestic policy adviser. Porter said the administration would attempt to expedite Senate passage and seek a similar agreement in the House, where clean-air legislation remains in committee. But the compromise is still likely to encounter stiff industry lobbying, largely because of its estimated $20 billion to $40 billion annual cost to the economy. Both industrial and environmental groups issued statements Thursday denouncing the compromise. Some senators also have expressed concern that the bargaining weakened provisions in the original Senate bill that would have required stronger automobile emission controls to combat urban smog. Other have voiced continued concern about the impact of acid rain controls. ``The agreement fails to require the controls we need to provide clean air in the nation and in New Jersey,'' said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who participated in some of the private discussions, but said he would not support the compromise on the Senate floor. Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., the minority leader, called the compromise ``a giant step forward'' in revising federal air pollution laws for the first time in 13 years. But he cautioned that many senators likely will seek changes when the measure goes to the Senate floor. He urged Mitchell ``not to handcuff anyone'' during the floor action by rushing to cut off debate. The agreement made some accommodations to regional interests, especially those concerned about the local economic cost of acid rain controls. On that score, the compromise continues to require a 10 million ton annual reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions, but allows Midwest utilities to achieve extra credits and allowances that could be sold to other utilities to recoup some of the costs. Plants that use new technology _ instead of switching away from high-sulfur coal to another fuel _ could delay compliance for two years would receive additional credits for early cuts in emissions, provisions designed to help West Virginia's coal industry. About a dozen senators from the Midwest had threatened to filibuster the legislation if some accommodation were not met to ease their concerns about the high costs of the pollution controls. Mitchell said he still could not discount the threat of a filibuster, but various Senate sources suggested that with the compromise, Mitchell likely would have enough votes to halt debate. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said he would seek additional changes to the bill. But ``I'm not going to engage in any filibuster,'' he said. ``We did not have a choice between the good, the bad and the ugly. We had a choice between ugly, uglier and ugliest,'' said Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., who during the private talks sought to work out provisions to ease the plight of Midwest utilities that rely heavily on high-sulfur coal. The breakthrough on the legislation came Wednesday when leaders agreed on pollution curbs on automobiles. The compromise eliminates an automatic second round of auto tailpipe controls, although such measures could be put into effect if more than 11 of 27 cities with ``serious'' ozone pollution problems fail to meet federal air quality standards at the end of this decade. The White House had strongly opposed the second round of controls, as had the auto industry. But environmentalists, state pollution control officials in areas with the dirtiest air, and some senators argued the second round of controls are needed to deal with smog in such areas as southern California and the Northeast. In the final days of negotiations, an agreement also came on the acid rain provision, after senators from the West were assured that the utility emission controls would allow for future growth in electric capacity and some accommodation was made to the Midwest region. Earlier tentative agreements were struck on how to curb toxic and smog-causing emissions from industrial plants. Under the compromise, industrial plants will have to use the best available technology to curb releases of 192 toxic chemicals including carcinogens, or cancer-causing agents. Early in the next decade a ``health standard'' would require plants to reduce emissions further, if the cancer risk to nearby residents is still too high. A broad range of industries and businesses also would have to comply with tougher controls on smog-causing emissions. The compromise, however, would exempt thousands of smaller polluters, which would have been covered by the original Senate bill. Environmental groups, meanwhile, chastised the negotiations and said the compromise agreement severely weakened the original Senate bill. ``The back-room dealing has generated bad deals for the American people,'' complained Richard Ayres, chairman of the National Clean Air Coalition. But industry did not like the agreement either. The Edison Electric Institute called the agreement ``unnecessarily costly'' for the nation's utilities. The Chemical Manufacturers Association called the tougher controls on toxic chemicals too stringent and politically motivated and ignoring scientific facts about health risks. The agreement is ``far from what business and industry would consider acceptable,'' said William Fay, administrator of the Clean Air Working Group, industry's umbrella lobbying organization on clean air issues. ``There's no question the bill has been improved but there are still some real problems,'' said Helen Petrauskas, vice president for environmental engineering at Ford Motor Co. Though the bill avoids any requirement that automakers sell a specific number of cars that burn clean fuels, which favors industry, the exhaust standards are still tougher than the industry would like, she said.
AP880903-0133 	X	Iraq's foreign minister said Saturday that the 10-day-old Persian Gulf peace talks were stalled at their starting point, and he blamed Iran for the delay. Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz spoke to reporters at the U.N. building in Geneva after a nearly two-hour meeting with U.N. mediator Jan Eliasson. ``We are still at square one,'' Aziz said. ``We have not gone beyond that square because the other side, the Iranian side, has not yet shown any substantive sign that ... they realize their commitments vis-a-vis the cease-fire.'' He said those commitments had to do with freedom of navigation and with the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, Iraq's main outlet to the sea. Iran has insisted it has the right to stop vessels in the gulf and share control of the waterway. The dispute over the waterway is one of the key issues in the talks. Aziz also accused Iran of using ``their traditional art of procrastination'' in the talks. ``Maybe they were betting that procrastination would make people fed up and then give up. We don't.'' He said Iraqi delegates would stay at the talks as long as necessary. Iran made no immediate response to his comments. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati later held a nearly three-hour meeting with Eliasson that lasted until after midnight. As Velayati left, he told reporters the talks were constructive. Iran's foreign minister said ``we do hope that we can continue our talks during the next day or the day after tomorrow'' and added that ``we should see how things are going'' after the weekend. He declined further comment. Earlier Saturday, Eliasson told reporters he was working hard to find a format to advance the talks. However, an Iranian delegate speaking on condition of anonymity said the problem was substance, not form. The talks are aimed at agreeing on follow-up measures to the U.N.-sponsored cease-fire that took effect Aug. 20. The Iran-Iraq conflict, which began in September 1980, has claimed about 1 million lives. Eliasson said, ``We are working hard and we hope that we will be advancing.'' But he reported little movement. He spoke shortly before meeting with Aziz and other members of the Iraqi delegation. Eliasson, named special representative Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, met separately with both ministers Friday. Perez de Cuellar left Geneva on Thursday, after mediating the first week of the talks. Perez de Cuellar said before he left Geneva that the main problem in the talks was that the two sides did not trust each other. On Friday, the Iranian mission in Geneva released a list of 47 alleged Iraqi violations of the cease-fire. On Saturday, the Iraqi mission distributed a copy of an Iraqi News Agency report that also accused Iran of committing 47 cease-fire violations. Iran has called for the immediate withdrawal of troops behind their respective borders. It also calls for quick implementation of the provisions of the U.N. Security Council's cease-fire resolution, particularly establishment of an independent inquiry to establish which side started the war.
AP901108-0056 	X	Entomologists say they want endangered species protection for a recently rediscovered butterfly that experts believed had been extinct for more than 50 years. Paul Hammond, an Oregon State University entomologist and butterfly expert, said he rediscovered the butterflies by accident. ``In the spring of 1989 I hiked out onto a south-facing slope of a hill that had native prairie on it, and here was this very unusual kind of lupine plant with all these little blue butterflies swimming around on it. ``I knew immediately what it was,'' he said. It was Fender's blue butterfly, a relic of the ice ages found only in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The butterfly was last seen near the small town of Wren, west of Corvallis, in 1937. Since that find last year, several pockets of the species have been found in western Oregon. A petition is being prepared to ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to declare the butterfly a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Hammond said the butterfly has a wingspan of only about 1 inch. The male is a ``brilliant, iridescent blue,'' he said. ``They really stand out. The female is a drab brown.'' The butterfly dates back more than 10,000 years, Hammond said. Surrounded by glaciers to the north and mountains to the south, east and west, the butterfly's habitat was limited to a small area of the Willamette Valley.
AP880829-0191 	X	Changes in adoption laws designed to curb illegal ``baby trade'' have restricted the ability of foreigners to adopt Filipino youngsters and may mean that many will spend their childhood in orphanages. New regulations, which took effect Aug. 3, ban adoptions of Filipino children by foreigners residing in the country unless at least one prospective parent is related to the child. Foreigners living abroad can still adopt Filipino children through international agencies. But prospective parents living here will have to return to their own country and file papers there through an international agency. The procedure can take years, depending on the adoption laws in the country where the papers are filed. Government figures indicate that in recent years about 17 percent of the 2,500 children adopted here annually have been taken by foreigners residing in the Philippines and who were not related to the child. More than a third of all adoptions of Filipino children are by foreigners, including those who file papers abroad and would not be affected by the changes. ``The new code is not anti-foreigner,'' said Lourdes Balanon, assistant director of the government's Bureau of Child and Youth Welfare. ``It is an effort by the government to protect our children.'' Ms. Balanon said that in the past foreigners could adopt Filipino children in a few weeks. Previous regulations allowed single foreigners to adopt with much less red tape than in the United States or other countries. Ms. Balanon added that although many of the adoptive foreign parents were of good character, others may have been fronts for ``baby trading'' _ selling youngsters to couples abroad who were unable to have children. ``Mothers were convinced to give up their children, and even kidnapping may have been encouraged,'' she said. Because local adoptions usually were arranged without the services of an international agency, the government here had no way of ensuring the child's welfare once the parents left the country. But some welfare workers fear the new regulations will discourage legitimate adoptions by qualified foreign families, living in a country without a tradition of taking in children who are not related to those who adopt them. In Filipino society, adoption of children with no blood ties is rare. Government figures show that in the past two years, only 5 percent of the children adopted here were taken by Filipino couples who were not related by blood. Traditionally, orphans and children of impoverished parents unable to care for them become the responsibility of the ``extended family'' _ uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. But children born out of wedlock are often kept secret from their families. Abortion is technically illegal and birth control is frequently shunned in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. Unwed mothers find themselves under tremendous social pressure to turn their infants over to religious or government orphanages. In other cases, extended families sometimes are too poor to take in another child. ``Older children will be especially affected,'' said Lisa Hechenova of the Asilio de San Vincente de Paul Orphange in Manila. ``Because if Filipinos adopt at all, they want infants. Foreigners are more inclined to accept toddlers and even 6-to-10-year olds.'' Jose, a 3-year-old toddler at Manila's Hospicio de San Jose Orphanage, is one of those children who, because of new regulations, may never have a home. He has been at the orphanage for more than eight months because officials have had difficulty finding him a home and the new changes in the law will make it even more difficult. Seven-year-old Maria was among the last children adopted by a resident foreign couple. She was given in July to a European couple. Maria said she never knew her natural parents. ``But I used to dream about them every night. Only they didn't have faces.''
AP881104-0214 	X	A former church secretary has pleaded guilty to murder charges in the 1983 slaying of her husband and admitted that she gave her former minister the handgun used to kill him. The alleged love triangle formed the basis of a television miniseries. Lorna Anderson Eldridge, 35, entered the plea to second-degree murder Thursday, telling the court that she and Thomas Bird plotted the 1983 slaying of Martin K. Anderson. Mrs. Eldridge said she and Bird hatched a plot in which she stopped her van on a rural highway and pretended to lose her keys so that her husband had to get out and look for them. The Lutheran pastor then shot her husband, she said. The slaying and Mrs. Eldridge's reputed love affair with Bird were dramatized in the CBS miniseries ``Murder Ordained'' in 1987. Mrs. Eldridge and Bird, 38, already are serving prison terms. She pleaded guilty in 1985 to criminal solicitation in an earlier, unsuccessful plot on her husband's life and was sentenced to five to 18 years. Bird, who has not been charged in Anderson's death, was convicted in 1984 of criminal solicitation in the unsuccessful plot. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half to seven years in that case, and to life in prison for murdering his wife, Sandra, in 1983. Sheriff Bill Deppish said Mrs. Eldridge's statement was an ``important breakthrough'' that could lead to new charges against Bird. Mrs. Eldridge, who remarried, originally was charged with first-degree murder but accepted a plea bargain under which the prosecution will seek a 10-year prison term at sentencing Jan. 3. Second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 20 years to life in prison. Jack Focht, Mrs. Eldridge's attorney, called the case ``kind of the great American tragedy _ that people romantically come apart sometimes and get involved romantically and violence sometimes happens. ``And when it happens as it did on Nov. 4, 1983, lives get stamped indelibly, lots of lives,'' he said.
AP900702-0197 	X	EDITOR'S NOTE _ For decades she labored in obscurity, writing the poems that no one would publish. Now at an age when most people are considering retiring, Amy Clampitt has begun to attract attention in the literary world.
AP900427-0198 	X	The spot month contract for West Texas Intermediate crude was $18.46 per barrel at 12 p.m. Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
AP901203-0048 	X	Today's 17th game of the Garry Kasparov-Anatoly Karpov world chess championship has been postponed until Wednesday at Kasparov's request. The two Soviet grandmasters are scheduled to resume the 16th game on Tuesday. That game was contested for five hours Saturday and nearly six hours Sunday without a result after 88 moves. Through the 15 completed games, the players are tied with 7.5 points each. They have had three draws in the French portion of the championship. They had 10 draws in the 12 games played at New York between Oct. 8 and Nov. 7. The first player to reach 12.5 points wins the championship, but Kasparov would retain the title in the event of a 12-12 draw. Each player is allowed to request up to three postponements during the championship. The postponement requested by Kasparov today was his second. Karpov has used one timeout.
AP880316-0325 	X	General Electric Co. said its scientists have put a superconducting film on a silicon chip and gotten it to work at temperatures warmer than liquid nitrogen, the first such achievement. The matching of a superconductor and silicon is considered important because of silicon's dominance in the microelectronics field, GE said in an announcement for release Thursday. ``Virtually all of the world's microchips are made from silicon, so if you want to use the new superconducting materials in any way in microelectronics, it is advantageous to be able to deposit them on this substrate,'' Antonio Mogro-Campero, who did the research along with Larry G. Turner, said in a statement. Previous attempts to apply a superconducting film on silicon had failed because the layers mixed in the process of heating the film, known as annealing. Researchers at GE's research center in Schenectady, N.Y., solved the problem by using a buffer layer of zirconia, a heat-resistant metallic oxide. GE said the thin film remained superconducting _ that is, with zero loss of energy to resistance _ at temperatures as high as 310 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, 10 degrees above the point at which nitrogen becomes liquid.
AP881208-0133 	X	Liberal Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen said Vatican officials have indicated he will regain full control of the Seattle archdiocese. Hunthausen, who returned Tuesday from a week in Rome, said he was ``hoping for some kind of a statement'' within weeks that will officially end the Vatican's direct assistance to the archdiocese. But a conservative Catholic group charged Wednesday that violations of church practices are continuing and said it will not let up in its criticism. ``I haven't seen a great change here,'' Margaret Hoffman, director of the Sons of St. Peter Coalition, said Wednesday. ``I've seen things happen currently that are not in line with church teaching. I think we as laymen have a duty to report abuses ... for the health of the church.'' Hunthausen's weeklong visit to Rome was to fulfill the requirement that bishops consult with the pope every five years. The archbishop ran afoul of the Vatican in 1983 over the granting of annulments and general absolution of sins, intercommunion with Protestants and opening of churches to meetings of homosexual Catholics. A Vatican investigation resulted in the archbishop being stripped of much of his power. Although Hunthausen's full powers were restored in May 1987 on the recommendation of an apostolic commission appointed by Rome, the panel continued to assist in the operation of the Seattle archdiocese. Most recently, Hunthausen has shared authority with Coadjutor Archbishop Thomas J. Murphy, who accompanied Hunthausen to Rome to present Pope John Paul II and Vatican officials an overview of changes made and planned in the ministry. Hunthausen said there would be no visible changes in the way he handles the archdiocese's operations, now that some changes and clarifications have been made or at least initiated. An archdiocesan statement said Vatican officials also were told Hunthausen's critics appear ``bent on undoing the fabric of unity that exists among sincere and conscientious believers within the Body of Christ. ... In our judgment, their criticism ought not to be given serious attention.'' Hunthausen said Wednesday the ``small cadre'' of critics within the archdiocese are ``people with a different view of the church.'' ``We'd love to be able to find a way to minister to them,'' he said.
AP880825-0014 	X	The long arm of the Environmental Protection Agency is reaching out to the local town dump _ and the huge metropolitan landfill as well. EPA, in its first major effort to regulate the land disposal of household trash and garbage, is proposing rules that officials say would force nearly every municipal dump to take steps to protect the environment. Announced Wednesday, the plan would require all of the nation's municipal solid waste landfills to install often-expensive monitoring equipment to detect pollution of groundwater supplies. The proposal, not expected to be popular with local governments, would require the cleaning up of dumps found to be leaking contaminants into underground aquifers. The draft regulations would force operators to put waterproof covers over dumps when they are closed and would set restrictions on where a new dump can be located. Many dumps that open after the rules take effect, probably not before 1991, would have to install bottom liners to prevent leakage and have systems to collect the polluting liquids found in dumps. ``It's a very strong protective rule,'' said J. Winston Porter, assistant EPA administrator for solid waste and emergency response. ``In some cases, people are going to have to spend a lot of (compliance) money.'' The plan would leave many compliance details up to states, so long as a dump did not impose any greater danger to humans than a 1-in-10,000 chance of contracting cancer from water contaminated by a dump's leachate. Porter told a news conference that states would have flexibility to operate their own compliance programs with an underlying proviso: ``We don't care what you do, but you cannot leak.'' The proposal would apply to an estimated 6,000 solid waste landfills _ 78 percent of them owned by local governments _ that handle about 80 percent of the 160 million tons of household refuse produced each year, he said. At least one of every four municipal dumps is believed to be violating one or more state groundwater-protection standards, he said. Porter said the dangers posed by municipal dumps can be seen in the ``Superfund'' priority cleanup list, where nearly one of every five facilities awaiting decontamination was once a municipal solid waste landfill. Around the nation, less than a third of the operating dumps have groundwater monitoring systems, only 15 percent have bottom liners and only 5 percent have leachate collection systems, according to EPA. ``Almost all landfills will have to do something,'' Porter said. ``There are very few landfills that meet all these requirements.'' He said he could not estimate precisely how much cost would be added to the nation's annual $4 billion to $5 billion bill for dumping, burning and recycling its trash and garbage. One EPA control scenario estimated the extra cost could reach $800 million a year, or about $11 per household. ``It will add something to the homeowner's bill,'' Porter said. ``We don't think it will be dramatic.'' He said he expects positive reaction from states because they will have flexibility to structure their dump-control programs to meet particular hydrogeologic and topographical conditions. ``I think we'll get two other reactions: local governments will say this is too expensive and environmental groups will say it isn't strong enough,'' Porter said. He said the higher dump operating costs under the proposed rules could nudge local governments to make greater efforts to recycle trash, a move that could aid EPA's national goal of recycling 25 percent of all household refuse. EPA expects to take a year to obtain public comment on the proposal before making it final, Porter said. Dumps would then have 18 more months before they had to comply with the requirements. He said some dumps might close to evade the proposed rules, a move he acknowledged would leave them without leakproof covers unless they are in one of the handful of states that now require them.
AP900708-0023 	X	An assailant ambushed and stabbed an Israeli policeman in the back Sunday near a church in the walled Old City marking the legendary burial place of Jesus, police said. The officer, identified as Moshe Tadji, 24, was in moderate condition at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital with a punctured lung after undergoing surgery to remove the knife, a hospital spokeswoman said. Police shut the city's stone-walled gates after the 11:00 a.m. attack for an hour and detained dozens of Palestinians in the area for questioning. The assault came on a day designated by Palestinian underground leaders in a leaflet for ``distinguished escalation'' as part of the 31-month-old uprising against Israel. Police Minister Roni Milo of the right-wing Likud bloc rushed to the scene from the weekly Cabinet session and vowed police would use tougher measures to prevent further attacks. ``We see this attack in a very grave light,'' Milo said on Israel radio. ``There are new methods of action that will be carried out as soon as possible,'' he added, without elaborating. Police and witnesses said Tadji, who routinely works in Jerusalem's square-mile old city, was ambushed by a youth with black curly hair and wearing blue jeans and a yellow shirt, outside the Holy Sepulcher church in the Christian Quarter. The church is held by Catholics to be the burial site of Jesus. Protestants believe the burial place is outside the walled city in a shrine called the ``Garden Tomb.'' Doctors later said they removed an 8-inch-long kitchen knife from Tadji's back and that he was in moderate condition, Hadassah spokeswoman Yael Bossem said. The area of the Holy Sepulcher has been a source of Arab-Jewish tensions following the settlement established by a group of armed Israelis in a nearby building in April. The Supreme Court later ordered most settlers evicted after strong protests from the United States, but allowed about 20 to remain pending resolution of a tenancy dispute in the building. Israel captured East Jerusalem, with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Middle East war. Jerusalem was annexed shortly afterward. The city is home to more than 350,000 Jews and about 140,000 Palestinians. During the uprising, 723 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis and 45 Israelis have been slain by Arabs. Another 232 Palestinians have been killed by fellow Arabs as alleged collaborators with Israel. Also Sunday, Israel reopened a Palestinian vocational college in Abu Dis in the West Bank as part of a plan to reopen colleges shut during the uprising to prevent unrest.
AP900514-0148 	X	The University of South Carolina's president has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on gifts for donors, office artwork and teaching salaries for celebrities such as Robby Benson and Jihan Sadat. Now James B. Holderman's lavish spending, which has given him trouble for years, has once again raised the ire of state lawmakers, who have warned him to spend public funds more wisely if he wants to keep his job. ``People are tired of it,'' Rep. Herb Kirsh said Monday. ``I feel things will be different from here on out. The public is demanding it. South Carolinians don't like that kind of spending.'' Legislators earlier this month blasted Holderman after local newspapers revealed he spent $533,898 in the past year on items such as $800-a-night hotel rooms for himself, $6,400 on sculptures for his office and $163,000 for meals and receptions for potential donors. Many of the expenses were charged to Holderman's $500,000 discretionary account _ which is funded with receipts from vending machines and concessions _ and his state-issued American Express card. By comparison, Clemson University President Max Lennon has a discretionary account of $18,000. Holderman has defended his spending as a vital part of fund-raising for the state-supported university of 40,000 students, saying his efforts have helped raise $25 million for USC in the last year. But he promised to keep his expenses down following public criticism. He said the fallout from the latest revelations has ``taught me the difficulty of taking a macro view of things.'' ``Some people tend to take a micro view of things, and that's where there seems to be a misunderstanding,'' he said last week. But if Holderman wants to remain at the helm of the state's flagship university, state lawmakers and his own board of trustees have insisted that he curb his spending. Kirsh said Holderman has set a bad example for students. If he does not follow spending guidelines being set by the newly elected board of trustees, the legislator said he would favor Holderman's dismissal. ``He's only doing it now because of the public outcry,'' Kirsh said. Board of trustees chairman Michael Mungo has also made it clear that Holderman must control his spending according to the guidelines or face dismissal. Holderman, who has presided over the university since 1977, first drew criticism in 1986 when it was revealed he ran up generous hotel bills during fund-raising trips and bought expensive gifts for donors. He then came under fire for spending huge amounts of money to recruit celebrities such as Benson, an actor and director who has taught filmmaking as an artist-in-residence since 1988. The school has paid Benson $158,367 in salary and expenses and $15,600 for rent, while Holderman has kicked in $10,000 from his discretionary account for moving and travel expenses. In addition, the university still holds about $23,000 in unpaid bills from the production of Benson's latest movie, ``Modern Love,'' which was filmed in South Carolina. Benson has said the bills will be paid and the school will receive 2 percent of the movie's profits. Benson's two-year contract expires Tuesday and no new contract offer has been made, school spokeswoman Debra Allen said Monday. Benson did not return calls left at his office Monday seeking comment, but he has said he would leave if his work was not appreciated. Other prominent personalities hired by Holderman for fat contracts include Jihan Sadat, widow of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was paid $200,000 to teach a course in Egyptian culture for three semesters in 1985 and 1986. In contrast, ``Deliverance'' author James Dickey was hired in 1969, before Holderman came aboard, and receives an $80,000 annual salary to teach four writing courses. He pays his secretary's salary and his expenses out of his own pocket. The university under Holderman's leadership also has been criticized by lawmakers for sloppy bookkeeping and using public funds, employees and equipment to operate the school's 10 private fund-raising foundations.
AP901016-0102 	X	Highflying former savings and loan owner Donald Ray Dixon goes on trial Wednesday on charges he used depositors' money to finance lavish acquisitions, leaving taxpayers with a $1.3 billion federal bailout. Dixon, 50, traveled the world for gourmet parties and acquired such trinkets as a 17th Century castle door, Baccarat crystal, Remington sculptures, a silver-studded saddle and a posh house in Solana Beach, Calif., just north of San Diego. The government says those luxuries, as well as payments to prostitutes and political campaigns, were financed from the vaults at Vernon Savings & Loan Association, which collapsed under the weight of Dixon's excess in 1987 and was taken over by the government. A dozen other Vernon executives and associates have preceded Dixon in court; 10 have been convicted and a guilty verdict against two others was set aside because the jury discussed Dixon's indictment. ``Perhaps when my day in court comes, if they'll listen, they'll find out what really happened and the blame can be properly assessed and properly assigned,'' Dixon said in July when he was arraigned on a 38-count indictment. The indictment charged him with conspiracy, misapplication of funds, making false statements and other crimes. Jury selection was to begin Wednesday in federal court. Testimony is expected to begin Monday, and continue three to four weeks. If convicted on all counts, Dixon could be sentenced to up to 190 years in prison and fined as much as $9.5 million. An extra-large panel of 75 to 80 potential jurors was called because of publicity in the case, said Jean Hiller, court coordinator for U.S. District Judge Joe A. Fish. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jarvis of Dallas said 40 to 50 prosecution witnesses could testify. Included on that list is a convicted madam, who has confirmed that she supplied prostitutes for Vernon executives when they were in San Diego. Defense and prosecution attorneys declined to discuss the case this week, citing a instructions from Fish. Until the recent notoriety given Neal Bush and Silverado Savings and Loan in Colorado or Charles Keating and Lincoln Savings and Loan in California, Dixon and Vernon were at or near the top of the list of abuses cited in the industry. Dixon's trial is an effort ``to bring to justice people who break the law, who use savings and loan associations as personal piggy banks, and who may have thought they could just walk away free and let the American taxpayer shoulder the cost of their greed,'' said Timothy Ryan, Office of Thrift Supervision director in Washington. Vernon had a luxury yacht and a fleet of five planes worth $6 million. The S&L also paid the $22,000 tab for Dixon's gastronomic tour of European restaurants, the government said. Dixon also is charged with illegal contributions to such politicians as former House Speaker Jim Wright and Jack Kemp, a former Republican congressman from New York who is now Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Recipients of those funds did not know they came from illegal sources, prosecutors have said. When regulators closed Vernon, it was the largest thrift bailout in history, and it remains among the most expensive. Most of the expensive acquisitions have been sold at auction since the government takeover. When regulators closed Vernon, they renamed it Monfort Savings Association. In December 1988, Monfort was one of five insolvent thrifts combined to create First Gibraltar Bank, the largest savings and loan in Texas. Vernon also has resulted in the stiffest sentence to date for an S&L officer. Former Chairman Woody F. Lemons was sentenced to 30 years in prison earlier this year.
AP901203-0016 	X	Cities are getting more ethnically diverse and their inhabitants are aging, demands that cit governments must answer, urban leaders said Sunday. ``We're seeing a demographic wave that will transform entire regions,'' said former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros at the 67th annual convention of the National League of Cities. He moderated a panel of mayors, city council members, county commissioners and borough presidents, who addressed the impact of these changes on electoral politics and the populace. More white women and members of minorities are winning election to top spots in cities and counties. At the same time, the white urban population is growing older while minority populations are the youngest and fastest growing in the nation, Cisneros said. In 10 years, 92 percent of Californians will live in a city with a population consisting of at least 30 percent Asian, Hispanic or black residents, he said. Similarly, only 15 percent of those entering the job market in 2000 will be white males; 85 percent will be women and minorities. ``These figures present dramatic implications about what we do for the planning of the future cities,'' Cisneros said. Panel members predicted difficulty in paying for bond issues for things as school improvements because the tax base in cities comprises older people on fixed incomes and the urban poor. Ruth Messinger, president of the New York City borough of Manhattan, said cities will need to address the need for day care and more education for families, including bilingual instruction, to keep residents working and paying taxes. St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayor Robert Ulrich offered a different perspective. He said the aging population should be regarded as an asset able to provide untapped resources in the form of public service. One example was offered by Mayor Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, where the city supports a program that brings together retired people with single-parent families to provide day care and employment at the same time. Michael Woo, a Los Angeles city councilman, suggested better programming for English instruction. ``I would like to see a common language,'' said Woo. ``I believe in ESL (English as a Second Language), but it would help if we did a better job. If high schools were able to produce not only English-proficient minority students, but also the blond and blue-eyed variety.'' Cleveland Mayor Michael White said cities must offer fairness to their constituents and enfranchisement to minorities. ``As long as this country commits $500 billion to bankrupt savings and loans; as long as this country spends $4 billion to $6 billion on Iraq and Kuwait; as long as this country continues to lock in black kids, brown kids and poor white kids into an economic system to which there is no end to the tunnel, then it will continue to get worse,'' White said.
AP880322-0211 	X	Federal fuel-economy standards will cause thousands of traffic deaths next year by discouraging the use of safer, larger cars, two researchers said Tuesday as the government reported a slight increase in auto fuel efficiency last year. ``Fuel economy regulation inevitably leads to smaller, lighter cars that are inherently less safe than the cars that would be produced without a binding fuel-economy constraint,'' said a study by Robert W. Crandall of the Brookings Institution in Washington and John D. Graham of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. They estimated the standards would cause 2,200 to 3,900 traffic deaths next year. Also Tuesday, the Transportation Department told Congress that passenger cars sold in the United States got 28.2 miles per gallon last year overall, up 0.2 miles per gallon from the previous year. Transportation Secretary Jim Burnley said Americans tended to buy slightly heavier, higher performance cars last year than in prior years, and imports showed a shift way from subcompacts to compacts, increasing their market share by 8 percentage points. Among the Big Three automakers, Chrysler Corp. had the most fuel efficient cars fleetwide in 1987, at 27.6 mpg, down from 27.8 mpg in 1986. Ford Motor Co. had a fuel-economy of 26.8 mpg, unchanged from the previous year, and General Motors Corp.'s was 26.4 mpg, up from 26.2 mpg the previous year. Weighted by sales, imports had an fuel economy of 31 mpg, down from 31.7 mpg the previous year. Domestic cars averaged 26.7 mpg, up from 26.6 mpg the year before. Burnley used the report to reiterate his support for elimination of the fuel-economy requirement, saying it placed U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage against their foreign competition. ``The greatest contribution we can make to keeping jobs in the United States and to making the domestic auto industry competitive on a worldwide basis is to repeal the (fuel economy) rules,'' Burnley said. ``Thousands of American jobs are threatened because of an anachronistic law that is doing substantial harm to our economy and our trade balance.'' The Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards _ CAFE for short _ from 1978 sought to encourage more fuel efficient cars and thereby reduce petroleum use at a time of shortages and soaring prices. The required fuel economy this year is 26 mpg of gasoline. Manufacturers that fail to meet the standards are liable to fines. Using mathematical models, Crandall and Graham estimated the CAFE standards had reduced the weight of cars by 500 pounds, to 3,100 pounds, despite sharp declines in oil prices after 1981 that in an unregulated market would be expected to encourage manufacture of larger cars. That decline in weight ``caused by CAFE is associated with a 14 to 27 percent increase in occupant fatality risk,'' the study said. They applied that range to existing traffic fatality figures to make their estimate of the number of additional deaths likely in 1989. The estimate took into account such factors as the tendency of occupants of smaller cars, compared with those of larger cars, to buckle their safety belts, the study said. The study also said the CAFE standards, by raising the cost of desirable high-performance cars, have encouraged people to drive their cars longer, extending ``the useful life of older, less safe and higher-pollution cars.'' Rep. Bob Carr, D-Mich., said at a news conference marking the study's release he hopes the conclusions will help win support for legislation he introduced last year to abolish the CAFE standards. ``Congress is not the place to design auto models,'' Carr said, acknowledging the bill's chances of passage this year are slim. The study by Crandall and Graham is scheduled for publication next year in The Journal of Law and Economics. The study was released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a public-issues group espousng free-market principles. Crandall and Graham said they did the study without funds from the institute.
AP901016-0070 	X	JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP - A fire destroyed a two-story frame house near downtown, killing six people, and six counts of murder were filed today against the husband of one of the victims. The fire was reported late Monday by a police officer who spotted the blaze while on routine patrol, Police Lt. Lorin Mock said. By the time firefighters arrived, the house was fully involved in flames, he said. The man arrested, whose name was being withheld by police, also was charged with setting the fire that killed his wife, another woman, and four children, three girls and a boy, said police spokesman Asa Higgs, who offered no other details. He also was charged with violating an injunction ordering him to stay away from his wife, Higgs said. Investigators did not say how the blaze was started. A man sleeping in a car outside the house was able to save a 3-year-old boy, Mock said.
AP880721-0048 	X	Illinois Republican Gov. James Thompson came to this convention city to taunt the Democrats, but wound up hinting that he'd make a good running mate for GOP candidate George Bush. As the Democrats embraced the ticket of Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen, who differ on a number of issues, Thompson stressed his compatibility with the vice president. ``George Bush and I agree on a lot of things,'' said Thompson, a four-term governor who was an early Bush supporter. ``I'm too moderate for some people, but I've never been told I'm too moderate for George Bush,'' he said. Thompson was careful to avoid sounding overly eager as a job applicant. Vice presidential hopefuls traditionally refrain from tooting their own horns. ``There are a number of qualified candidates,'' Thompson said. ``There's no lack of talent in our party.'' Thompson's support gave Bush a boost in the Illinois primary, where he thrashed his GOP rivals after an impressive showing in the South. Since then, Thompson has been mentioned as a vice presidential prospect, and ``Thompson-Bush'' bumper stickers have appeared in Springfield, the Illinois capital. Thompson was in Atlanta on Wednesday to carry the GOP banner. He clearly relished the task, signaling what's certain to be a Republican effort to focus attention on Jesse Jackson as part of the Democratic team. ``Gov. Dukakis has accepted Jesse Jackson as his partner in this campaign, elevated him to a position equal to or perhaps higher than his nominal running mate, Lloyd Bentsen,'' Thompson told reporters. Thompson said it was a clever strategy by Dukakis to offer Bentsen as ``the soothing, reassuring conservative.'' But he said, ``my guess is those two partners of the troika, Dukakis and Jackson, will soon leave Bentsen in the dust.'' Thompson added: ``With Bentsen whispering in one ear and Jackson whispering in his other ear, who is Dukakis going to listen to? ... I think that's the question the American people need to have answered.''
AP880313-0070 	X	Sen. Paul Simon's home-state support appears to be slipping as the Illinois primary nears and he finds himself locked in a tight race with Jesse Jackson, according to the results of a newspaper poll to be published Monday. A Chicago Tribune poll of 500 Democrats likely to vote in Tuesday's primary shows Jackson with 32 percent of the support and Simon with 29 percent. But the poll, by Peter D. Hart and Associates has an error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points, making the race a statistical dead heat. The latest poll, taken Friday and Saturday, updates one done earlier last week and published in Sunday's Tribune. That poll, with a similar sample and error margin, showed Simon holding 35 percent of the support to Jackson's 30 percent. ``I'm not saying every poll is inaccurate,'' Simon said while campaigning Sunday in Chicago's Chinatown. ``All I'm saying is if I get my message across to the people of Illinois, they're going to vote for me.'' Among other Democrats in the new poll, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was third with 20 percent, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri had 5 percent and Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore had 4 percent. The Tribune said 9 percent of the voters were undecided and 1 percent preferred none of the candidates. The newspaper did not update its Sunday poll of GOP voters, which found Vice Presient George Bush the overwhelming favorite among Illinois Repbulicans over rivals Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and former TV evangelist Pat Robertson. The new Tribune poll found Jackson's support strongest in Chicago, which represents nearly half of the state's likely Democratic primary voters. Simon did best in counties closer to his Southern Illinois home of Makanda and in the rest of Cook County outside Chicago. Support for the two was split among racial and sexual lines. Jackson was strongest among blacks and men, while Simon's support was heaviest among whites and women, the poll results show. Among occupations, blue-collar workers supported Jackson far more than other job classifications, while Simon's support was nearly even among all occupations.
AP880423-0154 	X	President Reagan will appoint Los Angeles federal judge Pamela Ann Rymer to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seat vacated by Anthony M. Kennedy, it was disclosed. Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif., said Friday that Reagan had picked Rymer, now a U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles, to fill the seat left in November when Kennedy was named to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wilson will nominate U.S. Attorney Robert C. Bonner of Los Angeles to replace Rymer, said Wilson aide Bill Livingstone. The formal announcement of Rymer's nomination to the appellate court is expected from the White House next week, Livingstone said. Both appointments must be confirmed by the Senate. Rymer, 46, known for her stiff sentences, is a lifelong Republican and she was on a list of candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court before Reagan settled on Kennedy last year.
AP900119-0276 	X	After a four-year wait, South Korea has authorized E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.'s application to build a $97 million titanium dioxide plant jointly with a local firm, the Finance Ministry said Friday. Officials said the proposed plant will be capable of producing anually 60,000 tons of titanium dioxide, a white crystaline compound used as a paint pigment. The American company will put up $77.6 million and control 80 percent of the venture, with the remaining 20 percent invested by Hanyang Chemical Corp., officials said. Strong opposition by local environmentalists who feared pollution had delayed the approval. Sources said the U.S. government recently intervened to get the project approved. The Ministry officials said the approval was conditioned on du Pont burying waste from production. Du Pont is expected to market the product at home and abroad. There is now one small domestic producer. Officials said the final approval came Thursday when the Foreign Capital Project Review Committee met. Hanyang and Du Pont have yet to pick a site for the plant, according to Hanyang officials who did not say when the plant will begin operation. One press report said it will take about three years to build the plant.
AP900406-0147 	X	Sen. Edward M. Kennedy attacked the Bush administration Thursday for giving mere ``lip service to the fight to end bigotry'' while the White House renewed both support for civil rights and its threat to veto a bill the Massachusetts Democrat is sponsoring. ``The administration's veto threat underscores the sharp contrast between its words and its deeds on civil rights,'' said Kennedy, whose bill to combat job bias is a major goal of civil rights forces in Congress this year. Kennedy's comments came after presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters at the White House that the administration is ``for civil rights legislation'' but ``we are simply not for that bill.'' The Kennedy bill is aimed at restoring legal tools that civil rights forces say were taken away by six Supreme Court decisions last year. Provisions range from a ban on harassment of employees to expanding workers' rights to challenge seniority systems based on discrimination. The heart of the bill, based on a case at a salmon cannery in Alaska, would force employers accused of discrimination to change their hiring practices or prove that the practices were based on business necessity. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said in his letter to Kennedy on Tuesday that this provision, aimed at overturning the Supreme Court's ``Wards Cove'' decision last year, would in effect result in racial hiring quotas. Kennedy said in his statement that while ``giving lip service to the fight to end bigotry, the administration is clinging to its do-as-little-as-possible response to the Supreme Court's recent decisions, which dramatically cut back on long-accepted protections for working men and women against discrimination on the job.'' ``The administration is digging in its heels at a time when a bipartisan majority in the Congress and the country want to see those decisions overturned and the gaps in our civil rights laws filled,'' Kennedy said. The Bush administration is calling for approval of a more modest job-discrimination bill, which would address two of last year's rulings. ``We are interested in correcting problems which arose from last year's Supreme Court cases,'' Fitzwater said. Kennedy's Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee on Wednesday approved his measure, 11-5, with support from Sens. David Durenberger, R-Minn., and James Jeffords, R-Vt. Durenberger told the panel that the administration would not act on civil rights without pressure from the committee. The measure now has 40 Senate co-sponsors and civil rights forces say they have enough votes for passage. But conservative critics led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, say they hope to ease some of its provisions in floor action. Hatch told the committee that the measure would create a ``bonanza for lawyers'' while Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., declared that it would ``add litigation.''
AP880910-0013 	X	Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen is fighting for votes in California by blasting the Republicans on labor issues and trying to show strength where the Democrats have a weak image: law and order. Bentsen today planned to visit Operation Safe Streets, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office program in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson to combat crime, including gang violence. The Texas senator has criticized the Reagan administration for cutting money to help local law enforcement efforts. He also planned to attend a rally today in San Diego before returning to Los Angeles for a dinner honoring California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. On Friday in Bloomington east of Los Angeles, Bentsen attended a rally in a union hall to where he took part in the Democratic campaign to give 60 days notice to the Republicans before election day. Bentsen told the cheering crowd, many waving giant ``pink slips'' for George Bush, that ``We're here today to give the Republicans a better break than they give the American worker.'' ``Sure, we could provide notice the Republican way,'' he said. ``We could go there election eve and we could change the locks on the door. ``We could take the vice president's White House mess card and cancel that. And we could take away Air Force Two,'' he said. ``But we agree with the vast majority of the American people who say 60 days notice is fair.'' Bentsen, digging at Bush as he mined for California's 47 electoral votes, said the vice president has had many ``conversions'' on issues lately. ``He's like a successful missionary. He has a conversion every day,'' Bentsen said. ``But the only problem (is) he's converting himself. Last week he discovered the environment. This week he discovered the minimum wage and said well maybe, maybe it should be raised. And the next day he really wasn't so sure.'' Earlier Friday, Bentsen told farmers in Amana, Iowa, that Bush and his running mate, Dan Quayle, don't understand rural needs. Asked by reporters about Michael Dukakis' controversial statement during the primaries suggesting that farmers grow Belgian endives to help solve their problems, Bentsen said the Massachusetts governor now has a better understanding. ``I'm sure he does,'' Bentsen said.
AP881223-0066 	X	Algerians re-elected Chadli Bendjedid to his third presidential term by a smaller margin than ever before, but still gave him a mandate to continue reforms that began two months ago. Thg Interior Ministry announced early today that Bendjedid, the single candidate, had captured 81 percent of Thursday's vote. About 89 percent of the country's 12 million eligible voters cast ballots. Voter turnout in Algeria traditionally runs at about 90 percent. As in most one-party states where a single candidate is on the ballot, voter abstention is seen as the only real form of dissent in elections. Although still winning a high percentage of votes, the win was 14 percent smaller than 1984 when Bendjedid garnered 95 percent of the vote with voter turnout at about 95 percent. In 1979, he took 94 percent. While reflecting a decline in popularity, the election still gives Bendjedid a clear mandate to continue with the economic reforms introduced after a week of rioting in early October that claimed 176 lives. Rioters filled the streets to protest high unemployment, inflation and a chronic housing shortage. In an effort to restore calm, Bendjedid promised a more liberal political system and less central control of both the economy and society. In his third term, Bendjedid faces the task of reducing the power of a military and civilian bureaucracy that has built a comfortable position in the 25 years since independence from France. He also has promised to loosen the grip of the National Liberation Front, the only legal political party, on all aspects of Algerian life. One problem is how to permit more autonomy and democratic freedom without allowing opposition parties. The severe economic problems remain, many traceable to several years of low oil prices on world markets. Unemployment and annual inflation have surpassed 20 percent and the foreign debt is $23 billion.
AP900801-0059 	X	The dollar firmed against European currencies this morning but dropped against the Japanese yen. Spot gold prices regained some of the ground lost in Tuesday's trading in New York. In Tokyo, the dollar sank to its lowest level since February 23. It closed at 146.65 yen, down 0.85 yen from Tuesday. Later in London, the dollar was quoted at 146.12 yen. Other dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Tuesday: _1.5889 German marks, up from 1.5875 _1.3514 Swiss francs, up from 1.3475 _5.3315 French francs, up from 5.3210 _1.7905 Dutch guilders, up from 1.7880 _1,163.25 Italian lire, up from 1,162.00 _1.1511 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1523 In London, one British pound cost $1.8572, down from late Tuesday's $1.8595. Dealers in Tokyo said institutional investors, noting the narrowing gap between U.S. and Japanese interest rates, began dumping dollars as soon as the Tokyo market opened and the U.S. unit fell below 146 yen. Once that happened, ``there was a greater than expected demand for the dollar below the 146-yen line,'' said Yutaka Hayashi, a dealer with the Mitsui Taiyo Kobe Bank. Several analysts believe the dollar will sink as low as 140 yen this summer, and perhaps dip below 1.5620 Deutsche marks, the lowest level since World War II. ``There is not a lot of reason why the market should start buying the dollar,'' said Jim O'Neil, international economist at Swiss Bank Corp in London. The dollar's weakness in the foreign exchanges is helping support gold prices, although dealers are debating whether gold has sufficient support to move convincingly into a technical chart resistance area between $373.00 and $375.00 an ounce. Gold rebounded this morning from an earlier retreat in New York, where it was quoted at $370.20 bid late Tuesday. In London, gold was quoted at $371.10 per ounce at the morning fixing, compared to $372.05 a troy ounce late Tuesday. The Zurich market was closed for a national holiday. In Hong Kong, gold rose $2.04 per ounce to close at $371.46 per ounce. Silver bullion traded late in London at a bid price of $4.83 a troy ounce, down from $4.85.
AP880509-0137 	X	The man Michael Dukakis left ``minding the store'' in Massachusetts while running for president is a veteran of 40 years in and around government. Hale Champion has been a reporter, a Harvard official, an aide to California Gov. Pat Brown and a health official in the Carter administration. Balding, rotund and 65, Champion gives the impression that he's seen it all and that nothing fazes him _ not complaining legislators or angry lobbyists, budget shortfalls or the way the news media covers it all. To read one Boston newspaper, Dukakis' chief secretary said in an interview last week, ``you would have thought blood was coursing through the corridors of the Statehouse, entrails draped over the balconies. ``Where? Who? I mean it's simply a bunch of people doing their work.'' Just doing your job. ``That's the way he looks at it,'' Champion said of his boss, the governor who has risen to become the Democratic presidential front-runner. ``Sometimes that's why people think he's not exciting enough, not emotional enough.'' But, said Champion, ``that's what I like about him. I mean that's what gets things done. That's what gets things taken care of, not emoting hour after hour. ``And if that says I am unemotional about those things, maybe I am.'' Champion's strength is that ``there isn't anything that he can think of that he hasn't seen before,'' said Dukakis' press secretary James Dorsey. ``He's sort of like a deeply set foundation'' for the administration. Champion himself was a press secretary, and then executive secretary and finance director for Brown, who was Ronald Reagan's predecessor as governor of California. His career also includes financial vice presidencies at the University of Minnesota and Harvard University; a stint as director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, when he first met Dukakis, and two years as undersecretary to Joseph Califano at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the Carter administration. He was in semi-retirement as executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government when Dukakis tapped him to become his chief secretary a year ago. ``I was never interested in working, you need to understand,'' he said with a smile. ``He resisted my arguments and persuaded my wife, and here I am.'' Considering Champion's background and symmetry of thinking with Dukakis, little had to be discussed between the two on what the job entailed. ``He and I both assumed that I knew what `minding the store' meant,'' Champion said. He has faced comparisons to John Sasso, the politically savvy, longtime Dukakis associate who had been chief secretary before moving over to run the campaign. Sasso later left over his part in the ``attack video'' episode that helped drive Sen. Joseph Biden from the presidential race. Some lawmakers have criticized the lack of courting they get from Champion. ``I don't do as much of it as John did ... never will, never did when I did this kind of job before (for Brown),'' Champion said. But he keeps in close contact with legislative leaders, and that to Champion is most important. While Champion frequently remarks on how there is nothing new under the sun in his job, there are some aspects that are different in keeping an administration going while the chief executive is running for president. First, he must make sure Dukakis is abreast of events back in the state while the governor spends three or more days a week on the campaign trail. Second, he has been chiefly in charge of bringing Dukakis' constitutional successor, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy, more into the daily operations of the administration. And third, he has found that virtually every administration initiative _ from a universal health care bill to the state budget _ and many bills being pushed by individual lawmakers are publicly cast in the context of the impact on Dukakis' presidential campaign. ``At first I did get a little bit (upset),'' said Champion. ``It's ridiculous, but it's every single thing.'' But Champion said Dukakis and his administration have tried to solve any problems in that area by living the old saying, ``What's good politics is good government.'' ``If you look like you are doing what you ought to be doing generally, as against a gimme here and a gimme there, that's the best politics,'' Champion said. ``As a matter of fact, that's why Michael is where he is today, because he has always taken that kind of attitude.'' Champion said he isn't interested in a return trip to Washington if Dukakis is elected. Rather, he's counting down the last months he believes he will be in his present post and is looking beyond the part-time teaching position waiting for him at Harvard. What he's really looking forward to, he said, ``is that time when I am not even teaching.''
AP901124-0046 	X	Amid charges that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was undermined by her own party, an opinion poll released today indicated three candidates for her job would bring the Conservatives an election victory. Under Mrs. Thatcher's leadership, the governing party had trailed Labor in opinion polls for 16 months. Labor is the main opposition party in Parliament. But a poll of about 1,100 voters Friday found that more voters preferred either former Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine or Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major, to Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd would put the Tories neck and neck with Labor, with Hurd having a slight edge, according to the poll, taken by ICM for the Sunday Correspondent newspaper. The poll was published today. Forty-seven percent of people asked would vote for Heseltine, compared with 38 percent who would vote Labor, according to the poll of 1,139 people. Major received 46 percent of the vote, compared with 39 percent for Labor, and Hurd had 43 percent of the vote, compared with Labor's 41 percent, the poll showed. No margin of error was given. No poll can be 100 percent accurate, however, and there is usually a margin of error of at least two or three percentage points with a sample of that size, poll watchers said. The 372 Conservative Party members of the House of Commons will vote for a leader on Tuesday. If none of the three candidates receives a majority, a third ballot will be held Thursday. Mrs. Thatcher resigned on Thursday, after it appeared she would lose a Conservative Party leadership vote to Haseltine, who had made a strong showing in a first round of leadership balloting last Tuesday. Hurd and Major, Cabinet ministers no longer shackled by loyalty, immediately jumped into the leadership contest with Heseltine. The latest poll is similar to the findings of a Harris poll released Friday by Independent Television News that also predicted an upturn in Conservative Party fortunes under a new prime minister. That poll, of 1,107 voters on Thursday, found that the Conservatives, with any of the three candidates as leader, would beat Labor if a general election were held immediately. A general election must be held before mid-1992. The poll found voters ranked the candidates in the same order - with Heseltine leading Labor by 10 points, Major by seven points and Hurd by four. No margin of error was given in the Harris poll. Supporters of the 65-year-old Mrs. Thatcher have angrily accused Conservatives of what one called ``political matricide'' in forcing her to quit after 15 years as party leader and 11{ years as prime minister. High inflation, rising interest rates, an unpopular new tax and her lone opposition among European Community leaders to financial and political integration were among factors that undermined her support. Cabinet colleagues and campaign managers told her she could not muster enough support to win in further balloting next week. Her opponents in the party feared that under her continuing leadership the Conservatives would lose to Labor at the next general election. Labor has been in opposition since 1979. Conservative legislators returning home for the weekend were met Friday by anger from grass-roots backers of Mrs. Thatcher. Peter Stainforth, local Conservative Party treasurer at Stevenage, about 25 miles north of central London, reported particular rancor over Sir Geoffrey Howe. The deputy prime minister quit on Nov. 1 and bitterly attacked Mrs. Thatcher in a Commons speech on Nov. 13. ``I cannot express how the constituency feels about that latter-day Brutus who was the first to plunge his dagger into his leader's back,'' Stainforth said.
AP880730-0037 	X	West Germany outdistanced the United States as the world's biggest exporter for the second year in a row, according to the International Monetary Fund. West German exports amounted to $294 billion, compared with $250 billion for the United States and $231 billion for Japan in 1987, the IMF said. West German exports, which first jumped ahead of U.S. exports in 1986, also ran ahead of U.S. exports for the first two months of 1988: $46.7 billion for West Germany compared with $45.9 billion for the United States. U.S. imports in 1987 were $424 billion, compared with $228 billion for West Germany, $158 billion for France, $154 billion for Britain and $151 billion for Japan. The IMF figures, in an IMF publication released Friday, show total trade increased 10 percent in 1986 and 18 percent in 1987. The fund reported that trade among the biggest countries remained far out of balance in 1986 and 1987. The United States imported much more than it exported, while the reverse was true for Japan and West Germany. The IMF said U.S. sales grew by 15.2 percent and purchases by 9.6 percent in 1987 over the year earlier, while Japan's exports rose up 9.3 percent and imports were up 18.2 percent and Germany's imports and exports each grew by about 20 percent. Both Japan and West Germany have been undr international pressure, especially from the United States, to increase their imports and curb their exports. Last year's total trade marked a return to the annual average of the 1970s, the publication noted. The IMF said trade within the European Economic Community increased ``at substantially higher rates in 1986 and 1987 than overall trade within industrial countries.'' ``The trade of developing countries also grew substantially, reversing the stagnation of the previous three years,'' it added. The fund includes among ``developing countries'' its other 131 members, many of them poorer lands where incomes have declined, like much of Africa and Latin America, as well as more prosperous countries where conditions are improving, such as South Korea and Singapore.
AP880728-0190 	X	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told the House of Commons on Thursday that she welcomed New York City Mayor Ed Koch's change of heart on the subject of Northern Ireland. Koch completed a six-day tour of Northern Ireland and returned to New York, where on Wednesday he publicly disavowed his earlier opinions about the British stance on the troubled province. Koch said he accepted the British army as a peacekeeping force rather than an occupying army. Mrs. Thatcher told members of Parliament in the elected lower chamber: ``If more people came with an open mind and looked at what is happening on the ground, we would have many others making similar remarks.'' ``I admire Mr. Koch's forthrightness and I am glad he took time to come to Northern Ireland,'' she added. In Belfast, Koch was described as one of the few American politicians of stature who have had anything positive to say about Britain's role in Northern Ireland. ``His comments after his factfinding visit to Ireland are as refreshing as they are surprising'' the Belfast Telegraph, Northern Ireland's independent evening newspaper, commented editorially on Thursday. ``Compare his statement `My impression is that the British are trying to play a constructive role' with the attack launched by Congressman Joe Kennedy after his visit earlier this year'' the newspaper said, refering to the Democratic U.S. representative from Massachusetts. ``Mr. Koch has shown an attitude uncommon in American politicians when dealing with the Irish problem _ a willingness to view the situation with an open mind. ``He is also honest enough to admit that his vision of Ulster from across the Atlantic did not square up with what he found here: `I do not believe that they (the British) deserve the castigation that many of us, myself included, have heaped upon them,''' the Belfast Telegraph quoted Koch as saying. ``Too many people in the international community mistake the myths and propaganda emanating from these shores for facts and believe a British withdrawal is the simplistic solution to all our ills. Mayor Koch realizes the problems are much more complex than other `green-tinted' visionaries understand,'' the newspaper said. ``Of course, the hardline Irish-American lobbyists will attempt to make political capital from his comments but those Americans who are willing to listen will learn much more about the reality of life in Ireland today from Mayor Koch. ``They should, as must the people of Ulster, learn that harboring grievances for past errors or wrongs will not further the quest for peace here,'' the newspaper said. ``There have been historical mistakes in Ireland, on all sides, but acknowledgment should also be given, as Mayor Koch does, for the positive contributions made in areas like housing, jobs and electoral representation. We can build on gains not divisions.''
AP900513-0084 	X	Nearly 20 years after Peach County High School was integrated, black and white students got together Saturday night for their first integrated prom. Many of the 200 students who attended the dance said the change was long overdue. ``Somebody is going to come along every time and break some tradition that's really stupid, some tradition you don't really think about because you've always done it,'' said Hope Bickley, a white 17-year-old. ``I'm glad it was our class that broke it.'' Ms. Bickley and Ato Crumbly, a black student, are friends who have known each other since elementary school and march together in the school band. But although Crumbly said blacks and whites ``get along fairly well'' at school, they'd never had an integrated prom. ``We go to school together, play football together, run track together, so why can't we socialize together,'' Crumbly said Saturday at the formal dance in the school gym. ``I go out of town a lot in the summer, to Las Vegas and California,'' he added ``I'd tell (friends) about the prom and they'd say `What?' And they'd ask, `Do y'all still have to drink out of separate fountains?'' All school dances and parties were canceled by the Peach County school board in the early 1960s when a student apparently was injured during a prom. Board members also said planning the dances took time away from schoolwork. Without a school-sponsored prom, parents began organizing their own _ one for blacks, one for whites. But three years ago, Peach County's parent-teacher group, the Better Schools Association, tried to change the board's policy. The board promptly rejected their request for an integrated prom. Last year, the board changed its position, and Saturday's prom was held without incident. ``This prom,'' Crumbly said, ``will be a good experience.'' Susan Jordan, president of the parent-teacher organization, said the students set an example for their community. ``A child shall lead them,'' she said, quoting the Bible. ``Well, in this case, a group of children shall perhaps lead the community, and won't that be great? And isn't it about time?''
AP880520-0334 	X	Income tax payments in April helped shrink the federal budget deficit, but the monthly surplus was less than a year ago, leaving government red ink so far this year 24.6 percent higher than 1987, the Treasury Department said Friday. The April surplus of $13.9 billion, representing the difference between what the government took in and what it spent last month, helped hold the deficit for the first seven months of the fiscal year to $105.0 billion. But that figure was much higher than the $84.3 billion in red ink during the first seven months of fiscal year 1987, when the total annual deficit eventually amounted to $150.2 billion. Economists say the April report indicates the Reagan administration will have a tough time meeting its goal of a $146.7 billion deficit for fiscal 1988, which ends Sept. 30, or even the Congressional Budget Office projection of $157 billion. Michael K. Evans, head of an economic forcasting service in Washington, said the April report indicates the deficit for the year will be between $170 billion and $175 billion. ``April's the big month. After that, it's all arithmetic. ... The belief that it was going to stay below $150 billion was just pure fiction,'' he said. The 1988 deficit target in the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law is $144 billion. Budget Director James C. Miller III warned Congress on Tuesday that an across-the-board cut in federal programs, which would occur in October under the law, was ``perilously close.'' The April surplus, bolstered by $53.3 billion in individual income tax payments, was about $5 billion less than expected by private economists. They had been waiting for the report to see what effect the new income tax law would have. Some had thought the new tax law would provide a small windfall. However, Evans said the average, median taxpayer enjoyed a tax cut. ``People who used deductions and shelters paid more than they did the year before, but the rank and file paid less,'' he said. April income tax collections were 25.8 percent less than the same month a year earlier, which was inflated by the rush to take capital gains in 1986 before the favorable rates on that kind of income disappeared under the new tax law. Personal income tax collections of $237.6 billion for the first seven months of the fiscal year are running 2.7 percent behind last year. However, that has been offset somewhat by corporate income tax collections of $50.6 billion, 8.4 percent greater than last year. In April, all government revenue totaled $109.3 billion, 11.0 percent lower than April 1987. Spending totaled $95.4 billion, 13.6 percent ahead of the same month a year earlier. For the first seven months, revenues totaled $522.1 billion, up 3 percent over 1987, while spending was $627.1 billion, up 6.1 percent from the same period a year ago. As usual, the largest spending categories in April were the military, followed by Social Security, other programs in the Department of Health and Human Services and interest on the national debt. Military spending totaled $26.1 billion last month and $168.4 billion for the fiscal year so far, up 6.3 percent from the same period a year ago. Spending for Social Security totaled $16.3 billion last month and $121.3 billion for the past seven months, up 5.7 percent from the same period in the 1987 fiscal year. Social Security is exempted from budget limitations under the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law and most months has been showing faster spending increases than the other categories. The other programs in the Department of Health and Human Services, including Medicare and Medicaid, spent $15.7 billion in April and $93.2 billion so far this budget year, a 6.5 percent increase over 1987. Interest on the $2.5 trillion national debt totaled $14.9 billion last month and $120.1 billion so far this fiscal year, an increase of 9.5 percent over the same period last year.
AP901016-0123 	X	Here is a list of winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science: 1990 - Harry M. Markowitz, United States 1990 - William F. Sharpe, United States 1990 - Merton Miller, United States 1989 - Trygve Haavelmo, Norway 1988 - Maurice Allais, France 1987 - Robert M. Solow, United States 1986 - James M. Buchanan Jr., United States 1985 - Franco Modigliani, United States 1984 - Richard Stone, Great Britain 1983 - Gerard Debreu, United States 1982 - George J. Stigler, United States 1981 - James Tobin, United States 1980 - Lawrence R. Klein, United States 1979 - Arthur Lewis, Great Britain 1979 - Theodore W. Schultz, United States 1978 - Herbert A. Simon, United States 1977 - Bertil Ohlin, Sweden 1977 - James Meade, Great Britain 1976 - Milton Friedman, United States 1975 - Leonid Vitalievich Kantorovich, Soviet Union 1975 - Tjalling Koopmans, United States 1974 - Gunnar Myrdal, Sweden 1974 - Friedrich August von Hayek, Great Britain 1973 - Wassily Leontief, United States 1972 - John R. Hicks, Great Britain 1972 - Kenneth J. Arrow, United States 1971 - Simon Kuznets, United States 1970 - Paul A. Samuelson, United States 1969 - Ragnar Frisch, Norway 1969 - Jan Tinbergen, Netherlands
AP881109-0003 	X	Maryland's landmark law banning cheap handguns won surprisingly easy approval Tuesday, a victory that gun control forces say could reignite their movement in other states. With 82 percent of the precincts reporting, those favoring the law totaled 656,598 or 58 percent, to 482,974 or 42 percent against. The law was winning by wide margins in urban areas to offset heavy support for repeal in rural counties. The gun law battle provoked a bitter political fight that become the most expensive in state history. The National Rifle Association spent more $4 million to repeal the Maryland statute.
AP880623-0194 	X	The judge in the Iran-Contra case complained Thursday about more delays in bringing Oliver L. North to trial and called on the Reagan administration to speed up the declassification of necessary documents if it wants the case to go forward. ``The highest levels of the government have to make a decision as to whether this case is going to go or if it's not going to go,'' Gesell said during a hearing on the problems posed by reams of secret government documents collected by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. The judge expressed frustration over Walsh's request for a one-month delay in getting 150,000 pages of secret documents cleared by an interagency task force. ``If you can't get a trial going soon there isn't going to be a trial,'' Gesell warned both sides during the hearing in U.S. District Court. Gesell said he was not ready to schedule a trial of the former White House aide, even though he had been preparing to set a date. ``I anticipated when I came on the bench of issuing a trial date notice tomorrow. I'm not going to do that. The case isn't ready,'' the judge said. Gesell suggested that Attorney General Edwin Meese III designate a Justice Department official to review the situation to help the administration decide whether it is ready to release secret documents or whether the case has to be dismissed. The judge questioned whether ``we won't need to have a clear decision from the administration itself that they want to try this case or they don't want to.'' Walsh said he already has consulted with Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Martin about the secrecy problems and would meet with other senior Justice Department officials. Some 82,000 pages of classified documents, many from the National Security Council where North worked until he was fired in November 1986, already have been turned over to the defense for pretrial review. Of that group, Walsh said a ``much smaller number but still a large number'' of documents will be relevant to the case. The prosecutor repeated previous assertions that the batch of unprocessed 150,000 pages from the CIA or the Justice Department contained little that would be relevant to the defense case. Walsh said the task force, composed of representatives of agencies that originate the documents, needs more time to mark the portions of the documents that must be redacted before they can be introduced at trial. Gesell said he had deferred to the interagency task force out of concern for national security concerns about disclosing the documents in open court. But ``the obstacles keep arising,'' the judge said. Although he expressed confidence ``they are not trying to torpedo the case or help the case,'' the task force members ``are not in the position to judge the larger implications of the case,'' Gesell said. The judge said a high-level political decision is needed on what material the administration will allow to be disclosed in court. On Wednesday, Gesell had ordered North to specify by July 11 what secret government documents he intended to disclose in court to defend the charges against him. North, along with former national security adviser John M. Poindexter and arms dealers Albert Hakim and Richard V. Secord, are accused of conspiring to illegally divert U.S.-Iran arms-sale profits to the Nicaraguan rebels during a ban on such aid. The judge has ordered four separate trials. North was designated as the leadoff defendant by Walsh. The issue involves classified documents that North and, ultimately, his three co-defendants would be allowed to introduce into evidence to rebut the charges. Under the Classified Information Procedures Act, a defendant must notify the government of secret documents he wants to disclose in court. The judge then decides whether the documents are indeed relevant to the case. Under the law, Gesell can order the substitution of secret documents that government doesn't want released with statements of facts the material would prove if presented to the jury. He can also dismiss the charges if there are too many secret documents that the government wants withheld from the case. An alternative to dismissing all the charges would be to force North to stand trial on some of the counts contained in the indictment that wouldn't require extensive use of classified documents. These might include charges that North lied to Congress about his role in the covert effort to help the Nicaraguan rebels and allegations he obstructed a presidential inquiry into the Iran-Contra affair by destroying documents. Walsh's request to delay production of the remaining documents and a defense complaint about the slow pace of pre-trial discovery prompted Gesell to convene the hearing. Among other things, the defense complained that it has yet to receive any of the government documents that Walsh's investigators were allowed to look at but could not copy. These include relevant pages of President Reagan's diary and schedule.
AP900108-0085 	X	Police said Monday they have arrested a man in Hong Kong in connection with the seizure of 143 pounds of heroin concealed in cans of Chinese fruit imported to Los Angeles. The man was arrested Saturday after U.S. authorities discovered the high-grade heroin hidden in 192 cans of litchis in syrup found in Los Angeles last month, police said. The drugs would have sold for about $64 million in the United States, the statement said. Officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Customs also arrested two men _ a Chinese and a Vietnamese _ in Alhambra, Calif., on Saturday in connection with the drug bust, the statement said. The man in Hong Kong was arrested after police raided sites in the colony and uncovered a drug packaging center in an industrial building, police said. No names were released and investigations into the case were continuing.
AP900301-0050 	X	More than 40 firefighters worked all day to remove the bodies of four children and three adults killed in a fire that engulfed a house. The fire quickly burned out of control around before dawn Wednesday and causd the roof and floor to fall into the basement, making it difficult to reach the bodies, said Fire Chief Victor Hilbert. The cause of the fire wasn't known. A neighbor who called the Fire Department said it was impossible to get close enough to attempt a rescue. ``It was all in flames when I came out. The windows were popping out,'' said Larry Riker. Killed were David Forquer; his wife, LeAnne, 25; their children, Michael, 8; Christor, 6; Nona, 5; and Louis, 3, and a man whose identity was not released.
AP900820-0114 	X	Twenty black, angular F-117A Stealth fighters kicked up rooster tails of spray Monday as they took off on wet runways at Langley Air Force Base for their much-publicized deployment to the Middle East. One of the planes returned shortly after takeoff under clouds and periodic showers. Air Force officials were unable to say why the plane turned back. Air Force Col. Ron Sconyers, spokesman for the Tactical Air Command at Langley, said it would take the radar-evading planes 12 to 15 hours and several in-flight refuelings to reach bases in Saudi Arabia. Air Force officials were mum on exactly what role will be played by the F-117A, which is designed to bomb targets behind enemy lines. Unlike some other aircraft sent to the area after the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the F-117A cannot be considered a defensive weapon, said Col. Anthony Tolin, assistant deputy chief of staff of the Tactical Air Command at Langley, and wing commander for the Stealth fighters until last week. ``I think they provide a great deal of deterrence. The Iraqis know we can get in, hit the target, and get out without ever appearing on their radar. That has to give them pause,'' Tolin said Sunday when the planes arrived. ``They give us an ability, should we need it, to get in with the least amount of casualties and attack those important targets if necessary,'' Tolin said. The planes saw combat during the Panama invasion when they attacked a radar site. The fighters flew to Langley from their home base at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Technicians and ground support personnel also were en route to Saudi Arabia. Sconyers said two of the fighters were held back for maintenance reasons. The $42.6 million-a-copy F-117A is one of the most expensive planes the Pentagon ever launched. Billions were spent on the research necessary to make the plane invisible to radar. It was once so secret the Air Force flew it only at night missions high above the Nevada desert. The plane was designed and built by Lockheed Co.'s super-secret ``Skunk Works'' plant in Burbank, Calif.
AP880623-0048 	X	Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young says the city is moving along with preparations for next month's Democratic National Convention despite criticism of ``chaos and confusion'' in the convention planning. ``I don't know what (they're) talking about in terms of confusion and chaos,'' Young said on Wednesday. ``Peace and quiet and tranquility and everybody getting along is not news, and that's what we got.'' Young was responding to recent news articles that reported bad judgment calls by convention planners working on space for convention sessions and hotel accommodations. The articles also said some major transportation routes are still under construction and convention planners have been fighting among themselves. ``I don't care what people say about Atlanta. Anybody who doesn't like Atlanta can go somewhere else,'' Young said. ``This is a building and growing city and it will be for some years to come, but whatever we need for the convention is going to be ready by the time the convention gets here.'' Young estimated the city is about ``85 to 90 percent ready'' for the convention, a condition with which he is ``very comfortable.''
AP901012-0082 	X	Rebounding automobile purchases and surging gasoline prices powered retail sales to a strong 1.1 percent gain in September, the government said Friday. That was the biggest advance in four months, but economists said the two special factors were masking an otherwise weak report, which included a large decline in department store sales. Sales figures are not adjusted to factor out price increases. Gasoline costs have shot up since Iraq occupied Kuwait Aug. 2, inflating that sales category. The recovery in auto sales was positive but came after months of deteriorating sales, analysts said. Overall, sales rose $1.6 billion to a seasonally adjusted $151.2 billion, the Commerce Department said. That followed a 0.4 percent decline in August. ``What is underscored by these numbers is that the process of economic decline is a very slow one. Consumers take two steps backward and then one step forward, at least if they're given a bargain as they were with autos,'' said economist David Jones of Aubrey G. Lanston & Co. Retail sales are an important barometer of economic health because they represent about one-third of the nation's economic activity. ``Consumers are gradually becoming increasingly cautious because they see the oil price s Forward 1346 1347 1360 1362 n.q.-not quoted.
AP880919-0069 	X	Beulah Mae Donald, who won a $7 million judgment against the Ku Klux Klan for the beating death of her son, was remembered by the attorney who handled the case as a ``brave and courageous mother.'' Mrs. Donald died of natural causes Saturday at a Mobile hospital. She was 67. ``She'll forever have a place in history as the woman who beat the Klan,'' said Morris Dees, who was the chief attorney for the black family. Mrs. Donald's son, Michael, was strangled and fatally beaten in Baldwin County and his body was found hanged from a tree in a Mobile neighborhood. Two Ku Klux Klansmen were convicted in the case. On Feb. 12, 1987, a jury awarded the family a $7 million judgment against the Klan. The United Klans of America's national headquarters building in Tuscaloosa, its only asset, was later signed over to the estate of Michael Donald and sold for an undisclosed sum. It had been appraised at between $150,000 and $200,000. ``I just think she was a brave and courageous mother whose love for her son ensured that he did not die in vain,'' said Dees, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery. Last December, Mrs. Donald was named one of Ms. Magazine's 1987 Women of the Year. Shortly after receiving the honor, Mrs. Donald said she never sought revenge. ``I wanted to know who all really killed my child,'' she said. ``I wasn't even thinking about the money. If I hadn't gotten a cent, it wouldn't have mattered. I wanted to know how and why they did it.'' He 19-year-old son was kidnapped from a Mobile street in March 1981 and taken to a rural area where he was beaten and choked. His throat was cut and his body was hanged from a tree. Klansmen Henry Francis Hays has been sentenced to die in Alabama's electric chair and James L. ``Tiger'' Knowles is serving a life sentence in a federal prison. He pleaded guilty to violating Donald's civil rights. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Hays' appeal of his capital murder conviction in February. In February, a mistrial was declared in the trial of two alleged accomplices, Bennie Jack Hays and Benjamin Franklin Cox, after the former collapsed in court. Mrs. Donald survivors include four daughters: Mary A. Houston of Jackson, Miss.; Cecelia Perry; Cynthia Mitchell; and Betty J. Wyatt, all of Mobile; and two sons, Stanley Donald of Biloxi, Miss.; and Leo Donald of Detroit, Mich. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
AP900210-0139 	X	Senators of both parties on Saturday hailed the plan to free black leader Nelson Mandela from a South African prison and called on both sides in that strife-torn nation to begin meaningful negotiations. ``It's the right move,'' Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said. ``Now comes the real test for South Africa _ will there be peace as meaningful negotiations move forward? Let's hope so.'' The comment came in a statement released by Dole's office after South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that the African National Congress leader would be freed Sunday after 27 years. De Klerk also said the state of emergency under which freedoms have been suspended in South Africa could be lifted within weeks if conditions of stability prevail across the country following Mandela's release. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chief Senate sponsor of legislation to impose sanctions on South Africa, said in a statement that ``freedom for Nelson Mandela means that freedom is closer for all the people of South Africa.'' ``His unjust imprisonment has long been the symbol of the cruelty and injustice of the racist system of apartheid.'' Kennedy said. He expressed hope that ``today's historic development marks the beginning of a genuine commitment by President de Klerk and his government to dismantle all aspects of apartheid as soon as possible.'' Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., said in a telephone interview that the release of Mandela along with de Klerk's other remarks were ``welcome and significant.'' ``It is significant because without this there could be no real negotiations and when you couple this with President de Klerk's statement that within a few weeks he's going to completely lift the state of emergency, you have the conditions for a successful resolution of all this,'' he said. Sanctions against South Africa imposed by the United States and European countries were credited in large part for the change in course on the part of the South African government. The U.S. sanctions, imposed in 1986, barred new American investment in South Africa, including bank loans to the government; prohibited the import of South African iron, steel, coal, uranium and agricultural products, including sugar; prevented the United States from exporting computers to South Africa; banned all nuclear trade; and halted landings by South African Airways. The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., said that the United States ``should continue to use the moral and economic lever of even more stringent sanctions as a vehicle for helping to accelerate and expedite the end of apartheid in a nonviolent context.'' ``While I welcome the release of Nelson Mandela from almost three decades of imprisonment for his political beliefs, I am concerned that no mention has been made about the release of more than 2,000 other black South Africans still in prison because of their struggle to end apartheid,'' Dellums said. Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., who recently traveled to South Africa, issued a statement calling the release of Mandela ``a major step forward for President de Klerk'' and ``one indication that the winds of democracy that have swept across Europe may be reaching South Africa.'' ``However, before sanctions are relaxed or eliminated, several additional steps must be taken,'' she said. ``These include release of the many remaining political prisoners, lifting of the state of emergency and removal of troops from the townships.'' New York Mayor David N. Dinkins said Mandela ``could have been released a long time ago if he had compromised his principles.'' ``He is an inspiration to all those seeking freedom who will not compromise and I look forward to his unconditional release and the day all South Africans will be free,'' Dinkins said. ``Just because we freed one man doesn't mean we freed an entire nation,'' said Rep. William H. Gray III, D-Pa., the House majority whip and author of legislation imposing U.S. sanctions against South Africa. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said Mandela's release marked ``a significant step'' toward peaceful political change in the country. However, Lewis, a former activist in the U.S. civil rights movement, also urged political leaders here to ``continue to apply pressure on the South Africa government in the form of economic sanctions.'' Randall Robinson, leader of the Washington-based anti-apartheid group TransAfrica, said pressure from the United States and Europe produced the release of Mandela. He described it as a ``tiny step.'' ``Political prisoners must still be released, parliament must repeal apartheid laws and until these things are done it is too early to evaluate the good faith of President de Klerk,'' he said. ``This is only the release of one great man,'' he said. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. and a leading conservative, was not planning a comment on the development, an aide said. Dole was the only Republican with a comment despite calls to spokesmen for several prominent GOP members of Congress.
AP880620-0265 	X	The United States and Japan reached a trade agreement Monday that could double U.S. exports of beef and oranges to more than $1 billion a year, U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter said. ``My judgment is that this will turn out to be a landmark agreement in U.S.-Japan economic relations,'' Yeutter said following marathon talks with Japanese leaders. The agreement calls on Japan to nearly double its imports of beef by 1991, and phase out involvement by Livestock Industry Promotion Corp., which currently controls most beef imports. Japan would be allowed to set tariffs of 70 percent in 1991, 60 percent in 1992 and 50 percent in 1993 to allow Japanese farmers time to adjust. Japan agreed to expand market access for fresh oranges by 22,000 tons annually, to 192,000 tons in 1990. After that, fresh oranges from the United States would be permitted in unlimited quantities, at the current tariff rates of 40 percent in season and 20 percent off season. Quotas on orange juice will also be phased out. The United States also demanded and got compensation on tariffs for other farm products in return for concessions on allowing Japan to slowly phase out its tariffs. Included were liberalized restrictions on imports of grapefruit, lemons, frozen peaches and pears, pistachios, macadamias, pecans, walnuts, pet food, beef jerky, sausage and pork and beans. As part of the agreement, the United States agreed to withdraw a complaint filed with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the world body that oversees international trade. The two sides agreed to further discuss Japan's emergency import curbs during the current round of talks under GATT. The temporary agreement was signed by Yeutter and Takashi Sato, Japan's agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister. Yeutter said the official documents would be signed in Washington, hopefully in the next few weeks, after the United States gathers the documents it needs. Cabinet Secretary Minister Keizo Obuchi welcomed the agreement, telling a regular news conference Monday that ``it reconfirms that the United States and Japan are able to solve their problems through joint efforts.'' He said the agreement can be fully implemented without hurting Japanese farmers. Yeutter said the agreement ``will require some creative and innovative thinking'' on the part of Japanese officials in helping Japanese farmers adjust. However, he said Japanese consumers will benefit through an increased standard of living and cheaper prices, while Japan's economy will benefit through increased competition. He said the United States will be closely watching Japan to make sure the agreement is put into effect. A similar pact on computer chips came under attack last year after the United States accused Japan of circumventing the spirit of the agreement by selling computer chips at unfairly low prices through third countries. That battle is still being fought through GATT. Yeutter said that ``it would be unfortunate if government agencies were to attempt to circumvent the spirit of this agreement.'' Yeutter also said the United States has no plans at this time to expand its demands to include the liberalization of rice, another thorny issue in Japan-U.S. relations. However, he said he could not rule out that possibility in the future if the United States is provoked. While agreeing to eliminate the beef import restrictions, Japan retained the right to raise the tariffs temporarily by 25 percent if beef imports exceed the previous year's level by 20 percent. After the transitional period ending in 1993, Japan's beef tariffs will be subject to discussions in the GATT. Sato, the agriculture minister, said the Japanese government will soon begin negotiations with Australia, another major beef exporter, on the Japanese import restrictions. Associations of Japanese orange growers and cattle farmers criticized the agreement. ``As producers who had been closely following the course of negotiations, we can't help but keenly feel regret and anger,'' Mitsugu Horiuchi, president of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, said in a statement.
AP881027-0154 	X	``E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' soared into the stratosphere Thursday, the first day of the movie's release on videocassette. ``Nobody's buying just one,'' said Gail Boswell, manager of Tower Video. ``I had one customer come in and buy 120 cassettes. Others are buying two or three or four.'' Demand has been so great that MCA Home Video, the video's packager, has been unable to fill orders. Some retailers will receive only 75 percent of their requests. Boswell said she ordered 2,500 cassettes, expected 1,700 but received only 1,200. In any case, MCA Home Video, a subsidiary of MCA Inc., could enjoy revenues of close to $200 million from the ``E.T.'' sales. There are more than 11 million advance orders for the $24.95 video. Pepsi Cola is sponsoring a $5 ``E.T.'' rebate offer, and will promote the video in a $25 million advertising campaign. There is no Pepsi commercial on the video itself. Most movies are released within six months of their opening in movie theaters. ``E.T.,'' released in 1982, has never been shown on broadcast or cable television. The video release of the movie was delayed because Steven Spielberg, the film's director and producer, told Universal several years ago that he wanted the cassettes to be affordable. The previous low price for a major video release was last year's ``Top Gun,'' which sold for $26.95. About 3 million ``Top Gun'' cassettes were bought. ``Cinderella,'' which has sold more than 5 million copies in the last month, is priced at $26.99.
AP900716-0008 	X	A drive to change the way Americans elect their presidents is being pushed by a group that acknowledges Democrats stand to gain the most _ at least at first _ from tinkering with the Electoral College. The year-old Electoral Fairness Project, led by a Democrat, is trying to persuade states to abandon the winner-take-all method of doling out Electoral College votes to presidential candidates. The system has been nearly universal since 1836. But critics say it does not accurately reflect the popular vote and prompts candidates to avoid entire states they feel they can't win. Lately, the system has favored Republicans. ``In state after state, the voters are essentially written off by the numbers. People don't see the candidates, don't get a sense of what's going on,'' said Linda Tarr-Whelan, a board member of the Electoral Fairness Project. She said the changes advocated by the group ``would get people much more involved and would require candidates to look at virtually all the states and congressional districts at one time or another as they plan out their strategy.'' The Constitution determines how many electoral votes each state gets: one for each of its two senators and for each of its U.S. House members. How states divide up those votes is not dictated by the Constitution, but virtually all states award all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote. The fairness project wants other states to do what Maine did in 1969: give presidential candidates one electoral vote for each House district in which they win the popular vote, with the other two votes going to the winner of the statewide popular vote. The fairness project, run by Democrat Skip Roberts, admits its primary objective is to break the GOP lock on electoral votes in the South and parts of the Midwest. Some Republicans proposed the same changes 30 years ago when the GOP would have reaped the most benefit. But this year, state and national Republican leaders are heaping scorn on the tactic. ``The Democrats are resorting to gimmicks because they can't win on the strength of their ideas,'' said Ben Ginsberg, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. Roberts denies he is promoting a gimmick. ``This is not a trick. You still need a nominee and a coherent campaign,'' he said. The Connecticut House adopted the fairness project's proposal this session but it died in the state Senate. In North Carolina, where the Republican governor has no veto, the House has passed the plan and the Democratic-controlled Senate was scheduled to vote today. Roberts still hopes that legislatures in Connecticut, New Jersey, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and Indiana will revise their electoral systems before 1992, when the impact of the changes can be tested. Curtis Gans, director of the non-partisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, contends the changes would generate major improvements affecting both parties. Gans said the revised electoral system would stimulate more grassroots campaigning and less reliance on ``demagogic media appeals'' and ``unaccountable political consultants.'' It also would produce an Electoral College vote that more closely reflects the popular vote, he said. Few political scientists are as enthusiastic, nor do they see it being embraced in many states. Many say its virtues are subtle at best _ it is slightly more democratic and might put a few more states on the presidential campaign trail. Larry Sabato, an analyst at the University of Virginia, said the district-by-district allocation of electoral votes might even discourage candidates from visiting certain states. Contenders often write off states whose electoral vote total is insignificant, Sabato said. Parceling out those votes by congressional district ``would give even less of an incentive to come,'' he said. Nevertheless, Sabato said he supports the change because it would lessen the likelihood of an Electoral College victory by a candidate who had received a minority of the popular vote. That almost happened in 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford, and did happen three times between 1824 and 1888, he said. ``It would be a disaster today. I think people would take to the streets,'' Sabato said. That kind of emotion does not characterize the current debate. ``People just regard this as a woodwork issue,'' said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor at the University of Texas. ``It's way off the center of the plate.''
AP881102-0231 	X	Two teen-agers were sentenced to at least 50 years in prison Wednesday for murdering two Roman Catholic priests in their rectories. The trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Frederick Marshall, sentenced the pair to the maximum term, and said he wished he could have imposed the death penalty, which was abolished in New York in 1965. Marshall told defendents Theodore Simmons, 19, and Milton Jones, 18, the sentence was meant to ``voice the outrage and disgust of the community.'' The two were convicted in separate trials of robbing, torturing and murdering the Rev. A. Joseph Bissonette, 55, in St. Bartholomew's Church on Feb. 24, 1987 and Monsignor David Herlihy, 74, in St. Matthew's church on March, 7, 1987. The crimes sent shock waves through the city, and terrorized churchmen. A clergyman from the poor neigborhood where the slayings occurred testified that he slept with a ceremonial sword at his bedside because he feared the tough youths who came to his rectory late at night looking for handouts. The defense for both Simmons and Jones claimed that the youths' underprivileged upbringing contributed to the crimes. The judge rejected the argument and said the pair ``stripped them (the priests) of all human dignity.'' In his final statement, Simmons, who tried to blame Jones for the killings, said, ``I did not kill anyone ... everything exploded in my face and I did not know what to do.'' Jones said through his attorney he was sorry for the crimes. ``Something happened that he got caught up in and just did not known how to extricate himself,'' Jones' attorney Jeffrey Sellers told the judge. Relatives of the two slain priests said they were struck by a lack of emotion from the defendants. Nan Gallivan, Monsignor Herlihy's niece, said the defendants did not appear remorseful at any time during the trial. Raymond Bissonette, brother of the Rev. Bissonette, said the prison terms were ``something that had to be done.'' Marshall sentenced Simmons and Jones to two consecutive 25 years-to-life terms, which means the pair will not be eligible for parole until they have served 48{ years, counting the time they already have been held.
AP901128-0015 	X	U.S. troops tired of waiting in the desert welcome the possibility of a U.N. resolution setting a January deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait. ``The sooner they take immediate action, the sooner this'll get over and we can all go home,'' Air Force Sgt. Bill Hubbard, 21, of Tarpon Springs, Fla., said Tuesday. Some servicemen who arrived in Saudi Arabia soon after President Bush ordered troops to defend it on Aug. 7 said the United Nations should have set a deadline much earlier to prevent Saddam Hussein's forces from destroying Kuwait. ``He's been in Kuwait so long now, he's just raping the country,'' said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Ricky Presley, 32, of Little Rock, Ark., who arrived Aug. 16. ``I think we should never have let him do that in the first place. I think it (a deadline) should have happened a while back,'' he said. Capt. Ali, 34, a Kuwaiti army tank commander waiting to go on maneuvers about 40 miles from the Kuwaiti border, also believes a deadline should have been set ``as soon as they attacked Kuwait.'' ``I don't know why they are waiting ... We were ready to go months ago,'' said Ali, who refused to give his last name to protect his wife, parents and four children still in Kuwait. 1st Lt. Bruce Lake, 29, of Newport News, Va., a tank platoon commander who has spent more than three months in the desert, said he and his troops from the 69th Armored Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division would be delighted with a deadline. ``But I don't think it'll fly ... Just from my reading of the situation and listening to the news ... I haven't sensed that much unity and we still seem to be leading the way,'' he said. ``Either an operation or a go-home date is going to boost morale,'' he said. ``We feel that we have the forces we need over here to do the job and push this guy out if need be, and to go home.'' The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet Thursday to consider a draft resolution setting a Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, restore its government and release all foreign hostages. Lt. Col. Robert McCann, 42, of West Hope, N.D., said international support is important ``because in today's world no one nation can just do what they want to. That's why we're here.'' Air Force Staff Sgt. Jim White, 39, Fairfield, Calif., said U.N. support of the multinational force is essential to prevent similar aggression elsewhere. ``How many times in the past has the United States been the almost sole bearer of international disputes? Now, I feel if we don't come through on this one, it's going to have a domino effect,'' he said. As they stepped off a C-5 Galaxy transport after a 36-hour flight from Travis Air Force Base in California, some of the newest reinforcements for Operation Desert Shield were equally hopeful. ``We got to bring this thing to a head one way or the other,'' said Capt. Clarence Ryan, 40, of Laurel, Md., who was leading a unit of cooks and firefighters from the 60th Military Air Wing at Travis. ``The long waiting game, will it pay off? We don't know, but the longer we wait, the more Kuwait is being torn up.'' After two months with a combat unit in the desert, Staff Sgt. Douglas Barton, 40, of San Antonio said he got tired of waiting and decided to end his 20-year Army career. ``I'm not going to sit in the desert for no reason. Time for me to go,'' he said as he waited for a flight home.
AP900419-0040 	X	``If you look up history, this kind of coincidence happens many times. I don't think it is really statistically significant.'' _ Seismologist Hiroo Kanamori of the California Institute of Technology on a barrage of earthquakes during a two-day period this week in California, Indiana and Asia.
AP880301-0129 	X	Gov. Evan Mecham should be removed from office for obstructing an investigation of an alleged death threat, senators were told today during opening arguments of the first-term Republican's impeachment trial. But a defense attonrey for Mecham told senators in an impassioned statement that Mecham was the victim of a ``mutiny'' by the state attorney general and director of the state Department of Public Safety. Prosecutor William French said the man accused of making the alleged threat, former state official Lee Watkins, had claimed that jobs in the Mecham administration ``relate to the amount of money that you were able to bring into the campaign.'' French said the evidence was ``overwhelming'' that Mecham violated criminal laws and his oath of office and committed malfeasance in office, ``any one of which call for impeachment.'' However, defense attorney Fred Craft told senators in his opening statement that Mecham broke no laws and was acting within his authority. ``What has this man done?'' Craft said. ``There's something wrong in this state when you can depose the constitutionally elected officer of the state and throw the book at him ... based upon evidence that's being presented by people who have a stake in the outcome to have him ousted.'' Craft said the accusations resulted from a ``mutiny'' by Attorney General Bob Corbin and DPS Director Ralph Milstead. The DPS includes the Highway Patrol and investigative personnel. Craft also said he would present testimony that would cast dubt on Milstead's integrity. Mecham, who also faces a March 22 criminal trial and a May 17 recall election, did not appear at the Senate on the second day of his impeachment trial. The impeachment counts against Mecham include an allegation that he ordered Milstead not to cooperate with the attorney general's probe of an alleged death threat by Watkins, then the state prison construction chief. ``There was an obstruction with regard to an ongoing investigation that was being conducted by the attorney general's office,'' French said. Watkins has denied making a threat against Donna Carlson, a former top Mecham aide who testified before the state grand jury on Mecham's failure to report a $350,000 campaign loan. DPS Officer Frank Martinez, a former member of Mecham's security detail who was called as the trial's first witness, testified this morning that Mecham administration official Peggy Griffith told him about a conversation she had with Watkins. Ms. Griffith said Watkins had told her that if Ms. Carlson ``did not keep her mouth shut, she could wind up taking a long boat ride ... and I know the right people who can help me,'' Martinez testified. Martinez said that he met with Milstead, other DPS officers, Corbin and several assistant attorneys general several days later and that Milstead told of a conversation he had with Mecham. Martinez said Milstead told the group that Mecham ``stated he didn't want him helping the attorney general.'' ``The overall mood was just amazement,'' Martinez testified. Craft said Milstead and other officials did not fully advise Mecham about the alleged threat, adding that Milstead ``was a feckless employee of this state and he did not serve that governor well.'' French said Watkins complained about the job he was given by Mecham and told Corrections Director Sam Lewis, ``If they don't treat me right I can bring Mecham's administration down.'' French warned the Senate to ``keep your eye on the ball'' and not be distracted by any attacks on witnesses in the case. ``Know that this is being done because there is no defense,'' French said. The opening arguments today dealt only with the alleged threat. Arguments will precede discussion of the other allegations against Mecham as they are reached during the trial. On the trial's opening day Monday, the Senate strongly rejected efforts to dismiss impeachment charges against Mecham. Also, the Arizona Supreme Court was expected to rule today on a defense claim that the impeachment trial, the first of a U.S. governor in 59 years, should be delayed until after Mecham's March 22 criminal trial on charges of concealing a $350,000 campaign loan. The high court last week refused to grant a temporary delay, and Mecham said he planned to take the issue to federal court if necessary. Senate President Carl Kunasek, a Republican, said ``it was the first-day jitters for everyone'' in the impeachment trial's opening day Monday. ``It crosses everybody's mind _ the importance to do justice to the governor and the state,'' said Senate Majority Leader Bob Usdane, also a Republican. ``It's a large burden and we take it seriously.'' Senators refused to dismiss the 23 articles of impeachment against Mecham, whose attorney, Jerris Leonard, entered an innocent plea on his behalf. On 11 separate motions, the largest number of the 29 senators voting for dismissal was seven. Several senators said the vote should not be considered an indication that Mecham is likely to be convicted, saying they want to hear the evidence first. However, Sen. Jeff Hill, a Republican who has strongly backed Mecham, said the governor's conviction was virtually a foregone conclusion. ``I think that it's not likely that he's going to prevail,'' he said. If convicted by the Senate, Mecham would be removed from office and could be permanently barred from holding elective office in Arizona. Mecham, 63, won election in a three-way race after five tries. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and insisted he will survive both trials and a May 17 recall election and return to the office he gave up to acting Gov. Rose Mofford, a Democrat, when he was impeached by the House on Feb. 5.
AP880905-0140 	X	Demonstrators in wheelchairs blocked Greyhound terminals in several U.S. cities Monday claiming buses are inaccessible to disabled riders, and several landed in jail when they refused police orders to move. In some cases, demonstrators organized by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, or ADAPT, blocked Labor Day travelers' entry to buses, police said. ``This is a very busy day for us,'' said George Gravley, a spokesman for Dallas-based Greyhound Lines Inc. ``It's a holiday weekend. People are going home and thousands of people are being inconvenienced because buses are being delayed.'' Five protesters in wheelchairs and one blind demonstrator were arrested in Dallas and taken to jail, said police Sgt. K. Walters. A jailer said $213 bond each was set, but she did not know how many were jailed. Arrests also occurred in Louisville, Ky., and Denver, and an organizer said the protests occurred in a dozen cities. Joe Carley, a demonstrator at the Dallas terminal, said society has ``spent thousands of dollars keeping us alive and they say, `We have spent this money to keep you alive we're not going to spend any money to see that you can live.' And accessibility is living.'' Protesters want Greyhound to install lifts on buses to make them more accessible to the handicapped. ``We're asking them to sign an agreement that any new bus built will be accessible,'' said the Rev. Wade Blank, an ADAPT spokesman in Denver. Greyhound officials met with leaders of the Denver-based ADAPT in August. ``We went through all of this in Denver,'' Gravley said. ``We thought we responded in a forthright way to issues they raised. We are disappointed obviously that the demonstrations continued.'' In Denver, 10 people, including eight in wheelchairs, were cited for disturbing the peace. The protest shifted to the Denver City Jail after police officers booked the two able-bodied people, but released those in wheelchairs, said Blank. Two hours later, they too were released, and a police officer at the scene told the protesters they had been booked due to a misunderstanding. In Louisville, Ky., a protest involving 25 people resulted in the arrest of eight demonstrators, six in wheelchairs. The eight were charged with failure to disperse and obstruction of a highway and released on their own recognizance. Blank said protests also were scheduled Monday in Atlanta, Savannah, Ga., Salt Lake City, Utah, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Another demonstration was set for Tuesday at the Greyhound terminal in Chicago, he said. Gravley said a Greyhound subsidiary has applied for a grant to use toward designing an exprimental bus that would be accessible to the disabled. He said the company has proposed enlisiting the help of an advisory group that would include ADAPT members, the Texas Commission for The Handicapped, and a retired people's group. Greyhound operates Helping Hands, a program that provides a free ticket for disabled people who are unable to travel by themselves. But to avoid fraudulent use of the program, the bus carrier requires users to provide proof of their disability, Gravley said. ``This handicapped organization feels that's demeaning and they ought to be the judge of whether they travel alone,'' Gravley said. ADAPT also objects to Greyhound's requirements that non-motorized wheelchairs be stored in baggage compartments and battery-operated wheelchairs be kept off buses. Greyhound cites concerns about battery acid leaking.
AP880629-0315 	X	The dollar rose Wednesday in Europe as players became increasingly convinced that the Group of Seven countries, particularly the United States and Japan, are willing to tolerate a higher U.S. currency. Gold responded by sliding nearly $10 an ounce in heavy selling in Europe, reaching its lowest levels since early March. ``The market has a feeling that G-7 doesn't mind the dollar going higher,'' said a trader at a British bank, adding that two central banks, the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Swiss National Bank, engaged in only limited intervention Wednesday. Dealers said they saw no buying by other major central banks. The Group of Seven major industrialized nations is made up of the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada. Jim O'Neill, an economist at Swiss Bank Investment Bank in London, said the dollar continued to rise because the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan did not play a major role in Tuesday's heavy concerted intervention. Many traders concluded the Fed and the Japanese central bank have given their consent to a higher dollar. In London, it cost $1.7060 to buy one pound, cheaper than $1.7200 late Tuesday. Other late dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Tuesday's rates, included: 1.8290 West German marks, up from 1.8070; 1.5155 Swiss francs, up from 1.4960; 6.1635 French francs, up from 6.0885; 2.0545 Dutch guilders, up from 2.0210; 1,350.75 Italian lire, up from 1,337.00; and 1.2173 Canadian dollars, up from 1.2105. In earlier Tokyo trading, the dollar broke the 133-yen level for the first time in nearly seven months before falling back to close at 132.40 yen, up 1.45 yen from Tuesday. In London, it topped 133 yen again and was quoted at 133.70 yen. Dealers said the dollar's strength in the face of central bank intervention was the main factor behind gold's slide. They also cited softness in other commodities prices. ``Whenever the market creates a wave like this, you have speculators fueling the fire and then there is investor follow-through on the downside.'' said one bullion dealer in Zurich. The slide began in New York on Tuesday, and then was exacerbated by heavy selling in Europe. Gold fell in London to a late bid price of $433.30 a troy ounce, compared with late Tuesday's $443.20. In Zurich, gold closed at a bid $433.50 compared with $443.20 late Tuesday. Earlier, in Hong Kong, gold fell $6.26 to close at a bid $440.04 a troy ounce. Silver bullion prices fell on the London market. The metal traded at a late bid price of $6.66 a troy ounce, compared with Tuesday's $6.92.
AP900124-0007 	X	Pronunciations of the names of some leading Yugoslav politicans: Slobodan Milosevic (Sloh-BOH-don Me-LOSH-veech), Serbian president. Milan Kucan (ME-lahn KOO-chahn), prominent Slovenian Communist leader. Stefan Korosec (Shte-FAN COUR-oh-shetz), Secretary of Yugoslav Communist Party. Ivica Racan (EE-vee-tzah RAH'-chahn), Croatian Communist Party leader. Milan Pancevsky (ME-lahn pahn-CHAF-ski), Federal Communist Party leader. Ante Markovic (AHN-teh mark-oh-VITCH), premier Zivko Pregl (ZHEEV-koh PREH-gl), deputy premier Adm. Petar Simic (PEH-tar SHEE-mitch), Communist leader in military.
AP880512-0301 	X	Prices on the London Stock Exchange rose Thursday as players crept back into the market to pick up marked-down shares after Wednesday's rout. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-stock index was up 15.5 points, or 0.9 percent, at 1,772.3 at the close. On Wednesday, the index fell 35.8 points. Trading volume was a modest 340.8 million shares, compared with Wednesday's 575.5 million shares. Traders said the market was attempting to consolidate after Wednesday's fall. The positive showing in Tokyo and Wall Street's better opening Thursday also supported London equity prices, dealers said. ``People have discounted Wednesday's performance because they realize it was overdone,'' one equity salesman said. In addition, the market was heartened by some favorable corporate earnings reports, dealers said.
AP900706-0194 	X	Sen. Gordon Humphrey, a steadfast foe of legalized abortion, said Friday he has softened his stand for the tactical reason of finally getting an updated abortion law passed in New Hampshire. The conservative Republican, who is running for a state Senate seat even though he retires in January from the U.S. Senate after two terms, said he has long supported abortion only to save the woman's life, but now would support exceptions for rape and incest victims. In a telephone interview from his Chichester home, Humphrey said he's easing his stance ``because that's probably the only way that we can get a bill passed and signed into law that would address the 95 percent of abortions that have nothing to do with rape, incest or the life of the mother.'' Earlier this year, Gov. Judd Gregg vetoed a bill that would have made abortion legal until the fetus could live outside the womb. Last year, Gregg vetoed a bill to repeal the state's existing anti-abortion laws, which date from the mid-1800s. Humphrey faces state Rep. Jack Sherburne in the Sept. 11 Republican primary. Sherburne favors abortion rights, as does the incumbent, Republican William Johnson, who is running for Congress. Humphrey said his beliefs haven't changed and that he hopes the public eventually will agree with him that ``each abortion kills a human being, and a human being is a human being irrespective of his circumstances of conception.'' Asked if he would revert to opposing exceptions for rape and incest if the political climate were favorable, Humphrey said, ``That would be my preference. But I don't expect to see that day.'' He said he had not discussed his new position with anti-abortion supporters, but expects some criticism. Warren Aldrich, legislative director for New Hampshire For L.I.F.E., would not comment directly on Humphrey's change, but said his group ``would not take part in sponsoring or originating a bill that permits the taking of an unborn human life because of the circumstances of its conception.'' ``Rape and incest are tragic assaults on a woman's life, but we do not believe that abortion is in any way therapeutic for the woman,'' he said. Peg Dobbie, state director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, was surprised by Humphrey's new stance. ``He seems like the guy who's above it, the maverick who stands up for his convictions no matter what,'' she said. Even with the modifications, Humphrey's stance ``is a very extreme anti-abortion position,'' Dobbie said.
AP901227-0018 	X	Luxembourg takes over the European Community's presidency on Tuesday, with war looming in the Persian Gulf, world trade talks in disarray and Europe in full transformation. The Grand Duchy, a tiny speck on the map with only about 0.1 percent of the population in the 12-nation community, has a good track record in handling the rotating six-month EC presidencies. Jacques Santer, prime minister of the 378,400 Luxembourgers, is convinced the mouse will roar again when his country takes over the community's presidency from Italy as 1991 begins. ``During all of our presidencies we always came up with results,'' Santer said in a recent interview. Five years ago, the Luxembourg presidency paved the way for the Single European Act, an updated constitution that pushes the trade bloc toward creating a truly unified market after 1992. This time around, new initiatives to create economic, monetary and political union by the turn of the century have been thrust into Santer's lap. The Christian Democrat plans to act as a mediator between the EC's powerhouses - Germany, France and Britain - to finalize the blueprint for European unity. ``Because we are so small, the others do not suspect us of having ulterior self-serving motives,'' he said. Shoehorned between Germany, France and Belgium, Luxembourg occupies a key crossroads on the continent, straddling Europe's main cultures - the Romanic and Germanic. It is also well-connected with both the rich north and poor south in the community. The Persian Gulf crisis might prove the first test of Luxembourg's mettle. The EC has said it would not hold talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz unless the United States first reaches agreement with Iraq on exchanging foreign ministers' visits. If the EC agrees to talk with Iraq, that task would fall to Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jacques Poos. During Luxembourg's six months, a lot of energy will be spent on two conferences - one on economic and monetary union, the other on political union -to pave the way for a more unified Europe. Disarray reigns on how fast monetary union should be achieved, Santer said. He said calls for an independent EC defense organization are not realistic and it remains ``essential that we keep a partnership with the United States'' within NATO - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The partnership with Washington has been strained in global trade, where the EC has resisted U.S. proposals that it reduce price supports and subsidies for farmers. The agricultural dispute blocked an agreement in world trade talks held in Brussels, Belgium earlier this month. The talks are to resume in Geneva next month. Santer, stressing the progress that has been made in the other 14 sectors covered by the trade talks, said farming should not block an overall accord. He argued in favor of a final deal that, if need be, excludes agriculture.
AP901018-0142 	X	Charities outside of United Way campaigns are gaining an increasing share of the millions of dollars that American workers give through workplace campaigns, a report said Thursday. The report was issued by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which has campaigned for giving workers access to newer and smaller charities that are not usually part of United Way campaigns. The committee, representing more than 300 fund-raising organizations, was established in 1976 to monitor developments in philanthropy. Alternative organizations are getting 10.1 percent of the money raised in workplace campaigns, the report said. Ten years ago, it said, alternative groups got 3.5 percent of the total. Among the alternative organizations are some health agencies such as the Muscular Dystrophy Association; international agencies such as CARE and Oxfam America; arts funds; the United Negro College Fund; and agencies which raise money for social action causes and women's and environmental groups. All told, United Way campaigns are expected to raise $3.2 billion in contributions this year, two-thirds of it through payroll deductions and other employee contribution programs. Organizations not under the United Way umbrella are expected to raise $205 million from employee contribution programs. ``We have already witnessed the dismantlement of the United Way's monopoly of workplace fund raising,'' said Robert Bothwell, executive director of NCRP. ``Our figures indicate that the 1990s will produce a 20 to 25 percent market share for alternatives to United Ways.'' Clark LaMendola, senior vice president of the United Way of America said the report failed to make clear that United Way acts as the campaign manager for raising most of the money collected by the alternative organizations. ``We get the volunteers together, we raise the money, we print the pledge cards, we count the money and we make sure the organizations get it,'' he said. He said the report gives the erroneous impression ``that these funds are somehow raised independently.'' Two-thirds of the $205 million expected to be raised this year on behalf of the alternative organizations will be solicited by campaigns managed by United Way, LaMendola said. The NCRP report said alternative charities made their most significant gain in the huge Combined Federal Campaign, which collects contributions from federal employees. CFC is the world's largest workplace charity drive. It solicits contributions from almost five million workers. In 1987, it collected $187 million. In 1980, United Way organizations got 71 percent of all money collected by the federal drive. By 1989, their share had fallen to 37 percent, the report said. ``CFC donors have sent out a message that has been picked up by workplace giving campaign decision makers across the country, in both the public and private sectors,'' said Don Sodo, who champions broader workplace fund drives. ``They have demonstrated that they are interested in a wide variety of charities, including those that provide services not within the somewhat limited United Way umbrella.'' Sodo is executive director of National-United Services Agencies, which represents 87 widely divergent organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Organization for Women Legal Education and Defense Fund, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and the National Right to Life Educational Trust. The NCRP fought successfully in court and in Congress during the 1980s to broaden CFC drives to include alternative charities, including some lobbying and advocacy groups. The federal campaign now collects for United Way, seven other national federations, 220 unaffiliated agencies and thousands of local unaffiliated charities and federations, the report said.
AP900411-0122 	X	Sixty guests gathered at the French ambassador's home Wednesday to pay homage to the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, over a candlelight dinner featuring dishes from the menu at Lafayette's wedding feast in 1774. A crier in powdered wig and knee britches announced each guest and a trio of costumed chamber musicians played Mozart and other 18th century favorites for the black-tie dinner given by Le Cordon Bleu, the famed Paris cooking school. Those lucky enough to receive invitations to one of the most exclusive social events of Washington's spring season dined on a jelly of oysters in caviar cream sauce, filet of sole, baby squab served in silver cups and a slab of roast venison on a spit which was carried into the dining room on the shoulders of two chefs. Goblets under the Baccarat crystal candelabra, which were decorated with cascades of pink roses, tulips and spring flowers, were filled with six fine French wines and champagne. Dessert was chocolate-covered pineapple ice cream, served in a pineapple shell held by three sculpted chocolate hands. The palate freshener for the seven-course dinner was a sorbet laced with cognac from the 900-acre Cointreau estate in France. ``The guests were pleased to receive invitations, but some people were very displeased they were not coming,'' said Andre Cointreau, a descendant of the French liqueur producers and president of Le Cordon Bleu. ``We were sorry we could not accommodate everyone.'' Besides French Ambassador Jacques Andreani, the guest list included leading Washington journalists and food writers, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter and Katharine Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Co. Patrick Martin, 32, a rising star among classical French chefs and a master teacher at Le Cordon Bleu, arrived 10 days ago to begin preparing the dinner. He was assisted by four chefs who labored in the white-tiled basement kitchen of the ambassador's residence in northwest Washington. Cointreau said the dinner Wednesday night included authentic recreations of several foods from the staggering array of 200 dishes served in 30 courses at Lafayette's wedding feast exactly 216 years ago. Lafayette, then just 16, married Adrienne de Noailles, a daughter of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in France, in a Paris ceremony that took place shortly before Lafayette became a captain in the French cavalry. Three years later, Lafayette sailed to America and joined the Revolutionary War as an honorary major general under the command of his close friend, George Washington. He was credited with the defensive military maneuvers that resulted in the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Cointreau said the dinner was conceived five years ago as an expression of gratitude to American oil magnate John Moffat, who early in this century bought and restored the crumbling Chavagnal-Lafayette castle in the Auvergne region where Lafayette was born. Moffat housed several hundred French orphans from World War I at the castle, which is now held by trustees of the nonprofit Lafayette Memorial. ``The dinner is our way of saying thank you to America, and the best way to say thank you is to have good people sitting down together at a very good dinner,'' Cointreau said.
AP880310-0058 	X	A man bent on revenge after being convicted of reckless driving and weapons violations died in a courtroom gunfight after threatening to kill his prosecutor and critically wounding a bailiff, authorities said. Jeremey Sigmond, 35, a decertified chiropractor from Sepulveda, returned Wednesday to Los Angeles Municipal Court where he was convicted the day before, and accosted his prosecutor, Jessica Perrin Silvers, 49, threatening to kill her. ``He's just, in layman's terms, violently crazy, and I knew it,'' the prosecutor said. ``So when I heard him talking in his delusional voice and saying I should come with him I just thought there's no way I'm going to do that.'' A bailiff drew a gun on Sigmond. Sigmond threatened to shoot Ms. Silvers and the bailiff dropped the weapon. But Ms. Silvers broke away and Deputy Marshal Cliff Wofford burst into the room and shot Sigmond. Wofford, 30, of Palmdale, was wounded in the abdomen in the gunbattle and was in critical condition after surgery to repair damage to his liver, said Betty Neilson, spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank. Police searched Sigmond's suburban home Wednesday for firearms or explosives, but found only empty gun vaults. A neighbor, Maurice Netter, said Sigmond had told him he was part of a federal witness protection program and living under an assumed name. Sigmond was convicted Tuesday of four misdemeanors _ reckless driving, evading police, carrying a loaded weapon and carrying a concealed weapon _ stemming from an Oct. 22 high-speed chase. He testified at his trial that he thought he was being chased by the Mafia instead of the California Highway Patrol. He claimed the Mafia was harassing him in retaliation for a lawsuit he filed against the Board of Chiropractors, alleging price-fixing and restraint of trade. He had been appealing the revocation of his state license to practice as a chiropractor. When arrested, Sigmond was wearing two bullet-proof vests and a crash helmet and carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest Wednesday, said police Lt. Charles Massey. Sigmond's attorney, Norman Edell, described his client as an Air Force veteran who held a second-degree black belt in karate and was a collector of guns, most of which he recently had sold. ``He was very distraught because the case meant a lot to him. He didn't take it passively but there was no indication of this,'' he said. At his sentencing, which was scheduled for May, Sigmond could have been ordered imprisoned up to 18 months. The courthouse is in the San Fernando Valley community of Van Nuys, about 15 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
AP900711-0179 	X	The Mohawk Indians who live on the border between the United States and Canada are again in conflict with the authorities. Here is a look at their relations with the governments on both sides of the border in recent years. 1979 _ 20 ``traditionalists'' Mohawks were arrested after a handful of Franklin County deputies were held hostage over the cutting down of trees by tribal Mohawks who elect the tribe's leaders. 1980 _ New York State sends 70 heavily armed policemen onto the reservation to head off a confrontation between tribal Mohawks and traditionalist Mohawks. June 1989 _ State police complete a two-day raid on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, arresting four people for illegal gambling and confiscating more than 200 gambling machines. July 1989 _ 300 FBI agents and state troopers raid gambling casinos on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, arresting 12 Mohawk Indians on gambling charges. Following the raid, there is a 10-day standoff between state and federal authorities and the Warriors Society, a self-appointed Mohawk security force. August 1989 _ Shots are fired at a one of the gambling casinos on the St. Regis Reservation in the latest round of violence stemming from gambling on the Reservation. November 1989 _ Offices of a weekly pro-gambling newspaper on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation are hit by gunfire in further violence over illegal gambling casinos. March 1990 _ A doctor aboard a Vermont National Guard helicopter, on a medical mission, was struck by a bullet fired from a rifle as the helicopter flew over the Ganienkeh Mohawk Territory. Three bullets penetrated the helicopter. July 11 _ Mohawk Indians wearing warpaint fire on Canadian police, killing one officer in a dispute over land for a golf course.
AP900508-0112 	X	Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Tuesday firmly rejected Moscow's suggestion that settling the military complexities of a united Germany could be delayed until after the countries are merged. ``It would be a fatal development if the external and internal conditions of German unity were not completely clear when the day of German unity comes,'' Kohl told reporters. The chancellor was referring to a suggestion by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that formal German unity could occur before ``external'' aspects of the merger are cleared up. Such ``external'' aspects would include those issues with international implications, such as the military stance of a united Germany. West Germany currently belongs to NATO, while East Germany is a member of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The Soviets oppose a united Germany in NATO. During reunification talks Saturday in Bonn, Shevardnadze also suggested a ``transition period'' during which the four wartime allies would retain postwar rights, even after German unity. The United States, the Soviet Union, France and Britain jointly control many matters in the former German capital of Berlin. They also have special rights outside Berlin, many involving the status of the troops they maintain in what once were their postwar military occupation zones. Shevardnadze's remarks initially triggered jubilation among some West German politicians, who sensed the pace of unification was picking up. But by Tuesday that had changed to concern about delaying settlement of important issues related to German unification. There had even been talk among some politicians of canceling West Germany's Dec. 2 national election in favor of elections for a united Germany's parliament. But Kohl said Tuesday ``without question'' the Dec. 2 elections will still occur. Vernon A. Walters, the U.S. ambassador to West Germany, said Tuesday that Washington supports a united Germany with unrestricted sovereignty and without special rights for any of the World War II allied victors. ``A united Germany should have full control over its entire state territory, without any sort of new discriminating limitations of German sovereignty,'' Walters told a Frankfurt meeting of West German newspaper and broadcast susbscribers to The Associated Press. While the United States has promised it won't stand in the way of full sovereignty for a united Germany, it has also made clear it wants a merged Germany to be part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Kohl has also vowed that a united Germany will be a NATO member. Moscow has suggested as a compromise that a united Germany belong to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact until still-undefined European ``security structures'' are created. Both Washington and Bonn have said they are prepared to allow Soviet troops to remain on what is now East German territory for an interim period, but both have rejected a dual-bloc membership. East Germany also reacted negatively to Shevardnadze's weekend proposals. Government officials in East Berlin are ``skeptical'' of delaying a settlement on the international issues involved in unification, said the East German news agency ADN. Kohl said his government is hoping that the six-nation talks on unification, which began Saturday, will conclude before the end of this fall. He said the international aspects of German unification will likely be discussed at the U.S.-Soviet summit at the end of this month, and at a special NATO summit in London in July.
AP900225-0066 	X	To hear some people tell it, there is money to burn in this trendy seaside community, but it still isn't every day that a bank tosses $42,500 into the trash. ``We're sort of embarrassed,'' Great American Bank spokesman Brian Luscomb said Friday, a day after the windfall was recovered from a municipal trash truck that had hauled it away. ``It was an accident and we're really not commenting much beyond that,'' said Luscomb, who added that a bank employee whose name wasn't released put the money in the wrong container. When the garbage truck got to the dump, officials there had been warned about the missing cash, and they had the driver take his load to a city yard instead. The garbage was dumped there and municipal employees dug through the trash until they found the cash. The city's trash collectors must try to track down the owners of expensive items but can keep lesser ones, said General Services Director David Niederhaus.
AP880920-0282 	X	A former programmer has been convicted of planting a computer ``virus'' in his employer's system that wiped out 168,000 records and was activated like a time bomb, doing its damage two days after he was fired. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Davis McCown said he believes he is the first prosecutor in the country to have someone convicted for destroying computer records using a ``virus.'' ``We've had people stealing through computers, but not this type of case,'' McCown said. ``The basis for this offense is deletion.'' ``It's very rare that the people who spread the viruses are caught,'' said John McAfee, chairman of the Computer Virus Industry Association in Santa Clara, Calif., which helps educate the public about viruses and find ways to fight them. ``This is absolutely the first time'' for a conviction, McAfee said. ``In the past, prosecutors have stayed away from this kind of case because they're too hard to prove,'' McCown said Tuesday. ``They have also been reluctant because the victim doesn't want to let anyone know there has been a breach of security.'' Donald Gene Burleson, 40, was convicted Monday of charges of harmful access to a computer, a third-degree felony that carries up to 10 years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines. A key to the case was the fact that State District Judge John Bradshaw allowed the computer program that deleted the files to be introduced as evidence, McCown said. It would have been difficult to get a conviction otherwise, he said. The District Court jury deliberated six hours before bringing back the first conviction under the state's 3-year-old computer sabotage law. Burleson planted the virus in revenge for his firing from an insurance company, McCown said. Jurors were told during a technical and sometimes-complicated three-week trial that Burleson planted a rogue program in the computer system used to store records at USPA and IRA Co., a Fort Worth-based insurance and brokerage firm. A virus is a computer program, often hidden in apparently normal computer software, that instructs the computer to change or destroy information at a given time or after a certain sequence of commands. The virus, McCown said, was activated Sept. 21, 1985, two days after Burleson was fired as a computer programmer, because of alleged personality conflicts with other employees. ``There were a series of programs built into the system as early as Labor Day (1985),'' McCown said. ``Once he got fired, those programs went off.'' The virus was discovered two days later, after it had eliminated 168,000 payroll records, holding up company paychecks for more than a month. The virus could have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the system had it continued, McCown said. The defense argued during trial that Burleson was set up by someone using his terminal and code. Burleson's attorneys tried to prove he was vacationing in another part of the state with his son on the dates in early September when the rogue programs were entered into the system. But prosecutors presented records showing that Burleson was at work and his son at school on those dates. Defense lawyer Jack Beech maintained Burleson is innocent and but said his client might not have enough money to appeal. Besides, Beech said, Burleson is likely to get the minimum sentence of two years' probation. McCown said he is hoping for a stiffer sentence. Bradshaw on Tuesday ordered a presentence investigation and set sentencing Oct. 21. Burleson already has lost a civil case waged against him by USPA in connection with the incident. The jury in that case ordered him to pay $12,000 to his former employers. McAfee said his organization had documented about 250,000 cases of sabotage by computer virus.
AP881205-0250 	X	Prime Minister Brian Mulroney today opened the most ambitious trade negotiations ever undertaken, urging officials of 90 nations to compromise to resolve trade differences. In an apparent reference to a clash between the United States and its allies on farm subsidies, Mulroney exhorted the delegates to ``be motivated by a spirit of honorable compromise.'' Mulroney said farmers around the world ``are looking for results in Montreal. They can no longer survive on a diet of promises.'' The round of trade negotiations is designed to liberalize and broaden the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, an international trade-policing treaty signed in 1947. GATT now has 96 members, and 90 trade ministers were at today's meeting. The U.S. delegation has come under strong criticism from Japan, Australia and the European Community over its demand to completely eliminate government supports for farmers. The 12-nation European Community is only willing to reduce them, terming the U.S. position unrealistic. Mulroney urged the negotiators to ``be animated by a spirit of realism,'' echoing similar weekend calls to the United States in preparatory consultations for the mid-term review of the four-year Uruguay Round of trade talks. The United States was further isolated by a tentative accord reached between the Europeans and developing nations that would remove or reduce tariffs on the export of tropical products to the industrialized world. An EC spokeswoman said the United States did not yet support the agreement, which would affect $70 billion in internaional trade of such products as jute, bananas and coffee. Michael Duffy, Australia's Minister of Trade Negotiations, told reporters Sunday that blame for U.S.-European impasse over trade barriers should be shared by the two parties. But he and other officials looked to the Americans to make the first move. Duffy warned that if neither side compromises during the three-day talks, ``it will sour the rest of the round,'' which ends in 1990. The dispute over agricultural subsidies has clouded prospects for progress on other urgent trade problems, such as the inclusion of the booming services trade in the 40-year-old GATT pact and the adoption of safeguards for copyrights and patents. ``It's hard to see how there can be progress in other areas without progress in agriculture,'' said John Crosbie, Canada's Minister for International Trade. The United States took a conciliatory stand but insisted it would stick to its main objective. Chief agriculture negotiator Dan Amstutz noted the United States had moved away from setting a 2000 deadline for elimination of subsidies and agreed to emergency government food stockpiles as long as they are bought on the open market. ``We're flexible,'' he said, but ``we'd rather not have any agreement than a bad one.'' The U.S. delegation also appeared to hold out the possibility it would relent on its rejection of a proposal lifting barriers on the export of tropical products, such as bananas and coconuts, by developing nations. U.S. trade negotiator Alan Holmer warned that failure by the GATT round could create ``uncertainties'' in Congress and within the incoming administration of George Bush. He did not elaborate. But Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said failure on the farm support issue would result in an ``export-oriented'' farm bill. Congress is scheduled to draft a farm bill next year and Leahy indicated it would include supports for farmers so they can compete effectively against farmers whose governments also subsidize exports. The United States projects that its 1989 farm supports will amount to $13 billion _ down from the $27 million of 1987 but still a heavy burden on the deficit-ridden budget. U.S. officials say Europeans could save about $200 billion every year if they stopped their farm supports. But the EC, under the influence of powerful farm lobbies, says eliminating supports is not a viable option.
AP901129-0140 	X	The government Thursday approved a U.S.-manufactured drug for treating a variety of African Sleeping Sickness, a disease that afflicts 25,000 people annually. The drug, Ornidyl, was cleared for use by the Food and Drug Administration and will be available by the end of the year in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, the World Health Organization said in a news release. This is the first approval of the drug in any country. An estimated 50 million people in 36 countries are at risk of contracting the disease, caused by parasites transmitted by tsetse flies. There are usually fewer than 10 cases of the disease per year in the United States, but the drug each year could save 3,000 people infected with the West African variety of the sickness, the World Health Organization said. Ornidyl is known as a ``resurrection drug'' because it can cure patients who have fallen into comas from the disease, said WHO's Dr. Tore Godal. Given intravenously, Ornidyl inhibits the growth of theparasite. The drug manufactured by Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals of Cincinnati, Ohio. Other drugs used against sleeping sickness aren't effective in the late stages, when the disease reaches the central nervous system. The new drug does have a potential for anemia and, on occasion, dangerous decreases in the numbers of white blood cells and platelets in the blood, the FDA said. A warning label says blood cell count monitoring should be done twice a week.
AP881106-0029 	X	Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos is seeking the advice of thousands of lenders, colleges and universities, and public officials on how to hold down the escalating default rate on student loans. The Education Department says taxpayers spent $1.5 billion to cover defaults on the guaranteed student loan program in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, almost 43 percent of the program's entire cost. The figure represents a 200 percent increase over the past five years in what is now known as the Stafford loan program, the department said. ``We want the advice of all parties _ the Congress, the public, schools, lenders, guarantee agencies and borrowers,'' Cavazos said in a statement. ``A lot has already been done, but clearly, additional action is necessary.'' The program has loaned about $40 billion since it began. Of the current $12 billion in outstanding loans, about $5 billion is overdue, the department said. Charles Kolb, acting deputy undersecretary for planning, budget and evaluation, said Cavazos has sent letters appealing for advice to more than 7,000 participating colleges and universities, 13,000 lenders, 54 agencies that guarantee student loans, 50 governors, and members of Congress. Cavazos, who was president of Texas Tech University until taking over as education secretary in September, is also accepting suggestions from students. He is especially concerned about those who defaulted on their loans because they were unable to earn a living after attending unscrupulous trade or other schools that award a certificate but do not provide necessary job skills. Kolb said some schools have 100 percent default rates, suggesting they may not be providing the kind of education necessary for students to hold a job and earn enough money to repay their loans. ``There are a lot of scams going on here,'' Kolb said. A school must be accredited to qualify students for guaranteed student loans, but Kolb said there are still ``fly by night operations'' that ``don't give students a technical background _ just a paper certificate, no skills, and a debt. ``It's getting just unbelievable. Schools are recruiting right out of welfare lines. They get the students to get federally backed loans and the school gets the money and the kid gets the debt,'' Kolb said. Kolb said former Education Secretary William Bennett had proposed that schools that fail to get their default rate below 20 percent could be cut from the program. Cavazos has extended the comment period on that proposal until the end of February. Kolb said of the 7,300 schools participating in the program, 30 percent have default rates above 20 percent. Cavazos also wants to know to what extent lenders, guarantee agencies and schools should share in the risk and cost of defaults; how communication can be improved among those participating; whether credit reports and co-signers should be required for borrowers with poor credit histories; and how consumer and personal financial counseling can be used most effectively.
AP880425-0322 	X	The head of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s computer products division is leaving to rejoin the office equipment giant Ing. C. Olivetti SpA of Italy, AT&T announced Monday. Vittorio Cassoni, who had been head of Olivetti's North American operations before joining AT&T in 1986, will be nominated as managing director of the Italian company, AT&T said in a statement. Robert M. Kavner, AT&T's chief financial officer, was named to replace Cassoni as president of the company's Data Systems Group. The announcement came a week after Robert E. Allen succeeded James E. Olson as AT&T chairman. Olson, who had headed the telecommunications giant since September 1986, died of cancer. Cassoni, 45, joined AT&T after the American company and Olivetti signed a 10-year agreement under which Olivetti began to produce personal computers for both firms. Wall Street analysts said they did not know whether Cassoni's departure was being planned before Olson's death, although Allen said in a statement, ``When we brought Vittorio to AT&T in 1986, it was understood that he would eventually return to Olivetti.'' ``No one knows the answer to that,'' said John Bain, who tracks AT&T for the investment firm Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. ``I'm tempted to say it must have been; they wouldn't undertake something at this high level at a whim.'' Olivetti was disappointed recently by AT&T's refusal to increase its 23 percent stake in the Italian company, but Bain said it was not known if there was a connection between that event and Cassoni's resignation. Analysts also said it was too early to tell what effect the change might have on the Data Systems Group, which is responsible for the development and marketing of AT&T's computer products. ``It is a loss,'' Thomas McKeever, an analyst at First Boston Corp. said of Cassoni's departure. However, McKeever added: ``A good chunk of his work is behind. They have laid the foundation and gotten a dedicated sales force.'' Bain, noting Cassoni's overhaul of AT&T's national marketing system, said, ``If he has gotten things turned about ... this could be viewed as a very positive step.'' But, he said, ``We don't know.'' Under Cassoni, the Data Systems Group agreed to develop a new version of AT&T's Unix computer with Sun Microsystems Inc. AT&T has also agreed to acquire a stake of up to 20 percent in Sun. The Data Systems Group is currently vying for a $4.5 billion contract to supply 20,000 computers to the Air Force and other defense agencies. Digital Equipment Corp. and Wang Laboratories Inc. dropped out of the bidding recently, claiming the deal favored AT&T. Bain said the Data Systems position could be a testing ground for Kavner. ``If he can be a general purpose executive rather than just an accountant, there could be higher things in the cards down the road,'' Bain said. Kavner, 44, joined AT&T in 1984 after 10 years as a partner at Coopers & Lybrand, the accounting and consulting firm.
AP880415-0020 	X	The chairman of the tax-law-writing House Ways and Means Committee has been hit with more than 2,000 letters from angry, befuddled taxpayers complaining about the tax changes he once billed as ``simplification.'' Even Rep. Dan Rostenkowski acknowledges now that the system didn't get much simpler _ he blames last-minute tinkering with the Tax Reform Act of 1986 _ and he says the flood of complaints doesn't surprise him. ``We have been waiting for something like this to happen,'' Rostenkowski, D-Ill., said Thursday. But he said he had expected even more letters to arrive as today's filing deadline approached, perhaps closer to the 10,000 he got after inviting people in a 1985 television address to ``write Rosty'' if they wanted simpler tax laws. ``I must say, it's a dog that didn't bark as far as we're concerned,'' Rostenkowski said. ``There are very few individuals who are writing.'' Committee aides said most of the letters contain copies of an article in Money magazine's April issue lambasting parts of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. ``Fight back,'' the magazine said. ``Send a message to Washington by checking off the boxes by the laws that outrage you, ripping out this article and sending it to the top tax lawmaker: The Hon. Dan Rostenkowski.'' The article criticized nine tax provisions, including a limit on the deductibility of individual retirement accounts, elimination of a deduction for married working couples and a higher threshold for claiming medical deductions. ``There is a lot of frustration out there, and what we're trying to do is address it,'' Landon Y. Jones, Money's managing editor, said of the mail-in campaign. ``People are mad,'' he said. ``They're mad about tax reform. They're mad about how long it took them to fill their forms out. They're mad about losing their IRA deduction.'' Pointing to two huge boxes of mail, aides said Rostenkowski has gotten more than 2,000 letters in a couple weeks _ with no end in sight _ from angry taxpayers. ``In the name of tax reform and simplification, the federal government has once again botched it,'' wrote a couple from Denver, Colo. ``Would you believe there are parts of this country where you can't support a family and live in a decent neighborhood on $50,000 per year?'' said a letter from New Jersey. ``There are, and the situation is worsening.'' From Kankakee, Ill.: ``Being a middle-class American, I feel that once again we are the ones supporting our government, paying for Public Aid persons who could help themselves and carrying the wealthy people right along. When can we expect a change in the attitude of the government?'' The Internal Revenue Service says the changes are not without benefits, bringing lower maximum rates for most taxpayers and an increase in the average refund from $806 last year to $825 this year.
AP900801-0178 	X	The two Germanys on Wednesday settled a fight on how to elect a united Parliament but continued squabbling over whether East Germany has enough money to pull its moribund economy into the capitalist arena. West German government spokesman Hans Klein said the opposition Social Democrats agreed to an election plan allowing small East German parties to run on tickets with larger parties with which they are allied. For example, the German Social Union, which is allied with the larger Christian Democrats, could run on the same ticket. This could improve the small parties' chances of winning representation in Parliament, because each ticket will have to win at least 5 percent of the total vote to be represented in the united Parliament. East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere told reporters late Wednesday that his coalition parties had also approved the plan. The issue at one point threatened to derail the timetable of German unification as parties jockeyed for the most favorable conditions to improve their chances in the all-German election Dec. 2. De Maiziere said he expected the election law to be signed Friday. Meanwhile, East German Finance Minister Walter Romberg said Wednesday his country needs a supplementary budget of $6.25 billion to $7.5 billion plus increased unemployment insurance. More than 250,000 East Germans are unemployed and experts say that number could climb as high as 3 million as companies and factories succumb in the transition to a free market. West Germany has budgeted nearly $15.6 billion this year to cover East Germany's deficit. Manfred Carstens, a top West German Finance Ministry official, criticized East Germany's request for more money as ``unserious and politically dishonest.'' On Tuesday, East German Labor Minister Regine Hildebrandt said ``the country is burning'' and called for billions more in West German marks to help prop up the economy. De Maiziere went to Austria on Tuesday to meet with Chancellor Helmut Kohl at his vacation retreat and discuss the economic crisis. The mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported Thursday that Kohl pressed de Maiziere to find more savings in his budget.
AP900129-0102 	X	Two U.S. Navy warships on Monday sailed through the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea _ waters dominated by the Soviet fleet, an Istanbul port source said. The vessels were the destroyer Thorn and frigate Capodanno, both attached to the Mediterranean-based 6th Fleet, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Ocean, a Soviet navy intelligence and support ship, also passed through the Bosporus into the Black Sea together with the U.S. warships, the source said. The U.S. ships will spend four days in the international zones of the Black Sea, the source said. The United States dispatches ships to the area from time to time to reaffirm its commitment to the vital Turkish straits and place a stake in navigational rights in the Black Sea.
AP900302-0138 	X	Hundreds of Moslem separatists dressed in death shrouds tried to march to Srinagar on Friday, a day after government troops shot to death 49 Moslems, but soldiers blocked the rally, police said. The march was to have begun in Sumbal, 15 miles north of Srinagar, said a senior police official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said at least 1,000 Moslems gathered in the town but were stopped by soldiers before they could leave for Srinagar. Witnesses contacted by telephone said the demonstrators had draped themselves in white burial shrouds to show they were willing to die in the fight for secession. A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 49 people died and between 45 and 100 were injured Thursday in two incidents related to the Moslems' campaign. The government said the officers fired in self-defense. The militants want independence for the Moslem-dominated Kashmir region, a part of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. It is the only Moslem-dominated state in India, where the majority of the population is Hindu. The latest shootings prompted authorities to impose an indefinite curfew at 4 a.m. Friday on Sringar, which is the capital, and six other towns. It prevented Moslems from attending the weekly Friday prayers, which in the past have been flashpoints for trouble. Police said one group of separatists defied the curfew and gathered along Dal Lake, but they were chased away by paramilitary troops. An officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of the protesters fell to his death in the cold lake. The victim was not identified. The death brought to 162 the number of people killed in Kashmir since the current round of secession-related violence flared Jan. 20 following a government crackdown on Moslem militants. The violence brought criticism from neighboring Pakistan, a Moslem nation that disputes India's right to govern Kashmir. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government said it condemned the ``brutal Indian response ... to the people of Kashmir, who were asking only for their right of self-determination.'' The Kashmir issue has been a point of contention between Pakistan and India since 1947, following the partition of the old British colonial Asian Subcontinent into two independent nations: mostly Hindu India and overwhelmingly Moslem Pakistan. Kashmir became a subject of dispute because its population was mostly Moslem but its ruler was a Hindu who wanted to join India. A brief war between the two countries left a slice of the valley under Pakistani control and the rest of Kashmir as part of the Indian state of Jammu-Kashmir. A second war in 1965 did not change the situation.
AP880717-0056 	X	More than 400 members of the Rittenhouse clan, some from as far away as West Germany and England, gathered to share family gossip and history over the weekend at the tricentennial celebration of Wilhelm Rittenhausen's arrival in America. People hovered over genealogical charts, running their fingers down the litany of names, searching for descendents of Rittenhausen _ cousins, great-great-uncles, or half-remembered names first heard in childhood stories. Paul Monroe Rittenhouse of State College manned the genealogical tables, helping distant relatives fill in the blanks in their record books, noting marriages, births, deaths. ``We're here to fill in the voids'' of the family's history, he said. Although family members began tracing their ancestors more than 100 years ago, Paul Rittenhouse recently found a ``missing link'' in 19th-century documents from Lancaster County. Those documents added more than 3,000 families to the Rittenhouse lists, bringing the total, in this country, to 50,000 descendents of Rittenhausen. Charlotte Rittinghausen, of Mannheim, West Germany, came to visit friends at the celebration, which ended Sunday. She said her father is interested in the family history, but she wasn't until the American celebration. Ms. Rittinghausen said she is continually learning of family members in her country. Now she has more names to add to her Christmas card list. ``We are spreading all over,'' she said. Rittenhausen settled in Germantown, the country's first permanent German settlement, in 1688. He built a papermill in 1690 on the Monoshone Creek in Philadelphia and became the American colony's first papermaker. His name, itself a derivation of Rittinghausen, was changed erroneously by American clerks, according to Rittenhausen decendant Milton Rubincam of West Hyattsville, Md. Rubincam called the name change ``a peculiarity of Colonial times,'' when American immigrants were confronted by strange languages and names. ``It doesn't matter what your name is. It's fun for everybody to trace their roots,'' said one of two Donald Rittenhouses at the reunion. ``I've been doing research for 10 years, just to see where it goes,'' said the retired salesman and financial officer from Minneapolis.
AP880602-0304 	X	Government prosecutors Thursday arrested two senior officials of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. and charged them with paying a group of men to kidnap a labor organizer. The prosecutors said they are trying to determine whether other Hyundai officials were involved in the kidnapping. The organizer was freed after several days when he resigned as an employee of the construction company. Earlier Thursday, about a dozen radical students hurled rocks at the headquarters of the giant Hyundai group in Seoul to protest the kidnapping at the Hyundai subsidiary. No injuries were reported. The arrests and the attack by the students came as labor unrest continued at three other Hyundai plants in southern South Korea. The Hyundai group is one of the largest conglomerates in the nation. In Ulsan, management on Wednesday locked out 20,000 striking workers at Hyundai Motor Co., the nation's largest automaker, and said there was little chance of settling the strike for higher wages. The walkout began Monday. At Hyundai Precision and Industry Co., which makes trains, management and leaders of the 4,000 strikers held two rounds of talks Thursday but failed to end a one-week strike at the company's plants in Ulsan and Changwon. The talks were held one day after strikers freed one of the 11 executives they took hostage on Friday. They were still holding 10 executives on Thursday. Strikers at Hyundai Motors want raises of up to $180 a month, against a company offer of $105. The workers earn an average of $750 after five years. Hyundai Precision on Thursday offered to raise workers' pay $85 a month, but workers stuck to their demand of a $180 increase. They earn $600 a month. ``Punish the masterminds of the kidnapping,'' the students shouted as they hurled rocks at the Hyundai group's main building in Seoul, breaking four windows. The students ran away before police arrived. Several hours after the attack, government prosecutors arrested two Hyundai Engineering officials, executive board member Choi Jae-dong, 47, and manager for general affairs Kang Myung-ku, 42, and charged them with hiring several men to kidnap labor organizer Suh Jung-ui, 34. Suh was kidnapped May 10 by a group of unidentified men as he left a Seoul restaurant where he had met with some officials of the construction company, which is based in Seoul. Suh, who worked at the company's Seoul headquarters, returned home several days later and said he was released after he agreed to write a letter of resignation addressed to the company. Hyundai Engineering denied involvement at the time. Details of the kidnapping emerged this week when some of the alleged kidnappers surrendered to police or were arrested in Seoul and other cities. Their leader told police Hyundai Engineering executives offered him $27,000 to kidnap Suh and persuade him to drop his labor organizing effort.
AP880811-0280 	X	Stock prices drifted lower in an erratic session today, struggling to stabilize after the market's recent recent steep decline. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, which fell 44.99 points on Tuesday, dropped 2.49 to 2,031.65 by 3 p.m. on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 7 to 4 in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 512 up, 889 down and 537 unchanged. Analysts said the market's drop over the past week had pushed prices down to levels where they attracted some buyers looking for ``bargains.'' But they also said widespread concern persisted over the recent rise in interest rates. Several large banks raised their prime lending rates today from 9.5 percent to 10 percent, a day after the Federal Reserve increased the rate it charges on loans to private financial institutions. The timing of the Federal Reserve's increase in its discount rate from 6 percent to 6.5 percent suggested to many Wall Streeters that the Fed was seriously worried about inflation and was becoming more aggressive in an attempt to stop it from heating up. For one thing, the rate increase came just as the Treasury was beginning a quarterly sale of debt securities. Among actively traded blue chips, International Business Machines fell { to 118]; Ford Motor lost } to 49{; General Electric was unchanged at 40[, and American Express rose \ to 27}. Convergent Inc. jumped 2 7-16 to 5~ in the over-the-counter market. Unisys Corp. agreed to acquire the company for $7 a share. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks dropped .23 to 148.00. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was down .51 at 296.06. Volume on the Big Board came to 149.69 million shares with an hour to go.
AP900602-0108 	X	The Communist government for the first time has allowed the family of a high-level defector to go abroad to visit him and it is considering letting him return from China, an official said Saturday. The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the move was meant as a gesture of good will toward China before the visit of Deputy Foreign Minister Dinh Nho Liem to Beijing. It will be Liem's third round of talks in China on the Cambodian civil war and other barriers to normalizing ties between Vietnam and China. The Vietnamese government allowed the wife and daughter of 87-year-old defector Hoang Van Hoan _ a founding member of the Vietnamese Communist Party _ to travel to Beijing to visit him last month, the government official said. The decision was made by the Politburo, the highest body of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party, he said. The official also said the Chinese government last month asked Vietnam to let Hoan return home. No decision has been made, the official said. But he added, ``People tend to think it's about time to take him back; even some high-ranking officials think so.'' Hoan, a member of the Politburo from 1957 to 1976, was the first top Vietnamese leader to defect to China. Hoan disappeared at Karachi airport in Pakistan in July 1979. A month later he surfaced in Beijing, he attacked the Vietnamese party leadership, saying it was guilty of using ``Stalinist'' methods and abandoning friendship with China for the Soviet Union. Hoan called for a revolution in Vietnam. The Vietnamese official who spoke Saturday said Hoan had also published a Vietnamese-language newsletter critical of Hanoi while he was in China. Vietnam and China were allies during the Vietnam War, but they had a falling-out in 1978 over border disputes, Vietnam's treatment of its ethnic Chinese population and growing Vietnamese-Soviet ties. China launched a brief border attack in early 1979, saying it wanted to ``punish'' Vietnam for invading Cambodia and toppling the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge government. China continues to arm the Khmer Rouge and two other guerrilla groups now fighting the Vietnamese-installed government in Cambodia. However, relations with China have improved during Liem's three visits to Beijing over the past 15 months. An assistant Chinese foreign minister, Xu Dunxin, is to arrive in Hanoi on June 9 to continue the talks on Cambodia and normalizing relations. Xu will be leading the first senior Chinese delegation to Vietnam since 1979.
AP880518-0040 	X	Gov. Michael S. Dukakis is under sharp attack from critics at home, who say he ignored warnings of a state budget crisis because they came just before key presidential contests. Dukakis, the Democratic front-runner, has made a string of balanced state budgets a big selling point in his presidential campaign. This week, though, he announced that state revenues were more than $240 million below projections included in the budget. ``We're all aboard the government Titanic and instead of women and children first it's the captain and the crew first,'' House Taxation Committee Chairman John Flood said Tuesday. ``They will be rolling on across the Potomac River while the ship of Massachusetts goes down with the rest of us on it,'' said Flood, one of the few Democrats in the Legislature who criticizes Dukakis publicly. Dukakis' top budget aide dismissed the criticism, saying the governor told lawmakers a year ago the budget was based on revenue projections that might turn out to be overly optimistic. The critics acknowledged getting that warning when Dukakis used his veto power to slice $88 million from the budget. But they say the governor should have curbed spending beginning in January, when the administration conceded revenues for the first half of the fiscal year were lagging by $200 million. But the Dukakis administration said it expected revenues to improve, and meet targets. That soothing forecast came days before the Iowa caucuses, the first big test of the campaign year. ``If anybody tells you any of this stuff is not related to presidential politics, either they are naive or they think everyone else is,'' said Flood. Republicans among the Dukakis critics vowed to continue their attacks and predicted Vice President George Bush would pick up their themes during his expected fall campaign against Dukakis. ``They had to see the problem but they chose to ignore it and delay acting because it was not favorable to the governor's campaign,'' said House Minority Leader Steven Pierce. ``As he campaigned across the country it was his `Massachusetts Miracle' but now it's our deficit.'' ``They have known that the budget situation was worsening daily,'' said Republican Rep. John C. Bradford. He accused Dukakis of sidestepping his gubernatorial duties while ``fantasizing about moving to that white building halfway down the Atlantic coast.'' The figures released Monday showed the state was $243 million short for the fiscal year that ends June 30, forcing Dukakis to tap reserve and other funds to balance the budget. That figure is $166 million more than the shortfall projected by the governor's Revenue Advisory Board on April 12. By the campaign calendar, that's a week before the big New York primary, and two weeks before the Pennsylvania primary. Dukakis won them both, tightening his grip on the nomination with followup victories in Indiana and Ohio. The $243 million shortfall is in addition to $233 million for planned budget expenditures that have been canceled because of the fiscal crunch. ``Add that up and this state is $470 million out of balance,'' Flood said. ``They had to know it but they just ignored it for political reasons.'' Secretary of Administration and Finance Frank Keefe scoffed at the criticism, pointing to the vetoes last year and the legislature's rejection of a $255 million Dukakis-filed tax enforcement and fee package. ``I'm a little bit amused by folks who want to rewrite history,'' Keefe said Tuesday. ``It was the legislature that fully believed the future was going to be just like the immediate past, which was a period of enormous good fortune.'' Keefe said Dukakis had instructed him as far back as September 1987 to put together contingency plans to cut $185 million in spending and at several intervals since has told Keefe to look for further cuts. The administration considered the Revenue Advisory Board's April projected shortfall of $77 million conservative, but did not say so publicly because that might have hurt the state's credit rating, Keefe said. ``We weren't about to say absolutely that things were horrible when we had no concrete evidence that was the case,'' said Keefe.
AP900413-0155 	X	West German officials are bracing for a resurgence of leftist terrorism and right-wing extremism as a result of the coming unification of the two Germanys, published reports said Friday. East and West German Cabinet ministers meanwhile were preparing talks as early as next week to meet the July 1 goal of a ``monetary, social and economic union.'' In an interview with the respected Bonn newspaper Die Welt, the head of West Germany's criminal investigations office said the leftist Red Army Faction terror gang views the unification process as a ``wide open field.'' ``It is conceivable that the progress in unification also presents a potential danger,'' Die Welt quoted Hans-Ludwig Zachert as saying. Zachert said his office already had been in contact with its counterparts in East Germany. The Red Army Faction, after a series of attacks and slayings in the 1970s, remains in officials' eyes a continuing threat. The latest major attack attributed to the gang was the Nov. 30 slaying of Alfred Herrhausen, the No. 1 banker in West Germany. Zachert also warned the tumult in East Germany could bring an increase in organized crime and drug trafficking, which were virtually unknown under the toppled hard-line Communist regime. In Hamburg, the respected newsmagazie Der Spiegel reported West German counterintelligence officials were stepping up surveillance of the far right. ``Right-wing groups increasingly are striking up contacts in East Germany and getting good feedback there,'' the magazine reported. West Germany's extreme rightist Republican Party, despite facing mounting troubles at home, claims to have found recruits in East Germany since November's peaceful revolution. Der Spiegel quoted officials as saying in a report that ``after 40 years of political oppression, it follows as a matter of course that there will be radical to extreme rightist developments.'' Ultrarightists have tried to disrupt the weekly pro-democracy demonstrations in Leipzig several times. The magazine quoted officials as saying that right-wing extremism was likely to increase in a united Germany and that leftist terrorists had already found like-minded comrades in East Germany. ``Unification, the officials estimate, will lead to new activities of the Red Army Faction,'' according to Der Spiegel. In Bonn, Foreign Minster Hans-Dietrich Genscher said he wants to meet soon with his new East German counterpart, Markus Meckel, to prepare for unification talks involving the United States and the Soviet Union. Genscher, according to the Express newspaper of Cologne, said there was a ``highest measure of agreement'' between the two Germanys and that ``with such a common interest we Germans could be the architects of an undivided Europe.'' East Germany's new non-Communist government, led by Christian Democrat Lothar de Maiziere, took office Thursday.
AP881114-0197 	X	Brautigan published ``Trout Fishing in America,'' writer Hjortsberg hit it big with ``Falling Angel,'' and McGuane sold his novel ``92 in the Shade'' to Hollywood, launching himself as a popular screenwriter. And each began to load up on Chatham pictures. A born barterer, Chatham swapped his art for firewood and fishing rods, baby-sitting service and airline tickets, medical care and food _ even a handmade afghan. Which explains why a few dozen cowboys and merchants in Livingston now own Chatham originals worth thousands of dollars. Because, after nearly 200 one-man shows which usually lost money, after living on less than $15,000 annually, eked out through sales to friends and free-lance writing, Chatham has made enough in the last two years to stay out of debt with some left over. Today his paintings command up to $60,000, with an average of $10,000 to $30,000 per canvas. ``Now, 28 years after taking up this desperate line of work professionally, it appears the work is fulfilling its function, which is simply to add a measure of interest and dimension to people's lives in an almost subliminal way by inhabiting their walls just as a spirit might inhabit a gloomy stairway,'' writes Chatham in a slim brochure about his work. He has become the artist-of-choice for many of Hollywood's hip and famous. Actor Jack Nicholson reportedly owns 30 Chatham canvases. Other buyers include movie stars Jeff Bridges, Peter Fonda, and Dennis Quaid (all Paradise Valley transplants), Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Ali McGraw, and Harrison Ford. Thus, the supreme irony of Russell Chatham's life is that, having moved away from the hyped-up fast lane of the California art scene where patrons abound, wealthy admirers found him by what he calls ``accident'' when they came to fly-fish and make movies in a small Montana town on the edge of nowhere. As Chatham talks, he paints, neither exercise hampering the other. He is dressed in untied tennis shoes, a rumpled shirt, and oil-splattered pants. He is a big man, barrel-chested, brawny-armed. His eyes are large and liquid, now brown, now gray, depending on the angle of the studio's flat north light. His nose, once described by a friend as a bobsled run, fits sideways on his face. The image is uncannily like a Gauguin self-portrait. It is a silent Sunday. None of the seven employees he now pays to keep track of his growing business are around. He has the entire second floor of a building which also houses Sax & Fryer, a bookstore which has helped Livingstonites find erudition since 1883. Stacked in the hallways are oils, acrylics, and large framed prints from his ``Missouri Headwaters'' series of 12 original lithographs. Most are going to Seattle for two major shows, one at the Davidson Gallery, the other at the Kimzey Miller Gallery, through late November. After years of living on the edge, Chatham at last finds himself riding the crest of a success his admirers say will last the remainder of his life. But for Chatham there is much more to living than just painting. There are his wife, Suzanne, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rebecca. There are new books to write and old ones to re-issue through his new publishing venture, the Livingston-based Clark City Press. There are pickup games of pool to be played with strangers across the street, birds to be hunted with old friends on cold days, fish to be caught. Writing in ``Sports Illustrated'' a few years ago, McGuane told of being in the river and looking up to see Chatham: ``I see my friend and neighbor, a painter, walking along the high cutbank above the river. This would be a man who has ruined his life with sport. He skulks from his home at all hours with gun or rod. Today he has both. ```What are you doing?' ```Trout fishing and duck hunting...As you can see,' says the painter gesticulating strangely, `I'm ready for anything. I spoiled half the day with work and errands.'''
AP880419-0027 	X	A Harvard University study strongly endorses Canadian electricity imports as a cheap alternative to Mideast oil and rejects a proposal from the domestic coal industry to limit the hydroelectric power. The report, released Monday by the Energy and Environmental Policy Center at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, dismisses arguments that Canadian producers have unfair advantages over domestic utilities. It also dismisses assertions that reliance on Canadian imports could leave the United States vulnerable, and that government subsidies and lower environmental standards make the exports possible. Instead, it says, Canadian utilities can export hydroelectric power at a cheaper price than it costs to build new coal facilities because of Canada's vast water resources. ``Arguments about Canadian subsidies, lax environmental standards and national security implications are not only often factually wrong, but also divert attention from the real public policy issue,'' said Henry Lee, executive director of the center and co-author of the study. ``If Canada has greater access to inexpensive natural resources, should the U.S. federal government limit the ability of U.S. consumers to purchase those resources?'' Lee asked. The Harvard researchers estimated that the 35,300 gigawatt hours of Canadian electricity purchased by the United States in 1986 would increase by 1995 to between 52,000 and 63,000 gigawatt hours. A gigawatt is a billion watts. Canadian power imports represent only 2 percent of U.S. consumption nationwide, but they account for about 10 percent of the electricity used in New England and New York. The $75,000 study was paid in large part by utilities that benefit from Canadian imports. Lee said buying large chunks of Canadian power does not pose a national security risk since it is unlikely Canada would cut off electricity for political reasons. ``The security costs of any practically attainable level of Canadian imports are far outweighed by the national security benefits which accrue to the United States from reducing oil imports'' from Mideast nations, the report said. Rep. Nick Joe Rahall II, D-W.Va., countered, ``Political relationships are volatile with changes in leadership, and in no way can we use today's stable relationship (with Canada) as a basis for the future.'' Rahall, chairman of the House Interior subcommittee on mining and natural resources, introduced legislation last year that would prohibit Canadian power imports unless they adhered to environmental safeguards similar to those in the United States. The study also said that Canadian imports displace mostly imported oil and domestic natural gas, not coal. If all Canadian power contracts were cancelled, the coal industry would see a 2,479 increase in jobs, but it would cost U.S. consumers $114,123 per job, the study said.
AP900324-0046 	X	The co-leader of a team that crossed Antartica by ski and dogsled told several hundred cheering fans welcoming him home that he was thrilled to return to ``your warm hearts.'' Co-leader Will Steger and the other five members of the International Trans-Antarctica Expedition arrived Friday night at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The expedition had left the airport for Antarctica on July 26. It completed its 3,741-mile trek at Mirnyy on the Indian Ocean on March 3. The team also included co-leader Jean-Louis Etienne of France, Geoff Somers of Great Britain, Victor Boyarsky of the Soviet Union, Keizo Funatsu of Japan and Qin Dahe of China. On Friday night, a group of girls sang for the team and people in the crowd carried posters with ``Congratulations'' and ``Welcome Back'' written in French, English, Japanese, Russian and Chinese. Steger, of Ely, Minn., hugged his parents and then greeted 35 to 40 relatives before clasping hands with well-wishers. ``I can't tell you how thrilled we are to come back to Minnesota and your warm hearts,'' Steger said. ``The only thing that really kept us going was the love and prayers of the people back home. We are so thankful just to be alive.'' Steger said that he didn't learn about such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall for several weeks or, in most cases, until he arrived in Australia this month and read a magazine reviewing 1989. The team traveled to the Australian cities of Sidney and Perth, then to Paris and London before flying to Minneapolis. After festivities today on the lawn of the state Capitol, the team is scheduled to leave Sunday for Washington, D.C.
AP881127-0065 	X	Blacks and Jews who worked together in the civil rights movement plan a two-day reunion to emphasize their historical bonds and shared martyrs, rather than the recent political pressures that have strained their relationship. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been at the center of concerns about black-Jewish relations since he was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks during his 1984 presidential campaign, was invited to the conference but was not among those who had confirmed plans to attend, said an organizer, Philip Shandler. ``It's not about the current political situation,'' Shandler said. ``It's focusing on the longstanding, productive relationship between blacks and Jews. It is essentially a history-gathering conference.'' Scheduled speakers include Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Al Vorspan, vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The conference, which begins Monday, will focus on recording the memories of civil rights veterans while also honoring the movement's martyrs. A memorial service was planned Monday night at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, was to participate in the conference, along with Carolyn Goodman, the mother of Andrew Goodman; and Ben Chaney, a brother of James Chaney. Chaney, a black man from Meridian, Miss., and Goodman and Michael Schwerner, white Jews from New York, were killed in 1964 as they tried to investigate a church burning in Mississippi. Their slayings were described as ``the touchstone of black-Jewish cooperation in the civil rights movement'' by Jonathan Kaufman, also a conference participant, in his book, ``Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America.'' Kaufman is a reporter with The Boston Globe. Shandler, a former columnist for the defunct Washington Star and a one-time Senate press secretary, and Leon Dash, a black writer for The Washington Post, plan to use the material they gather at the conference in a future book on the history of black-Jewish cooperation. The sessions, involving key figures of the time along with historians and writers, will take place at the Carter Presidential Center.
AP880719-0227 	X	George Bush is a ``toothache of a man'' who doesn't care about the problems of anyone but the rich, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower told delegates to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday. ``George has always been in another world,'' Hightower said of the vice president, who has this year's Republican presidential nomination locked up. ``His is an upper-class world in which wealth is given to you at birth. He is a man who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.'' Hightower's speech during platform debate drew cheers and laughs from the delegates. It was the second night in a row that a Texan hurled insults at Bush, who claims a Houston hotel suite as his legal residence. State Treasurer Ann Richards skewered Bush in her keynote address Monday night, causing delegates to roar with delight when she said the vice president was ``born with a silver foot in his mouth.'' Hightower, who supported Jesse Jackson in this year's Democratic primaries, honed in on Bush early in his speech. ``Now here comes George Herbert Walker Bush II, perpetual preppie. He's of the Kennebunkport Bushes, don't you know. He's a toothache of a man, telling us to stay the course and threatening to lead us from tweedledum to tweedledumber,'' Hightower said. He asked delegates to look at their family finances and see whether the Reagan-Bush policies have made life better. Hightower said the wealthy have benefited. ``Bush's elite are out at the yacht club tonight, sitting about in their Guccis and Puccis, sipping a delightfully fruity and frisky white wine, saying, `Play it again, George,''' he said. He said Democrats can help family farmers, small businesses and working families that have suffered under the GOP administration. ``Let George Bush side with the Rockefellers. We Democrats will side with the little fellers,'' he said.
AP880326-0110 	X	Police arrested 21 members of a banned peace group who met in a Warsaw apartment Saturday, a spokesman for the group said. Jacek Czaputowicz, leader of Freedom and Peace, said there had been no attempt to keep the meeting a secret. It was the first time police detained members of the group at such a session, he said. The meeting was of the group's national board in charge of raising money, paying legal fines and providing financial assistance for imprisoned activists, he said. A municipal official arrived with police at the apartment at about 11 a.m. and declared the meeting illegal, Czaputowicz said. Police detained everyone present, and 17 people remained in custody Saturday night, he said. Opposition activists in Poland frequently are detained for up to 48 hours on misdemeanor charges. Freedom and Peace opposes Poland's military draft and demands the right to alternative civilian service. It continues to operate even though it has been declared illegal. On Friday, Poland's National Defense Ministry Council endorsed government proposals announced earlier to permit ``alternative forms of military service.'' Czaputowicz said the detentions may be intended to show that alternative service, if it eventually becomes law, did not result from pressure from Freedom and Peace.
AP880222-0291 	X	The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials climbed 25.70 to 2,040.29, hitting a new six-week high for the third straight session. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by more than 5 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,148 up, 420 down and 429 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 178.93 million shares, against 180.30 million in the previous session. The NYSE's composite index rose 2.00 to 148.96.
AP900915-0004 	X	The average Japanese household has more than $86,000 in savings, up 16.6 percent from a year earlier, according to a study published today. It was the biggest increase in savings since 1973, when the average rose 28 percent from the year before, according to the national survey of more than 4,000 families. The annual survey was conducted in June and July by the Central Council for Savings Information, a non-profit group of Japanese financial institutions and scholars. The survey said the average rose to $86,700 because of an increase in earned income from a strong domestic economy. In September, Japan entered its 46th straight month of economic expansion.
AP900412-0129 	X	A former top legal adviser to U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh is the target of a federal investigation of alleged cocaine use by public officials and professionals, sources said Thursday. Henry G. Barr of Mechanicsburg, who was general counsel when Thornburgh was governor and later was an assistant to Thornburgh when he became attorney general, is being investigated by the same grand jury that has been hearing evidence about alleged cocaine use and distribution by Richard Guida, a former top deputy in the state attorney general's office, the sources said. The sources, including several lawyers close to the case who were interviewed independently, said Barr's attorneys were in Washington earlier this week asking the Justice Department to block an indictment that would name Barr. In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Dan Eramian said Thornburgh and members of his personal staff withdrew from the federal investigation when they learned of its existence earlier this year. Eramian added that Thornburgh had no knowledge of the drug issue when he was governor. The sources also said Guida has agreed to plead guilty to one count of using cocaine and to cooperate with the federal investigation. Under the agreement, they said, Guida could face a short jail term and suspension of his law license. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret. According to court documents, Guida has been a target of the federal investigation since May. The grand jury's attention turned to Barr more recently, the sources said. Barr did not return telephone messages left on the answering machine at his Mechanicsburg home Thursday. Guida did not return messages left at his Harrisburg law office. In previous interviews, he denied using cocaine and being a target of the probe. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod declined to comment because of a policy that prohibits federal prosecutors from confirming or denying details of investigations. By being allowed to plead guilty only to a possession charge, Guida would sidestep allegations that he also sold cocaine and provided it to friends. At least one witness, Brenda Snell of suburban Harrisburg, said in an interview with The Associated Press that she told the FBI she had purchased cocaine from Guida and sold it to him on several occassions. Guida called those allegations ``bold-faced lies.'' This is the second time cocaine allegations against Guida have been investigated. In 1986, when he was a chief deputy under state Attorney General LeRoy S. Zimmerman, an internal probe found no evidence to support a radio reporter's allegations that Guida was a user. State Attorney General Ernie Preate Jr. said Thursday he would not investigate allegations that the initial probe was a whitewash because the federal grand jury also was looking at that aspect of the case. Barr, 46, worked in the state attorney general's office before joining Thornburgh's gubernatorial administration. He became Thornburgh's general counsel about 18 months before the governor left office in 1987. In Washington, he served as a special assistant to the attorney general from September 1988 to May 12, 1989. Last year, he resumed a private law practice in Harrisburg, but quit earlier this year after allegations surfaced that connected him to the case, the sources said. Barr and Guida each served as deputy attorney general in charge of the state attorney general's criminal division. Barr also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh from 1969 to 1979. Through much of that period, Thornburgh was the U.S. attorney in western Pennsylvania. The grand jury investigation has lasted nearly a year.
AP900131-0139 	X	President Bush's State of the Union message will be aired live tonight on the major networks. Bush's address will be broadcast at 9 p.m. EST on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and C-Span, followed by a Democratic response from House Speaker Thomas S. Foley. Some local affiliates of PBS and Univision, a Spanish international network, also will carry the address and response, either live or as a tape-delayed broadcast. C-Span will rebroadcast the address at 11:30 p.m. EST.
AP900402-0254 	X	After posting the usual first-quarter declines, the number of working U.S. oil and gas rigs made a turnaround this week, increasing by 53 to total 946. The rig count climbed by a dozen or more in three states, and other areas also posted slight gains, Baker Hughes Inc. reported Monday. This week's increase reversed the rig count's downward slide _ a traditional trend in the first three months of the year. Last week, the count dropped by 15 to 893. Baker Hughes' rig count _ the widely watched industry index of drilling activity _ reflects the number of rotary rigs actively exploring for oil and gas as of last Friday, not the number of producing wells. A year ago, the rig count totaled 779. Houston-based Hughes Tool Co., an oil toolmaker company that merged with Baker International Corp. of Orange, Calif., has kept track of the rig count since 1940. In December 1981, at the height of the oil boom, the rig count reached a peak of 4,500. But oil prices plunged to less than $10 per 42-gallon barrel in the summer of 1986, prompting a collapse in the rig count that bottomed out at 663 _ the lowest since Hughes began compiling figures. Among major oil-producing states, Texas had the greatest increase with 15, Oklahoma followed with 13 and Lousiana's count climbed by 12. Wyoming's count was up six, North Dakota's increased by four and Colorado and New Mexico each gained three more rigs. Ohio's count was up two and California was up by one. Michigan lost three rigs and Pennsylvania lost ten rigs.
AP900707-0010 	X	Beneath a naked bluff on a mile-long Boston Harbor island known chiefly for its antiquated jail lie the unmarked graves of about 4,100 early immigrants whose American dreams ended in death. Most were famine-weakened Irish who fled their starving country in the mid-1800s only to be deemed ``undesirable'' and detained on Deer Island, where they died and until now were largely forgotten. ``They symbolize all immigrants that have come to Boston and to America,'' Mayor Raymond Flynn said this week. ``They may have been poor, probably didn't have any family and weren't among the elite. ``But still every respect should be afforded to their memory.'' Residents of Boston, home to more Irish-Americans per capita than any other U.S. city, are resurrecting the city's missing chapter. Deer Island's low-security jail is scheduled to close in 1991 and local business, labor and other groups plan to have the gravesite landscaped by 1995, the 150th anniversary year of the potato famine. The mayor has announced plans to erect a Celtic cross on the island and a statue near Fanueil Hall as part of the city's ``Great Hunger Memorial Project,'' the nation's first memorial to Irish famine victims _ and victims of hunger around the world. The graves on the island about four miles from Boston's wharves came to Flynn's attention several months ago, after construction workers turned up bones at a new sewage treatment plant site. ``You think of them getting this far, coming across the Atlantic and being able to look over and see the city ... only to end up in an anonymous pauper's grave,'' said Francis J. Costello, the mayor's adviser on Irish-American Affairs. ``We have to put a proper finish on this.'' Many of the thousands of immigrants held on Deer Island eventually made it to a new life on the mainland. But thousands more were buried in shallow, lime-lined trenches that held eight or 10 bodies each. Their anonymous graves tell the story of immigrants who saw but never reached America's shores. Ireland's population of 8 million was cut in half by fatal disease, starvation and emigration after a devastating plant disease hit the country's staple potato crop in 1845. During the next 10 years, more than 152,000 Irish fled to Boston, many of them tenant farmers forced to move on when they no longer could afford to pay rent. The Yankees were unprepared for the influx of penniless, weak and diseased immigrants, many of whom were near death after a month or more aboard the crowded ``coffin ships'' they had taken across the Atlantic. ``As a precautionary measure to ward off a pestilence that would have been ruinous to the public health and business of the city,'' a quarantine hospital was established on Deer Island, according to a Massachusetts Senate document dated 1848. Paupers and inmates also were held on the island because officials deemed them, like the Irish and a fraction of immigrants from other countries, ``undesirable within the core urban area,'' according to city documents. ``It was really a human dump heap,'' said Dennis P. Ryan, author of ``Beyond The Ballot: A Social History of the Boston Irish.'' Several rough-hewn wooden crosses stood for years on the bluff near the graves, but by about 1970 they had disappeared or disintegrated. A lone white Celtic cross also was erected amid the yellow rapeseed, but that too is gone. ``It wasn't a deep dark secret,'' said Deborah Cox, president of the Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. in Pawtucket, R.I. ``I think it was just one of those things people don't pay attention to and then eventually forget,'' said Cox, whose company surveyed Deer Island before construction began on the new sewage treatment plant in late 1988. Boston's archivist, Edward Quill, has begun researching death records and handwritten weekly logs kept by physicians at Deer Island's quarantine hospital. For years the records have gathered dust, now they'll be available to genealogists and other researchers. Several Flynns have turned up among the 872 names Quill has traced. ``It could well have been any immigrant group that has come to our country,'' said Mayor Flynn. ``That's why we need a symbol, a decent resting place ... so their history won't be forgotten.''
AP880304-0058 	X	Vice President George Bush holds a strong lead over rival Bob Dole among likely GOP voters in South Carolina's primary, according to a poll published today. The Washington Post said Bush had the support of 49 percent of 1,000 people who said they would vote in the GOP primary, while Dole had 26 percent, Pat Robertson garnered 14 percent and New York Rep. Jack Kemp claimed 7 percent. Among those voters most likely to go to the polls _ those who said they were certain to vote, had voted in 1986 and strongly supported a specific candidate _ Bush had 55 percent support to Dole's 22 percent and Robertson's 17 percent. Figures for Kemp were not provided in that category. The Post survey, taken over six nights ending Wednesday, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. The South Carolina contest takes place just three days before the big round of Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses concentrated in the South. The Post survey found that even among several different categories of Christians, former television evangelist Robertson was not the favorite. Among voters who said they watch television evangelists almost every week, Bush got 44 percent to Robertson's 27 percent. The core of Robertson's support, according to the poll, was among voters who placed high priority on moral and social issues. About 83 percent of Robertson's backers said their main reason for supporting him was his stand on pornography. Robertson's stand on abortion was cited by 78 percent of his supporters as a big factor. About half cited concerns about ``declining moral standards'' or school prayer as the biggest reason for their support.
AP901014-0045 	X	American Telephone & Telegraph Co. has cut short its offer for U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia to call home for free. The troops racked up so many calls in one week that Saudi communications officials complained their long-distance lines were being clogged. After just one week, and an estimated 100,000 calls at a cost of $1 million, AT&T on Wednesday notified the military it was scrubbing its complimentary, direct-dial service, spokesman David Bikle said Sunday. AT&T had planned to offer USADirect Service to troops for two weeks. Soldiers are now charged $16.04 for a 10-minute call home. The charge is $18.29 for a 10-minute collect call, said AT&T spokesman Rick Wallerstein. The volume of calls had peaked at 1,500 an hour. ``With 100,000 calls, we gave most people a chance for one call home,'' Wallerstein said. AT&T, based in Basking Ridge, has yet to calculate the exact number of calls made since the service was discontinued, he said. U.S. troops have been deployed in Saudi Arabia since Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait on Aug. 2.
AP881013-0193 	X	Delegates at the Conservative Party's conference Thursday jeered Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's ousted predecessor Edward Heath when he attacked her opposition to closer union among European Economic Community nations. Others applauded Heath when he hailed the scheduled dismantling in 1992 of all trade barriers within the EEC as a ``major movement toward the unity of Europe in every way.'' Mrs. Thatcher, to whom the 4,500 delegates sang ``Happy Birthday'' _ she turned 63 _ left the conference center to return to her hotel before the intervention by Heath. They have been on bad terms since she ousted him as party leader in 1975 after he lost two successive elections. Aides said she wanted to work on her keynote address to the final session of the four-day convention Friday. Earlier, treasury chief Nigel Lawson, the chancellor of the exchequer, promised more tax cuts ``when prudent'' and forecast a drop next year in inflation, now 5.7 percent and rising. But in his address to the convention in this south England resort he warned that interest rates, now at 12 percent, would remain high for ``quite a while.'' Heath, prime minister when Britain joined the EEC in 1973, said the rest of the 12-nation trade bloc would not tolerate Britain treating the post-1992 single market merely as a ``free trade area.'' ``It is a major movement toward the unity of Europe in every way,'' said Heath. ``It also concerns a common currency with a common monetary system and a common bank.'' Several dozen delegates raised small replicas of the Union Jack and waved notices declaring, ``No to Ted.'' In a policy speech last month in Bruges, Belgium, Mrs. Thatcher rejected a common European currency, bank or monetary system and said a United States of Europe would never come about. She criticized what she called the bureacracy at the EEC headquarters in Brussels. Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe defended Mrs. Thatcher's rejection of what she regards as unrealistic talk of a united Europe. He said she was as much a European as French President Francois Mitterrand or West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, leaders of the two other biggest financial contributors to the EEC. On East-West relations, Howe said the West should not assume that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's desire for reform was ``shared throughout the Soviet command structure.'' ``The Red Army and the KGB still loom in force,'' he said. ``That's why the West must go on negotiating (arms cuts) from strength.''
AP881130-0100 	X	Mice prone to developing a blood cell cancer gained partial protection from a human gene that influences blood cell development, suggesting that developmental genes may affect vulnerability to cancer, researchers say. Such genes may make a difference in how long normal cells remain susceptible to turning malignant, they said. The work is reported in Thursday's issue of the British journal Nature by Philip Leder, Michel Nussenzweig and Emmett Schmidt of Harvard Medical School with colleagues there and at the Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. They worked with mice that carried a human c-myc gene, which puts them at high risk for developing a blood cell cancer called pre-B cell lymphoma. Pre-B cells are those that will develop as B cells, an important part of the body's disease-fighting immune system. Those mice were bred with others that carried a different human gene, one that makes B cells skip an early stage in their development. Some progeny from these matings inherited both human genes, and their lymphoma rates were compared to those that carried only the cancer-causing gene. Results showed that the gene that speeds development caused both a delay and a reduction in the tumors, researchers said. By 117 days of age, half the mice that carried only the cancer-causing gene had developed lymphoma, but none of the mice with both genes had developed it. After a year, more than 90 percent of the first group had developed tumors, compared to only 40 percent of the mice with both human genes. The developmental gene apparently hampered development of cancer by speeding up the maturation of pre-B cells, leaving fewer at stages most susceptible to the cancer-causing gene, researchers suggested. In general, a diverse group of genes that produce either an acceleration or pause in cell development may influence the rates and time of onset for cancer, researchers said.
AP900726-0160 	X	Democrats _ Hubbard, N; Mazzoli, N; Natcher, N; Perkins, N. Republicans _ Bunning, Y; Hopkins, Y; Rogers, Y.
AP900626-0203 	X	In tiny Bancroft, Maine, they gave an election and nobody came. In Texas, a hot primary campaign for governor drew 15 percent of the voters. In California, about 40 percent went to the polls on primary day, but that still was close to the record low established in 1986 for the state. Midway through the election year, experts are predicting 1990 will bring a continuation of a 30-year downward trend in voter participation. Analysts, politicians and voters interviewed around the country said voter frustration and disillusionment and the increasing complexity and stress of life seem to be at least partly to blame. ``I don't know anybody who was in a 10-minute traffic jam going to work 10 years ago who is not in a 45-minute traffic jam going to work now, and it doesn't matter who gets elected,'' said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. The private group tracks voter participation. In 1960, the year John F. Kennedy was elected president, 62.8 percent of registered voters cast ballots. By 1988, when George Bush was elected, turnout had dropped to 50.16 percent. In 1986, the most recent non-presidential general election year, only 37 percent made it to the polls. Edward J. Rollins, director of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, recently predicted turnout this year could go below 30 percent. ``I think part of it just has to do with folks just generally giving up on all of us,'' said Al La Pierre, executive director of the Democratic party in Alabama. In his state, the turnout of 750,000 voters in the June 5 primary was down by about 200,000 from 1986. ``They just don't see any need to go do it any more, which is sad,'' La Pierre said. Toni Grygo, who runs a hair styling parlor in Pittsburgh, said, ``The feedback that I get is that they are disillusioned. This is the main thing I hear from the women and some of the men that I do.'' In Bancroft, a rural community in northern Maine with 61 residents and 35 registered voters, Deputy Town Clerk Mary Irish said two or three people usually come out to vote in off-year elections. In presidential years, she said, turnout gets up to 14. In the June 12 Maine primary, nobody voted in Bancroft. Voting statewide appeared low, but final turnout figures had not been tabulated. ``It was a beautiful day and there should have been greater interest,'' said Keron Kerr, the state Democratic chairman. Alan Heslop, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., said part of the problem is population growth. After the 199l redistricting, California is expected to have legislative districts of 750,000 people, three times what they were in 1950. ``People feel powerless,'' said Heslop. ``It is hard to convince oneself that one vote is going to make a difference in these enormous, giant districts.'' Maybe the vote in Boise County, Idaho, helps make his point. The sparsely populated county had a turnout of 42.51 percent in Idaho's May 22 primary, about the same as in 1986 and much higher than turnout statewide in this year's primary. ``I think people vote here because we are so small that we feel like it really matters,'' said Jan Longpre, city editor of the weekly Idaho World newspaper in Idaho City. ``Even if it doesn't, we think it does.'' Heslop thinks people are turned off by the slick packaging that is wrapped around today's candidates. ``I think a lot of people are tired of the sound-bite approach to politics, the graphics mailer, the snappy computerized letter,'' he said. ``People are seeing that all of these things are in fact means of pulling the wool over the voters' eyes.'' ``That may to a degree be true,'' agrees Alabama Democrat La Pierre. ``But how else can you reach the masses but through TV?'' Gans believes negative campaigning is a big part of the problem. ``What they want to do with those ads is create doubts about the character of the opponent and weaken the impulse to vote among weak partisans and undecideds,'' Gans said. ``When this is reciprocally done, it has got to weaken the impulse on both sides.'' Nevertheless, despite a campaign widely criticized as negative, Virginia voters turned out in record numbers last year to make Douglas Wilder the nation's first elected black governor. ``In certain situations you can transcend the negative campaigns because the issues are more important,'' Gans said. Something else has changed beside campaigns, said Heslop, and that is the widespread perception among voters that incumbents have become unbeatable. ``It is something new for them to know that there is no way of throwing the rascals out,'' he said. Frank Sullivan, who runs a landscaping business in Cincinnati, said he votes anyway. ``I feel like it's our only revenge,'' Sullivan said. ``I don't think they pay any attention to us, but we are only making it worse for ourselves if we don't let them know we are out here.''
AP880419-0194 	X	More than 150,000 refugees fleeing a guerrilla war and drought in Mozambique are likely to arrive in neighboring Malawi over the next nine months, adding enormous strains to an already-taxed relief effort, the State Department said Tuesday. Malawi currently provides haven for 450,000 Mozambican refugees, but ``the population in Malawi is rapidly increasing and the most conservative estimates forecast 600,000 refugees will arrive by December 1988,'' according to a State Department report. The report said other African countries also are receiving large numbers of refugees. There are 75,000 in Zimbabwe, 30,000 in Zambia, 225,000 in South Africa, 72,000 in Tanzania and 20,000 in Swaziland. Within Mozambique, there are 1.6 million displaced people, the department said. ``Complicating the refugee situation is that Malawi has also experienced a drought and a mealy bug infestation,'' the department said. ``More than one million Malawians no longer have the resources to feed themselves.'' A consultant hired by the State Department to assess the magnitude of the problem and recommend U.S. responses said he interviewed a selected, geographically diverse sample of 200 refugees in camps between January and March. The consultant, at a background briefing arranged by the Bureau of Refugee Programs, said 91 percent of those he interviewed reported they Mozambique because of fighting between RENAMO, a potent guerrilla movement, and the Maputo government. The war has been going on since the mid-1970s. ``It reflects an intensity in the level of violence over the period of the last year,'' the expert said. ``I think the drought is an aggravating factor in increasing the refugee flows, but according to the refugees with whom I spoke, the great majority fled because of RENAMO related violence.'' The State Department has pledged $4.4 million to a UN special appeal for Mozambican refugees in Malawi. This is in addition to $33.4 million contributed to the UN's program covering all of Africa.
AP901031-0069 	X	Two sailors died of their injuries hours after being burned by bursts of steam aboard the USS Iwo Jima, boosting the number of men killed in the accident aboard the ship to 10. Chief Petty Officer Robert Haagenson of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said today the two men died ``very late last night (Tuesday) as a result of their injuries.'' Six sailors died immediately when the pipe ruptured Tuesday morning. Four with severe burns were flown by helicopter to the hospital ships USS Comfort, one of two such vessels in the Persian Gulf. All four died. Also Tuesday, a Marine was killed in Saudi Arabia when the jeep he was riding in went down an 20-foot embankment. He was identified as 1st Lt. Michael N. Monroe, 27, of Auburn, Wash. Tuesday's fatalities brought to 43 the number of American servicemen killed during Operation Desert Shield, the U.S. military effort launched after Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. Haagenson said a memorial service will be held Thursday aboard the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima for the 10 dead crew members. Killed in the Iwo Jima accident were David A. Gilliland, 21, Warrensburg, Mo.; Mark E. Hutchison, 27, Elkins, W. Va.; Daniel Lupatsky, 22, Centralia, Pa.; Daniel C. McKinsey, 21, Hanover, Pa.; Fred R. Parker Jr., 24, Reidsville, N.C.; James A. Smith Jr., 22, Somerville, Tenn.; John M. Snyder, 25, Milltown, N.J.; Robert L. Volden, 28, New York City; Tyrone M. Brooks, 19, Detroit; and Michael N. Manns Jr., 22, Fredericksburg, Va. An investigating team, headed by Rear Adm. J. B. Laplante, was looking into the boiler room accident, a Navy statement said. It said Laplante was ``appointed to conduct a preliminary inquiry regarding the circumstances surrounding the accident.'' Laplante and his aides were flown to Bahrain on Tuesday from his ship, the USS Nassau, in the north Arabian Sea. The accident was the worst for the Navy in the U.S.-led air, land and sea mobilization that followed the Iraqi invasion. The only previous fatality on a Navy ship was an electrician's mate who was accidentally electrocuted aboard the USS Antietam. The Iwo Jima is based in Norfolk, Va. Its crew comprised 685 members and some 1,100 Marines. The ship arrived in the Persian Gulf on Sept. 16 as part of the U.S. naval armada in support of Operation Desert Shield.
AP900223-0204 	X	Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, head of Sweden's caretaker Cabinet, is ready to lead a new government to replace the one which resigned last week, the national news agency TT reported Thursday. Earlier Thursday, the Social Democratic leader informed Parliament Speaker Thage G. Peterson he was ready and able to present the government to the legislature for approval. He was expected to get active support from the small Communist Party and passive support for the comeback by the middle-of-the-road Center Party. His previous government resigned on Feb. 15 when the Communists joined other opposition parties to defeat a bill for a two-year wage and price freeze.
AP900130-0204 	X	Doctors at a London hospital said Tuesday night they had conducted what they believe are the world's first successful heart operations on a baby still in the womb. Lindsey Allan, the doctor in charge of the fetal cardiology unit at Guys Hospital, said the team there had corrected a heart valve defect in an unborn boy using a balloon catheter guided into place by ultrasonic sound. ``As far as I know this is the first successful operation of its kind,'' she said. She said two operations were carried out on the fetus during the mother's pregnancy, one at 31 weeks and the second at 33 weeks. Ms. Allan said the baby was born prematurely on Jan. 4 _ one week after the second operation _ and underwent surgery for the third time a few hours after birth. She did not say why there had been a delay in disclosing details of the operations. ``The child is still quite seriously ill, but we have given him a chance he would not otherwise have had,'' Ms. Allan said. She said the parents, who did not want to be identified, lived outside London. The operations involved inserting a catheter down a hollow needle directly into the chest wall and heart of the fetus. Once in place, the balloon was dilated to open the heart valve. A catheter is a slender tube inserted into a body passage, vessel or cavity. Its normal uses include passing fluids and making examinations. Ms. Allan said the team that pioneered the technique included herself; Michael Tynan, professor of pediatric cardiology; and Darryl Maxwell, director of the hospital's fetal medicine unit. She said there were always ethical obstacles to this type of operation. ``I am not sure that we should be meddling sometimes. There is always discussion as to whether it is a reasonable request to make of the mother. On the other hand, one knows that the alternative is almost universally fatal,'' she said.
AP900626-0189 	X	Record heat threatened crops, forced a desert water district to issue restrictions and sent hundreds of thousands of Southern Californians fleeing to beaches Tuesday as temperatures pushed past well into the 100s. The 112-degree high at the Los Angeles Civic Center was an all-time record for downtown, beating the previous record high of 110 degrees set on Sept. 4, 1988. Other areas that reached three digits were Woodland Hills with 112, Pacoima with 114, Ontario with 112, San Bernardino with 111, San Gabriel with 111, and Santa Barbara with 103. The deserts were even hotter. Palm Springs and Thermal recorded highs of 120, while Needles had a high of 119. The second day of high heat put firefighters on alert as brush already dry after four years of drought sat on hillsides shimmering in heat that dropped humidity below 10 percent. At least one brush fire was reported in the Sunland area northeast of downtown. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for inland orchards and vineyards in San Diego County, and growers said berry crops would be damaged immediately and some fruits could be lost if the heat continues. ``This is going to finish up the strawberries,'' said Ben Hillbrecht, a grower with about 200 acres near Escondido. ``And the boysenberries will cook right on the vine. We won't have any this year.'' He said the heat also will stop raspberry bushes from producing for about one month. Avocados have just appeared as tiny green buds, and Hillbrecht said if they don't get enough moisture, they may fall off. ``There are certainly some crops that are threatened, though at this moment we have seen no damage,'' said grower Jim Bathgate of Valley Center. He said fruits such as apricots and peaches still on the tree could be affected if the heat wave continues a few days, as the weather service has predicted. ``It won't help the water shortage, because everyone turns on their water to keep things as wet as they can,'' said Hillbrecht. In the Mojave Desert, the small Hi-Desert Water District in Yucca Valley announced use restrictions to begin Wednesday after the rural water company noticed an average six-to-seven foot drop in its wells. One well dropped 20 feet over the past six weeks. Irrigation will be limited to one day a week, and filling pools and washing cars at homes will be banned, along with water use for construction such as mixing concrete, Puffer said. The district serves about 5,200 customers. Not everybody was having a hard time with the heat wave. At Raging Waters, a 1.5-million-gallon water playground in San Dimas, Calif., business was also brisk, said spokeswoman Lynne Matallana. ``We love the hot weather. It encourages people to come out and visit us,'' she said. Hundreds of thousands of people headed to beaches, where temperatures were more than 20 degrees cooler than inland. Lifeguards reported nearly 100,000 at Santa Monica, 150,000 at Hermosa Beach and 40,000 at Zuma Beach in Los Angeles County.
AP880421-0288 	X	The European Economic Community recommended that its 12 member governments authorize individuals to make their own electricity and buy up all excess energy from private sources. The EEC's executive Commission said Thursday that private production of electricity is being discouraged or even banned throughout the trading bloc by legislation that presents ``insurmountable obstacles to self-generation'' of electricity by users. The Commission, in a formal recommendation, said the member governments should allow self-production and obligate utility companies to buy surplus energy at fair prices. Such a system, it said, would help stimulate the development of alternative sources of energy and lead to better use of available resources.
AP900621-0206 	X	A conservative lawmaker Thursday blamed the government for death threats made against a prominent critic, and warned there could be ``a violent reaction'' if human rights abuses by police are not curbed. The death threats directed against Jorge Castaneda, a prominent journalist and intellectual, have provoked an uproar. Castaneda has been an outspoken critic of the economic and political policies of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. The city council of Mexico City has demanded an investigation of the threats. The U.S.-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists wrote a letter to Salinas that said it is ``profoundly worried'' about the threats. Cesar Coll, a federal lawmaker from the right-of-center opposition National Action Party, said the government was trying to intimidate Castaneda because he is one of its most prominent critics. ``The government is to blame for these threats,'' Coll told a news conference. ``If it doesn't gain control over the police, there could be a violent reaction.'' On Wednesday, the executive committee of the Institutional Revolutionary Party condemned the threats against Castaneda. It issued a statement calling them ``repugnant'' and adding that the case would be a good test for the government's new human rights commission. Earlier this week, Salinas called Castaneda from Tokyo, where the president was making a state visit, to express his ``solidarity in the face of this unacceptable incident.'' Salinas also made public a letter he wrote to Castaneda saying the threats go ``precisely against what I have maintained as an invariable norm of conduct for my administration.'' Last Friday, Castaneda's secretary said she was stopped by four armed men, interrogated at gunpoint and warned that her employer would be killed if he continued his activities. On Monday, she identified one of the men who threatened her as a member of the Mexico City judicial police. On her way home from the prosecutor's office, she said she was again threatened by an armed man. Castaneda said he holds the government responsible for his safety and that of his family. The incidents follow the release earlier this month of a report by a human rights monitoring group that sharply criticizes abuses by the police and security forces in Mexico. The report by the New York-based Americas Watch _ ``Human Rights in Mexico: A Policy of Impunity'' _ said violent human rights abuses have become institutionalized. ``This pattern of excessive violence and abuse can only mean that either the Mexican government has adopted a policy of tolerating such behavior, or it has lost control over its police, security and prosecuting agencies,'' the report said. ``Torture and extra-judicial killings by federal and state police and the country's security forces are disturbingly frequent in Mexico,'' it said. Americas Watch cited several cases in which journalists had been intimidated, kidnapped or murdered. The most notorious is the 1984 assassination of the outspoken columnist Manuel Buendia. The Salinas administration has indicted the former head of the Mexican equivalent of the FBI in the slaying. Castaneda has written for Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and the Mexican magazine Proceso. He also coauthored the recent book on U.S.-Mexico relations, ``Limits to Friendship,'' with Robert Pastor of Emory University in Atlanta. Castaneda, the son of a former Mexican foreign minister, is a supporter of leftist opposition leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Party. Cardenas ran a strong second to Salinas in the 1988 presidential election. Mexico's government and ruling party have long been accused inside Mexico of using threats and violence to intimidate opponents and election fraud to maintain the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 61-year-old grip on power. The Castaneda incident coming on the heels of the Americas Watch report has focused international attention on allegations of human rights abuses. In the past, Americas Watch said such allegations had been overlooked, saying this was ``more a testament to the Mexican government's careful cultivation of its pro-human rights image than its care to ensure that individual human rights are respected.'' Other government critics have reported receiving death threats. Norma Corona Sapien, the head of a state human rights commission in the west coast state of Sinaloa, received similar threats before she was gunned down on a street in the capital of Culiacan May 21. Salinas, who has pledged to end corruption and strong-arm tactics by the ruling party, created the National Human Rights Commission after the Corona slaying.
AP880618-0133 	X	Has Wall Street's so-called ``summer rally'' lost its sizzle, or are stock prices merely simmering before the heat gets turned up? The Dow Jones industrial average has climbed some 200 points since May 31, and this week alone the key index set two, consecutive post-crash highs before tumbling on fears of higher interest rates. But before assessing just what impact these events may have on what has been dubbed a summer rally, astute market watchers note that the sultry season hasn't even begun. ``It's not summer yet,'' said Ronald Daino, a technical analyst at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., noting the season officially gets under way on Tuesday. Depending on how things go, Daino said these recent events ``could be looked back upon as part of an initial summer rally.'' But he's not entirely convinced that is inevitable. ``We still feel it requires some confirmation on whether the market will move higher,'' Daino said. ``The potential is there, but I'd just like some additional confirmation before putting both feet in the water,'' he said, pointing to the drought's effect on commodity prices and the credit markets as areas of concern. Plunging bond prices obliterated the 32-point gain the Dow posted in back-to-back sessions this week that pushed the key average to two post-crash highs. Those who expected the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials to remain solidly above 2,100 and use that mark as a springboard for a further advance saw those plans evaporate in one brief session. Rumors out of Europe that West Germany and even possibly Japan are considering hiking interest rates ignited fears that the Federal Reserve might be forced to follow suit to support the dollar. The news deflated the bond market, and ripple effects spread to equities. But analysts shrugged it off, saying the stock market was overdue for a selloff, that it needed a breather and that the overall trend is ``constructive.'' Over the week, the Dow rose 2.31 points to 2,104.02. Friday's volume of 343.92 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange, attributed to moves to capture dividends and the quarterly ``triple-witching hour,'' was the busiest session this year and the fifth heaviest ever. Volume averaged 201.64 million shares a day. The NYSE composite index was off 0.05 at 152.84; the NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market rose 0.67 to 386.92; and the American Stock Exchange market value index fell 3.63 to 305.70. Alfred Goldman, director of technical market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis, cautioned that he is both ``amazed and chagrined at how quickly pessimism has turned to optimism about everything.'' A better-than-expected trade deficit report, which heartened investors because both imports and exports had declined in April, should have been tempered with caution over factory utilization, which edged up beyond expectations in May, Goldman said. The implication is that booming business could result in shortages of some goods and price increases to compensate. Still, investors hot to perpetuate the ``summer'' rally are tossing off concerns about an overheated economy. ``Everybody is looking up as far as the stock market is concerned,'' Goldman said. ``That's a sign the market is over-bought and over-believed and that we're getting into a high-risk area.'' Goldman noted that optimism breeds declines in the market while pessimism is fodder for rallies.
AP900728-0132 	X	A single-engine, banner-towing plane on its way to the beaches crashed and burned shortly after taking off Saturday, killing the pilot, officials said. Jack Beale took off around 11 a.m. from the landing strip at Sky Signs' banner-plane airfield near Conway, just northwest of this resort, when the plane's engine apparently stalled and the plane crashed, officials said. The 63-year-old Conway man had just picked up a new advertising banner, which he was going to tow over the beachfront. He had no passengers. The plane exploded on impact, and the flames had virtually burned out when firefighters arrived, said Charlie Brown of the Horry County Volunteer Fire Department. Beale had been flying for Sky Signs for about three months, said company co-owner Mike Marion. Federal Aviation Administration officials from Atlanta were on their way to the crash site to investigate the accident.
AP881017-0217 	X	Today is Thursday, Oct. 27, the 301st day of 1988. There are 65 days left in the year. Today's highlight in history: In 1858, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, was born in New York City. On this date: In 1795, the United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, which provided for free navigation of the Mississippi River. In 1880, on his 22nd birthday, Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee. In 1886, the musical fantasy ``A Night on Bald Mountain,'' written by Modest Mussorgsky in 1867 and revised after his death by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was performed in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1904, the first rapid transit subway, the IRT, opened in New York City. In 1914, author-poet Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales. In 1938, Du Pont announced it had coined a name for its new synthetic yarn: nylon. In 1947, the radio show ``You Bet Your Life,'' starring Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC. It later became a television show on NBC. In 1954, Walt Disney's first television program, titled ``Disneyland'' after his yet-to-be completed theme park, premiered on ABC. In 1967, Expo '67 closed in Montreal, Canada. In 1982, China announced its population totaled more than 1 billion people, as counted by more than 5 million census takers. In 1985, former Navy man John A. Walker Jr. and his son, Michael Lance Walker, pleaded guilty in Baltimore to charges of spying for the Soviet Union. Ten years ago: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their progress toward achieving a Middle East accord. Five years ago: President Reagan addressed the nation on the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada, saying the action had prevented a planned ``Cuban occupation'' of the island, and was aimed at protecting U.S. citizens there. One year ago: South Korean voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, establishing direct presidential elections and other democratic reforms. Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, held longer than any other foreign hostage in Lebanon, spent his 40th birthday in captivity. Today's birthdays: ``Tonight'' executive producer Frederick DeCordova is 78. Actress Teresa Wright is 70. Actress Nanette Fabray is 68. Baseball hall-of-famer and sportscaster Ralph Kiner is 66. Actress Ruby Dee is 64. Former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman is 62. Actor-comedian John Cleese is 49. Actress Carrie Snodgress is 42. Singer Simon Le Bon is 30. Thought for Today: ``Justice is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest.'' _ Norman Douglas, Scottish author (1868-1952).
AP880813-0054 	X	Though needle drug abusers often change their practices when told of the risks of AIDS, many still suffer immune system damage that may make it difficult to ward off the disease, a study suggests. Researchers also confirmed Friday that one's state of mind affects the immune system, and suggested it may make a difference with AIDS. The work was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The change in drug practices is significant because drug users are often thought not responsive to health warnings, said researcher John Watters. His study, done in San Francisco, found users cut back on the sharing of hypodermic needles, which can spread the AIDS virus, cleaned their needles more and increased their use of condoms during sex when told of the dangers. ``We found dramatic changes'' after a program to educate drug users began in 1986, said Watters, of the Urban Health Study in San Francisco. Intravenous drug abuse is blamed for about 19 percent of the nation's cumulative total of some 70,000 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Workers in the San Francisco program told drug abusers about AIDS prevention measures, distributed condoms and gave out bleach to disinfect needles. Researchers studied drug and condom practices of 386 drug users interviewed in 1986 before the program began, and 545 users interviewed in early 1987 some eight months after the start of the program. An additional 534 were sampled later in 1987, and 553 in early 1988. Use of ``safe needle hygiene'' rose from 13 percent of the time drugs were used before the outreach program to 63 percent afterward. Safe hygiene was defined as using bleach, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide or boiling water to disinfect needles, or not sharing needles. The follow-up surveys found hygiene used 70 percent of the time in late 1987 and 71 percent in early 1988. The estimated number of sharing partners dropped from an average of 11 before the outreach program to eight in early 1987, with nine and five reported in the following two surveys. Condom use rose from 3 percent of the time before the outreach program to 16 percent afterwards, with 23 percent in each of the follow-up surveys. Blood tests found that the rate of users exposed to the AIDS virus jumped from 6 percent in early 1986 to 13 percent in early 1987, with 9 percent and 11 percent in the following two surveys. James Sorensen of the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied AIDS prevention among drug users in treatment, said Watters' results on behavioral change ring true. But, he warned, `` We need to work very hard to reach people who haven't been reached.'' The study of drug users in treatment focused on 30 outpatients in a long-term methadone program. None had been infected with the AIDS virus, said Nancy Klimas of the University of Miami School of Medicine and the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Miami. But they showed significant deficiencies in the functioning of their disease-fighting immune system, she said. For example, the functioning of their ``natural killer cells'' was about half of normal, she said. Poor nutrition, non-AIDS infections, prior drug abuse or perhaps the methadone may be responsible, but no cause has yet been found, she said. Don Des Jarlais of the New York State Division of Substance Abuse Services said previous research has shown that immune abnormalities in drug users can take years to disappear once they enter methadone treatment. Klimas' study also found that immune system function was better by several measures in abusers who showed greater ``hardiness,'' defined as commitment to life, a feeling of control and a tendency to see stresses as challenges. Loneliness and confusion were associated with poorer immune system performance, she said. But no cause-and-effect conclusion can be drawn from any of the psychological data, she cautioned. Another study released Friday found that for homosexual men soon after AIDS infection, immune system functioning was better in men determined to get on with life, who focused on and expressed their emotions, and who had a feeling of psychological robustness. Again, no cause-and-effect conclusions can yet be drawn, said Nancy Blaney of the University of Miami School of Medicine.
AP901215-0089 	X	Here is the official text of the European Community statement on South Africa issued Saturday. The European Community and its member states have consistently followed developments in South Africa with the greatest attention and have given a favorable reception to the initiatives which have been to bring about the abolition of apartheid and the establishment of a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. They have already expressed approval of the results of the talks between the government and the ANC (African National Congress), in particular those of the Pretoria meeting in August which opened the way to the negotiation of a new constitution. They deplore the phase of serious violence through which South Africa is passing, which may endanger these developments. They welcome, however, further indications serving to confirm that the process of change already begun is going ahead in the direction advocated by the Strasbourg European Council. They have decided to continue to encourage this process. Against this background, the European Council has decided that as soon as legislative action is taken by the African government to repeal the Group Areas Act and the Land Acts, the Community and its member states will proceed to an easing of the set of measures adopted in 1986. As of now, so as to contribute to combating unemployment and improving the economic and social situation in South Africa, and to encourage the movement under way aimed at the complete abolition of apartheid, the European Council has decided to lift the ban on new investments. At the same time, the Community and its member states, with the objective of sending a clear message of political support to the victims of apartheid, and intending to contribute to a new economic and social balance in South Africa, have agreed to strengthen the program of positive measures and to adapt it to the requirements of the new situation, including requirements related to the return and resettlement of the exiles. The Community and its member states hope in this way to be able to contribute to the speeding up of the process under way through sending to all the parties involved in negotiations a concrete sign of support for the establishment of a new South Africa, united, non-racial and democratic and capable of resuming the place which it deserves in the international community.
AP900301-0248 	X	Walter Hasselbring's secrets for achieving the nation's highest corn yield are a lot of bull. The national corn king credits his top-notch crop to generous applications of the real thing from his cattle and his buffalo herd, Illinois' largest. But he teases unsuspecting visitors with another success secret, telling them he grew 296 bushels per acre last year by serenading his corn. ``I tell them plants respond to music, so at crucial times I stroll through my cornfields singing to the plants and you can almost see them grow,'' chuckled Hasselbring, who has grown the nation's best-yielding corn crop seven times in the last 15 years. The National Corn Growers Association sponsors the contest, and 2,057 farmers entered during the 1989 growing season. There were seven divisions, depending on the type of tillage, the area of the country and whether irrigation was used. ``Farmers compete not only to see who can grow the most corn but also to come up with new management ideas that could make all farmers more efficient,'' said John Campen of the St. Louis-based association. Hasselbring's yield was the highest in the 1989 contest, said Campen, and established a U.S. record, topping his 1975 mark of nearly 289 bushels per acre. His winning yield was more than twice the 138-bushel-per-acre average in Iroquois County, where Hasselbring farms 1,800 acres in east-central Illinois with his two sons. ``You can do everything else right, but if you don't get the rain, you won't win,'' Hasselbring said in an interview Wednesday. A high level of fertility also is crucial. Hasselbring uses about 300 pounds of nitrogen per acre _ roughly twice his normal rate. He adds manure from his cattle herd and his 105 buffalo. Farmers pay $50 to enter the competition. They plant a contest plot of at least 25 acres. Hasselbring's corn went in May 5, and the growing season was ideal. As the crop matured, Hasselbring walked his contest field. ``I could tell things were looking up,'' he said. ``After all these years farming, you just get an inkling of what's going on. But, when it was harvested, it was even more than we expected.'' Judges approved by the National Corn Growers Association supervise the harvest of at least 1.25 acres from each contest plot. Hasselbring's was combined Nov. 13-14. Rules require farmers to harvest at random intervals so they cannot pick the best area of the field. University of Illinois agronomists Fred Welch and Bob Hoeft agree with Hasselbring that shooting for 300-bushel yields on a large acreage is a big gamble given high growing costs and the inability to control weather. ``Winning might not mean getting the best dollar-return for your inputs, and it is profit, not a record yield, that is really important for commercial farmers,'' Welch said. Although the national corn surplus is approaching 2 billion bushels, the idea that more corn means less profits isn't what would keep farmers from adopting high-yield techniques, Campen said. It is the expense of producing such yields. ``The economics, at least today, on a broad scale basis wouldn't warrant it,'' he said. Officials at Fred Gutwein & Sons Inc., a family-owned corn and soybean seed company based in Francesville, Ind., that provided hybrids to Hasselbring, said his success improved Gutwein name recognition and sales. ``Our hybrid met the challenge,'' said sales manager Eric Gutwein. ``But, it takes a very special individual like `Duke' Hasselbring to achieve the pinnacle seven times.''
AP900418-0220 	X	Those fearful predictions of 20 years ago that environmental demands would cause unemployment and economic stagnation have turned out to be overstated, a business leader says. Experience has shown that combating pollution is compatible with economic growth, said Alexander Trowbridge, a former secretary of commerce and chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers' Industry Coalition for the Environment. ``Environmental improvement has been a corollary to economic growth and has not come in spite of it,'' Trowbridge told a news conference Tuesday. He said the ``dire predictions about environmental improvement coming at the cost of jobs and national economic strength and high prices'' have proven to be exaggerated. At the same time, he said, environmentalists' warnings ``that Lake Erie would be dead, urban dwellers would be wearing gas masks, rivers would be reaching a boiling point,'' also were overdrawn. Trowbridge said he was not contending there will not be tradeoffs between jobs and the environment. But, he said, the record since Earth Day 1970 ``indicates that economic growth, moderate but real, has taken place in these 20 years and environmental improvement has also taken place.'' ``My judgment is that we've made progress both in the economy and the environment and I think we'll continue to do so,'' he said. Trowbridge presented a report that said production of six major pollutants has dropped sharply since 1970, while employment, productivity, per capita income, industrial production and the overall size of the economy have grown steadily. Environmentalists said they suspected that Trowbridge had made an Earth Day conversion. Earth Day is being commemorated on Sunday with events scheduled nationwide. ``Talk is cheap and action is not cheap,'' said David Gardiner, legislative director of the Sierra Club. ``It's the don't-worry-be-happy message at the same time the NAM and their members are spending millions of dollars lobbying against changes in law which would do a better job in improving the environment. ... What we're seeing from industry is Earth Day earth-hype.'' ``It is an encouraging-sounding message, but just in the last month and a half we've seen from the Business Roundtable and other industry groups the most apocalyptical hype about how the Clear Air Act is going to kill the economy,'' added David Doniger, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. ``It will be interesting to see if, next time there is a piece of legislation to be acted upon, the NAM will take a more enlightened line,'' he said. But Trowbridge said a fundamental change has taken place in corporate America. Environmental considerations are now being taken into account in business decisions, he said. ``Environmental quality is a very key element of planning, designing, building and producing,'' he said, ``and this has been growing not only as a psychological factor but as a point of stated policy.''
AP880718-0041 	X	The first time Idaho delegate Joe Williams attended a Democratic national convention, he cast his vote to help nominate Franklin Roosevelt for a fourth term in the White House. Attending his ninth national convention this week, Williams, 84, says he's every bit as thrilled. ``It's still just as exciting. We get all the hoopla and hurrahs, even though it's cut and dried like this one,'' said Williams, Idaho's auditor for 30 years. Williams said the vote he plans to cast for Michael Dukakis will be his last as a national delegate. He said he plans to retire from politics when his present term expires in two years.
AP880915-0151 	X	The fans who still buy Elvis Presley souvenirs now can pay for them with a flashy black credit card bearing the singer's image. ``Give your autograph to Elvis. ... Become part of the legend,'' says a brochure advertising the Presley MasterCard. Applications were sent to 200,000 people around the country this week, and Jack Soden, manager of Presley' former residence in Memphis, said more than a million will be mailed over the next couple of months. Soden said the MasterCard is being issued by Leader Federal Savings and Loan of Memphis. The non-profit Elvis Presley Memorial Foundation will get half the $36 annual fee for the MasterCard, and a portion of the 17.88 percent interest applied to card balances also will go to the foundation, Soden said. He declined to say what portion of the interest charges will go to the foundation or to estimate how much money the card will generate. The foundation was set up in 1985 by executors of Presley's estate but it has had little operating income, he said. The singer died in 1977. Income from the credit card will support programs in music education, for medical care for the underprivileged and for assistance to the homeless, Soden said. The Elvis credit card has a black background with a drawing of Presley in a singing pose with a guitar in his hands. The drawing is surrounded by red and gold lights from a jukebox. ``The card is absolutely gorgeous,'' Soden said. More than 600,000 tourists and fans visit Graceland each year and the Graceland complex, which includes a 36,000-square-foot shopping center, takes in some $9 million a year. The estate is run for the financial benefit of Presley's only child, Lisa Marie Presley.
AP880726-0202 	X	At least half the thousands of operations on Americans with ruptured discs in their lower back probably were unnecessary, says a study showing 90 percent of such patients can be healed without surgery. The three-year study indicates that surgeons should change how they decide whether to operate on patients with lumbar disc problems, one of the study's authors, Dr. Jeffrey Saal of the San Francisco Spine Institute, said Monday. Neurosurgeons often operate if a patient fails to improve after bed rest and suffers severe pain, leg weakness and if diagnostic exams show the disc's nucleus has broken through the disc wall and is pressing against a nerve root. Saal said none of those criteria should be used as overwhelming evidence that surgery is needed. He said the decision should be based on the patients' level of function and whether that can be improved by an aggressive rehabilitation program.
AP900405-0006 	X	About the time Nelson Mandela went to jail 27 years ago, Lenford Ganyile fled South Africa after a violent encounter that cost him all his teeth and most of an ear. A South African policeman's rifle butt knocked out his teeth, Ganyile said, and a bayonet sliced off the ear. Ganyile, 68, has been in exile since, first in Botswana and then in Zambia, where Mandela's African National Congress set up its headquarters. In February, President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa legalized the ANC and freed Mandela. ``I am waiting for Comrade Mandela to tell me what to do next,'' said Ganyile, a respected elder on the ANC's 7,200-acre Chongela collective farm in Zambia's fertile Ngwerere district, 25 miles north of Lusaka. Although he is eager to go home, Ganyile has difficulty remembering the wife and three children he left behind. ``In the early years, I sent them letters but had no reply,'' he said. ``I was afraid they would get into trouble, so I stopped writing.'' Occasionally, he heard news of his wife from newly arrived exiles. Then he lost all contact. ``The struggle became my family,'' Ganyile said. ``I saw my ear was not there and it reminded me always that I wanted all our people to be free.'' He is one of thousands of South African exiles scattered through the world whose lives were transformed by the lifting of a 30-year ban on the African National Congress and Mandela's release Feb. 12. The ANC has said most of its exiles probably would be home by the end of 1990. ``It is a dream to me,'' said Ganyile, a veteran of the Pondo rebellion of the late 1950s, when scores of blacks were killed in riots against South Africa's official apartheid policy of race segregation. Ganyile, who spent 20 months in jail, said he was arrested for leading ANC protesters in the Pondoland region near Mandela's home in Transkei. ``We were fighting one of the worst devils on earth, the Bantu Authorities Act'' and its discriminatory laws, he said. After fleeing South Africa, Ganyile used his farming experience to teach other exiles. He is on the Chongela farm's management committee. Farm manager Leslie Ponusamy said the property, three adjoining farms owned by whites before independence from Britain in 1964, feeds about three-quarters of the 2,000 ANC members who live in Zambia. Vegetables and maize grow on the farm, and the residents raise cattle, sheep, pigs and ducks. ``We don't produce everything for a balanced diet,'' said Ponusamy, a veterinarian who was a student activist in South Africa's Natal province. ``We sell the surplus of one thing to buy other things we need.'' Young exiles are sent by ANC headquarters in Lusaka to learn practical skills on the farm. Foreign donations help finance a dairy, slaughterhouse, several workshops and an auto repair shop. ``Most of our young people interrupted their educations when they left South Africa,'' Ponusamy said. Dan Twala, 22, said he fled after being assaulted by police in 1987, during a disturbance in a black township. ``I came to join the struggle,'' he said. ``Now all I want to do is to go back to see the family.'' What will happen to the farm when everyone returns home? ``Perhaps we will give it to the Zambian government,'' Ponusamy said. ``When we no longer need it, we will leave it as a momument, some sort of remembrance, to our struggle.''
AP880312-0171 	X	A bomb exploded Saturday near a polling booth in Dhaka, killing one person and wounding three as Bangladeshis cast ballots in nine districts where voting had been postponed because of earlier violence. Police said Borhanuddin Ahmed, 25, was killed in the explosion in downtown Dhaka. At least 13 people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in violence during the parliamentary elections held on March 3, and the government stopped and rescheduled the voting in 125 districts. Elections were held in nine districts Saturday, but no results were reported. The major opposition parties boycotted the elections. President Hussain Muhammad Ershad's Jatiya Party won 245 seats in the 300-member parliament in the March 3 balloting, according to results announced by the government. It said a coalition of 73 smaller groups and parties won 15 seats and independent candidates won 15. Ershad's party plans to celebrate its victory with prayer meetings on March 16. Opposition parties have called for protest rallies on March 24, the sixth anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought Gen. Ershad to power. Leading the opposition campaign are Sheik Hasina and Khaleda Zia who have demanded that Ershad resign.
AP880225-0209 	X	Here are excerpts of the government's new regulations banning political activity by major opposition groups:
AP880519-0208 	X	Legislation designed to protect government employees who disclose wrongdoing was approved unanimously by a Senate committee Thursday. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the measure makes it easier for whistleblowers to win a reprisal case and guarantees them the right to a hearing. The bill ``sends a strong message to federal employees that they will not be punished for disclosing government fraud, waste and abuse,'' Levin said. Thursday's approval by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee clears the way for consideration of the bill by the full Senate. Under the bill, the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, would have responsibility for protecting employees who disclose wrongdoing. ``Recent statistics show that 70 percent of federal employees claiming knowledge of waste, fraud and abuse fail to report it,'' Levin said. ``These statistics are proof that the current system has failed to convince employees that they will be rewarded instead of punished if they disclose government wrongdoing.''
AP900312-0084 	X	More than 400 bird-watchers turned up at the crack of dawn at a sewage plant to get a glimpse of an apparently disoriented arctic bird rarely seen south of Canada, a Ross's gull. ``I woke up at 4:15 to come out here,'' said George Armistead, 16, of Philadelphia. ``I never thought I'd see the day when a Ross's gull would land so close I could make the drive in a little over two hours.'' At 8:35 a.m. Sunday, someone finally spotted the gull in flight. It eventually settled down to preen for a half-hour near a creek behind the Back River treatment plant in suburban Baltimore. ``What makes this Ross's gull so unique is that every other past record has been a one-day wonder,'' said birdwatcher Rick Blom. ``This Ross's gull has already been in Baltimore for more than a week.'' Blom said the gull is a long-distance migrator that has a tendency to get blown off course. The first confirmed U.S. sighting of a Ross's gull was believed to have been in 1975 in Salisbury Beach, Mass. Unconfirmed sightings have been reported as far afield as Tennessee and Colorado.
AP901207-0062 	X	The judge who set bail at $300,000 for the alleged killer of Rabbi Meir Kahane suspended it a day later, and the district attorney said the original motion granting bail was made over his objections. State Supreme Court Justice Alvin Schlesinger, who approved the $300,000 bail for El Sayyid Nosair on Wednesday, suspended it on Thursday and scheduled a new bail hearing for Monday. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Thursday that his office had requested Nosair be held without bail. ``We pointed out to the court that he is accused of committing a number of exceptionally serious crimes, including both the murder of Rabbi Kahane and the wounding of a federal police officer,'' Morgenthau said. Nosair, 35, of Cliffside Park, N.J., is accused of shooting the Zionist activist last month as Kahane finished a speech at a New York City hotel. He also is accused of wounding two other men as he fled. One of the two, a postal service police officer, wounded Nosair. In a statement to police, attached to a disclosure form filed in court, Nosair told police Kahane was actually shot by another person and that he was framed. He said he went to hear Kahane's lecture because he agreed with much of the rabbi's philosophy.
AP881025-0151 	X	An Illinois pastor has been chosen to succeed Dr. Oswald Hoffman as speaker of ``The Lutheran Hour,'' an English-language program broadcast internationally over 1,300 radio stations each week. Dr. Dale A. Meyer will take over for Hoffman, who is retiring Dec. 31 after 33 years as the program's speaker. Governors of the International Lutheran Laymen's League selected Meyer during a meeting last weekend in St. Louis. Meyer, 41, has been pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Collinsville since 1984.
AP900205-0193 	X	Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III and Andre Gratchev, Soviet deputy minister for international affairs, debated at Oxford Monday night on the relative values of the U.S. Constitution and socialism. The motion proposed by Meese at Oxford University's venerable debating society that ``this house believes that the values of the American Constitution, not of socialism, will shape the world in the coming century'' was carried by 351 votes to 235. About 1,000 students packed Oxford Union to hear the speeches. The debating society is a training ground for politicians and a hotbed of talk, wit and showing-off. Opposing the motion, Gratchev urged: ``Do not bury socialism. Perestroika is being tried by us to allow socialism to win. Socialism is capable of providing answers to human problems.'' He said many Western writers had predicted perestroika would fail because, they said, it was impossible to reform socialism. But Gratchev said perestroika involved irreversible change. ``It will continue to alter the world and profoundly change the nature of socialism,'' he said. ``The purpose of perestroika is to subject socialism to historical change. The 21st century will be the century of change. Right now the change is coming from the East, from the Soviet countries, from Moscow. But it is not anti-capitalist.'' Meese said socialism had not worked, could not be defended and was being cast aside. He said the value of the U.S. Constitution lay in giving to people the ability to bring about change through democratic processes. ``We recognize the Constitution will not solve all the problems of mankind, but it allows the process whereby people can attempt to solve problems through their elected representatives,'' Meese said. He said this was a potential recognized by more and more oppressed people. ``That is why a copy of the Statue of Liberty was raised in Tiananmen Square,'' he said, referring to the pro-democracy demonstrations crushed by Chinese troops in Beijing last year.
AP901220-0132 	X	Kenneth L. Peoples, acting president and chief executive officer of the Farm Credit System Assistance Board, was named to that post Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter. Peoples had been general counsel and corporate secretary to the board before being named to the acting posts Aug. 15. Yeutter is its chairman. The board is a government corporation created by Congress in 1987 to provide help to the Farm Credit System, a farmer-owned network of cooperative lenders. Yeutter also announced the appointment of Kathleen M. Mullarkey as general counsel and corporate secretary. She had been acting in that capacity since Aug. 15. Before that, she was deputy general counsel to the board.
AP901207-0152 	X	A former Salvadoran army intelligence agent who said he participated in ``death squad'' operations in his homeland was sentenced to six months in prison Friday for illegally entering the United States. Cesar Vielman Joya-Martinez was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton. Joya-Martinez, convicted Sept. 19, could have received a two-year prison term. The 27-year-old Joya-Martinez has said he took part in death squad operations of the Salvadoran army's First Brigade. Joya-Martinez, who had been deported from the United States in 1983, was arrested last spring after he appeared at an administrative hearing to determine if he were eligible for political asylum. Joya-Martinez's attorney, Daniel S. Alcorn, said his client returned to the United States because he feared Salvadoran soldiers were plotting to kill him to make him a scapegoat for death-squad killings.
AP881107-0195 	X	Grain and soybean futures prices were mixed in volatile early trading today on the Chicago Board of Trade. All the markets opened lower, but then soybeans moved sharply lower while wheat turned higher. ``It's a bloodbath here this morning'' in the soybean pit, said Victor Lespinasse, a trader with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. in Chicago. Soybeans for delivery in November fell 10 cents a bushel in the first half-hour of trading. ``The market opened weaker than expected, then sold off sharply,'' Lespinasse said. ``There's just a bearish mentality that started after the bulls were unable to rally the market.'' Some blamed the early soybean sell-off on disappointment over the slow pace of grain sales for export. The Soviet Union bought a large amount of U.S. soybeans and soybean meal last week, but the Agriculture Department has not confirmed rumors of further large Soviet purchases. In early trading, wheat was \ cent to 1{ cents higher with the contract for delivery in December at $4.16{ a bushel; corn was 1\ cents to 2\ cents lower with December at $2.75} a bushel; oats were 2{ cents lower to 2\ cents higher with December at $2.14{ a bushel; soybeans were 2} cents to 11 cents lower with November at $7.82 a bushel. Livestock and meat futures were mixed in early trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Live cattle were .23 cent lower to .08 cent higher with December at 73.52 cents a pound; feeder cattle were unchanged to .10 cent higher with November at 81.60 cents a pound; live hogs were .10 cent lower to .40 cent higher with December at 41.67 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies were .05 cent to .45 cent higher with February at 46.60 cents a pound. Livestock and meat futures settled higher on Friday.
AP900817-0080 	X	Brisbane M M M Brussels 68 50 clr Budapest 91 72 cdy B'Aires 64 54 clr Cairo M M M Calgary 77 54 cdy Caracas 84 68 cdy Copenhagen 70 66 clr Dublin 62 51 cdy Frankfurt M M M Geneva 81 61 cdy Harare 73 45 cdy Havana 89 77 clr Helsinki 75 61 cdy Hong Kong 91 81 cdy Istanbul 86 72 clr Jerusalem 86 64M Jo'burg 64 36 clr Kiev 82 63 clr Lima 63 55 cdy Lisbon 82 68 clr London 70 54 cdy Madrid 95 66 clr Manila 90 75 rn Mexico City 77 52 clr Montreal 79 61 cdy Moscow 70 55 clr Nairobi 68 55 cdy Nassau 91 82 cdy New Delhi 89 79 cdy Nicosia M M M Oslo 72 57 clr Paris 72 54 cdy Rio 91 67 rn Rome 90 64 clr San Juan 82 77 cdy Santiago 72 36 clr Sao Paulo 77 57 rn Seoul 86 64 clr Singapore 86 73 rn Stockholm 72 63 rn Sydney M M M Taipei 88 77 rn Tel Aviv 84 73M Tokyo 91 82 clr Toronto 82 64 cdy Vancouver 73 61 cdy Vienna 82 68 cdy Warsaw 82 59 clr
AP900807-0073 	X	More than a dozen rockets slammed into Afghanistan's capital of Kabul today, killing 14 people and injuring 10, Afghan state radio reported. No one immediately claimed repsonsibility for the attack. But the Radio Kabul broadcast, monitored in Islamabad, blamed ``extremists,'' presumably referring to U.S.-backed guerrillas headquartered in Pakistan. Moslem insurgents have been fighting for more than a decade to topple Afghanistan's Communist-style government. In the past year, hundreds of people have died and thousands more injured in rocket assaults on the Afghan capital.
AP880325-0048 	X	Delays in Illinois Medicaid payments could force private residential-care facilities to evict hundreds of mentally retarded patients in the coming months, officials say. ``If nothing changes, we will see 50 to 1,500 people discharged from community residential centers throughout the state,'' said Peter Mule, director of the Riverside oundation, a home for retarded adults in Lincolnshire. Earlier this week Riverside received a reimbursement check from the state Department of Public Aid for December, but is still owed at least $250,000 for care provided since then, Mule said. Another non-profit agency, Clearbrook Center in suburban Rolling Meadows, will have to close within three months if $446,000 owed by the state can't be found elsewhere, center president Guerin Fischer said. Reimbursements are slow now, and they're bound to get worse, said Edward Duffy, state public aid director. ``I'm not choosing to do this, I'm running out of money,'' he said. Duffy said because the General Assembly underfunded the Medicaid program by $159 million last year, reimbursement money will run out. Requests received after April 15 won't be paid until July, Duffy said. ``We're working along with banks to help these agencies get credit lines,'' Duffy said. ``But the only real solution is more money.'' If the private homes are forced to evict their residents, the state would have to make room for them in already crowded facilities. ``We would have to put these people up on cots in gymnasiums,'' said David Devane, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health. ``They would be without programs, without any treatment that is not life sustaining.'' Gov. James R. Thompson's proposed $22.2 billion budget for fiscal 1989 includes a $342 million increase for the Public Aid Department to pay past-due bills and reduce the delays in Medicaid reimbursements.
AP880617-0289 	X	The United States would be happy to consider negotiating a free-trade agreement with Japan along the lines of the treaty reached with Canada, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III said Friday. While there are no current discussion about such a treaty, it would fit into this country's overall strategy to break down trade barriers wherever they exist, he said. ``We have a major trading relationship with Japan,'' Baker said. ``It (a free trade agreement) would be something that the United States would be pleased to consider if it were something that the government of Japan wanted to consider.'' Baker's comments came in a television interview with foreign journalists for broadcast outside the United States by the U.S. Information Agency. The session was a preview of the seven-nation economic summit opening Sunday in Toronto. President Reagan, addressing the annual conference of the USIA International Council, meantime, reiterated his belief in free trade while saying trade barriers of other countries are generating protectionist pressures in America. ``It damages the entire world economy when foreign countries fail to offer the same opportunity to American exports that America offers to their products,'' Reagan said. ``It is this basic sense of fairness that has helped generate protectionist pressures in America. Let me repeat protectionism, the closing of America's markets, is the wrong response; opening markets, that, I firmly believe, is the answer.'' Meanwhile, there appeared to be movement on another contentious trade dispute between Japan and the United States. U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter announced Friday that he was leaving immediately for Japan, saying a deal may be near on ending that nation's restrictions on beef imports. ``We certainly have not yet reached an agreement, but I'm persuaded that the news is sufficiently encouraging to justify a trip,'' Yeutter said. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, ``We remain hopeful,'' but added, ``Until there's a deal, there's no deal.'' The Agriculture Department has placed the overall value of the Japanese beef market at $2 billion. A U.S.-Japan free-trade agreement would presumably be of substantial benefit to this country because U.S. officials for years have pressured the Japanese to open their markets to American products as a way of reducing the huge trade imbalance between the two nations. The Japanese ran up a trade surplus with the United States last year of $59.8 billion, more than one-third of this country's America's overall trade deficit of $170.3 billion. The U.S.-Canada pact now being considered by Congress and the Canadian Parliament would end all trade barriers within 10 years. Some critics have charged that specific trade pacts such as the U.S.-Canada agreement or the plan to eliminate all barriers between the 12-nation European Economic Community by 1992 pose risks of returning the world to the trade cartels of the 1930s, which worked to shrink trade rather than expanding it. But Baker disputed this, saying the United States saw any trade liberalization agreements as beneficial. He said America preferred to pursue reduction of trade barriers through the discussions being held under the auspices of the 96-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. But he hinted that if those talks did not reach a successful conclusion, the United States would look to trade pacts with smaller groups of countries. Baker said the summit between President Reagan and other Western leaders would include a full-fledged discussion of Reagan's proposal to eliminate all farm subsidies by the year 2000. These subsidies are costing the major industrial countries $150 billion annually in higher government support payments and increased food costs to consumers. He acknowledged that the U.S. proposal to eliminate subsidies was facing intense opposition, with Washington hoping basically for a reiteration in Toronto of a pledge the industrialized nations made last month in Paris to press forward in negotiations on the issue. The U.S. delegation, led by Baker, had pressed for more specific language to adopt Reagan's call for a subsidy-free world in agricultural trade by a specific date. But Baker contended Friday that progress had been made in Paris. ``The fact that we are even discussing this very difficult problem of agricultural subsidies represents progress,'' he said. ``It is not going to be at all easy to move toward eliminating subsidies or reducing subsidies for any of us unless we are all able to go to our farmers and say the world is going to do this.'' European nations have argued that it is politically impossible to eliminate all farm subsidies and a proper compromise would be to reduce them, perhaps by cutting them in half. The United States is hoping to keep the pressure on so that hard bargaining to end protectionism in agriculture can take place at a Montreal trade meeting in December. The Montreal meeting will be a midterm review for the current round of global trade talks which were launched in 1986 in Uruguay and scheduled to end in 1990.
AP900611-0036 	X	Using too much water to douse the fire aboard the Mega Borg could sink the oil supertanker, but firefighters using foam to smother the flames today faced another problem, salvage experts say. ``You have to get on that ship to extinguish it,'' said Les Williams, whose Port Arthur, Texas, salvage company has fought nearly two dozen offshore oil fires. ``If the fire's below deck, it's like trying to walk on a hot skillet. You can't do that.'' The fire burned since Saturday aboard the 853-foot Norwegian ship, crippled in the Gulf of Mexico 57 miles southeast of Galveston. It started with an explosion in the engine room on Saturday; five blasts Sunday sent blazing crude oil from the tanker's 38-million-gallon cargo into the sea. ``That's a very hard fire to fight, there in the engine room like that,'' Rudy Teichmann of T&T Marine Salvage Inc. in Galveston said. ``It's all closed up and you can't get to it. ``They can't flood that engine room with water. That could sink the ship. It's a lot different than fighting a forest fire,'' said Teichmann. The Mega Borg already was listing. Its stern dropped 58 feet since the first explosion, indicating either the cargo had shifted or the ship was taking on water, the Coast Guard said. The aft deck was reported just 5 feet above the water today. About 30,000 gallons of foam has been shipped to the scene, the Coast Guard said. But using it entails firefighting at close range. Wiliams said the usual procedure is for two or three firefighters, wearing fire-retardant jumpsuits that are light enough to swim in, to board the tanker. Carrying a 3-inch diameter hose leading to foam pumps aboard a nearby boat, they target the fire's point of origin, he said. The hose, or ``wand,'' can shoot 5,000 gallons of foam per minute. Attempting the job is Smit American Salvage Inc., the U.S. division of a Rotterdam company. Smit has helped fight more than 100 tanker and oil rig fires, including blazes in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war, company officials said. Steve Davis, captain of the 180-foot supply boat Tradewind, and his crew of four spent Sunday loading drums of chemical foam on board the boat to fight the Mega Borg fire. ``I would hate to see oil all over these beaches,'' Davis said as specialists from the Netherlands finished bolting high-powered pumps and nozzle connections to the ship's deck. Davis' boat is one of six from Pelican Island near Galveston that were hired to fight the fire. ``God willing and weather permitting _ that's the saying in salvage,'' said Rick Chianelli, salvage foreman for Smit American.
AP880706-0123 	X	A doctor accused of giving an anti-convulsion drug to pregnant women without their knowledge is fighting back with a $26 million slander lawsuit, saying the treatment was not secret and was aimed at helping his patients. Hospital officials have accused physicians Lawrence Lavine and Antonio Aldrete of secretly giving injections of the drug Dilantin to as many as 240 women _ nearly all of them pregnant _ as part of an improper experiment. But in a lawsuit Tuesday, Lavine accused Dr. Agnes Lattimer, medical director of Cook County Hospital, of slander for calling the Dilantin injections a violation of hospital policy and for labeling them unethical. ``They (Lavine and Aldrete) did what doctors do all the time .. . try to ensure the health of their patients. And because of the outcry, now the hospital is going to crucify them,'' said Lavine's attorney, Richard Brauer. Lattimer declined comment on the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon. ``I cannot discuss this issue since it is a legal matter,'' she said. Brauer said the doctors gave the Dilantin in the course of treating the women shortly before their babies were delivered and not as an experiment. He contended that informed written consent was obtained from every patient treated, while hospital officials have contended that many patients were given the drug without their knowledge or consent. The doctors, who face a disciplinary hearing July 18, administered the anti-convulsants for four months beginning last September, after receiving approval from the hospital's medical staff for a study involving 50 women undergoing emergency Caesarean section. One of the women allegedly given the drug at Cook County has filed a lawsuit against the Cook County Board, the hospital, the doctors and other staff members. Brauer said giving anti-convulsants to pregnant women with epilepsy just before they go into labor ``has been accepted medical procedure since 1938.'' Brauer said the doctors ``were aware of the medical literature (on Dilantin) and knew well in advance it would be helpful across the range of pregnancy,'' especially in cases where inadequate pre-natal care appeared likely to cause fetal distress from insufficient oxygen at delivery. Because of the frequency of fetal distress, he said, the rate of infant mortality at Cook County was 3{ times higher than in the general population. ``And it became so obvious the babies were born healthier, the mothers suffered less ... that instead of risking the health of their patients, they used the anti-convulsants where they were appropriate,'' he said. After media reports on the practice in late May, Lattimer said the doctors had gone beyond the scope of the experiment. A week later, she told the Chicago Sun-Times, ``It was wrong for the physicians to violate the ethical principles as well as the rules and regulations of the hospital.''
AP880703-0004 	X	A strong earthquake shook northern Taiwan on Sunday. Police said it unleashed rockslides that injured 13 people. They said the injured people were hit by falling rocks at three waterfall tourist sites in suburban Taipei. The quake, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, set off rock avalanches in an area covering 1,200 square yards, authorities said. The injured, who were all Taiwanese, were taken to a hospital, police said. One was reported to be in serious condition, and the others suffered only minor injuries. The Central Weather Bureau placed the epicenter of the early-afternoon earthquake in Sanchi, a coastal village about 10 miles north of Taipei. The earthquake was felt in the capital, where residents reported their houses shook violently, the bureau said. The Richter scale measures ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one number means a ten-fold increase in intensity. An earthquake of magnitude 5 can cause serious damage in a populated area, and one of magnitude 6 can cause severe damage.
AP880602-0043 	X	Leonard didn't stand tall when he patrolled his owner's car lot office, but Reggie Roberts says the 7-foot-long boa constrictor was the best guard he ever had. Somebody broke the office window Sunday, and Leonard is gone. ``I'm just 99 percent sure somebody stole my snake,'' Roberts said Wednesday. ``I don't know why they did it.'' Roberts, who owns T.R. Roberts Motors, is offering a $100 reward for the return of his pet reptile. ``I won't ask any questions,'' he said. ``I just want my snake back. I miss the little fellow.'' He hopes Leonard will be found. The ``Beware! Guard Snake on Duty'' sign remains posted on the business' door. Leonard was kept in a temperature-controlled glass showcase during the day so as not to scare customers. But at night the creature, which Roberts describes as ``just a big baby,'' was given the run of the office. Roberts bought the snake, who is about 8 years old, when the previous owner's landlady objected to Leonard as a tenant. He's had the snake nearly a year. ``I've had him long enough to get good and attached to him,'' Roberts said.
AP901218-0254 	X	The Federated and Allied department stores, which have been operating under bankruptcy court protection for nearly a year, said Tuesday they lost $86.7 million in the three months ending Nov. 3. The companies called the figure a sign of improved performance in the face of a weakening economy and lower-than-expected sales. They lost $92.5 million in the same period last year before they sought refuge from creditors. Federated Department Stores Inc. said total sales for Bloomingdale's, Lazarus and its three other store chains fell 6.2 percent to $1.1 billion for the quarter. Allied Stores Corp. said sales for its four store chains fell 2.8 percent to $624 million. For the nine months ending Nov. 3, Federated and Allied said they lost $312.6 million, a lower figure than the $330.1 million they lost in the year-earlier period. Federated said sales fell 5.3 percent to $3.1 billion for the first nine months of the year. Allied, whose chains include The Bon Marche and Jordan Marsh, said sales fell 2.4 percent to $1.7 billion. Federated and Allied sought protection from creditors Jan. 15 because of inability to service $7.7 billion in debts accrued when they were taken over by the Campeau Corp. of Canada in the 1980s. A bankruptcy court has given them until February to file a reorganization plan. After that time, creditors may propose their own plans. Individually, Federated lost $57.8 million during the quarter, 14 percent above the $50.7 million it lost in the same period last year. Allied lost $28.9 million, 30 percent below its $41.8 million third-quarter loss last year. ``The consumer has not demonstrated a great deal of faith in the nation's near-term economic future, and there is little indication that this will change significantly in the closing weeks of the year,'' Federated and Allied chairman and chief executive officer Allen Questrom said. ``Still, we expect our earnings from operations will be consistent with our plans for the season.''
AP880820-0102 	X	The Centers for Disease Control disputes a study by the Hudson Institute that the number of Americans infected with the deadly AIDS virus is actually twice the official estimate. In a study released Friday, the Hudson Institute said that up to 3 million Americans are infected by the AIDS virus, an estimate that is far above the calculation by CDC, the primary federal agency monitoring the spread of AIDS. Kevin R. Hopkins, a Hudson mathematician, said his study uses ``realistic'' assumptions not used by the CDC and, as a result, his estimate is closer to the true number of Americans infected by the human immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS. ``The actual number of people carrying the HIV virus in the United States (at the end of 1987) was not the 900,000 to 1.4 million the official sources estimate, but probably more than twice that number,'' the Hudson report said. ``There were between 2 and 3 million people infected with the AIDS virus, with the most likely total of infections probably close to 2.4 million,'' the report said. Dr. Timothy Dondero, chief of a CDC branch studying the spread of AIDS, quickly disputed the claim, however. In a telephone interview from the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Dondero said he and his staff reviewed the Hudson study and the methods used and said, ``We do not feel a change in our data is appropriate.'' He said that for the Hudson model to be correct, about 2 percent of the young adult population in the United States would have to be infected with HIV. Yet, he said, ``their figures are inconsistently high within segments of populations for which there are test results.'' Dondero said tests from hospital patients, military recruits and prisoners show HIV infection rates of less than 1 percent _ 0.2 percent to 0.66 percent _ among young adults. Hopkins admitted, ``We're all in a guessing game'' when it comes to estimating the number of people infected with the AIDS virus. Nonetheless, he said he believed the Hudson method is a more realistic model or mathematical estimate of the situation. ``The CDC may be right and we may be wrong,'' Hopkins said. ``Until a national seroprevalence test is conducted, we will not know. ... The main conclusion is that we cannot be complacent about this disease.'' The study by Hudson, a privately financed public policy research organization with headquarters in Indianapolis, used basic CDC data on the number of AIDS cases. But Hopkins said Hudson used different computer models and more sophisticated statistical analysis techniques to estimate the rate of HIV infections. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which is caused by the HIV virus, is the end stage of the disease and may not develop for years after a person is infected with the virus. But an infected person can spread the virus before developing AIDS. For this reason, experts are attempting to estimate the rate of infection in order to gauge the future extent of the epidemic. HIV infection is determined by a blood test which identifies antibodies in blood serum. A person with such antibodies is known as seropositive. Hopkins said the Hudson study also estimated that the number of heterosexuals infected by the virus may be three times higher than CDC estimates. The CDC says the chief victims of AIDS, a contagious disease that attacks the body's immune system, have been homosexual men and intravenous drug users. The Hudson study estimates that of the 850,000 to 1.4 million heterosexuals infected with the HIV virus, between 200,000 and 500,000 are those who do not use drugs. ``There are vastly more heterosexuals infected today,'' said Hopkins. ``A breakout into the non-monogamous population is unavoidable.'' The CDC has estimated that the AIDS virus has infected only 80,000 to 165,000 of the non-drug-using heterosexual population. The Hudson report said about 118,000 of the heterosexuals infected are ``mainstream'' population members. ``They are not poor, and they are not IV drug users,'' Hudson said. ``But they are nonetheless carriers of the virus and, through their sexual contacts, can proceed to spread the disease to others of their same class.'' The CDC says that as of Aug. 15, 1988, AIDS had been diagnosed in 70,702 Americans, of whom more than half, or 39,898, have died since June 1, 1981. No one is known to have recovered from AIDS.
AP881107-0068 	X	Students at Spelman College, a black women's school, should take the fruits of their education back to their communities and help the poor, the school's new president said at her inauguration. ``If we do nothing to improve our world, then we cannot call ourselves educated women,'' Johnetta B. Cole said Sunday. ``How can we call ourselves either educated or leaders if we turn away from the very reality that a third of black America lives in poverty? ``We must build sturdy black bridges into the very communities from which we have come. For if we do not build those bridges, then we will surely drown in our own selfishness.'' Ms. Cole, first black woman president of the 107-year-old liberal arts college, was inaugurated Sunday although she has been at the school since July 1987. Her speech wrapped up a weekend that included the announcement of a $20 million gift to the school from entertainer Bill Cosby. One of Cosby's daughters attended Spelman, and episodes of his hit TV series, ``The Cosby Show,'' have been filmed there. The donation will be used mostly to construct an academic center, which will double the college's classroom space. About $8 million will go to Spelman's endowment, currently at $42 million.
AP881028-0318 	X	Share prices rose Friday in a lackluster session on the London Stock Exchange. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index rose 6.3 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,858.4. Volume was 482.7 million shares, compared with the 593.5 million shares traded Thursday. Dealers said the market appeared to be resting after a fitful week of watching and waiting for an array of economic indicators. However, market analysts contended that the underlying tone of the market remained firm after Thursday's surprise narrowing of the British current account deficit to 560 million pounds, or $989 million, in September, less than half its August level. The Financial Times 30-share index rose 6.3 points to 1,508.9. The Financial Times 500-share index closed at 1,056.99, up 3.51.
AP900410-0217 	X	The dollar drifted fractionally lower against most key currencies in European trading Tuesday afternoon. Gold prices fell. Late in London's trading day, the dollar was quoted at 1.6900 West German marks, down from 1.6923 marks late Monday. In Tokyo, the dollar climbed 1.70 yen to a closing 158.15 yen on Tuesday. Later, in London, it was quoted at 158.60 yen. The dollar held on to most of its overnight gains against the yen, a reflection of market expectations that the Japanese currency will remain under pressure without significant action on the interest rate front, or without clear signals that the Group of Seven nations are intent on supporting the yen. Finance officials from the seven countries met in Paris over the weekend. The G-7 includes Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, West Germany and the United States. The dollar gained against the British pound which was quoted late Tuesday at $1.6345, compared with $1.6397 late Monday. Other dollar rates late in Europe compared with late Monday's levels were: 1.4955 Swiss francs, down from 1.4960; 5.6750 French francs, down from 5.6805; 1.9030 Dutch guilders, down from 1.9043; 1,240.00 Italian lire, down from 1,242.00; and 1.1613 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1615. Gold traded in London at a late bid price of $375.15 a troy ounce, down from $375.50 late Monday. In Zurich, the bid price was $375.25, down from $376.25 late Monday. Earlier in Hong Kong, gold fell $2.16 an ounce to close at a bid of $376.97. Silver bullion traded in London at a late bid price of $5.13 a troy ounce, down from late Monday's bid of $5.14.
AP901004-0209 	X	Apple Computer Inc. has entered into negotiations with Toshiba Corp. to develop lower-priced computers, Toshiba officials confirmed Thursday. The announcement comes days after Japan's Sony Corp. said it is discussing forging business ties with Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, one of the leading U.S. personal computer makers. Toshiba spokesman Masao Mochizuki said Apple recently proposed the alliance, but he declined to elaborate. Analysts say Apple is seeking to diversify its product line and lower prices. ``Apple's computer is good in performance, but is rather expensive at present, so Apple is trying to develop new mass-production models to expand its market shares in Japan,'' said Yasumichi Satoh, an analyst with Sanyo Investment Management Co. Toshiba, a leading Japanese electric machinery maker, currently supplies Apple with semiconductors for its personal computers. According to Kyodo News Service, Apple is discussing an agreement under which Sony would make personal computers in Japan to be marketed under Apple's name. Sony now produces computer disk drives and displays for Apple Computer. At a board meeting held in Tokyo last week, Apple Chief Executive officver John Sculley told reporters that his company is bent on expanding its limited presence in Japan.
AP880812-0294 	X	British publisher Robert Maxwell said Friday he will launch a $2.1 billion cash tender offer for Macmillan Inc. next week, but made clear his main interest is acquiring its information services business. Macmillan already is the subject of a $1.9 billion bid from Robert M. Bass Group Inc., a Texas-based investment group. In a letter to Macmillan, Maxwell said he would drop his $80-a-share tender offer if Macmillan would sell him the information company, which Macmillan proposed to separate from its publishing business in a corporate restructuring. Maxwell said his Maxwell Communications Corp. PLC would be willing to pay ``not less than $1.1 billion'' in cash for the information business, noting that Macmillan's investment bankers had valued it at ``a range of $800 million to slightly in excess of $1 billion.'' In the letter, Maxwell also told Macmillan Chairman Edward P. Evans he was ``willing to explore other forms of transactions with you'' that would allow current shareholders to continue to hold a significant stake in the company. Maxwell also reitereated he wanted to retain Macmillan management. Macmillan declined to comment on Maxwell's proposals. On Wall Street, the price of Macmillan stock rose $1.50 a share to $83.25, indicating investors expected the bidding to escalate. ``Some people suggested Maxwell isn't serious, but by launching a tender offer at $80 a share on Monday, we see he is serious,'' said Bert Boksen, who follows the publishing business for the brokerage Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla. But Boksen said by making the alternate suggestion that he be sold the information assets, Maxwell ``identified the piece he is most interested in.'' ``I think Macmillan is backed up against the wall and will try to find a white knight,'' he said. He said Macmillan could be worth $90 a share. The overture from Maxwell came only three days before a scheduled court hearing in Delaware on whether Macmillan should be allowed to proceed with its proposed restructuring. The restructuring, announced in late May, would split the company into separate publishing and information services concerns and pay shareholders a special dividend of $52.35 a share in cash. That plan was advanced after the Bass Group proposed to pay $64 a share for the Macmillan stock it did not already own. The Bass Group subsequently sweetened its offer twice, and launched its own tender offer for Macmillan at $75 a share. The Bass Group won an order from Delaware Chancery Court blocking Macmillan from proceeding with its restructuring. Macmillan appealed the decision to Delaware Supreme Court, which scheduled a hearing for Monday. Maxwell disclosed his interest in Macmillan in mid-July, saying he would be interested in paying $80 a share for its 25.9 million shares in a friendly transaction. A Maxwell spokesman said Friday that the tender offer at that price would commence on Monday. It is contingent on dropping the restructuring plan, among other things, but Maxwell said it is not conditioned upon obtaining necessary financing. Late last month, the Macmillan board rejected the $75 a share offer from Bass as inadequate, but took no position on the Maxwell proposal. Macmillan spokesman David Jackson refused Friday to comment on whether the board has since met to discuss the Maxwell proposal, or anything else. Maxwell has vowed to make Maxwell Communications one of the world's biggest media and communications businesses. Through that company and Pergamon Press, Maxwell controls the Mirror Group of newspapers in Great Britain, is one of America's largest printers of magazines and catlogues and has extensive holdings in publishing academic and scientific journals.
AP900619-0195 	X	The Air Force and Northrop Corp. lifted the B-2 stealth bomber secrecy curtain another notch Tuesday, allowing reporters a peek at the sprawling factory where the radar-dodging planes are built. The 800,000-square-foot plant where Northrop performs final assembly from parts provided by itself, Boeing, LTV and other subcontractors was far quieter than a normal aerospace plant. Part of the technology that hides the B-2 from radar is the plane's smooth surface, which is achieved by using a minimum of rivets, nuts and bolts. That in turn makes for an eerily quiet manufacturing process. The second through fifth of the flying wings _ their graphite skins covering a honeycomb composite structure _ could be seen on their assembly lines in the plant in the desert city north of Los Angeles. Flanking them were terminals to a computer system whose sophistication Northrop says far exceeds any ever used to build a plane. Company officials predicted it will find wide use in civilian manufacturing. The first B-2 is performing beyond expectations in initial flight testing, completing stability control, in-flight refueling, landings and other tests with few problems, said Bruce Hinds, Northrop's chief test pilot. ``The airplane is maturing and we're able to operate efficiently much earlier than we thought,'' he said. The plane, which Hinds said can turn sharply _ more like a fighter than a bomber _ has been taken up to 35,000 feet and flown at 373 mph. It has won praise from all the pilots who have flown it, Hinds said. The tour came amid continuing efforts in Congress to kill the B-2, which critics contend is far too expensive, especially as the Cold War is ending. If the program were stopped with the construction of 15 planes, as some favor, construction costs would be $35.4 billion. Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard M. Scofield, the B-2 program director, said 15 planes would not be enough to provide a significant military deterrent. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has suggested building 75 B-2s, which would bring the total cost of the bombers to $62.4 billion. Ron Fraser, an analyst for the dovish Center for Defense Information in Washington, said the real cost of building 75 planes would be more than $110 billion, including $48 billion to operate and support the bombers. ``So cutting it off now, the savings are huge,'' Fraser said. ``It's a bomber we don't need at any price and the price is pretty darn stiff.'' Northrop Chief Executive Kent Kresa and Scofield said such concerns were shortsighted and that the United States should not give up on a plane that will be useful decades into the 21st century. They also argued that the manned bomber provides a needed complement to a U.S. defense system that includes nuclear armed submarines and land-based nuclear missiles. Kresa and Scofield disputed reports that stealth technology could be counteracted by some radar systems. One of those systems, reportedly in Australia, was among 40 supposed stealth-busting techniques that the bomber was tested against, Scofield said. He said the test showed the system had as much chance of locating a stealth bomber as an individual equipped with a flashlight would have of finding one person among a crowd of thousands in the Rose Bowl at night. Marion McHugh, vice president of operations for Northrop's B-2 division, said 11 of the bombers are now 50 percent or more complete. The 10th and 11th will take about 1.2 million worker hours to construct. That's compared to 3.5 million for the first bomber, which McHugh acknowledged took substantially longer to build than anticipated. But he said officials are happy with the progress being made.
AP900629-0083 	X	Here is a transcript of President Bush's news conference Friday at the White House: BUSH: Good morning everybody. And I'm leaving in a few hours and will be gone from Washington for several days. Congress is about to close up shop for the 4th of July holidays and so I thought it would be a good idea to bring you up to date on a wide array of current topics and respond to your questions. During the next two weeks the US will join its allies in considering a number of crucial political security and international economic issues. And seldom in the last 40 years have such questions had such direct impact on the lives of all Americans. Today in the US we are carefully examining the historic changes in Eastern Europe, the size of our military forces, our ability to compete in world markets, the assistance that we provide to help emerging democracies, and the size and priorities of our own budget and how to continue the 90 months of economic expansion that we've enjoyed. These issues are not abstract. Every American has a stake in how we as a nation address these very complex questions. On July 5th and 6th in London the NATO alliance will gather to forge a new direction for the future. And at the Houston economic summit we will press for progress in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, discuss economic support for various countries, and review progress on the environment. These international concerns are reflected in many of the decisions I made just this week. First, we are doing what is necessary to assure continuation of the economic expansion, now in its 90th month, and we want to keep it going. We now estimate a deficit of over $150 billion in fiscal 1991, not counting the costs of the savings and loan cleanup. And this means that unless Congress acts, there will be a cutoff in October of nearly $100 billion in government services under the sequester provisions of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. The potential results are Draconian cuts in defense, student grants and a wide array of other necessary domestic services, and to avoid this, tough decisions must be made. And leadership is needed, and that is exactly what administration officials are seeking to provide and indeed, in these talks, I believe are providing. The budget negotiations now under way are a make-or-break effort at responsible government. The congressional budgeting process must succeed and the negotiators are facing tough questions about where to make cuts and where to raise the revenues, and these are not decisions that anyone relishes. They are decisions that Democrats and Republicans alike have got to face with candor and courage. And frankly, I believe that ultimately good politics is rooted in good government, and I'm optimistic that we can get a budget agreement legislated which not only tells the world that America puts its fiscal house in order, but also will garner the full support of the American people. Secondly, this week we reached an agreement with the Japanese on (the) Structural Impediments Initiative that's going to help to open markets and create new opportunities for business and commerce. Next, we took an important step toward increasing jobs, opportunity, and economic prosperity throughout our own hemisphere _ Enterprise for the Americas, an innovative and I think visionary plan for increased trade and investment with Latin America and the Caribbean, and the response from south of our border has been overwhelmingly positive. And this included a new proposal on official debt in the hemisphere which will help our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean resume the process of growth. We developed a plan for protecting our coastal resources _ this OCS decision _ while also endeavoring to protect energy independence. And as I leave for the 4th of July holiday, and then from there to the NATO summit, and then to the Houston economic summit, I just wanted to assure you that the America _ America will squarely face the challenges of leadership that are before us, both domestically and in terms of international affairs. Q. Mr. President, I'd like to ask you about your reversal on ``no new taxes.'' Do you consider that a betrayal of your promise, and what do you say to Republicans who complain that you've robbed them of the same campaign issue that helped get you elected? BUSH: Well, I don't. I think what I consider it is a necessary step to get stalled budget negotiations moving. And I am very encouraged with the approach taken now by Republicans and Democrats in this _ in these important discussions that are going on. I'm not going to discuss details, what I'll accept and what I won't accept, but things are moving, and I think that much more important today is getting this deficit down, continuing economic expansion and employment in this country. So that's the way I'd respond to it. MORE
AP900214-0244 	X	Stocks finished slightly higher after a lackluster session on London's Stock Exchange Wednesday, as investors found little reason to buy. Dealers said the market appeared to be treading water, in anticipation of a barrage of British economic data and corporate earnings reports due to be released later in the week. Tuesday's news that Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. filed for protection under U.S. bankruptcy law still overshadowed the market, dealers said. ``Any rise in the market will be short-lived,'' said the head of equities at a London firm. ``There's far too much concern on (the prospect for higher) interest rates and the possibility that New York will fall out of bed, sooner or later, over this Drexel thing.'' Although Wall Street got off to a healthy start, London traders said there wasn't any discernible leadership coming from New York. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index was up 5.1 points, or 0.2 percent, at 2,298.3. The Financial Times 30-share index was up 4.3 points at 1,822.4. The Financial Times 500-share index rose 2.67 points to close at 1,253.05. Volume amounted to a modest 465.2 million shares, compared with 436.4 million shares Tuesday.
AP900606-0176 	X	President Bush on Wednesday tapped a dozen young professionals to spend the next year on special high-level government assignments as White House Fellows. The fellows, chosen from nearly 1,000 applicants, will begin their 12 months of government service on Sept. 1. A presidential commission helped make the final selections from 33 national finalists. They are the 26th class of fellows chosen since the high-level internship program was launched in 1964. They will work as special assistants to Bush's own staff, the vice president and members of the Cabinet. The new fellows are: _Andrew I. Batavia, 32, of Washington, a disability expert who directs the Health Services Research Program at the National Rehabilitation Hospital Research Center. _Samuel Dale Brownback, 33, of Topeka, Kan., the Kansas secretary of agriculture. _Robert Bruce Chess, 33, of Palo Alto, Calif., president and co-founder of Penederm, a biotechnology company. _Jody Ann Greenstone, 32, of Greenville, S.C., vice president in public finance of the Robinson-Humphrey Co., a subsidiary of Shearson Lehman Hutton. _Robert R. Grusky, 32, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., a vice president in the investment banking division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. _Air Force Capt. Willie Arthur Gunn, 31, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a circuit defense counsel defending service members in complex criminal cases in five Western states. _Air Force Maj. Randall Herman Kehl, 36, of Albuquerque, N.M., an attorney with the Judge Advocate General's office in Washington. _Navy Lt. Cmdr. John William Miller, 32, of Annapolis, Md., the head of the leadership section in the Naval Academy's Department of Leadership and Law. _Eric McLaren Phillips, 37, of Maplewood, N.J., a Guyanese-born district manager for AT&T International Communications Services. _Air Force Maj. Edward Augustus Rice Jr., 33, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, a manager in the Air Force's directorate of plans and operations in Washington. _Joseph E. Samora Jr., 34, of Albuquerque, who is chairman of the New Mexico Public Service Commission. _Kimberly Till, 34, of Prattville, Ala., an international management consultant with Bain & Co. in London. Appications for the 1991-92 program are available from the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, 712 Jackson Place, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20503.
AP881119-0091 	X	A Democratic senator called Saturday for President-elect George Bush to meet with congressional leaders prior to his inauguration to find ``common ground'' for fighting the deficit. Sen. Jim Sasser of Tennessee noted the declining dollar and the drop in the stock market since Bush's election, and said the world is waiting to see if the incoming president has a plan for reducing the country's massive federal deficit. ``Congress, like the financial markets and the Federal Reserve, is anxiously seeking a sign from the incoming administration that the era of ideological stalemate is over, and the era of realistic deficit reduction has begun,'' said Sasser, in the Democrats' response to President Reagan's weekly radio address. Reagan, in his broadcast, said the nation's factories are booming and farmers harvested more than the country could consume. He urged Americans on Thanksgiving to thank the Lord for ``peace, prosperity and freedom.'' Sasser said Democrats in Congress want to work with the new president for positive results ``but we can't wait for the next financial disaster before we again take the budget deficit seriously.'' ``And let me say to President-elect Bush: many of us in the Congress are experienced lip readers. We don't want new taxes any more than you do,'' said Sasser, addressing Bush's promise not to raise taxes. ``We stand ready to follow the new president's lead, so long as that leadership aims honestly and forthrightly at solving this country's number one economic problem,'' he said. Sasser proposed that a meeting of Bush with congressional leaders ``should aim specifically at getting to the common ground _ the objectives we all share _ with regard to fiscal policy.'' He said Bush also should give a fair hearing to the National Economic Commission set up to deal with the deficit and should get the Reagan administration to submit a realistic budget to Congress. ``Those are the kinds of meaningful actions that will command the confidence of the international financial community,'' Sasser said. ``They will help put to rest the rumors of early conflict between the Congress and the next president.''
AP900620-0150 	X	The elderly and students who are citizens of one country in the European Community at the end of 1991 will be able to live in any other EC nation if they wish, it was decided Wednesday. The decision by the 12 EC nations gives jobless nationals in the European Community the same rights as wage-earners. An elderly citizen who has dreamed of retiring in sunnier southern climates will be able to obtain a five-year, renewable residency permit in the EC country of his choice. The retiree must show only proof of health insurance and that he or she will not burden the adopted nation's social security system. And a student who can show proof of registration at a university or college in another EC nation as well as sufficient income will receive a one-year renewable residency permit. Those who are unemployed by choice and do not classify as being either elderly or a student will have to prove they have sufficient income not to need assistance from the social security system in their new country. The 12 EC members are Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal. In 1992, the nations will drop trade barriers among themselves to create a unified Euromarket. In Brussels Wednesday the 18 nations of Western Europe's two trading blocs began talks to pave the way for the so-called European Economic Space. The move would bring the six nations of the European Free Trade Association _ Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland _ closer to the European Community. Frans Andriessen, an EC commissioner, said he hoped broad agreement would be reached near the end of this year and be fully implemented on Jan. 1, 1993, when the EC's single market comes into force.
AP880505-0164 	X	Preliminary results show that two of three joints on the redesigned space shuttle booster rocket did not leak during an April 22 qualifying test, a NASA official said today. Dave Mobley, NASA deputy project manager for the redesign effort, said that engineers have inspected the aft and center field joints and found both to be working as designed. Results of tests on the forward joint are expected Friday. Mobley said today that engineers found that the center field joint, which had an intentional flaw built into it for an April 22 test-firing at the Morton Thiokol plant 25 miles west of here, did its job. He said the center field joint flaw allowed superhot gases to reach insulation and the joint's O-ring, but the ring held. ``There was no damage to the O-ring at all,'' he said. ``There was no evidence the gas got past'' the ring. Failure of an O-ring seal is blamed for triggering the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger and killed its seven-member crew. The booster tests are designed to evaluate the redesigned booster, which is made up of several sections that are joined together, and qualify the joints for use in an actual launch. Mobley also said engineers found no damage to the rocket's nozzle section. In a December test-firing, a redesigned boot ring on the section came apart. The April test used a boot ring that had proven reliable in the past. Mobley said engineering evaluations would be conducted late today on the redesigned booster's forward field joint, with results expected Friday. He noted that while thorough, results from the evaluations were tentative. A final report, based on more extensive study, isn't expected to be ready for several weeks, he said. Two more full-scale tests of the booster are planned for June and July, and the shuttle launch is tentatively set for late August or early September.
AP901222-0109 	X	Iraq asked the World Health Organization on Saturday to help free medicine and equipment to combat hepatitis, which Iraq claims contributed to the deaths of some children since U.N. trade sanctions began. The official Iraqi News Agency said a national committee against hepatitis sent a telegram saying the sanctions halted imports of ``the equipment and special tools to discover the hepatitis B virus and also the vaccine against it.'' The report, monitored in Nicosia, did not refer to a specific outbreak or epidemic, but said the sickness ``is considered a big health problem in Iraq, especially among children.'' Without providing figures on hepatitis cases, the report said the committee told officials at the Geneva-based U.N. agency that 2,042 children under 5 years old have died since the embargo began in August. Iraq blamed the deaths on shortages of baby food and medicine, and claimed many of those who died suffered from hepatitis. The embargo is meant to retaliate for Iraq's Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. Hepatitis B is one of five strains of the blood virus that can be prevented by vaccine. Serious cases of hepatitis can lead to liver problems. ``The committee called in the telegram on the World Health Organization to interfere immediately to release the food and medicine seige and release imported medicine, vaccine, equipment and tools to control the hepititis virus in Iraq,'' the news agency said. Western diplomats in Baghdad say Iraq has received 120 tons of medicine from humanitarian groups worldwide since mid-October. Most of the shipments were in exchange for Western hostages trapped by the Persian Gulf crisis. President Saddam Hussein decided Dec. 6 to free all foreigners. Iraq's Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, announced recently it had received 22 tons of medical supplies from Italy and another 28 tons from the U.N. Children's Fund. But Irqai officials have said acute shortages exist in some areas, such as for polio vaccine and drugs to treat heart ailments.
AP900308-0009 	X	Papa looked very beautiful in his crimson robe, but there was a terrible draft in Westminster Abbey, wrote the little princess after her parents' coronation in 1937. The childhood essay of Queen Elizabeth II gets its first public showing beginning Friday in the Queen's Gallery, where royal treasures are displayed at Buckingham Palace. It's part of 271 exhibits called ``A Royal Miscellany'' showing through Jan. 13, 1991. The exhibition includes everything from clocks and jewelry to the embroidered linen overshirt worn by King Charles I as he knelt to the headsman's ax in 1649. Visitors can view a lock of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's hair, a watercolor of Balmoral royal estate by Prince Charles, and a copy of the Mainz Psalter _ a 1457 German collection of prayers that was the first book printed in more than one color. Among the displays are the neat, proper letters of the 11-year-old princess Elizabeth. They are written in a lined exercise book that would have cost tuppence, four cents at that time. ``I thought it all very, very wonderful and I expect the Abbey did, too. The arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so,'' wrote the princess. Elizabeth, her sister Princess Margaret and their widowed grandmother Queen Mary had a grandstand view of the ceremony from a royal box in the abbey, where Elizabeth herself would be crowned in 1953. ``What struck me as being rather odd was that Grannie did not remember much of her own coronation. I should have thought that it would have stayed in her mind forever,'' Princess Elizabeth wrote. However, toward the end, the child found the service becoming ``rather boring'' as it was all prayers. ``Grannie and I were looking to see how many more pages to the end, and we turned one more and then I pointed to the word at the bottom of the page and it said `Finis.' We both smiled at each other and turned back to the service,'' she wrote. ``The princess was probably asked by her tutor to record her impressions of the coronation,'' said Oliver Everett, director of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the favorite royal residence 21 miles west of London. Everett, a former diplomat, selected the essay and 270 other items for the exhibition. ``The library is closed to the public, but the queen takes her guests there. As the castle is being rewired and repaired, guests cannot be shown round so we took the opportunity to send some interesting things to the gallery,'' Everett said in an interview at Wednesday's preview. Even the prophetic thoughts of King George III after the British defeat by the American colonists in 1781 are displayed: ``America is lost! Must we fall beneath this blow?'' he wrote. But he was consoled by the thought that ``it is to be hoped we shall reap more advantages from their trade as friends than ever we could derive from them as Colonies.''
AP900303-0127 	X	The head of China's Communist Party says the massacre of protesters in Tiananmen Square last June should not stand in the way of economic and cultural cooperation with the United States. ``If both sides face realities and make efforts to remove the misunderstandings, which have not been created by us, we will have broad prospects in the future,'' Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, told U.S. News & World Report. ``I suggest that we look forward and try to find common ground,'' he said in the interview, appearing in the March 12 issue. ``In such fields as economic exchanges, cultural contacts and other areas there is still a lot of room for more cooperation.'' But Jiang emphasized: ``We do not regret, or criticize ourselves for the way we handle, the Tiananmen event. ``We believe it to be an internal affair while the U.S. is saying that we have gone against U.S. values and the American view of human rights.'' Jiang said continuing tensions with the United States resulted from ``a big misunderstanding'' created by inaccurate media accounts and a limited perspective on the part of the U.S. government and people. Jiang, who became party chief last June amid international condemnation of the Chinese government's actions, said his government would continue to welcome foreign investment and open the country to the outside world. ``Because business is not based only on one track, you have to take the long-term view,'' said Jiang. Continued economic development in his country would help change U.S. and international opinion of China, he said. The government also would gradually move away from the egalitarianism associated with socialist economic enterprises, Jiang said, by stepping up its policy of incentive and bonus pay. Jiang said it was contradictory for the United States to criticize China's use of troops in Tiananmen Square while saying it understood why the Soviet Union sent troops to quell riots between ethnic groups in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Additionally, he criticized the U.S. invasion of Panama and capture of Manuel Noriega as ``a manifestation of power politics.''
AP900219-0122 	X	Authorities moved to placate separatist Moslem militants Monday by dissolving the legislative assembly of Jammu-Kashmir state and acknowledging that the 1987 polls in which it was elected might have been rigged. Also Monday, at least three people were killed and six injured in confrontations between security forces and Moslem protesters agitating for the secession of the Kashmir valley from Hindu-majority India. State Gov. Jagmohan said the Jammu-Kashmir assembly was being dissolved because it had ``lost its representative character.'' The move clears the way for new elections to the assembly, which could form the basis for making peace overtures to the militants. Many of the militants say they were members of political parties earlier, and began agitating for an independent nation after what they claim was widespread rigging during the 1987 elections. ``It has been alleged that in 1987 some vested interests had rigged the election,'' Jagmohan said in a statement issued in Srinagar. In those elections, Farooq Abdullah was voted the chief minister, the top elected post in the state administration, for a five-year term. Abdullah resigned from the post on Jan. 19 to protest the appointment of Jagmohan as governor of the state. Jagmohan, a Hindu who uses one name, has said that quelling militant violence and holding new elections is the only way to defuse the separatist movement in the Moslem-majority state. Police reported at least three deaths Monday as Moslem crowds violated curfew orders in two towns in the valley. Police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two people were killed and six injured when police opened fire to control a rioting mob in the town of Bijbehara, 30 miles southeast of Srinagar. One person was killed in the town of Shopian, 33 miles south of Srinagar, in another incident of police firing, they said. The deaths raise to at least 103 the number of people killed since authorities launched a crackdown on the Moslem movement on Jan. 20. Most of the victims have been protesters killed in police firing on curfew violators. The movement for secession of Kashmir from India is at least four decades old, but has flared in recent months. The state of Jammu-Kashmir, which includes the valley and the plains of Jammu to the south, is India's only Moslem-majority state. India and Pakistan have both claimed Kashmir since the Indian subcontinent was divided along religious lines after gaining independence from Britain in 1947. The countries have fought two wars over Kashmir, and Pakistan occupies a slice of the valley. A U.N.-monitored cease-fire line divides the valley into Indian and Pakistani sectors. India accuses Pakistan of fomenting the trouble in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge but says the Kashmri people have a right to self-determination. About 64 percent of Jammu-Kashmir's 6 million people are Moslem. Nationwide, Moslems comprise 12 percent of the 880 million population. Hindus make up 82 percent.
AP901203-0262 	X	Employees were low-key and passengers seemed mostly oblivious Monday after the parent of Continental Airlines filed for protection under federal bankruptcy laws for the second time in seven years. ``I'm not worried as long as I can get home today,'' Gwendolyn Currie, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said. Her flight to New Orleans was detoured to Houston because of bad weather and she was among the crowd waiting for Continental flights at Houston Intercontinental Airport's Terminal C, the Houston-based airline's main hub. ``I just hope to get out of here today,'' she said. ``I hope I still have a way to get back,'' said Frank Dow, who was heading to Lafayette, La., from Houston. Some Continental employees were handed a printed message about the filing when they reported to work Monday morning and a text of the announcement was made availabletto others on computer monitors at passenger check-in gates. Passenger reaction to the announcement was minimal, gate attendants said, probably because so few people knew of it. The airline company said it intended to run normally despite the Chapter 11 filing in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, where Continental is incorporated. ``The impact is zero,'' said one flight officer, who declined to be identified, saying employees are told to not speak with reporters. ``It's business as usual. ``Look around,'' he said, pointing to aircraft taxiing and passengers boarding. ``I don't have any anxiety.'' ``This is something external, with the fuel prices,'' a flight attendant with him said. ``It's all out of our control and there's very little I can do. I think it's important the public recognizes this is an administrative action. That's what's important. If you didn't watch the news, you would never know.'' The flight officer, who said he went through the 1983 bankruptcy filing when flights were halted, employees laid off and passengers stranded, noted the chaos of that time was absent on Monday. ``It's very relaxed,'' he said. ``This was a whole different background.'' Capt. Robert Finley, a senior pilot at Continental, said he was among four top pilots to meet with airline chairman and president Hollis Harris on Thursday to discuss the situation. ``Continental Airlines is going to wind up surviving and being a leader in the industry,'' Finley said. ``Mr. Harris is a very positive, people-oriented person which is something we haven't known a lot of around Continental for awhile. ``It seems like a breath of fresh air to see a man like him in that job. If anyone can pull us through these difficult times - where fuel costs are skyrocketing and all costs are elevating at an enormous rate while the fares are still being depressed and the fare wars are going on - I think Mr. Harris is the guy who can do it.'' Finley said he was not nervous about his future. ``I went through the last one,'' he said. ``That one made me nervous. But this I feel is necessary and is a positive move to strengthen the company so we can move forward.'' ``If I was an employee, I'd really be concerned,'' passenger Robert Cloud of Houston said. Cloud was a reluctant Continental passenger and was sent to the airline on Monday by United Airlines when his United flight was canceled. ``I had heard they were having problems,'' he said while waiting to fly to San Francisco and then Bangkok. ``It's one of those hazards.'' ``I can just go to another airline,'' said Archie Buchanan, flying to Phoenix. ``Filing Chapter 11 doesn't normally mean you're going to quit flying - at least for the short term.'' ``I think we're too tired right now to worry,'' Beverly Zigal, of Austin, who was heading for Belize, Central America. ``Hopefully, we'll get back. It'll be interesting to see what transpires in the next few days. I hope it hits the newspapers down there but we'll be off on some remote island fishing.'' ``As long as we get there, we'll probably get back,'' added her companion, Jane Bessent. ``I've been through it three times before with other carriers,'' said one Continental flight officer, who refused to provide his name but said he was based in Newark. `You position yourself. It's a little bit of a surprise and it's kind of strange to hear this from a reporter.''
AP881222-0138 	X	The Commerce Department reported Thursday that orders for ``big ticket'' durable goods, excluding the volatile defense category, climbed 1.8 percent in November, a healthy increase which economists took as a sign of continued strength in the new year. When defense orders are included, total durable goods orders edged up only 0.1 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted $122.89 billion. That followed a giant 2.9 percent rise in October. The overall figure was inflated by a big jump in military orders in October and then depressed when military orders returned to more normal levels last month. Discounting the swings in defense, orders in the civilian category climbed 1.8 percent in November, the best showing since a 5.2 percent August increase. Civilian orders had risen only 0.2 percent in October. Analysts said they were impressed by the strength in civilian orders, saying the orders should keep U.S. plants humming through the first half of 1989. ``This was an impressive gain and it should pretty much insure that the economy will keep growing next year,'' said Michael Evans, head of a Washington forecasting firm. Analysts were particularly impressed with a 2.6 percent rise in orders for business capital goods, which rose to $35.5 billion. This industry is closely watched for signals of business intentions to expand and modernize. It was the first increase in this category after two consecutive monthly declines and eased fears that business investment could be tapering off. ``With business investment bouncing back up, there is a lot less reason to worry about next year,'' said David Wyss, an economist with Data Resources Inc. ``On the whole, things look pretty good, with strong shipments and strong orders promising continued growth.'' The manufacturing sector has been a driving force in the economy this year as U.S. companies have benefited from a weaker dollar which has boosted overseas sales. The boom in exports has in turn led to a surge in investment spending as businesses rushed to expanded production facilities. For November, much of the strength in durable goods _ items expected to last at least three years _ came from an 8.1 percent rise in demand for electrical machinery, which climbed to $20.5 billion. Much of this increase reflected rising demand for defense communications equipment. Total defense orders, however, fell by 17.6 percent to $8.81 billion following a 43.1 percent surge in October. The defense category is highly erratic, depending on when big government contracts are signed. Transportation orders fell 6.3 percent to $32.69 billion as virtually all categories except civilian aircraft suffered setbacks. Orders for non-electrical machinery edged down 0.5 percent to $21.05 billion, the third consecutive decline. Orders for primary metals rose 0.8 percent to $12.52 billion and now stand 11.4 percent higher than they were a year ago. Shipments of durable goods increased 1 percent to $119.6 billion in November, following a 0.3 percent advance in October.
AP880722-0214 	X	As shippers and other users probably suspected, the July drought dried up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to all-time lows and severely depressed flow in the Missouri, the U.S. Geological Survey said Friday. The survey's hydrogologists said the Mississippi at Keokuk, Iowa, averaged 10.5 billion gallons per day for the period July 1 through July 15, 74 percent below normal and 13 percent below the lowest previous July in 1936. At Vicksburg, Miss., the river averaged 93 billion gallons per day, 66 percent below normal and 22 percent below the 1934 record for the period. At Louisville, Ky., the Ohio averaged 5 billion gallons per day, 84 percent below normal and 3 percent under the smallest previous July flow recorded in 1930. The flow of the Missouri at Hermann, Mo., was 28.4 billion gallons per day, 42 percent below normal but still 31 percent above the July low-water record of 1936. The St. Lawrence River at Massena, N.Y. was still in the normal range, averaging 157 billion gallons per day or 11 percent below the normal mark. That was 21 percent higher than the July 1964 low-water record.
AP900710-0166 	X	A manufacturer of outdoor picnic equipment on Tuesday recalled hoses for 30,000 smoker-cookers because of possible fire hazards. The Coleman Co., Inc. recalled the hoses that connect to the propane gas tanks of its ``Cookin' Machines'' because they may loosen from the valve connection after repeated use, said the Consumer Product Safety Commission. ``If the hose should loosen when the valve is turned on, fuel may leak from the hose and could present a risk of personal injury or property damage if ignited,'' the agency said. There have been at least five reported incidents of loosened hoses causing fire damage, said the CPSC. The potentially hazardous hoses are installed on cookers manufactured by the Kansas-based company between November 1987 and March 1989. Consumers should discontinue use of the cookers immediately and contact Coleman at 1-800-835-3278 for instructions on free replacement of the hoses.
AP880729-0275 	X	American Health Cos. Inc., parent of Diet Center Inc., a franchiser of diet centers in North America, has agreed to be acquired for $157 million by two investor groups. The company said Thursday the groups, CDI Holdings Inc. and DC Acquisition Corp., will pay $22.50 per share to acquire about 6.95 million shares of American Health stock. American Health's common stock rose 25 cents in over-the-counter trading Thursday, closing at $22 a share. The sale was announced Thursday after a meeting of American Health's board of directors in Salt Lake City. American Health spokesman Jim Liljenquist declined to discuss why the company agreed to the proposal. Diet Center is a leading franchiser of diet and nutrition centers, with about 2,300 outlets in the United States and Canada. Separately, American Health said Thursday it earned $3.5 million in the first quarter of its fiscal year. The profit in the three months ended June 30 was 16 percent higher than the $3 million earned in the opening quarter of last year.
AP880801-0145 	X	Drunken-driving experts and bus safety officials will join witnesses to a bus crash that killed 27 people when testimony gets under way Tuesday in a National Transportation Safety Board hearing. The May 17 accident occurred when a pickup truck going the wrong way on Interstate 71 slammed into a bus owned by the Radcliff First Assembly of God church. Authorities contend the driver of the pickup was drunk at the time. NTSB spokesman Allan Pollock said accident survivors probably will not testify because the agency doesn't want to traumatize them. The pickup driver, Larry Mahoney, 35, has been indicted on 27 counts of murder, 13 counts of first-degree assault, 44 counts of first-degree wanton endangerment and one count of drunken driving. It will be the worst drunken-driving accident in U.S. history if he is convicted on the final charge, according to the NTBS and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The board will hear testimony on six issues, five of which concern drunken driving, Pollack said. The sixth involves bus safety. Pollock said testimony will be taken on the performance and capabilities of drivers under the influence of alcohol; the extent of the drunken-driving problem; and the effectiveness of alcohol education and treatment programs. He said the witnesses also will address the adequacy of sanctions Kentucky's courts impose on drunken drivers and the development of effective alcohol countermeasure programs like jail terms, fines and license revocation. The accident has raised questions about bus safety because all 67 passengers on board survived the impact but the victims died when the bus's gas tank was punctured, causing a fire that quickly engulfed the vehicle. The fire blocked the front door, leaving the rear emergency door as the only escape route. The safety issues to be discussed include emergency exits; the upgrading of buses built before April 1977 when stricter federal safety rules became effective; the flammability of seats; and the placement and protection of the fuel tank. The board will draft a report on the probable causes of the crash and make recommendations for avoiding similar accidents. The recommendations could be directed toward federal, state and local officials, as well as bus manufacturers, but the safety board has no power to require that any of them be implemented.
AP900705-0008 	X	Amid escalating warfare between arts supporters and religious conservatives, the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts may be decided this summer in a bruising House floor fight. Legislators on both sides agree that when Congress votes on whether to extend the federal arts agency's life for another five years, it almost certainly will impose restrictions on the content of works that receive tax-paid grants from the endowment. The furor began more than a year ago with criticism of NEA support for exhibitions of sexually graphic images by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and artist Andres Serrano. In recent months, it has erupted in a barrage of emotional newspaper and radio commercials, letter-writing campaigns and court battles. Endowment chairman John E. Frohnmayer, caught in the cross-fire since he took office nine months ago, came under renewed attack last Friday when he overruled an NEA panel's recommendations and rejected grants to four avant-garde ``solo performance theater artists.'' The People for the American Way Action Fund, a liberal lobbying group, said Frohnmayer's decision ``has the smell of politics all over it'' and was intended to placate right-wing critics of the arts endowment. One of the rejected artists, John Fleck of Los Angeles, charged that ``there's a strong movement going on to wipe out different voices, to have a homogeneous voice that suits certain people's morals.'' Solo performer Rachel Rosenthal of Los Angeles reportedly refused to accept her $11,250 endowment grant, saying the four rejected artists were among the best in their field. ``Why should I be considered clean and they're considered dirty?'' she asked. Ms. Rosenthal also refused to sign a controversial pledge that she would not use endowment funds for obscene, indecent or blasphemous art _ a condition imposed by Congress last fall at the urging of Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. Endowment officials say that of the 2,000 grants awarded so far this year, 670 artists or arts institutions have signed the agreement and received government money, 12 have signed the pledge with letters of protest and a half-dozen have rejected grant awards. The rest haven't yet responded. On the same day he rejected the four grants, Frohnmayer told an audience in his home town of Portland, Ore., that the stakes in the mushrooming controversy were high. ``A remarkable experiment that has lasted the last 25 years and has so enriched our country is indeed threatened with either extinction or severe crippling because of 20 images out of a million we have funded,'' he said. Frohnmayer, who opposes the Helms amendment, said the arts community must share the blame for the bitter controversy that imperils the endowment, an independent, $171-million federal agency whose arts grants must be matched by local private funds. ``We've acted much like spoiled children asking our parents to continue sending us money regardless of what we do, how we spend it or whether we are prepared to be held accountable,'' he said. NEA officials refused comment on published speculation that Frohnmayer might resign after the endowment's reauthorization bill passes Congress. When asked during his Portland speech if he planned to resign, Frohnmayer answered firmly, ``No way.'' Although no date has been scheduled for House action on the NEA bill, arts lobbyists expect a vote sometime before legislators begin their month-long summer recess in early August. Three or four major proposals circulating among House members include a conservative plan for severe restrictions on NEA grants and a major overhaul of the endowment that would shift a substantial portion of grant funds directly to state arts councils. Some conservatives favor abolishing the endowment. At the heart of the debate are conflicting arguments over the government's proper role in supporting the arts. The arts community and its supporters contend that restrictions on NEA grant recipients amount to government censorship. That argument is rejected by conservative lawmakers and religious fundamentalists, who say the real issue is the taxpayers' right to decide where their money is spent. The conflict is dramatized in toughly worded newspaper ads and radio spots sponsored by People for the American Way and its nemesis, the Christian Coalition led by evangelist Pat Robertson, who was a conservative presidential candidate in 1988. ``Do you want to face the voters in your district with the charge that you are wasting their hard-earned money to promote sodomy, child pornography and attacks on Jesus Christ?'' Robertson asked in a full-page letter to members of Congress that was published in The Washington Post and USA Today. People for the American Way put such performers as Colleen Dewhurst, Kathleen Turner and Garrison Keillor on the air to counterattack. ``Imagine a world in which millions of people are at the mercy of a small band of extremists, in which works of art are subject to government censorship and freedom of expression is a crime,'' said Miss Dewhurst. ``Now stop imagining. Welcome to America, 1990.''
AP900403-0082 	X	Restaurateur by any spelling, whether with an ``n'' or without, is not a favorite word of keepers of the language, according to a survey. But if they have to use the word for keeper of a restaurant, they'll take it without the ``n,'' said respondents to the 12th English language usage survey by the Indiana University School of Journalism. ``Many in the survey found it stuffy no matter how it is spelled, though its use is patently expanding in this country,'' Professor Richard L. Tobin wrote in the survey released this week. The 10-question survey was mailed to 100 newspaper copy editors and 50 magazine editors in the United States and Canada and got a 60 percent return, Tobin said. ``The consensus throughout this year's survey was mighty close to unanimous in almost every example, which just goes to show that copyreaders know what they're doing and do it like the sterling language-usage guardians they are put there to be,'' the survey said. Nearly all editors agree ``percent'' should be one word and not two. Most editors agreed the region Deep South should be uppercase. Most copydesks caught the misuse of ``tremblor'' instead of ``temblor,'' in a line from a Maryland newspaper reporting a Palm Springs earthquake. Most changed ``forego'' to ``forgo'' in the sentence: ``The university decided to forego the traditional faculty banquet because of the financial situation.'' Copydesks were asked whether ``gibe'' or ``jibe'' was correct in the following sentence: ``Three suspects were taken to police headquarters but detectives announced later that their stories didn't gibe.'' The verdict was almost unanimous that ``jibe'' was correct. ``Complacent'' was correctly preferred over ``complaisant'' in an item saying a soccer team had become ``complaisant'' after four straight victories. Most Canadians agree a person of Scottish descent is ``Scotch'' rather than ``Scot,'' which is preferred in the homeland. ``Several respondents in our survey said they'd given up trying to substitute `Scot' for `Scotch,' and anyway it really didn't matter all that much,'' the survey said. Editors chose ``theretofore'' over ``hitherto'' in the sentence: ``In 1864, President Lincoln spent the hitherto unheard of sum of $3,000,000 on naval construction.'' Almost no one chose ``peddle'' over ``pedal'' in the final question, which came from a Florida sports page: ``When you're riding a bicycle you use the brake and the peddle with caution on today's highways.''
AP881111-0157 	X	A boat overloaded with moviegoers sank in a canal in southern Andhra Pradesh state, and at least 20 people drowned, Indian news agencies said Friday. The boat was carrying 70 people at the time of the accident in the Yenamadaru canal late Thursday, said Press Trust of India. The bodies of 17 victims _ 10 women, three men and four children _ have been recovered, district officials told the United News of India news agency. The accident site is about 800 miles southeast of New Delhi. District authorities have issued warrants for the arrest of two boatmen absconding after the accident, UNI said. They have been charged with causing the accident because of negligence and overloading, the news agency said.
AP900326-0151 	X	Families of murder victims from across Massachusetts gathered Monday to open the headquarters of a victims support group named for a high school student who was stabbed to death by Willie Horton in 1974. ``The ordeal my family has endured has brought us together with other families of murder victims,'' Donna Fournier Cuomo said in opening the Joey Fournier Victim Services' office across from the Statehouse. The group provides free counseling to relatives of murder victims and plans to lobby for legislation to change the criminal justice system. Cuomo, the group's founder and executive director, was Fournier's sister. Fournier, a 17-year-old vocational high school student, was stabbed, stuffed in a trash can and left to die by Horton. The case of Horton, who escaped while on furlough from prison and attacked a Maryland couple, became a highly publicized issue during the 1988 presidential campaign. Then-candidate George Bush used it to criticize Gov. Michael S. Dukakis' record on crime. Joey Fournier Victim Services already offers counseling in Lawrence in the northeastern section of the state, where Fournier grew up, and wants to open centers in other sections of Massachusetts. About 20 to 30 people attended Monday's opening, including Duane and Phyllis Hotchkiss of Saugus, whose 19-year-old son Brian was slain in 1989 in Lynn. ``I'm determined that our son's death is not going to be in vain,'' said Hotchkiss, who donated $100 to the group. The group needs to raise another $100,000, said Cuomo, who would not say how much has been raised. Counseling ordinarily costs about $100 a session, but not everybody can afford it and not all health insurance plans cover it, said Cuomo. Cuomo's voice wavered as she read the names of victims whose families were present. ``One tragic result of violent crime is the lasting effect it has on the victim's family. I know my family will never be the same,'' said Cuomo, who is no relation to New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. In addition to offering counseling, the headquarters will serve as the center for a coalition of victim support groups, including Parents of Murdered Children, the Young Adult Sibling Group and Victims for Victims. The Joey Fournier group has already introduced bills to repeal the state's criminal records law, which shields criminal records from public scrutiny. The organization also has submitted legislation to limit the governor's powers to commute sentences and another measure to require ``truth in sentencing'' so that convicted criminals will actually serve the time of their sentence.
AP901101-0040 	X	Amnesty International said today that Britain has refused entry to asylum-seekers who risk being returned to countries where they could face imprisonment, torture and death. A report by the London-based human rights group said Britain's refugee-determination system fails to uphold its obligations under the U.N. Convention on Refugees. ``As many as 100, and possibly many more, persons seeking asylum in the United Kingdom have been summarily and unlawfully expelled without a proper examination of their asylum claim,'' the 42-page report said without giving a specific number or time frame. ``In addition, an untold number of would-be asylum seekers have been prevented from gaining access to the United Kingdom's refugee-determination process,'' it added. The Home Office, in charge of immigration, said the report failed to recognize that most asylum-seekers were not fleeing political persecution under the terms of the 1951 U.N. convention. It said unfounded asylum claims were now widespread as a means of circumventing normal immigration controls and that Britain has been flooded with applications in recent years. The Amnesty report charged that Britain gives insufficient advice to asylum-seekers and that officials subject them to arbitrary and prolonged detention while their cases are being considered. It said most of those who arrive saying they are seeking asylum have no right of appeal when refused it. It said visa requirements and fines on airlines that arrive with foreign passengers who don't have proper travel documents have combined to obstruct bona fide asylum-seekers from gaining effective access to Britain's refugee-determination system. The Home Office statement said refugee-determination systems throughout Europe and North America are overwhelmed by unfounded claims and that backlogs in the two regions have doubled to more than 400,000 cases since 1985. It said that in Britain, applications for asylum have risen fivefold since 1988 and have reached more than 20,000 in the past 12 months. It said backlogged applications in Britain now number 27,000.
AP880609-0191 	X	Two House committees on Thursday approved legislation that would sever virtually all economic ties between the United States and South Africa to pressure the Pretoria government to abandon its policy of racial apartheid. The measure was approved by the Intelligence and Armed Services committees, both meeting in closed-door sessions, after amendments were added that would permit the United States to share intelligence information about Cuban military activities in southern Africa and permit military cooperation with South Africa if the president determines such ties to be in the national interest, committee aides said. The bill, which still must clear two more committees before it can go to the full House for action, would require U.S. disinvestment in South Africa within a year and ban most trade between the two countries. As originally written, the bill also would have banned military and intelligence cooperation. But the two committees added language creating an exemption for diplomatic activities and intelligence sharing concerning Cuban activities in Angola, where U.S.-backed rebels are fighting the Marxist government. Committee aides said the exemption was granted in part to avoid having the sanctions bill become a vehicle for a renewed debate over U.S. support for the Angolan rebels. The Armed Services panel also approved an amendment by Rep. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., permitting military cooperation if the president deems it in the national interest. Both committees reported the bill out on voice votes. The measure still must clear the Ways and Means and Interior committees before being considered by the full House, where it is expected to pass. The measure is expected to have a tougher time in the Senate, however, because it lacks the Republican support which was crucial to passage of a limited sanctions bill two years ago.
AP900530-0045 	X	A flower grower and seven other people are charged with enslaving more than 100 undocumented workers from Mexico and forcing them to work long hours at petty wages. Lured by promises of good pay, the Mexicans were smuggled into the United States, then kept at the 50-acre ranch until they could pay off a $435 smuggling fee, according to a federal grand jury indictment issued Tuesday. The ranch operators beat workers and threatened to alert immigration authorities if they tried to leave the compound, which was surrounded by a 7-foot fence, the indictment alleged. Ranch owner Edwin M. Ives, 54, and five other people face up to 52 years in prison and $2 million in fines if convicted of all 15 charges in the indictment, federal prosecutors said. The charges involve labor and civil rights violations and a federal anti-slavery statute, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Gillam. Two ranch foremen, Naju Lnu and Paringer Singh, were named in a criminal complaint filed last month. ``This is a very significant case that involves very serious violations of people's human rights,'' Gillam said. The charges were developed based on allegations by former workers and ranch documents, Gillam said. Ives' attorney, Robert M. Talcott, has maintained that Ives was not aware of any abuses at his Griffith Ives Co. ranch in Somis, in Ventura County about 50 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The indictment alleges that Ives supervised the ranch operation and on one occasion personally recruited an undocumented worker and told another that he could not leave the ranch until his smuggling fees were paid. Prosecutors maintain the workers toiled 16 hours a day for a fraction of the $4.25-per-hour minimum wage. In addition, workers were required to buy food and basic staples from a company store at inflated prices, the indictment said. ``As a result of these deductions, the alien workers often received net pay for over 160 hours of work in a 15-day period of less than $100, and in some cases, actually no pay, because the deductions exceeded the amount of the paycheck,'' the indictment said. One worker allegedly suffered permanent head and back injuries during a beating. Ives refused to pay for treatment in the United States and instead gave the worker $100 to help pay for treatment in Mexico, the indictment said. Also named in the indictment were Pedro Pinzon, 30, Rony Havive, 30, Alvaro Ruiz, 39, Josue David Pinzon, 23, and the alleged smuggler, Mauro Casares, 64.
AP880901-0120 	X	President Maung Maung today rejected protesters' demands for an interim government but said he will allow the formation of student unions, which have been illegal in Burma. Earlier today, striking employees closed Rangoon's airport despite a government warning. Striking public employees said 1 million people would turn out for an anti-government rally at a park, but only about 100,000 showed up. In a speech broadcast over state-run Rangon radio, Maung Maung said any changes in Burma's one-party government must follow constitutional procedures. He said the government already plans a Sept. 12 meeting to consider holding a referendum on one-party rule, a process that could lead to amendment of the constitution and general elections. He added that Article 11 of the Constitution, under which only the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party is legal, must be changed. In what was seen as a gesture to students who have been at the vanguard of pro-democracy protests, Maung Maung said the government would permit student unions as long as they were ``properly formed.'' He also said that after passions cooled, the government would rebuild the Rangoon University student union building, which the military destroyed in July 1962 after Ne Win led the coup that ended democracy in Burma. Ne Win, who resigned in July after 26 years of authoritarian rule, abolished all political parties except his own, outlawed all unions and opposition groups and imposed rigid controls on the media. Since Maung Maung came to power Aug. 19, replacing hardliner Sein Lwin, masses of demonstrators have rallied and held strikes demanding immediate formation of an interim government to restore democracy. On Aug. 24, Maung Maung promised the party would hold an emergency meeting to consider a referendum on the issue. But the call did not end protests. On Sunday, students announced they had formed an illegal student union. The airport strike halted all international flights and further isolated the Southeast Asian nation. Union Burma Airways last Friday suspended both domestic and international service, but flights by other carriers had continued from Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand. The All Services General Strike Committee, an illegal government association that was formed Tuesday, had called for 1 million workers from government departments and state-owned corporations to rally at Bandoola Gardens, the capital's largest park. People marched along Rangoon's main streets this morning and by noon, several thousand striking state employees and students had gathered outside the park. But the crowd appeared poorly organized and no attempt was made to enter the park. An hour later, all but a few hundred demonstators had peacefully dispersed. Two small rallies, one outside the nearby U.S. Embassy and one at a nearby government building, also broke up. On Wednesday, the government of President Maung Maung warned it would take action against demonstrators illegally occupying government buildings and facilities. Crowds in cities throughout Burma have taken over and sometimes destroyed offices of the government and of the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party. Government troops, who have not intervened in protests since five days of bloody riots forced Sein Lwin to resign Aug. 12, took over local government offices in the Bahan and Sanchaung areas of the capital Wednesday night and began repairing them. Members of former leader Ne Win's entourage, meanwhile, went to the Foreign Trade Bank on Wednesday and tried to transfer the equivalent of $3 million to a bank in London, a senior bank official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said junior bank employees heard about the request and demanded the bank not comply. They said Ne Win no long had authority to order such transfers. As word spread of the transfer request, a crowd gathered arond the bank and senior bank officials eventually rejected it, the official said. He declined to identify the people who sought the transfer or the bank in London. In another development, at least five illegal newspapers have appeared on the streets of Rangoon, selling briskly at 83 cents a copy, about 10 times the cost of the six government-approved newspapers. They have been reporting news of anti-government activities.
AP880527-0128 	X	Movie buffs expecting to see a classic film about British military hero Adm. Horatio Nelson instead got a soft-porn flick about Nelson's love affair with an aristocrat. A spokeswoman for the Watershed Media Center said a mislabeled film container caused the mix-up Thursday night. The center planned to show ``Lady Hamilton,'' the 1941 film starring Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier that tells the story of Nelson and his love affair. Center spokeswoman Sara Davies said ``Emma Hamilton,'' the pornographic movie about the same subject, was mistakenly put in the film can. About half the audience of 20 walked out when shots of a half-naked woman appeared on screen. ``The film can was labeled `Lady Hamilton,' and we believe it was a catalog error by the National Film Archives,'' said Ms. Davies. ``The projection staff soon realized something was wrong and stopped the film.'' ``Lady Hamilton,'' also called ``That Hamilton Woman,'' was a U.S.-made film designed to increase pro-British sentiment during World War II. It was reportedly Winston Churchill's favorite movie. Ms. Davies said irate patrons received their money back along with a free ticket to another show. The center showed ``Streetcar Named Desire'' that night.
AP880225-0307 	X	Indications that the Brazilian soybean crop may be larger than expected sent U.S. soybean futures prices down modestly Thursday on the Chicago Board of Trade. Grain futures closed mixed to lower. Soybean futures opened lower on news that rain had eased dry conditions in the soybean-growing region of Brazil. Later in the morning, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics estimated the impending harvest would yield 19.4 million metric tons, significantly higher than the U.S. Agriculture Department's latest estimate of 18.5 million metric tons. ``This estimate was obviously negative for the U.S. market, and it took off any rallying attempt the beans might have had,'' said Walter Spilka, an analyst in New York for Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. Grain and soybean futures also retreated in reaction to generally lower prices for other commodities, Spilka said. Losses in corn were limited by expectations of new Soviet purchases, he said. At the close, wheat was 2 cents lower to 1 cent higher with the contract for delivery in March at $3.18 a bushel; corn was unchanged to { cent lower with March at $1.98{ a bushel; oats were { cent lower to } cent higher with March at $1.90} a bushel; soybeans were 1{ cents to 3\ cents lower with March at $6.22 a bushel.
AP880425-0022 	X	Michael M. Wiese has seen the Vietnam War twice: first-hand as a gunner on a helicopter, and through fleeting images captured by soldiers on 8mm home movie film. Wiese, 38, estimates he has collected 1,000 hours of amateur footage during the last decade. Some of it is entertaining and some is boring but little is gory. All of it helps neutralize the nightmare of Vietnam, Wiese says. He has pieced together some of his best footage in a 90-minute videocassette being test marketed in the Indianapolis area. The tape, ``Helicopter Gunship Assault,'' is the first of what Wiese hopes will be a series of at least six tapes. ``In 90 percent of the film, it's unknown to me who took it or where it was taken,'' he said. ``But still, everybody wanted to watch it because what a soldier would take a picture of over there just to show mom was not what they were showing on the news.'' To Wiese, who spent seven months behind a machine gun aboard an Army helicopter, the film ``is the best therapy I ever had. It's like reliving a nightmare. If you relive it long enough, it's not a nightmare anymore. I've watched this 300 times, and I'm never bored. ```Nam was such a hard story for everybody to tell people back home about,'' he said. ``This makes the memories bubble out of you.'' Some footage shows soldiers escaping the war on a muggy day by landing their helicopters on a riverbank and taking a swim. Another scene shows helicopters dropping down to rescue patrols under attack. There are scenes of helicopter gunships firing at ground targets and receiving return fire. Most of the footage is remarkably intact after 20 years; little of the color has faded. One pilot shows the hut he made from scrap wood and discarded rocket boxes after his tent rotted through. Another narrates as a dog yaps in the background. ``If you watch over to the left, you'll see the tracers coming up at us,'' he says. ``There they are.'' Wiese says he has come across few gory scenes. ``I have some helicopter accidents,'' he says. ``I got aftermath of an ambush. But actual combat footage, I don't have much,'' he said. ``Soldiers were paid to keep their heads down.'' Vietnam was the first war in which soldiers could carry a lightweight camera with automatic shutter control and focusing capability. Still, Wiese says very little 8mm footage was shot in Vietnam. His first three reels were purchased for $1 each at a flea market. ``They were very boring,'' he said. ``I wanted at one time to collect photographs _ I lost my own collection,'' he said. ``And everyone has photos. But the 8mm stuff is real rare.'' So he started placing ads in local papers and national publications asking veterans to send him their film. He then transferred the film to VHS tape, returning one tape and the original film to the owner, and keeping a copy for himself. When possible, he got the soldiers to send an audio cassette narrative. Wiese, who formed a company called ``Vietnam Archives,'' has the owner sign an agreement giving him rights to the film. ``I promise to give them a royalty on each cassette,'' he said. He hopes to place his videos in libraries. ``I'm no Steven Spielberg,'' said Wiese. ``My intention is a real simple one: to collect this film and save it. I think some of it is worth being preserved. ``And it's great to get a bunch of guys together and sit down and watch this. You just can't believe the lies these guy will tell from their war stories.''
AP900105-0065 	X	The forecful editorial voice of Panama's La Prensa newspaper will be heard again Sunday for the first time in nearly two years if its exiled publisher can ``patch it together'' in time. ``We are running around like chickens with our heads cut off buying computer parts and so forth and hoping to get our first edition out on the streets by Sunday morning,'' Roberto Eisenmann Jr. said Thursday. Eisenmann, who has worked as a Miami bank executive while in exile, planned to travel to Panama City today in the absence of ousted leader Gen. Manuel Noriega. Pro-Noriega forces repeatedly shut down the presses of Panama's leading independent newspaper, the last time in February 1988. After receiving a dire report on conditions at the newspaper office, Eisenmann said, ``I don't know how we're going to do it with 95 percent destruction, but we're going to do it.'' Staff members returned to the newspaper plant on Christmas Day for the first time since the closure. ``The team came together immediately, and everybody's been working around the clock cannibalizing all the equipment to make one computer out of three,'' he said. ``We're going to patch it together with Band-Aids and be on the streets.'' Eisenmann, whose voice had been a thorn in the side of Noriega, said he had ``absolutely no problem'' with U.S. prosecution of Noriega on drug charges. ``Panama at this point has no capability. The judiciary system is not yet organized,'' he said. ``There isn't even a secure jail in the country at this point.'' The publisher said he expected Noriega to be returned to Panama for prosecution on human-rights abuses after the U.S. trial. Meanwhile, Eisenmann's time was occupied with ordering computer parts and preparing to fly home. ``When you're in exile, you live for the return,'' he said. ``Everybody that I know is packing bags and getting ready to go back.''
AP901130-0186 	X	BUSINESS EDITORS COMPOSING ROOMS The Associated Press will conduct another test transmission from its new market computer system on SUnday beginning at noon Eastern time. The test will be conducted on both Digital, Dataspeed and slow-speed circuits. This is ONLY a test. We ask those receiving the transmission to respond Monday by calling the AP in New York at 212-621-1568.
AP880330-0133 	X	McDonnell Douglas Corp. became the Pentagon's top research contractor in fiscal 1987, winning awards totaling $1.7 billion, the Defense Department said Wednesday. Among educational and non-profit entities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology continued to hold down the top ranking, winning research contracts during the year worth $407.6 million. The Johns Hopkins University was close behind with awards totaling $354.9 million. Overall, the Pentagon increased its spending on research by more than 10 percent during fiscal 1987, with awards reaching a grand total of $21.8 billion. That compared with $19.8 billion in fiscal 1986. Much of last year's increase appeared related to work on President Reagan's Star Wars anti-missile system. The amount of money invested in research on ``missile and space systems'' climbed from $6.9 billion in fiscal 1986 to $7.9 billion in fiscal 1987. Moreover, the Martin Marietta Corp. _ a key Star Wars contractor _ vaulted from fifth place in the fiscal 1986 rankings to second place last year with contract awards rising from $695.3 million to $1.6 billion. The latest figures are contained in a report prepared annually by the Pentagon to rank the top 500 companies or non-profit groups performing ``research, development, test and evaluation'' work. The rankings are based on a review of all contracts totaling $25,000 or more awarded during the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30. McDonnell Douglas, whose overall ranking as the nation's largest defense contractor was announced just a month ago, displaced the Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. in assuming the top spot for research. McDonnell Douglas' research contracts climbed from $928 million in fiscal 1986 to $1.7 billion in fiscal 1987. Because of Martin Marietta's abrupt rise, Lockheed fell to 3rd place in the research rankings, winning contracts in fiscal 1987 worth $1.54 billion compared with $1.48 billion the year before. The remainder of the Top 10 included the Boeing Co. in 4th place with awards totaling $1.2 billion, followed by the Grumman Aerospace Corp., $901.5 million; General Electric Co., $784.4 million; Raytheon Co., $593.8 million; TRW Inc., $556.6 million; Rockwell International Corp., $494 million; and IBM, $470.9 million. The $407.6 million in research contracts won by MIT was enough to give it the 11th place ranking overall. In fiscal 1986, MIT had won contracts worth $363.9 million and was ranked 14th overall. Among other educational and non-profit entities, Johns Hopkins was 2nd in fiscal 1987 with $354.9 million and a 15th ranking overall, followed by The Mitre Corp., $347.5 million, 16th overall; The Aerospace Corp., $338.9 million, 18th overall; and Charles Stark Draper Lab Inc., $164.7 million, 26th overall. All told, the top 500 concerns accounted for 97 percent of the total research contracts awarded, or $21.2 billion. The top 500 included 380 businesses, 100 educational and non-profit organizations, three U.S. government agencies and 17 foreign contractors. The research awards to foreign concerns totaled $114.3 million, up only slightly from the $106.9 million reported in fiscal 1986. The leading foreign contractor remained the same, the Canadian Commercial Corp., with awards totaling $25.9 million.
AP900328-0089 	X	Rep. Barney Frank, whose personal and professional relationship with a male prostitute is being investigated by the House ethics committee, said Wednesday that he will decide soon whether to seek a sixth term. The Massachusetts Democrat had said he would make no political announcement until the committee discloses its findings into his relationship with Stephen Gobie. However, Frank said he would begin raising campaign funds. ``You reach the point where if you don't do anything, you've decided by default,'' Frank said. Congressional candidates must formally submit nomination papers by May 8. A closed-door session of the ethics committee was set for Wednesday afternoon and there was speculation that an announcement would be made on the Frank case. Rep. Chester Atkins, D-Mass., a member of the panel, planned to attend the meeting. His attendance has been taken as a sign that Frank was not on the agenda because Atkins said last fall he would not attend meetings in which the Frank case was discussed. Atkins said his friendship with Frank and his role as the Democratic State Committee chairman in Massachusetts made him unable to remain impartial. Frank plans weekend fund-raisers in Boston and other towns to mark his 50th birthday Saturday. No Democrats have announced plans to run for Frank's seat. Two relatively unknown Republicans, lawyer John Soto and physician Jim Nuzzo, are running. The committee is investigating whether Frank violated House ethics regulations in his relationship with Gobie. Gobie alleges that Frank was aware he was running a sex-for-hire ring out of the congressman's Capitol Hill apartment. Frank said he fired Gobie from his job of personal assistant in 1986 after he learned of the prostitution ring. Frank has said he initially paid Gobie for sex, but later befriended him and gave him the job in an effort to change Gobie's life. Frank said he has testified before the ethics committee and has supplied it with all the documents and other information requested.
AP900318-0074 	X	A storefront church collapsed Sunday afternoon, trapping an 84-year-old Baptist minister and a female worshiper under a pile of rubble, authorities said. The Rev. Romey L. Barber, his wife and two female parishoners were leaving the Southern Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church about 1:20 p.m. when the three-story building collapsed forward onto them, according to Fire Department supervisor Stephen Imszennik. The pastor and 53-year-old Jean Tucker were trapped for a half hour, authorities said. Barber suffered multiple fractures and was in serious condition at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, while Ms. Tucker was in guarded condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, spokeswomen said. The building appeared to have been ``structurally defective in some way,'' Imszennik said.
AP881130-0050 	X	A journalist won the 1988 National Book Award for non-fiction with a book about the Vietnam War, and a newspaper columnist took the fiction prize for a novel about the murder of a girl in Georgia. Neil Sheehan, 52, author of ``A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam,'' and Peter Dexter, 45, who wrote ``Paris Trout,'' were honored Tuesday night at an awards ceremony attended by 500 people. The authors each received $10,000 and a Louise Nevelson sculpture. ``I feel like a man who was on a long voyage of discovery ... who's finally come home,'' said Sheehan, his eyes damp with tears as he accepted the award for his book, which took him 16 years to write. Sheehan was United Press International's Vietnam bureau chief in 1962 and worked for The New York Times from 1964 to 1972. He obtained the Pentagon Papers in 1971 while working for the newspaper. Sheehan is the author of ``The Arnheiter Affair.'' ``A Bright Shining Lie'' tells the story of the Vietnam War through the eyes of Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a troubled but dedicated career officer who spoke out against the brutality and ineffectiveness of the early U.S. strategy in Southeast Asia. Sheehan, a resident of Washington, said he wrote the book hoping that ``it would help my country ... come to grips with the war. ``The most moving reactions I get are from Vietnam veterans who write or call and say, `You put me back there. That's what it was like. For the first time I know what it was all about. I know why it happened the way it happened,''' he said. ``That's very moving. That's what I wanted to achieve.'' Dexter's novel is about the murder of a 14-year-old black girl by a white man in a small Georgia town just after World War II. The book was inspired by a shooting that took place when he was a child in Milledgeville, Ga. ``I just started putting that together and remembering things and that sort of became the spine of the novel,'' he said. Dexter, a columnist for The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee and a frequent contributor to national magazines, said the novel's success would not lead him to give up his column, which he writes three times a week. ``I'm not someone to hole up in the woods and produce a novel every two years. I like being on the street and hearing different voices,'' said Dexter, who has written two other novels. The books honored Tuesday were published by Random House, whose editorial director, Jason Epstein, also was honored. Epstein was the first winner of the National Book Awards Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. ``This is really a happenstance,'' Robert Loomis, executive editor of the publishing house, said of the awards sweep. Other fiction nominees were: Don DeLillo for ``Libra''; J.F. Powers for ``Wheat That Springeth Green''; Mary McGarry Morris for her first novel, ``Vanished''; and Anne Tyler for ``Breathing Lessons.'' The other non-fiction nominees were: Peter Gay for his biography, ``Freud: A Life For Our Time''; Eric Foner for ``Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877''; Brenda Maddox for ``Nora,'' a biography of James Joyce's lifelong companion and muse; and Jack McLaughlin's ``Jefferson and Monticello.'' The National Book Awards, established 38 years ago, are awarded by a panel of judges chosen by the National Book Awards Inc., a non-profit institution dedicated to creating a wider audience for American literature.
AP880920-0039 	X	For all the grand designs of the presidential nominees, a large number of Americans believe neither candidate could deliver on most of his campaign promises, a Media General-Associated Press poll has found. About half the 1,125 adults in the national survey saw both men as strong leaders, with Michael Dukakis rated by more as compassionate and George Bush rated by more as competent to manage the federal government. But just 36 percent said Bush could accomplish most of his stated goals in office, and only 31 percent said Dukakis could do most of what he wants. Nearly half said either would be stymied in office; the rest were unsure. Seven in 10 respondents agreed nonetheless that the outcome of the election will have a major impact on the nation's future. But they were divided evenly, 45-45, on whether the election will affect them personally. Results of the poll, conducted the week after Labor Day, underscored Bush's success since the Republican Convention at controlling the campaign agenda. Fifty-two percent said he had clear positions on the issues, while just 37 percent said the same of Dukakis. The results were released Monday. Bush also was perceived as the better government manager, 50-34, despite Dukakis' claim to the issue. And 77 percent said Bush understands the complex problems a president faces, while only 44 percent said that of Dukakis. Bush won overwhelming endorsement as better able to maintain a strong defense, chosen over Dukakis by 67 percent 15 percent. Bush was narrowly seen as more likely to cut the federal deficit, 38-30. In a measure that bodes well for an incumbent party, six in 10 said they were better off now than they were four years ago or eight years ago, and 55 percent expected their family finances to improve in the next few years. Bush had mixed success in his effort to paint Dukakis as more likely to raise taxes: A plurality, 45 percent, said there wasn't likely to be any difference between the two when it comes to that issue. Dukakis was rated higher than Bush on some personal issues. Sixty-two percent said Dukakis cares about people like them, while 50 percent said that of Bush. Forty-two percent said Bush sometimes talks carelessly, without considering the consequences; just 30 percent said that of Dukakis. The two were about equal in some other ratings: Six in 10 said both offer a vision of where they want to lead the country and five in 10 said both were strong leaders. Six in 10 said Bush would have good judgment under pressure and five in 10 said that of Dukakis. Bush was rated as better for the rich and Dukakis as better for the poor, but respondents were split on which would do more for the middle class. They were nearly split on which candidate would do more to improve education, with 39 percent choosing Dukakis and 33 percent Bush. Bush led solidly among respondents who said they plan to vote and had definitely made a choice, partly because a greater share of Republicans said they had decided. The gauge is a different one than in other national polls. Fifty-seven percent said they planned to vote and had made a definite choice; they favored Bush by 56-39. Dukakis led, 48-42, in a late June-early July poll, indicating that even opinions expressed as firm are movable. The poll found a three-way split in ideology, with about a third each calling themselves Republicans, Democrats and independents. Other recent polls had similar results, a departure from the longtime Democratic lead in this measure. The Media General-AP poll was conducted the week after Labor Day, Sept. 6-14, among a random sample of adults nationwide. It had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points for all respondents, four points for those who said they planned to vote and had chosen a candidate. Media General Inc., a communications company based in Richmond, Va., publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Richmond News Leader, the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune and the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, and operates TV stations WXFL in Tampa, WCBD in Charleston, S.C., and WJKS in Jacksonville, Fla.
AP900905-0189 	X	As the trademark piano received a final tuning, sales help scurried around the new Nordstrom Inc. department store unpacking the remaining boxes, rearranging clothes racks and getting to know the inventory. The opening of the Nordstrom store at the Garden State Plaza shopping mall in Paramus, N.J., marks the retailer's first foray into the fiercely competitive Northeast. The official debut occurs Friday when the 245,000-square-foot store opens for business. Members of the media were given a preview tour of the store Tuesday. Operating in this area might pose the biggest challenge yet for the West Coast chain that has been migrating eastward as part of an ambitious expansion. A struggling regional economy has shaken consumer confidence and crimped spending. Crisis in the Middle East could further curb retail spending as the critical holiday season approaches. Nonetheless, Nordstrom executives seem optimistic about entering the market and private analysts say the retailer stands a good chance to thrive here. Its service-oriented brand of retailing, combined with broad assortments of reliable quality merchandise, will give it an edge over rivals with less favorable reputations, analysts say. ``I think it's probably one of the best _ if not the best _ department stores in the country,'' said Carl Steidtmann, chief economist at Management Horizons, the retail management and market research division of the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. ``The fact that the competition is in such a state of disarray might make it a good time to go into the Northeast.'' Richard Pyle, a retail analyst at Piper Jaffray & Hopwood Inc., said Nordstrom, which focuses on women's, men's and children's fashions, shoes and accessories, is in far better financial shape than its competitors. Some department stores, such as Macy's _ which is a Nordstrom neighbor at the Garden State Plaza _ are courting customers aggressively to boost business and pay off debts. Others, such as Saks Fith Avenue, are adjusting to life under new owners who are closely monitoring bottom lines. The 61-store Nordstrom chain dates back to 1901 when Swedish immigrant John W. Nordstrom founded a Seattle shoe shop with money made mining gold in Alaska. Nordstrom still emphasizes shoes; the Paramus store boasts an inventory of some 70,000 ladies' shoes and 30,000 men's. The chain has historically prided itself on top-notch service and stories abound about its sales associates going to unusual lengths to please people. ``Nordies'' have been known to personally deliver merchandise to customers' homes and to write thank-you notes to customers _ typically on their own time. The legendary service has been a key to landing customers in new markets. As elsewhere, the Paramus store employs personal shoppers who will help customers select apparel, assemble outfits and accessorize. A concierge stationed near the entrance will steer customers in the right direction and handle special requests. Shoppers have three restaurants to choose from on the store's three levels and a spa offering massages, facials, manicures, pedicures and waxing. James F. Nordstrom, one of three descendents of the founder who currently bear the title co-chairman, said shoppers appreciate being treated well no matter what part of the country they live in. Apart from minor adjustments in merchandise mix, he said there have been no special adaptations made in bringing the Seattle-based retailer east. The chain already operates two stores in the Virginia suburbs of Washington and intends to open two more in New Jersey over the next two years, plus one in New York in 1993. Its growth strategy calls for about four openings a year. ``We just think customers like a lot of selection, good quality and to be treated nicely,'' he said in a telephone interview from the company's headquarters. One blot on the Nordstrom name appeared earlier this year when the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries, acting after a union complaint, ruled that the company has failed to pay employees for some of the extras they provide. The agency ordered Nordstrom to properly compensate employees for work and to pay back wages. Industry analysts say Nordstrom has weathered the bad publicity without much damage to its reputation. A $15 million reserve the company set aside to pay back wage claims should be adequate. James Nordstrom said the labor problems, which have been confined mostly to the Seattle area, haven't impaired the retailer's results. Many employees have proven their commitment to the company, he said, by paying their own way to transfer to new stores. The Paramus store will have about 100 sales associates who have previously worked elsewhere for Nordstrom. An additional 100 managers were transferred by the company, which has a policy of promoting from within. About 900 employees overall will work at the Garden State Plaza store. Nordstrom's sales and profits haven't been as impressive lately as they had been in the recent past. Earnings slid 20 percent in the first half of this year to $49 million on sales of $1.36 billion. That deterioration came after a 7 percent income drop last year to $115 million despite a 14.7 percent sales gain to $2.7 billion. Nordstrom also has felt the pinch of the currently sluggish retail climate. Co-chairman Nordstrom said, ``It's fair to say that our planned increase in sales is greater than the increase we're experiencing.'' He said the retailer is taking a conservative approach to the coming season and will tighten inventory slightly. If business doesn't measure up chainwide for a prolonged period, Nordstrom may scale back its expansion plans. ``We're not going to leverage ourselves and grow for growth sake,'' Nordstrom said, noting that some openings may be delayed if necessary. At the Paramus store, retail analysts say the company is hoping sales will exceed $100 million in the first year. Nordstrom executives declined to disclose projections.
AP901029-0161 	X	A jury was seated Monday in a trial to decide who is the rightful owner of a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver Jack Ruby used to kill presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The case before Dallas County Probate Judge Robert E. Price could end 23 years of legal wrangling between Ruby's heirs and Jules Mayer, a lawyer who knew Ruby and was named executor of the Dallas nightclub owner's estate. But with the twists and turns the case has taken through the judicial system since Ruby died Jan. 3, 1967, nothing is certain. The six-person jury selected Monday was expected to hear opening statements Tuesday. The court is dealing with the questions of how to distribute Ruby's assets and whether to remove Mayer as executor. Mayer still practices law at age 82. Attorneys for Ruby's brother, Earl, were expected to question Mayer's ability to handle the estate in light of his advanced age. Potential jurors were questioned about their views on mandatory retirement and a person's professional effectiveness beyond a certain age. The most valuable asset in the estate is the .38-caliber Colt Cobra Ruby used to kill Oswald in the basement of the Dallas City Jail two days after President Kennedy's assassination here in 1963. Ruby was convicted of murder in 1964 and sentenced to die in the electric chair. A Texas appeals court overturned the conviction in 1966, citing reasons that included failure to move the trial from Dallas. Ruby died at age 55 before a new trial could be held. For years since then, Mayer and Earl Ruby have been fighting over ownership of the gun Jack Ruby bought for $62.50 in a Dallas gun shop. The gun is stowed in a bank safe deposit box. Mayer estimates it could bring $125,000 on the collectors' market. Whatever its value, Mayer contends money from sale of the gun should go to pay off Ruby's debts. He says they include the $65,000 it has cost him to handle the estate, including the expense of fighting Earl Ruby's lawsuits. Earl Ruby, of Boca Raton, Fla., who is also acting on behalf of his sister and a nephew, counters that Mayer is trying to profit from the estate. He wants the estate liquidated to pay off his brother's debts and ``wipe the slate clean.'' He also claims that Jack Ruby gave him deathbed instructions to tear up the will in which he had named Mayer executor. Apart from the coveted gun, the estate consists largely of the clothes and jewelry Ruby wore when he shot Oswald, and some personal papers. Earl Ruby said Monday that if he loses, he will ``go home and cry a little bit'' but will not appeal. Regardless of the trial's outcome, it's unlikely to be the last word on the gun matter. Last year, the Internal Revenue Service stepped into the case claiming that Ruby owed $17,000 when he died. That amount, the IRS said, has grown to $86,010 with interest and penalties. The state of Texas also claims the estate owes it $1,227 in back taxes. Earl Ruby says the IRS sacrificed any claim by waiting 22 years to act on it. Price has set a trial for February to hear the IRS claim.
AP880929-0075 	X	The World Bank will increase its yearly loans nearly 50 percent by 1992 to help end poverty in the Third World, the organization's president said today. Barber B. Conable spoke in West Berlin during the annual meeting of the bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund. Participants from 151 nations have spent a week exploring ways to lighten the debt load of poor nations. The meeting ends today. Leftist groups have mounted protests to criticize the international banks, which make development loans, for insisting on repayment by Third World nations. About 1,000 demonstrators gathered at a church nearby Wednesday and chanted ``IMF Murder Meeting.'' Thousands of riot police held them back with plastic shields. Third World countries owe about $1.2 trillion to international and private lenders as well as governments. Conable predicted that the World Bank will be lending $25 billion dollars a year by 1992 to Third World nations. It now lends about $17 billion a year, and the monetary fund provides about $8 million more. Speaking at a news conference, he said $5 billion will go to the poorest countries, which are mainly in Africa. Conable said the bank will strengthen its aid by sharing more financing with other donors. He said Japanese officials have told him they plan to help and promised to talk with him about a program. Contributions to the bank come from the 151 member governments. Conable also pinpointed trade imbalances as part of the debt problem faced by poor countries. He said they cause losses twice as great as the aid such countries receive from wealthier nations. Speakers from the Third World have protested repeatedly at the meeting that the industrial countries put up barriers to their exports that prevent debtor countries from earning money. In an interview before his news conference, Conable said he believed interest rates were stabilizing after recent increases. The financial leaders have listened this week to warnings that higher interest rates, used by the United States and other industrial countries to cool inflation, threaten the Third World. ``It would be highly undesirable if an excessive concern for inflation were to bring about a spiral of interest rate rises,'' said Giuliano Amato, Italy's treasury minister. At Wednesday's sessions, participants seeking new ways to ease the burden of debt heard about the cost of higher interest rates to Third World countries. Every 1 percent rise in interest rates costs the debtors $6 billion more a year, said Stanley Fischer, vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. The United States and other industrial countries view higher interest as a way of controlling price increases. In the United States, higher interest rates also attract money from abroad to meet the federal budget deficit. Third World countries pay more than $50 billion a year on loans subject to variable interest rates. They complain that too much of their earnings go to pay interest, leaving little to improve living standards. In many of them, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, people's incomes have been declining for 20 years.
AP880428-0113 	X	Thirteen Americans and six Canadians were honored as heroes today by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. Three of the heroes, all Canadians, died risking their lives in their attempt to save others. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission now has honored 37 people thus far this year and 7,218 people since it was founded in 1904 by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to recognize heroism in the United States and Canada. Heroes or their survivors receive a medal and $2,500. Those honored today include: _John Anderson Floyd, Garden Grove, Calif. _Rubin A. Vigil, Buena Park, Calif. _Christopher J. Young, Holland, Pa. _Robert G. Pourier, Winnipeg, Manitoba. _Robert E. Tindal, Shallotte, N.C. _Paul J. Myers, Oshawa, Ontario. _Theodore J. Gundler, Hamilton, Ohio. _Daniel H. Penney, Sidney, British Columbia. _Thomas H. Schneider, Redding, Calif. _Stephen W. Underwood, Tulelake, Calif. _Matthew H. Rokes, Yreka, Calif. _James C. Alvine III, West Caldwell, N.J. _Arthur Richard Palecek, Oakland, N.J. _Richard A. Bogert, Union, N.J. _Nobuichi Kasahara, Waimea, Hawaii. _Donald Howard Green, Palmdale, Calif. _The late John H. King, Winnipeg, Manitoba. _The late Richard C. Grant, Kingsville, Ontario. _The late Jeffrey Aaron Small, Caledonia, Ontario.
AP880519-0077 	X	A judge banned an 18-year-old robbery suspect from riding the city's train system, calling the youth ``a menace'' to transit patrons. ``He's forfeited his right to use that form of public transportation. He can use the public sidewalk,'' Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Bolan declared Wednesday when Tommy Holloway appeared for the second consecutive day on charges he had robbed a train passenger. On Tuesday, Bolan found probable cause to charge Holloway with robbery for the theft of a gold necklace and $38 from a 16-year-old student riding an elevated train on April 22. Less than two hours after leaving court on $5,000 bond in that case, prosecutors contend, Holloway stole a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap and a book bag from another student waiting for a train. During that attack, Holloway and nine other youths punched and kicked the victim on the ground, said Assistant State's Attorney Mary Lou Norwell. Bolan on Wednesday set bond at $50,000 for each case. He didn't say how he would enforce that banning order. ``You're leading a marauding little pack of dogs out there,'' Bolan told the defendant. ``If I could hold you without bond, I would because you're a danger to the community _ a menace.''
AP900820-0088 	X	Two women are vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Tuesday's primary election, and the winner most likely will face Democratic Gov. Mike Sullivan. The GOP candidates are Mary Mead, daughter of former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Cliff Hansen, and state Rep. Nyla Murphy. Mead, a Teton County rancher, and Murphy, a 12-year state representative from Casper, seemed to agree on issues more often than not during the primary campaign. Both support abortion rights, oppose other states dumping garbage in Wyoming, and favor the death penalty. Where they differ is on Mead's call for a cut in minerals taxes to spur exploration. Murphy believes the current tax system is adequate and that the economy will improve under the state's diversification efforts. Sullivan is seeking his second term. His opponent for the Democratic nomination is Ron ``Suds'' Clingman, a Rock Springs motorcycle repairman who believes his stances on lowering the drinking age back to 18, legalizing gambling, and cutting the salaries of public officials are popular. U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, the Senate Minority Whip, is seeking a third term, and U.S. Rep. Craig Thomas is pursuing his first full term in office. Simpson faces two political unknowns in the GOP primary, while six unheralded Democrats are seeking their party's nomination for the seat. Thomas was appointed to fill Dick Cheney's unexpired term in office when he was appointed defense secretary last year. Thomas is unopposed in the primary as is his Democratic opponent, Pete Maxfield.
AP880628-0033 	X	The White House and the weather cooperated to entertain Turkish President Kenan Evren in regal style at a starlit state dinner, where President Reagan lauded ties with the NATO ally as a ``solid structure'' for building peace and prosperity. Evren, the first Turkish president to make a state visit to the United States in 21 years, responded with a toast at Monday's Rose Garden event that praised Reagan for his efforts to lessen superpower tensions and slash the threatening arsenal of nuclear weapons. ``We support the efforts of your administration to seek better relationships with the Soviet Union,'' said the Turkish president, whose strategic nation borders on that country as well as Iran and Iraq. In his brief toast, Reagan hailed recent improvements in the U.S.-Turkish relationship. He said the 40-year history of bilateral ties was built upon a ``solid structure'' and predicted it would continue decades into the future. ``Our aspirations for our partnership remain large _ peace, security and freedom for our peoples, close cooperation in securing these objectives, and success in defending them,'' Reagan said. Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt, primarily due to its strategic location and usefulness as a listening post on the Soviet Union, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Although strains have appeared in the relationship in recent years over the level of U.S. aid to the strategic NATO ally, no such problems were apparent at the elaborate state dinner. Usually, the black-tie events that are part of a formal state visit occur inside the executive mansion. But tempted by the balmy breezes that ended a heat spell and the clear moonlit skies, the dinner featuring shrimp parfait, filet of lamb and coconut ice cream was served in the torch-lit Rose Garden. Later, guests were entertained under the stars by classical guitarist Christopher Parkening. Earlier in the day, the two men met for 45 minutes after a colorful fife and drum welcome was accorded the Turkish leader. A senior administration official said the two men engaged in a ``general review'' of the bilateral relations, and touched on East-West relations and the Iran-Iraq War. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Reagan took the opportunity ``to assure President Evren that we would continue to work ... with Congress to give priority to our overall security assistance program with Turkey.'' The official said the Turkish president made no specific economic requests and that his remarks carried ``the theme of trade, not aid.'' Congress approved $520 million in aid for Turkey last year _ almost all of it military assistance _ down from the $570 million which the administration sought and the $1.2 billion that Turkey is seeking to help modernize its defense forces. For fiscal 1989, starting next Oct. 1, the administration has asked Congress to approve $620 million. The president said Americans ``have admired the way Turkey pulled itself back to democracy when challenged by the violent forces of terrorism and anarchy a year ago.'' Evren, a retired army general, led a 1980 coup in Turkey that helped restore public order after years of mounting violence by the extreme right and left. Democratic civilian rule was restored in 1983 and voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, making Evren president for a 7-year term. Reagan also praised growing U.S.-Turkish trade, calling it ``the surest way that Turkey can find to ensure the prosperity its people seek.'' And in a symbolic move, Reagan presented Evren with the Legion of Merit in gratitude for the contribution of the Turkish military during the Korean War. The medal represents one of the highest military honors America can bestow.
AP900915-0010 	X	Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner is labeling as unrealistic and irresponsible Senate legislation that would require tougher auto fuel economy standards, saying it would cause hundreds of additional traffic deaths. Skinner denounced the legislation Friday only hours after the Senate voted 68-28 to consider the proposal next week. The measure would require automakers to increase average fuel economy of new cars to 35 miles per gallon by 1995 and to 40 miles per gallon by 2001. Supporters contend the higher fuel economy requirements, once fully implemented, would save 2.8 million barrels of oil a day, but key opponents promised to continue fighting the measure. Skinner told a news conference that if the measure clears Congress, he would strongly advise President Bush to veto it. But the measure likely will run into serious opposition in the House, where supporters must maneuver around the Energy and Commerce Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., is strongly opposed to the legislation. Skinner said the bill is ``unrealistic, irresponsible and, more important, unattainable.'' He said auto executives have convinced him there is no technology to achieve the bill's goals without making cars smaller. ``It should be called the highway fatality bill,'' Skinner said. He cited a new study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that concluded there is a clear link between reducing the size of cars and increasing numbers of traffic deaths. Joan Claybrook, NHTSA administrator during the Carter administration and now president of the consumer group Public Citizen, disputed claims that cars necessarily will have to be made smaller to burn less fuel. She cited a Transportation Department research vehicle built in the 1970s that achieved 43 mpg while providing occupants improved protection over conventional cars. Sen. Donald Riegle, D-Mich., who has led the opposition to the plan, said he would continue the fight against bringing the measure to a vote next week. ``We've just had the first inning of this nine-inning game,'' said Riegle. ``We hope and intend to win this fight.'' But the Senate vote reflected the growing support in Congress for an effort to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil, a subject in the spotlight since Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait early last month. In floor debate, Riegle said the bill's fuel savings wouldn't likely begin phasing in until 1995 and a better response to today's oil crisis might be to return to a national speed limit of 55 mph. Later, a Riegle spokeswoman said the senator didn't necessarily support a change in the speed limit and would vote against such a measure if it were introduced. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., the bill's sponsor, described the measure as a message to the automakers ``that they're going to have to look at fuel economy and not just muscle cars.''
AP900524-0226 	X	The stock market showed a small loss today as traders studied the latest data on economic growth. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 3.32 to 2,852.94 by noontime on Wall Street. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 8 to 7 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 618 up, 695 down and 551 unchanged. As the business day began the Commerce Department reported that the gross national product grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate, after adjustment for inflation, in the first quarter of the year. The reduction in the figure, from a previous estimate of 2.1 percent, was larger than most analysts had been estimating. But the significance of the numbers was clouded by word that the difference stemmed to a great extent from a downward revision of business inventories rather than final sales. A shrinkage in inventories can be interpreted not as a clear sign of economic weakness, but rather as a possible portent of an approaching pickup in production demand. Interest rates were unchanged to narrowly lower in the credit markets following the news. Philip Morris led the active list, down 1] at 43}. Brokers cited a federal regulator's push to ban cigarette vending machines, and news that the City University of New York and Harvard University had decided to sell their tobacco stocks. U.S. Shoe, which reported sharply higher quarterly earnings, climbed 1] to 24~. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks lost .26 to 195.59. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was up .72 at 360.37. Volume on the Big Board came to 71.45 million shares at noontime, against 83.65 million at the same point Wednesday.
AP880712-0136 	X	Just weeks ago, they were troublemakers, working their way through the criminal justice system, convicted of crimes from drug dealing to manslaughter. Today, they stand at attention, heads shaved, eyes straight ahead. Every phrase ends with an emphatic ``Sir!'' Every item in their foot lockers perfectly folded, every order perfectly obeyed. No, they haven't joined the military. Not exactly. They're probationers at Camp Sauble, Michigan's 5-month-old experimental ``boot camp'' prison, where ``shock incarceration'' is used to jolt 17- to 25-year-old offenders into straightening out their lives. On Monday, reporters got their first glimpse of the intense physical training and military-style discipline the probationers endure for 90 days. From the first day, the offender is ``told he's an embarrassment to society, ... a parasite to society,'' said Inspector Bruce L. Curtis, an ex-Marine drill instructor. ``We start working on their minds,'' Curtis said. ``It's the first time they've ever been held accountable for anything. Instead of holding down a job or going to school, it's been easier for them to knock some old lady on the street and take her Social Security check.'' At first, 19-year-old Jesse Roberson of Pontiac didn't think he could make it through the program. ``When I first came here I was pretty scared,'' said Roberson, who was driving drunk when a passenger in his car was killed in a crash. He faced 15 to 30 years in prison for manslaughter. Roberson's now looking at graduation in two weeks. ``You come in a baby and you leave a man,'' he said. ``This program got rid of my temper and makes me want to go out and do something positive with my life.'' Scott Fetzlaff, 20, of Manistee, said he's had time to think about his mistakes, including his breaking and entering conviction. ``They scare everything right out of you the first day,'' he said. ``It's going to change my ways when I get out.'' The program, which began March 1 at a former minimum-security work camp in the Manistee National Forest, has had seven graduates and now has 70 probationers, about half its capacity. Two men escaped, only to be captured within 24 hours, and 16 others have flunked out, returning to the judge for resentencing, usually resulting in a multiyear prison term. Those who disobey orders may be required to carry a 25-pound ``motivational'' log on their shoulder for the day, or to perform ``motivational'' detail, possibly digging out a tree stump by hand. For the probationers, days begin at 5 a.m. with the screams of a corrections officer or the banging of trash can lids at their heads. Physical training, cleaning buildings and 7{ hours of chopping trees in county, state and federal parks make up most of the 17-hour days, followed by educational and substance abuse programs at night. One hour of free time may be spent watching television news or writing letters. No visits are allowed, and one 10-minute telephone call may be made each week after the first six weeks. The men march double time, chanting in unison after the officer in charge, ``Mental tough, mental hard! I can do it! You can do it! We can do it!'' A shifting eye while standing at attention may result in 15 push-ups on the spot. There is silence at meal time. The program is modeled after similar programs in other parts of the country, but is designed for more ``hard-core'' offenders than the others, said Donald Hengesh, state Department of Corrections project coordinator. While offenders must not have served any previous prison sentence, their convictions range from felonious assault and manslaughter to forgery and narcotics possession. ``There are no Sunday school cases here,'' said Hengesh. The Department of Corrections has notified judges and probation officers that the program is an option for offenders who, according to sentencing guidelines, would face at least one year of prison. The only exception would be a probation violator with a new felony conviction, who might be sentenced to a prison term of less than 12 months. Candidates must never have served any prison time and must be physically able to participate. Offenders convicted of sex or arson charges also are not admitted. The program is proving cost effective, with each inmate costing $3,846, compared with $20,000 each state prison inmate costs annually, Hengesh said. While civil rights activists argue intimidation and fear don't rehabilitate, state Sen. Jack Welborn, who sponsored legislation to fund the camp, said he's sold on the program. ``I believe a kid in this program has a better chance of going straight when he gets out than in any other program in the corrections system,'' he said. ``The kid that goes into prison comes out a better criminal.''
AP900603-0034 	X	Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Sunday that he would visit Japan as part of an effort to build ties with his country's Pacific neighbors. Gorbachev's disclosure, at a summit-ending news conference with President Bush, came on the eve of his planned meeting in San Francisco with President Roh Tae-woo of South Korea, which is actively seeking to normalize relations. The Soviet Union wants to upgrade its outdated and inefficient production facilities, and both Japan and South Korea could be valuable sources of inexpensive technology and consumer goods that aren't available in the Soviet Union or are in such short supply that they are practically unobtainable. The Japanese had been expecting a Gorbachev visit, perhaps in the spring of 1991, but relations between the two countries have been strained by a longstanding territorial dispute. The Kuril Islands, which lie to the north of present-day Japan, were seized and settled by the Soviets at the end of World War II, and the Japanese want them returned. The dispute thus far has blocked improved trade relations between the two countries. Meanwhile, the South Koreans have launched a major drive to open relations with former Communist East Bloc countries, and are seeking new markets for their high-technology exports. But Soviet officials have sought to play down the meeting between Gorbachev and Roh, pointing to the sensitivity of relations with North Korea, the Soviets' longtime ally. Some members of the Soviet delegation also have suggested that Japanese business leaders are uneasy about the Gorbachev-Roh meeting because they view the South Koreans as competition for the Soviets' huge market and natural resources. Gorbachev, in his remarks at the news conference, said the Soviet Union would like to help build a cooperative community among Pacific nations like the one in Europe. ``We must act with due regard for those specifics'' in the Asian region, he said, ``without copying blind the European process but borrowing something from it.'' ``Of course, I think this road will be longer and more thorny,'' Gorbachev said. ``But still, it is especially necessary over there because those peoples need an opportunity to reallocate their resources to overcome a lot of social problems that have been accumulated.'' He noted the increasing contacts between the Soviet Union and India and China, countries he has visited within the last two years. ``I am planning to go on a visit to Japan so as to open that area for discussion,'' he said. ``So we're going to intensify our efforts in that direction.''
AP900205-0218 	X	The dollar fluctuated in a narrow range in calm European trading late this morning as markets awaited news from a key meeting of the Soviet Communist Party. Gold prices rose. Traders said they expected little movement in the dollar until there were political developments in the Soviet Union and U.S. markets opened. The Communist Party's Central Committee is meeting today and Tuesday to debate a proposal, endorsed by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, to give up its exclusive claim to power. News of further Soviet democratization could fuel some dollar buying, dealers said. But the U.S. currency generally remains on a downward trend, traders said. ``The dollar is currently a sick currency,'' one Milan trader said. The huge U.S. budget and trade deficits, lackluster economic growth, persistent inflation and the prospect of lower interest rates are all weighing on the dollar, he said. In Tokyo, where trading ends as Europe's business day begins, the dollar rose 0.64 yen to a closing 145.60 yen. Later, in London, it was quoted at 145.70 yen. Other dollar rates at midmorning, compared with late Friday's prices, included: 1.6786 West German marks, down from 1.6860; 1.4868 Swiss francs, down from 1.4964; 5.7015 French francs, down from 5.7360; 1.8930 Dutch guilders, down from 1.9010; 1,246.50 Italian lire, down from 1,252.00; and 1.1875 Canadian dollars, down from 1.1884. In London, the dollar fell against the British pound. It cost $1.6915 to buy one pound, compared with $1.6820 late Friday. Gold opened in London at a bid price of $418.50 a troy ounce, up from $417.25 bid late Friday. At midmorning, the city's major bullion dealers fixed a recommended price of $418.75. In Zurich, the bid price was $418.40, up from $417.75 bid late Friday. Gold in Hong Kong rose $1.10 to close at a bid $416.86. Silver rose in London to a bid price of $5.31 a troy ounce, up from Friday's $5.29.
AP901218-0085 	X	The European Community may suffer major political and economic damage by refusing to compromise in world trade talks over U.S. proposals for deep cuts in farm subsidies, Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter said Tuesday. If it comes to an agricultural trade war with the EC, said Yeutter, the United States is prepared to fight. Negotiations among 107 nations in the so-called Uruguay Round of trade talks collapsed Dec. 7 in Brussels after the EC refused to bend on U.S. proposals on major farm trade issues, including cutbacks in internal price supports and export subsidies. The United States, backed by Australia, Brazil and other major exporters, sought sharp reductions in subsidies, while the 12-nation EC, Japan and Korea were against the plan. Efforts are being made to reconvene the talks in mid-January, but Yeutter said further negotiations would have little chance unless the EC is prepared to change its hard-line stance. But Yeutter told reporters he thinks some internal pressures are developing in favor of a reassessment of the EC position. Yeutter said he was Europe last week in the aftermath of the Dec. 7 breakdown and found the community to be ``very embarrassed by what happened in Brussels.'' The community ``will probably not concede that publicly, but the fact is they suffered a major geopolitical defeat in Brussels, with essentially all of the world leaving with dissatisfaction and disappointment in the EC position,'' he said. ``A lot of folks in Western Europe are chagrined by the present status of the Uruguay Round and are concerned that the (EC) may bear the lion's share of the blame for failure, should it occur,'' Yeutter said. Consequently, he said, a number of ``working level'' people in the EC are trying to reassess the bloc's position in hopes the stalled talks can be rejuvenated. But Yeutter said he didn't know at this point whether this can translate into changes at the EC's leadership level. ``I'm pessimistic about the potential outcome (of the talks) so long as the community maintains its present intransigent stance,'' he said. Earlier, in a telephone news conference with broadcasters, Yeutter he was not ready to tip off the EC what the United States might do if the Uruguay Round of talks fail completely. But Yeutter predicted that the EC potentially could be forced into spending all its allotted funds in 1991 trying to maintain high supports and export subsidies to keep pace with the United States. Of course, he said, the EC then could replenish its coffers but ``they would have to make a conscious decision'' to spend more on agriculture than they do now. ``We'll be spending more money, too, of course, and we'll have to find the financial resources to do that, and a lot of other countries will, as well,'' he said. Yeutter also hinted at other possible U.S. trade actions in case the trade talks fail but declined to be specific. ``I want them to be uncertain about what our response would be - and a bit frightened by the potential,'' he said. ``So, I'm not going to discuss publicly what the United States might do.''
AP900521-0229 	X	Stock prices declined slightly in quiet trading today, marking time after last week's rise to a record high. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 7.18 to 2,812.73 in the first half hour of trading. Losers outnumbered gainers by about 7 to 5 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 405 up, 566 down and 501 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 17.80 million shares as of 10 a.m. on Wall Street. Analysts said there was little in the news to encourage buyers to chase after the market's recently rally. Interest rates were mixed to slightly higher in the credit markets this morning. Yields on long-term government bonds hovered in the 8.70 percent-8.74 percent range. The upsurge in stock prices since the end of April has been attributed largely to a downturn in interest rates, and accompanying assurances that the Federal Reserve seemed less and less likely to tighten credit. In the past few days, however, rates have levelled off, and investors apparently have settled back to await signs of their next likely move. K mart dropped \ to 34. The company reported earnings for the fiscal quarter ended May 2 of 50 cents a share, against 47 cents in the comparable period a year earlier. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks slipped .11 to 193.44. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index was up .38 at 356.70. On Friday the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 11.80 to 2,819.91, reducing its gain for the week to 18.33 points. Advancing issues slightly outnumbered declines on the NYSE, with 745 up, 716 down and 526 unchanged. Big Board volume totaled 162.52 million shares, against 164.77 million in the previous session.
AP881103-0143 	X	James Michener will use Canadian royalties from ``Journey,'' his first novel about Canada, to establish a fund for promoting the nation's fiction writers and their work, his publisher said Thursday. Judy Brunsek of McClelland and Stewart said ``Journey,'' just arriving in bookstores, should earn $164,000 in royalties the first year. A $8,200 prize will be awarded annually to a piece of Canadian short fiction selected from about 25 to 30 small literary journals across the country. It and others chosen by a literary jury will be published as a volume each year, with the first scheduled for 1989. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Michener was quoted as saying he felt it improper to ``barge in here and publish a book and take royalties out of the country.'' ``Journey'' is set in the Klondike in 1897-99, during the gold rush, and tells of four Englishmen and an Irishman who travel to the Canadian Northwest. Ms. Brunsek said the 220-page book began as part of ``Alaska,'' one of Michener's sprawling bestsellers, but was cut to bring the length down to 868 pages. ``He gets attached to his characters and decided he had read enough to perhaps expand it,'' she said in a telephone interview. ``Because it was set in Canada, he felt very strongly about getting published in Canada.'' ``He called us one day,'' she said, laughing. ``We couldn't quite believe it. ... We of course jumped at the chance.'' Plans are for ``Journey'' to be published in the United States next year by Random House, the author's American publisher. U.S. royalties will not be affected by the Canadian arrangement. The 81-year-old author agreed to the plans for a short-fiction prize during a promotional visit to Toronto earlier this week. He and Pierre Berton, whose popular histories of northern Canada figured in the research for ``Alaska,'' made a joint appearance Monday night. Michener was quoted by the Star as saying he was ``caught up'' by the story of the five men in the portion cut from ``Alaska'' and ``became intensely interested in what would have happened to them.'' He said his next long novel will be about the Caribbean and probably will be published in 1990.
AP901109-0189 	X	Hopes for a successful Christmas shopping season all but vanished after the nation's biggest retailers said their business continued to deteriorate in October. Several companies including Sears, Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. reported Thursday that their sales dropped from levels of a year earlier as consumers, preoccupied with concerns about the economy and the Middle East, avoided buying anything they didn't need. The disappointing October sales followed poor showings in August and September, and with Christmas less than seven weeks away, retailers and the industry analysts who track their performance expect consumers to remain frugal during the holiday season. ``They'll probaby be going in and buying the same number of items, but they're not going to pay as much ...'' said Thomas Tashjian, an analyst with Seidler Amdec Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. ``They're not going to buy $100 electronic toys for their kids, not this year.'' Analysts said shoppers will be looking harder for bargains and waiting longer for price reductions than in past years. ``They're going to be busy spending fewer dollars,'' said Daniel Barry, an analyst with Kidder Peabody & Co. Consumers cut spending as the economy weakened and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait raised the specter of war, inflating prices of gasoline and home heating oil. The first items crossed off shopping lists were so-called discretionary items - clothing, furniture, home appliances and other extras that are the bread and butter of many big stores. If retailers have a difficult Christmas, it could contribute to a further deterioration of the economy, since two-thirds of the nation's economic growth is generated by consumer spending. Unsold goods on store shelves could also affect manufacturing - if stores don't place new orders, factories don't need to provide as many products and could lay off workers. And a poor Christmas season could be devastating for the retailers themselves, as they depend on holiday shopping for about half their annual sales and profits. Christmas 1989 was a disappointment for many storeowners after they were forced to slash prices to attract customers. Sears, the country's largest retailer, said October results from stores open at least one year fell 0.4 percent from a year earlier, while overall sales dropped 1.2 percent. Analysts believe sales from stores open at least a year - also known as same-store or comparable store sales - provide a more accurate assessment of a retailer's performance than overall sales do. New stores tend to have extraordinarily strong sales that can skew a retailer's results. One of the hardest hit last month was Penney, which said comparable store sales fell 6.3 percent from October 1989, while overall sales dropped 4.9 percent. Limited Inc., the nation's largest specialty apparel retailer, reported comparable store sales dropped 1 percent as overall sales rose 13 percent. Apparel stores were also affected by continuing warm weather in some parts of the country. May Department Stores Co., parent of big department store chains including Lord & Taylor, Hecht's, Filene's and Foley's, said comparable store sales dropped 4.4 percent, while overall sales edged up 1.1 percent. But Wal-Mart Stores Inc., one of the biggest discount retailers, continued to outperform the rest of the retail industry, reporting comparable store sales rose 10 percent while overall sales rose 25 percent. Analysts are already predicting trouble for some stores, especially those going into the Christmas season with high inventory levels and unexpectedly poor sales. These retailers are expected to be the first ones to mark down merchandise - and see their profits evaporate. Markdowns set off a spiral of sorts as consumers, having seen one round of price reductions, wait for more merchandise to be marked down and end up forcing retailers to take further cuts. When one retailer lowers prices, it pressures others to follow. Among other reports from retailers Thursday: -Dayton Hudson Corp. said comparable store sales rose 4.1 percent, while overall sales picked up 16.7 percent. -Kmart Corp. reported a 1.3 percent sales gain at comparable stores, and an 11.2 percent rise overall. -Woolworth Corp. said comparable store sales increased 1 percent, while overall sales rose 4.2 percent. The results announced Thursday differ from the monthly retail sales report from the government. The Commerce Department's figures includes sales from supermarkets, restaurants and car dealers.
AP880406-0032 	X	With Michael Dukakis again holding the upper hand, the Democratic presidential candidates descended full force on New York today for a two-week run to the crucial April 19 primary. Dukakis picked up back-to-back wins in Colorado and Wisconsin this week over Jesse Jackson, to follow up on home turf victory in Connecticut. Before that, Jackson had piled up victories in Michigan and Illinois. Even before the polls closed in Tuesday's Wiscnsin contest, Dukakis and Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. were prospecting in New York, hoping to stake a claim on the mother lode of the primary season thus far. ``I hope it's a sign of things to come,'' Dukakis of his Wisconsin win. Jackson, too, was upbeat abut his prospects. ``We go to New York with a good campaign, a broad-based campaign, momentum, a clear messge _ a message that applies to New York,'' he said Tuesday night. At stake in the New York primary are 255 delegates. At the national convention, only California's delegation, a 336-member giant, will be larger. And that primary isn't until June 7. ``We think that if we can win New York, we're going to be in a good position to dominate the last third of the primaries,'' said Paul Bograd, Dukakis' New York campaign manager. ``But New York will be critical to that.'' ``No way you can underestimate the importance of this one,'' said John Marino, executive director of the state Democratic Committee and a political operative of Gov. Mario Cuomo. Cuomo's presence is felt in the New York primary race, as it has been to some extent in the entire campaign. Reluctant to run for president himself, Cuomo has been equally reluctant to endorse any other Democrat. Cuomo's apparent indecision has fueled speculation for months that he might want a deadlocked convention and desperate Democrats turning to him offering the nomination. Cuomo has insisted he doesn't want that, but thus far has refused to rule out accepting a convention draft. There is also a Republican primary on April 19 in New York, with 102 delegates at stake. But it is little more than a formality as Vice President George Bush rolls toward the GOP nomination. On the other hand, the Democratic primary could provide important answers, including: _Can Dukakis keep up the momentum he's regained with this week's victories in Wisconsin and Colorado _ and convince party leaders that he deserves the nomination? _Can Jackson's solid support among minority voters and the backing of several prominent New York labor leaders overcome Jewish uneasiness and produce the New York victory his campaign now needs? _Will Gore's decision to put most of his remaining eggs in the New York basket prove to be anything more than a windfall for television stations who run his paid ads? Along with Cuomo, most of the state's other major Democrats, such as New York City Mayor Edward Koch and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, have remained officially neutral. Recent polls among New York Democrats have Dukakis leading the field with support ranging from 37 percent to 45 percent, depending on the poll. Jackson has been consistently second at just under 30 percent while Gore and Simon have yet to crack double digits in any of the polls. Anticipating Dukakis' victory in Wisconsin, Bograd declared Tuesday evening that the campaign had become ``clearly a two-man race'' between Dukakis and Jackson. While the Dukakis camp was ready to write off Gore, who finished a distant third in Wisconsin, the Tennessee senator has been campaigning hard here for more than a week. He's also hired New York political consultant David Garth, who runs Koch's campaigns and who occasionally advises Cuomo. Gore has been courting New York's politically important Jewish community, and has been attacking Jackson and Dukakis on the issue of support for Israel. If that message has any impact it could hurt Dukakis most; Jackson's support among New York Jews is already minimal following his 1984 ``Hymietown'' gaffe. However, Dukakis' wife Kitty, who is Jewish, has been campaigning in the Jewish community. Jackson is relying on his strong minority support, coupled with a growing acceptance among white voters, to win more than the 26 percent he garnered in the New York primary four years ago. Jackson plans a big television buy in New York, a tool he hasn't used much in other states. He also has the support of influential labor leaders such as Stanley Hill, executive director of the 120,000-member New York City municipal workers union, and Jan Pierce, a top official with the Communications Workers of America. Bograd, Dukakis' New York campaign manager, says the Massachusetts governor will spend at least $1 million on his New York effort; others put it as high as $3 million. The Massachusetts governor also has the support of some of the top officials from the state's politically powerful teachers' unions.
AP880920-0099 	X	Emperor Hirohito, the world's longest reigning monarch, received three blood transfusions today and was in stable condition after vomiting blood, imperial officials said. The Imperial Household Agency and other officials did not confirm a Kyodo News Service report that the 87-year-old emperor appeared to be in critical condition this morning despite night-long treatment by a team of court physicians. Kyodo attributed its report to an unidentified person who attended a Cabinet meeting this morning. It said a pre-dawn transfusion had not stopped a hemorrhage in his digestive tract. The imperial agency said no such announcement had been made. But in briefings later for Japanese reporters, Iwao Miyao, vice grand steward of the imperial agency, said doctors had given Hirohito 1.6 pints of blood during the night, then 0.4 pints more during the morning and 0.4 pints again during the afternoon. An Imperial Household Agency official quoted Miyao as saying in a briefing at 9:30 p.m. ``I don't think the emperor's condition is becoming worse, but rather that it is stabilizing.'' ``The emperor is in stable condition. He has a slight fever and is receiving intravenous drip,'' said palace spokesman Takenari Sugawara. Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita's Cabinet was expected to approve plans Thursday to place Crown Prince Akihito, 54, in charge of state matters, Defense Agency head Kichiro Tazawa told reporters. The emperor's worsening health caused one former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to cut short a trip to London and return home. At least one morning newspaper, the English-language Japan Times, printed a single-page extra this afternoon. It bore the headline ``Ailing Emperor Vomits Some Blood'' and a photo of a jogger who paused to pray in front of the palace. In a briefing to palace reporters this afternoon, Miyao said the emperor would continue to receive blood and intravenous fluids, Kyodo said. Japanese news media mounted an intense watch on the imperial palace, in central Tokyo, and reported the arrivals of a stream of well-wishers, including Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield. The Japan Broadcasting Corp. reported that Hirohito said ``thank you'' to his son Akihito and the prince's wife, Crown Princess Michiko. The emperor's death would plunge Japan into official mourning. Hirohito has occupied the Chrysanthemum Throne since 1926 and, after renouncing his divinity after World War II, is a figurehead with the constitutional role of ``symbol of state'' but no power. Older Japanese grew up revering him as the divine descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu and still honor him highly, while younger people tend to have less interest in the imperial family. Marine biology is the emperor's passion. Indeed, Hirohito is a widely respected authority on the subject, having written or co-authored at least 12 books on hydrozoa, or sea animals, his specialty. Late Monday, court physicians were summoned to the palace to treat the emperor, and early today Miyao told a news conference that the emperor had vomited blood _ a sign of hemorrhaging _ and the doctor had administered the first transfusion. The monarch was conscious through the procedure, Miyao said. Hirohito has been frail since an intestinal bypass operation in September 1987 but he appeared in public for his 87th birthday on April 29 and on several later occasions. He and Empress Nagako, 85, spent most of the summer at an imperial villa outside Tokyo, returning to the capital on Sept. 8. Since late summer, he has suffered from colds and fevers and a news report last week said he had lost 20 pounds of the 130 pounds he carried before his surgery.
AP900317-0066 	X	The legislators who most closely oversee America's defense budget reaped $2 million in campaign contributions last year from political action committees affiliated with the defense industry. The biggest chunks went to committee leaders and other legislators who are particularly influential on military matters, according to an Associated Press analysis of campaign receipts by members of four key congressional panels. The committees will play a major role in determining how the pro-democracy movement in Eastern Europe and improved relations with the Soviet Union are translated into Pentagon budget cuts that could have a big impact on defense contractors. Ninety-two of the 104 legislators who serve on the four panels got money from defense PACs, with the largest share going to Sen. J. Bennett Johnson, a Louisiana Democrat who sits on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. Johnston received $128,000 from defense PACs whose sponsors read like a who's who of military contractors. The AP analysis covered PAC contributions to members of the defense subcommittees of the House and Senate appropriations committees, and to members of each chamber's Armed Services panel. In good times and bad, it is common practice for special interests to target their PAC contributions to legislators with influence in their fields. Banking-related PACs, for example, gave nearly $6 million in the 1987-88 election cycle to legislators on committees with jurisdiction over banking issues, according to the newsletter PACs & Lobbies. Congress for years has been debating campaign finance reforms that would limit the role of PACs in congressional races. Yet many lawmakers and PAC officials reject the contention of public interest groups that special-interest money unduly influences congressional votes. A spokesman for Johnston, Tony Garrett, said ``It makes sense that people in the defense industry would support those who favor a strong national defense and who are key players in defense policy. They also know the senator through his efforts to bring more defense industries to Louisiana.'' A prominent player in the campaign finance deliberations, Rep. Beryl Anthony, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said there is nothing wrong with accepting PAC money but that the soaring costs of campaigns have perhaps created the perception that lawmakers are too reliant on special interest money. ``Taking a legal PAC contribution is not sleazy,'' Anthony said in an interview Friday. ``The culprit is in how much money it takes to run an election.'' The 1989 PAC contributions, detailed in year-end campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission, cover the first half of the 1989-90 election cycle. Fund-raising generally escalates during election years, and past donors are among the first targets to be tapped. On top of PAC contributions, additional money from defense contractors is channeled to lawmakers as honoraria for speeches and other appearances. In 1987, for example, members of the four defense-related committees received $521,000 in honoraria from the top 50 defense contractors, according to the Common Cause advocacy group. Legislators also receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from labor union PACs whose members work at defense plants and from PACs for lobbying firms whose clients include major defense contractors. The $2 million figure, however, covers only donations from PACs affiliated with defense contractors. PACs affiliated with companies that would be most affected by major reductions in defense spending were among the biggest financial backers of members of the four congressional panels. General Motors Corp.'s PACs, for example, distributed nearly $140,000 last year among 75 members of the four defense-related committees, according to the AP analysis. GM's donations included those from its corporate PAC and from the PACs of its Electronic Data Systems and Hughes Aircraft subsidiaries. Not far behind was McDonnell Douglas Corp., whose two PACs gave $132,000 to 73 members of the congressional panels. Next were Textron Inc. and Lockheed Corp., whose PACs each made $103,000 in 1989 contributions to members of the four committees. Coming in just short of $100,000 in total donations to the committee members were the PACs associated with Grumman Corp., Northrop Corp. and Raytheon Co. Raytheon's totals include donations by the PAC of its Beech Aircraft subsidiary. PACs for Martin Marietta Corp., Rockwell International Corp., United Technologies Corp., Boeing Co., General Dynamics Corp., LTV Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Corp. contributed between $50,000 and $90,000 each to members of the defense-related congressional panels. While the chairmen and ranking Republicans of the congressional committees generally were among the biggest recipients of defense-industry PAC money, there was one major exception last year. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate defense appropriations panel, received just $1,000 in defense-industry PAC money; $2,150 in total PAC donations. Inouye, who is not up for re-election until 1992, received $52,000 in defense PAC money during the 1985-86 election cycle. The ranking Republican on that same panel, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, reported defense-industry PAC contributions of $112,500 in 1989 and total PAC contributions of $497,000. He is heavily favored for re-election this year. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, received more than $489,000 from PACs in 1989, of which $88,000 came from the defense industry. The panel's ranking Republican, John Warner of Virginia, received $395,000 from PACs, $86,000 of it from the defense industry. Other big recipients of defense PAC money included: _Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee. He received $150,000 from PACs last year, $55,500 of it from the defense industry. _Rep. Joseph M. McDade of Pennsylvania, ranking Republican on the same panel. He raised $79,000 from PACs, $36,000 of it from the defense industry. McDade, who is under FBI investigation for his relationship with a now-defunct defense contractor, used all of his 1989 campaign contributions to pay legal fees. _Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Aspin received $135,000 from PACs last year, of which $41,000 came from the defense industry. _Rep. William L. Dickinson of Alabama, senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee. Dickinson received $52,000 last year from defense-industry PACs, representing 71 percent of his $72,000 in total PAC receipts.
AP900312-0101 	X	A red oak tree a few miles down the road from Terry A. Anderson's hometown was just a sapling when Monica Stocum tied a yellow ribbon around it soon after he was abducted in Lebanon on March 16, 1985. Now, the tree has grown enough to burst the ribbon, engulfing parts of it in the tree's new growth. The one-time sapling will soon be big enough to shelter a picnic. ``My God, a tree grows slowly and look at how it has grown,'' Stocum said. Anderson is still a hostage, held captive longer than any other Westerner in Lebanon. But in this town of about 17,000 people, Stocum and hundreds like her are keeping his memory alive, even though they have never met him. An informal group organizes ceremonies to commemorate Anderson's birthdays and the anniversaries of his kidnapping. On Friday, the fifth anniversary of his abduction from the streets of Beirut, they will attend services and fast for 24 hours as a gesture of spirituality and support. Hometown solidarity and admiration for the efforts of Anderson's sister, Peggy Say, to free all the Western hostages in Lebanon have spurred those efforts, said Anne Zickl, a member of the group. ``Terry Anderson graduated from Batavia High School. So did my mother and father and I. So did my four kids. So you have a connection right there,'' said Mrs. Zickl. ``Plus, I think Americans don't like injustice.'' Stocum moved to nearby Le Roy 15 years after Anderson left the area, but said the hometown tie was important to her as well. ``I probably wouldn't know him if I fell over him in the street, even with the pictures,'' she said. ``It just seems like we should be more alert because he's one of us.'' Anderson left Batavia, in dairy country 40 miles east of Buffalo, in 1965 to join the Marines. He went on to a career in journalism that took him, as chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, to Lebanon. His father, Glenn R. Anderson, and brother, Glenn Richard Jr., remained here, and after Terry was kidnapped Say moved back to be with them, said Penny Anderson, a sister-in-law. The father and brother have since died. ``She was always the strong one of the family,'' Mrs. Anderson said. Since then, Say has been the most persistent and outspoken advocate of her brother's cause. Her efforts drew admiration and offers of help locally, from longtime friends like Marsha Barton and strangers such as Mrs. Zickl. They now form a support team for Say, who has moved to Kentucky but continues to travel the world to press for her brother's freedom. Working from Mrs. Zickl's dining room _ her family has not eaten there in 1{ years _ they publish newsletters, collect Valentine's Day and Christmas cards for Anderson and field inquiries from reporters from around the world. ``We just function here to give Peggy as much support as we can, because Peggy is the one who can do the most for the hostages,'' Mrs. Zickl said. There have been more than enough dashed hopes, and as they plan for the fifth anniversary of Anderson's capture, they find themselves trying to stifle excitement over Iran's recently softened stance on the hostage issue. ``My head is saying, `Now, don't get excited. We've heard all this before,''' Mrs. Anderson said. ``My heart says he's coming home. I woke up Monday morning absolutely positive he's coming home.'' Friday's fast, they hope, will give the kidnappers one more nudge toward that goal. ``I think that people in other countries find Americans very arrogant and very self-indulgent,'' Mrs. Zickl said. ``For them to know that Americans are fasting, not on their own behalf but for peace and freedom in the Middle East, I think they'll find that very moving.''
AP880803-0280 	X	Stock prices hovered in a narrow range today in a sluggish summer session. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down about 8 points in early trading, was up .89 at 2,132.11 by 2 p.m. on Wall Street. Gainers and losers ran about even in the overall tally of New York Stock Exchange-listed issues, with 692 up, 688 down and 485 unchanged. Volume on the Big Board came to 153.59 million shares with two hours to go. Nearly half of that activity was concentrated in a single issue _ American Electric Power, unchanged at 28}. Analysts said the heavy trading in the stock stemmed from trading strategies focused on the company's impending dividend. Otherwise, analysts said the market was still beset by concerns that strong economic growth would prompt further moves by the Federal Reserve to restrain inflation. The Labor Department's monthly report Friday on the employment situation for July is expected to show continuing robust gains in payroll employment In the credit markets today, prices of long-term government bonds, which move in the opposite direction from interest rates, declined slightly. Insilco jumped 6\ to 27{ on word that the company's management is considering a buyout proposal. Texaco, trading ex-dividend, rose } to 47|, and Texaco Canada added [ to 30~ on the American Stock Exchange. On Tuesday Texaco said its 78 percent stake in Texaco Canada was for sale. The NYSE's composite index of all its listed common stocks gained .25 to 153.79. At the Amex, the market value index was down .34 at 306.16.
AP881014-0034 	X	A veteran jockey who had planned to retire at the end of the year was killed at Belmont Park when his mount broke a leg and the man fell to the track, where he was kicked in the face by another horse. Mike Venezia, the rider of more than 2,000 winners in more than 21,000 races since 1964, died in the fifth race on Thursday's card, officials said. Robbie Davis, the rider of the other horse, was taken to a hospital for treatment of shock. Venezia's mount, a 3-year-old gelding named Mr. Walter K., was humanely killed. Venezia, 43, was the first jockey killed at a New York Racing Association track since March 29, 1982, when Amado Credidio died after he was thrown over the top of a horse onto the ground and into the path of several other horses in a race at Aqueduct. Venezia's mount broke his right foreleg going down the backstretch of a 1 1-16 mile allowance race. Venezia attempted to pull up the gelding, then went off the horse to his left and fell crosswise on the track, directly in the path of the other horse, Drums in the Night. ``I think he was dead when the (ambulance) technician got to him,'' Dr. Leo Skolnik, the examining NYRA physician, said. ``He was apparently kicked in the face. He had no pulse, no respiration and his pupils were dilated and fixed. ``I don't see how a fall to the ground could have sustained this kind of injury.'' The last four races of Thursday's card were canceled. Racing was to resume today and a memorial service was to be held for Venezia, who had planned to retire at the end of this year.
AP901204-0154 	X	The bloodiest of four army uprisings in four years was also the shortest, and President Menem's decisive management of the crisis may strengthen his government. Monday's uprising, two days before President Bush's scheduled visit, was quickly crushed. Menem said Tuesday the rebel leaders will be tried by military court and face the death penalty if found guilty. Late Monday, after the rebels had filed out of the last of the buildings they had seized before dawn, Menem told a news conference that ``my pulse isn't going to tremble'' if military officers who had rebelled repeatedly - and killed people in the proces - forfeit their lives. The unofficial death toll in the uprising rose Tuesday to 14 when a soldier died from wounds suffered in putting down the insurrection. Unofficial tallies put the number of wounded at nearly 60 and the arrested at more than 400. The government did not disclose its figures on casualties and arrests. Menem and Defense Minister Humberto Romero signed a decree that legally separated the rebel leaders from their followers. While the leaders could face the death penalty, the followers face charges in civil court, where the worst punishment is life in prison. Menem ``is convinced the death penalty should be applied to end these happenings,'' said Raul Granillo Ocampo, the president's legal adviser. That attitude found support in this capital city of 10 million, whose residents saw their democracy threatened by the uprising. In quelling it, air force planes bombed tanks on public roads and a bridge was dynamited. Rebels fired at and hit Vice President Eduardo Duhalde's helicopter. On Tuesday, rebels who hid overnight at a rural Buenos Aires Province farm gave themselves up, along with three tanks they had seized. Argentina's two biggest political groups, the governing Perronist Party and the Civic Radical Union, issued a statement with 23 other parties saying the government should punish the rebels ``with severity.'' The rebels had demanded a shakeup of the military high command and a bigger military budget. Observers said they also sought to embarrass Menem by forcing Bush to cancel a visit to Argentina on Wednesday. Bush was in Uruguay on Tuesday. Menem refused to concede a single point, and even while rebels still held the army headquarters, Bush said he would arrive on schedule. Menem was sworn in 17 months ago amid hyperinflation, recession, food riots and military unrest. He seemed to have strengthened his government by choosing to fight the rebels instead of negotiating as former President Raul Alfonsin did on three occasions. It did not escape Argentines' notice that under Menem, the air force and navy for the first time helped put down an army rebellion. So no one would doubt that rebels surrendered unconditionally, they were ordered to walk out with their hands behind their necks and shoeless, a gesture meant to humiliate them. The rebels ``thought the president would be frightened and give in to their pressures,'' and become ``their puppet,'' said Adelina Dalesio de Viola, a national deputy with the opposition Union of the Democratic Center. ``But at every moment, Menem showed himself to be very firm,'' she said. Granillo Ocampo, Menem's aide, said the jailed leader of a December 1988 revolt, retired Col. Mohamed Ali Seineldin, admitted he played a role in the rebellion. He said Seineldin asked for ``a pistol with one bullet,'' presumably to kill himself, but authorities refused. Several other current and former officers under arrest sided with Seineldin or cashiered Lt. Col. Aldo Rico during the April 1987 and January 1988 military uprisings. Late Tuesday, Menem canceled the state-of-siege decree. Menem's brother, Eduardo Menem, who is president of the Senate, claimed Tuesday night the rebels intended to assassinate key political figures. The list included the president, at least one Cabinet minister and the leader of the ruling Peronist party bloc in Congress, Eduardo Menem told the independent news agency Noticias Argentina. He cited state intelligence agency information, but offered no proof to support his claim.
AP880829-0065 	X	The dollar rose in quiet European trading this morning, boosted by some large buy orders in a market thinned by a British bank holiday, foreign exchange dealers said. Gold rose slightly in Zurich. ``The market is really dead because London is absent,'' said one trader in Rome. In Tokyo, where trading ends as Europe's business day begins, the dollar gained sharply, closing up 0.70 yen at 134.20 yen. Later, in Europe, it was quoted at 134.25 yen. Foreign exchange dealers attributed the dollar's strong performance in Tokyo to loss-cutting and said orders concentrated there because other major markets were closed. Hong Kong's financial institutions were also closed today for a national holiday. ``Those who had sold the dollar at around 133.80 yen bought it back above the 134-yen level today,'' said a dealer at a U.S. bank's Tokyo office. ``That caused the dollar to gain sharply.'' Other dollar rates in Europe at midmorning, compared with late Friday's London rates: _1.8663 West German marks, up from 1.8565 _1.5760 Swiss francs, up from 1.5655 _6.3372 French francs, up from 6.3010 _2.1077 Dutch guilders, up from 2.0970 _1,386.25 Italian lire, down from 1,380.50 _1.2375 Canadian dollars, up from 1.23725 In Europe, the dollar made solid gains against the British pound. One pound cost $1.6855, compared with $1.7025 in London late Friday. The London bullion markets were closed for the holiday, but in Zurich the bid price for gold was $432.35, up slightly from $432.00 bid late Friday.
AP880802-0274 	X	Here are the companies known to be conducting investigations of possibly fraudulent stock trading based on advance leaks of Business Week magazine articles and any actions they have taken involving employees: _McGraw-Hill Inc., New York, publisher of Business Week: no employee dismissals or suspensions. _R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., Chicago, printer of Business Week: one employee dismissed at Old Saybrook, Conn., plant and one employee suspended at Torrance, Calif., plant. _Merrill Lynch & Co., New York, investment firm: one broker dismissed in New London, Conn., office. _Prudential-Bache Securities Inc., New York, investment firm: one broker dismissed in Anaheim, Calif., office. _Advest Inc., Hartford, Conn., investment firm: one broker suspended in New London, Conn., office. _Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., New York, investment firm: disclosure that three former brokers in Hartford, Conn., office of E.F. Hutton Group Inc. may have traded on leaked articles before Hutton was acquired. _PaineWebber Inc., New York, investment firm: disclosure that it had hired at least two of the former Hutton brokers. _Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., New York, investment firm: no action against employees. _Integrated Resources Inc., New York, financial services firm: no action against employees. _Quick & Reilly Group Inc., New York, discount brokerage: no action against employees. _Charles Schwab & Co., San Francisco, discount brokerage: no action against employees.
AP881216-0053 	X	Bloodstains on a pillowcase and exercise bar found in Joel Steinberg's apartment came from his former lover, an FBI expert testified at Steinberg's trial on charges he beat his illegally adopted 6-year-old daughter to death. Hedda Nussbaum, who lived with Steinberg for 12 years, has testified that Steinberg beat her on the head and legs with the bar. FBI serologist Robert J. Grispino testified Thursday that was ``100 percent'' certain the bloodstains were not from Steinberg, Steinberg's daughter, Lisa; or Steinberg's illegally adopted son, Mitchell, who has since been returned to his natural mother. Grispino's testimony came Thursday afternoon after the morning session was canceled because judge Harold Rothwax suffered two broken wrists when he was hit by a car as he rode his bicycle to work. Rothwax's wrists were put in casts. When the 58-year-old judge returned to the courtroom, he followed doctors' orders to keep his arms elevated by sitting with his elbows on the desk and hands in front of his face. As the session proceeded, his clerk had to put his glasses on for him and turn pages for him. ``I regret being delayed today,'' he told jurors at the end of the day. ``I'm going to try to come down (to court) safely tomorrow. You try to come down safely, too.'' Lisa's death last year in an affluent, well-educated household shocked many New Yorkers and led to a re-examination of the duty and ability of neighbors, teachers and social workers to recognize and report evidence of child abuse.
AP900102-0014 	X	When Ron Thompson sat down for lunch on New Year's Eve, he was the grandfather of five. At breakfast Monday, he was a grandfather of nine. Three of Thompson's daughters _ Mary Tolson, Joan Thompson and Carol Thompson _ gave birth to four boys at Seton Medical Center late Sunday and early Monday. When Ms. Tolson went into labor Sunday, she asked her 19-year-old sister Joan, who was in the ninth month of her pregnancy, to drive her to the hospital. After about five hours, Ms. Tolson, 28, gave birth at 2:40 p.m. to Shane Taylor Tolson, who weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces. At Ms. Tolson's delivery, Dr. Chris Seeker said Joan told him, ``You will probably be seeing me, too.'' Sure enough, seven hours later Joan was hustled to Seton by sister Carol. Joan gave birth to Jeremy Andrew Thompson Armendariz at 12:01 a.m. He weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces. Carol, 24, then went into labor and gave birth to twin boys just before 3 a.m. The mothers and four boys spent New Year's Day in good condition. ``This beats partying,'' Joan said. ``At least I have a (sense of) relief and not a headache.''
AP881111-0210 	X	A Navy anti-submarine helicopter crashed while preparing to land on a frigate in the North Arabian Sea and its three crewmen were presumed dead, officials announced Friday. The SH-2F helicopter was returning to the USS Barbey at the end of a dawn flight and crashed on approach, said Ken Mitchell, spokesman for North Island Naval Air Station. The Barbey is based at San Diego. The crash occurred about 7 p.m. PST Thursday, Mitchell said. Lost and presumed dead were Lt. Cmdr. Gerald C. Pelz, 37, of Coronado, Calif., Lt. j.g. Gerald T. Ramsdell, age unknown, of Ridgewood, N.J., and the anti-submarine warfare operator, Petty Officer 3rd Class William E. Martinie, 24, of Peoria, Ill. Helicopters from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, 70 miles away, and boats from the Barbey and USS California unsuccessfully searched for survivors. The craft was part of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light 33.