(1045,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1046,2,'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.\r\n'),(1047,2,'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.\r\n'),(1048,2,'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.\r\n'),(1049,2,'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.\r\n'),(1050,2,'``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.\r\n'),(1051,2,'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.\r\n'),(1052,2,'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.\r\n'),(1053,2,'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.\r\n'),(1054,2,'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.\r\n'),(1055,2,'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.\r\n'),(1056,2,'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.\r\n'),(1057,2,'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.\r\n'),(1058,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1059,2,'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.\r\n'),(1060,2,'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.\r\n'),(1061,2,'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.\r\n'),(1062,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1063,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1064,2,'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.\r\n'),(1065,2,'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.\r\n'),(1066,2,'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.\r\n'),(1067,2,'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.\r\n'),(1068,2,'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.\r\n'),(1069,2,'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.\r\n'),(1070,2,'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.\r\n'),(1071,2,'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.\r\n'),(1072,2,'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.\r\n'),(1073,2,'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.\r\n'),(1074,2,'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.\r\n'),(1075,2,'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.\r\n'),(1076,2,'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.\r\n'),(1077,2,'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.\r\n'),(1078,2,'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.\r\n'),(1079,2,'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.\r\n'),(1080,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1081,2,'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.\r\n'),(1082,2,'``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.\'\'\r\n'),(1083,2,'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.\r\n'),(1084,2,'With PM-Gulf-Hearings, Bjt\r\n'),(1085,2,'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.\r\n'),(1086,2,'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.\r\n'),(1087,2,'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.\r\n'),(1088,2,'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.\r\n'),(1089,2,'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.\r\n'),(1090,2,'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.\r\n'),(1091,2,'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.\r\n'),(1092,2,'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.\r\n'),(1093,2,'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.\r\n'),(1094,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1095,2,'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.\r\n'),(1096,2,'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.\r\n'),(1097,2,'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.\r\n'),(1098,2,'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.\r\n'),(1099,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1100,2,'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.\r\n'),(1101,2,'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.\r\n'),(1102,2,'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.\r\n'),(1103,2,'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.\r\n'),(1104,2,'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.\r\n'),(1105,2,'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.\r\n'),(1106,2,'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.\r\n'),(1107,2,'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.\r\n'),(1108,2,'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&rsqb;, up 1&rsqb;. 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&lsqb; 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.\r\n'),(1109,2,'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.\r\n'),(1110,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1111,2,'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.\r\n'),(1112,2,'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.\r\n'),(1113,2,'This is one of a series of periodic reports by Associated Press correspondents on people, places and things in other countries.\r\n'),(1114,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1115,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1116,2,'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.\r\n'),(1117,2,'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.\r\n'),(1118,2,'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.\r\n'),(1119,2,'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.\r\n'),(1120,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1121,2,'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.\r\n'),(1122,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1123,2,'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.\r\n'),(1124,2,'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.\r\n'),(1125,2,'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.\r\n'),(1126,2,'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.\r\n'),(1127,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1128,2,'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.\r\n'),(1129,2,'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.\r\n'),(1130,2,'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.\r\n'),(1131,2,'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.\r\n'),(1132,2,'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.\r\n'),(1133,2,'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.\r\n'),(1134,2,'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.\r\n'),(1135,2,'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.\r\n'),(1136,2,'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.\r\n'),(1137,2,'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.\r\n'),(1138,2,'District 1 -- 0 percent Chapman, Dem (i) 0 - 0 percent McQueen, GOP 0 - 0 percent\r\n'),(1139,2,'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.\r\n'),(1140,2,'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.\r\n'),(1141,2,'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.\r\n'),(1142,2,'Here are brief profiles of leaders of the Chinese pro-democracy movement crushed a year ago:\r\n'),(1143,2,'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.\r\n'),(1144,2,'``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.\'\'\r\n'),(1145,2,'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.\r\n'),(1146,2,'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.\r\n'),(1147,2,'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.\r\n'),(1148,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1149,2,'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.\r\n'),(1150,2,'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.\r\n'),(1151,2,'Here are the latest unofficial returns in the Democratic races for the U.S. Senate.\r\n'),(1152,2,'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&lsqb; at 44}. Toys R Us was up 2&rsqb; 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&lsqb;. 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.\r\n'),(1153,2,'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. _\r\n'),(1154,2,'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.\r\n'),(1155,2,'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.\r\n'),(1156,2,'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.\r\n'),(1157,2,'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.\r\n'),(1158,2,'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.\r\n'),(1159,2,'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.\r\n'),(1160,2,'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.\r\n'),(1161,2,'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.\r\n'),(1162,2,'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.\r\n'),(1163,2,'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.\r\n'),(1164,2,'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.\r\n'),(1165,2,'Today is Sunday, Oct. 9, the 283rd day of 1988. There are 83 days left in the year.\r\n'),(1166,2,'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.\r\n'),(1167,2,'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.\r\n'),(1168,2,'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.\r\n'),(1169,2,'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.\r\n'),(1170,2,'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.\r\n'),(1171,2,'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.\r\n'),(1172,2,'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.\r\n'),(1173,2,'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.\r\n'),(1174,2,'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.\r\n'),(1175,2,'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.\r\n'),(1176,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1177,2,'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.\r\n'),(1178,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1179,2,'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.\r\n'),(1180,2,'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.\r\n'),(1181,2,'``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.\r\n'),(1182,2,'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.\r\n'),(1183,2,'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.\r\n'),(1184,2,'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.\r\n'),(1185,2,'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.\r\n'),(1186,2,'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.\r\n'),(1187,2,'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.\r\n'),(1188,2,'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.\r\n'),(1189,2,'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.\r\n'),(1190,2,'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.\r\n'),(1191,2,'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.\r\n'),(1192,2,'?\r\n'),(1193,2,'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.\r\n'),(1194,2,'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.\r\n'),(1195,2,'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.\r\n'),(1196,2,'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.\r\n'),(1197,2,'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.\r\n'),(1198,2,'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.\r\n'),(1199,2,'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.\r\n'),(1200,2,'``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.\r\n'),(1201,2,'``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.\r\n'),(1202,2,'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.\r\n'),(1203,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1204,2,'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.\r\n'),(1205,2,'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.\r\n'),(1206,2,'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.\r\n'),(1207,2,'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.\r\n'),(1208,2,'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.\r\n'),(1209,2,'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.\r\n'),(1210,2,'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.\r\n'),(1211,2,'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.\r\n'),(1212,2,'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.\r\n'),(1213,2,'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.\r\n'),(1214,2,'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.\r\n'),(1215,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1216,2,'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.\r\n'),(1217,2,'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.\r\n'),(1218,2,'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.\r\n'),(1219,2,'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.\r\n'),(1220,2,'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.\r\n'),(1221,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1222,2,'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.\r\n'),(1223,2,'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.\r\n'),(1224,2,'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.\r\n'),(1225,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1226,2,'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.\r\n'),(1227,2,'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.\r\n'),(1228,2,'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.\r\n'),(1229,2,'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.\r\n'),(1230,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1231,2,'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.\r\n'),(1232,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1233,2,'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.\r\n'),(1234,2,'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.\r\n'),(1235,2,'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.\r\n'),(1236,2,'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.\r\n'),(1237,2,'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.\r\n'),(1238,2,'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.\r\n'),(1239,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1240,2,'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.\r\n'),(1241,2,'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.\r\n'),(1242,2,'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.\r\n'),(1243,2,'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.\r\n'),(1244,2,'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.\r\n'),(1245,2,'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.\r\n'),(1246,2,'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\r\n'),(1247,2,'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.\r\n'),(1248,2,'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.\r\n'),(1249,2,'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.\r\n'),(1250,2,'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.\r\n'),(1251,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1252,2,'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.\r\n'),(1253,2,'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.\r\n'),(1254,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1255,2,'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.\r\n'),(1256,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1257,2,'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.\r\n'),(1258,2,'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.\r\n'),(1259,2,'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.\'\'\r\n'),(1260,2,'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.\r\n'),(1261,2,'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.\r\n'),